starring: bnd!peterparker x blackcat!reader
SYNOPSIS: Peter Parker is alone. MJ doesnât remember him, and the grief wonât let go. One night as Spider-Man, he stumbles across a thief in black leather stealing a jewel just because itâs pretty. What starts as sharp banter on a rooftop turns into months of charged, late-night collisions. Heâs still broken. Sheâs not a hero. And the tension between them only gets thicker.
18+ MDNI - CW: angst w/ comfort, peter grieving mj :(, peter is going through it, strangers to lovers, peter has heightened senses, smut, arachnid peter, cunnilingus, unprotected p in v (use a condom pls), peter has webs coming out of his wrists when he climaxes (bc itâs lore accurate in my head)
wc: around 7-8k?? i lost track
The city never really slept. It only pretended for a few thin hours between three and five in the morning, when the taxis thinned and the neon signs looked abandoned against wet asphalt. Peter Parker hung upside down from a stone gargoyle on the side of a midtown high-rise, mask shoved up to the bridge of his nose so he could drag cold air into his lungs. His spider-sense had been humming at a low, constant frequency for weeksâever since the world had been quietly rewritten around the empty space where MJ used to live. Everything was louder now. The heartbeat of a pigeon three blocks away. The scrape of a ratâs claws in an alley. The faint perfume of someone leaving a club far below. The absence of her voice.
He had developed systems for surviving the quiet.
Stay out until his shoulders burned. Count the number of windows with lights still on between Fifty-Seventh and Park. Force himself to catalogue every scent the wind carried so his mind wouldnât drift back to the way she used to say his name. When the grief got too sharp, he would push himself harderâdrop from higher ledges, take longer swings, let the wind scream past his ears until the physical sensation drowned out the memory of her laugh. Exhaustion was the only reliable anesthetic. Sleep was dangerous. Sleep still sometimes gave him the shape of her smile before the dream glitched and she looked at him the way she did nowâpolite, distant, as if he were just another face in the crowd.
Some days he walked the streets in civilian clothes instead of swinging. He would buy a coffee he didnât drink and sit on a bench near the apartment building where she used to live, just to see if the ache changed when he looked at the windows. It never did. Other nights he forced himself to go home early and lie on the mattress in the dark, staring at the ceiling while his senses picked up every creak of the old building, every distant siren, every heartbeat on the floor below. He would stay like that until the numbness set in, then get up and put the suit back on. Moving was better than stillness. Stillness let the memories in.
Tonight the sense sharpened suddenly, a bright needle of awareness dragging his head left. Four blocks west. High. Moving with purpose and almost no sound.
He was already in motion before the thought finished forming. Movement was another coping mechanism. As long as he was swinging, he didnât have to sit still with the hollow place in his chest.
The building was older limestone and iron, the kind that still employed a night watchman who fell asleep at his desk by midnight. Peter landed on a neighboring rooftop first, staying low, letting his senses map the space before he committed. Through the open third-floor gallery window he could already hear the soft, precise sounds of someone workingâmetal on glass, a quiet electronic hum, the occasional shift of weight on polished floors. No alarms. No raised voices. Just focused, unhurried competence.
He dropped down to the narrow ledge outside the window and looked in.
You stood in a shaft of moonlight like the room belonged to you, the black catsuit fitted to every line of your body as if it had been painted on. One gloved hand rested lightly on the glass display case while the other held a small laser cutter that hummed against the lock. The jewel insideâan old European sapphire the size of a quail egg set in platinumâcaught the light and threw blue sparks across the sharp planes of your cheekbones and the curve of your mask.
Peter stayed on the ledge longer than he needed to, just watching.
There was something almost graceful about the way you workedâno wasted movement, no nervous energy. You werenât rushing. You werenât even particularly quiet in a fearful way. You simply existed in the space as if the idea of being interrupted had never seriously occurred to you. His spider-sense remained calm. No immediate danger. Only the steady, unhurried beat of your heart and the faint clean scent of your skin under the leather, something sharp and cool like night air after rain.
He finally stepped through the open window.
The soft thwip of a web against the frame announced him, but you didnât startle. You didnât even look up right away. You simply finished the cut with a soft click, lifted the glass, and plucked the sapphire free like it was a piece of expensive candy. Only then did you glance over your shoulder, slow and deliberate, as if youâd known he was there the entire time.
âWell,â you said, voice low and velvet-smooth, touched with amusement. âLook what the city dragged in.â
Peter dropped to the polished floor a careful ten feet away, arms crossing over his chest. âI donât believe weâve met. Usually the people I catch mid-robbery at least pretend to be startled.â
You turned fully toward him, tossing the jewel once and catching it with easy grace. The mask covered the upper half of your face, but your mouth curved in a slow, knowing smirk that was pure trouble.
âEveryone in this city knows who you are, Spider-Man. Some of us just pay closer attention than others.â You held the sapphire up so the moonlight fractured through it, letting the blue light play across your gloved fingers. âAnd this is coming with me. Itâs pretty. Some things donât need a better reason than that.â
He took a slow step closer. His elevated senses kept cataloguing everything without permissionâthe soft creak of leather when you shifted your weight, the steady rhythm of your pulse, the way the city light caught on the edge of your mask. No fear. No spike of adrenaline. Just calm, almost lazy confidence, like he was an interesting interruption rather than a real problem.
