tony is sick to his stomach when he ends up stuck in that damn cave. all he can think about is surviving and getting back to you. he spends a lot of time reminiscing about you to yinsen as they build the first suit, recalling everything from your first steps to your kindergarten graduation. he's worried he's going to miss your first grade one.

as soon as he's home, you're the first person tony asks for. when you arrive, you run into his hospital room, squealing your head off with pepper in tow. you tackle tony in a hug so hard he thinks you might mess with the arc reactor in his chest.

tony holds you dearer than ever after that. he swears he'll do anything to protect you, to keep that smile on your face.

once the avengers are formed, you run around asking tony if your new "aunt and uncles" can come and play with you. tony temporarily pacifies the idea by gifting you a plush set of all the avengers, custom-made, of course. it works for a little. you keep the plush set for the rest of your life.

obviously, your attachment to them leads the avengers to fighting over who's your favorite. which leads to even more chaos.

after important avengers meetings, tony finds thor and nat playing tea party with you. they're both dressed in neon feather boas and tiaras. thor looks like he might crush your imported china tea set if he holds the teacup too hard.

somehow, bruce is the one tony trusts you the most with. he's careful and gentle with you, making sure you tie your shoelaces and giving you gentle lectures on how to regulate your little kid emotions.

there's one time where clint, thor, and steve all lay out their weapons, asking you to pick which one is your favorite. you just stared at the bow, hammer, and shield in front of you, walked away, and came back with one of tony's iron man gauntlets. you nearly shot a hole in the wall that day and tony learns to keep his workshop locked from you, for now.

you continue to grow up spoiled, and thankfully only a little rotten. tony would basically let you get away with anything if you wanted. but pepper is there to reign it in a bit, offering you stability that tony sometimes lacked.

when you're old enough to realize that your dad randomly disappearing to go save the world from aliens, androids, or wizards isn't normal, you set some ground rules. he has to give you thursday nights, at the very least.

on thursdays, you and tony go and try new restaurants in new york city, which subsequently gets both of your faces plastered all over the news, declaring the two of you "trendsetters". the next day, wherever you ate will have a line wrapped around the block.

if not eating out, then watching old movies in, pointing out the inconsistencies and bad special effects to each other with wicked cackles.

then tony recruits peter. you meet him not long after, and your father feels a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach as he sees the way peter looks at you. and it seems you're looking at him the same way, too.

he goes and whines about it to pepper, who tells him you're growing up, which is the last thing tony wants to hear. you're his baby, his angel.

you become fast friends with peter. you secretly exchange numbers with him behind tony's back and spend many nights messaging him back and forth under the covers of your bed.

at the beginning of your friendship, there's some cognitive dissonance between you and peter. one time you told him to "come over," which made peter confused, because you were upstate at the avengers compound. then he looked out his window and saw happy standing with a grumpy expression and a limo in front of his apartment building. you end up foregoing the personal driver and just meeting him in the city to hang out after that.

there's one time you and tony run into peter while on the way to one of your thursday dinners. tony watches as peter blushes at every word and touch you give him, and he dramatically pretends you gag. you scold him (since when did you start sounding like pepper?) and tell him to be nice to peter.

at dinner, he suggests setting you up with harley instead. you smack his shoulder in response.

you'd always begged peter to swing you around the city, which he finally agrees to one day. unfortunately for both of you, that's when the paparazzi catch you. the next day, articles reading "stark heir seeing webbed-vigilante?!" are published, and tony has choice words for both of you.

you end up grounded, which usually doesn't mean much, but this time tony was serious. you had to stay upstate at the compound for two weeks, away from peter, until you could "think about the consequences of your actions".

you protest by refusing to leave your room. tony tries to talk to you through the door, pepper leaves food for you. you still don't come out.

after a few days of not seeing you, tony relents and opens your bedroom door himself, only to find it empty. he groans. you'd run away. maybe you were a bit too much like him.

he finds your set of avengers plushies neatly displayed on your bed, and notices a new addition. a little spider-man plushie that you sewed yourself, displayed at the front with your iron man plushie. his arc reactor pangs with a little regret at that.

but it's all gone when he tracks you (because he has trackers on everyone important to him) to peter's apartment.

he doesn't even bother with a car, instead opting to fly his iron man suit all the way there.

after pulling off some bullshit excuse with may about why he was at their apartment, he stomps towards peter's room, expecting debauchery and betrayal, only to be met with you sitting at peter's desk, tinkering with one of his web-shooters. tony spots peter on his bed, scratches and cuts covering his face and hello kitty band-aids covering his arms and legs. his chest rises and falls slowly, indicating sleep.

you look up in surprise when tony enters the room, face morphing with annoyance once you realize it's your father. you go back to fiddling with the web-shooter, ignoring him.

"he was hurt," you say, nodding to peter's resting form. "he called me for help. and that's what i'm doing."

tony can't fight against that. peter was important to him too, after all. he feels guilt for making assumptions about both of you. he knows you're a good kid. he's just scared of you growing up.

"i'll leave you to it," is all tony tells you as he gives you an awkward bob of his head and leaves peter's room. you sigh in relief, shoulders relaxing for a moment.

but then tony is poking his head back into the room, clicking his tongue to get your attention. "thursday night. don't forget," he reminds you before leaving again.

you can't help but chuckle at that. neither of you could stay mad at each other for that long.

tony thinks about you for the rest of the night. to him, you're still his baby. but to the world, you're growing up and unfortunately, he hasn't found the technology to stop that yet. you'd always be his angel, but seeing you with peter, he knows. he has to let you go spread your wings and fly, even if it means without him.

you tip your head back.

he lies several feet above you with one arm folded beneath his head, his shoulder blades pressed flat against the ceiling as though gravity has become an optional inconvenience. the sweatshirt he pulls over the suit has ridden up along his stomach. one bare foot hangs through the torn cuff of his pant leg, revealing a darkening bruise across his ankle.

you set down your pencil. “peter.”

his breathing continues evenly.

you reach for the eraser beside your notebook and throw it. the small pink rectangle strikes his forehead.

peter jerks awake, and his entire body releases from the ceiling at once.

you barely have time to push away from the desk before he drops toward your bed, catches himself with one hand against the wall, and swings upside down above the mattress. loose hair hangs away from his forehead. his eyes move across the room in quick, unfocused passes before settling on you.

“what happened?” he asks.

you stare at him.

peter glances toward the window. “is someone here?”

“you fell asleep on my ceiling.”

his attention shifts upward as though the ceiling might explain itself. “oh.”

“you said you were leaving ten minutes ago.”

“i was.”

“from the ceiling?”

“i sat down for a second.”

“that is not sitting.”

peter lowers himself until his feet reach the floor. the room seems smaller once he stands inside it, though he keeps his shoulders drawn inward as if trying to take up less space. rainwater still darkens the ends of his hair from patrol, and a shallow cut crosses the corner of his mouth where someone catches him hard enough to split the skin.

you reach toward it.

peter turns his face before your fingers touch him.

“it’s nothing,” he says.

“you’re bleeding.”

“barely.”

“it’s on my rug.”

he looks down. a small red mark stains the pale fibers beneath his left hand where his knuckles brush the floor.

“sorry.”

you rise from the chair and walk toward the bathroom. the floorboard near the door gives its familiar creak beneath your heel, followed by the softer sound of peter trailing after you.

your bathroom is narrow enough that he has to lean against the doorway while you search beneath the sink. bottles shift against one another as you move them aside. by the time you straighten with the first-aid kit, peter has taken off the sweatshirt.

the suit beneath it is torn along his ribs.

you stop.

peter follows your gaze and immediately pulls the fabric closed with one hand. “that looks worse than it is.”

“you say that about everything.”

“because everything usually looks worse than it is.”

“the tower bridge looked exactly as bad as it was.”

something passes through his face.

the change is brief, but you see it anyway. the line of his mouth tightens. his fingers curl into the torn edge of the suit, hiding the exposed skin more firmly.

you set the first-aid kit beside the sink.

“sit.”

“i’m okay.”

“peter.”

he looks toward the bedroom, calculating the distance to the window.

you fold your arms.

peter exhales and lowers himself onto the closed toilet lid.

the overhead light hums faintly. rain runs against the small frosted window above the shower, turning the streetlights outside into dull patches of yellow. you step between peter’s knees and take hold of the torn fabric before he can object again.

the injury is not deep. a scrape follows the lower curve of his ribs, already beginning to close around the edges, but dried blood covers more of his side than the wound should produce.

“what happened?” you ask.

“car thief.”

“the car thief had a knife?”

“crowbar.”

you wet a strip of gauze with alcohol. “that’s not better.”

“it’s less sharp.”

“thank you, peter.”

“you asked.”

he watches your hands as you clean the blood from his skin. his body remains unnaturally still beneath your touch, every muscle holding itself in place despite the instinct that usually keeps him moving. you have seen him catch a falling glass without looking, turn toward sirens before anyone else hears them, and flinch when the radiator begins knocking three apartments away.

now, his attention stays fixed on you.

“you should have called me,” you say.

“while the guy was hitting me?”

“after.”

“it was late.”

“you climbed through my window at twelve thirty.”

“technically, i climbed down the wall.”

you glance up. the corner of his mouth lifts, pulling slightly at the cut.

you touch the gauze to it before he can smile wider. peter winces, more from surprise than pain.

“hold still.”

“you attacked me.”

“with gauze.”

“it could be contaminated.”

“it it literally sterilized.”

“you never know with those amazon first-aid kits.”

you try not to laugh. the effort lasts until peter looks at you with exaggerated suspicion, then something escapes anyway—small and tired, softened by the hour.

his expression changes.

the humor remains, but it settles beneath something quieter as his eyes move across your face. you become aware of how close you are standing, one of his knees against the outside of your leg and your fingers resting beneath his chin.

peter reaches for you slowly. his hand settles against your waist, light enough that you could step away without resistance. the material of your shirt gathers slightly beneath his fingers.

“you’re tired,” he murmurs.

“you’re concussed.”

“i’m not.”

“you fell asleep on the ceiling.”

“that’s happened before.”

“that doesn’t help your argument.”

his thumb moves once against your side.

the bathroom continues humming around you. water drips from the cloth into the sink. somewhere outside, tires pass over the wet street, their sound rising briefly before fading into the rain.

peter looks toward your mouth.

you kiss him first.

his hand tightens against your waist, pulling you between his knees while his other palm settles along your jaw. the cut at the corner of his mouth makes the first press careful, almost hesitant. then you angle your face, and whatever restraint he brings through the window with him disappears.

peter kisses you like he has spent the whole patrol trying not to think about it.

his fingers slide into your hair. your hand finds the back of his neck, where damp curls soften beneath your palm. the suit feels cold under your other hand, but the skin visible above its collar is warm.

he draws you closer until the first-aid kit catches beneath your hip and falls into the sink. plastic clasps strike porcelain with a sharp crack.

you pull back.

peter’s eyes remain closed for half a second longer. when they open, his breathing is uneven.

“that was loud,” he whispers.

“thank you for identifying it.”

“your parents—”

“are across town.”

“right.”

“you knew that.”

“i forgot.”

“you came through my window because they’re gone.”

peter looks toward the bedroom again. his hand remains around your waist.

“that wasn’t the only reason.”

the words settle between you without explanation.

you wait for him to continue.

he does not.

instead, peter lowers his forehead against yours. his breath warms the space near your mouth while rain presses harder against the window.

“i should go,” he says.

his fingers do not loosen.

“probably.”

neither of you moves.

peter kisses you again, softer this time, as though the decision to leave makes every second before it more important. his thumb traces the edge of your jaw. your hand stays against his neck, feeling the quick rhythm of his pulse beneath your fingers.

then a siren begins several streets away.

peter hears it before you do.

his head lifts. his body turns toward the sound with an instinctive sharpness that leaves the rest of him somewhere behind.

the siren grows louder.

you step back, and peter’s hands fall from you.

he stands and reaches for the sweatshirt, pulling it over his head without looking away from the window. the mask disappears into one pocket. a web cartridge rolls from the other and strikes the bathroom floor.

you pick it up before he notices.

“you’re low,” you say.

peter takes the cartridge from your palm. “i’ll make more tomorrow.”

“you said that yesterday.”

“tomorrow keeps changing.”

“that isn’t how tomorrow works.”

“it kind of is.”

he pauses in the doorway. the collar of his sweatshirt has folded inward, and you fix it without thinking.

peter goes still beneath your fingers.

“what?” you ask.

“nothing.”

his gaze moves over your shoulder toward the mirror, where the two of you stand reflected together beneath the bathroom light. your hair is disordered from his hands. his mouth is red where you kiss him around the split skin.

the image looks like an answer to a question neither of you has asked.

peter looks away first.

“i’ll text you,” he says.

“when?”

“when i’m done.”

“that isn’t a time.”

he gives you a small, apologetic smile. “soon.”

you follow him into the bedroom. peter opens the window, letting cold air and rain into the room. one hand sticks easily to the outside brick as he climbs onto the sill.

“peter.”

he glances back.

you almost ask what this is.

the question reaches the back of your teeth and stops there. you don’t know what answer you expect from a boy wearing a superhero suit beneath your old sweatshirt, already halfway out of your bedroom because someone he has never met might need him.

“don’t bleed on anyone else’s carpet,” you say instead.

peter’s smile becomes real.

“no promises.”

then he disappears into the rain.

—

peter’s sweatshirt is still hanging over the back of your desk chair the next morning.

you find it while searching for your jacket, which seems to have disappeared along with him. the sweatshirt smells faintly of rain, laundry detergent, and the sharp chemical trace of web fluid that never entirely washes out.

your phone remains silent on the bed.

peter does eventually text after patrol, though the message arrives at four seventeen in the morning and contains only three words.

home. alive. sorry.

you read it twice.

then you take his sweatshirt.

midtown smells like wet coats and industrial cleaner when you arrive. students crowd the entrance, shaking rain from umbrellas and complaining about the weather as though new york has personally betrayed them. someone has taped a photograph of mysterio above one of the trophy cases, surrounding it with handwritten messages and a strip of black ribbon.

you avoid looking at it for long.

the trip to europe already feels strangely distant. people talk about london as if it belongs to a movie rather than something that happens around you—fire breaking across the bridge, drones filling the sky, spider-man swinging through collapsing illusions while the rest of you hide inside the tower.

peter returns to school with a bruise along his jaw and tells everyone he falls in the hotel bathroom.

no one except you, ned, and mj knows to stop asking.

you find mj in the cafeteria with a book open beside her tray. she occupies the same table near the windows, though ned and peter’s chairs remain empty.

“where are they?” you ask as you sit across from her.

mj turns one page. “ned said they had to do something.”

“something?”

“that was the official description.”

you look toward the cafeteria entrance.

mj looks at you over the top of her book.

“what?” you ask.

she lowers her eyes to your clothes.

peter’s sweatshirt hangs past your hips. the academic decathlon logo has faded from years of washing, and a thin white stain marks the cuff where he spills web fluid on it two nights ago.

you pull the sleeve over your hand.

mj closes the book around one finger.

“is that peter’s?”

“maybe.”

“you know i’ve seen him wear it.”

“lots of people have this sweatshirt.”

“with web fluid on the sleeve?”

you glance down.

mj watches your face.

“you could at least try lying,” she says.

“you already know.”

“i know he’s spider-man.” she rests her elbows against the table. “i don’t know why you’re wearing his clothes.”

you reach for the straw attached to your milk carton. the wrapper refuses to tear beneath your fingers.

mj waits.

the cafeteria continues around you, filled with plastic trays striking tables and students talking over one another. flash stands near the vending machines, showing three girls the same photograph of spider-man above tower bridge. he claims they are close personal friends now because peter introduces him to spider-man once in a hotel hallway.

“i’m seeing someone,” you admit.

mj’s expression does not change. “okay.”

you wait. she reopens her book.

“that’s it?”

“did you want applause?”

“no.”

“good. i don’t have any.”

you nudge the bottom of the book until she lowers it again. mj looks from you to the empty chair beside you, then back toward the sweatshirt.

understanding settles across her face one piece at a time.

“no,” she says.

“i haven’t told you who.”

“you don’t need to.”

“you could be wrong.”

“i’m not.”

mj leans across the table, lowering her voice even though the students around you are too absorbed in their own conversations to listen.

“oh my god,” she whispers. “are you seriously saying you’re with peter?”

heat moves into your face.

“could you say it louder?”

“probably.”

you catch her wrist before she can lift a hand toward her mouth. mj looks down at your fingers, then back at you with open satisfaction.

“you’re with peter,” she repeats.

“i didn’t say that.”

“you’re wearing his sweatshirt.”

“he took my jacket.”

“that explains everything.”

“it explains the sweatshirt.”

“how did he take your jacket?”

the straw wrapper tears between your fingers. you stare at the thin strip of plastic rather than answering.

mj’s eyes narrow.

“was he in your room?”

“he visits sometimes.”

“through the window?”

you finally push the straw through the carton. “the front door would involve questions.”

“questions like why peter parker is entering your bedroom after midnight?”

“those kinds of questions.”

mj settles back in her chair. her expression has changed from suspicion to the focused stillness she usually develops while watching documentaries about unsolved disappearances.

“how long?” she asks.

“a few weeks.”

“weeks?”

“keep your voice down.”

“you kept this from me for weeks?”

“i was going to tell you.”

“when?”

you take a drink of milk to delay answering. it is lukewarm and tastes faintly of the cardboard container.

“eventually,” you say.

“that isn’t a time.”

“neither is ‘soon,’ and peter uses that constantly.”

mj glances toward the cafeteria entrance. “does he know you’re calling it seeing someone?”

the question catches against something unprotected.

you lower the carton.

the answer should be simple. peter climbs through your window after patrol. he lets you clean blood from his face and sleeps beside you when his senses refuse to settle. he kisses you until neither of you remembers the conversation that comes before it, then leaves before morning with apologies and promises to text.

sometimes he holds your hand beneath the table while the four of you study together, hidden behind ned’s laptop and open textbooks. he keeps a toothbrush in your bathroom because the first time he stays until sunrise, you complain about his coffee breath. he knows which floorboard creaks outside your bedroom and how to close your window without making the frame stick.

but peter has never called himself your boyfriend. you have never asked him to either. 

“i don’t know,” you admit.

mj’s eyebrows rise. “you don’t know if he knows you’re involved?”

“i know how that sounds.”

“do you?”

“we haven’t talked about it.”

“you’ve established a secret window-entry system, but not a relationship?”

“the window thing happens naturally.”

“of course it does.”

you look toward the entrance again.

peter and ned were supposed to arrive several minutes ago. peter probably hears the cafeteria from wherever he is in the building. the thought makes your skin feel warmer.

mj steals one of your fries.

“does he come over as peter or spider-man?” she asks.

“mj.”

“it matters.”

“he’s always peter.”

the answer leaves before you consider it. mj’s hand stops above your tray. you look down at the milk carton, rubbing one thumb through the damp ring it leaves against the table.

“even with the suit,” you continue, quieter now. “he’s still peter.”

mj lowers the fry.

“that was disgustingly sincere.”

“forget i said it.”

“absolutely not.”

you reach for the fry, but she eats it first. a small smile touches the corner of her mouth while she chews.

“what do you talk about?” she asks.

“things.”

“helpful.”

“school. movies. patrol.”

“his patrols?”

“sometimes.”

“does he tell you everything?”

you hesitate. peter tells you about the people he saves. the little boy who cries when peter returns his lost dog. the elderly woman who offers him twenty dollars for stopping someone from stealing her bicycle. he tells you about the strange noise his web-shooter makes when one of the cartridges jams and how difficult it is to swing when the wind changes between buildings.

he does not tell you when he is frightened. that part arrives in the tremor of his fingers while he locks your window. in the way he startles awake at ordinary sounds. in the nights when he lies beside you without sleeping, his attention fixed on every distant siren until you place your hand over his chest.

“not everything,” you say. “but more than he thinks.”

mj studies you for another moment.

“you love him.”

your elbow strikes the milk carton. mj catches it before it tips, sliding it safely toward the center of the table.

“i didn’t say that,” you whisper.

“you didn’t have to.”

“it’s only been a few weeks.”

“that doesn’t answer me.”

“you sound like a detective.”

“you’re doing whatever this is with spider-man. somebody should investigate.”

“i’m not doing anything with spider-man.”

mj’s eyebrows lift. you pull the carton closer.

“it’s peter,” you correct. “that’s different.”

a tray lands on the table beside yours with enough force to make the silverware jump.

peter stands over the empty chair, slightly out of breath. his hair looks as though he runs both hands through it repeatedly, and the collar of his shirt folds inward beneath his jacket. ned arrives behind him carrying his tray.

“sorry,” peter says, looking between you and mj. “mr. cobbwell needed help with something.”

ned’s expression tightens. “a projector,” he adds.

“right.” peter nods too quickly. “the projector.”

mj looks from peter to ned. “did the projector attack someone in the east stairwell?”

ned nearly drops his tray.

peter lowers himself into the chair beside you. “why would you ask that?”

“no reason.”

you reach over and fix his collar before you can stop yourself. peter goes still beneath your fingers. the movement is small, ordinary. you have done it in your bedroom without thinking, usually while he talks too quickly about something that happens during patrol. here, beneath fluorescent lights and mj’s attention, it feels more intimate than kissing him in the dark.

you let your hand fall. ned looks at mj. mj looks at peter’s sweatshirt around your body. peter follows her gaze. his eyes widen.

“oh,” he says.

“yeah,” mj replies.

peter turns toward you. “you told her?”

the question is quiet, almost lost beneath the cafeteria noise.

you study his face, unable to decide whether he is embarrassed or upset. “was i not supposed to?”

“no. i mean, yes. obviously, she knows about—” he glances around the room before lowering his voice. “everything.”

“then what’s wrong?”

“nothing.”

mj snorts. peter looks at her. “what?”

“you don’t have a nothing face,” she says. “that isn’t it.”

his ears begin turning red. peter reaches for the unopened water bottle on his tray, but his fingers miss and knock it sideways. you catch it before it rolls from the table. he stares at your hand around the bottle.

“what did you tell her?” he asks.

you set it upright. “about what?”

“you know, me.”

mj’s mouth curves. peter notices and points toward her. “don’t.”

“i haven’t said anything.”

“you’re doing the face.”

“i have several.”

“that one means you know something.”

“i know lots of things.”

ned sits across from peter and slowly opens a packet of ketchup as though he wants no involvement. the packet tears too far, spreading ketchup over his thumb.

“ned,” peter says.

ned reaches for a napkin. “i’m staying out of it.”

“you’re already in it.”

“i don’t know what she told mj.”

“but you know what i told you.”

silence settles across the table. peter’s face changes, and ned closes his eyes briefly.

mj leans forward. “this is interesting.”

“it isn’t,” peter says quickly.

you turn toward him. “what do you tell ned?”

“nothing.”

ned wipes ketchup from his hand. “that’s not true.”

“dude.”

“you brought me into this.”

“because you said you’d stay out of it.”

“yeah, well, i changed my mind.”

peter looks as though he might crawl beneath the table. his knee presses against yours, restless and warm through your jeans.

mj props her chin against one hand. “apparently, peter wants to know what girls say about boys.”

“i don’t,” peter says.

“you just asked what she told me.”

“that’s different.”

“how?”

peter opens his mouth. nothing comes out. you watch the flush spread from his ears into his cheeks. his fingers curl around the edge of his tray, worrying the plastic rim while his attention moves anywhere except your face.

the cafeteria continues around you. flash’s voice rises from the neighboring table as he insists he could have helped spider-man in london. someone drops several quarters beside the vending machines. outside the windows, pale afternoon light catches against the courtyard doors.

you touch peter’s wrist beneath the table. his hand turns immediately beneath yours.

“what do you want to know?” you ask. his thumb brushes once across your knuckles.

“i don’t know.”

“that isn’t true.”

peter glances toward mj and ned. mj opens her book again, though she holds it upside down. ned becomes intensely interested in arranging fries by length. peter leans closer. his voice drops until it belongs only to the space between your chairs.

“did you tell her about last night?”

your heartbeat catches.

“which part?”

his gaze flickers toward your mouth. the answer moves through him visibly. his fingers tighten around yours beneath the table.

“never mind,” he says. before you can stop him, peter releases your hand and reaches for his water.

—

mj waits until peter and ned leave for physics to ask what happened last night. you tell her almost nothing

not because you are protecting peter’s identity, though. mj already knows about the bite, the suit, the web-shooters, and every disastrous decision he makes in europe. there is no secret left to guard except the shape of peter’s mouth against yours and the way he falls asleep in your bed because his body finally relaxes somewhere. those details feel different.

they do not belong to spider-man. they barely belong to you and peter, because neither of you has decided what to call the collection of nights accumulating between you. you tell mj that he gets hurt. you tell her you clean the blood from his face. you do not tell her that he kisses you with both hands shaking after difficult patrols, or that sometimes you wake with his forehead pressed between your shoulder blades and his arm around your waist. mj watches you with increasing suspicion as you avoid every important part.

“so he visits,” she says while the two of you carry your trays toward the bins. “you perform emergency medical care, and then he leaves.”

“sometimes he sleeps.”

“in your room.”

“where else would he sleep?”

“his house.”

“may worries when he comes home injured.”

mj drops her plastic fork into the trash. “and you don’t?”

you scrape the untouched half of your lunch into the bin.

“that isn’t the point.”

“it seems like the point.”

students move around you toward the cafeteria doors. the next bell is still several minutes away, but the hall already fills with the sound of lockers opening and shoes striking tile. mj steps aside to let a freshman pass.

“what do you call him?” she asks.

“peter.”

“you know that isn’t what i mean.”

you balance the empty tray against your hip. “i don’t call him anything.”

“sweetheart?”

you stare at her. mj’s mouth twitches.

“absolutely not,” you say.

“lover?”

“you need to stop.”

“boyfriend?”

the word catches differently. you place the tray on top of the others with more care than necessary.

“he hasn’t asked,” you say.

mj studies the side of your face. “have you?”

you turn toward the hallway.

“we’re going to be late.”

“that’s not an answer.”

“you spend too much time with peter.”

“he avoids answers worse than you.”

you walk away before she can ask again.

—

peter asks ned about the conversation during physics. he tries to wait until mr. harrington turns toward the board, but waiting requires a kind of patience peter does not possess when you are concerned. he leans across the lab table before ned finishes copying the formula.

“what do you think they talked about after we left?”

ned keeps writing. “you.”

peter’s pencil stops. “you think?”

“mj was staring at you like you were part of an unsolved crime.”

“she always looks like that.”

“then why did you ask?”

peter glances toward the classroom door as if he might be able to see through two walls and across the building to wherever you are.

“i didn’t know she knew.”

“she knows everything.”

“not everything.”

ned looks at him.

peter lowers his voice. “about us.”

“there’s an us?”

the question hits harder than ned intends. peter looks down at the blank page in front of him.

“i don’t know.”

ned’s pencil stills. “you don’t know?”

“we never talked about it.”

