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#synopsis he needs this more than you, believe him.
#tags ( 18+ ) vaginal fingering light edging praise use of petnames
Phainon's selflessness makes intimacy confusing.
Contrary to popular belief, the dynamic couples like you share is less about dominance and submission, and more about love language. Or so you think. Well, it's hard to navigate relationships with little to no experience regarding dating â let alone understanding the sexual aspect of it.
But the million-dollar-question is: what is Phainon's love language? He's like an all-rounder when it comes to boyfriend-ing, to the point that if this were a competition, you would've been forced to forfeit by now. But you can feel your brain beginning to overheat every time you think about it â he never misses an opportunity to compliment you (and what's worse is that it's so genuine you couldn't even call it flirting); your skin has learned to recognize the temperature and feel of his hands from the countless times he caresses and holds you; he replies before the little "delivered" can appear under your text bubble, and always makes time for you, no matter the time of the day; and he gets you flowers and other gifts every time he comes to pick you up for one of your dates.
And from time to time, you find yourself questioning all of it. It feels like nothing you do could ever compare, so really, how did you get so lucky?
Truth be told, what you call selflessness, Phainon calls it selfishness.
You really were looking forward to him coming over, but he greeted you at your doorstep with slumped shoulders and a weary smile. His face finds the crook of your neck like clockwork once he leans forward and into your arms, nosing at your pulse and breathing you in. In no time, Phainon's sat on your bed in one of your oversized band tee-shirts and a pair of spare sweatpants he had left at your place.
His voice is raspier and quieter than usual, and you don't think he even realizes. And somehow, he still finds the strength to flash you a smile, eyes wrinkling at the corners, as he compliments your appearance and asks about your day. You continue to talk, waiting (and half-hoping) for him to nod off mid-sentence but he never does.
You're not sure when exactly it started, but his arms circle around your waist faster than you can process any of it. Phainon places slow, lazy kisses to the skin of your exposed shoulder, deliberately tugging the sleeve down to free some more. The sound of your heartbeat is deafening and it thrums in you ears the more his hands knead at the fat of your bare thighs.
Phainon hums low under his breath, right against your ear. "This is okay, right?" he has the courage to ask like he hadn't been devouring you with his eyes five minutes before all this. Like he can't feel the warmth of your core from where his hands rest on the waistband of your shorts. You try to protest (although weakly), insisting that he should rest, that he doesn't have to. But the truth is Phainon knows very well he doesn't. Your underwear was perfectly dry before he started tracing shapes onto your waist and back and hips.
All of it was calculated. He wanted you like this.
So, he ignores you, focusing on the way your chest stutters, your back pressing rhythmically against his torso, as he slides your shorts and panties down your thighs. Phainon's palms caress your inner thighs, digging into the warm skin of your ass once you try to shy away from the cold air hitting your glistening folds.
"Shh," he whispers before kissing your cheek, like he isn't actively spreading you open. "It's okay, I got you. I'll make you feel so good."
That's what he always says, and so far he's never lied, which is what makes you forget that it's exactly how you end you in this position every. single. time. That's just what Phainon does, selfish as he is â he lures you into his snap trap like a carnivorous plant, and only lets you go once your brain has melted into one big puddle and the only letters of the alphabet you can remember are the ones that spell his name.
He continues to peck your face, neck, and shoulder as he circles your twitchy clit with his middle finger, his others fingers keeping your lips spread. Your breath fans his cheek and the back of your head rests against his shoulder, lolling lightly from side to side with every breathless whimper that leaves your mouth. He doesn't even seem to mind the way your nails dig into his forearms, holding onto them for dear life every time her runs the pad of his finger on the underside of your clitoral glans.
Because Phainon knows how tremendously sensitive that part is, and he loves watching the muscles of your inner thighs tense as you let out a long whine.
"I know, I know," he coos.
Your boyfriend's tone nears condescendance, yet even if you were able to form a coherent thought at the moment, you wouldn't care less. When your eyes finally flutter open, you find him already looking down at you.
"There she is, my pretty girl. Does it feel good, sweetheart?" he asks sweetly, spreading your lips a bit more to play with your bud with two fingers now. He tuts before you can nod. "Use your words, baby. And keep those gorgeous eyes open for me."
Every time that you think that warm puddle in your lower stomach is about to spill all over the sheets, Phainon slows down, neglecting your clit to tease and circle at your entrance without ever dipping his fingers in. You huff, both from the subconscious frustration of being denied yet another time, and from exertion. Your boyfriend simply chuckles, nuzzling against your cheek before tilting your chin to the side. You're barely aware of the slimy dampness coating the underside of your jaw and staining Phainon's fingers as he leans down to peck your lips. Once, twice, before he gently parts them with his tongue, humming into your mouth.
"I know, pretty," he breathes, "I'm sorry. Just a bit more, okay? Can you take a bit more for me?"
Like he doesn't know the answer to that. And still you nod dumbly with a whine, chasing his tongue as his thumb gently caresses your cheek.
"Good. You're doing so good, baby. Almost there."
But Phainon isn't cruel, truly. All things considered, he does view himself as selfish for putting you in this position every time, but he just loves you that much. He only wants to make you feel good, believe him.
And as promised, he picks up the pace again, circling your clit furiously â if his touch weren't so tender and loving. Your heels dig into the mattress, and you fight hard to keep your legs from flailing. Phainon's there to hold you down, though, and trust me, he doesn't struggle one bit while doing it, even kissing your jaw softly as a reminder to keep your eyes open.
When your sounds become more frequent, your ribcage expanding against his arms, he finally slides one finger in, curling right where you can feel the pressure building.
"Go ahead, pretty. Cum all over my fingers."
That does it. Your back arches against him and you grip his forearms hard enough for the skin to redden, mouth falling open as the dam breaks. Phainon keeps going before gradually slowing down, and he kisses your face during the whole thing, murmuring praises and sweet words.
"There you go, sweetheart. You did so good."
"You have no idea how gorgeous you look when you let go."
"Look at that, made a pretty mess all over the sheets."
By the end of it, you're left a limbless, panting puddle against his chest â like all the other times. You can feel him press his lips against your shoulder, massaging your sore hips, your thighs still twitching as you come down from your high.
Phainon, contrary to you, seems to be doing just fine, all traces of exhaustion from when he first arrived completely gone from his handsome features. He grins down at you, and it's so sickeningly sweet you can't even be mad. Lazily blinking and half-conscious, you watch as he licks his fingers clean like it's the sweetest frosting he's ever tasted.
"Hey, there." He says it like he didn't just tie your synapses into a ribbon, like the light doesn't catch in the remaining droplets of release coating his wrist. "How are you feeling? Everything alright?"
And what can you say? (Figure of speech. Your brain can't even signal your lips to move, at the moment.) Phainon manĹuvres you into a more comfortable position, completely ignoring the way he strains against his pants.
He doesn't ask for more. He doesn't even hint at it, because that's just the way your boyfriend is, and it's maddeningly confusing. But until you figure out what can render a man so stupidly selfless (answer: it's love), you can be certain that Phainon will be there to take care of you and hold you until you fall asleep.
After weeks of stress taking its toll on your body, your boyfriend helps you unwind with a massage⌠and it becomes so much more. Word count: 5.6k.
⢠CONTENTS: not suitable for minors, smut, basically a massage that turns into prone bone sex :D, foreplay, praise and teasing, slight choking, unprotected sex, established relationship, dr. ratio cares.
⢠A/N: I yearn for more of in-game content of Dr. Ratio, but oh well. Also, I know relatively little about massage techniques, so apologies if those here might appear inaccurateâwe get to the main point pretty quickly anyway.
âYou have overworked yourself yet again.â
Veritasâs exasperated sigh can be heard clearly by you, even as your mind threatens to slip into a pleasant state of nothingness, overtaken by the sheer relief his hands are kneading into your nude body. You suppose you can never truly tune out his care disguised right under the stern lectures.
âHow many times do I have to tell you to ease up on your workload before those words stop bouncing off your forehead?â
But the unfurling pressure heâs been working into your knots leaves you little space for guilt. You don't remember the last time you were allowed to feel this good. Weeks of tension and aches coming to an end, thanks to him working out the nightmarish kinks in your nearly rock-solid muscles. First was your nape, then the shoulders, now heâs between your scapulae.
âWell, donât you work a lot yourself?â you argue, though your supposed clincher comes out weakly, slightly slurred from how much you are surrendering to his act of overhaul.
âUnlike you, I also remember the importance of leisure in amount appropriate to labor.â
âItâs not as though a little stress is going to kill me,â you say boldly.
Veritas sighs. In a way so visceral you must realize how wrong you are.
âThe body is not separate from the mind, despite humanityâs persistent attempts to behave as though it were. Prolonged stress affects both.â
Right. Hence all these bathsâundisturbed or shared with you. The meditation and exercise. Or⌠the scheduled massages akin to the one you are currently receiving from.
And heâs phenomenal. Not merely because of the anatomy, medicine, physiotherapy, or whatever other experience he has accumulated over the years. Youâve been here under his hands during many stressful periods to know that.
The setup for todayâs session is just as inviting: the rented massage table, warm sandal wood oil spread across your skin by his broad palms, relaxing notes playing in the background, and candles casting a dimmed, warm light of sanctuary across the room. You barely feel your physical stand, floating somewhere on cloud nine, and you think he might have turned your shared bedroom into paradise.
âIf this is what I get for overworking myself⌠I might have to get myself into this sorry state more often,â you still reply unabashedly, your cheek melting into the soft cover below you. Just a limp noodle youâve become.
Despite the fact you throw these words obviously humorously, Veritas takes them seriously, pausing his movements for a moment.
âShould you actually pursue those endeavors, itâs a hospital bed you might end up on next time, not this one.â Thereâs even more sternness weaving itself into his voice, but you know well.
Normally, Veritas prefers people to reach conclusions on their own. Knowledge earned through though tends to remain far longer than knowledge simply handed over. Unfortunately, there is little to be gained from allowing someone to work themselves into collapsing. Some lessons require intervention before discussion. As much as he likes to give you, his girlfriend, space to unravel truths on your own, it is only right he occasionally takes care of you.