âPut it back.â he said.
âOr what?â You tilted your head, the smirk widening just a little. âYouâll give me the big speech about justice while dangling from a web? Threaten to leave me for the cops? Iâve heard it before, webhead. From a distance. Youâre much more interesting up close.â
Peterâs jaw tightened under the mask. âYouâve been watching me.â
âHard not to. You make a lot of noise for someone who thinks heâs subtle.â You took a single step closerânot enough to crowd him, but enough that he could feel the faint warmth radiating off your body. Your voice dropped, softer, almost intimate. âIâve got to say⊠the real thing is better than the blurry photos.â
He almost laughed. It came out as a rough sound in his throat. âYouâre impossible.â
âAnd yet here you are, still talking to me instead of swinging away.â You took another half-step closer, close enough now that the clean, cool scent of your skin under the leather reached him clearly. âMost heroes wouldâve already tried to take me in by now. Started the big moral lecture. You havenât. Iâm starting to wonder if you actually like the conversation.â
His spider-sense flaredânot danger, exactly. Just you. The proximity. The way your heartbeat stayed calm while his had started to pick up without permission. When you reached up as if to tap two fingers against the center of his chest plate, he caught your wrist before the touch could land.
âDonât.â
You didnât pull away. You just looked at the place where his gloved hand circled your wrist, then back up at his masked face. The teasing didnât drop, but it softened at the edges, turning into something more deliberate. Seductive and testing.
âCareful, Spider,â you murmured. âKeep holding on like that and I might start thinking you like the company.â
He released your wrist a second later than he should have. You twisted free with practiced ease and stepped back, giving him a little two-finger salute that somehow managed to feel both mocking and inviting.
âFine. Iâll play nice for one minute.â You moved toward the open window, graceful as smoke, the sapphire already disappearing into a pouch at your hip. At the sill you paused and glanced back over your shoulder, that same slow smirk still playing at the corner of your mouth.
âTry not to get too bored without me, webhead. Iâd hate to think I was the most exciting part of your night.â
And then you were goneâout the window, up the rope, vanishing into the dark like youâd never been there at all.
Peter stood alone in the empty gallery for a long time after, listening to the fading sound of your heartbeat until even that disappeared into the noise of New York. He should have followed. He should have webbed the pouch and ended the night the way every other night ended. Instead he stayed on the ledge and let the cold air sting his lungs, counting the seconds until the ache in his chest felt ordinary again.
Movement. Exhaustion. Silence. Those were the tools he had left.
Tonight they werenât working as well as usual.
He swung home the long way, forcing himself to take every possible detour, cataloguing rooftops and fire escapes and the occasional late-night walker until the sky began to lighten. When he finally dropped through the skylight into his apartment he didnât bother turning on the lights. He sat on the edge of the mattress with the mask still in his hands and stared at the wall until the numbness returned.
He told himself the encounter meant nothing. A thief. A one-time interruption. He would not see you again.
He already knew that was a lie.
A few weeks had passed since the night in the gallery
The rain had stopped earlier in the evening, but the city still smelled like wet concrete and cold metal. Peter had been swinging for hours, forcing himself through the same circuits he always did when the quiet got too loud. Midtown to the village. The village to the bridge. The bridge back uptown. His shoulders burned. His lungs ached in the cold. His spider-sense stayed at a low, constant hum, picking up every distant heartbeat, every shifting shadow, every scent the wind carried. It was exhausting. It was also the only thing that kept the memories from settling too deeply into his chest.
He almost ignored the familiar signature when it brushed against his senses againâbright, deliberate, already half-recognized even though he still didnât know your real name. Almost. But the hollow place under his ribs had been worse than usual tonight, and the idea of another stretch of empty rooftops felt unbearable. So he changed course.
He found you on the roof of a jewelry exchange in the diamond district, crouched beside a ventilation unit that you had already forced open. A slim black bag sat open at your feet. In your gloved hands were a pair of diamond cufflinks, the stones catching what little light made it through the clouds. You turned one over slowly between your fingers, studying the way it reflected the city, as if deciding whether it was worth keeping.
You didnât look surprised when he landed ten feet away.
âYouâre getting predictable,â you said, voice carrying easily over the residual drip of rain from the rooftop edge. âOr maybe Iâm just getting better at knowing where youâll be.â
âMaybe both.â He stayed a careful distance away, arms loosely crossed, watching the cufflinks glitter in your palm. âThose look expensive.â
âThey are.â You held one up so the diamonds caught the light. âOld money. Excellent cut. Not the biggest stones in the building, but the prettiest. Sometimes value isnât the point.â
Peterâs increased senses catalogued everything without his permission: the soft creak of your catsuit when you shifted your weight, the steady, unhurried beat of your heart, the faint clean scent of your skin under the leather and the residual rain. No fear. No spike of adrenaline. Just calm focus, like he was an expected interruption rather than a threat.
âYou could have taken the bigger pieces,â he said.
âI could have. I still might on the way out.â You slipped one cufflink into the bag and kept the other in your hand, turning it slowly. âBut I wanted these first. They reminded me of something. Or maybe of someone. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.â
He didnât know what to do with that honesty. It sat between you like a third person on the roof. He stayed where he was, listening to the distant traffic and the quiet drip of water from a nearby pipe, trying not to let his gaze linger too long on the way the city lights touched the side of your mask.