“you’ve been sneaking into her room for a month.”

“three weeks.”

“that is the least important part of what i said.”

mr. harrington glances toward them from the front of the room. peter bends over his notebook and writes the first equation he sees on the board. he completes it before the teacher turns away. ned waits.

“it isn’t simple,” peter whispers.

“why?”

“because of everything.” he gestures vaguely toward himself, though the movement contains the suit beneath his clothes, london, the drones, tony’s glasses, and every siren he follows instead of answering his phone.

ned understands, and his expression softens. “does she know you think it’s complicated?”

peter rotates the pencil between his fingers.

“probably.”

“because you told her?”

“because she’s smart.”

“dude.”

“i don’t know what she wants me to say.”

“you could ask what she wants.”

“that sounds dangerous.”

ned stares at him.

peter looks toward the board again. “what?”

“you fought an army of drones.”

“that was different.”

“how?”

“the drones were trying to kill me.”

“and this is worse?”

peter presses the eraser into the corner of the page until the paper begins to tear.

“maybe.”

—

you find peter waiting near the stairwell after the final bell. students move around him without stopping, splitting naturally around the place where he leans against the wall. his backpack hangs from one shoulder. a faint red mark crosses the bridge of his nose, probably from whatever happened with the projector before lunch. he straightens when he sees you.

“hey.”

“hey.”

you stop in front of him. the hallway windows reflect a dull silver sky, and rain begins gathering again against the glass.

peter looks at his sweatshirt you’re wearing.

“you can keep that,” he says.

“you have my jacket.”

“right.”

“you wore it home.”

“it was cold.”

“you can lift cars.”

“that doesn’t make me warm.”

“you were wearing a suit.”

peter shrugs and reaches for the cuff. his thumb rubs across the white mark, though the dried fluid does not move beneath it. his fingers remain around your wrist.

students continue emptying from the hallway. a teacher pushes a cart of textbooks past the stairwell, one wheel producing a high squeak every few feet. peter flinches at the sound. you step closer.

“headache?”

“a little.”

“come over.”

his eyes lift to yours. “now?”

“unless you have something else to do.”

peter’s attention shifts toward the nearest window. you recognize the movement.

“patrol,” you say.

“i should.”

“okay.”

you try to pull your wrist away, but peter keeps hold of you.

“i could come over first,” he says.

“you just said you should patrol.”

“i can do both.”

“you always do both.”

something in your tone makes his fingers loosen. you don’t mean for it to sound sharp. you are tired from sleeping in fragments, listening for his messages, and wondering whether every quiet period means he is busy or hurt. none of that is his fault. none of it is something you know how to explain without asking for more than he has offered.

“sorry,” you say.

“no, you’re right.”

“i didn’t say you shouldn’t go.”

“i know.”

peter lets go of your wrist. the absence of his hand feels immediate. his gaze drops toward the floor between you.

“what did you tell mj?” he asks. the question appears unrelated enough to leave you briefly disoriented.

“when?”

“at lunch.”

“we talked about lots of things.”

“about me.”

you study him. his posture remains deliberately casual, one hand curled around his backpack strap, but the muscles along his jaw tighten while he waits.

“why does it matter?”

“it doesn’t.”

“you brought it up.”

“i was wondering.”

“about what?”

peter looks toward the students passing at the far end of the hall. “what you say.”

“i told her the truth.”

his attention returns to you. “which truth?”

you almost smile.

“you’re going to have to be more specific.”

peter doesn’t answer. instead, he pushes away from the wall.

“i should go.”

“peter.”

“i’ll text you.”

“soon?”

the word makes him pause. his mouth curves faintly, though the expression does not reach his eyes.

“yeah,” he says. “soon.”

—

he does not come through your window that night. a message arrives shortly after midnight.

busy. safe. don’t wait up.

you wait anyway. rain continues until morning, moving steadily against the windows while headlights pass in pale bands across your ceiling. you keep the desk lamp on beside unfinished homework, though the equations stop making sense long before midnight.

peter’s sweatshirt stays around you. you wake at four with your cheek pressed to an open textbook and the phone beneath your hand.

there are no new messages.

—

by monday, peter decides mj cannot be trusted. he reaches this conclusion after asking whether you call him ‘sweet’ and receiving seven uninterrupted seconds of silence. the four of you sit in the library beneath the watchful attention of a librarian who already warned ned twice about opening snacks near the computers. peter occupies the chair across from you, though his eyes lift from his notes every few minutes.

you pretend not to notice, but mj notices enough for everyone.

she closes her book and looks at peter. “what?”

“nothing.”

“you’ve looked at me fourteen times.”

peter’s eyebrows pull together. “you counted?”

“i count lots of things.”

ned lowers his voice. “that’s creepy.”

peter glances toward the librarian, then lowers his voice.

“did she call me sweet?”

you look up from your chemistry notes. mj’s face remains perfectly still, and ned slowly sets down his pencil.

“what?” you ask.

peter’s attention snaps toward you. “nothing.”

“you just asked her something.”

“about the assignment.”

mj opens her book again. “peter wants to know if you call him sweet.”

the librarian looks toward your table when ned chokes on his own breath. peter closes his eyes. you stare at him.

“you asked her that?”

“not exactly.”

“those were your exact words,” mj says.

“i was asking in general.”

“generally, ‘does she call you sweet?’”

peter pushes his chair back an inch. “i’m going to move.”

ned catches the leg with his shoe. “no, you’re not.”

the librarian clears her throat. all four of you lower your voices.

you lean across the table. “why do you want to know?”

peter looks down at his notes. “i don’t.”

“you asked.”

“i was curious.”

“about whether i think you’re sweet?”

“forget it.”

mj turns a page she has not read. “she called you a freak.”

peter becomes still.

you look at her. “mj.”

“what?” she asks. “he wanted to know.”

“context matters.”

peter’s gaze remains on the paper in front of him. “what context?”

“you were asleep on my ceiling.”

ned’s head lifts. “he does that at your house too?”

“too?” you repeat.

peter looks betrayed. “ned.”

“sometimes he does it during sleepovers.”

“you said you’d never tell anyone.”

“i assumed she knew.”

“why would she know?”

the question leaves peter before he considers the answer. silence settles around the table. mj’s mouth twitches behind her book. peter’s face turns red. you reach across and touch the back of his hand.

“you were asleep on the ceiling,” you repeat quietly. “you’re allowed to be a little bit of a freak.”

his eyes lift to yours. something wounded remains behind them. you turn your hand beneath his and fit your fingers against his palm.

“i also said it affectionately.”

“how do you say ‘freak’ affectionately?” ned asks.

mj looks at him. “tone.”

“right.”

peter’s thumb moves across your knuckles.

“did you tell her anything else?” he asks.

the question is meant only for you now. you think of what mj says in the cafeteria. you love him. you think of how quickly you deny it, not because it is wrong, but because saying it would make the feeling solid enough to lose.

“probably,” you say.

peter waits. when you do not continue, his fingers slowly loosen from yours.

—

the first time betty asks about the sweatshirt, you tell her it belongs to a cousin. the second time, you say you borrow it from lost and found. by the third, even you recognize that the lie is becoming insulting.

betty sits beside you on the gym bleachers during a school fundraiser, carefully painting letters across a poster for the academic decathlon booth. the gym smells like tempera paint, dust, and the pizza flash convinces a local restaurant to donate in exchange for several social media posts. peter and ned work across the room, attempting to hang a banner without a ladder. ned stands on a folding chair. peter holds the back of his shirt to keep him from falling, though either of them could complete the task more easily if the gym were empty.

“so,” betty says, dipping her brush into blue paint, “is there a guy?”

your hand slips. a line of yellow paint cuts through the letter you are outlining.

“why would you ask that?”

betty looks toward the sweatshirt tied around your waist. “because you keep wearing someone else’s clothes.”

“it could be mine.”

“it says parker inside the collar.”

you look across the gym. peter’s back is turned, but with his hearing, that means almost nothing.

“peter lends it to me,” you say.

betty’s expression brightens. “peter?”

“we’re friends.”

“just friends?” the question lands loudly despite her quiet voice.

you dip the brush into paint again. “it isn’t like that.”

across the gym, the folding chair scrapes sharply against the floor. peter catches ned before he falls. several students laugh. ned climbs down, speaking too quickly while peter keeps one hand against the banner. his face has gone carefully blank.

betty follows your attention.

“are you sure?” she asks.

you press the brush against the poster until paint spreads through the paper.

“peter and i aren’t together,” you say. the words are technically true, but they sound wrong anyway.

peter looks toward you. the distance between you is too great for an ordinary person to hear, but his eyes meet yours immediately. he lets go of the banner.

“i forgot something,” he tells ned. then, he walks out of the gym.

—

you follow him to the roof. the door resists beneath your hand until you remember to lift it before turning the handle. cold wind crosses the rooftop, carrying the smell of rain from clouds gathering above queens. peter stands near the edge with both hands braced against the concrete wall. his shoulders tense when the door closes behind you.

“you heard that,” you say.

“heard what?”

“peter.”

he looks across the neighboring rooftops. “you were talking to betty. i wasn’t listening.”

“you hear everything.”

“not everything.”

“you heard me.”

his jaw tightens. you move closer, though several feet remain between you when you stop.

“she doesn’t know,” you say.

“about spider-man.”

“about any of it.”

“right.”

“i can’t tell her.”

“i know.”

“then why are you upset?”

peter turns. wind pushes his hair across his forehead. the pale mark along his nose has almost healed, but exhaustion darkens the skin beneath his eyes.

“i’m not.”

“you left.”

“i forgot something.”

“what?”

he opens his mouth. nothing comes out.

you fold your arms against the cold. “that’s what i thought.”

peter looks away again. traffic moves below the building, filling the silence with distant engines and horns.

“you said we aren’t together,” he says.

you step closer.

“are we?”

his head turns toward you. the question moves between you, more frightening in daylight than it ever seems in your bedroom. peter looks at your face as though he is searching for the safest possible answer, one that cannot hurt either of you.

“i don’t know,” he admits.

you nod. peter’s expression falls.

“then i didn’t lie.”

“no.”

“i couldn’t tell betty about you.”

“i know.”

“why do you keep saying that like you don’t?”

“because knowing doesn’t make it sound better.”

you look past him toward the skyline. buildings rise through dull afternoon light, their windows catching what little sun remains beneath the clouds.

“you never asked me,” you say.

peter becomes very still.

“asked you what?”

“anything.”

“i ask you things all the time.”

“you ask whether i finish homework. you ask if my parents are home. you ask if you can come through the window.”

his hands curl against the concrete wall.

“you never ask what this is.”

“neither do you.”

“i’m asking now.”

peter looks at you. for one second, hope moves openly across his face. then something louder than either of you interrupts from the street below—a crash of metal, followed by several car horns and someone shouting.

peter turns toward the edge. you close your eyes. of course.

“go,” you say.

“i can stay.”

“someone might be hurt.”

“this matters too.”

“then come back.”

peter hesitates. you step close enough to take hold of the front of his jacket.

“come back when you have an answer.”

his eyes move across your face. then he nods.

peter climbs onto the ledge. the suit is hidden beneath his clothes, but the web-shooters already circle his wrists.

“i will,” he says.

you release his jacket. he falls backward from the roof.

your heart lurches even though you know what happens next. a web catches somewhere beyond the building, pulling him into a wide arc above the street.

he does not look back.

—

peter does not have an answer when he returns. he does not return at all. your phone receives three messages over the next two days, each of them apologetic and none containing enough information.

big thing downtown. safe.

helping happy. sorry.

can we talk tomorrow?

tomorrow arrives without him.

at school, he moves between classes with ned. he looks toward you whenever he thinks you are not watching, but does not approach. you do not wear his sweatshirt.

mj finds you in the library after school and lowers herself into the chair across from you.

“you look terrible,” she says.

you turn a page. “thank you.”

“peter looks worse.”

“good.”

mj raises an eyebrow. you close the book.

“not good,” you correct. “you know what i mean.”

“unfortunately.”

she rests her folded arms against the table. students work quietly around you while rain begins tapping at the high windows, soft enough to disappear beneath turning pages and computer keys.

“he talks about you,” mj says.

you look down at the closed book. “i know.”

“no. you know he talks. you don’t know what he says.”

“did ned tell you?”

“ned tells me everything when he’s stressed.”

“is peter stressed?”

mj stares at you.

“right,” you murmur.

she leans closer. “he asks ned whether you’re mad every twenty minutes. he asks whether he should text. then he writes a text, deletes it, and asks whether deleting it makes things worse.”

“it does.”

“i told ned that.”

you trace one finger along the edge of the book cover.

“does he say anything else?”

mj’s expression changes slightly. “you could ask him.”

“he asked you what i say.”

“and i told him to ask you.”

“did you answer?”

“not really.”

“why?”

“because it isn’t my job to tell peter you love him.”

your fingers still. mj doesn’t look away.

“you don’t know that,” you say.

“you talk about him constantly.”

“we barely talk about him.”

“you told me he makes a different face when he hears ambulances than police sirens.”

“that came up naturally.”

“you told me he hates bananas but eats them because may buys them.”

“she forgets he doesn’t like them.”

“you told me he apologizes to furniture.”

“he walked into a chair and said sorry.”

“you told me you can tell when he’s smiling beneath the mask.”

your throat tightens. mj sits back.

“you talk about him,” she says. “you just don’t use the word.”

“what word?”

she gives you a tired look. you look toward the rain-streaked windows.

“he hasn’t used it either,” you say.

“maybe he thinks you don’t want him to.”

“he knows i want him.”

“does he?”

the question remains after mj returns to her book.

—

ned finds peter in the chemistry lab after sunset.

peter sits beneath one of the work lights with a web cartridge dismantled in front of him. every component is arranged in careful rows across the table, though he has not touched any of them for several minutes. ned closes the door.

“mj says you’re being stupid.”

peter does not look up. “she says that every day.”

“she says you’re being more stupid than usual.”

“great.”

ned pulls out the stool beside him. “did you talk to her?”

“i tried.”

“what happened?”

“someone crashed a van into a taxi.”

“after that.”

peter rotates a small metal spring between his fingers.

“i got busy.”

“for two days?”

“there was the van. then happy needed help with damage control from london. then may had a fundraiser.”

“you could text.”

“i did.”

“you sent her three words.”

“one message had four.”

ned closes his eyes. “dude.”

peter places the spring on the table.

“i don’t know what to say.”

“tell her the truth.”

“which part?”

“all of it.”

peter looks toward the dark windows. his reflection appears faintly above the lab tables, a tired boy beneath harsh fluorescent light.

“i don’t know what she tells mj,” he says.

ned’s eyebrows draw together. “you’re still thinking about that?”

“she told betty we aren’t together.”

“you said you aren’t.”

“i know.”

“then what’s the problem?”

peter rubs both hands over his face. “i don’t want that to be true.”

the admission leaves the room quiet. ned waits. peter lowers his hands.

“every time we’re alone, it feels like…” he stops, searching for something precise enough to hold the feeling. “it feels bigger than it should.”

“bigger than what?”

“me.”

ned’s expression softens.

peter looks down at the cartridge again. “then we come to school, and i don’t know if i’m supposed to sit beside her or touch her or act like nothing happens. i don’t know if she tells mj i’m some guy who climbs through her window or if she tells her she wishes i’d stop.”

“she wears your clothes.”

“because i stole her jacket.”

“she waits for you after patrol.”

“because she worries.”

“she kisses you.”

peter glances toward him. “how do you know that?”

“you told me.”

“i did not.”

“you spent twenty minutes explaining why your lip was bleeding more after you left her house.”

peter looks away. ned pushes one of the web components back into line.

“what do you say about her?” he asks.

“to who?”

“me.”

“nothing.”

ned stares at him.

peter sighs. “fine. things.”

“you told me the exact sound she makes when she’s trying not to laugh.”

“it’s noticeable.”

“you told me what shampoo she uses.”

“she asked me to buy it once.”

“you told me she keeps the window unlocked for you.”

peter’s hands become still. ned looks at him.

“you talk about her like she’s already your girlfriend.”

the word pulls something tight across peter’s face.

“she isn’t.”

“because she doesn’t want to be?”

“because i haven’t asked.”

“why?”

“people change," he shrugs, looking away from ned.

“what?”

“we’re eighteen. everything changes.” his voice drops. “six months ago, mr. stark was alive. two months ago, i thought beck was a hero. three weeks ago, i didn’t know she would ever look at me like this.”

ned does not interrupt.

“what if i ask for something i can’t give her?” peter continues. “what if she gets tired of cancelled plans and windows and me showing up hurt? what if she says yes now and hates me later?”

“what if she doesn’t?”

peter swallows.

“that might be worse.”

“why?”

“because then i have someone else to lose.”

ned sits with that for a moment.

outside the lab, a cleaning cart rattles along the hallway. peter turns toward the sound instinctively, then forces himself to look back at the table.

“you already have her to lose,” ned says.

peter’s eyes close. “yeah,” he admits.

—

peter comes through your window the following night.

you are awake, though the lights are off. the city fills the room instead—headlights moving across the walls, red aircraft lights blinking above distant buildings, and neon from the pharmacy sign at the corner turning the ceiling faintly blue.

the window opens without a sound. peter climbs inside and closes it behind him. he wears the suit with the mask pushed above his mouth. one lens is cracked. dirt marks the red fabric across his shoulder, but you see no blood. you stay beneath the blankets.

“are you hurt?” you ask.

he turns. “no.”

“are you sure?”

“yeah.”

you nod toward the chair beside your desk. “your sweatshirt’s there.”

peter looks at it. the folded fabric has remained untouched since the fundraiser.

“you can keep it,” he says.

“you already said that.”

“right.”

he removes the mask. flattened curls spring unevenly around his face, and a faint crease crosses his cheek from the edge of the fabric. neither of you speaks.

peter sits on the desk chair rather than approaching the bed. the distance feels deliberate, though your bedroom is too small for it to become convincing.

“you came back,” you say.

“i said i would.”

“three days ago.”

“i know.”

“you’re late.”

“i know,” he repeats.

his hands turn the mask between them, twisting the fabric until one white lens bends inward. you push back the blankets and sit against the headboard.

“you’re going to break that.”

peter looks down. he smooths the lens with his thumb.

“sorry.”

“stop apologizing.”

“sorry.”

you stare at him. a tired smile touches his mouth before disappearing again.

rain begins outside, not yet heavy enough to reach the window. the weather has spent the entire week threatening a storm it cannot seem to produce.

peter looks toward the sweatshirt.

“what did you tell mj?” he asks.

you release a slow breath.

“you came here to ask me that again?”

“not only that.”

“but it’s still bothering you.”

“yes.”

the honesty surprises you. peter sets the mask on the desk.

“i know it shouldn’t,” he says. “i know you have to lie to people who don’t know, and mj already knows everything important. i know it isn’t my business what you say when i’m not there.”

“but?”

his fingers curl around the edge of the chair.

“but i need to know.”

you wait. peter looks at you directly.

“when you talk about me, who am i?”

the question quiets everything else. you look toward the window. raindrops begin catching against the glass one at a time, each one dividing the city lights into smaller pieces.

“you’re peter.”

“i know.”

“do you?”

his brow pulls together. you slide your legs from beneath the blankets and sit on the edge of the bed.

“betty doesn’t know about spider-man,” you say. “she thinks you’re the boy who disappears from class and loses his backpack twice a week. flash thinks you’re spider-man’s ‘assistant.’ my parents think you’re the polite kid from school who helps me with biology.”

“you don’t need help with biology.”

“i know, that’s why it’s a useful lie.”

peter’s mouth almost curves. you continue before he can retreat into the joke.

“mj gets the truth.”

“what truth?”

you look down at your hands.

“i tell her you’re sweet when you aren’t trying to convince everyone you’re fine. i tell her you’re a freak when you sleep on ceilings and hiss at the vacuum.”

“it was loud.”

“i know.”

“and i didn’t hiss.”

“you absolutely did.”

peter lowers his eyes, but a small smile remains at the edge of his mouth.

“i tell her you steal my clothes,” you continue. “i tell her you leave before morning, and that sometimes you don’t text until i’m already imagining every terrible thing that could happen to you.”

the smile fades.

“i’m sorry.”

“peter.”

“right.”

you move from the bed. he watches while you cross the small distance between you. your knees touch when you stop in front of the chair.

“i tell her you’re impossible,” you say. “that you cancel plans. that you show up bleeding and expect me not to react. that you hear every lie except the ones you tell yourself.”

peter’s hands loosen from the chair.

“do you tell her you wish i’d stop coming?”

the question is so quiet that you almost miss it. you look at him.

“is that what you thought?”

he doesn’t answer. you reach down and take the mask from the desk. the damaged lens catches the city light as you smooth the fabric between your hands.

“peter, i keep my window unlocked.”

“that could mean anything.”

“no one in queens keeps a fourth-floor window unlocked by accident.”

“then what does it mean?”

you set the mask aside.

“what do you tell ned?”

peter blinks. “what?”

“you want to know what i say. i want to know what you say.”

“that isn’t fair.”

“why?”

“because ned repeats things.”

“mj doesn’t?”

“not to me.”

“exactly.”

peter looks down at your knees touching his.

“i tell him about you,” he admits.

“what about me?”

“things.”

“helpful.”

“i tell him you make tea and forget to drink it. i tell him you leave the hall light on when you know i’m coming over. i tell him you can tell when it’s too loud for me even if i don’t say anything.”

your breathing slows. peter touches the edge of your sleeve. you are wearing your own shirt tonight, but his fingers still move as though looking for something familiar.

“i tell him you don’t treat spider-man like someone different,” he continues. “you don’t ask me to take the suit off before you touch me. you don’t act disappointed when it’s just me underneath.”

“peter.”

“i know that sounds stupid.”

“it doesn’t.”

his fingers close gently around your wrist.

“i tell ned that when something happens, you’re the first person i want to talk to. even if i can’t.” peter’s thumb presses over your pulse. “i tell him i think about your room during patrol because it’s quiet here. not actually quiet, but…” he glances toward the window. “quiet in my head.”

the rain begins falling harder. you don’t move.

“what else?” you whisper.

peter’s gaze lifts to yours. fear appears there before the words do.

“i tell him you take my breath away.”

your throat tightens. peter’s hand slips from your wrist as though the confession requires him to release you.

“i don’t understand it,” he says. “i know we’re young. i know everything changes, and i can’t promise i’ll be good at this. i can’t promise normal dates or that i’ll always answer my phone. i can’t even promise i’ll use the door.”

“the window is faster.”

“it is.”

“and less awkward.”

“usually.”

you step closer. peter looks up at you from the chair.

“you still haven’t answered,” you say.

“answered what?”

“what this is.”

his lips part. you place one hand against his cheek. the faint crease from the mask remains beneath your thumb. peter leans into your palm before he can stop himself.

“i want you to be my girlfriend,” he says. “i should’ve asked before. i think part of me thought if we didn’t say it, then nothing could change. you couldn’t decide you didn’t want it later because i never actually gave you anything to leave.”

the honesty hurts more than hesitation would. you brush your thumb beneath his eye.

“that isn’t how it works.”

“i know.”

“you could still lose me without calling me your girlfriend.”

“ned said that.”

“ned is smart.”

“don’t tell him that.”

you laugh lightly. peter’s hand rises to your waist, but he doesn’t pull you closer yet.

“do you want to?” he asks.

“want to what?”

“be my girlfriend.”

you make him wait, but not for long. only enough that peter’s fingers tighten once against your shirt and the fear in his expression becomes impossible to tease.

then you lower yourself onto his lap. the chair creaks beneath the added weight. peter catches your hips automatically, surprise passing across his face before you settle with one knee on either side of him.

“yes,” you say.

his breathing stops.

“yes?”

“yes, peter.”

“you’re sure?”

you touch your forehead to his.

“you’re a sweetheart and a freak. i know what i’m agreeing to.”

a breath of laughter leaves him, warm against your mouth.

“so i’m your boyfriend?” the quiet hope in his voice makes your chest ache.

“you’re my boyfriend.”

peter smiles. it begins slowly, pulling at one corner of his mouth before spreading across his entire face. you barely have time to see it before his hand slides into your hair and he kisses you. there is nothing hesitant in it now.

peter pulls you against him while your arms circle his shoulders. the chair shifts beneath you, one wheel catching against the edge of the rug, but neither of you pays attention. his mouth moves against yours with the urgency of every question he doesn’t ask soon enough. your fingers catch in his hair. the mask falls from the desk and lands beside the chair. peter kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, his breath uneven against your skin.

“wait,” he murmurs.

you lean back enough to look at him. his hands remain around your waist.

“what?”

peter’s eyes move across your face. the fear returns, but it is different now—more open, no longer protected by uncertainty.

“did you tell mj you love me?”

your heart stops. peter seems to regret the question immediately.

“you don’t have to answer,” he says. “forget i asked.”

you keep one hand against the back of his neck.

“do you tell ned you love me?”

his gaze drops toward your shoulder.

“yes.” the answer comes so quietly that the rain nearly takes it. 

you wait until peter looks at you again.

“then we tell them the same thing.”

he becomes completely still beneath you.

“you love me? the way i love you?”

“probably more.”

“that seems scientifically unlikely.”

“i have evidence.”

“what evidence?”

“you.”

peter’s expression breaks. he kisses you before either of you can say anything else, one hand pressing between your shoulder blades while the other cradles the back of your head. the kiss softens after the first desperate second, becoming something slower and almost careful.

when he pulls away, his forehead rests against yours.

“i love you,” he says.

the words sound unfamiliar in his voice, as though he has carried them long enough that hearing them aloud surprises him.

you brush your nose against his.

“i love you too.”

outside, the storm finally breaks over queens.

—

mj does not react when you tell her.

she sits across from you at lunch with her book open beside her tray. ned and peter are still in line, arguing about whether two cartons of chocolate milk count as a complete meal.

you take peter’s sweatshirt from the back of your chair and put it on. mj turns one page.

“peter asked me to be his girlfriend,” you say.

“finally.”

you stare at her. “that’s it?”

“did you want applause?”

“maybe.”

“i don’t have any.”

the corner of her mouth lifts.

you pull one sleeve over your hand. “you could pretend to be surprised.”

“you’ve worn his clothes for a month.”

“that doesn’t mean anything.”

“he fell asleep with his head in your lap during study hall.”

“he was tired.”

“he threatened a vending machine because it kept your change.”

“it was two dollars.”

mj looks toward the lunch line.

peter stands beside ned with one hand in his pocket. even from across the cafeteria, he finds you immediately. the tension leaves his shoulders when your eyes meet. he smiles.

mj follows your gaze.

“oh my god,” she mutters. “you’re seriously with peter.”

you smile into the collar of his sweatshirt. “yes.”

peter and ned reach the table moments later. peter sets his tray beside yours with more care than usual, then lowers himself into the chair. beneath the table, his hand finds yours. this time, neither of you hides it.

ned sits across from him. “he told me.”

“i assumed.”

“at four in the morning.”

peter’s face reddens. “you were awake.”