(Although, he still acts as if some of your decisions will personally cause him to age prematurely, unashamed to correct or scold you from time to time.)
Because most people have one or two areas of expertise. However, as for your boyfriend, he has medicine, engineering, mathematics, physics, philosophy, natural theology, biology, computer science, and, apparently, a knack for knowing exactly when you are lying about being fine. If he must drag you under his wing, he will.
He resumes his work, noticing you thankfully donât question his words. One hand finds the space beneath the edge of your shoulder blade while the other settles against your shoulder. Guiding it upward slightly, he deepens the stretch and holds if there for several seconds.
A quiet sound escapes you.
âHm, sorry⌠it's just that, it feels so goodâŚâ you mumble out.
He hums with appreciation, at least acknowledging your praise as something he considers valuableâa stark contrast to the countless achievements he habitually regards as mediocre, no matter how extraordinary they might be.
âYou needn't first sacrifice your body in order to receive a massage from me. Only ask. I can tell youâre at your limits.â
âIâll keep that in mindââ
âHowever, try not to abuse your privilege,â he adds wryly.
You chuckle softly. âIâll try.â That restrain will be remarkably hard to accomplish after this session, you are sure.
As his hands wander down to your waist, you open your eyes briefly, catching sight of his focused expression hovering above you. Not only is he ridiculously handsome like this, but there is an unmistakable trace of worry pinched between his brows. You must have that many stubborn muscle fibers to work out, and he acts like he personally has a bone to pick with them, for the frown deepens as he encounters another troublesome spot.
âHm. The right side is significantly worse,â he observes with light irritation.
You hiss as he presses into a particularly tenacious knot, but he doesnât let up despite your instinctive jolt, maintaining steady momentum until the issue in this area finally gives. You settle down limply again, relief appearing almost immediately.
âRelax,â he now says with satisfaction on his own. âGive yourself to my touch. I know what Iâm doing,â he reassures with confidence, his further knot-tackling unceasing.
And you do feel safe here with him. For at least one day, the world can slow down, and you can hand the responsibility to him. Count on him. So you allow yourself to sink into the mattress with more ease, allowing him to repeat the technique on the opposite side.
He takes your hand that youâve been keeping palm-up next. Lacing your fingers together on both sides, he leaves his thumbs free to work into the center of your palm, paying especial attention to the dominantâthe one that works hard, spending its days lifting, writing, clicking, or whatever else you force through.
âOveruse,â he remarks shortly.
âYou say that like youâre diagnosing me.â
âI am.â
Just to tease, you squeeze your fingers in retaliation, simultaneously reminding yourself how comfortingly warm and large his hand feels around yours. Steady.
âYou do like to make matters more difficult, even now.â His heaved sigh sounds exasperated, though only mildly by his standards.
Notably, he allows you to keep holding his hand for several moments longer than necessary.
The rest of the massage proceeds just as smoothly.
With your eyes closed again, your hearing sharpens. Your ears register his steps circling the table, the smearing of the oil across your body, and every so often⌠a disgruntled and disapproving comment regarding your apparent inability to take care of yourself properly.
Eventually, his hands drag themselves down to your lower back, close to your buttocks, stopping shy of where your towel starts.
You forget to curb your reactionâshivering slightly and flexing your hand. It is just now that you realize how long itâs been since you and him were physical.
âYou really are tense, huhâŚâ Instead of disapproval, you can hear a smirk in his tone. He can get quite cocky with you sometimes, taking great satisfaction from his effect over you.
It does tend to bear interesting fruits. If you challenge him in retaliation, the notion is likely to make him hard.
You chuckle softly. âIâm sorry⌠I don't mean to make your job harderââ
âYou consistently do.â
âThatâs not very nice.â You pout mockingly.
âNeither is forcing your muscles into rebellion.â
Not that heâs any better. He believes himself capable of telling the difference between sexual and non-sexual nudity; however, things are a bit different when heâs facing his girlfriend.
âPerhaps. Though, I believe you to be a bit of hypocrite.â
His thumbs dig into your lower back in response, as if resetting you into less talking and more compliance. You sigh contentedly despite. Before he could demand answers, he spends two minutes on the area.
Then he asks, âAnd pray tell, what have I done to earn this accusation?â
He lifts one of your legs, guiding the heel toward your glutes while keeping a controlled grip around your ankle. A stretch settles along the front of your thigh. At the same time, you can feel your wetness thatâs been growing between your thighs stirring. You shudder from the squeeze on your leg, giving into brief imagination of a completely different scenario.
âI can feel you staring,â you say teasingly.
âIt is not unusual,â he replies dismissively, finally with his eyes roaming across your body in a less restrained way. âAs a matter of fact, to be expected.â
âThen don't try to brag about me reacting to youâŚâ
Another sigh; heavier this time. Perhaps agreeing with you.
As he grabs your other leg, he repeats the stretch on the other side, comparing the resistance with the same quiet focus.
âThe left side is tighter.â
âYou can tell that? I donât really feel any less heavier here than anywhere else.â
âYou sound surprised, which is only the proof of how out of touch you are with your own body,â he finally scolds properly. âWhich now makes me responsible for you. Please, try to remind me to keep you away from work with more frequency.â
Forced rest does sound something like he would resort to should you leave him little else choice. Not that itâs often he verbalizes his concern directly, that is, in a way devoid of inhibition feeling of vulnerability tends to impose, but you had enough time to learn Ratio-language. Now you can reach conclusions he does wish you well, plentifully. HoweverâŚ
Again, you can hardly be guilty when heâs doing you so well, now more than before when lust is taking its course. You accidentally wriggle your hips in order to adjust your position while heâs stretching those muscles.
And so the grip tightens. Surprisingly, he doesnât scold you this time.
âOh, sorryâŚâ you say innocently, smiling secretly. âI felt ticklish here.â
You donât need to open your eyes to know some predicament is forming on his mind.
âWe were about to finish anywayâŚâ Veritas clears his throat after a longer pause, certain intrinsical words getting stuck in here. âWe only have the calves left.â
As if you could let him go.
âThatâs a shame⌠It feels like the massage lasted only five minutes,â you complain somewhat whiny. âIt was beginning to work, you know.â
âHm. You do seem considerably less inclined to put up a struggle now,â he comments with a tone of nonchalant expertise. âHowever, you are still tense.â
Fake enough for you to understand heâs getting distracted and simply refuses to admit it. Even now, when kneading your calf, he acts as though the process is likely to be disrupted far sooner than anticipated, as heâs putting less meticulousness there.
âYeah, I amâŚâ you sigh pitifully, having noticed something interesting by now. Heâs quite lenient todayâlikely enough to get you something without the typical obstacle that is the infuriating patience to finish a ritual he has started. âIâm that wound up.â
You know itâs an excuse. Or maybe itâs not. Veritas would help you unwind in a different way regardless⌠but it typically takes more time to initiate.
The odds are indeed stacked in your favor today. His hands leave your body. Another pondering hum is heard by you, as if heâs recognizing a certain duty to fulfill.
Seeing the most of the oil has absorbed into your skinâit was a dry typeâhe assumes he can place his lips on your shoulders with ease.
âVeritasâŚ?â you ask with suspense, despite your previous assumption youâll get him like you want him. Heâs actually giving to your whims.
âYou're still tense, like you said.â There is the faintest hint of amusement in his voice now, enough to make you even more suspicious. âIâm helping you, so you ought to be grateful.â Itâs hardly a real reprimand, if something meant to leave you hot in the faceâsaid like a taunt.
Which does work, unfortunately for your dignity.
Before you could bite back, you are made to moan instead. His hands go under your body, gently cupping your breasts, all the more causing him to lay some of the weight of his upper body onto your back even if the table is set high enough for his reach. Your heart rhythm elates about the closeness.
Those kisses are wet, his lips sliding across the top of your back with softest of content sighs. Meanwhile, his fingers gently roll your nipples between his fingers, sending electrifying heat down to your crotch.
You bunch up the cover under you, whimpering and growing restless.
Every little reaction you give, he stores into his mind, both for future reference and his own enjoyment. Taking in your beauty and other parts of you others might have taken for granted, not knowing you were carved for him.
âHave you been thinking about me doing something this a lot? Iâm sure you wereâŚâ he says quietly near your ear, the vibrations shedding another layer of composure from you.
You gulp, knowing how right he is. The thoughts were getting increasingly bolder with every mapping of his hands. Those hands you get to watch daily, as they sculpt, write, clean, lift, push, or even touch youâand when the veins come out, you get to trace them and feel the life of the person you love, right as you huddle next to Veritas on the shared couch.
âWhat about youâŚ?â you ask, unable to contain the excitement growing in your tone. Your arm moves off the side so you can cup his growing bulge.
Veritas lets out a hiss and you can feel muscles of his thighs flex around, not that far behind in the tension caused by prolonged yearning for you. To be able to reunite after the weeks of you burying yourself deep in work, then him nearly having to tackle you down so you would finally rest⌠now the old tension he tried to set aside for your own sake is rekindling.
You neednât know about all the times he stroked himself during his bathsâcontrary to the idea of relaxation and cleanse they are originally meant forâjust because thoughts of you could not leave his feverish mind any second he was not busy.
âYou should know well by now, dearest,â he acquiesces in a rather soft manner, kissing at your nape.
The rare use of the name warms up your chest.
Then those beautiful hands slowly glide down your sides, smoothly with the oil leftovers, until they grab your ass he starts kneading under the towel. He keeps spreading the kisses lower and lower down your spine as he takes slow steps back.
With how much you wriggle from your delight only amplifying, the towel slowly slides off your body. None of you dares to fix its previous position.
None of you need to.
âRemarkable,â you hear him say with appreciation.
âWhat is?â you ask almost dumbly, your mind slowly going haywire. Itâs just him, his touch, and you.
âThe way you fit right into my hands.â
Your stomach twists at the earnest praise.