âYouâre still looking at me like Iâm a problem you havenât solved yet,â you observed after a moment. âThatâs fine. Iâve been a problem for better men than you.â
âIâm not trying to solve you.â
âGood. Iâm not a puzzle.â You tilted your head, studying him through the lenses of your mask. âYou, on the other hand, still look like a man whoâs been apologizing to himself for weeks. Maybe longer. Want to tell me why, or are we going to keep pretending this is about the jewelry?â
Peterâs throat tightened. The automatic deflection rose and died before it could leave his mouth. Something about the way you stood thereâopen, unapologetic, not asking him to be anything other than what he wasâmade the usual walls feel thinner than they had in a long time. His spider-sense stayed quiet. No danger. Just the steady presence of you, and the way the cold air carried the faint scent of your skin every time the wind shifted.
He looked out over the city instead of at you. The lights blurred a little.
âSomeone I loved forgot me,â he said after a long silence. The words came out rougher than he intended. âNot a spell I can reverse. Not amnesia with a cure waiting somewhere. The whole relationship was just⊠erased. Like it never happened. She looks at me now the way youâd look at a stranger you might have shared a class with once. Polite. Distant. And Iâm the only one who still remembers what it felt like to be hers.â
You didnât speak. The only sounds were the wind and the occasional distant siren.
âI keep waiting for it to stop hurting,â he continued, quieter now. âI thought if I just stayed away, if I kept moving, if I exhausted myself every night until I couldnât think straight, it would get quieter. It doesnât. Some nights I can still hear the way she used to say my name. Some nights I walk past places we used to go and I have to stop myself from looking for her in the windows. And the worst part is that she doesnât even know what sheâs missing. She just⊠moved on. Because for her, there was nothing to move on from.â
His hands had curled into loose fists at his sides without him noticing. He forced them open again.
âI donât know how to carry it,â he admitted. âI donât know how to be the only one left holding something that heavy. So I stay out here. I count the lights still on. I catalogue every scent the wind brings so my head stays too full for the memories. And some nights it almost works. Most nights it doesnât.â
The silence that followed was longer this time. You turned the remaining cufflink over in your fingers again, slow and thoughtful, the diamonds flashing faintly.
âThatâs a brutal kind of loneliness,â you said finally. Your voice had lost most of its usual edge. Not soft, exactly. Just quieter. Honest. âMost people in this city would kill for a clean slate. You got one you never asked for. And youâre out here every night trying to outrun the fact that youâre the only one who still remembers the version of the world that included her.â
âYeah.â
âAnd talking to a thief on a roof at three in the morning is somehow better than going home to the quiet.â
He almost smiled. It didnât quite reach his eyes. âSomething like that.â
You were quiet for another stretch of time. Then you stepped closerânot close enough to touch, but close enough that he could feel the faint warmth radiating off your body through the cold air. You held out the single diamond cufflink you had kept in your hand.
âHere,â you said. âConsolation prize. Itâs not going to fix anything. Itâs not going to make the quiet any less loud. But itâs pretty. And sometimes having one small, solid thing that belongs to you and no one else is better than nothing.â
Peter stared at the cufflink. The diamonds caught the city light and threw tiny fractured sparks across your glove.
âIâm not taking stolen goods.â he said, but there was no real force behind it.
âThen consider it a gift from a concerned stranger who happens to have sticky fingers and a flexible definition of ownership.â You pressed it into his palm when he didnât reach for it. Your gloved fingers lingered against his for a second longer than necessary. âYou donât have to carry it alone every night, you know. Sometimes itâs okay to let someone else sit on the roof with you. Even if that someone would still leave with the rest of the shiny things the second you turned your back.â
He closed his fingers around the cufflink. It was small and cold and solid in his hand. His increased senses registered the faint residual warmth from your glove, the precise weight of the metal, the tiny imperfections in the setting that only someone looking this closely would notice.
âWhy do you keep showing up?â he asked quietly.
You shrugged one shoulder. âMaybe I like the view. Or maybe I like watching the great Spider-Man pretend he doesnât enjoy the company of someone who doesnât need him to be okay. Either wayâŠâ You stepped back toward the edge, bag already slung over your shoulder. âIâm not going anywhere. And Iâm not promising Iâll stop taking the pretty things just because you look at me like that.â
You dropped off the side of the building into the dark without another word, leaving him alone on the roof with the single diamond cufflink still pressed into his palm and the fading sound of your heartbeat in his ears.
Peter stayed there for a long time after you were gone. The wind moved across the rooftop. The city kept breathing below him. He turned the cufflink over between his fingers again and again, watching the light catch in the stones, until the sky began to lighten at the edges.
He told himself he would throw it away.
He didnât.
He put it in the small inner pocket of his suit, right against his chest, and swung home the long way, counting the lights still on across the avenue and trying not to notice how much quieter the hollow place under his ribs felt with that small, stolen weight resting over his heart.
When he finally got home, he sat on the fire escape outside his apartment instead of going inside. He stayed there until the sun came up, replaying every word of the conversation, with the cufflink you gave him in his hand.
A few weeks later he took a bad hit near the docks. The fight near the docks had gone sideways faster than Peter expected.