“because you called me.”

“you said i could call whenever.”

“i meant during emergencies.”

peter looks toward you. “it felt like one.”

you squeeze his hand.

mj closes her book. “did he ask what you tell me?”

“eventually.”

“did you tell him?”

“eventually.”

peter’s thumb passes over your knuckles. “she made me go first.”

“good,” mj says.

ned opens his chocolate milk. “what did you say?”

peter looks at him. “none of your business.”

“you called me immediately afterward.”

“that was different.”

“you cried.”

peter nearly drops his fork.

“i did not,” he says, his voice higher than usual.

ned looks at you. “he cried.”

“there was rain,” peter says.

“inside your bedroom?”

“the window was open.”

“well, i don’t think rain sniffles.”

you lean against his shoulder. peter looks down at you, embarrassment softening into something warmer. around you, the cafeteria continues as it always does. flash talks too loudly from the neighboring table. coins strike the floor near the vending machines. someone argues about mysterio, insisting spider-man could never have defeated him without help.

for once, peter does not turn toward every mention of his name.

rain has weakened to a fine mist, gathering in your hair and along the shoulders of your coat. students move between buildings beneath umbrellas, stepping around puddles that reflect the old stone facades and pale afternoon sky. somewhere near the library, a bicycle bell rings twice before disappearing beneath the scrape of shoes and the low rush of conversations.

peter walks quickly.

not impossibly quickly. just fast enough to make it clear that he does not want to be caught.

“peter,” you call.

he does not stop.

you follow him down the library steps and across the courtyard. your shoes strike the wet pavement harder than they need to, splashing cold water against the hems of your jeans.

“you’re making my headache worse,” you shout.

that stops him.

peter turns beneath a red-leafed maple near the edge of the path. rainwater slips from the branches overhead, darkening the shoulders of his jacket. students divide around you without paying attention, absorbed in phones, conversations, and the rush toward their next classes.

“go back inside,” peter says.

his voice stays low, but you hear the strain beneath it. his fingers close around one of his backpack straps as though he needs something solid to hold.

“tell me the truth,” you demand.

peter looks past you toward the physics building. “you don’t want it.”

“you don’t know what i want.”

his mouth tightens.

“i used to,” he replies.

the words settle between you, quieter than everything moving around them.

you take one step closer.

“who was i to you?” you ask.

peter looks toward the library instead of answering. his attention jumps between sounds—the scrape of shoes, the squeal of bicycle brakes, a name shouted across the courtyard. the sensory overload presses tension into every line of him. his shoulders remain raised, his jaw fixed, his eyes moving toward disturbances no one else notices.

“somewhere quieter,” you say.

peter’s gaze returns to yours. “what?”

“you can hear all of them.”

something shifts across his face.

you do not know how you recognize that either. you only know the crowded courtyard is hurting him, and the certainty arrives with the familiarity of something you have done before.

you lead him toward the physics building without waiting for agreement. a narrow service courtyard sits behind it, enclosed on three sides by brick walls and mostly abandoned during the rain. only the muted hum of the ventilation system reaches the space, accompanied by water dripping steadily from a rusted gutter near the overhang.

the campus noise dulls there.

peter remains beneath the shallow roof while you stop several feet away. rainwater darkens the pavement between you, gathering in the uneven places before spilling toward the drain.

“better?” you ask.

he gives a small nod.

you fold your arms against the damp chill. “the inhibitor is for the spider dna.”

peter looks toward the wet pavement.

“yes,” he answers.

“because you’re losing control.”

“sometimes.”

“because you’re alone.”

peter looks up sharply.

you think of the notes you glimpse on bruce’s desk. hormonal expression intensified by prolonged isolation. increased territorial response. heightened aggression surrounding perceived threats. the handwriting has been peter’s, though you did not know that when you read it.

“bruce didn’t tell me,” you explain. “i read the margin before he covered it.”

peter’s shoulders lower by a fraction.

“it isn’t that simple,” he says.

“then explain it.”

he leans back against the brick wall. the backpack remains hanging from one shoulder, the bottom of it pressed between him and the damp bricks.

“the spider changed more than my strength,” peter says. “most of it stayed balanced for years. human hormones, human instincts, spider traits. everything regulated everything else.”

“until now,” you say.

peter turns his face toward the rain beyond the overhang.

“until i stopped…” he begins.

the words trail away. his fingers flex once at his side before curling into his palm.

“being around people,” he finishes.

“you’ve been alone for four years.”

his silence answers.

the ache inside your chest deepens. it has been there longer than the headaches, longer than the dreams, an absence you have spent years mistaking for restlessness.

“why?” you ask.

peter laughs quietly, but the sound breaks before it becomes anything real.

“because no one remembers me.”

you stare at him.

water continues dripping from the gutter, striking the pavement in the same place until the sound begins to feel like a clock.

“what does that mean?” you ask.

peter looks down at his hands.

“there was a spell,” he says.

the rain seems louder.

“people found out who spider-man was,” peter continues. “it destroyed my life. it hurt everyone close to me. i tried to fix it, and i made everything worse.”

his fingers curl more tightly against his palms.

“the only way to stop everything was for the whole world to forget peter parker,” he finishes.

your breathing slows.

the sentence should sound impossible. it should make you laugh or demand evidence or accuse him of lying again.

instead, it settles into the empty places inside you as though it has always belonged there.

“including me,” you say.

peter does not answer.

“including me,” you repeat.

“yes,” he replies.

the word almost disappears beneath the rain.

pain begins building behind your eyes, but you force yourself to remain still.

“what was i to you?” you ask.

peter closes his eyes. a drop of water slips from his hair, following the curve of his cheek until it disappears beneath his jaw.

“you were tony stark’s daughter,” he answers.

“that isn’t what i asked.”

“you worked with the avengers.”

“peter.”

“you knew spider-man.”

“peter.”

his jaw trembles.

“stop,” he says.

you take another step toward him. “tell me.”

“i said stop.”

his voice strikes the brick walls harder than he intends. you stop, but you do not retreat. 

peter pushes away from the wall. his backpack slips from his shoulder, catching at his elbow before he pulls it free and drops it onto the dry strip of pavement beneath the overhang.

“you want me to tell you?” he asks. 

his breathing has changed. each breath enters slowly, held too long before it leaves. the rhythm seems deliberate, like he is trying to restrain something with nothing but air.

“yes,” you reply.

peter looks at you. anger sharpens his expression, but grief keeps breaking through it. neither one manages to hide the other.

“you were everything,” he says. the words leave him rough and unsteady.

your throat tightens.

peter drags one hand through his wet hair and turns away. he makes it two steps before stopping near the edge of the overhang, where rain begins striking the toes of his shoes.

“you were the first person i looked for when i walked into a room,” he continues. “you were the person i called when something went wrong, and when something went right, and when nothing happened but i wanted to hear your voice anyway.”

his hands close into fists.

“peter,” you murmur.

he turns back too quickly.

“you asked,” he says. the words hold an accusation, but not one meant for you. the anger has nowhere useful to go, so it enters his voice and makes every syllable sharper.

“you wanted the truth,” peter continues. “the truth is that i remember everything.”

rain blows beneath the overhang. cold droplets catch against his face, but he does not seem to notice them.

“i remember how you take your coffee,” he says. “i remember that you hate when people leave cabinet doors open. i remember that you steal food off my plate after saying you aren’t hungry.”

your head pulses. peter steps closer.

“i remember you falling asleep in the workshop while you waited for me to come back from patrol,” he continues. “i remember carrying you upstairs because your dad would complain if he found you there in the morning. i remember the first time you kissed me and the first time you told me you loved me and every stupid argument we had because neither of us knew how to apologize without making a joke first.”.

“i remember all of it,” peter says. “and you look at me like i’m someone you passed in a hallway.”

the words catch at the end.

you step toward him. peter retreats until his back meets the wall again.

“i’m not blaming you,” he says.

“it sounds like you are.”

“i’m not.”

his voice rises.

a door opens somewhere inside the physics building. footsteps cross the corridor beyond the brick wall before fading toward the stairwell. peter’s head turns toward the noise. he listens until the person moves beyond whatever range his instincts consider dangerous, then forces his attention back to you.

“i know you didn’t choose this,” he says. “that’s the worst part. you didn’t choose to forget me. you didn’t choose to wake up one morning without knowing there was someone missing. you didn’t choose any of it, and i’m still angry every time you don’t remember something.”

his face twists around the admission.

“i hate myself for that,” he says.

the anger collapses into something rawer.

“i hate that it hurts when you don’t know my name,” peter continues. “i hate that some part of me still expects you to smile when you see me. i hate that i keep thinking if i stand close enough or say the right thing, you’ll look at me the way you used to.”

you cannot move. peter presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“and i hate that i want you back,” he says behind them. “because you have a life. you’re safe. you’re happy, or you were before i walked into that office and ruined it.”

“you didn’t ruin anything,” you say.

peter drops his hands.

“you’re standing in the rain with a migraine because i couldn’t stay away from you,” he snaps. “how is that not ruining it?”

“because something was wrong before you came back.”

“you didn’t know that.”

“i felt it.”

“that doesn’t mean—”

“i missed you,” you interrupt.

peter becomes still. your eyes burn, but you refuse to look away from his.

“i didn’t know your name,” you continue. “i couldn’t see your face. i didn’t know what i had lost, but i missed you every day.”

his mouth opens. nothing leaves it.

you press one hand against your temple as the pain grows sharper.

“i kept looking for you,” you say. “in every room. in every memory that didn’t make sense. i kept waiting for someone, and i didn’t know who.”

peter shakes his head.

“you can’t say that.”

“why?”

“because you don’t remember.”

“then help me.”

“i can’t.”

his answer comes too quickly. 

your anger rises through the pain.

“you won’t,” you correct.

peter’s expression hardens.

“there’s a difference.”

“is there?”

“yes.” his voice cracks against the word. “because i already tried,” peter says. “i found you after the spell.”

the rain presses harder against the courtyard. 

you lower your hand from your temple.

“what happened?” you ask.

peter looks away.

“you looked happy.”

“so you left.”

“you were safer.”

“you don’t get to decide that.”

“someone had to.”

“no,” you say. “you decided you had to.”

peter’s jaw tightens.

“you don’t know what happened,” he replies.

“then tell me.”

“everyone who knew me got hurt.”

“that wasn’t your choice either.”

“it became my responsibility.”

“and what about mine?”

peter looks at you.

you cross the remaining space between you, stopping near enough that you can see raindrops caught in his eyelashes.

“you decided i was happier without you,” you say. “you decided i was safer. you decided forgetting you was something i could live with.”

“you were living with it.”

“i was surviving something i couldn’t name.”

his eyes flash. peter turns away and drives his fist into the brick wall.

the impact cracks through the courtyard. mortar fractures beneath his hand, falling in pale pieces onto the wet ground. several bricks split through the middle, the damage spreading outward from his knuckles.

peter stares at the wall. his breathing becomes shallow.

“that,” he says, “is why i need the inhibitor.”

you look at the fractured brick and then at his hand. the skin across his knuckles remains unbroken.

“you’re angry,” you say.

“i wanted to put my fist through the building.”

“because i told you that you were wrong?”

“because you’re right.”

his eyes remain fixed on his hand.

“because i left you,” peter continues. “because i spent four years telling myself it was noble when really i was scared.”

his fingers shake when he draws them away from the wall.

“and because you don’t remember me,” he adds.

the confession leaves quieter than everything before it.

“i know it isn’t your fault,” peter says. “i know that. but i remember loving you, and you don’t. i remember what your voice sounds like when you say my name half-asleep. i remember what it feels like when you reach for me before you wake up. i remember standing in front of you and promising i would find you.”

his shoulders fold inward.

“you don’t remember any of it,” he whispers.

you move closer.

peter steps back, though the wall leaves him nowhere to go.

“don’t,” he warns.

“you keep saying that.”

“i could hurt you.”

“have you?”

“not yet.”

“that matters.”

“not enough.”

you stop within arm’s reach. rain drips from the edge of the overhang between you in a steady silver line.

“you caught me before i fell,” you say.

peter’s throat tightens.

“instinct.”

“you stood between me and the door.”

“instinct.”

“you let go when i asked you to.”

he looks at you.

“that was you,” you tell him. “not the spider.”

“you don’t know that.”

“i know you.”

pain moves across his face.

“you don’t remember me,” he says.

“my body does.”

the admission stills him.

you lift your hand slowly, giving him time to move away.

he does not.

your fingers settle around his wrist. his pulse beats beneath your thumb—slow, powerful, controlled by something not entirely human. the rhythm should frighten you. instead, relief moves through you.

peter watches your hand.

“every time you touch me, something comes back,” you whisper.

his eyes lift to yours.

“and every time, it hurts you,” he says.

“losing you hurts more.”

his face folds around the words. the anger leaves first. tension drains from his mouth and shoulders until only the grief beneath it remains.

you slide your hand down until your fingers meet his.

peter doesn’t close his hand. not yet.

“let me choose,” you say.

his fingers move carefully around yours.

the world opens. memories return without mercy.

peter teaching you how to swing from a web line while your father shouts from below.

peter eating cereal at midnight in the tower kitchen.

peter sitting between your knees while you stitch a cut near his shoulder.

peter smiling when you tell him you love him.

peter crying at the statue of liberty.

peter promising.

peter leaving.

then his face returns.

dark eyes. soft mouth. brown curls slipping between your fingers. every smile, every worried crease, every expression you spend four years grieving without understanding.

your knees weaken.

peter catches you.

the arachnid instinct moves first, fast enough that you never begin to fall, but tenderness follows it. one arm circles your waist while his other hand supports the back of your head.

“i’ve got you,” he says.

you remember those words.

you remember all of them.

your hands rise to his face. peter stops breathing. his features remain clear beneath your palms. 

“i can see you,” you whisper.

his eyes close. tears slip free before he can hide them, warm against your thumbs.

“you remember?” peter asks.

“yes,” you reply. the word breaks into a sob.

peter pulls you against him.

you bury your face in his neck, arms locking around his shoulders while four years of absence collapse inside you. his body shakes beneath the wet jacket. he holds you too tightly for an ordinary person, not enough to hurt, only enough to prove that he is real.

“i’m sorry,” peter sobs against your hair. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.”

you clutch the back of his jacket.

“stop leaving.” the words come muffled against him.

his arms tighten.

“okay,” he replies.

you pull back enough to see his face.

“don’t say it unless you mean it.”

peter looks at you. his eyes are brown, tearful, terrified, but open in a way you remember only from quiet rooms after midnight, when he became too tired to hide what he wanted.

“i mean it,” he says.

you search his face, tracing every feature the spell has kept from you. your thumb passes beneath his eye.

“you’re still angry,” you murmur.

peter lets out an uneven breath.

“not at you.”

“i know.”

“i wanted you to remember so badly,” he admits. “every time you looked at me, i kept waiting for it. and every time you didn’t…”

his gaze drops.

“it felt like losing you again,” he finishes.

you touch your forehead to his.

“then be angry,” you tell him. “just don’t disappear.”

peter’s hand rises to the side of your neck, his fingers resting beneath your hair.

“i love you,” he says.

the words come out rough, stripped of everything except the truth he has held alone for four years.

“i never stopped,” he continues. “i tried. i thought i had to. but i loved you when you walked away from me in that coffee shop. i loved you every time i saw you and didn’t say anything. i loved you when you didn’t know me.”

his thumb brushes beneath your ear.

“i love you now,” peter says, his voice trembling. “even if you wake up tomorrow and forget again. even if none of this stays. i love you.”

your eyes burn.

“i remember,” you whisper.

peter closes his eyes. the answer breaks something open in him. his forehead presses more firmly against yours as another tear travels down his cheek.

“i love you too,” you say. “i think some part of me always did.”

you kiss him.

for one second, he does not respond.

then his hand cups the side of your face, and everything familiar returns—the careful tilt of his head, the breath he takes against your mouth, the way his thumb rests beneath your ear.

the kiss carries the anger neither of you knows where to put. it carries four years of missed mornings and empty rooms, every word peter swallows while watching you live without him.

then it softens.

his mouth moves against yours with the aching care you remember. his other hand settles against your waist, holding you close while rain continues falling beyond the overhang.

someone opens a door across the courtyard, catches sight of you, and quietly closes it again.

when you pull away, peter keeps his forehead against yours. his breathing moves warmly across your lips.

“your dad is going to kill me,” he murmurs.

you laugh through the tears. the sound makes his mouth curve, though uncertainty remains in his eyes.

“he already forgot you once,” you say. “you can survive him remembering.”

peter’s smile falters.

“what if he doesn’t?”

you brush the wet hair away from his forehead.

“then he gets to know you again,” you reply.

peter looks at you for a long moment.

behind him, water continues slipping down the broken brick. the campus moves beyond the courtyard walls, filled with footsteps and closing doors and hundreds of lives continuing without knowing yours has shifted back into place.

peter bends to retrieve his backpack.

before he can straighten, you catch his hand. his fingers close around yours without hesitation this time.

“you’re coming with me,” you say.

peter glances toward the path leading out of the courtyard. “where?”

“home.”

fear flickers through his expression. you squeeze his hand.

“you promised you’d stop leaving,” you remind him.

peter looks down at your joined fingers.

“right,” he murmurs.

you lead him out from beneath the overhang. the rain has almost stopped. only a fine mist remains in the air, softening the old buildings and turning every distant window pale with reflected light.

peter stays beside you.

he does not let go.

—

your father doesn’t remember peter when you bring him to the compound.

tony waits inside the workshop with his arms folded and two gauntlets visible beneath the sleeves of his shirt. pepper stands near the door, pretending her presence is not meant to keep him from doing anything reckless. bruce arrives ten minutes earlier and occupies the stool beside the main workbench, the green light on his inhibitor blinking steadily.

peter stops at the threshold.

the workshop recognizes him before the people inside it do.

friday’s security grid pauses around his face. one of the old robotic arms rotates toward him, then settles as though recalling an unfinished task. a drawer near the back wall unlocks without instruction.

tony notices. his attention moves from the open drawer to peter.

“that’s new,” he says.

peter looks toward you.

you take his hand.

“his name is peter parker,” you tell your father. “he’s spider-man.”

tony’s jaw tightens.

“i know who spider-man is,” he replies. “i don’t know him.”

the words hurt peter. you feel it in the way his fingers loosen, preparing to release you before you can choose to stay.

you tighten your grip.

“you did,” you say.

tony looks toward you.

“the spell erased him,” you continue. “not just his identity. him. every memory connected to peter parker.”

pepper’s face changes.

she steps closer, eyes moving over peter’s features.

“you’ve been in our kitchen,” she says quietly.

peter swallows.

“a few times,” he answers.

pepper’s brow pulls together. “you hated the blueberries in the pancakes.”

tony turns toward her.

“you remember that?”

“not exactly,” pepper replies. “i remember making something different.”

peter’s eyes shine.

tony watches him.

“why didn’t you come back?” he asks.

peter’s shoulders fold inward.

“i did,” he says. “you didn’t know me.”

tony’s gaze drops briefly to your joined hands.

“and her?” he asks.

peter looks at you.

“she was happy,” he answers. “i thought leaving her alone was the right thing.”

“it wasn’t,” you say.

“i know,” peter replies.

the quiet that follows feels different from the silence inside bruce’s office. this one is crowded with things your father cannot remember and peter cannot forget.

tony approaches.

peter’s grip tightens around yours. his heartbeat slows.

you look toward his face. brown still fills his eyes, but his pupils widen as tony closes the distance.

“he isn’t a threat,” you murmur.

tony hears you.

his mouth twists.

“comforting,” he remarks.

peter breathes out slowly.

tony stops in front of him.

“you’re the kid from queens,” he says.

peter’s throat moves around a swallow.

“yeah,” he answers.

tony studies him with the same attention he gives damaged machinery—looking for the place where the shape in front of him fails to match what he expects.

“i built you a suit,” he says.

“more than one.”

“you hacked one.”

“technically.”

“technically,” tony repeats.

something flickers across his face.

a workshop.

webbing across a chair.

a teenager talking too quickly while alarms scream overhead.

the memory vanishes before tony can catch it.

he presses two fingers against his temple.

“i hate magic,” he mutters.

“you’ve said that before,” peter replies without thinking.

tony looks at him. peter lowers his gaze. the corner of your father’s mouth lifts despite himself.

“yeah,” tony says. “you might be the kid.”

he does not remember enough to hug him. not yet.

instead, he turns toward bruce.

“banner says you’re becoming more spider,” tony says.

peter’s attention snaps toward the professor.

“i didn’t say that,” bruce replies.

“you used, like, seventeen more syllables.”

“that doesn’t make your version accurate.”

tony gestures toward peter’s face. “eyes?”

peter becomes very still.

you step closer to his side.

“black when he feels threatened,” you explain. “or when someone he loves is threatened.”

tony looks at your hand in peter’s.

“that seems inconvenient.”

“that’s why he went to bruce,” you say.

bruce removes peter’s folded diagrams from a leather bag and places them on the workbench.

“he’s designing a selective inhibitor,” bruce explains. “something to regulate the increased expression without suppressing the traits that allow him to function.”

tony studies the papers.

“no blood work?” he asks.

peter shakes his head.

“no tests,” he answers.

“paranoid.”

“careful.”

tony looks toward him.

“good answer.”

he pulls one of the diagrams closer. peter watches his eyes move over the receptor map.

“this section is wrong,” tony says.

peter steps forward before he can stop himself.

“it isn’t wrong.”

“you’re using a static response threshold.”

“because the baseline changes.”

“exactly. so static is wrong.”

“unless the device recalibrates continuously.”

tony looks up.

peter points toward the lower margin.

“it’s there,” he says. “adaptive feedback loop.”

tony follows his finger.

silence passes.

“huh,” your father murmurs.

peter shifts his weight.

tony pulls a stool toward the workbench with his foot.

“sit down, kid,” he says. “your handwriting is terrible.”

peter stares at him.

“are you helping?” he asks.

tony uncaps a marker.

“don’t make it weird.”

peter looks toward you. the hope on his face is fragile enough that it hurts to see.

you smile, and he sits.

—

the inhibitor takes three weeks.

bruce refuses to design it without safeguards. your father refuses to let bruce install safeguards he cannot improve. peter refuses all testing that requires storing a genetic sample, though he eventually allows bruce to monitor his heart rate and hormone levels through a temporary sensor placed against his skin.

you spend most evenings in the workshop with them.

the work develops a rhythm.

bruce recalculates receptor targets while tony builds the casing. peter rewrites the feedback algorithm every time new information forces him to change an assumption. you keep coffee near your father, tea near bruce, and food within peter’s reach because he forgets to eat whenever the equations begin making sense.

the first time you slide a sandwich toward peter without asking, his hands become still above the keyboard.

“what?” you ask.

peter looks down at the plate.

“you used to do that,” he says.

you lean against the workbench beside him.

“you used to forget lunch.”

“i still forget lunch.”

“exactly.”

his mouth curves. he reaches for the sandwich.

the memories continue returning in small pieces.

peter reaches for a chipped mug in your father’s kitchen, and you remember buying it because world’s okayest dad is printed across the side.

he sits at the end of the couch, leaving the exact space beside him where you always curl against his shoulder.

he hands you the screwdriver you need before you ask.

you steal the pickles from his sandwich.

every small thing restores something.

sometimes the memories hurt. sometimes they make you laugh.

sometimes peter stands alone near a window, staring out at the city with the quiet expression of someone still waiting for the world to take everything back.

you learn not to ask whether he is all right. instead, you stand beside him.

the first serious episode happens on the nineteenth night.

tony tests the inhibitor’s power supply while bruce monitors the feedback loop. peter sits on the edge of the examination platform with the unfinished device secured on the back of his neck. it resembles bruce’s inhibitor, though smaller and slimmer, built from dark metal with a narrow red line running beneath the casing.

you stand beside him with one hand resting near his knee.

“baseline is stable,” bruce says, studying the monitor. “sensory response is elevated, but the regulator is compensating.”

tony adjusts a setting on his tablet.

“increasing output by five percent,” he says.

the inhibitor vibrates softly against peter’s neck. his fingers tense.

“how does it feel?” you ask.

“quiet,” peter replies.

the word carries wonder.

he looks toward the workshop door.

“i can still hear the ventilation system,” he continues. “and the elevator. but it isn’t…”

peter closes his eyes.

“it isn’t inside my head,” he finishes.

bruce records the response.

tony lowers the output.

the power cuts out.

darkness drops across the workshop. emergency lights ignite a second later, painting the room in red.

peter moves before anyone else.

he pulls you from beside the platform and places himself between you and the door. his body lowers into a defensive stance. black covers his eyes before the backup generator completes its first cycle.

“peter,” you say.

he does not answer.

something strikes the outer hallway. metal bends. tony’s gauntlet forms around his hand.

“that wasn’t the power,” he says.

the workshop door tears inward.

three men in tactical gear enter beneath the emergency lights. the first carries a weapon built from stolen stark components. the second lifts a sonic emitter toward bruce. the third looks directly at the inhibitor secured on peter’s neck.

they have come for the research.

the sonic emitter activates. the sound exists beyond the range of ordinary hearing.

peter feels it everywhere.

pain tears through his skull. the world fractures into violent frequencies—the weapon’s pulse, the attackers’ heartbeats, your sharp intake of breath behind him.

one man aims toward you. the spider takes control.

peter crosses the workshop before the weapon fires.

his hand closes around the attacker’s throat and drives him into the wall hard enough to crack the reinforced panel. the weapon falls. peter catches it with his other hand and crushes the metal casing without looking.

the man claws at his wrist.

peter tightens his grip. his face is empty. his eyes reflect the red lights.

“peter,” you call.

he does not hear you beneath the emitter.

tony fires a repulsor toward the second attacker. bruce ducks behind the workbench as the pulse strikes the wall above him. the third man lunges toward peter’s inhibitor with a blade.

peter turns.

the blade never reaches him.

he catches the man’s wrist and bends until bone snaps beneath the glove. the scream cuts through the sonic frequency.

something in peter’s expression changes. not satisfaction, recognition.

prey is hurt. the threat remains alive. his body intends to correct that.

he throws the man across the room. the attacker strikes the floor near your feet.

you step back. 

peter sees the movement.  the first man has recovered enough to lift the fallen weapon toward you.

peter is on him before tony can fire.

he pins the attacker beneath one knee. one hand grips the man’s jaw. the other braces behind his skull.

you know what he is about to do.

“peter,” you shout.

his hands tighten, and you cross the room.

tony reaches for you.

“don’t,” your father warns.

you pull free.

peter’s head snaps toward the movement. black eyes fix on you. his breathing is slow, body held in the terrible stillness before violence.

you kneel in front of him.

“look at me,” you say.

the attacker gasps beneath his knee. peter’s gaze flickers toward the sound.

you place your hand against his cheek.

“not him,” you tell him. “me.”

his skin burns beneath your palm.

“he threatened you,” peter says. the words barely sound like him.