As if appreciating the shape, as if still massaging you, his palms circle around the front and sides of your hips too. Then your thighs, moving up, and upâ
You shudder, squirming in place, as the inner part of the latter is especially sensitive.
âSo jittery⌠I would have thought youâre used to my touch at this point.â Another tease. âAnd this wet alreadyâŚ?â He clicks his tongue as he finally straightens his back and looks down.
You whimper in response, yet you still try to bite back, âLike you didnât jump onto the opportunity⌠Do I even need to lift my head to see the evidence?â You grab and stroke him again until you feel his nails digging into your skin.
For all coquettish you are, your heart races fast by this point, and you can imagine him touching you properly. Youâre already fully exposed to him, laid out here for him to work on you, with little to hide.
You hear a small laugh. âHm, astute observation⌠and yet, I cannot help but wonder, who will be begging first.â
With that said, you can feel his fingers brushing across your wet heat. Just trailing upward and breaching the territory, yet itâs still enough to render you sensitive.
You shuffle your hips again, but this time, you truly cannot help yourself.
Without further delay, his single finger slides into your heat, moving slowly at first yet reaching for the points he recognizes as most pleasurable for you. He goes as far as curl his digit, until that sweet spot is found and your feet kick up a bit in response. It feels like being massaged again, with an obvious expertise or even aptitude, but from the inside this time.
âJust as I thoughtâŚâ he purrs.
âVeritasâŚâ you utter his name with a mewl, sending the sound straight to his cock you feel twitch in your palm.
A sound indeed enjoyable, as he starts thrusting his finger properly in reward. Careful at first, knowing itâs been a while, but hastening when your body soon accepts the intrusion with all the slickness gathering up.
While you have paused your own hand movements for a moment, you move again, this time trying to lower the sweatpants heâs been lounging in, eager to make him feel good too.
He stops you, not sure if he can take more so soon. Instead, he holds his hand over yours, letting you keep pressing on his bulgeâthat much he refuses to deny himself ofâand letting out a grunt every few seconds.
âCarefulâŚâ he groans.
As he adds a second finger in, you have to grip the edge of the table. You moan into the surface.
â⌠What would you do without me, hm?â he teases, leaning down again to blow hot air on your skin in a way that gives you shivers. When you moan even more pathetically, he chuckles; the amusement soon disrupted as you cup his imprint harder.
Now he becomes a little rougher on his own, thrusting in those two back and forth, not necessarily faster but deeper, occasionally scissoring your insides. His deep breathing adds to the condensation in the room, and he cannot stop watching your facial expressions change. What was petulant or cheeky is now needy. What was tense is now blossoming into bliss, just as intended by him.
âM-more⌠please⌠I need youâŚâ That much is undeniable, based on your tone. There is little to care about handing him the victory when being filled again after a long time sounds like your priority.
His breath audibly hitches.
You look at him properly to the side, pleading with your eyes as if you know heâs rather susceptible at this point.
To your surprise, he does move, rather hastily at that, as if have been anticipating the excuse like that. The challenge was won, the massage long forgotten, thereforeâŚ
You can see him getting undressedâeager, no pretense. Fully. You assumed he'd waste no time and merely lower his bottoms while youâd linger nude, the imbalance potentially delicious on its own, but heâs always been a fan of feeling your skin on his.
The metal base of the massage table creaks as he moves to be on top of you, his legs overlapping at the sides of yours, while his forearms go to rest at your sides. His body weight crushes you, pushes you into the surface, and youâve never been happier to be trapped underneath him.
A heavy, awfully ragged sigh follows. You swallow in anticipation.
âI would have wished to take care of you properly, but you just know how to break a manâs restraintâŚâ
You do know him being between your legs and tongue-fucking until you cry would be otherworldly as well, but for now, youâve never been more obsessed with the idea of him filling you properly.
Moving his hips around and lifting them, he drags his heavy, leaking length between your folds from behind. With how hard he is, you squirm at every pokeâhim coating himself in your arousal, occasionally pulling at the hood of your clit with the tip too.
You both groan.
âOh you can be so maddening like thatâŚâ he mutters.
And then he starts to sink into you, feeding your pussy inch by inch as if comprehending your latent sensitivity.
The stretch is lovely, and while perhaps reigniting your nerves all the way more almost as if itâs your first time again, a bit difficult to take, you also realize just how much youâve missed himâor the girth that always fits right in the end for that matter.
Not even once have you been turned around.
Before he would start moving, he chooses to grind inside your hole first, enjoying the squeeze and warmth he has missed so much, accentuated with a guttural moan. All for the better, as it overwhelms him too.
Youâre also reminded how tenderly you enjoy his own sounds, especially noticing how over the course of your relationship with him, he gets more comfortable with you. Or perhaps he simply cannot resist you.
His face goes into the crook of your neck which he kisses gently as he stretches he further and wider, orienting between tiny nibs too. The way his hair tickles you gives you additional shivers.
You're in haze already, overwhelmed by his weight and scent, the latter now a bit salty from how steamy you got him.
He starts moving, sliding in and out of you in long and deep strokes that go until his balls rest on your mound and clit, ensuring you get every best part of him. His hands hold onto your wrists trying to push back from sensitivity.
âMm⌠I feel so fullâŚâ you mewl.
âYeah? Then perhaps you should stop squirming,â he murmurs into your ear, even if you can hear strain in his voice, âor is too much for you?â he teases.
You whimper at his words. With him thrusting with more detail, youâre forced to feel every bit of his dick and him grazing against your nerves. It is a bit too much, especially after a longer break, but you wouldnât replace it for anything else.
âVeritas⌠I just need you toâŚâ
âYes?â He licks at your earlobe until you squirm harder under him, your toes curling as he offers you another sharp thrust. Itâs hard to find any rationality in the qualia of skin slapping, his balls hitting your clit, and the rattling of the bed.
âPlease, I need you to fuck me so goodâŚâ you beg desperately, scratching the bed with your clammy hands. âItâs been so longâŚâ
He revels in how you react to him, even if the other part of him wishes to cherish you and give you what you deserve. âWhat's the hurry for? We have all night to catch upâŚâ
Hypocrite. A big hypocrite, considering the slower pace is for his sake too.
âY-you said you'll help me⌠relieve the tension⌠so do it.â
That he did. With a tiny pause, you know heâs considering it. Not because you said so. Because of the way you did, giving yourself to him willingly.
His own heart skips a beat.
âHere I was being careful for your sakeâŚâ
He slams his hips harder with the next thrust, tearing a whine from your throat. His pace picks up too, opening you up with his thick length with even more friction.
Your eyes roll back into your skull. It feels amazing, welcoming him inside after such a break again. It is just now you fully comprehend just how much you have missed this.
Missed him.
âThis is what you wanted?â he groans roughly.
You nod into the table rapidly.
âSo good⌠I missed you so muchâŚâ you mumble half-deliriously, your pitch high. Your skin starts getting so moist your hair sticks to it, glowing in a way that only gives you more allure in his eyes.
His pace falters for a moment hearing that, but resumes as suddenly, now even more intense.
âYes? You were thinking about me too, even when you were so busy?â he asks into your nape, the pleasure at the thought turning his voice even rougher.
âMhm.â You donât even catch the fact heâs admitted heâs been thinking about you immensely as well.
In response, his arm wraps around your front while he uses the force of his hips and legs to keep fucking you, meantime slightly pressing on your throat in a way that steals some of your breath.
With your head suddenly raised, you turn it around, even if the angle is awkward and nearly painful.
âWhat is it this time?â
The question falls upon him noticing you staring at him. In return, he looks at you with hooded eyes, a storm of desire brewing here.
âYou havenât kissed me yet⌠thatâs not fairâŚâ you whine.
Ratio smiles lightly, his gaze softening if only for a second, as he wonders when did you become so needy. Perhaps he has spoiled you too much.
âNot fair?â Another rough thrust that has you tightening around him and making him moan is given. âArenât I offering you plenty already?â
Itâs getting harder to think straight and argue your case. A kiss is reasonable, but you canât even express it as to why. âI just missed you,â you say what you know for sureâagain.
And that renders him stupid for a moment too.
Suddenly, your cheeks are squished in his other hand, and heâs kissing you madly.
As he goes on with pounding into your wet pussy, the bed shakes nonstop, screws slowly loosening, and for a moment, he wonders if he can get it back from rental in one piece.
It doesnât matter.
As you withdraw, a string of saliva connecting you for a moment longer, your mouth opens even wider to form another lewd pleaâmuch to him already losing his sanity to the hot grip of your pussy around his sensitive tip, your skin and scent under him, as well your sweet words being blabbered endlessly.
Youâre making him a true fool these days, and in hindsight, he thinks your relationship is relatively short for that to happen alreadyâif one were to exclude the many months it took you to earn his trust. An unfortunate development. Particularly for a man who had spent years studying epistemology only to discover that affection oftentimes cares very little for evidence, logic, or proper methodology. Which is not to say he didnât understand love at allâit is simply different to taste it from the front-row seat.
The way you push your hips back at him is commendable too, and in reality, heâs never been that good at denying you.
He watches your debauched expression with thought. With how youâve been growing vocal or even fluttering around him, he can tell you're close, althoughâŚ
He needs to see you. Truly.
You whine when your boyfriend suddenly pulls out and gets off the massage table, yet youâre given little time to complain when, in show of dexterity, he twists you around onto your back and drags you to the edge of the massage bed by your legs.
You get see him in all his glory, sweaty and with cheeks flushed, yet with his amaranthine eyes never losing their sharpness concentrated on you. It nearly has you flustered, considering the gap since you two were allowed to get this lost in each other.
You wrap your legs around him the moment he steps to be between them.
âGood girl.â The praise leaves his mouth instinctively and you shiver all the way more in anticipation.
Wasting no time, he fills you to the hilt again. The motion strong enough to have you raking at his biceps as you cry out. He leans over you, his hands going under your back to hold you close.