One of the enhanced enforcers had caught him with a heavy metal pipe across the ribs hard enough to drive the air from his lungs and send him skidding across wet concrete. He had finished itâbarelyâthe damage was done. Every breath felt like someone was pressing a heated blade between his ribs. Blood had soaked through the side of his suit in a dark, spreading stain. His spider-sense kept flickering with residual adrenaline, too sharp, too loud, picking up every distant shout and the heavy slap of rain that had started falling again in thick, cold sheets.
He needed to get off the street.
He webbed himself up the side of the nearest warehouse and over the edge of its roof, looking for any kind of cover. The best he found was a wide metal overhang on the far side of the building, half-collapsed but still solid enough to keep most of the rain off. He dropped down under it with a barely controlled stagger and sank onto a low concrete ledge, one arm pressed tight against his side. The cold air stung the open scrapes. His vision swam for a second.
He was still trying to slow his breathing when a soft scrape of boots on wet metal sounded from the opposite end of the overhang.
Peterâs head snapped up, body tensing despite the pain.
You stepped out of the heavier rain and under the shelter like you belonged there, black catsuit glistening with water, a slim bag already slung over one shoulder. You froze for half a second when you saw him, clearly not expecting company, then let out a quiet, almost amused breath.
âWell,â you said, voice low and laced with that familiar teasing lilt. âThis is unexpected. Didnât realize someone had already claimed the only dry spot for three blocks.â
Peter stared at you through the lenses of his mask, still half-convinced his spider-sense was playing tricks on him. âYouâre⊠not here for me.â
âNo.â You glanced out at the sheets of rain hammering the open rooftop beyond the overhang. âI was cutting across the roofs to get out of this. Lucky me, I get free entertainment instead.â Your gaze dropped to the dark stain spreading across his side. âYouâre bleeding.â
âIâm fine.â
âYouâre leaning like your ribs are trying to crawl out of your body and your suit is turning a very unflattering shade of red.â You stepped fully under the overhang and crouched a few feet away, setting your bag down on the concrete with a soft thud. âThatâs not fine, Spider. Even by your standards.â
He watched as you unzipped the bag and dug through it with practiced efficiency. Not a dedicated first-aid bagâjust the kind of compact, well-stocked emergency kit a professional thief might keep for the nights things went wrong. You pulled out antiseptic, gauze, medical tape, and a small pair of scissors, then looked at him again, one eyebrow arched beneath the mask.
âShirt off,â you said, the teasing still present but quieter. âOr at least get the top of the suit out of the way so I can see what Iâm dealing with. Unless youâd rather sit here and bleed dramatically for the aesthetic.â
He should have refused. He should have told you he could handle it himself and waited for the rain to ease. Instead he reached up with careful, stiff movements and peeled the upper half of the suit down to his waist. The cold air hit the bruised skin and open scrapes immediately. A low sound escaped him before he could stop it.
You hissed softly through your teeth when you saw the damageâdeep purple-black already blooming across his left side, several long scrapes still seeping blood.
âChrist. You really donât do anything halfway, do you?â You moved closer, kneeling between his knees so you could reach him properly. The space under the overhang was narrow. Your shoulder brushed his thigh as you settled. âThis is going to sting. Try not to web me to the wall in retaliation.â
It did sting.
The antiseptic burned like fire across the open skin. Peterâs jaw locked. His hands gripped the edge of the concrete ledge hard enough that the material creaked. Your gloved fingers worked with careful precisionâcleaning each scrape, pressing gauze into place, wrapping the medical tape with firm but gentle pressure. Every point of contact was amplified by his enhanced senses: the faint warmth of your hands even through the leather, the soft sound of your breathing so close to his chest, the clean sharp scent of your skin mixed with rain and the sterile bite of the antiseptic. He could hear the exact rhythm of your heartbeat. Steady. Focused. A little faster than usual.
âYouâre surprisingly good at this,â he muttered through gritted teeth.
âDonât sound so shocked.â You glanced up at him, the corner of your mouth lifting. âI get into my fair share of scrapes. Comes with the job description. Unlike some people, I actually pack supplies instead of just hoping for the best.â
âI usually just tough it out.â
âIâve noticed. Itâs very heroic. Also very stupid.â You secured another strip of tape, your fingers lingering for a second longer than strictly necessary against his side as you smoothed it down. âThere. That one should hold. Try not to stretch too much or youâll open it again and Iâll have to start over. And I charge extra for second attempts.â
Neither of you spoke for a while after that.
The rain hammered against the metal above you in a constant, heavy rhythm. Distant thunder rolled somewhere over the river. Under the overhang it felt strangely private, like the rest of the city had been temporarily edited out of existence. Peter kept his eyes fixed somewhere past your shoulder, but his senses refused to ignore how close you wereâthe way your knee pressed lightly against the inside of his thigh as you worked, the soft brush of your sleeve against his arm when you leaned in to tape a particularly awkward angle, the quiet concentration in your breathing.
You finished the last of the bandaging and sat back on your heels, but you didnât move away immediately. Your hands rested lightly on your own thighs, still close enough that he could feel the heat of you.