“he can’t hurt me now.”

“he tried.”

“i know.”

peter’s fingers remain locked around the attacker’s head.

“let him go,” you say.

his jaw tightens.

“peter.”

the black surface of his eyes reflects your face.

“you stop when i ask,” you remind him.

his breath catches.

“you always stop.”

peter releases the attacker.

the man collapses against the floor, coughing. tony fires a restraint disc that expands around his wrists and ankles.

peter remains kneeling. 

the rage leaves him too quickly.

his body begins shaking as the black recedes from his eyes. brown returns around the pupils. horror follows it.

he looks at his hands.

“i was going to kill him,” he whispers.

you keep your palm against his face.

“but you didn’t.”

“i wanted to.”

“but you stopped.”

peter’s eyes lift to yours.

“because you were here.”

“yes.”

his expression breaks.

“what happens when you aren’t?”

the question reaches something deep enough that you cannot answer immediately.

behind you, bruce disables the sonic emitter. tony secures the remaining attackers. emergency lights continue pulsing across the workshop, turning peter’s face red and then dark in repeating intervals.

you take both his hands.

“then we keep working,” you say. “we make the inhibitor better. you learn other ways to come back.”

peter stares at your joined fingers.

“and until then?” he asks.

you move closer.

“until then, you stop being alone.”

—

peter moves into the compound two days later.

he argues at first.

the apartment is paid through the month. his things fit in three boxes. the city needs him closer to queens. every excuse arrives too quickly, rehearsed through four years of refusing to need anyone.

tony listens while tightening a screw on the inhibitor casing.

“great,” he says once peter finishes. “guest room is down the hall from hers.”

peter looks toward you.

“that wasn’t—”

“temporary,” tony interrupts. “banner says isolation makes you homicidal. i’m prescribing communal breakfast.”

bruce glances up from the monitor.

“that is not what i said.”

“close enough.”

peter’s mouth opens. you take his hand, and the argument fades.

“temporary,” peter says.

tony returns to the inhibitor.

“sure, kid.”

the first night, peter sleeps on the floor beside your bed.

you wake at three in the morning and find him sitting against the mattress with his knees drawn up, staring toward the window. the city glows beyond the glass, quieter from this height but never silent enough for him.

you reach over the edge of the bed.

“there’s room up here,” you murmur.

peter turns his head.

“i’m fine,” he says.

“you’ve been awake for two hours.”

his eyebrows lift.

“how do you know?”

“you tap your fingers when you’re trying not to move.”

peter looks down. his hand rests against his knee, index finger striking the fabric in an uneven rhythm.

“right,” he murmurs.

you lift the blanket.

“come here.”

he hesitates. not because he does not want to, but because he does. too much.

you recognize the fear now—the certainty that comfort is something borrowed, that every good thing has an ending already waiting inside it.

“i’m not going anywhere,” you say.

peter looks toward the floor.

“you don’t know that.”

“neither do you.”

“that’s not comforting.”

“it isn’t supposed to be.”

you extend your hand.

“we never knew what happened next,” you continue. “not before the spell. not now.”

peter studies your fingers.

“but i know you’re here tonight,” you say. “and i know you.”

his hand closes around yours. you pull gently.

peter climbs onto the bed and lies beside you. the mattress shifts beneath his weight. for a moment, he remains on his back, staring toward the ceiling while rain begins tapping softly against the window.

you move closer.

peter lifts one arm before you reach him.

habit.

you settle against his chest, resting your cheek over his heart. his arm closes around your waist, and his other hand finds yours beneath the blanket.

neither of you speaks for a while.

the room continues living around you. rain whispers against the glass. the air conditioner hums softly. somewhere down the hallway, one of the floorboards creaks beneath your father’s footsteps.

peter’s body goes rigid. his heartbeat slows.

you lift your head.

black spreads across his eyes.

“peter?” you whisper.

his gaze fixes on the bedroom door.

“someone’s outside,” he says.

you listen.

your father mutters to himself in the hallway, probably returning from the workshop at an hour he will later deny.

“it’s my dad,” you tell him.

peter’s shoulders remain tense.

“i know.”

the black remains. you reach toward his chest and stop before touching him.

“can i?” you ask.

peter looks at your hand.

he nods.

your palm settles over his heart. it beats too slowly beneath you. controlled, watchful, waiting.

“you’re safe,” you whisper.

his eyes fix on your face.

“you’re safe too,” peter replies.

“i know.”

“he was near the door.”

“he lives here.”

“i know.” the words sound strained.

you move closer until your forehead rests near his chin.

“nothing is threatening us,” you say.

peter closes his eyes.

when he opens them again, brown has begun returning around his pupils.

“i hate this,” he admits.

you trace your thumb over his shirt.

“the eyes?” you ask.

“the part where i look at someone i love and think about what i’d do if anything touched them.”

you stay quiet. rainwater moves down the window beside the bed, catching distant lights in broken lines.

“what do you think about?” you ask eventually.

his jaw tightens.

“you don’t want to know.”

“you’re still you when you think it.”

“it doesn’t feel like me.”

“then let me remind you.”

peter turns toward you. the black fades completely. 

you touch the side of his face.

“you stop when i ask,” you say.

his eyes search yours.

“you came to bruce because you were afraid of hurting someone,” you continue. “you designed an inhibitor because you wanted to protect people without losing the part of yourself that saves them.”

your fingers move into his hair.

“you spent four years alone because you thought it protected us, even when it destroyed you,” you add.

his mouth trembles.

“that wasn’t the spider,” you tell him. “it was you making a terrible decision for a good reason.”

peter covers your hand with his.

“what if the inhibitor doesn’t work?” he asks.

“then bruce adjusts it.”

“what if it gets worse?”

“then we handle worse.”

“what if—”

you kiss him.

his question disappears against your mouth.

peter exhales shakily before pulling you closer. his arms settle around your waist, careful despite the strength inside them.

when you draw back, his forehead remains against yours.

“you’re not doing this alone,” you whisper.

his eyes close.

“i love you,” peter says.

the words sound different now. not like a confession, like something returning to its place.

you press your lips against his forehead.

“i remember,” you reply.

peter’s hold tightens.

outside, rain continues washing over the windows. 

inside, his breathing gradually matches yours.

—

the finished inhibitor rests on peter’s neck.

the casing is dark enough to disappear against the red fabric, interrupted only by a narrow line of white light that changes to amber whenever his hormone levels begin rising. bruce calibrates the sensory threshold. tony builds three redundant power systems. peter writes the adaptive software himself.

the device does not cure him. it does not erase the spider.

it quiets the electrical current inside walls until it becomes background noise again. it lowers the ache behind his eyes. it creates distance between a threat and the instinct to destroy it.

most importantly, it gives him time to choose.

the first morning he wears it outside, you stand with him on the roof of the compound.

the sky brightens slowly beyond new york, darkness softening into blue along the horizon. the city stretches beneath you, windows catching the first light one building at a time.

peter rolls his neck.

“still strong,” he observes.

you lean against the concrete ledge beside him.

“devastating news for the criminals of queens,” you reply.

peter smiles.

the wind catches his curls and pushes them across his forehead. he wears his suit beneath an old sweatshirt, mask tucked into one pocket. the inhibitor gives a faint pulse against his neck.

“how does it feel?” you ask.

peter looks toward the city. a siren moves somewhere downtown. traffic gathers along the bridges. birds lift from the roof of a neighboring building, turning together above the morning streets.

“quieter,” he says.

you study his face.

“too quiet?”

peter listens for another moment, then he shakes his head.

“no,” he replies. “just enough.”

you take his hand. the movement is easy now. familiar.

neither of you has to think about it.

peter looks down at your joined fingers.

“i thought i had to choose,” he says.

“between what?”

“being peter or being spider-man.”

you move closer until your shoulder rests against his arm.

“you’ve always been both.”

“bruce said something like that.”

“bruce is smarter than you.”

peter looks offended.

“academically debatable.”

“he has seven doctorates.”

“i didn’t say i’d win the debate.”

you laugh. peter watches you with the quiet, disbelieving softness he still wears whenever happiness catches him unprepared.

“what?” you ask.

he shakes his head.

“nothing.”

“that isn’t a nothing face.”

“you remember my faces?”

“all of them.”

the smile fades slowly from his mouth. you turn toward him. peter’s eyes shine in the early light.

“even before i remembered,” you say, reaching for his hand, “something in me knew you.”

his fingers close more firmly around yours.

“your body remembered,” he murmurs.

“my heart did.”

peter’s breath catches. you reach up and touch his cheek.

“even when i couldn’t see your face,” you continue, “i knew someone belonged in the empty space.”

he leans into your palm.

“me?” he asks.

you smile.

“you.”

peter kisses you beneath the rising sun.

the city continues waking around you. horns sound below. wind moves between the towers. the first warmth of morning settles across your face while the inhibitor pulses once against peter’s neck and goes still.

somewhere behind you, the rooftop door opens. tony steps outside carrying two mugs of coffee and a third filled with tea.

he stops when he sees you.

“seriously?” your father asks. “at sunrise?”

peter pulls away, though his hand remains around yours.

“good morning, mr. stark,” he says.

tony holds out one of the coffees.

“you take too much sugar, right?”

peter stares at the mug. your father’s expression tightens as though he does not understand where the knowledge comes from.

peter accepts it carefully.

“yeah,” he whispers. “i do.”

tony looks between the two of you.

a fragment of memory shifts behind his eyes.

a teenager in the workshop. a red suit folded across a table. laughter from beneath an overturned chair. your hand resting in peter’s while tony pretends not to notice.

the images disappear before they fully form.

this time, something remains.

tony pats peter once on the shoulder.

“don’t make me regret the guest room,” he says.

peter looks down into his coffee to hide his eyes fill with tears.

“i won’t,” he replies.

your father hands you the tea.

“he will,” tony says. “statistically.”

peter releases a wet laugh.

the rooftop door closes behind tony as he returns inside, leaving the three of you with the morning.

peter stands beside you, coffee warming one hand and your fingers threaded through the other.

the headaches have not disappeared entirely.

his senses remain sharper than any human’s. the rage still lives somewhere beneath his skin, no longer denied and no longer given permission to decide what he becomes. some memories return slowly. others may never return to anyone except you.

four years cannot be undone by a device on his neck or a kiss beneath the sunrise. 

but peter is no longer trying to erase the parts of himself that frighten him. you are no longer searching every room for a person without a face.

the city knows spider-man.

you know peter parker.

and when he steps onto the edge of the roof, he looks back. you remember every time he has done that.

every promise, every goodbye, every return.

“come home,” you tell him.

peter pulls the mask over his face. the white lenses turn toward you, bright against the red fabric.

“i will,” he promises.

then he jumps.

the web catches somewhere beyond the roof, carrying him out over the waking city. sunlight flashes across the inhibitor on his arm before he disappears between the buildings.

you watch until the line swings empty.

this time, the space he leaves behind does not feel like loss.

it feels like waiting.

and you know he comes back.

logan looks personally offended from where he’s standing beside grace, already halfway through stealing shredded cheese directly from the bag.

“g,” he says flatly. “you gave me food poisoning.”

“allegedly.”

“i threw up for twelve hours.”

“you must have a weak immune system then.”

grace immediately chokes on her drink while dean drops his head against allie’s shoulder, his body shaking with laughter.

“fuck you,” logan mutters.

garrett grins.

tucker exhales sharply through his nose before turning back towards the kitchen island, clearly deciding the conversation is no longer worth participating in.

the counters themselves are already a complete disaster. bags of shredded mozzarella litter one side beside bowls of sauce, chopped vegetables and enough pepperoni to feed significantly more people than are actually standing in the kitchen. flour coats the countertops in a thin white layer, most of which somehow seems to have ended up on tucker’s shirt.

next to the stove sits a bottle of wine dean brought back from new york earlier that week after visiting his parents.

unfortunately, logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him, googling how much it had cost.

which meant everyone else had found out too.

grace still refused to believe anybody would willingly spend that much money on wine.

“i’m sorry,” she says, staring at dean while he pours another glass. “there’s genuinely no way this tastes different enough to cost over three hundred dollars.”

dean glances up. “okay, first of all, i didn’t buy it.”

grace smiles. “that’s not the point.”

“it’s a little bit the point.”

“it tastes like regular wine.”

dean lets out a laugh, shaking his head as he lifts his own glass. “have you even tried it?”

grace looks offended by the question. “yes.”

“and?”

“it tastes like wine.”

logan immediately points across the kitchen. “that’s exactly what i said.”

dean stares at him for a moment, his expression completely blank. “that’s because neither of you know what you’re talking about.”

grace laughs. “and you do?”

“more than you two, apparently.”

“oh my god.”

“what?”

“nothing.”

dean narrows his eyes. “don’t.”

“i didn’t say anything.”

“you were going to.”

logan nods. “she definitely was.”

garrett snorts into his drink, clearly finding the conversation amusing while dean shakes his head, turning towards you instead.

“y/n.”

you glance up. he holds his wine glass out towards you. “try this.”

you eye him suspiciously. “why?”

“because apparently nobody else in this house has any taste.”

“hey,” allie protests.

“you’re staying out of this.”

you laugh, taking the glass from him. “why do i feel like i’m being set up?”

“just try it.”

you take a sip. dean watches you expectantly. you take another.

“…okay, wait.”

his eyebrows lift immediately, “right?”

you look down at the glass before looking back at him, fighting the smile threatening at the corner of your lips. “i don’t like how pleased you look right now.”

“that’s not an answer.”

“it is kind of good.”

the grin that spreads across his face is immediate, unbearably smug. “thank you.”

“i said kind of.”

“doesn’t matter.”

“it absolutely matters.”

dean takes the glass back from you. “you liked it.”

“i never said i didn’t.”

“exactly.”

you shake your head, laughing quietly. “you’re impossible.”

you reach for the bottle sitting beside dean, only for him to move it out of reach before you can grab it.

you stare at him. “what are you doing?”

“you made fun of my wine.”

“i literally said i liked it.”

“you said kind of.”

“dean.”

he lasts approximately two seconds before laughing, sliding it back towards you.

“thank you, di laurentis.”

“you’re welcome.”

you pour a little more into your glass before dean glances down at it.

“that’s enough.”

your head snaps towards him. “excuse me?”

“you heard me.”

“i’m twenty-one.”

“and?”

“and you’re not my dad.”

tucker looks up immediately from the pizza he’s working on. “debatable.”

dean closes his eyes. you bite back a laugh.

“don’t,” he warns.

“i didn’t say anything.”

“your face did.”

“what’s wrong with my face?”

“right now? a lot.”

you gasp, reaching for the nearest thing on the counter and throwing a piece of mozzarella at him.

it hits him directly in the chest.

dean looks down at it, then back at you. “really?”

you smile sweetly. “sorry.”

“no, you’re not.”

“not even a little bit.”

tucker points between the two of you with the wooden spoon in his hand. “this. this is exactly what i’m talking about.”

“nobody knows what you’re talking about, tuck” dean says.

“father dean.”

“oh my god.”

“the evidence is right there.”

dean looks towards allie like he’s expecting some form of support. she takes a sip of her wine, nodding her head. “he has a point.”

“baby.”

“sorry.”

she doesn’t look sorry at all.

sabrina laughs from beside tucker. “the group chat has been called ‘dean’s children’ for over a year now. i don’t know why you’re still fighting it.”

“because i told you idiots to change it.”

“garrett gave you his phone to change it,” logan reminds him.

“i remember.”

“and then you didn’t.”

dean looks increasingly irritated. “because i don’t care.”

“you care so much,” you say, your tone teasing.

his eyes immediately find yours. “y/n.”

you grin. “yes.”

dean points at you. “you’re my least favourite.”

“you said i was your favourite last week.”

“things change.”

“you bought me coffee this morning.”

“and i regret it.”

you smile into your glass. dean rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth lifts anyway.

the conversation dissolves again after that, tucker finally managing to force everyone’s attention back towards the actual reason you’re all standing in the kitchen.

or trying to.

you’re tucked against garrett’s side wearing one of his old briar hoodies over tiny blush-pink pajama shorts, the sleeves long enough to cover most of your hands. his arm remains looped around your waist absentmindedly, fingers resting against your hip beneath the hem of the hoodie.

“he’s really enjoying this isn't he” you mumble quietly, glancing towards tucker, noting the small smile on his features as he moves around the kitchen with ease.

garrett hums softly above you. “he’s been planning this for like four weeks.”

“i heard that,” tucker calls immediately.

“good,” garrett replies.

logan wanders towards the fridge a second later before suddenly stopping mid-step.

“…why is there a framed photo of dean in the fridge?”

the entire kitchen goes silent.

you blink. grace blinks. even tucker freezes halfway through spreading sauce across his pizza.

“there’s a what?” sabrina asks.

logan reaches inside before slowly pulling out a silver picture frame.

sure enough, it’s a photo of dean, not even a good one.

he’s squinting directly into the sun wearing sunglasses and what appears to be three separate chains around his neck.

garrett immediately folds in half laughing beside you, his fingers tightening around your waist as he does.

“no.”

“oh my god,” grace wheezes.

dean looks personally offended. “first of all, that’s one of my best photos.”

allie looks at the picture. “it’s absolutely not.”

“second,” dean continues, looking back at logan. “why was it in the fridge?”

every head slowly turns towards tucker, who immediately points at logan.

“don’t look at me,” logan says. “i didn’t put it there.”

“bullshit.”

“i swear.”

grace reaches over, taking the frame from him, “wait.” she squints at the back before suddenly laughing harder.

“no.”

dean’s expression falls. “what?”

grace turns it around. written across the back in black marker are the words

WORLD’S BEST HOCKEY HOUSE FATHER

the kitchen erupts.

garrett nearly slides off the stool beside you. sabrina has buried her face in her hands and allie is laughing so hard she has to put her glass down.

you’re not doing much better.

“you guys are unbelievable,” dean says, although the small grin tugging at his lips makes it difficult to take his words seriously.

“that’s actually hilarious,” allie manages.

dean points accusingly around the room. “which one of you idiots did this?”

nobody answers.

“tuck?”

“no.”

“garrett?”

“nope.”

“logan?”

a pause.

“maybe.”

“logan.”

“i said maybe.”

the laughter starts all over again.

for the next several minutes, the framed photo remains propped beside the wine bottles while everyone continues taking turns moving it somewhere increasingly ridiculous.

at one point, you look over to find someone has placed a slice of pepperoni directly on dean’s forehead in the picture.

you immediately start laughing again.

dean follows your gaze. “oh, come on.”

“it suits you.”

“y/n.”

“what?”

“take it off.”

“why me?”

“because you’re standing right there.”

you make absolutely no effort to move. “looks good to me.”

he stares at you for a long moment, sighing. “after everything i’ve done for you.”

you laugh. “you’re so dramatic.”

“i hope you remember this next time you need something.”

“i will.”

“good.”

“i’ll ask allie.”

allie immediately raises her glass towards you. “i’ve got you.”

dean looks between the two of you in disbelief. “unbelievable.”

eventually, tucker manages to get everyone to focus long enough to actually make the pizzas.

sort of.

there are supposed to be four.

one somehow ends up with almost an entire bag of mozzarella on it because logan insists there is no such thing as too much cheese.

“that’s too much.”

logan looks down at the pizza. “it’s fine.”

“you can’t even see the sauce.”

“exactly.”

tucker stares at him. logan adds another handful.

at the opposite end of the island, sabrina is attempting to make her and tucker’s pizza look vaguely presentable. tucker reaches over, moving one piece of pepperoni. sabrina notices, immediately looking at him.

“stop.”

“what?”

“stop touching it.”

“i’m helping.”

“you’re moving everything.”

“because you’ve put all the pepperoni on one side.”

sabrina glances down at the pizza. “and?”

“and then the other side doesn’t have any.”

“i know.”

tucker pauses. “why?”

“because i don’t want pepperoni on my half.”

he looks at her for a second before quietly moving the piece back. you smile at the interaction before reaching into the open bag of mozzarella sitting beside you.

“y/n.”

your hand stops halfway to your mouth. tucker is staring at you from across the island.

you slowly eat the cheese anyway, feigning innocence, “hm?”

“seriously?”

“i was hungry.”

“we are literally making pizza.”

“which isn’t ready yet.”

garrett reaches past you, stealing a piece too. tucker looks at him, then at you, then back at garrett.

“both of you are just as bad as each other.”

garrett shrugs, eating the cheese. “you invited us.”

“still.”

somehow, everyone eventually gets back to actually making their pizzas, passing toppings across the island and arguing over who’s stolen what.

tucker keeps a particularly close eye on you and garrett.

the first two pizzas finally make it into the oven, mostly because tucker physically takes them away before anyone can add anything else.

it was rare all of you were together like this anymore.

between hockey schedules, internships, exams, away games, practices, and everyone slowly figuring out their own lives outside of briar, nights where everybody ended up in the same room at the same time didn’t happen nearly as often as they used to.

which was probably why nobody seemed particularly eager for the night to end.

the kitchen remains comfortably loud around you, conversations overlapping from every direction as bottles of wine slowly empty and pizza ingredients disappear at an alarming rate.

someone is arguing with tucker about the correct amount of cheese to put on a pizza. logan is attempting to steal pepperoni whenever tucker turns his back. grace is leaning against the opposite side of the island with allie, both of them half-listening to sabrina as she tries to work out where tucker has put the extra sauce.

somewhere along the way, you end up sitting on the countertop.

you’re not entirely sure when it happens.

one minute you’re standing beside garrett, the next you’re perched between a bowl of leftover mushrooms and someone’s abandoned phone while he stands in front of you.

he’s still talking to logan.

something about practice tomorrow morning.

you’re barely listening. your fingers have found the drawstring of his hoodie, winding it absently around your index finger before letting it unravel again.

garrett doesn’t seem to notice.

or maybe he does, because every time you let go, he shifts slightly closer and the string ends up back within reach.

you wind it around your finger again.

garrett nods at something he says before reaching blindly beside you, picking up your wine glass.

you watch him take a sip. “garrett! that’s mine.”

he glances at the glass, “i know.”

“you don’t even like wine.”

he swallows, immediately making a face.

you laugh. “why are you drinking it?”

“wanted a sip.”

“there’s water in the fridge.”

“this was closer.”

you reach for the glass, but he moves it slightly out of reach.

“seriously?”

garrett’s mouth twitches. “what, we can’t share now?”

“you have your own drink.”

“we share everything else.”

there’s just enough emphasis on everything to make you pause.

your eyes narrow. “don’t.”

“what?”

he looks entirely too innocent.

“you know what.”

“i didn’t say anything.”

“you didn’t have to.”

garrett grins, finally handing the glass back to you. “dirty mind, baby.”

your mouth falls open. “my dirty mind?”

he’s already turning back towards logan. “didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

you stare at the side of his face for a second before kicking lightly at his thigh. garrett only laughs, catching your ankle before you can do it again.

he turns back towards logan like the conversation never stopped. you shake your head, smiling to yourself as you take another sip.

it feels easy, familiar.

the kind of night that seems to slip by far too quickly without anybody noticing. eventually you slide back down from the counter when sabrina asks you something from across the island.

you turn towards her, laughing as you shift your weight against the bench.

your elbow catches the base of your wine glass. not hard, just enough.

the stem wobbles once, then twice. you don’t even notice, garrett does. his hand moves almost immediately, fingers closing around the stem before the glass can tip any further.

he steadies it, moves it further onto the counter, then goes straight back to whatever dean was saying to him.

you look down at the glass, then at him. “did you just save my wine?”

garrett glances at you. “yeah.”

“oh. i thought i had it.”

his brows lift slightly. “did you?”

“yes.”

“baby, you didn’t even notice.”

“i noticed.”

“after i caught it.”

you narrow your eyes at him. “still counts.”

a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “sure.”

“don’t look at me like that.”

“like what?”

“like you know i’m wrong.”

his smile grows. “you said it, not me.”

“you’re annoying.”

“and your wine’s still in the glass.”

you glance down at it. unfortunately, he has a point. “thank you,” you mumble.

garrett leans down, pressing a quick kiss to your temple. “you’re welcome, baby.”

“okay,” tucker interrupts from across the kitchen. “can garrett actually do something?”

garrett doesn’t move. “i’m busy.”

“doing what?”

garrett gestures vaguely towards you. “this.”

you snort, pushing gently at his chest.

tucker stares at him. “you see her every day.”

“and?”

“grate the cheese.”

he shoves the cheese grater across the island. garrett catches it with one hand.

“bossy.”

“someone has to be.”

garrett finally moves towards the other side of the island, his fingers finding yours as he goes and pulling you along with him.

you follow without thinking twice.

he picks up the block of mozzarella and starts grating it. you watch for approximately ten seconds before interrupting, "you’re holding it wrong.”

garrett looks at you. “i’m not.”

“you are.”

“i think i know how to grate cheese.”

“clearly not.”

“y/n.”

“garrett.”

he looks back down, continuing. you watch the grater slip slightly against the block of cheese.

garrett pauses. you raise your eyebrows.

"nothing happened.”

a laugh escapes you. “you almost grated your hand!”

“no, i didn’t.”

“you absolutely did.”

“i had it handled.”

“sure.”

“i did.”

logan glances over from beside grace. “if you cut your hand open making pizza, jensen is going to fucking kill you.”

“thank you, logan” garrett says dryly.

“just looking out for you.”

“appreciate it.”

you’re still smiling when you reach over. “move your hand.”

“why?”

“because you’re doing it wrong.”

“i’m not.”

“garrett.”

he finally lets you take his hand. you shift his fingers slightly around the block of mozzarella before changing the angle of the grater.

“like this.”

“i was doing that.”

you look up at him, smiling softly. “no, you weren’t.”

“basically.”

“not even close.”

garrett doesn’t answer.

it takes you a second to realise why.

he isn’t looking at the cheese anymore, he’s looking at you.

your fingers are still resting over his, your body tucked close beside him because there isn’t enough room around the island, and something about his expression makes your stomach flip.

soft, completely distracted.

you glance down at your hands before looking back at him. “what?”

“nothing.”

“why are you looking at me like that?”

his mouth pulls into a small smile. “like what?”

“you know what.”

“i really don’t.”

“garrett.”

his smile grows slightly. you narrow your eyes.

“i’m trying to stop you from losing a finger.”

“i know.”

“so pay attention.”

“i am.”

you look pointedly towards the untouched block of cheese. “to the cheese, graham.”

garrett finally looks down. “right.”

you shake your head, trying to hide your smile as you let go of his hand. from somewhere behind you, dean makes a noise.

it's not loud, just enough that you hear it.

you turn around. he’s standing beside allie with his arms crossed, watching the two of you.

“what?”

dean shakes his head. “nothing.”

you narrow your eyes. “why are you looking at me like that?”

“i’m not.”

“you are.”

“leave me alone, y/n.”

“you’re weird.”

“and you’re distracting him.”

garrett looks over immediately. “she’s helping.”

“sure.”

you point towards dean. “see? that was a tone.”

“there was no tone.”