âW-working so hard⌠until I have to take care of you⌠and yet, I canât find it in myself to be mad at youâŚâ he laughs self-deprecatingly, yet the sound is pretty enough to give you butterflies.
You cannot help but love seeing him relaxed, less harder on maintaining walls around you, that you could get drunk just from the surge of affection going through you.
As he continues fucking you, staring you deep in the eye, you keep sliding off the bedâbut every thrust forces you back onto it.
You drag him down even lower by his biceps, expecting another kiss. This time, his lips connect with yours without any hesitation.
The manner in which he kisses you always makes you dizzy. No matter what a mess he may be causing between your legs, his tongue is always methodical and slower, his lips pleasuring yours with gentle though eager strokes too.
His head leans in even more, his forehead ending up against yours. Then he grabs you under your knees until he finally has you fully bent in half, wringing your poor limbs in attempt to console himself.
Your calves uselessly sway with every push of his hips. With the way Veritas completes you so well back and forth, leaving you gasping for air and arching your back, you cannot help but scratch his arms.
Which he doesnât bother to stop, taking this as the testimony of your pleasure. He only hisses as it adds to the twitch of his balls waiting to spill inside you, becoming more inclined to chase his own pleasure and amplify yours.
âIâll give you what you want. You justââ Lifting his head to look down, he gets to see even more proof. Your stomach flexing as youâre about to orgasm, your swollen, glistening folds being spread to make up space for his cock, the tremble that never goes away. ââlie there and take like you deserve it,â he beseeches fervently.
As his pubic bone does not relent on hitting your abdomen, his hair rubs against your clit the same way, helping you get closer and closer.
âYes. Just like that. Oh, please, please, I love you so muchââ you babble, feeling the pressure in your abdomen about to burst.
âGo on. Touch yourself properly. Let me see you,â he nearly begs as he brings his besotted gaze back at yours, also twitching inside of you as the indicator of his own orgasm coming.
Your hand limply falls before you roll on your clit with impatience, making yourself cum soon after. You cry out his name as you finish, digging your nails into his arm you grab for anchoring.
âDammitââ the curse flows out easily when you tighten impossibly neat around him, shaking from the waves of ecstasy crashing.
He allows you to ride it out before picking up the pace again, striving for his own peace of heaven. Through the ringing of your ears, you still get to hear his moans, and one, broken âdear.â
And when it comes, his hips losing their steadiness and his balls tightening to shoot inside you, his biceps and tights flexing from the strain, he finally reciprocates without thinking, âI love you too.â
You know those words usually are provided through acts rather than verbally. But now, they leave his lips naturally, incapable of being filtered when he only needs you.
Grinding his teeth, he speaks with difficulty as he fills you up so well, as if it was his love itself, âYou should feel never bad about asking me for help⌠or I will drag you there and make you beg for itâŚâ
You can oddly nod, a few tears of bliss rolling down.
Veritas collapses on top of you, your legs falling at his sides. Your chests stick together, and you manage to run your fingers through his purple hair as you both try to collect your breath.
Only when it doesnât feel like the room spins, he cranes his head to kiss you again.
Even when pulling out slowly and kissing you through your hiss of sensitivity, he gives you a few shallow thrusts in, wanting you to keep him inside for a little bit longer.
When he removes his softening length out of you fully, he watches the mess dribble down your thighs in a slow trailâmesmerisedâwhile you wipe your forehead and sigh tiredly.
Despite his own legs being shaky, he wraps his arms around you and brings you up until you are sitting up, with rather ease. His forehead ends up on your shoulder for a moment.
âI think my stress was eradicated more than I could have hoped for.â You laughs softly, so does he.
âAs it should. Now, as for the other part of leisure⌠I believe a bath is due,â he murmurs with another light kiss into your wet skin.
âYes. Weâre a bit sticky,â you say humorously.
âAmong other things,â he taunts.
âHm?â You blink twice.
âYou didnât think we were done, were you?â he smirks and lifts his head to look at you. âWeâre simply changing a scenery before this poor table falls apart.â
synopsis: âthereâs something going on,â he says. âa chain of robberies, not random. itâs clean, professionalâin and out in under four minutes. iâve been watching them hit warehouses all across marmoreal. whatever theyâre after, itâs coordinated. and i canât keep up on my own.â
in which spider-man enlists the help of his favourite detective to uncover a series of robberies in new okhema city.
tags: modern!au, spider-man!au, romance, angst, action, smut, frenemies to lovers. profanity, violence, oral sex, fingering, blood and injuries, mentions of drug abuse & human experimentation, etc.
word count: 19.5k
a/n: reposted from my old account. thanks for reading!
Phainon thinks heâs a pretty good guy.
Okay, maybe not, like, great. Heâs not out here winning humanitarian awards or remembering to replace the Brita filter before it turns green. But still. He flosses most nights, and tips well on the rare occasions he orders pizza for dinner. He saves cats from trees, catches robbers in the middle of getaway attempts, and makes a decent grilled cheese when the mood strikes. In the grand cosmic scale of morality, he figures that puts him somewhere between a broke college student and a D-list superhero with a heart of gold.Â
Which is why, as heâs currently being pursued across rooftops by New Okhemaâs most persistent detective, Phainon feels the situation is a little unfair.
âI donât deserve to be chased like this!â he yells over his shoulder, breaths short, voice muffled through his mask as he narrowly avoids tripping over a pipe. âIâm a pretty good guy!â
The boots pounding behind him donât slow. âYouâre obstructing justice!â
âYouâre harassing a concerned citizen!â
He vaults over a low vent and instantly regrets it, the rooftop pitching sideways beneath him as he skids and catches himself just in time to avoid faceplanting into a rusted-out AC unit. Graceful. So graceful. Just like the comics. His heartâs doing the worst kind of cardio in his chest, the kind that feels like guilt and adrenaline and that specific brand of dread that only ever shows up when youâre behind him.
Because if thereâs one thing Phainonâs sure of, itâs this: you hate him.
Maybe not, like, hate-hate. Maybe not enough to tase him out of the sky. But enough to chase him across rooftops with the hopes of finally arresting him for good.Â
He can live with that. Heâs been hated before. (He just wishes it didnât make him kind of want your approval.)
âYouâre breaking at least three laws just by standing there!â you shout as he swings up and over the next building.
Youâre getting closer. He can hear it in your voiceâless winded than his, more focused. Heâs not sure if heâs impressed or terrified. Probably both.
âDo you ever take a break?â you snap as you land behind him with a clean, practiced roll.
Phainon whirls around, arms raised. âDo you ever let anyone live?â
Your eyes narrow like youâre imagining the paperwork it would take to make his disappearance look like an accident.Â
âOkay, okay! Truce! Five minutes.â He backs up, hands still in the air. âNo chasing or tasers. Please.â
You donât answer, which means youâre at least considering it. Heâs getting good at reading your silences, which is probably not a good thing. He should stop doing that. He should stop noticing things about you at allâlike how you always pull your sleeves down when youâre thinking, or how you furrow your eyebrows when youâre about to disagree with someone but donât want to start a fight.
âLook,â he says, tone dropping, just a bit. âThis isnât about me dodging patrol or stealing snacks from that convenience store on 14th Streetââ
âYou stoleââ
âBorrowed,â he corrects quickly. âWith intent to pay.â
You stare at him. The wind rustles your coat. Somewhere, a siren wails and dies out.
âThereâs something going on,â he says. âA chain of robberies, not random. Itâs clean, professionalâin and out in under four minutes. Iâve been watching them hit warehouses all across Marmoreal. Whatever theyâre after, itâs coordinated. And I canât keep up on my own.â
He expects you to laugh. Or roll your eyes. Or say something sharp and cutting thatâll make his stomach twist in that way he hatesâbecause youâre usually right.
âI think theyâre watching me,â he adds, quieter now. âI think someone knows who I am.â
The wind blows sharp across the rooftop, carrying the tang of rain and smoke and summer dust. It scrapes over the worn brick under Phainonâs boots and rustles your coat, but you donât move. You just look at him, your face unreadable in the way that always makes his stomach knot a little too tight. Itâs the kind of stillness that unnerves himânot because he doesnât know what youâre thinking, but because he wants to. More than he should. Phainonâs chest rises and falls, just a little too fast.
âThatâs a bold claim,â you say slowly.
Yeah. He knows. He also knows youâre not brushing him off, which is scarier than if you had. Youâre listening, evaluating. That furrow between your brows is your tellâheâs seen it before, in passing shadows and glimpses from across precinct crime scenes. The way you tilt your head slightly to the left when youâre filing pieces together in real time.
âYou have proof?â you ask.
Phainon knows you wonât move without proofânot a whisper, not a theory, not a gut feeling scraped together from caffeine and paranoia. But he doesnât have clean lines or neat bullet points. What he has is scraps; disconnected threads; a slowly closing hand around the back of his neck every time he turns a corner too sharp. And that feelingâthat awful, skin-tight certaintyâthat something out there has started moving towards him, not away.
âI donât have anything concrete, but⌠Iâve been tracking the hits since the first one three weeks ago,â he says, starting to pace now, in small, tight circles, just enough movement to bleed out some of the nervous energy crawling up his spine. âTheyâre too clean. Like, unrealistically clean. No alarms triggered, no broken doors, no fingerprints. They even bypassed the retinal scanner at one of the biotech labs. Who does that? And for what? Theyâre not stealing cash or valuables. Theyâre taking very specific thingsâequipment, hard drives, chemical canisters.â
âShow me,â you say. Your eyes donât leave his face. (Well, the mask. But he swears youâre looking through it.)
He blinks. âWhat?â
You cross your arms. âThe footage. The files. Whatever youâve got. If youâre serious about this, I need to see everything.â
âOh.â Phainonâs voice pitches up an octave in surprise. âCool. Okay. Should we, like, grab dinner? I know a good deli down at Kephale Plaza. Best dill pickle sandwiches on this side of Okhema.â
Phainon didnât lie. Chartonusâ Deli, tucked between a laundromat and a building thatâs had a For Sale sign tacked onto the door for fourteen years, does serve the best dill pickle sandwiches in New Okhema City. The fluorescent sign above the deli flickers intermittentlyâCHART NUSâ on a bad night, HARTONUS DEL when itâs feeling generousâand the inside smells like mustard, old fryer oil, and vinegar.