âYouâre allowed to lean on someone, you know,â you said eventually, voice lower than before, the teasing softened around the edges. âEven if that someone has a flexible relationship with other peopleâs property and only happened to be in the same dry spot by accident.â
Peterâs voice came out rougher than he intended. âIâm not good at that.â
âI noticed.â You tilted your head, studying him. âYou donât have to be good at it tonight. You just have to sit still and let me finish without arguing for once.â
He finally looked at you then. The lenses of your mask reflected the dim light, but the shape of your mouth was softer than usual. Not purely teasing. Not sharp. Just present. His spider-sense stayed completely quiet. No warning. Only the overwhelming awareness of how near you were, how the rain had plastered strands of hair to the side of your neck, how the cold air kept stealing the small shared warmth between your bodies.
You reached out to carefully adjust the edge of one of the bandages where it had started to lift, your gloved fingers brushing lightly against his bare skin. The touch was brief, practical⊠and still somehow lingered in the air after you pulled your hand back.
âThere,â you said, quieter now. âYouâre not going to bleed out on me. Try not to pick another fight for at least twelve hours. Iâd hate to have to patch you up again so soon. My rates go up for repeat customers.â
Peter swallowed. His side still ached, but the worst of the sharp pain had dulled under the bandage. The hollow place in his chest felt strangely quieter too, as if the simple act of letting someone take care of him for a few minutes had eased something he hadnât realized was still clenched tight.
âThank you,â he said.
You shrugged one shoulder, already packing the kit back into your bag with neat, efficient movements, though the usual sharp edge in your voice had softened. âDonât thank me yet. I might still change my mind about sharing the dry spot if the rain lets up. Or start charging you for the gauze.â
But you didnât leave.
You settled onto the concrete ledge a careful foot away from him, knees drawn up, watching the rain fall in heavy silver sheets beyond the edge of the overhang. Peter stayed where he was, half-undressed, bandaged, and more aware of another person than he had allowed himself to be in months. The silence between you was different nowâcharged, intimate, almost gentle. Every so often the wind would shift and carry the faint scent of your skin to him again, and his senses would light up with it like a live wire.
You both sat like that for a long time, listening to the storm, neither of yoy in any hurry to return to the wet, empty city waiting just beyond the shelter.
The weeks turned into months.
Winter deepened. The city grew colder, the nights longer. You kept finding each otherâsometimes on purpose, sometimes by the strange gravity that seemed to pull you both toward the same rooftops at the same hours. The banter stayed sharp. Your moral flexibility stayed intact. You still took what you wanted when the opportunity presented itself. He still tried (and usually failed) to stop you, but the silences between the words had started to feel less like empty space and more like something shared.
Peterâs overwhelming senses made every meeting louder than it should have been. He could track the sound of your breathing from three rooftops away. He could smell the faint trace of your perfume on the wind long after you had gone. He could feel the exact moment your pulse changed when he landed near you. It was maddening. It was grounding. It was the only thing that sometimes made the hollow place in his chest feel less empty.
He used the time deliberately.
He forced himself to sit with the memory of MJ instead of outrunning it. He went to the places they used to go and let the absence hurt until it became ordinary. He stopped swinging until his shoulders burned every single night. Some nights he even slept. He wrote things down in a notebook he kept under the mattress, fragments of conversations he still remembered, the way her hand had felt in his, the sound of her laugh in a crowded room, and then he read them back until the words lost some of their power. The grief didnât disappear. It simply stopped being the only thing he could feel.
There were nights when the weight of it still crushed him. Nights when he sat on a random rooftop and let the tears come because there was no one left to see them. On one of those nights you found him without being called. You didnât speak. You just sat beside him until the worst of it passed, then left a single stolen earring on the ledge as a silent reminder that you had been there.
He kept the earring.
The face reveal happened on a night when the wind was bitter and the sky was clear enough to see stars between the buildings.
You were both sitting on the edge of a high-rise in the financial district, legs dangling. Peter had taken a glancing blow to the side of the head earlier; the edge of the mask was torn just enough that the cold air kept finding the cut.
âYouâre still bleeding.â you remarked.
âItâs fine.â
âItâs not.â You turned toward him fully. âTake the mask off. Let me see.â
He hesitated. The mask was the last barrier. Once it was gone, there would be no pretending this was still just Spider-Man and a thief who crossed paths.
You waited. You didnât push. That, more than anything, decided him.
He reached up and pulled the mask off in one slow motion. The cold air hit his face like a slap. For a moment he couldnât look at you. When he finally did, you were already removing your own mask with the same deliberate care.
The face beneath stopped him cold.
It was sharp and striking and completely unfamiliar. No recognition, no shared history, but beautiful in a way that made his breath catch in his throat. High cheekbones, a mouth that looked like it was made for smirking, eyes that held the same sharp intelligence heâd already grown used to hearing in your voice. His enhanced senses catalogued everything at once: the exact shape of your lips, the way the city lights caught in your eyes, the soft flush the cold had left on your skin. For a few seconds he just stared, completely caught, like the rest of the city had gone quiet.
You were a stranger. And somehow you had already become the only person in the city who knew the shape of his grief⊠and the first person in a long time who had made him forget, even for a moment, how heavy it was.
You studied him in silence for several long seconds.
âSo thatâs what you look like under all the webs.â
âDisappointed?â
âNo.â You tilted your head. âYou look like someone whoâs been carrying too much for too long. It suits you better than the mask, somehow.â
He didnât know what to say to that. The wind moved between you. Somewhere far below a train rattled along its tracks.