“there was absolutely a tone.”

allie pats dean lightly on the chest.

“leave the lovebirds alone.”

dean closes his eyes, shaking his head before stifling a small laugh.

-

by the time the last pizza comes out of the oven, nobody seems particularly interested in staying in the kitchen anymore.

logan is the first to disappear into the living room with a plate piled considerably higher than everyone else’s.

“did you take five pieces?” tucker calls after him.

“no.”

everyone looks towards the living room.

there’s a pause.

“six.”

tucker mutters something under his breath.

sabrina laughs, taking his hand and pulling him away from the remaining pizza before he can go after him.

eventually, everyone follows.

plates are balanced on knees, wine glasses transferred carefully to the coffee table, the framed photo of dean somehow making the journey into the living room despite his repeated attempts to leave it behind.

nobody admits to bringing it, yet it somehow ends up propped beside the television.

“seriously?” dean asks.

logan looks over from the couch. “what?”

“get rid of it.”

“i didn’t put it there.”

“you did.”

“prove it.”

dean stares at him. logan takes another bite of pizza.

you curl into the corner of the couch beside garrett, your legs stretched across his lap while he leans back into the cushions.

his hand settles around your ankle almost immediately. his thumb moves absently against the bare skin above your sock while everyone argues about what to put on.

“not hockey,” grace says immediately.

logan looks offended. “why not?”

“because i’m not spending friday night watching a game from 2017.”

“it was a good game.”

“you already know who wins.”

“that doesn’t make it less good.”

“yes, it does.”

dean reaches for the remote. tucker grabs it first.

“absolutely not.”

“give me that.”

“no.”

“tuck.”

“you picked last time.”

“because you have terrible taste.”

“says the man who owns three-hundred-dollar wine.”

grace nods from the floor, laughing.

“why am i getting attacked again?”

you laugh quietly, sinking further against garrett. his hand moves from your ankle to your calf when you shift, settling there without thought.

across the room, allie is tucked into dean’s side, her feet beneath his thigh while he continues trying to steal the remote from tucker. sabrina has claimed the other end of the couch. grace is sitting on the floor between logan’s legs, her back resting against the couch while he absentmindedly plays with the ends of her hair, only stopping every few seconds to reach for another slice of pizza.

the framed photo of dean remains beside the television.

nobody says anything about how difficult it had been to get everyone here tonight.

nobody mentions the schedules that had to line up, or the assignments finished early, or the fact that nights like this used to happen without anyone having to plan them at all.

maybe that was part of getting older. things that once happened automatically started requiring effort.

but for now, everyone was here.

dean arguing with tucker over the remote. logan reaching towards grace’s plate despite still having food on his own. allie laughing at something sabrina said.

garrett’s hand warm against your leg.

you smile. it’s enough, more than enough, really.

The first clue should have been the water damage on the ceiling in the lobby. The second was likely when the agent texted that she was running late to the showing. A nonnegotiable of “easily accessible via stairs” was mentioned once or twice early on but clearly had been ignored based on the luxury complex’s penthouse, which would have counted as strike number three if you and Garrett weren’t so damn excited to start your own life in Boston together.

Garrett looks down at his phone for guidance. “We can take…” His brows furrow. “...thirty-three flights of stairs.”

You look down at his calves, which you know are still fatigued from the Bruins’ conditioning sessions based on the miniscule limp he’s been sporting for the past few days. You also know he won’t ever admit it.

Garrett catches where you’re staring and scowls. “I feel like you’re going to say something deeply offensive about my manhood.”

“Let’s just take the elevator,” you offer coolly.

“I’m not asking my claustrophobic fiancé to get into a metal deathtrap for a lease we’re not going to sign,” he deadpans.

You roll your eyes, but your hand finds his forearm where he’s warm and safe; nothing bad ever happens to you there. “You take elevators every day.”

He softens underneath your touch. “Have you ever asked me to go home for Thanksgiving?”

“No.”

“Same thing.”

A resident takes that moment to brush past you two in the hallway, headed towards the elevator that undoubtedly only accepts one of those keycards that cost $150 to replace.

You purse your lips and try to sound confident. “What if the rooftop is really pretty? It’s better than waiting in the car at the next stop. Two elevator rides won’t kill me.”

Garrett’s eyes have slanted over to the rapidly retreating back. You start steering his arm in that direction.

“Come on,” you coax gently. “I know you want to see it.”

A small smile plays at his lips, and you know you’ve won him over like you always do. “Two rides,” he repeats. “Rooftop. We make out. We leave this place forever.”

“Who said anything about making out?”

“Are you in or not?”

You’re laughing by the time Garrett’s long strides catch the sliding doors. He slots his hand into the opening and greets the disgruntled occupant who smells stronger than cigarettes and fixes his sunken eyes onto you immediately.

“Rooftop, please,” you beam, although the first bead of sweat has started forming at your temple.

The man bares his yellowing teeth at you. Without looking away, he pushes the floor button with one long fingernail.

“Jesus,” Garrett huffs underneath his breath. He quietly fixes himself to your back and locks a protective arm around your waist. He stays that way - chin above your head, hand flexed at your hip, glare trained on the other man - until the doors open a few stops above the ground floor.

When it’s just you two again, you murmur, “See, this isn’t so bad,” while Garrett starts grumbling about firing the agent as soon as you're back in his Jeep.

The fourth red flag should have been the grating sound the doors made when they closed after an indefinite pause. The fifth would have been the way the lights flickered at the tenth and eleventh floor, but you’re too busy nervously picking underneath your fingernails while Garrett watches for any signs of distress on your face.

“You’re doing so good,” he praises gently, now facing you with his hands on either side of the railing behind you. The statement would flip your tummy for a very different reason if nausea wasn’t commandeering most of the space already.

His finger just grazes the band of your engagement ring when the elevator gives its first jerk. Before he even stills, the box rattles dramatically, quiets down in that deafening sort of way that makes you hyperaware of life itself, jerks once more, and then freezes completely, leaving you two suspended twenty plus floors midair while encased in metal.

Everything goes dark.

For a moment, all you hear is Garret’s sharp intake of breath - or maybe it’s yours. You can only feel the wetness gathering at the back of your neck. You think you might open your mouth to say something real and concealed by dark humor, but your tongue dries up. You can barely recognize the shapes in front of you when Garrett pulls back to search for the emergency button in the pitch black.

When nothing happens on the first press, he considers pushing it down six more times in frantic succession; instead, his ears perk up at your little whimper, and suddenly he’s the professional athlete who grounds himself through his body and box breathes through his nose.

“Hey.” Strong hands cup your face, so infinitely gentle where they hold you. “Hey, baby. You with me?”

Your chest starts to puff restlessly. You can barely see your own fingers where they grip Garret’s shoulders, let alone his longer ones when they come up to your hair and start pushing clammy tendrils back from your eyes.

“Hey,” he tries again, sounding both patient and panicked as he softens his tone. “Talk to me. I’m right here.”

“Bad,” you gasp out. “This is bad.”

Garrett is shaking his head before you’ve finished that sentence. “This happens,” he lies easily, finger fishing for the button once more when he blocks your view from seeing his silhouette move.

Your voice sounds far away. “Can I… can I sit down?”

Garrett’s heart drops to his stomach. “Yeah, baby, ‘course you can. C’mere.”

Carefully and without moving the elevator more, Garrett curls his hands over your shoulders and slowly eases you down. The floor is cool beneath you, a stark contrast to the temperature of your skin. You unsteadily curl your knees to your chest and plop your face into them. Garrett continues standing above you, unsure if he should punch open the electrical box or comfort you, and for a small, silly second, he reverts back to his younger self, helpless and frozen.

Fix it.

Fix it.

Fix it.

Before the fear gets the chance to embed itself in him too, he shakes his head and blinks it all away. He crouches down in front of you, so painstakingly aware of scaring you and the elevator into lurching.

“You’re alright,” he murmurs, mouth somewhere close to where the first bead of sweat was before it fell. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Your body tightens. Garrett makes a soft sound, finding your arms where they wrap too tightly around your legs. He rubs his hands along them, trying to loosen you. You don’t budge.

He switches tactics. “Through your nose and out your mouth, baby, come on. That’s it. Deep breaths.”

They wash over your legs in uneven spurts. Garrett grinds his molars but doesn’t squeeze you where he holds you. He clicks the button one more time, grimaces when the elevator rattles again, and uses the distraction to bring himself fully down to your level before he pulls you into his lap.

He tucks his legs on either side of you, cocooning you against his chest. His fingers return to your shoulders, kneading whatever tension lies there. You press your mouth into his throat, inhaling his woodsy scent that always seems to mix in with the fresh laundry of his soft shirt and remnants of this morning’s black coffee and protein shake.

Garrett hopes his breathing pattern convinces yours to do the same. He doesn’t mention the procedure again, now opting for the type of quiet comfort that comes only from being around the person who goes to sleep next to you and wakes up happily with your hair in their mouth.

When the air becomes stale and scary again, he starts to hum.

It’s a melody that’s muted but familiar, something his mom used to sing all the time. It used to annoy him when she didn’t realize she was singing it everywhere; he used to roll his eyes. Looking back on it now, with you tucked closely underneath his chin and your fingers clutching his shirt, it might be his favorite song ever.

Your next breath unfurls quietly into his throat. He breaks from the song momentarily for an encouraging noise, tightening his hand at the back of your neck.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Good job, baby.”

When he hums the next verse, each vibration settles against your ear and moves deep into your chest. You try to press even closer to him and frown when you cannot in your current position. He notices, because he always notices, and curls one arm beneath your legs before you’re sideways in his lap, draped over his muscular thighs.

The power flickers above you; neither of you notice.

The song dies down quietly. Garrett repositions you against his shoulder and kisses your forehead, letting his mouth linger there.

“Guess what I learned recently?” he murmurs against the top of your head.

You barely register his new strategy to relax you - you just do so anyway against him like it’s basic nature. You wet your lips and try, “What?”

Garrett smiles into your hair at the first sign of your voice. “Hey, baby,” he says gently. “Good to have you back. I’m going to tell you facts until you tell me to shut up.”

You almost laugh, taken aback. “What?” you ask again, a little stronger this time.

“Yup. Octopuses have three hearts.”

You sit up against his shoulder, sniffling. “Okay…”

“Cows have best friends.”

Your next small laugh is full of water. “Have you been watching National Geographic again?”

He ignores that but rewards you with another kiss to your forehead. “Goats have really weird pupils.”

“That’s nice, honey.”

“Penguins propose with rocks.”

You press your nose into his neck. “You proposed with a rock.”

Garrett lightly taps your knee and then skims his fingers up and down the full length of your leg in a slow, tantalizing rhythm that calms you completely. “Exactly.”

“But you’re a Bruin.”

Garrett mock gasps. “Does Sidney know that?”

You groan into his skin. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You are fully folded up into me right now,” he teases quietly, but he wouldn’t have you any other way.

You tighten for a moment before you relax once more. You turn to weave both of your arms around his neck, pulling him fully into you because the contact has become not enough again.

“You’re okay,” he repeats softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Both of you settle into silence at that, knowing he means it. He nuzzles his nose into your hair, moving his head back and forth with it every time he breathes. Your pattern matches his this time.

A few minutes later, the first crackle of the speaker in the elevator comes. “Is anyone in there?”

Garrett tightens his hold on you and tucks your face back into his neck. “Yes!” he calls back impatiently. “I think one of your residents hexed us.”

You giggle while the unknown presence pauses. “Sorry, repeat that?” it muffles through the box.

Garrett mumbles a “Nevermind,” and pats your hair down. “Any day now would be nice.”

You’re sweet even in stressful situations, so he presses his lips together when you shoot him a pointed look.

“So,” you whisper a few minutes later when the lights have come on and the firefighters are somewhere in the building. “Not this one, huh?”

Chapter Six Left Her All Alone.

By ten-thirty the next morning, she had somehow ended up back at the hockey house.

Somehow, in this case, involved Garrett appearing outside her dorm with coffee, asking where she planned to rehearse, listening while she explained that her roommate had invited two people over to work on a group presentation and all three of them considered whispering an unnecessary limitation on collaborative learning, then saying, “House’ll be empty in a couple hours,” as if this were neutral information rather than an invitation arranged carefully enough that she could pretend it wasn’t one.

She had accepted before caution could call a meeting. Now she sat in the corner of the living-room couch with her audition packet balanced across one thigh, a pencil tucked behind her ear and one socked foot folded beneath her. The house moved loudly around her.

Game-day loud. Cupboards opened and shut in the kitchen. Somebody had left the television running on a muted sports channel, highlights flickering across the screen while no one watched. 

Gear bags crowded the front hall in a dark, expensive heap, sticks leaned against the wall beside them, and every few minutes one of the boys crossed through the living room carrying something he had apparently forgotten to pack the first four times.

St. Anthony’s sat over the house like incoming weather. Nobody said they were nervous. Hockey players had developed several hundred alternate ways to express anxiety without allowing the word itself into the building. 

Logan had retaped the handle of one stick twice and was now peeling the tape off again because the overlap near the knob was, according to him, fucked.

Tucker had checked the contents of his gear bag so many times she was beginning to wonder whether someone had been quietly stealing individual pieces of equipment between inspections. 

Dean had eaten half a banana, abandoned it on the kitchen counter, returned five minutes later to accuse everybody of moving it, then discovered it exactly where he had left it.

Garrett was the quietest, which made him the easiest to read. He moved through the room with too much purpose. Up the stairs, down again, into the kitchen, back toward the front hall, phone appearing in his hand every few minutes before disappearing into his pocket without him doing anything visible with it. 

His shoulders remained set beneath a dark Briar sweatshirt, curls repeatedly pushed away from his forehead until they fell forward again.

Every time a car slowed outside, his head turned toward the window.

Phil might come tonight. There had been no message confirming it. No call. Only the Rangers package appearing at the auction beneath Phil’s name, Dean announcing him as part of the family, and the ugly possibility that the donation hadn’t been a distant gesture. 

That Phil had arranged it because he planned to walk into Briar’s rink tonight and sit beneath the lights as though Thanksgiving had never happened.

Garrett hadn’t said much about it after Malone’s. Neither had Logan. The tension between them hadn’t broken anything obvious. Logan was still here. Garrett still asked whether he had packed the backup tape. 

Logan still tossed Garrett a protein bar when he noticed the coffee in his hand had become breakfast. They spoke when the house required it and avoided every sentence that might lead back to the auction table.

It wasn’t silence. It was the careful, unpleasant politeness of two people carrying a glass between them and refusing to admit it was already cracked.

She looked down at the audition packet and tried to return to Mara’s kitchen. The page had acquired so many pencil marks it looked concerning. Arrows, circles, tiny notes in the margins, one entire sentence crossed out and rewritten twice even though she was not responsible for the sentence and the playwright would probably object to being edited by an undergraduate operating on fear and half-caf coffee.

Tomorrow. The word refused to become less horrifying no matter how often she placed it inside practical sentences.

The audition is tomorrow. Tomorrow at eleven. Tomorrow in Studio A. Tomorrow she would walk into a room carrying twelve minutes of work and ask several strangers to imagine putting money, time, reputation, and an entire production around her body.

No problem. 

She pressed the pencil tip lightly beneath Mara’s second line and read it under her breath. “I’m not avoiding you. I am giving you the dignity of privacy while you die.”

The comedy was supposed to sit in the certainty. Mara genuinely believed she was being generous to the plant. That was what Garrett had understood over dinner before she did: she wasn’t pretending things were light because she didn’t know they were bad. She was making them light because admitting the truth would change what she had to do next.

Her eyes moved over the line again.

From the kitchen, Tucker said, “Yo, G. Your girl coming tonight?”

The pencil stopped beneath her finger. There was a pause. Small, but present enough that her attention lifted from the page even while the rest of her body remained carefully arranged around pretending not to listen.

Garrett’s voice came from near the front hall. “Dude. Come on.”

Tucker sighed with the exhausted patience of someone who had tried language, subtlety and now brute force. “Whatever. Is she coming?”

Another pause. “Yeah,” Garrett said. His voice had lowered slightly, the word almost swallowed beneath the sound of a zipper closing. “With Allie.”

Warmth moved low and inconvenient through her stomach. Your girl. Garrett hadn’t corrected Tucker. Not exactly. 

He had objected to the question’s phrasing, maybe, or to being asked about her while she sat twenty feet away with functioning ears. But when Tucker stripped the sentence down to logistics, Garrett had answered.

She lowered her gaze before anyone entered the living room and discovered her smiling and eavesdropping.

The pros-and-cons list had been a mistake. At one fourteen that morning, unable to sleep and too tired to sustain any form of dignified emotional processing, she had sat cross-legged in bed with her desk lamp switched on.

PROS, she had written on one side. CONS on the other.

It was the sort of exercise suggested by women online who owned matching linen sets and described emotional decisions as opportunities for alignment. 

She had expected it to provide clarity. Instead, she had produced a document that would have got her removed from any jury assessing her own competence.

She loved him. There was no meaningful debate left there. No reasonable person could review the evidence and return another verdict. She had never stopped. She had only learned how to carry it without letting the weight show through every movement.

She also felt better when he was near. Her body had proved that repeatedly, softening toward him before she had authorised it, sleeping deeper against his chest, handing him the tender parts of herself in small unconscious motions and then acting surprised when he held them carefully.

She couldn’t go back to who she had been with him. She knew that too. But Garrett wasn’t asking her to. Not really.

He had shown up. He had listened. He had let her be angry without using his own hurt as a weapon. He had learned the difference between taking care of her and taking over, even if the lesson required four hockey players, one handwritten schedule and a freshman carrying emergency oatmeal through an ice rink.

He was moving toward her. At some point, hiding behind the fact that he had hurt her would become its own kind of refusal. He could change everything she had asked him to change and still remain standing outside if she never unlocked the door.

The thought had sat with her until nearly three in the morning.

Now Garrett came into the living room carrying a water bottle and the black team jacket he had been searching for twenty minutes earlier. He stopped beside the couch and looked down at the pages spread across her lap.

“Hey.”

She glanced up. “Hey.”

His eyes travelled briefly over the packet, the pencil behind her ear, the line she had underlined hard enough to dent the paper beneath it. “You want me to run lines with you?”

She blinked. Behind him, the house continued preparing for war. Tucker was telling Dean he could not bring three separate pairs of headphones to the rink. Logan walked past the doorway with a stick under one arm and did not look toward either of them.

“Oh, no.” She straightened the packet on her thigh. “You’re busy. It’s okay.”

Garrett frowned. “No.”

Her brows lifted.

“No, your stuff’s important too.” He shifted the jacket beneath his arm, gaze remaining on her face. “Did you need me to help?”

The question landed with more weight than it should have, not because Garrett had never helped before. He had spent an hour lying beside her correcting repeated words in an assignment while pretending a sixty-six qualified him for academic leadership.

But the whole house was wound tight around his game. Conference ranking, captaincy, St. Anthony’s, Phil, Logan. Every part of Garrett’s life had arranged itself toward the rink tonight, and he was standing in front of her asking whether Mara’s relationship with a dying plant required his immediate involvement.

She smiled, unable to keep the softness entirely out of it. “It’s really okay, Garrett. I’ll rehearse once you guys leave.”

His frown remained. “You sure?”

“I am.”

He looked at the packet again, visibly unconvinced that a woman with fourteen margin notes beside one line had reached a stable decision. Still, he nodded. “Okay.”

Garrett dropped his jacket over the arm of the couch and sat beside her. The cushions dipped beneath his weight, drawing her slightly toward him before she corrected herself. 

He rested both forearms over his thighs, water bottle loose between his hands, one knee bouncing faintly beneath the dark fabric of his sweats.

She watched it for a second. Then she moved the audition packet onto the coffee table and reached for his hand.

Garrett went still. His hand had been resting between them, broad and familiar, knuckles marked faintly from practice. She simply turned it over and took it, threading her fingers through his before settling both of their hands in her lap.

His gaze dropped immediately. She began playing with his fingers. Pressing his palm flat beneath hers. Tracing the rough callus beneath his middle finger. Turning one of his knuckles lightly between her thumb and index finger as though his hand had become an object requiring close study rather than the easiest way she knew to say I’m here without frightening herself out of the sentence.

Garrett didn’t speak, but his knee stopped bouncing.

“You nervous about your dad?” she asked.

His thumb moved against the side of her hand. “Yeah.”

She looked down at their fingers and squeezed his twice. Garrett’s head turned toward her.

“You need me, come find me, yeah?” she murmured. “I’ll be with Allie.”

He studied her face with an intensity that made the room feel fractionally quieter despite Dean opening a cupboard hard enough to threaten the hinges in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Okay.”

She smiled. Small, because anything larger might turn the moment into something they had to explain. “Okay.”

Garrett kept looking. At first she let him. His gaze moved slowly over her face, searching hard enough that she became conscious of every part of it. The faint concealer over the tired shadows beneath her eyes. The tiny line her teeth had left in her bottom lip while she read. The loose strand of hair caught near the collar of her sweater.

“What?” she asked.

Garrett’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked down at their hands, then back at her. “I’m just…”

She waited.

“I’m trying to– fuck.” He rubbed his free hand once over the back of his neck. “Figure shit out.”

Her brows pulled together slightly. “Okay?”

He breathed out through his nose. Something restless moved across his face, frustration without a clear target. “I’m doing things better this time around, right?”

The question caught her off guard. Her fingers stopped against his.

Garrett’s eyes searched hers. “I’m… I’m fighting for you. I’m doing what you wanted?”

“Garrett–”

“Come on, Captain.” Dean appeared in the doorway carrying his gear bag over one shoulder and a pair of sunglasses hooked through the neck of his sweatshirt despite the fact that the sky outside had been grey since sunrise. “We gotta go.”

Garrett looked toward him. For half a second, he didn’t move.

Dean’s attention dropped to their joined hands. Something passed over his face, quick and knowing, but for once he kept it behind his teeth. “Coach said eleven-thirty.”

“Yeah.” Garrett released a slow breath. “Okay.”

He stood, their fingers separating reluctantly between them. She stood too, more because remaining seated while he left suddenly felt wrong than because there was any practical reason to follow him three steps toward the front hall.

Garrett picked up his jacket. The whole house had begun converging around the door now. Tucker checking for keys. Dean trying to steal one of Logan’s protein bars and being slapped away without real force. Logan lifting his gear bag from the floor while Garrett moved around him carefully enough that both of them noticed.

Garrett turned back toward her. His expression had shifted again, the unfinished question still sitting behind it.

He bent and pressed his mouth to her forehead. The kiss was warm, deliberate and familiar enough to make her eyes close briefly beneath it. His hand touched her waist for only a second, fingertips resting lightly against the soft knit of her sweater before falling.

“See you later?” he asked.

She looked up. “Yeah. We can…” Her fingers caught briefly around the sleeve of his jacket. “Finish the conversation.”

Garrett searched her face one more time. “Yeah.”

She smiled. “Good luck.”

His mouth curved, faint and distracted. “Yeah. Thanks, baby.”

Then Tucker called from the open front door, “Graham, I’m leaving without you,” in the tone of someone who absolutely was not, and Garrett stepped backward.

The house emptied in stages. Dean first, still talking. Tucker behind him with keys in hand. Logan after a brief pause to return to the kitchen and retrieve his water bottle, passing Garrett in the front hall with a quiet, “You got the extra tape?”

Garrett nodded. “Side pocket.”

“Alright.”

Garrett gave her one final look from the doorway, then pulled it shut behind him. The sound of the boys carried faintly across the porch, Dean arguing about seating arrangements, a car unlocking, gear bags being loaded into the back. An engine started. Another followed.

Then they were gone. The silence that settled over the hockey house felt enormous. She remained beside the couch for several seconds, staring at the closed front door while Garrett’s question replayed itself with irritating clarity.

I’m doing things better this time around, right? I’m fighting for you. I’m doing what you wanted?

She rubbed one hand over her forehead. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she murmured to the empty room.

The house didn’t answer. The refrigerator hummed from the kitchen. Upstairs, one of the pipes clicked inside the wall. On the television, a hockey player celebrated a silent goal beneath closed captions nobody had bothered to read.

She dropped back onto the couch and pulled the audition packet toward herself.

Tomorrow. Mara. The plant. The kitchen. Twelve minutes. One frightened woman attempting to make a joke because admitting the truth would require her to do something about it.

Her pencil hovered over the opening line. She stared at it for a long moment, then wrote a new note in the margin.

She knows. She just isn’t ready to say it yet.

Her eyes stayed on the words. Then she shook her head once, pressed the pencil more firmly into her fingers, and began again.

At three-forty-two, Allie abandoned her. It wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t even irresponsibly, if the situation was assessed by anybody with a functioning understanding of hierarchy within the Briar theatre department.

Joanna Maxwell was on campus. Joanna Maxwell, who had graduated from Briar and already possessed an agent, two regional credits, one Broadway run, and a face people occasionally recognised in coffee shops without being able to place where from. 

Joanna Maxwell, whose notes were spoken about in rehearsal rooms with the reverence usually reserved for scripture and unusually competent stage managers.

Apparently, she had come to visit Beau for the weekend and needed to film a self-tape before six. She had asked Allie to read opposite her.

The message arrived while she was still alone at the hockey house, halfway through Mara’s final monologue and wearing one of Garrett’s old sweatshirts over leggings because the house had become offensively cold the second four large men stopped generating body heat inside it.

Allie: please don’t hate me Allie: joanna maxwell just asked me to read for her self tape Allie: JOANNA MAXWELL Allie: i’ll still try to get you but i might be late

She had stared at the screen for perhaps two seconds before typing back.

GO.

Allie: i love you

she needs you. go. film the tape. don’t fuck it up.

Allie: that feels supportive but threatening

correct

There was no universe in which she expected Allie to turn Joanna Maxwell down in order to drive her to a college hockey game. Joanna Maxwell could have asked Allie to hold a reflector above a storm drain in freezing rain and she would have replied asking whether the light needed to be warmer.

Completely valid. Professionally necessary. Almost morally required.

It also meant she was stranded at the hockey house without game clothes, makeup, her car, or enough time to move through the evening at anything resembling a civilised pace.

She packed her audition pages into her tote, checked that every light downstairs was off, locked the front door with the spare key Garrett had told her to leave beneath the ceramic planter afterward, then walked all the way back across campus to her dorm.

By the time she reached the building, her calves ached and the late-afternoon cold had worked through the knees of her leggings. She took the stairs too quickly, hit the landing breathing hard, and had to stand outside her door for several seconds while the corridor shifted faintly beneath the fluorescent lights.

Her concussion had mostly reduced itself to irritation now. A dull pressure after too much reading, brief dizziness when she moved too quickly, and the continued presence of several men who reacted to her touching the back of her own head as though she had begun dismantling her skull by hand.

Still, the audition was tomorrow. Tomorrow. The word followed her into the room while she dropped her tote onto the bed and opened her wardrobe. 

Her roommate was gone now, the abandoned remains of the group presentation spread across both desks: highlighters without caps, three takeaway cups, a laptop charger stretched dangerously through the walking path.