Heâs perched in the booth furthest from the window, under a buzzing ceiling light that flickers every now and then. The vinyl seat squeaks every time he shifts, and the table has a wobble. Thereâs duct tape across the far corner of the laminate, and someoneâpossibly Chartonus himselfâhas carved NO CRYING IN THE DELI into the tabletop.
Phainon has his mask pulled up just past his nose, letting the cool air hit the sweat still clinging to his neck. His hairâs damp, and thereâs a tear in the seam of his left glove he only just now noticed. His sandwich is halfway demolished, crumbs gathering on the dark fabric of his suit, pickle juice already soaking into the paper wrapper.
He looks across the table at you. Youâre the only person in here not eating, only sipping from a chipped ceramic mug of what Chartonus had claimed was coffee with a shrug. Your coatâs slung over the back of your seat, and your badge is tucked out of sight, but everything about you still screams copâstraight spine, steady eyes, the way your fingers twitch every time the door jingles.
âI told you,â Phainon says around a mouthful of rye and mustard. âBest sandwich in the city.â
âThis is where you wanted to debrief?â
He shrugs. âThey know my order here.â
You roll your eyes and pull the folder Phainon had handed you on the rooftop from your bag, placing it on the table between you. âYou said these started three weeks ago?â you ask, flipping it open.
Phainon nods, brushing crumbs off the table. âWarehouse on Little Thorn. Then a lab two nights later. Then another warehouse. Then the lab again, but a different wing. Theyâre hitting specific targets, looping back, almost like theyâre refining their technique.â
You glance up. âAny pattern to what theyâre taking?â
âThatâs the thing.â He leans in, placing his half-eaten sandwich on the paper wrapper. âItâs weirdly⌠modular. Like, theyâre not emptying vaults or swiping entire systems. Theyâre taking parts. Pieces. Very specific ones.â
He slides a finger across one of the printouts. Itâs a manifest list from the Little Thorn warehouse, half the lines redacted, but a few still visible.
Carbon-neutral polymer casings
Fiber-optic microarrays
Refrigerated storage containers, Class III
Unknown compound, biohazard sealed
âDoesnât scream smash-and-grab,â you say, studying the list.
âExactly. This is purposeful.â
You turn another page. âThe camerasââ
âLooped,â Phainon says. âEvery time. Not just disabled. The footage looks uninterrupted, except for this weird flickerâlike it skips half a second. But the timestamps donât change.â
You sit back in your seat, fingers drumming on the edge of the table. He watches you thinkâsees the line between your brows deepen, the way you press your lips together when something doesnât add up. He likes watching you think. Thatâs a problem.
âDo you think theyâre testing something?â you ask. âOr building it?â
âThatâs what I was hoping youâd help me figure out. Detective Brain and Spider Legs. The dream team.â
âNever say that again.â
He gives you a one-shouldered shrug and returns to his sandwich. âCanât make promises I donât intend to keep.â
You shake your head and go quiet again, flipping slowly through the rest of the folder. Pages rustle under your hands. The old man behind the counter mutters something unintelligible to the deep fryer. Outsider, a police cruiser drives by without slowing.
When you speak again, your voice is lower. âYou said you think someoneâs watching you.â
Phainon freezes with a piece of pickle halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he lowers it back to the wrapper. âI donât think,â he says. âI know.â
You look up.
âTwo nights ago, I was tailing one of their runners. Lost him. That shouldâve been the end of it, except when I got homeâŚâ He hesitates. âMy apartmentâs locked down. Triple bolted, windows sealed, motion sensors in every hallway. And yet, my closet door was cracked. My spare suit was missing. Nothing else.â
Your expression hardens. âDid you call it in?â
He snorts. âYeah, sure. Hello, 911, someone stole my crime-fighting spandex, I think Iâm being haunted by a bunch of dudes with attitude problems.â
You donât laugh.
âSorry,â he mutters. âDeflection. I know.â
âYou shouldâve told someone sooner,â you say sharply. âIf someone has your gear, they might have access to yourââ
âThey wonât,â he cuts in. âThe techâs locked down. Biometric, failsafes, the works. But it means they were inside. Not watching from across the street. Inside. And that⌠thatâs not normal.â
You nod. âYou think itâs connected to the thefts.â
âI think Iâve been getting too close,â he says, quieter now. âAnd someone wants me out of the way.â
You lean forward, resting your elbows on the table. The cracked TV in the corner flickers, playing a rerun of some late-night court drama with the volume turned down low. A door slams shut somewhere in the back. The deli is empty now except for you two.
âThen we need to get closer,â you say.
Phainon blinks. âWaitâwe?â
âThis is serious,â you say simply. âAnd if someoneâs watching you, they might come for me next. This is bigger than your usual masked hero antics, Spider-Man. So, yeah. We.â
Heâs staring again. He knows he is. He should probably say something witty or obnoxious, but his throatâs dry and his heartâs doing that thing again. âCool,â he says finally, and it comes out a little too quiet. âCool cool cool cool cool.â
You push the folder back towards him, then stand and grab your coat off the back of the chair. âTomorrow night,â you say. âBring everything else youâve got. We set up a timeline, match it to police records. I want this mapped out by morning.â
He gives a mock salute. âAye aye, Captain.â
You pause at the door, just long enough to glance over your shoulder. âWash your suit,â you say. âYou smell like mustard.â
The bell jingles as the door swings shut behind you. Phainon stays in the booth for a while, finishing his sandwich in silence. The TV buzzes in the corner. The ceiling light blinks once, then steadies.
The alley off Cortland Street feels shadier than it is in the almost-darkness. Every step Phainon takes echoes just a little too sharply off the damp brick walls, the soles of his boots scraping against cracked pavement slick from the afternoon rain. The air is thick with the tang of gasoline, rotting leaves, and whatever chemical sludge is leaking from the storm drain at the corner. Itâs the kind of place you walk faster through on instinct, even if youâve got super reflexes and unnatural strength.
But for once, heâs early.
The wall behind him is papered with maps: big ones, small ones, some he stole from news kiosks and the city library, others he scrawled himself in the middle of the night, half-asleep and hunched over his kitchen counter with a sharpie in his mouth. Heâs patched them together like a spiderweb, the red and black marker lines bleeding over each other, looping through neighbourhoods and dead ends. Itâs messy, barely legible in some places, but it serves its purpose.
He shifts on the overturned milk crate heâs using as a seat and pulls his mask halfway up to breathe properly. The flickering streetlight above him hums like a dying bee. Thereâs a smear of mustard on his glove from the sandwich last night. He tries not to think about how long itâs been since heâs properly showered.
He hates waiting. But heâd never admit that heâs anxious. Especially not for you.
Your footsteps break the quietâsharp, sure, even. The same way they always sound when youâre walking up behind him like youâre about to read him his Miranda rights.
He doesnât turn around immediately. That would be too obvious. Too eager. âI was starting to think you ditched,â he says instead, flipping a page in the notebook balanced on his knee.
âYou said nine,â you answer. âItâs eight fifty-nine.â
He smiles, just a little. Canât help it. âWow. A punctual cop.â
You walk past him, wordless, and he catches the faint scent of your shampooâclean, sharp, maybe citrus? (He needs to stop.)Â
You step up to the wall of maps, arms crossed. The light glints off the corner of your badge, half-tucked beneath your jacket. You tilt your head to the side, the same way you always do when youâre processing too many things at once. God, heâs noticed that too many times.
âThis is a mess,â you say flatly.
âOrganised chaos,â he corrects.
You shoot him a look, then kneel to examine the clustered marks around Marmorealâs industrial sector. Your fingers trace a wide red loop that sounds four separate Xs.
Phainon hops down from his crate and joins you, dropping into a crouch beside you. âThose are the first confirmed break-ins. They form a pretty clear arc if you connect the dots. Started on the western edge. Theyâre moving clockwise.â
âSo whatever theyâre after is in the centre,â you muse.
âBingo,â he says, tapping the innermost circle. âAnd guess whatâs smack-dab in the middle of the whole thing?âÂ
He holds up a photo of a nondescript warehouse, overgrown with weeds, one wall tagged in massive purple spray paint that says I HATE BEES. Itâs ugly. You frown and say, âThat place?â
Phainon nods. âUsed to be a government R&D site during the old tech boom, but it was supposedly shut down after an acid leak took out the foundation. Now itâs just a lot with a locked fence and shit ton of asbestos.â
âWhy hasnât anyone investigated it?â
âBecause itâs boring,â he says. âThereâs no power running to it. No reported disturbances. No reason for patrol to bother. But if you dig deeperâlike, old permit records and city zoning logsâthereâs a basement thatâs sealed off. No blueprint access since 2013.â
Your silence stretches. Phainon watches the gears turning in your head and realisesâagain, and with an unfortunate amount of clarityâthat he likes watching you think. He really, really shouldnât.