After a moment he spoke, voice quieter than before. He hesitated, the words sitting heavy on his tongue, then pushed them out anyway.
ââŠPeter,â he broke the silence. You looked up at him, confused. âMy name is Peter Parker.â
He watched your face carefully, like he was still deciding whether heâd done the right thing. When you didnât pull away or laugh, something in his shoulders eased just slightly.
âI⊠wanted you to know,â he added, softer. âJust you.â
You didnât look surprised. Just thoughtful.
You were quiet for a few seconds, eyes moving over his face as if you were memorizing it. Then a small, almost private smile touched your mouth.
âPeter,â you repeated, testing it. âIt suits you better than the mask too.â
You hesitated then, the usual sharp confidence softening into something more careful. The wind tugged at a few loose strands of your hair as you looked at him, really looked at him, and seemed to come to a decision.
âYou told me yours,â you said quietly. âSoâŠâ
And you tell him your name.
It left your mouth softer than most things you said, almost like you were offering something you didnât hand out easily. Peterâs eyes stayed on yours the entire time, and the way he repeated it backâslow, careful, like he was committing every syllable to memoryâmade something warm and unexpected settle in your chest.
âIt suits you,â he said after a moment, voice low. There was no teasing in it. Just quiet sincerity
The two of you stayed like that for a little longer, names now known, masks still off, the cold night air moving between you. The city felt farther away than usual.
âIâm not her,â you said eventually. âI canât be. I wonât try to be. And Iâm still going to take the next pretty thing I see, even if youâre standing right there. I need you to understand that before this goes any further.â
âI do.â
âDo you?â You searched his face. âBecause the way youâve been looking at me lately⊠it feels like youâre waiting for me to become something softer. Iâm not going to. I like who I am. If thatâs a deal-breaker, say it now.â
Peter looked at youâreally looked. The grief over MJ was still there, heavy and familiar. But for the first time it didnât feel like the only thing in the room.
âItâs not a deal-breaker,â he responded. âI donât need you to be softer. I just⊠need time. Iâm still figuring out how to carry what happened. I wonât touch anyone else until Iâve faced that. Not even you.â
Something complicated moved across your expression. Then you nodded once.
âOkay,â you answered back. âThen we wait. Iâll still be on the roofs. And when youâre ready, if youâre ever ready, you know where to find me⊠Peter.â He shivered at the way his name rolled out of your tongue.
You put your mask back on first. He followed a moment later.
You left him there with the wind and the city lights and the first real possibility that the hollow place in his chest might one day hold something else.
Spring came slowly.
The meetings continued. The tension thickened with every one of them. Peterâs senses made it almost unbearable at timesâhe could hear the soft catch in your breath when he stood too close, could feel the heat of your body even through layers of leather and kevlar, could track the exact rhythm of your heartbeat like it was a second pulse inside his own chest. He started noticing the way your voice dropped when you were being honest, the way your fingers flexed when you were resisting the urge to touch him, the way the air between you felt charged enough to spark.
He was falling. He knew it. The realization came in pieces over weeksâsmall, quiet moments that stacked on top of each other until the truth was impossible to ignore. He liked the way you never lied to him. He liked the way you stayed. He liked the way the grief felt less like drowning when you were nearby.
But he still waited.
He waited until the grief no longer felt like the only thing defining him. He waited until he could think about MJ without the sharp, breathless panic. He waited until the idea of touching someone else no longer felt like a betrayal of a memory that only he still carried.
It took months.
The night everything finally shifted, it was raining again.
He found you on the same East Village rooftop where you had once patched him up, standing at the edge with your back to him, watching the storm move across the skyline. You didnât turn when he landed.
âYouâre early.â you commented.
âI know.â
You glanced over your shoulder. âSomething different about you tonight.â
âYeah.â He pulled the mask off. The rain hit his face immediately. âI think Iâm done waiting.â
You turned fully then. For a long moment you just looked at him, rain running down the lenses of your own mask. Then you reached up and removed it as well.
âYouâre sure?â you asked. The question was quiet, almost careful. âBecause I meant what I said. Iâm not going to become someone else for you. Iâm still the woman who takes what she wants and doesnât apologize. If you need a saint, keep looking.â
âI donât need a saint.â He stepped closer. The rain was cold; the space between you was not. His enhanced senses were almost overwhelmingâyour scent, your heartbeat, the soft sound of rain hitting your suit. âI just need the person whoâs been sitting on roofs with me while I figured out how to carry the rest of it. If thatâs still on the table.â
You studied him for another long second. Then the corner of your mouth lifted.
âItâs on the table,â you said. âHas been for a while. I was just waiting for you to notice.â
He kissed you.
It wasnât soft. It wasnât careful. It was months of loneliness and grief and the slow, deliberate choice to let something new exist alongside the old wound. You made a small sound against his mouth and kissed him back just as hard, fingers fisting in the fabric of his suit, body pressing flush against his like you had been waiting for permission that was finally, fully given.
When you finally broke apart, both of you were breathing like you had run miles.
âMy place,â you said. âNot because Iâm soft. Because the rain is freezing and I want to take my time with you without an audience of pigeons.â
âLead the way.â
Your apartment was high up, open floor plan, windows looking out over the glittering wet city. The moment the door closed behind you, the last of the careful distance between you burned awayânot into haste, but into something heavier and more intentional.