She had forty minutes before warm-ups and no realistic chance of reaching the rink before puck drop. Her hand moved through several tops without choosing one. Black sweater. Pink long-sleeve. Briar sweatshirt. 

Nothing felt right. Too casual, too planned, too much like she had stood in front of her wardrobe asking what a woman wore to attend the game of the man she loved, had kissed, had not agreed to date again, and had left that morning halfway through a conversation about whether he was successfully fighting for her.

Then her fingers caught on heavy fabric near the back.

Garrett’s old jersey hung between two coats, dark Briar colours broken by white lettering across the shoulders. GRAHAM. 

The fabric remained faintly creased from the last time she wore it, several weeks ago at the hockey-house party when she had come in Dean’s jersey as a joke and Garrett had looked at her for roughly half a second before deciding the joke had concluded.

He had walked her upstairs, and she had come back down wearing Garrett’s.

The memory warmed the space beneath her ribs. She took the jersey from the hanger before she could conduct another administrative review of the decision.

It fell loose over a fitted black top and short skirt, hem reaching low enough that the skirt only appeared when she moved. She added tights, boots, mascara, concealer beneath her eyes, and lipstick she wiped off immediately because it looked like she had made plans involving somebody’s mouth.

She redid her hair twice. Left it down. Changed her earrings. Changed them back.

By the time she grabbed her keys, the first period had already started. The drive to the rink took fourteen minutes. Parking took twenty-three.

Every space near the arena was full. Cars lined both sides of the access road, filled the overflow lot behind the athletics building, and had begun inventing new spaces on strips of grass where several official signs specifically requested they not.

She circled once. Twice. Swore at a hatchback reversing at the speed of continental drift. Finally abandoned her car near the far end of campus and half-walked, half-jogged toward the rink with her coat open and Garrett’s jersey moving around her thighs.

The crowd reached her before the doors did. A roar pushed through the concrete walls, rising hard enough that she could feel it faintly in the ground beneath her boots. Then a whistle. Booing. The deep mechanical voice of the announcer swallowed by distance.

Her stomach dropped. She hurried through the entrance, showed her student ID, and entered beneath the scoreboard just as the clock ticked below two minutes in the first.

St. Anthony’s led two–zero.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

The rink was packed. Briar students filled the usual sections in dark jerseys and winter coats, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder beneath the cold white lights. The air smelled like sharpened ice, beer, damp wool and the hot chemical sweetness of concession-stand pretzels.

She looked automatically toward the seats where she and Allie usually sat. Full. Of course.

She moved down the aisle searching for any available gap while the puck struck the boards below with a crack sharp enough to turn every head. Garrett came through the neutral zone fast, stick extended for the pass. 

The puck reached him badly, slightly behind his skates. He twisted to recover, lost an edge beneath pressure from a St. Anthony’s winger, and went hard into the boards.

The opposing player leaned close while Garrett pushed upright. Whatever he said didn’t reach the stands, but Garrett’s head snapped toward him.

The player grinned behind his cage. Garrett shoved him. The whistle went immediately. The crowd erupted around her, half outrage and half encouragement. Garrett skated away before the official could make the confrontation larger, shoulders rigid beneath his jersey.

That was when Sarah spotted her. “Hey!” Sarah stood halfway from her seat and waved both arms. “You made it!”

Several faces turned. Michaela sat beside her. Kendall beside Michaela. Another girl she vaguely recognised from parties had her feet tucked beneath the seat to make space.

The puck-bunny section. Right. Perfect.

She squeezed past three knees and a collection of plastic cups while Sarah gathered her coat from the empty seat. 

“Sorry,” she said, already feeling too warm beneath her own jacket. “Is it alright if I sit here?”

“Obviously,” Michaela replied, shifting immediately. “Sit.”

“Your jersey is so cute,” Sarah added.

Her hand moved self-consciously toward the hem. “Thanks.”

Kendall looked up as she sat. For one tiny second, every ugly previous interaction returned at once. 

Kendall’s mouth near Garrett’s at a party. The possessive edge to conversations neither of them had handled with maturity. The mutual understanding that each had once considered the other evidence of something being taken.

Kendall smiled first. Smaller than Sarah’s, slightly careful. “Hi.”

She returned it. “Hi.”

The game restarted beneath them. Briar recovered possession near their own blue line, then immediately turned the puck over under pressure. A groan travelled through the section.

Kendall leaned closer so she could be heard over it. “I really don’t want to do that childish girl-hate shit with you.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

Kendall’s mouth twisted. “I’m sorry if I was a bitch before. Garrett and I sorted our shit out. None of it was your fault. I know that.”

The apology wasn’t polished enough to feel rehearsed. Kendall looked faintly uncomfortable, eyes moving between her face and the ice as if the game provided a necessary emergency exit from sincerity.

She nodded. “Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Good.” Kendall seemed to release something through her shoulders. Then she handed over the enormous plastic cup sitting between her feet. “Here.”

She accepted it automatically. “What is it?”

“Soda.”

Kendall paused.

“It’s got vodka.”

A smile moved across her mouth before she could stop it. “Amazing.”

“Thought so.”

She drank. Mostly cola, enough vodka beneath it to warm her tongue and the back of her throat.

In front of them, Jules Logan turned away from the phone mounted against the railing. They were apparently live-streaming the game, one eye on the comments flashing up the screen and one on the rink.

Jules looked from her jersey to her face. “Why’s your man playing like shit?”

She nearly inhaled vodka. “What?”

Around her, Sarah and Michaela made matching little sounds of agreement.

“He’s so off,” Sarah said.

“Like really off,” Michaela added. “That guy’s been chirping him the whole game.”

She followed their gaze. The same St. Anthony’s player had lined up opposite Garrett for the faceoff. FERGUSON stretched across the back of his jersey in white block letters. 

He was large even among hockey players, shoulders broad beneath his pads, body carrying that thick, heavy balance of someone difficult to move once he decided where to stand.

The name touched something at the back of her memory and disappeared before she could catch it.

“Do you know him?” Kendall asked.

She shook her head slowly. “Maybe. It sounds familiar.”

The puck dropped. Ferguson tied Garrett up immediately, stick locking beneath his while another St. Anthony’s player collected possession and sent it hard along the boards. Garrett broke free late. Ferguson said something as they separated. Garrett turned.

Even through the cage, she could see the reaction. His shoulders rose. His stride shortened for half a second. He chased harder than the play required and arrived late enough that Ferguson had already moved the puck.

“Jesus,” Kendall murmured.

Briar spent the final minute trapped in their defensive zone. Tucker blocked one shot with his shin. Dean cleared another badly. Logan chased the puck along the wall and took a shoulder hard enough to rattle the glass.

The horn ended the first period with Briar still down two. The whole section exhaled like one disappointed organism.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Sarah asked.

“Losing,” Jules replied, checking the stream. “Apparently everybody watching has noticed too.”

Kendall took the cup back, drank, then returned it. “They look like they met five minutes ago.”

She looked toward the Briar bench. Garrett sat forward with both elbows over his knees, helmet bowed while Coach leaned over the boards and spoke sharply to the line. Logan sat two players away. Neither looked toward the other.

The horn cleared them into the tunnel. Garrett stood last. His helmet turned toward the stands. First toward the seats where she usually sat with Allie. He scanned them once, then again, head moving more urgently across the rows.

Her fingers tightened around the cup. He was looking for her. But not here. Not in the section filled with girls wearing Briar jerseys cut into crop tops and enough gloss to survive arena lighting. Garrett didn’t even glance toward them before disappearing beneath the tunnel.

Something uncomfortable pressed beneath her sternum. She hadn’t texted him. Her phone had remained buried at the bottom of her tote since leaving the hockey house. Allie knew she was coming. She had assumed Garrett would too, through the loose information network currently governing all of their lives.

She pulled it out. Nine messages.

Garrett: You guys leave yet? Garrett: Allie said she got caught up with something. Garrett: You still coming? Garrett: Baby? Garrett: Can you just let me know you’re okay. Garrett: Are you at the dorm? Garrett: I’m going on now. Please text me Garrett: Where are you? 

Her stomach folded inward. She typed quickly.

here. sorry. parking was fucked. i’m okay.

The message delivered. No read receipt. He was already in the locker room.

The second period began worse. St. Anthony’s scored forty-one seconds in. The goal developed from nothing. A lazy Briar pass through the neutral zone, Ferguson reading it before Garrett did, one fast turnover, then a two-on-one that pulled Tucker too far across. The shot beat the goalie high over his glove.

Three–zero.

The St. Anthony’s bench erupted. Ferguson passed Garrett on the way to celebrate and said something near his shoulder. Garrett’s stick struck the ice hard enough that the crack carried into the stands.

“Whatever he’s saying is working,” Michaela murmured.

Garrett answered by trying to hit everything that moved. For several minutes, it almost looked useful. He finished a clean check near the boards, stole possession, and drove toward the net with Dean cutting across the slot. 

Then Ferguson caught him from the side. Garrett stayed upright, lost the puck, recovered it behind the goal line, and tried to force a pass through three bodies instead of taking the open route back toward the point.

Turnover. Again. Coach shouted his name from the bench. Garrett’s head lowered briefly.

She watched the familiar machinery of him come apart by inches. He was still fast. Still skilled enough that even his bad game produced flashes nobody else on the ice could manage. 

But every decision arrived a fraction too late or half a second too angry. He chased contact. Forced plays. Took the puck into spaces that had already closed. And every time he returned to the bench, his eyes moved toward the usual section.

Still looking for her. She stood halfway through the period to wave, but three people in the row ahead rose at the same time as Briar finally scored. The arena exploded, bodies jumping, arms thrown upward, and Garrett never looked.

Three–one.

For thirty seconds, Briar seemed to wake up. Logan won a puck battle along the wall. Tucker sent a hard shot through traffic. Dean nearly caught the rebound. Then Ferguson drew Garrett into another penalty.

They met behind the net. Sticks tangled. Ferguson leaned in. His mouth moved behind the cage. Garrett cross-checked him high across the chest. The whistle shrieked.

“Oh, come on,” Kendall groaned.

Garrett stood over Ferguson for half a second while the St. Anthony’s player remained on one knee, smiling.

The officials pulled Garrett away. He skated toward the penalty box with his jaw set and his head turned toward Ferguson until the last possible second. St. Anthony’s scored on the power play.

Four–one.

That was when she looked behind her. Though not for any reason she could name. Maybe the strange sense of being watched. Maybe because Garrett had spent the morning turning toward every car outside, and some part of her had carried the movement into the rink.

Phil Graham sat four rows back. Her entire body went still. He wore a dark coat over a collared shirt, silver at his temples caught harshly beneath the rink lights. He looked exactly as he always did in photographs: composed, expensive, faintly dissatisfied by whatever the world had offered him.

Cindy sat beside him. Her hands were clasped in her lap. When Phil leaned toward her to say something, her shoulders drew inward before she smiled.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Sarah looked over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She faced the ice again, but the awareness remained behind her like heat. Phil was here. Garrett had found him before the game. Or seen him during warm-ups. Maybe that was why the first shift had already looked wrong. Why every word Ferguson offered found the exposed place so easily.

The second period ended four–one. Boos followed the horn. The sound of people who believed Briar should be better and considered disappointment a public service.

Garrett went through the tunnel without searching the stands this time. She stood.

“Bathroom?” Kendall asked.

“Um.” She gathered her coat and tote. “Yeah. Sort of.”

Jules twisted around. “That sounds illegal.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Tell Graham to stop sucking,” they called after her.

She escaped the row before she had to answer. The public corridor circled the outside of the rink. She passed the bathrooms, concession stand and stairs leading toward the upper seating, then found the narrow side door she had used before when meeting Garrett after games.

It should have been locked. It wasn’t. The hallway beneath the rink felt like another building entirely. Concrete walls painted institutional grey, exposed pipes overhead, fluorescent lights buzzing above strips of black rubber flooring. The crowd became a heavy distant vibration through the ceiling.

She moved past the visitors’ changing rooms first, following the hand-lettered signs taped near each turn. HOME. TRAINERS. EQUIPMENT. ICE ACCESS.

Voices reached her near the locker room. Coach, loud and furious through the closed door. A second voice answered. Dean, maybe. Then silence. She kept walking.

Garrett wasn’t inside. She knew without opening the door. If Coach had been speaking to him, his name would have carried through every wall in the building. Her phone buzzed.

Garrett: Where are you sitting? Garrett: I can’t find you Garrett: Baby please answer

She turned the corner and found the equipment-room door open by three inches.

Inside, Garrett paced between shelves of spare gloves, tape, sharpened skates and plastic crates filled with pucks. His helmet sat on a workbench beside him.

Damp curls clung to his forehead and temples. His cheeks were flushed from the ice, a red mark spreading high near his jaw where someone’s glove or stick had caught him.

His phone was in his hand. He looked up. Relief crossed his face so quickly and completely that she stopped in the doorway.

“Jesus Christ.” Garrett pushed one hand through his hair, then crossed toward her in three long steps. “Where were you?”

She smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Allie ditched me.”

His brows snapped together.

“Joanna Maxwell,” she added.

Understanding interrupted the anger. “Right.”

“Exactly. Completely valid. Took me forever to get back to the dorm and then parking was fucked.” She stepped into the room, letting the door swing mostly closed behind her. “I’ve been sitting with the puck bunnies. And Jules.”

Garrett exhaled hard through his nose, head tipping briefly toward the ceiling. “Please text me next time.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I was so fucking worried about you.” His hands hovered near her arms, not touching until his eyes returned to her face. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m okay.”

Then she moved into him. Garrett’s hands closed around her waist on instinct. The hard plastic of his shoulder pads widened him beneath the jersey, making the embrace awkward enough that she could not fully press against his chest, but his body still bent toward hers immediately.

She lifted one hand and pushed the wet curls away from his eyes. They fell straight back.

Her mouth twitched. She tried again, fingers combing through them more slowly this time. “What’s going on?”

“Everything.” His hands tightened faintly at her waist. “I’m playing like shit. I’m getting pressured every time I touch the puck. Making stupid fucking mistakes.”

“You are playing like shit,” she agreed.

His eyes returned to hers, offended despite himself.

She softened her mouth. “Sorry. Continue.”

Garrett breathed out, something near a laugh but too tired to form properly. “Everybody’s counting on me to keep us under control, and I can’t even fucking do that. I just got in a stupid fight with Logan because–”

He stopped. Her fingers pushed his hair back again, thumb catching lightly near his temple. “Because your dad’s here.”

Garrett’s eyes closed. “Yeah.” His throat moved. “With Cindy.”

“I saw.”

He nodded once, jaw tightening beneath the red mark. For a moment, she could almost see the room behind his eyes: Thanksgiving, Cindy’s wrist, Phil’s voice, every year before Garrett had become large enough to believe size might protect him from anything.

“He’s sitting there,” Garrett said. “Like nothing happened. Like he didn’t–” His mouth closed hard. “And I’m supposed to go out there and play while he watches me.”

She let her hand move from his hair to the side of his face. Garrett leaned into it before he seemed to realise he had.

“Don’t let him win,” she said.

His brows pulled together faintly.

“It gives him power.” Her thumb moved once beneath his cheekbone. “You letting him sit in your head and ruin this for you? That’s exactly what he wants. He gets to walk in here and suddenly everything belongs to him again.”

Garrett’s breathing slowed by one small degree.

She stepped closer, as close as the pads allowed, fingers sliding behind his neck. “Living your life, living our lives– that’s how we win, okay?”

The word our left before she could inspect it. Garrett’s eyes sharpened on her face. She felt it too late. Heat rising lightly beneath her collar, pulse shifting beneath the place his thumb rested at her waist.

Still, she didn’t take it back.

“We can do that,” she continued. “Everything else comes after.”

Garrett held her gaze.

Then she added, “Maybe, y’know, stop playing like shit.”

A real laugh broke out of him this time. Quiet, breathless, roughened by exertion. He lowered his forehead to hers, careful of the cage marks and sweat cooling along his skin.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I can do that.”

She grinned. “Good.”

His nose brushed hers when he breathed out. “Ferguson’s kicking my ass, though.”

Her smile softened into a frown. “The big one?”

“Fucking monster.” Garrett lifted his head slightly. “He won’t shut up. Every faceoff, every shift. Keeps saying shit like he knows me.”

“Do you know him?”

“Don’t think so.” Garrett’s mouth twisted. “Maybe juniors. I don’t remember him.”

Ferguson.

The name shifted again at the back of her memory. This time something came with it. A bedroom with blue sheets. Music thudding through the wall. A shirt on the floor that wasn’t Garrett’s.

Her hand stopped at the back of his neck.

Garrett felt it immediately. “What?”

She looked past him toward the shelves. “I just– I just realised I know him.”

Garrett didn’t move away. His hands remained at her waist, though his fingers went still. “How?”

She pressed her lips together. It had been during the worst part of the breakup. After Garrett and Hannah’s first public photographs. After she had spent several nights moving between anger and numbness so quickly neither had time to settle.

Ferguson had been at a party near Eastwood. She had recognised him as a St. Anthony’s player, though the name had not mattered much then. He had been tall, confident, interested, and uncomplicated in the exact way she believed she wanted.

They had gone upstairs. She remembered sitting on the edge of his bed while he kissed her neck. His shirt gone. Hers pushed high enough that cold air touched her stomach. His hands moving over her thighs while she stared at the wall behind him and tried to make her body understand that wanting someone else was meant to feel like freedom.

It hadn’t. She had stopped him. Got dressed too quickly. Left while Ferguson stood half-naked beside the bed asking what the fuck her problem was. Then came the messages.

You seriously came all the way up here for nothing?

Don’t be dramatic.

I can make you forget him.

And then worse. She had blocked him after the fourth day.

Garrett’s thumb moved lightly against her side. “Baby?”

She looked back at him. “I nearly slept with him.”

Garrett’s face emptied.

“While we were broken up,” she added quickly. “At a party. We went back to his room and got pretty far, but I freaked out before we actually had sex.”

His jaw shifted. She waited for the heat. The possessive flash. The questions about how far, where Ferguson had touched her, whether she had wanted it. Garrett’s hands left her waist.

For one uncomfortable second, her stomach dropped. Then both palms came to her face.

He cupped her jaw carefully, thumbs resting beneath her cheeks while his eyes searched every part of her expression. “You okay?”

The question landed so differently from the one she had prepared for that she almost laughed. “Yeah.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No.” She shook her head within his hands. “He was just a dick when I left. Kept messaging me for a few days until I blocked him.”

Garrett’s mouth hardened. “What did he say?”

“Nothing worth getting another penalty over.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” She closed her fingers around his wrists. “He’s an asshole. That’s all.”

Garrett looked toward the door, some new understanding moving into place behind his eyes. “That’s what he’s talking about.”

“Probably.”

“What the fuck does he know?”

“That I left.” Her thumb brushed the inside of Garrett’s wrist. “And that it had something to do with you, even though I don’t think I said your name.”

His nostrils flared.

“Garrett.”

“I’m not gonna do anything.”

She gave him a look.

“I’m not,” he repeated, less convincingly. “Unless he says something about you again.”

“Then you’re especially not.”

His eyes narrowed. “Baby.”

“Don’t let him get to you.” She squeezed both wrists. “He wants you angry because angry Garrett makes stupid decisions.”

“Apparently,” he huffed. 

“He has four goals’ worth of evidence.”

Garrett’s mouth pulled despite himself. She stepped closer again, nudging her forehead beneath his chin until his hands slid from her jaw to the back of her neck. “He doesn’t matter. Your dad doesn’t get to matter. Not tonight.”

Garrett exhaled into her hair. Voices moved past the far end of the corridor. Someone shouted that there were three minutes left in intermission.

Garrett’s arms tightened briefly around her, then released. “I gotta go.”

“I know.”

They left the equipment room together. Garrett carried his helmet beneath one arm. She kept one hand inside his free one while they moved through the corridor, fingers threaded between strips of white tape wrapped around two of his knuckles.

Near the ice-access tunnel, the cold reached them first. It moved under her skirt, sharpened the damp warmth along Garrett’s hairline, and carried the clean metallic smell of the resurfaced ice toward them.

Players were already filing past the tunnel entrance. Tucker stopped when he saw them, eyes dropping briefly to their hands before returning to Garrett’s face.

“You good?” he asked.

Garrett nodded. “Yeah.”

Tucker studied him for half a second. Apparently found something acceptable. “Let’s go.”

He continued toward the ice. Logan came next. The tension from the house travelled into the narrow space with him. His gaze found Garrett first, then her, then their joined hands. Something unreadable moved over his face.

Garrett’s fingers shifted once around hers.

Logan nodded toward the tunnel. “We need one early.”

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “We’ll get it.”

The words were ordinary. Hockey words. A board placed temporarily over the crack. Logan nodded again and followed Tucker. Garrett started after him.

She let his hand slide almost entirely from hers before the unfinished conversation from that morning rose sharply through her.

“Garrett?”

He turned. “Hm?”

She stepped forward, caught both hands in the front of his jersey, and pulled him down. Surprise moved through his face for less than a second before her mouth met his.

The kiss landed hard enough to erase the narrow tunnel around them. Garrett made a low sound into her lips and folded immediately. Helmet dropping against his thigh, one arm circling her waist while the other came across her back, drawing her into every part of him the pads allowed.

She wrapped both arms around his shoulders. Her fingers pushed into the damp curls at the back of his head, holding him there while his mouth opened beneath hers.

She kissed him properly, deeply, with the whole frightening truth of the previous night moving through her body at once.

It was Garrett. Her Garrett.

The recognition loosened something she had been holding beneath her ribs for months. Her shoulders dropped. Her fingers tightened in his hair. Her body pressed forward until the hard edge of his equipment met her chest and still she tried to get closer.

Garrett kissed her like he had been handed oxygen after spending two periods underwater. His mouth moved warm and hungry against hers, one hand spreading over the small of her back beneath the loose fall of his old jersey. His thumb caught at her waist. He tasted faintly of sports drink and the cold air moving off the ice.

She didn’t think about Sarah, Michaela, Kendall, Phil, Ferguson, the audition, the pros-and-cons list folded inside her notebook.

For several stretched seconds, nothing existed outside the scrape of Garrett’s stubble against her skin and the way his whole body softened toward hers despite every muscle being prepared for violence.

When they finally pulled apart, neither moved far. Garrett rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard for reasons no longer entirely related to hockey. His arm remained locked around her waist.

Her fingers stayed buried in his curls. She pushed her body into his again, smaller now, and nudged her nose along his.

“Go win,” she whispered.

Garrett’s grin came slowly. It changed his whole face, cutting through the tension that had lived there since morning. “Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed. “Shut up.”

He stole one more quick kiss, barely more than the press of his mouth to hers, then forced himself backward.

Garrett put on his helmet as he walked, still looking at her through the cage. His stride had changed. Shoulders loose. Stick turning once in his hand when a teammate passed it toward him.

A fucking pep in his step. She watched him disappear onto the ice, smile lingering helplessly across her mouth.

Garrett hit the ice feeling like somebody had replaced his blood. The crowd rose around the third period, noise pushing against the glass, but it reached him differently now. 

His father remained in the stands. Ferguson still existed. Briar was still down three goals, Logan was still furious with him, Coach still had every reason to tear the entire first two periods into pieces and make Garrett watch the footage until graduation.

None of it had disappeared.

She had come looking for him anyway. She had found him beneath the rink wearing his old jersey, put her hands on his face, told him their lives were how they won, and kissed him beside the tunnel where anybody could have walked past.

Not a concussed kiss in the dark. Not a frightened collision in his bedroom followed by panic. Not a small touch hidden inside a booth. She had grabbed his jersey and pulled him down. 

Garrett pushed off harder, blades biting cleanly into the fresh ice while he circled toward the bench. Dean looked over the boards and did a visible double take. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Garrett grinned behind his mouthguard. “Nothing.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. Then his gaze moved past Garrett toward the tunnel.

Understanding hit his face. “Oh, you smug son of a bitch.”

Coach shouted for the line. Garrett climbed over the boards. He had been showing up. Listening. Asking. Giving her space when every part of him wanted to close it. 

He had been fighting for her exactly the way she once begged him to, back when he’d been too defensive and stupid to understand the request.

And it was working. She was coming back. Not all at once. Not officially. But she had reached for him this morning. Told him to find her if he needed her. Called the life in front of them ours.

Then kissed him like that.

The puck dropped. Ferguson opened his mouth. Garrett smiled at him.

It unsettled the bastard enough that Garrett won the faceoff clean. She had told him to go win. By the time his blades crossed the blue line, Garrett had already decided she meant both things.

The third period began with Garrett winning the faceoff so cleanly Ferguson’s stick barely touched the ice.

The puck snapped backward between Garrett’s skates, Logan collected it in motion, and the whole Briar line moved before St. Anthony’s had properly reset. Dean cut left. Tucker opened space through the middle. 

Garrett accelerated along the boards with his head up and shoulders loose, no longer chasing the play from half a second behind it.

From the mouth of the tunnel, she watched the difference move through the team. It wasn’t only Garrett. He seemed to pull something back into alignment around him. 

Logan anticipated the pass instead of reacting to it. Dean stopped trying to manufacture space where none existed and started trusting Garrett to find him. Tucker became almost impossible to get around, body low and steady, stick appearing in every lane St. Anthony’s attempted to open.

They looked like themselves again. Worse for St. Anthony’s, they looked like themselves while furious.

Briar scored forty-seven seconds into the period. Garrett drove wide, pulled two defenders with him, then sent the puck backward without looking. Logan was already there. His shot came low through traffic, striking the inside of the post before the goalie fully dropped.

Four–two.

The arena erupted. She shouted with everybody else, hands coming together hard enough that her palms stung. Garrett wheeled toward Logan, grabbed the front of his jersey with both gloves and shook him once before the rest of the line crashed into them along the boards.

Logan shoved him back. Garrett laughed. The tension between them didn’t disappear. It changed shape. Became useful. Whatever they couldn’t say in the kitchen or beside a donation bucket, they apparently knew how to pass at speed.

The next goal belonged to Dean. Tucker held the puck at the blue line long enough to force the St. Anthony’s defence inward, then sent it down toward Garrett. Ferguson arrived with him, shoulder driving hard into Garrett’s side. Garrett absorbed it, twisted away, and kept possession with one hand on his stick while Ferguson leaned across his back.

The crowd booed. Ferguson’s mouth moved near Garrett’s ear. Garrett’s head turned. For one ugly second, she thought he might abandon the puck entirely and put Ferguson through the glass.

Instead, Garrett smiled. Then he slipped the pass between Ferguson’s skates. Dean caught it near the crease and buried it over the goalie’s shoulder.

Four–three.

Dean threw both arms up, mouthguard visible between his teeth as he shouted something at the St. Anthony’s bench that was probably unsuitable for a charity-affiliated educational institution.

Garrett reached him first. Logan followed. Tucker crashed into the side of the group hard enough to drive everybody another foot into the boards.