âSo theyâre not just building something,â you say. âTheyâre hiding it.â
âOr staging it.â
âWeâll split up,â you say. âTonight. You take the chemical plant on Fifth. Iâll hit the battery storage facility near the docks. If either of them gets hit, we regroup.â
âCopy that,â he says lightly, brushing the dust off his gloved palms as he stands beside you. âThough I think you just want to get rid of me.â
âI want to get results,â you correct, already scanning the nearest cluster of notes on the map again. âAnd weâll cover more ground this way.â
Fair, rational, efficient. So typically you. Phainon swallows down the inexplicable disappointment in his throat and tries to focus. âThe chemical plantâs been shut down since the fires in March, but Iâve seen movement thereâshadows mostly, heat signatures. And one of the power boxes was tampered with last week. Could just be squatters, butâŚâ
âBut this group doesnât leave power boxes half-cut,â you finish, glancing at him. âThey donât miss steps.â
Exactly. He doesnât say it out loud, but the tension in his shoulders eases a little. Youâre starting to see what he sees.Â
You turn back to the wall, fingers brushing one of the maps again, slower this time. Your brows are furrowed, the crease between them deeper than usual. âIâll have to log this in quietly. My teamâs not going to love me going off-grid again.â
âYour team doesnât know youâre chasing me around rooftops?â
âThey know. They just donât know why,â you say. âWhich is probably for the best.â
He huffs out a half-laugh, kicking lightly at the cracked asphalt near your foot. âFlattered.â
âYou shouldnât be.â
âStill. Thanks for not turning me in.â
You shrug. âYou havenât made it worth my while yet.â
He wants to tease you for that. Wants to say something dumb and stupid about buying you a terrible coffee from a 24-hour diner or bribing you with Chartonusâ sandwiches, but instead, he asks, âYou have a burner?â
You nod. Phainon reaches into one of the hidden pouches sewn inside his suitâpast the web cartridges, the crumpled snack wrapper, the broken-off pen cap he meant to throw away yesterdayâand pulls out his own cracked phone. The screenâs a mess of spiderwebbed lines, the plastic casing half melted at the edges from some accident involving an exploding rooftop generator last week.
You raise your brows. âThatâs a phone?â
âTechnically,â he says, unlocking it with a swipe and opening a new contact. âGive me your number. Iâll send coordinates if I catch anything tonight.â
You rattle off a sequence of numbers, and add, âBurner ends in zero-nine. Donât call me unless itâs urgent.â
âDefine urgent.â
âExplosion. Gunfire. Alien invasion.â
âSo⌠brunch?â
Phainonâs lucky day starts with a pigeon dive-bombing his head, continues with a missed web shot that sends him careening into a fire escape, and somehow still manages to improveâbecause you said yes to brunch with him.Â
Or, well, with Spider-Man, which is still him, but in that weird, glass-wall kind of way. You donât know what he looks like beneath the mask, donât know his name, his address, his real voice, or the fact that he thought he was going to be late because he tried to hand-sew a rip in his suit and pricked his thumb seventeen times.
He tries not to make a big deal out of it. He really does. But the truth is, itâs been 36 hours since the last robbery attempt, he hasnât been chased across a rooftop in at least two days, and now youâre sitting across from him at a sunlit table in a tucked-away cafĂŠ where the chairs donât match and the menus are handwritten in cursive chalk. (And you ordered pancakes. That alone feels like a sign from the universe.)
Phainon takes a sip of his burnt espresso, after pulling his mask up to let it rest on the bridge of his nose. He leans back in his chair, letting the sounds of the cafĂŠ fill the silenceâcoffee machines hissing, silverware clinking, someone arguing gently in French at the counter. Itâs the kind of place that feels too warm for a conversation about conspiracy rings and illegal tech trade, which is probably why he chose it. Something about soft pancakes makes even the worst theories easier to digest.
You flip through a manila folder with highlighter streaks and dog-eared corners, diagrams of circuits, and what look like stolen security camera stills, all stacked and filed with precision. Heâs seen you interrogate a guy in less than five words before. Watching you cut a pancake with that same level of intensity is kind of terrifying.
Also: kind of hot. But thatâs not relevant.
âSo,â he says, because the silence is beginning to grate at him, âhave I won you over with my sparkling personality yet, or are you still planning to arrest me after this?â
You hum and reach for the syrup. âI canât decide if youâre more irritating in daylight or when youâre dangling upside down on a fire escape at 2 a.m.â
Phainon takes a sip of espresso, squinting through the bitter taste. âWhy not both?â
You glare at him.
âIâm trying to be helpful,â he says, quieter now. He leans in a little, lowering his voice in case someoneâs listening. âI know Iâm not the most traditional source, and Iâm aware Iâm breaking, like, a thousand chain-of-command rules just by talking to you, but Iâve been watching these people for weeks. And Iâve never seen anything like this. Theyâre too clean. Too prepared.â
You nod. He can tell youâve already connected the dots. Youâve probably connected ten more he hasnât even noticed yet. Your eyes are sharp, alert, focused in that laser-sight kind of way that makes his skin itch under the mask.
âI went by the Marmoreal site last night,â you say. âDidnât go in, thoughâjust circled. But there was movement in the back. A truck with no license plate.â
âSame model from the Fourth Street hit?â
âCouldnât see,â you admit. âBut the sound was the same. The engine was too quiet to be local, so it was clearly modified.â
Phainon exhales slowly. âSo theyâre still active.â
âVery.â You stab at a piece of pancake and glance up at him. âYou sleep at all?â
â...No,â he mutters, sheepish. âBut I took a power nap at a bus stop for twenty-seven minutes and dreamed I was being eaten by a vending machine, so that counts.â
âHealthy,â you deadpan.
He shrugs. âYouâre one to talk. When was the last time you took a break that wasnât⌠this?â
âIâm not the one with a possible concussion and jam on my mask.â
âI like jam,â Phainon says.
You shake your head, but he catches the faintest hint of amusement in your face, quickly hidden behind your coffee cup. He doesnât say anything; just watches as you lean back in your chair, face finally relaxing into something that looks a little less like a detective building a case and a little more like a person enjoying a few minutes of peace.
Thatâs when it hits him: this is the first time heâs seen you still. Not mid-chase, not interrogating, not tearing through evidence. Just you, and pancakes, and a soft patch of sunlight warming your sleeve.
Heâs in so much trouble.
You glance at him, then, like you can feel it. âWhat?â
âNothing,â he says quickly, fiddling with a sugar packet. âJust thinking.â
You narrow your eyes. âDangerous.â
âExtremely.â
âWhyâd you bring me here?â
He looks up. âWhat?â
âThis cafĂŠ. Itâs nice. Quiet. You couldâve picked anywhere.â
Phainon hesitates. He wants to say itâs because itâs his favourite. Because the coffeeâs bad but the people are nice. Because the chairs donât match and the chalkboard menus always misspell something. Because it feels safe. Because maybe, somewhere in the back of his idiotic brain, he wanted you to like it.
Instead, he shrugs and says, âThought youâd appreciate the pancakes.â
You study him for a second longer. Then, finally, finally, you smile. âDonât make a habit of being right, Spider-Man,â you say, spearing another bite.
It turns out that Phainonâs theory is, horrifically, right.Â
One week. Thatâs all it takes.
Seven days of split patrols and encrypted texts, of cataloguing movement and double-checking routes, of scribbling half-mad notes in the margins of maps and losing sleep trying to figure out what the connection is. Heâd hoped, stupidly, that the quiet meant progress. That maybe, maybe theyâd spooked whoever was behind it. That maybe the worst thing waiting for him that week would be another broken web-shooter or a pigeon with a vendetta.
Youâre okay. That should be enough. It should settle the spike of cold panic in his chest, should anchor him where he stands, balancing on the lip of a lamppost on 39th Street. But he rereads it again. Then again.
His fingers tighten around the edge of the lamp. The city breathes below him, neon-drenched and unaware. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren howls. Closer, a car door slams and someone yells about a parking ticket.
Phainon jumps.
The wind is sharp against his skin as he swings, the air slapping his cheeks even through his mask. Heâs faster than usualâmore desperate than smooth. Itâs a graceless sprint across rooftops, the kind that leaves him barely clearing ledges, boots skimming waterlogged gutters, lungs burning. He doesnât know if youâre hurt. You said youâre okay, but âokayâ is such a vague, terrible word when it comes from someone who faces dangerous situations for a living.
The warehouse by the docks comes into view fast, hulking and silent beneath the sodium lights. Thereâs a scorch mark across the landing bay door, the acrid scent of melted insulation still curling up into the air. Two squad cars are parked askew outside the chain link fence, but the cops are gone, or inside, or too distracted to notice the figure scrambling onto the roof with shaking hands.
Phainon crouches low and peers through the skylight.
Youâre inside, standing near a bank of empty battery casings and shattered glass, a radio pressed to your shoulder. Youâre not limping. No visible blood. His heart slows half a beat. He taps lightly on the glass. You look up fast, instinctive, already half-reaching for your weapon before you register him. Your eyes narrow, but only briefly. Then you jerk your chin towards the fire escape.
He meets you on the second floor, slipping in through a side window. Youâre alone in the room, save for the mess of forensic markers, scorch marks, and the bitter ozone of post-explosion cleanup.
âIâm fine,â you say, even before he can speak.
âYouâre not fine,â he snaps, more sharply than he means to. âYou said crossfire. Thatâs not, like, a stubbed toe.â
âIt wasnât aimed at me.â
âThat doesnât help!â
He hears his own voiceâtoo loud, too worried, echoing off concreteâand he turns away before you can see the guilt settling between his shoulders. He runs a hand over his head, dragging his glove against his scalp like he could rub the fear out through friction alone.
You step closer. Your boots crunch over a piece of broken casing. âSpider-Manââ
âWhat happened?â he cuts in. He needs to focus, needs to understand it before he spirals into full-blown panic. âWalk me through it.â
You sigh, but nod. âI was watching the south entrance. Nothing for over two hours. Then, just past ten, the sensors I set up on the west wall tripped. I saw three figures, all masked. One of them had a disruptorâfried the cameras before we could catch a clear face.â
âLithium?â
âGone,â you confirm. âThey knew exactly where to go. They broke open the storage lock, took one unit, and left the others untouched.â
âOnly one?â
âOne. And Spider-Manââ your eyes meet his again, steady now, seriousââthey werenât just fast. They know how to fight. They looked trained for this kind of shit.â
He exhales through gritted teeth. âYou think theyâre building something.â
âI think they already have,â you say grimly. âAnd theyâre just waiting for the right battery to turn it on.â
Phainon shifts his weight and finally asks the question thatâs been sticking in his throat like a splinter. âDid they see you?â
âIâI donât know. Maybe,â you say.
âMaybe?â His voice rises again.