Peter pushed the residual rain from his hair. You did the same. For a long moment you just looked at each other without masks, without rooftops, without the city listening. Then you stepped in close, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your body through the damp fabric of your suit, and rested your forehead against his.
âStill with me?â you asked quietly.
âYeah.â His voice was already rough. âIâm here.â
âGood. Because Iâve been thinking about this for a long time, and I want to go slow. I want to feel all of it.â
He kissed youâsoft at first, almost reverent, mapping the shape of your mouth the way he had once mapped the skyline. Your hands found the edge of his suit and began working it open with careful fingers. He returned the favor, finding the hidden zipper at the back of your neck and drawing it down in one long, deliberate pull. The leather parted. Warm skin. The soft curve of your spine under his palms.
His enhanced senses were already starting to sharpen beyond the usual. Every brush of your fingers against his skin sent sparks up his arms. He could hear the exact moment your breath hitched. He could smell how wet you already were. He could feel the heat of you like a living thing.
You bit his lower lip gently and smiled against his mouth when he groaned.
âStill pretending you donât like this?â
âI stopped pretending months ago,â he murmured. âYou know that.â
âI do. I just like hearing you say it.â
The rest of the suits came away in stagesâgloves, boots, the main pieces peeled down and discarded in a damp heap near the door. You wore nothing underneath except a scrap of black lace. He hooked his fingers in the sides and dragged it down slowly, watching the way your thighs tensed, the way your breath hitched when the cool air of the apartment hit wet skin.
You were already soaked. The scent of your arousal hit his heightened senses like a drugâwarm, musky, purely you. His mouth watered. His cock ached, every nerve ending already oversensitive.
âJesus, CatâŠâ
âYou can look all you want,â you said, voice husky. âBut Iâd rather you touch. And Iâd rather you take your time. Weâve waited long enough for this.â
He guided you back onto the bed and followed, settling between your thighs. His hands stroked up the soft inner skin of your legs, thumbs brushing higher until he parted your folds and could see how wet you already were. You were flushed a deep pink, glistening. He dragged one finger through the slick heat and watched your stomach jump. Then another. He worked you open slowly, learning the angles that made your breath catch, the pressure that made your hips roll up to meet him.
âTalk to me,â he said quietly, eyes on your face. âTell me what you need.â
âYou,â you answered, already a little breathless. âJust you. Donât overthink it.â
When he finally lowered his head and licked a long, slow stripe from your entrance to your clit, the sound you made nearly undid him. You tasted like rain and want and something darker. He settled in like a man who had been starving for exactly this, tongue working steady circles around your clit while two fingers slid inside you, curling, searching. Every sound you made, every flutter of your walls around his fingers, every shift of your hips was magnified by his senses until it felt like the entire world had narrowed to the space between your thighs.
âRight there! Fuuck, Peter, donât stopââ
He didnât. He licked and sucked and fucked you with his fingers and tongue until your thighs started to shake around his head. When you cum the first time it was with a broken cry, pulsing around his fingers, flooding his tongue. He worked you through it until you were trembling and oversensitive, then pressed a soft kiss to your inner thigh and looked up at you.
You were already wreckedâcheeks flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling fast. The sight of you like that, open and wet and still looking at him like you wanted more, made something low and primal tighten in his gut.
âCome here.â you managed.
He crawled up your body and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. Your legs wrapped around his waist. His cock slid against your soaked folds and the sensation was so intense his vision went white for a second. He had to stop and breathe through it, forehead pressed to yours.
âYou okay?â you whispered.
âYeah. Just⊠everythingâs louder right now. You feel like too much in the best way.â
âThen take what you need.â You kissed the corner of his mouth. âIâm right here.â
He reached down, guided himself to your entrance, and pushed in slowâinch by inch, watching your face the whole time. You were tight, hot, and so fucking perfect. The heat of you around him was almost overwhelming. When he finally bottomed out you both went still, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.
âOkay?â he asked again, voice strained.
âMore than okay.â Your hands slid up his back. âMove. And donât you dare hold back just because youâre still carrying the rest of it. I can take it. I want all of you.â
He started slowâdeep, measured thrusts, learning the angle that made your breath catch, the rhythm that made your nails dig into his shoulders. The careful control lasted longer than he expected. You met every stroke, hips rolling up, soft sounds spilling from your mouth that his senses caught and amplified until they felt like they were vibrating under his skin.
âHarder,â you eventually demanded, voice rough. âPeterâharder.â
Something in him shifted.
The careful human restraint began to fray. His eyes darkenedâfirst the usual warm brown deepening, then the color bleeding outward until both irises and sclera were pure, solid black. The arachnid part of him had taken over. His thrusts grew deeper, stronger, more instinctive. His spider-sense flared not with danger but with pure, overwhelming awareness of youâyour heartbeat racing against his chest, the slick heat of you clenching around him, the scent of sex and rain and you filling his head until thought became secondary to sensation. His movements turned more animal, more driven. He gripped your hip hard enough to leave marks and drove into you with a low, guttural sound that didnât sound entirely human.