She laughed, clapping again while the Briar crowd shook the railings above her.

The game sharpened after that. St. Anthony’s stopped protecting the lead and started defending it with their bodies. Every puck battle became a collision. Every whistle carried two or three extra shoves afterward. 

Gloves rose. Sticks caught beneath arms. The officials spent more time separating players than dropping the puck.

Ferguson stayed attached to Garrett. He finished every check. Leaned into every faceoff. Spoke whenever the officials turned their heads. Sometimes she could see Garrett ignore it properly, skating away while Ferguson’s mouth continued moving behind him.

Sometimes Garrett answered with his shoulder. He drove Ferguson into the boards once behind the St. Anthony’s net, a clean hit heavy enough to rattle the glass and send a delighted, ugly sound through the Briar section.

She made the sound too. She wasn’t proud of it in any moral sense. She was simply honest enough to admit Ferguson had spent two periods behaving like a human rash and watching Garrett flatten him against the wall was deeply satisfying.

Ferguson peeled himself from the boards with a grin. Garrett hit him again twenty seconds later. This one came near centre ice, shoulder through chest, Ferguson’s skates leaving the surface for the smallest, beautiful fraction of a second before his back struck the ice.

The whistle went. Garrett stood over him. Not for long. Long enough.

“Graham!” Coach’s voice carried even above the crowd.

Garrett skated toward the penalty box with his mouth tight and one glove lifting briefly toward Ferguson in a gesture that looked suspiciously like an invitation to continue the conversation later.

She covered her mouth with one hand.

Behind the penalty-box glass, Garrett sat with both elbows over his knees, chest moving hard beneath the jersey. His eyes found Ferguson through the traffic and stayed there until the official stepped between their lines of sight.

Briar killed the penalty. Tucker blocked one shot. Logan cleared another. Dean took the puck the length of the rink by himself with no realistic chance of scoring, wasting twelve valuable seconds through commitment and spite.

Garrett came out of the box, he caught the puck near the red line, cut inside one defender, then accelerated straight through the gap Ferguson tried to close. Their shoulders collided. Garrett stayed upright. Ferguson didn’t.

The crowd lost its mind. Garrett took the puck deep, circled behind the net, and found Tucker arriving late through the slot. Tucker shot. The goalie saved it with his pad.

The rebound came loose. Garrett buried it.

Four–four.

The sound inside the arena became physical. It pushed down the tunnel, moved through the concrete beneath her boots, struck the centre of her chest hard enough that she shouted without hearing herself.

Garrett dropped to one knee near the boards, fist striking the ice once. Dean collided with him from the side. Logan grabbed the back of Garrett’s helmet. Tucker came in last and drove all three of them into the glass.

She could see Garrett laughing beneath the cage. He looked toward the tunnel. This time, he found her immediately. Their eyes met across the width of the rink.

Garrett pointed one glove toward her. It was quick. Barely there before Dean caught his arm and dragged him back toward the bench. Still, warmth spread through her so fast that she forgot the cold air against her bare thighs.

The winning goal came with fifty-eight seconds left. It started with Logan taking the puck off Ferguson along the wall. Logan jammed his stick beneath Ferguson’s, leaned his whole body through the contact, and ripped possession free while Ferguson shouted something after him.

Logan didn’t turn. He sent the puck forward. Garrett received it cleanly. Dean crossed the blue line beside him. Two defenders closed. Garrett delayed for half a second, enough to pull both toward his body, then pushed the puck through a space that didn’t seem to exist until Dean’s stick appeared inside it.

Dean shot first time. The goalie caught part of it, but not enough. The puck slipped beneath his arm and crossed the line.

Five–four.

The lamp lit. Dean screamed, high and victorious, both arms flung wide as he turned toward Garrett. Garrett hit him at speed. Logan arrived from behind and nearly took all three of them down. Tucker wrapped himself around the pile while the Briar bench emptied far enough onto the ice to earn a warning from the officials.

She clapped until her hands hurt.

Look, she wasn’t going to lie to herself. Ferguson was a dick. A deliberate, sustained dick. He had harassed her via Instagram DM when she didn’t want to have sex with him. He had spent the entire game trying to find the exact sentence that would make Garrett stop thinking, and for most of two periods, it had worked.

If Garrett wanted to hit him legally, repeatedly and with significant force inside the established rules of hockey, she had no objection.

The final fifty-eight seconds lasted several years. St. Anthony’s pulled their goalie. Six attackers crowded Briar’s zone. Tucker blocked another shot. Logan took one off the outside of his skate and nearly went down. Dean missed the empty net by several feet and received such a furious look from Garrett that even she laughed.

Ten seconds.

Ferguson shoved Garrett after the whistle. Garrett shoved him back.

Five.

The puck dropped.

Two.

Tucker sent it into the corner. The horn sounded. Briar won. The arena exploded around them.

Garrett threw both arms up, stick in one hand, mouth open around a shout she couldn’t hear. Logan grabbed him first this time, one glove catching behind Garrett’s neck and pulling him briefly forehead to forehead before Dean collided with both of them.

Whatever had happened at Malone’s still existed. So did this.

She stood near the tunnel entrance, clapping and grinning while the teams formed the loose, hostile line college hockey used in place of genuine sportsmanship after ninety minutes of attempted bodily harm.

St. Anthony’s came off first. The hallway narrowed immediately beneath them. Skates struck rubber flooring in hard uneven beats. Players pushed helmets up, sweat-dark hair flattened beneath them, faces red from effort and anger.

She moved closer to the wall to give them space. The first few passed without looking at her. One stared. Another let out a low whistle beneath his breath, glancing back toward his teammate with a grin.

She lowered her eyes. Something about the St. Anthony’s team made the skin between her shoulder blades tighten. Not every player, some looked exhausted and irritated and interested only in reaching the changing room. 

But several carried the game off the ice with them, shoulders still widened, mouths loose with the ugly confidence of men who believed a hallway belonged to them because they occupied most of it.

One said, “Jesus,” as he passed her. His teammate laughed.

Her fingers closed around the edge of Garrett’s jersey.

Then Ferguson said her name. She looked up. He had removed his helmet. His hair was dark with sweat and pushed badly away from his forehead, one cheek reddened where Garrett had driven him into the boards. There was a small cut near the corner of his mouth.

“Good to see you,” he said.

She gave him one short nod. “Yeah.”

Ferguson stopped. The players behind him slowed too, several gathering loosely around the interruption without pretending they had somewhere else to be.

He smiled. “That’s it?”

She kept her body angled toward the wall. “You need to go.”

“You’re not even gonna talk to me?”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

Ferguson huffed a laugh. His eyes moved over the jersey, landing on GRAHAM across her shoulders before returning to her face. “Right. Course not.”

She shifted her tote higher. “Move.”

His hand rose before she understood what he intended. Ferguson caught her lightly by the jaw. Familiar enough to make her stomach turn over. His thumb pressed near her chin, tilting her face upward while the boys around him laughed beneath their breath.

For half a second, her body went completely still. Then she smacked his hand away. “Don’t be a dick.”

The laugh came louder this time. Ferguson lifted both palms as though she had overreacted to a harmless joke. “Relax.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ouch.” He stepped around her, grin still sitting crookedly across his mouth. “Still dramatic.”

She turned her face away. Ferguson moved past. Two steps, and then his hand swung backward. The slap landed hard across her ass.

The sound seemed to cut through everything. She spun around and shoved him between the shoulder blades. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Ferguson stumbled one step, more surprised than moved. Then he turned, laughing.

Garrett hit him before she saw Garrett arrive. One second Ferguson was grinning at her. The next, Garrett’s fist struck the side of his face. Hard.

Ferguson’s head snapped sideways. His shoulder hit the wall. Garrett followed him into it with no pause between the first punch and the second.

“Garrett!”

The second landed near Ferguson’s mouth. The third drove him downward.

Garrett had dropped his helmet somewhere behind him. His gloves were gone too. Bare fists, white tape across two knuckles, shoulders still widened by pads while he swung with his whole body.

Ferguson tried to cover his face. Garrett dragged one of his arms down and hit him again.

“Garrett, stop!” Her voice scraped out too high.

Ferguson slid to one knee. Blood appeared beneath his nose, bright against his mouth and chin. One of his teammates moved forward, then stopped when Garrett turned half a glance toward him with something so violent in his face that the player’s hands lifted.

Garrett hit Ferguson again. The sound was wrong outside the game. On the ice, bodies struck boards and the crowd roared and every collision belonged inside a system everybody had agreed to enter. 

Here, there was only fist against skin. Breath breaking. Ferguson’s shoulder hitting concrete. Garrett’s knuckles opening red across the tape.

“Garrett!” She caught the back of his jersey and pulled. He didn’t seem to feel it. “Stop it! Stop!”

Garrett twisted Ferguson by the front of his shoulder pads and drove him back into the wall before punching him again.

She looked over her shoulder. The Briar boys were running down the tunnel.

“Logan!” Her voice broke across the corridor. “Do something!”

Logan reached them first. He caught Garrett’s right arm before the next punch landed. Tucker came from the other side, hooking both arms beneath Garrett’s and hauling backward with enough force that Garrett’s skates scraped hard across the rubber floor.

Garrett fought them. His whole body kept driving toward Ferguson while Logan swore directly into his ear and Tucker locked himself around Garrett’s chest.

“Get the fuck off me!”

“No,” Logan snapped. “G, stop.”

“He fucking touched her!”

“I know.”

“He put his fucking hands on her!”

“I know, man. Stop.”

Ferguson remained on the ground near the wall, one hand pressed beneath his nose while blood ran through his fingers. His teammates gathered around him now, anger replacing the laughter as they shouted over one another.

The hallway filled too quickly. Briar players. St. Anthony’s players. Staff moving from both directions. Half the crowd still stood above them, faces turned toward the tunnel where the sound carried upward.

She took one step toward Garrett. Dean caught her around the upper arms and pulled her backward.

“Hey. No.” He moved himself between her and the centre of the hallway. “Out of the way. Don’t get in the middle.”

“But–”

“Let them get him.”

Garrett surged against Tucker again. Logan caught his face with both hands.

“Look at me, man.” Logan forced Garrett’s head toward him while Garrett’s breathing tore hard through his chest. “Look at me.”

Garrett tried to turn away.

Logan held on. “G. Look at me.”

Something in the command reached him. Garrett’s eyes fixed on Logan’s face.

“That’s enough,” Logan said. His own voice shook faintly beneath the firmness. “You got him. It’s done.”

Garrett’s chest kept heaving. Blood marked one side of his hand. Some his. Some Ferguson’s. She couldn’t tell which.

Behind Logan, Ferguson spat red onto the floor. The sight struck her stomach. The corridor tilted by one small degree. Enough that her body seemed to move away from itself, sound thinning around the edges while the fluorescent lights became painfully clear.

Dean still held her arms. She pulled free.

“Hey,” he said, immediately gentler. He turned with her. “You okay?”

She nodded without knowing whether she had answered the question. Across the hallway, Garrett’s face had changed. He was looking at her now.

The anger hadn’t vanished. It remained stretched through every line of him, but something else entered beneath it when he saw her standing several feet away with her arms folded tightly across her middle.

His mouth opened. “Baby–”

She stepped backward. Garrett went still. Dean said her name.

“I just…” Her breath caught strangely against the next word. “Oh, fuck. I need a second.”

She turned before anybody could stop her. The corridor seemed longer on the way out. People pressed themselves toward the walls to let her pass. A trainer moved quickly in the opposite direction carrying towels and a medical kit. Two arena staff members spoke into radios. 

Somewhere behind her, St. Anthony’s players were still shouting that Garrett should be suspended.

She pushed through the side door into the public concourse. Noise rushed back in all at once. The crowd celebrating above, students spilling toward exits, people asking what had happened beneath the rink because rumours had already begun moving faster than the players.

She kept walking. Past the bathrooms. Past the concession stand closing its metal shutter. Past three girls taking photographs beneath the Briar banner while Garrett’s name travelled through a conversation behind them.

Her hands shook. Small, quick movements at the ends of her fingers while she pressed one palm hard against her forehead and tried to force her breathing into something less thin.

Ferguson’s hand against her jaw. The slap across her ass. Garrett’s fist. Again. Again. Again.

She understood why he had done it. That was almost worse. Some hot, ugly part of her had wanted Ferguson hurt the second he touched her. Had felt the first punch like justice moving cleanly through the hallway.

Then Garrett hadn’t stopped. The difference sat heavily behind her ribs.

She reached the quieter corridor near the arena offices and leaned one shoulder against the wall. Her eyes closed.

Tomorrow, she was supposed to audition. Tonight, Phil Graham sat four rows behind the place she had been drinking vodka with Garrett’s ex-whatever. 

Logan had pulled Garrett out of a fight less than twenty-four hours after telling her to stay out of one. Ferguson was bleeding beneath the rink. Garrett’s knuckles were split.

And Garrett had looked at her as if the whole thing had been for her. Her stomach turned. She pressed both hands over her face and breathed into her palms, trying to find the exact place where fear ended and love began.

notes from me – HI MY LOVES!

um! how do we feel?! i told you shit was hitting the fan this chapter 😃 we've got twelve chapters in total so we're officially halfway! i can't believe i've been posting this fic for SIX weeks??? crazy!!

i hope you're enjoying it my babes!!

to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.

You had your headphones on and, for several minutes, you had been watching a man who, by your calculations, barely had a centimeter of skin left without tattoos. You couldn’t help but wonder how much pain he must have endured to cover almost his entire body in ink. Which one had been the first? How many had real meaning? Was there one he regretted?

In reality, you didn’t need to know. Imagining the answers was enough. A few months ago you had decided to stop searching for all the certainties that were within reach of your mutation. There was something pleasant about keeping certain mysteries. You discovered that not all questions needed an answer and that living with doubt was, at times, a way to feel a little more normal.

When the train arrived at the station, you got off along with the stream of passengers, trying to brush past as few people as possible. It was an almost impossible task at that hour, but you managed to make your way through the crowd without too many stumbles.

Upon reaching the platform, you looked up and scanned the area for someone you recognized. You kept walking a few meters, distracted among the people, until someone grabbed you by the arm.

Your body reacted before your mind. You were on the verge of shoving them away, but the tension vanished as soon as you recognized those brown eyes.

Even though the music was still dampening the bustle of the station, you managed to read his lips.

“Are you going somewhere?”

You took off one earbud and smiled.

“I was looking for my boyfriend,” you replied with amusement, “but I think it’s no longer necessary.”

Peter’s smile widened immediately. He wrapped an arm around your waist and left a light kiss on your cheek before intertwining his fingers with yours.

Without letting you go, he began to lead you along the platform with the ease of someone who knew that route by heart. You, on the other hand, had lost part of that habit after so many years away from the city. New York was still the same, but you no longer moved through it with the natural ease of before.

When you finally made it out onto the street, you were grateful to discover that thick grey clouds covered the sky. The sun barely managed to break through them, and the humid air announced approaching rain. It was much better than the suffocating heat you hated so much.

Peter led you to a less crowded sidewalk. Only when you were far from the constant flow of people did he turn to you with a calm expression.

“How was the trip?”

“A lot of people. But quiet.”

Peter set off walking without letting go of your hand, and you followed him without asking where you were going. Spending a day with him rarely meant following an itinerary; rather, it consisted of letting the city decide the next destination.

During the walk, you talked to him about your week at the mansion. About the practice sessions Scott had organized for the younger students and the late-night movie marathon you had done with Maximoff. You also mentioned that Hank had spent days shut in the lab trying to perfect one of his projects and that Charles had taken advantage of the good weather to teach some classes in the gardens.

Peter listened attentively, asking questions now and then or laughing. In return, he told you about his own weeks. Classes and assignment turn-ins were lighter due to the term—the start of the module—and fortunately work was more manageable. He had sold several photos that week, mostly of Spider-Man.

The streets began to fill up little by little as you both moved forward without rushing. You stopped in front of an antique book display window solely because one of the covers caught your attention. Further ahead, you bought two to-go coffees and kept walking, sharing small sips from each other’s cup without even thinking about it.

There was nothing extraordinary about that morning. And, precisely for that reason, it turned out to be perfect.

After everything you had experienced, being able to waste time walking through Queens, talking about anything at all and without looking at the clock, was a luxury you were just beginning to appreciate.

“Do you remember we came to this park once?” you asked suddenly.

It was a quiet place. Some kids were running behind a ball while several teenagers occupied the benches under the shade of the trees. Peter scanned the area with his eyes, looking for any detail that would spark a memory. He remained silent for a few seconds before shaking his head.

“Come on, make an effort. We were about thirteen. I had run away from home because my parents made me angry. I had seen a One Direction backpack that I loved and, when we went to buy it, we discovered there was only one left and...”

“They gave it to your sister,” he finished with a smile.

You looked at him, surprised.

“You remembered!”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

Those small moments kept bringing you a joy that was difficult to describe. It made sense that, over the years, some memories would fade; no one kept an entire childhood intact. But in Peter’s case, it was different. For so long you had believed that everything you shared had disappeared forever. Seeing how those memories were returning little by little, almost of their own accord, still felt like a small miracle to you.

“You cried so much that day,” he added.

You pointed a finger at him, feigning indignation.

“The one who cried was my sister. That’s precisely why they bought her the backpack.”

Peter let out a laugh.

You kept walking along the paths until stopping near the lake. The bustle of the park felt distant. You remained still for a few moments contemplating the water, comfortable in a silence that neither felt the need to break.

It was Peter who spoke first.

“Do you miss them?”

You turned your head slightly.

“My parents?”

He nodded.

You took a deep breath before answering.

“Sometimes. But... I think it’s not really them I miss.”

Peter waited without interrupting you.

“I miss the idea of having a family. We were never very close and... they always preferred my sister. I don’t say it with resentment. I left that phase behind a long time ago. I just think that, in a way, they always knew I was... different. Maybe they never understood exactly why, but they sensed it. And that meant they never truly got close to me.”

The hand holding yours tightened with a bit more strength. You smiled at him warmly and stepped in front of him.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.”

You shook your head softly.

“I have incredible friends at the mansion. Charles gave me a home when I needed it most, and the others... ended up becoming the family I always wanted.”

Your free hand reached up to caress his cheek.

“And now I have you, too.”

Peter rested his face against your palm, without taking his eyes off yours.

“A bit late, but I came back.”

“You made it just in time.”

You smiled. He mimicked you.

“You should meet them someday,” you continued. “My friends.”

“Do you really think they’d like me?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” you replied with total naturalness. “You’re a good person. And besides, you have powers, like us.”

A laugh escaped his lips.

“That’s a secret. You know that, right?”

You rolled your eyes with a smile.

“I know. I don’t plan on going around revealing the identity of our local hero.”

Peter let out an exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Though, if you think about it... in a way you’re also a mutant.”

He frowned.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to be born that way?”

“Some manifest their gene from very young. Others develop their abilities during adolescence, usually after a high-stress situation. Omega-level mutants, like Charles, tend to awaken their powers very early, but not all of us follow the same pattern.”

Peter listened attentively, though you discovered that, occasionally, his eyes would leave yours to briefly land on your lips.

You noticed it.

And he noticed that you noticed it, too.

A shy smile appeared on his face.

“What?” he asked.

You let out a low laugh.

“I was thinking that, in the end, we’re much more alike than we imagined.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Yeah?”

You nodded.

“A pair of weirdos who ended up finding each other again.”

Peter smiled without looking away from you. You took him by the hand and pulled him gently to close the distance. He didn’t offer any resistance; on the contrary, he draped an arm over your shoulders and pulled you against his body. You wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your head on his chest, letting yourself be enveloped by the warmth of his embrace.

After following the path, you found an old picnic table hidden among the trees, where the trail ended, and the forest seemed to swallow the rest of the park. Scarcely a distant murmur of people reached there. Only the wind, the brushing of leaves, and the two of you existed there.

You climbed onto the wooden table and sat on the edge, letting your legs dangle.

“I think we finally found a place to be alone.”

Peter looked up at you with a half-smile.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

Instead of answering, he took a step forward.

Then another.

Until he was standing between your legs.

He didn’t do anything for a few seconds. He just observed you. As if, even after having recovered all his memories, he still needed to convince himself that you were really there.

“What?” you asked again, unable to hold that gaze without smiling.

He shook his head slowly.

“Nothing. It’s just... I find it hard to believe.”

Your expression softened.

“Find what hard to believe?”

“That you’re my girlfriend again.”

You felt a pleasant warmth rise to your cheeks. You lowered your gaze for just a moment and met his eyes again with a mischievous smile.

“Technically, I’m not your girlfriend yet. You never asked me.”

Peter let out a laugh.

“I thought it was implied.”

You shook your head with a smile.

“No. You had other girlfriends. You couldn't have had them if I had kept being yours.”

Peter tilted his head slightly, as if analyzing the argument.

“That’s a good point.”

He paused before smiling.

“But you weren’t with anyone else.”

You looked at him without understanding where he was going with this.

“So... I’m still yours.”

“You’re not convincing me,” you laughed.

He smiled to himself and took a step toward you. The distance between you shrank again until you could barely feel the warmth of his breath.

“Alright. We’ll do the following.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll buy you flowers.”

You looked at him, amused.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll take you out to dinner. Somewhere nice, of your choice. I’ll wear a suit... no, do you want me to wear a suit?” he rambled.

You let out a giggle.

“I’m going to pamper you; I’m going to do all those things people do to make someone fall in love.”

He made a brief pause, without taking his eyes off you.

“And when I do all that... what would you say to me?”

The smile that appeared on your lips was immediate.

“That I love you.”

Peter let out a barely audible laugh. He hadn’t expected such a simple, yet definitive answer.

His eyes descended slowly to your lips. Yours did the exact same thing.

Neither of you said another word.

His lips met yours with an almost agonizing slowness. It was an unhurried kiss, as if now that he had you in his arms he was determined to take all the time he needed.

Your fingers slid up to the nape of his neck while he rested his hands on either side of your body on the table, leaning in slightly to bring you closer to him. When the kiss ended, he barely pulled away a few centimeters. You could feel his breath mixing with yours.

You looked into his eyes.

“Hi”

A soft laugh escaped his lips.

“Hello”

You leaned in this time on your own initiative.

The second kiss was different. Peter responded immediately. One of his hands ended up gently wrapping around your waist, drawing you toward the edge of the table to eliminate the little distance that still remained between you two.

You could feel both of your racing heartbeats.

He kissed you again and again, as if discovering something new every time. Your hands got lost in his hair; his traced your back with a delicacy that slowly gave way to a confidence neither tried to hide.

The air seemed to have grown heavier.

When his lips left yours for an instant to barely brush your cheek and jawline, you closed your eyes without realizing it.

“Peter...” you whispered, almost voiceless.

He sought your gaze again. For a second neither said anything, because both knew exactly what was happening. He rested his forehead against yours and let out his breath slowly, trying to regain control.

“If we keep kissing...”

The sentence hung suspended.

You smiled slightly, your breathing still rapid.

“I know.”

Peter let out a nervous laugh.

“It’s not that I want to stop,” you clarified right away, fearing he might interpret your reaction as a rejection.

“Me neither.”

His eyes returned to your lips out of sheer momentum, and yours mimicked them. For a moment it seemed like both were going to ignore any attempt at prudence. But Peter closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and rested his forehead against yours once more.

“We need to calm down.”

It didn’t sound frustrated. You nodded gently.

“Otherwise, they might take us in for public indecency.”

He sounded proud of having been able to say it, and you let out a burst of laughter. Peter smiled with that expression that always appeared whenever it was you who managed to completely disarm him.

Even so, he leaned in again to steal one last kiss, short and sweet, before resting his head on your shoulder.

You let out a sigh and rested your cheek against his, closing your eyes for an instant.

The rustle of leaves swayed by the wind, the distant singing of a few birds, and the occasional crunch of branches arrived with unusual clarity. It was the only thing filling the silence. There were no foreign voices, nor thoughts intersecting with yours.

The absence caught you by surprise.

It had been so long since you experienced a silence like that that, for an instant, you didn’t know how to interpret it. Your mind searched, out of pure habit, for the incessant rumor of other people’s thoughts; but it found nothing. Just the whisper of the wind through the trees and the steady rhythm of nature breathing around you.

You raised a hand to the nape of his neck and began to stroke his hair with an almost distracted slowness. Peter remained leaning against you, completely relaxed. For several minutes neither spoke. Time seemed to have stopped between the murmur of the trees and the warmth of the embrace.

“It’s so weird...”

“What is?”

He barely raised his head to look at you. There was a calmness in his expression that suggested if he had stayed a few more minutes like that, he would have ended up falling asleep in your arms.

“Not being able to hear you. Before I could do it, but now... there’s nothing. It even makes me forget my mutation.”

Peter formed a faint smile.

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to read my mind?”

You shook your head softly.

“Every time I try, it feels like needles poking through my head. So I don’t plan on trying again.”

You made a small pause before smiling.

“Besides... I like it this way. With you, I can feel like a completely normal person.”

Peter’s smile widened. He had changed over the years; his features were more mature, but his eyes retained the same warmth you remembered from childhood.

The wind tousled a few strands of your hair again. You slid both arms over his shoulders and brought him just a little bit closer. He held your gaze with that absolute attention he always dedicated to you.

“What are you thinking about?”

Peter took a few seconds to answer.

“Guess.”

“I can’t.”

A low laugh escaped his lips.

“About you.”

And, from the way he kept looking at you, you understood it wasn’t a witty answer. It was the truth.

You smiled and kissed him again, convinced that, for the first time in a long time, both of you were exactly where you wanted to be.

Peter pressed his face against your window, twisting himself at an angle to try and see whether or not you were sound asleep in your bed.

He could just barely make out the outline of your body beneath the sheets. He gritted his teeth, lowering his forehead to the window to mentally prepare himself to sneak in your room without waking you up.

Usually you'd wait up for him, but Peter didn't like how much your sleep schedule had suffered because of his late nights fighting crime. You thought you were hiding the dark circles and yawns well enough, but he quickly took notice.

He was able to convince you to go to bed without him, reassuring you that he'd be there when you woke—and he always was, but not without great struggle.

With a deep breath, he pressed his fingertips to the glass, applying just the right amount of pressure to slide it open. He paused when it creaked, his face scrunching as he waited for any sign that you’d woken up. When nothing came, he exhaled a shaky exhale and slid it fully open. 

He carefully climbed through, dropping to the floor as silently as he could, stilling to listen to your even breaths. He pulled off his mask with a sigh of relief when the cool air in your room met his flushed face. 

He was doing well peeling the suit off his body until his foot caught on the leg when he tried pulling it out. He stumbled forward, seconds away from falling when he shot a web out behind him, using the wall to catch himself.

His heart hammered hard in his chest as he pulled himself back up, cursing under his breath while kicking the suit away to the corner of your room. 

He tip-toed back to your bed, slowly pulling the covers back to slide in behind you. He laid still for a moment, his body stiff as he debated on whether or not he should slide closer to you. 