âI lost one in the dark. I think they doubled back. Iâm not sure.â
Phainon wants to scream. Or punch something. Or grab you and teleport you somewhere far away where no one has disruptors and no one bleeds on cold warehouse floors. But he canât do any of that. He can only stand there, vibrating with a kind of fear he doesnât have the vocabulary for.
âI should have been there,â he mutters.
âYou were across the city.â
âThatâs not an excuse.â
You step into his space, close enough that he can hear your breath. âSpider-Man. Stop. Iâm not dead.â
âYet,â he says.
âIâve been trained for this,â you say. âI know how to handle myself.â
He doesnât doubt that. Not even for a second. But he also knows what it feels like to arrive too late, to find a scene thatâs already stained with the blood of his loved ones. He drags a hand down his face. âYou need backup.â
âIâve got it,â you say, your voice firm. âIâve got you.â
Itâs not meant to do what it does, but those words dig into him deeper than any bullet could. He stares at you for a beat too long, every possible response crashing into each other like waves in his skull.
Finally, he says, quietly, âYeah. You do. Can I take you home?â
Phainon expects you to disagree. Instead, you let your shoulders slump with relief, and say, âYes, please.â
The wind cuts sharp along the docks when he leads you out, the air heavy with the smell of brine, old smoke, and burnt copper. Thereâs a metallic haze still lingering over the scene, but you donât flinch from it. You walk steadily beside him, chin up, even if your hand hovers just a little closer to your holster than usual. He doesnât miss that.
The streets are quieter now. Most of the cops have cleared out. A few plainclothes agents hang back to assess the scene, but they barely glance up when he web-slings both of you onto the nearest rooftopâlow enough to keep out of view, high enough to get some space from the mess below. You donât complain. You never do. Even now, when your knees must ache from crouching in dark corners, when your head probably pounds from the tension of nearly being caught in open fire, you simply follow him, like itâs normal. Like you trust him.
Phainon keeps his hold light but steady around your waist, one hand braced just beneath your elbow. Youâre warmer than he expects, heat leaking through your jacket into his gloves. Every time he movesâshoots a string of webs, pulls you forward, steadies your landingâhe feels you adjust to match him. Fluid. Familiar. (He shouldnât like that as much as he does.)
Your buildingâs only three blocks away, and you whisper the directions into his ear. Phainon doesnât want to rush it. He doesnât want to leave you alone, not yetânot while your jaw is still set a little too tight and the adrenaline hasnât fully drained from your bones.
When he finally lands on your fire escape, he lets go reluctantly.
You ease away from him, brushing your hair back, your expression unreadable as always. âYou donât have to walk me all the way up.â
âI know,â he says, already crouched on the rail. âI just⌠wanted to be sure.â
âThanks.â
He nods and tries to act casual. Tries not to stare too hard at the soft light spilling out of your apartment window, or the way your fingers fidget at your sides like youâre still half in the fight. He wants to ask if youâre okay again, wants to tell you that the word âcrossfireâ nearly gave him a heart attack. But youâre already halfway to the window, unlocking it and ducking through the frame.
âSpider-Man?â you say, just before you disappear inside.
âYeah?â
âDo you, uh, want to come inside?â
He blinks. Of all the possibilities that had been ricocheting around in his headââstay safe,â or âthanks for the ride,â or âyouâre worrying too muchââthis had not made the cut. Not even close.
It stalls him, mid-perch, one gloved hand gripping the rusted iron railing of the fire escape, the other resting loosely on his knee. The mask hides his face, but heâs pretty sure his surprise is obvious anyway, just in the way his breath catches or how still he suddenly goes.
Your silhouette is soft in the glow of your apartmentâs light. Youâve already kicked off your boots inside the window, standing barefoot on the wooden floorboards, one hand holding the window open, the other resting lightly on the frame.
âI mean,â you say after a second, brows furrowed. âOnly if you want to. You donât have to or anything. You probably have rooftops to gallivant across andââ
âI want to,â he says quickly, too quickly. Then he clears his throat and tries again. âI meanâyeah. If youâre okay with it.â
Your mouth curves, not quite into a smile, but something close enough to make something twist behind his ribs. âYou literally carried me three blocks through the air. I think weâre past the point of stranger danger.â
He huffs out a short laugh and swings one leg over the windowsill. It takes a bit of maneuvering to avoid smacking his knees against your desk, and heâs painfully aware of every scuff his boots leave behind on your floor. The space smells like laundry detergent and something warmâcoffee grounds, maybe. Or cinnamon. The kind of smell that makes his shoulders start to relax before he even realises it.
Your apartment is small but lived-in. A stack of case files teeters on the kitchen table next to a mug. Your precinct jacket hangs over the back of the couch. There are photos pinned to the side of the fridge with mismatched magnets: city skylines, a blurry shot of you at what looks like a precinct holiday party, someone in a ridiculous Halloween costume posing like a superhero. Phainon feels something tug deep and stupid in his chest.
âMake yourself at home,â you say, heading into the kitchen and flipping on the kettle without needing to ask. âIâve got tea or instant coffee. No milk, though. Sorry.â
He stays standing for a second longer, then slowly pulls off his gloves and tucks them into his belt. His mask stays on. He lifts the bottom edge just past his mouth, enough to breathe easier, but not enough to riskâwell, anything else.
âTeaâs good,â he says.
You nod, moving with a kind of efficiency that reminds him again that youâre still running on fumes. Thereâs a scrape as you grab two mugs, the clink of metal as you stir one without sugar. You hand him the other without ceremony.
He takes it carefully, fingers brushing yours. âThanks.â
âNo problem,â you return, then gesture to the couch. âWe can sit. If youâre staying a few minutes.â
He is. He knows he is. He follows you to the couch and lowers himself into the corner, stiff at first, like his body hasnât caught up to the fact that heâs safe here. With you. Thereâs a blanket balled up on one side and an old remote wedged between the cushions. You move them without thinking and curl one leg beneath you, facing him.
âSo,â you say. âDo you want to talk about it?â
Phainon frowns. âThe break-in?â
âNo,â you say, looking at him squarely. âYou. You were⌠panicked tonight.â
Phainon goes still. Itâs not immediateânot sharp like a flinch, but a quiet kind of freezing, like someoneâs gently pulling the emergency brake in his chest. He doesnât look away from you, but he doesnât answer either. His tea cools between his fingers.
You shift forward a little, your voice low. âLook, Iâm not asking because Iâm nosy. Or because I want some dramatic unmasking moment sort of thing. I justâŚâ You pause, exhale. âI got lucky tonight. Thatâs what it was. Luck. If I hadnât ducked at the right second, if theyâd come around the corner just a little fasterââ
âBut they didnât,â he says quietly, cutting you off.
âThatâs not the point.â
Youâre sharper now, sitting straighter, your knee pressed to the cushion. Your eyes flashânot with anger, but fear, the kind you donât let people see if you can help it. But he sees it. And worse, he knows it. He recognises it in the widening of your eyes, the way your fingers curl against your palm.
You swallow. âIâm scared, Spider-Man. I know youâre helping. I trust you. But thisâthis thing weâre chasing⌠if something happens to youâI wonât even know your name. I wonât know who to look for. Or if I should look at all. Thatâs not just reckless, thatâsâcruel.â
He flinches at that. You notice.
âI just want to know whoâs standing next to me,â you say. âThatâs not so much to ask.â
âI canât,â he says, before heâs even fully processed it. âIâm sorry.â
âThatâs not good enough.â Your voice isnât raised, but thereâs a new edge to it now, sharper than anger. Hurt, maybe. Disappointment. It slices straight through his armour. âYou trust me with your life out there. Every night. You trust me not to shoot you in the back, or get in your way, or blow your cover. But you donât trust me enough to know who you are?â
âItâs not about trust,â he says quickly, too defensively. âItâsâGod, you think I donât want to tell you? You think I donâtâdonât lie awake wondering what would happen if I did? I think about it all the time.â
âThen whatâs stopping you?â
He looks at you, then. Youâre not angry. Youâre scared. Scared of whateverâs coming next. Scared of losing control, of losing him.
âYou donât understand what that means,â he says. âIf you know who I amâreally knowâit changes everything. You donât get to walk away from that. You donât get to un-know it if something happens. If someone finds outââ
âIâm a cop, Spider-Man. Iâve seen worse things than secret identities.â
âItâs not just mine,â he says. âItâs everyone around me. You knowingâyou become a target.â
âIâm already a target.â
âNot like this,â he bites out. âIf someone traces it back to youâif they think you matter to meââ
âI do matter to you.â
You suck in a breath like you didnât mean to say it that way. But you donât take it back. You sit there, across from him, eyes steady and hurting and unshakably honest. And all Phainon can think is: Shit.
âYou do,â he says, barely audible. âOf course you do.â
âThen why wonât you tell me?â
He closes his eyes, and rubs a hand over the edge of his mask like he can somehow erase the pressure building behind his skull. âBecause the second I do,â he says, âyou stop being just a cop with good instincts and better aim. You become mine. And that makes you vulnerable in a way I donât know how to protect you from.â
You shake your head, frustrated. âYou donât get to make that decision for me. Iâm not asking for your social security number, or something. Iâm asking to know whoâs at my side when the bullets fly. When the lights go out. When itâs 2 a.m. and I canât sleep because I think I saw someone watching my window. I need more than a voice behind a mask. I deserve more.â
He doesnât argue. He doesnât tell you youâre wrong, because youâre not. But still, he stays silent.
You stare at him for a moment longer, and when itâs clear he wonât budge, you get up. The mug of tea still has steam spiralling out of it as you walk to the sink and set it down, the sound softer than your next words: âI think you should go.â
Phainon doesnât try to stop you, or ask you to reconsider. He simply nods, and stands. Thereâs a strange heaviness in his limbs as he pulls the mask down over his face, tugs his gloves on with fingers that feel numb. He moves to the window but pauses with one foot already on the sill.
âI do trust you,â he says. âMore than anyone.â
Itâs not that youâre avoiding each other.
Itâs that youâre both avoiding each otherâwhich, in practice, amounts to the same thing.