âFuuckâyesââ you gasped, arching under him, staring up into those solid black eyes. âJust like that. Donât stop.â
He couldnât have stopped if he wanted to. The arachnid part of him had taken the reinsâheightened strength, heightened need, the primal drive to claim and keep and feel. He fucked you deep and relentless, the wet sound of skin on skin filling the room, mixed with the rain still pattering against the windows and the broken, desperate sounds spilling from both of you. Your breasts bounced with every hard thrust. He leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth, biting just hard enough to make you cry out, and felt you clench around him in response.
âPeterâgod, youâreââ
âIâve got you,â he growled against your skin, the words more instinct than thought, black eyes locked on yours. âIâve got you. Youâre mine right now.â
âIâm yours,â you agreed, breathless, nails raking down his back. âKeep going. Donât you dare stop.â
He could feel the second orgasm building in youâthe way your walls fluttered, the way your breathing turned sharp and desperate. He slipped a hand between your bodies and found your clit with his thumb, rubbing tight, relentless circles in time with his thrusts.
You cum with a cry that cracked in the middle, pulsing hard around his cock, thighs locking around him. The sensation of you clenching around him was too much. The pleasure coiled tight at the base of his spine and then snapped with almost violent intensity.
When he came, it hit like a shockwaveâhot, overwhelming, spilling deep inside you in long, shuddering pulses while he buried his face in your neck and groaned your name like a prayer. At the exact same moment, thick strands of web shot from both of his wrists in uncontrolled bursts, sticking to the sheets on either side of your head and the headboard behind you. He couldnât stop it. The release was too intense, his body too oversensitive, every nerve firing at once. He kept cumming in long, helpless waves, more webs spilling from his wrists with each pulse until the bed around you was a mess of white strands and the two of you were tangled in them.
He collapsed against you, still trembling, still buried deep, webs still faintly dripping from his wrists. His breath came in ragged, uneven pulls against your neck. Slowly, as the last aftershocks faded, the solid black drained from his eyes, the warm brown returning like ink washing away in water until they looked human again.
For a long time neither of you moved.
Eventually you started laughingâquiet, breathless, delighted.
âWell,â you said against his shoulder, voice still shaky. âThatâs new.â
Peter made a mortified, still-half-feral sound into your neck. âI⊠wasnât expecting that.â
âI could tell.â You tugged gently at one of the webs stuck to the headboard, then reached up and gently brushed your thumb under one of his eyes. âYour eyes went completely black. Like⊠all of it. Theyâre back now.â
He blinked, still a little dazed. âDid they?â
âYeah. It was intense. In a good way.â
He slowly, carefully eased out of you and rolled to the side, pulling you with him so you were half on top of him, tangled in the webs and the sheets. His hands stroked slowly up and down your back, grounding both of you. The feral edge was fully gone now, leaving behind something softer and almost stunned.
âYou okay?â he asked after a while, voice quiet and raw. âI didnât⊠I didnât hurt you, did I?â
âNo.â You lifted your head enough to look at him. In the low light your eyes were soft, warm, a little amazed. âYou didnât hurt me. That was⊠a lot. In the best way. You went somewhere else for a minute.â
âYeah.â He brushed damp hair from your face with careful fingers, still slightly sticky with residual web. âMy senses get too loud sometimes. Everything becomes instinct. I tried to stay careful, but once it started I couldnâtââ
âHey.â You caught his wrist gently and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm, right over the spinneret. âI liked it. I liked you. All of it. The careful part and the not-so-careful part.â
He stared at you for a long moment, something vulnerable and open in his expression. Then he pulled you closer, tucking your head under his chin, one hand stroking slowly through your hair while the other rested warm and steady on the small of your back. The webs still clung to the bed around you like a strange, private nest. Outside, the rain kept falling in soft sheets against the glass.
âI know iâve said this to you before, but iâm not going to fix whatâs broken,â you said quietly against his chest after a long, comfortable silence. âI know that. Iâm still going to take the next pretty thing I see. Iâm still going to make choices that would make a better person flinch. But I can be here while you carry it. If you want me to.â
Peterâs arms tightened around you. He pressed a slow kiss to the top of your head, then another to your temple, then one more to the corner of your mouth when you tilted your face up to him.
âI want you to,â he said, voice low and certain. âI want this. Whatever it is. Even if itâs messy. Even if youâre still you and Iâm still⊠me.â
You smiledâsmall, genuine, a little sad around the edgesâand kissed him again, slow and thorough, webs and all.
You stayed like that for a long time: tangled together in the ruined sheets and the sticky white strands, listening to the rain and each otherâs heartbeats, neither of you in any hurry to untangle or move or return to the version of the world that existed beyond the windows. Every so often Peterâs fingers would stroke absently along your spine, or you would press a quiet kiss to his collarbone, or one of you would murmur something soft and half-asleep that made the other smile against skin.
The grief over MJ was still thereâwould probably always be there in some formâbut for the first time in months it no longer felt like the only thing in his chest. There was room now for this: the weight of your body against his, the residual heat of what you had just done, the strange comfort of being wrapped in his own webs with someone who had seen every frayed edge of him and stayed anyway.
Outside, the city kept moving. The rain kept falling. And for the first time in a long time, Peter Parker fell asleep without dreaming of the woman who had forgotten him.
He dreamed of sharp smiles, flexible morals, the soft sticky pull of his own webs, and the steady sound of a heartbeat that matched his own.