Eventually the scent of your intoxicating shampoo drew him in closer. He lifted his arm, subtly shifting over, inches away from slipping it around your waist.

Your head turned on the pillow, eyes wide and alert in the dark room.

“Welcome home.”

Peter flinched back with a surprised yelp, his hand instinctively darting out to release a powerful web that shot across the room, connecting with your dresser mirror with a loud crack! The glass shattered as shards trickled down to the table top.

Peter clutched a hand to his chest, gulping in deep breaths. “What the hell was that!”

“I hope you're gonna replace that,” you said, your voice calm in comparison to the chaos you'd just caused. 

He gave you a bewildered stare, his face illuminated only by the moonlight casting in from the window. “You’re awake?”

You nodded, turning on your side to face him fully. “I’ve been awake this whole time.”

“Oh…” He arched a confused brow at you. “Why didn't you say anything?”

You only shrugged with a playful smile growing on your lips. 

He scoffed, sinking back down to the sheets as his heart finally settled, the tension in his body melting into exasperation. “Well thank you, for the heart attack. And sorry for—um that…”

His voice trailed off when you leaned in closer to him with wide, careful, assessing eyes. Your fingers reached out to brush over the dark purple bruise below his eye. “This looks like it hurts,” you murmured with a frown.

Peter swallowed with a tiny nod, his heart that had calmed down picking back up under your attention. 

The corners of your lips turned up at how shy and nervous he still got with you. You leaned in to press a featherlight kiss to the bruise, so soft and careful, causing Peter’s eyes to flutter shut with a drawn out sigh of contentment. 

You kissed the scratch over his nose bridge next, then forehead, then his other cheek, and over the corner of his mouth. You peppered his whole face with tiny, healing kisses, each one relaxing his body until he was biting back his own giddy smile.

You giggled at the sight, your laughs growing louder when he slipped his arms around your body, flipping you over until you were laid out beneath him, cocooned in his warmth. He gave you a few short pecks that gradually slowed to a deep, languid kiss, his lips warm and slightly chapped against yours.

“Thank you,” he whispered, rubbing his nose against yours, voice clouded with exhaustion. “For staying up for me.”

You cradled his cheeks in your hands, your eyes sparkling as they stared deep in his. “This is my favorite part of the day.”

His cheeks heated under your palms, the pink flush barely visible in the low light. You couldn't resist kissing him again, your lips a magnet to his. 

You gently guided him down until his head was resting on your chest, his body settling over yours like a weighted blanket. You ran your hands through his already messy curls, scratching at his scalp. 

He nuzzled deeper into you with a loud, satisfied groan.

“And this,” he mumbled, his words slurring together, “Is my favorite part.”

You smirked, tugging lightly at the strands to draw out a breathy whine from him. “If only the world could see their Spiderman now.”

You waited for a witty response but were only met with his light exhales, followed by soft snores a few moments later. 

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The dress has tiny black polka dots and a halter neckline tied behind her neck in a soft bow. It had looked sweet in her dorm mirror, feminine enough to make her feel polished despite the fact that the back barely covered the top of her underwear.

Garrett had stared at it when he picked her up. He’s considerably less subtle now.

His mouth moves over hers slowly, his tongue catching against her own while his fingers slide through the hair at the nape of her neck. She has one hand twisted into his shirt and the other against the hard plane of his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath her palm with the same fast, uneven rhythm as hers.

It feels so fucking good. That’s part of the problem.

She’s kissed men before. She’s kissed a lot of men, actually, some of them long enough that she learned the precise point where their technique would stop improving and she could begin calculating how much sleep she would get if she left immediately afterward.

She knows how to have sex. She knows how to make the right noises, move at the right moments and smile afterward as if the whole thing has been mutually transformative rather than something she endured with polite enthusiasm. She knows how to fake an orgasm convincingly enough that nobody has ever requested additional evidence, then collect her clothes and move on with her life.

Garrett already knows the noises she makes when she actually comes. He knows the difference.

The thought sends another nervous flutter through her stomach, irritatingly delicate compared to the heat gathering lower down.

Garrett’s thumb strokes beneath her jaw. His lips catch her lower one and tug gently before releasing it, drawing a soft sound from her that he answers with a quiet hum. He shifts his weight and catches her around the waist.

She moves without resisting when he pulls her over his thighs, settling astride his lap while his back presses more firmly into the headboard. The position brings her directly over the hard shape beneath his jeans. Her breath catches.

Garrett’s hands disappear beneath her dress. His palms slide up the bare skin of her waist, broad and warm, gathering the soft fabric as they go until the skirt bunches around his wrists. He traces the curve above her hips, then tucks both thumbs beneath the thin elastic sides of her underwear.

He doesn’t pull them down. He only strokes there, small movements against the delicate skin at the front of her hips while he kisses the corner of her mouth.

Her stomach tightens beneath his hands. Garrett pauses. The kiss breaks slowly. His face remains close enough that his nose brushes hers, dark eyes moving over her expression while his thumbs go still inside the waistband.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she insists, although the words emerge too quickly and slightly breathless, which means they sound exactly like every other time she has said she’s fine while visibly not being fine.

Garrett draws one hand from beneath her dress and cups her chin. His thumb passes over her bottom lip, smoothing across skin already swollen from kissing. “Princess.”

She looks at his shoulder instead of his face. His black shirt is slightly wrinkled beneath her fingers, the collar pulled sideways from where she has been holding him. “I’m just a little nervous,” she admits.

Garrett nods once. There’s no laugh. No smug comment about her being the one who dragged him out of the party or climbed into his lap. His thumb moves over her lip again, gentler now. “Baby, we don’t have to have sex tonight.”

Her gaze lifts to his. “We don’t?”

His eyebrows pull together. “No.”

“But…” She glances toward his closed bedroom door, as though Logan, Dean and Tucker might materialise behind it if she references their absence too directly. “The house is empty.”

“That doesn’t mean we need to have sex.”

“Oh.”

Garrett studies her face. “Okay?”

She nods slowly. “Okay.”

His brow remains furrowed. He strokes the centre of her lower lip once more, watching the small drag of his thumb as if he’s trying to smooth the uncertainty out of her by hand. “I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She huffs, but her chest loosens enough for a little more air to enter it. “I don’t know. I thought you’d be annoyed.”

“Why would I be mad?”

She shrugs, the movement small beneath his hand. “I dunno.”

Garrett’s expression changes in a way she cannot name without becoming uncomfortable. Something soft and unhappy crosses his face before his mouth curves, not quite into his usual grin but something close enough to make the room feel familiar again.

“I’m not mad,” he says. “I like having you half-naked in my bed whether or not there’s a scheduled activity.”

Her mouth twitches. “Scheduled activity?”

“Sex.”

She presses her lips together, trying not to smile. “I understood.”

“Good. Didn’t want to overwhelm you with the terminology.”

She rolls her eyes, properly this time.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

She leans forward and kisses him. Garrett makes a pleased sound and settles his hand back at her waist, allowing her to choose the pressure, the pace, the slow movement of her mouth against his. 

The butterflies don’t disappear, but they loosen, turning warmer and less frantic beneath her ribs. She kisses him again, then once more because his mouth is soft and hot and his lower lip fits perfectly between hers.

“I like kissing you,” she whispers.

Garrett’s eyes remain closed for half a second after she pulls back. “Yeah.”

She waits.

He opens one eye. “What?”

She huffs. “That’s all?”

“What do you want, a written review?”

She pinches his side.

He laughs, catching her wrist before she can do it again. “I like kissing you too, princess.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

“Perfect.”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

She presses her smile into his mouth. Knowing he’s not waiting for anything seems to have removed the imaginary timer ticking somewhere in the room. She can kiss him without wondering when the kissing is supposed to become something else. She can sit on him and feel his erection beneath her without believing it’s become her responsibility.

Which, naturally, makes her want to get naked. She keeps kissing him as she reaches behind her neck and catches one end of the halter tie. The bow slips loose beneath her fingers. Garrett notices when the front of the dress begins to soften against his chest.

His hand closes around her waist. She draws the ties forward and pulls the dress up. The cream fabric slides over her hips, catches briefly at her breasts, and then disappears between them in a soft, polka-dotted heap.

Garrett stares. She’s left sitting in his lap wearing only a tiny pair of cream underwear, her nipples already hard in the cool room, the silver bars glinting faintly beneath the light from his bedside lamp.

“Hi,” she says.

Garrett’s eyes drag upward with visible effort. “You’re evil.”

“You said you liked having me half-naked.”

“That was before you launched a targeted attack.”

She smiles, pleased, and reaches for the hem of his shirt. Garrett grips the fabric himself and drags the shirt over his head in one impatient movement. His hair catches in the collar and springs free in complete disarray. She laughs.

“What?”

“Your hair.”

“You’re naked,” he mumbles. “I don’t care about my hair.”

He tosses the t-shirt toward his desk without looking. It lands nowhere near it.

She places both hands against his bare chest. Garrett’s warm beneath her palms, skin smooth except for the faint roughness of hair beneath his navel and the small marks hockey has collected across his body without permission. A fading bruise sits over one rib. There’s a pale line near his shoulder she has seen a hundred times at pools and practices, although touching it now feels like learning it again.

Garrett’s hands return to her hips. She kisses him harder. The relief of having nowhere to get to makes everything more intense. His mouth opens beneath hers. His fingers spread over the bare curve of her ass, drawing her forward until the damp centre of her underwear rubs over the hard length trapped inside his jeans.

Her lips part on a moan. Garrett does it again.

She begins moving without waiting for him, rolling her hips into the pressure, arms winding around his shoulders as she grinds against him. The denim is rough through the thin fabric between her legs. Every slow drag catches against her clit and sends another bright pulse of pleasure through her.

Garrett groans into her mouth. “Fuck,” he breathes.

His head lowers to her chest. He catches one breast in his palm and closes his mouth around the piercing.

Her entire body jolts. “G.”

He hums around the metal, the vibration moving straight through her. His tongue traces the bar before he sucks carefully, one hand holding her hip steady while she continues grinding over him.

Her forehead drops against his curls. The room contracts around the wet pull of his mouth, the heat of his body beneath hers and the heavy friction building between her legs.

This is what she likes most about him. Not only that he knows what he’s doing, although he does, which remains both deeply satisfying and personally irritating. It’s the way he makes the constant noise inside her head go quiet.

Garrett puts his hand somewhere and her body stays there. He tells her to look at him and she does. He catches her jaw, her hips, her wrists, and suddenly she doesn’t have to manage the angle or the rhythm or what expression belongs on her face. She doesn’t have to orchestrate her own pleasure while guiding a man toward the conclusion that he caused it.

She can simply let him handle her. Garrett releases her nipple with a soft, wet sound and moves to the other. His thumb circles the one he has abandoned, keeping the metal slick beneath the pad while his tongue finds the second bar. She whimpers and tightens her thighs around his hips.

“That good?” he asks against her breast.

“Yes,” she gasps.

His teeth graze her nipple. The rest of the complaint dissolves. Garrett laughs softly and turns them.

One second she’s above him, fingers twisted into his curls, and the next her back meets the mattress. He follows her down, fitting himself between her thighs while his mouth travels over the centre of her chest.

She stares at the ceiling as he kisses beneath her breasts, along her ribs and over her stomach. His hands hold her hips in place, thumbs moving absently along the elastic of her underwear.

By the time his mouth reaches the skin below her navel, she’s breathing too quickly again. She pushes herself upright, and Garrett glances up.

His face between her thighs does something dangerous to the rhythm of her heart, but her hands have already reached for his jeans. She catches the button and begins working it open.

Garrett straightens immediately. One hand closes around her jaw, fingers firm beneath her cheeks, and he kisses her. Deep. Slow. Thorough enough that the button remains trapped uselessly beneath her thumb while his tongue slides against hers and the hand at her face keeps her exactly where he wants her. Her thoughts blur.

When he finally pulls back, her lips chase his before she can stop them. Garrett’s thumb presses gently at the corner of her mouth. “Thought you didn’t want to.”

“I…” She glances down at his open fly, then back at him. “I don’t know.”

He watches her. She hates how easily he can see the confusion inside her, the desire winding itself through relief and nerves until she cannot tell where one stops and another begins.

“I want you,” she says, because that part is true. “I just don’t know if I want to, like…”

“Have sex.”

She nods.

“Okay.”

Her brow furrows. “But I don’t want to stop.”

“I didn’t say we had to stop.”

She blinks at him. Garrett’s head tilts slightly. His gaze shifts over her face, then down the length of her body, lingering where her thighs remain open around his hips.

“I have an idea.”

She nods immediately.

His mouth twitches. “You don’t even know what it is.”

“I trust you.”

The words leave her without ceremony. Garrett goes still for one quiet moment. Then he bends and kisses her, softer this time, once against her lips before sitting back on his knees. “You get yourself off, yeah?”

Heat crawls across her chest. “Yeah.”

“Mhm.” He drags the sound out, visibly pleased with the information. “Well, show me.”

Her arms loosen. “What?”

“Show me.”

Her stomach drops pleasantly. Garrett holds her gaze. There’s no mockery in his face, though his eyes have darkened and his mouth keeps threatening a grin.

“And I’ll show you,” he adds.

She looks down at the shape straining against his jeans. Her thighs press together without permission.

Garrett notices. “Interested?”

She nods.

“Words.”

“Yes.” Her voice comes out softer than intended. “Okay.”

He kisses her again as if rewarding the answer, his hand sliding into her hair while his mouth opens over hers. She feels him reach between them and push his jeans down, fabric dragging over his thighs before he breaks away long enough to stand at the edge of the bed.

She watches him strip. His jeans pool around his ankles. He steps out of them, then hooks his thumbs beneath the waistband of his black boxers and pulls those down too. Her breath catches.

She’s seen his cock before, held it and taken it into her mouth in the bathroom at Malone’s, but the cramped stall and the urgency of kneeling between his legs hadn’t allowed her to properly consider the fact that he’s… big.

Garrett’s proportionate to the rest of him, which isn’t comforting when the rest of him is built to drive grown men into plexiglass.

Garrett catches her staring. “Problem?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just observing.”

He grips himself loosely, giving one slow stroke that makes his stomach tighten. “Observing what?”

She looks at him. “You know.”

His grin appears. “I’d still like to hear it.”

“Absolutely not.”

He drags his bottom lip through his teeth. “Worth a shot.”

She shakes her head, but her hand has already found the side of her underwear. She lifts her hips and shimmies the fabric down her thighs, kicking it toward the foot of the bed. Garrett’s grin disappears. His gaze travels between her legs and remains there.

The attention makes her want to close them, because nobody has ever looked at her as though the sight itself is doing something to them. Garrett reaches down, catches both her ankles and pulls her toward him. A startled laugh escapes her as her body slides over the comforter, stopping at the edge of the mattress with her knees bent and Garrett standing between them.

“Bossy,” she says.

He wraps one hand around himself. “You love it.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but Garrett strokes once, slowly, and the words disappear. His fist moves from the base to the head, thumb sweeping through the wetness already gathered there. The muscles in his forearm tighten. His lower lip catches between his teeth for half a second before he releases it.

Her mouth goes dry.

“Go on, baby.”

She lets her knees fall wider. Her hand slides down her stomach, fingertips brushing over skin still sensitive from his mouth. Garrett watches every inch of the movement.

She finds her clit and begins circling slowly. Pleasure moves through her at once, less sharp than Garrett’s fingers but familiar, controlled. Her body knows her own touch. She knows the exact pressure to use, the rhythm that will carry her there if she keeps it steady.

The difference is Garrett. Garrett standing over her naked, stroking his cock while his eyes remain fixed between her thighs.

“Fuck,” he says quietly. Her fingers falter. He gives himself another slow stroke. “Don’t stop.”

She resumes, cheeks hot.

“That’s how you touch yourself?”

She nods.

“Words, princess.”

“Yes.”

“Show me properly.”

The instruction sends heat pouring through her. She presses more firmly, circling in the rhythm she uses alone beneath her blankets. Garrett’s breathing changes.

His fist moves faster, not much, but enough to make the muscles low in his stomach flex with each stroke. She watches the head disappear into his hand and emerge again, wet beneath the lamplight.

“You think about me when you do this?” he asks.

Her eyes lift to his. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” he repeats.

She bites the inside of her cheek.

Garrett tilts his head. “How many times is sometimes?”

“Garrett.”

“Every week?”

She says nothing.

His grin grows slowly. “Every day?”

“No.”

“That answer came suspiciously fast.”

She speeds up her fingers, partly because pleasure has begun coiling low inside her and partly because it’s becoming difficult to maintain an argument.

Garrett watches her thighs twitch. “What do you think about?”

“You know what.”

“I know what you told me before.” His thumb brushes over the head of his cock. “My hands on your tits. My mouth.”

Her breath stutters.

“What else?”

She shakes her head.

“Come on, baby. You can lie in my bed with your legs open and touch yourself while I jerk off, but you can’t tell me what you think about?”

The words move through her like another hand. She circles herself harder. “You holding me down.”

Garrett’s fist tightens. “Yeah?”

She nods.

“Moving you around?”

“Yes.”

“Putting you where I want you?”

Her hips lift faintly into her own hand. “G.”

“Thought so.” His voice has dropped lower, the amusement thinning beneath something rougher.

She watches his hand slide over himself. His shoulders are tense, broad beneath the low bedroom light, curls falling over his forehead as he looks down at her. He wants to touch her. She can see it in every small movement he refuses to make – the way his free hand flexes at his side, how his body leans toward the mattress before he corrects himself, the dark concentration in his eyes whenever her fingers slip lower and gather more wetness.

But he doesn’t reach for her. He gave her an idea. He gave her a boundary inside the moment, and he keeps it even while his breathing turns uneven. The restraint is so much hotter than touching would have been. She drags her fingers through the wetness and returns to her clit.

Garrett groans. “Jesus Christ.”

Her head presses back into the mattress. “You’re staring.”

“You’re putting on a show.”

“You told me to.”

He huffs. “Best decision I’ve ever made.”

She laughs breathlessly, but the sound breaks when she finds the right pressure again.

“That’s it,” Garrett murmurs. “Keep doing that.”

Her eyes drift closed.

“No, look at me.” They reopen immediately. Approval flashes across his face. “Good girl.”

Her stomach clenches so sharply that her thighs shake.

Garrett sees it happen. “There we go.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles. 

“You’re lying there touching yourself because I told you to, and you still think you’re in a position to boss me around?”

She makes a soft, frustrated noise.

“Yeah,” he says, stroking himself faster. “That’s what I thought.”

Pleasure builds steadily beneath her fingers, every circle tightening the coil inside her. She watches Garrett’s fist move, watches the muscles in his thighs tense and the bead of sweat beginning to shine faintly at his temple.

His bottom lip disappears between his teeth again. She’s never seen him like this. Not in the bathroom, where she had been too focused on doing everything correctly, and not the morning he fingered her, when he had kept all his attention fixed on her.

Now she gets to watch pleasure move across his face without disguise. His jaw loosens when his hand twists near the head. His brows draw together whenever he strokes down more firmly. His breathing leaves him in quiet bursts through his nose until she moves her fingers faster and a rough sound breaks from his chest.

“Fuck, princess.” She whimpers. “Look so pretty like this,” he says. “All spread out for me.”

Her fingers slip slightly.

Garrett’s eyes sharpen. “Keep going.” She obeys. “That’s my girl.”

The pressure climbs higher, her stomach tightening beneath the remains of his release-free touch. She bends one knee farther, heel digging into the edge of the mattress as her hips begin moving faintly beneath her hand.

Garrett watches.

“What would you usually do?” he asks.

She pants through the next circle. “What?”

“When you’re alone. What else do you do?”

She shakes her head, unable to organise an answer.

He tilts his head. “You use a toy?”

“Yes,” she breathes.

“What kind?”

Her face burns. “A vibrator.”

“Where is it?”

“My dorm.”

“Shame.” She lets out a broken laugh. Garrett strokes himself harder. “Next time, bring it.”

The phrase next time sends another pulse through her.

“You’d like that, huh?” His voice has become rougher, words breaking slightly around his breath. “Letting me watch you use it?” She nods. “Maybe I’ll hold it for you.” Her fingers press harder. “Keep you still while I make you come with it.”

“Garrett.”

“Or make you hold it and tell you when you’re allowed to finish.”

The pleasure spikes. Her back arches slightly from the mattress.

Garrett groans. “Fuck. You like that.”

She cannot pretend otherwise. “Yes.”

“Course you do.”

She’s never been spoken to like this without finding it embarrassing. Other men have tried. They have repeated phrases clearly acquired from pornography, asked questions they didn’t wait for her to answer and called her names that felt disconnected from everything happening inside her body.

Garrett knows where the words need to land. His bossy best friend, who wants control over every detail until his hands close around her and take the responsibility away.

Her fingers move faster. The orgasm begins approaching in heavy, gathering waves, her muscles tightening around nothing while the wet sound of Garrett’s fist fills the space between her breaths. “G,” she whimpers.

“I know.”

“I’m close.”

“Yeah?”

She nods quickly.

Garrett’s head tips back for half a second, throat working. “Me too.”

His hand speeds up. She watches him, mesmerised by the slight loss of control in his body. His hips begin meeting his fist in small, involuntary movements. His free hand grips the edge of the mattress beside her thigh hard enough that his knuckles pale.

He still doesn’t touch her. “Don’t stop,” he says.

“I’m not.”

“Come on, baby. Let me watch.” Her body tightens. “That’s it.”

She circles herself faster, no longer capable of maintaining the slow performance of showing him. Her thighs shake, knees drawing inward before she forces them open again.

Garrett notices. “Keep those legs open.”

She moans.

“Good girl.”

The orgasm breaks through her. Her mouth opens around his name as pleasure pulses hard beneath her fingers, hips jerking upward from the mattress. She half rolls onto her side automatically, curling away from the intensity while a broken moan leaves her.

Garrett catches her. His free hand closes around her hip and pulls her flat onto her back again. “No, stay there.”

The firm movement sends another aftershock through her. She gasps, fingers still pressed uselessly between her thighs while her body continues fluttering around the remains of the orgasm.

Garrett steps closer. His fist moves once, twice, faster now, eyes fixed on her face as his breathing fractures. “Fuck.”

His body tightens. Warm release spills across her stomach, landing in thick streaks over the soft skin below her navel. Garrett groans, head dropping forward, his hand slowing as the last of it pulses over her.

For several seconds, neither of them moves. Her chest rises beneath the silver bars through her nipples. Garrett’s does the same above her, shoulders shifting with every unsteady breath. The room smells like sex despite the fact that, technically, they have still not had it.

A laugh bubbles out of her. Garrett looks down. She presses the back of her wrist to her mouth, but another giggle escapes anyway, loose and delighted from the endorphins still moving through her.

His mouth curves. “Good?”

She nods, hair shifting against his mattress. “So good.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

Garrett wipes his hand against the inside of his discarded boxers, then drops onto the mattress beside her with all the grace of a man whose legs have temporarily resigned.

The bed bounces beneath his weight. She turns her head toward him. His face is flushed, curls damp near his temples and chest still rising too quickly. He stares at the ceiling like it’s witnessed something life-changing.

She shuffles closer and settles the side of her head against his shoulder. Garrett’s arm lifts automatically around her. Neither of them speaks for a moment. His fingers move slowly over her upper arm while their breathing returns to normal. Downstairs, the refrigerator makes a loud mechanical hum and then stops.

She glances down at her stomach. “G.”

“Mhm?”

“You’ve got to clean me up.”

Garrett closes his eyes. “Gimme a second.”

She giggles again. “You made the mess.”

“I’m aware.”

Her nose scrunches up. “It’s getting cold.”

His eyes open. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s true.”

“Can you give me thirty seconds to recover from the most intense mutual-masturbation experience of my life?”

She tips her face toward him. “The most intense?”

Garrett looks down at her, completely serious. “By a humiliating margin.”

Her smile spreads.

“Don’t get cocky.”

“I’m not.”

He nudges his nose into her hair. “You are. I can feel it happening.”

She traces one finger absently over the centre of his chest. “You were staring at me.”

“You were naked and touching yourself,” he mutters. “What did you expect me to look at? The curtains?”

“They’re nice curtains.”

“They came with the house.”

“You should wash them.”

“There she is,” he says, laughing softly as he catches her hand. “Back for twelve seconds and already assigning chores.”

She threads her fingers through his. “You like me bossy.”

Garrett brings their joined hands to his mouth and kisses her knuckles. “I like you all the time. The bossiness is an extra.”

The softness of the answer catches beneath her ribs. She looks back down at her stomach so he cannot watch it land. Garrett notices that too. His arm tightens around her briefly before he sits up with a groan and reaches for the tissues on his nightstand.

“Elegant,” she says.

“You want a warm towel?”

“Yes.”

He pauses with the tissue box in his hand. “Seriously?”

“You asked.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

She waits. Garrett stares at her. Then he drops the tissues and climbs out of bed. Her grin widens. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Nobody likes cold tissues.”

“Nobody else orders room service after getting come on them.”

She grins. “I’m your best girl.”

He points at her as he pulls on his boxers. “Weaponising my own words against me is low.”

“You love me.”

Garrett stills for barely a fraction of a second. It’s nothing. A tiny interruption in the movement of his hand as he pulls the waistband over his hips. So brief she could almost convince herself it didn’t happen.

Then he shakes his head and reaches for the door. “Unfortunately,” he says.

She throws a pillow at him. Garrett catches it against his chest, grinning, then tosses it back onto the bed before slipping into the hallway.

She listens to his footsteps move toward the bathroom. Her dress remains crumpled near the headboard. Her underwear has landed beside one sneaker, while the other shoe is somehow beneath Garrett’s desk. His clothes are scattered across the floor. The lamp casts everything in warm, uneven shadows.

Nothing has happened the way she expected. There was no awkward attempt to pretend Garrett’s size didn’t make her nervous. No pressure to continue because the house was empty and they had already taken their clothes off. No need to monitor his pleasure while manufacturing her own.

Garrett had watched her come and known it was real. The thought should leave her feeling exposed. Instead, she sinks deeper into his pillow and smiles at the ceiling.

He returns a minute later with a warm washcloth in one hand and a bottle of water tucked beneath his arm.

“You took forever.”

“I had to wait for the water to heat up.”

“Excuses.”

Garrett climbs back onto the mattress and catches her knee when she starts to close her legs. “Hold still.”

She goes still. His eyes flick toward her face, amusement warming them, but he doesn’t comment. He cleans her stomach carefully, the cloth soft and warm against oversensitive skin. Then he folds it and wipes gently between her thighs where her own release has dried tacky against them.

Her stomach turns over at the quiet intimacy of it. Nobody has ever cleaned her up before. Most men have barely noticed there was anything to clean.

Garrett finishes, tosses the cloth toward his laundry basket and hands her the bottle of water. “Drink.”

She twists the cap and takes several obedient swallows.

He shakes his head. “More.”

“You’re very demanding for someone who claims I’m bossy.”

“Drink your water, princess.”