Patrols become asynchronous: silent intel dumps in the encrypted folder, maps updated with colour-coded marks that speak more than either of you will via text. There are no more late-night debriefs on rooftops, no post-mission walks home, no casual banter about who has the worst taste in energy bars. When you text, itâs clipped, tactical. When he replies, itâs mechanical.
(âWest dock checkpoint cleared. No sign of activity.â
âCopy. South alley tripwire still intact.â)
Phainon doesnât know what hurts more: the silence, or the fact that itâs entirely his fault. Maybe he was right. Maybe the secret is safer kept. Maybe you are less of a target this way.
But God, itâs lonely.
Thereâs a rhythm to the city that used to make senseâpulse and swing, fire escapes and antenna towers, the rough percussion of tires against potholes. But now it all feels flat. The rooftops are colder. His landing sticks a little less clean. Even the pigeons donât heckle him like they used to.
Itâs been two weeks. Two long, aching weeks, until, at 3:37 a.m., Phainon receives a text from you, and it takes him less than a minute to reply.Â
He doesnât stop to think, or worry if this is a trap, or a joke, or worseâif youâre still mad at him. When he lands outside your apartment, the windowâs already cracked open. Inside, the lights are on low, and thereâs a corkboard spread across your living room wall now, half-covered in photos, schematics, lines of red string and sticky notes scrawled in tight, impatient handwriting he recognises from your field memos.
You donât greet him. You just hand him a folder, your eyes dark with something between fear and exhaustion.
âBiotech division out of Theoros Labs,â you say. âIt used to be focused on adaptive immunotherapy, but they lost funding three years ago and went dark. The shell company they reopened under is tied to a private security contractor out of Styxia. And guess what their latest research files are tagged under?â
Phainonâs already flipping through the pages. His gloved fingers still. His stomach drops.
ARACHNID-BASED ENHANCEMENT TRIALS â SUBJECT 33550336. MODEL NAME: FLAME REAVER.
He looks up. âTheyâre trying to replicate me.â
âNot just replicate,â you say, shaking your head. âWeaponise.â
Your voice is thin, dry, like it costs you something to even say it aloud.
âTheyâve been pulling data from old surveillanceâfight footage, patrol patterns, even the way you move. You know how we assumed they were looking for high-density batteries to power a device?â You tap one of the diagrams on the corkboard, the spine of it shaped like a human thorax with branching nodes along the shoulders. âTurns out itâs a synthetic neuromuscular system. And thisâthis lithium coreâitâs the ignition switch.â
Phainon stares at the blueprint. Itâs rough, unfinished, but horrifyingly clear: a bipedal unit, modelled after him. Spinal cord wiring where his web shooters would be. Photoreactive visor instead of eyes. Muscle clusters designed for explosive vertical leap. Neural sync modules buried in the wrists and calves.
A Spider-Man, stripped of the man.
âWhy?â he says, voice hoarse. âWhy build this?â
âI donât know yet,â you admit. âBut someone out there sees you as more than just a vigilante nuisance. They see you as a prototype. A formula. Something to replicate, mass-produce, and control.â
He sinks onto the edge of your couch, folder open in his lap. The diagram stares back at him, accusatory and unforgiving. Itâs him. The curve of the stance, the wide-set shoulders, the way the unitâs balance favours its left side, just like he does when his kneeâs aching. They didnât just study him; they dissected him.
âHow long have you known?â he asks quietly.
âA few days,â you say. âI wanted to be sure. Didnât want to come to you with a hunch and nothing to back it up.â
âAnd you texted me anyway.â
You meet his gaze across the room. âBecause itâs you, Spider-Man. Look, I know you think hiding your identity keeps people safe. But this? This proves it doesnât. Theyâre coming for you whether or not I know your face. They already have your gait, your voice, your power levels. Theyâre not trying to figure out who you are anymore. They donât care. They just want to turn you into something they can sell.â
He sets the folder down. His hands wonât stop shaking. âHow⌠did you find out about all this?â
âDonât get mad.â
When Phainon doesnât say anything, you sigh and look away.Â
âI visited the old R&D site. Alone.â
âAre you serious?â Phainon gestures so wildly that his web cartridge knocks against the back of your chair. He stands abruptly. The folder falls from his lap, papers scattering across your rug. âYou went alone. To Theoros. To Styxia-backed labs that specialise in high-risk bioweapons. Without calling me.â
âI called you when I had proofââ
âYou shouldnât have gone in the first place!â he explodes. âWhat the hell were you thinking? Do you want to get dissected? Shot? Replaced with one of thoseâthose thingsââ
âYou werenât talking to me!â you shout back. âWhat was I supposed to do? Wait until they raided another warehouse?â
âI was trying to protect you,â Phainon grits out. âAnd instead you threw yourself into a place that couldâve had armed personnel, pressure sensors, live prototypesâanything.â
You throw your arms out. âAnd what was the alternative? Sit on my hands while they build a weaponised version of you? Wait until thereâs a second Spider-Man crawling up government buildings with a built-in kill switch? I donât know how to sit still, Spider-Man. Not when Iâm this scared.â
âYou think Iâm not scared? You think I havenât been replaying every second of that night at the docks? That I havenât imagined a dozen versions of how it couldâve gone wrong? You think Iâm not scared every time I donât hear from you for a few hours?â
âThen why didnât you say any of that? Why did you shut me out?â
âBecause if I said it out loud,â Phainon spits, pacing again, hands flying to his head, âthen it would be real. It would beâyou would be real. Not just someone chasing me on my patrol route. Not just someone whoâs helping me out. Youâd be a person Iâd have to lose.â
You blink, thrown. âYou think youâre going to lose me?â
âI know I could,â he says, almost like it hurts. âBecause itâs already happened. Every time I get closeâevery single timeâit ends the same way. Either they die, or I leave first. Because thatâs the only choice I ever get.â
He doesnât even hear how loud his voice has gotten, doesnât notice how heâs gesturing wildly, storming back and forth across your living room.
âI canât protect you from this. I canât protect you from them. I canât even protect myself. You want me to give you a name, but thatâs the one thing I canât do. Because once you have that, itâs over. Youâll look at me differently. Or worseâyouâll stop looking at me. And I canâtâGod, I canât stand that.
âDo you know what itâs like to see yourself turned into a blueprint? To see a file full of numbers and heat signatures and recorded footage and realise someone out there has broken you down into a fucking algorithm? That they donât see a personâthey see a weapon?
âI didnât sign up for this shit! I didnât even sign up to be Spider-Man. I just⌠was. And now theyâve taken that and turned it into something else. Something that walks like me and fights like me and could kill you without thinking. And the worst part is that if youâd died at that lab, Iâno one wouldâve even known. Youâd just be another casualty they scrub from the recordsâand that wouldâve been my fault.â
His voice has dropped to a whisper. His hands are trembling.
He doesnât realise until you doâuntil your eyes go wide, and your breath catches like youâve been sucker-punched.
His mask is gone, not pushed halfway up, or nudged for a sip of tea. Gone. Somewhere in the middle of that breakdownâwhile he was talking too fast and breathing too hard and tearing at his suit like it was suffocating himâhe took it off.
His hairâs a mess, flattened by the fabric, and his face is flushed, mouth parted slightly as he sucks in breath after breath. Thereâs a bruise blooming along his cheekbone, and a cut healing just beneath his chin. He looks young, with silvery-white hair and bright blue eyes that are rimmed with the redness that comes with exhaustion and caffeine.
â...Oh,â Phainon says, stunned. âShit.â
You blink, slowly, as though grounding yourself in reality again. âYou took your mask off.â
He starts to lift a hand to cover his face, instinct kicking in too late. Gently, more carefully than anything else thatâs passed between you tonight, you reach up and take the mask from his hand. Your fingers brush his knuckles, and he flinches, but he doesnât pull away.
Phainon drops his hand and lets out a shallow breath. âI⌠didnât mean to.â
âYou didnât mean to,â you echo. âJesus.â
Phainon canât say anything, so he simply stands there, feeling as naked as the day he first stepped onto a rooftop and dared to believe he could protect anyone. His heart pounds loud in his ears. He can feel it in his throat, his fingertips, his teeth.
âCan Iâ Will you tell me your name?â you whisper.
He wets his lips, and says, quietly, âPhainon.â
You nod, once, and say it back. âPhainon,â you repeat, like itâs a truth youâll guard with your life. âOkay. Iâm not afraid of you. And Iâm not leaving. So either you let me help, because you asked me to, or I break into another lab and do it anyway. Your call.â
Phainon stares at you: you, with your voice barely holding steady; you, standing in your living room full of maps and stolen schematics and caffeine-fueled desperation; you, tired and stubborn and loyal enough to make him fall to his knees.
âOkay,â he says quietly.
You reach out, then, and Phainon thinks youâre handing his mask back to him, but instead, you wrap your arms tightly around his torso and pull him into you.Â
He doesnât move at first. Youâre pressed to him, arms wrapped tight around his torso like you mean to hold the pieces of him together before they scatter to the wind. Your cheek rests just above his heart, right where it beats too loud and too fast, thudding like itâs trying to break free from his ribs. His hands hover uselessly in the air for a second, fingers twitching, stunned by the contact, by the way you came to him so easily, so willingly, after all of it.
He exhales. The air leaves his lungs like itâs been caged there for years. His shoulders drop an inch. His spine slackens just enough for him to bend down.
He lifts his arms slowly, like heâs learning how to move again. His fingers brush your back, light and unsure, but you donât flinch. You donât pull away. So he lets his palms flatten, one at the curve of your spine, the other curling loosely over your shoulder.
He breathes in.
God, itâs you. Soap and smoke and citrus shampoo. A hundred times heâs seen you crouched beside him on rooftops or hunched over a laptop, bathed in the blue glow of surveillance feeds. But this is different. This is you, pressed to him like you belong there, like the world outside can wait.Â
His grip tightens, no longer tentativeâarms looping fully around you now, hands grasping like he needs to keep you tethered, like if he lets go, youâll disappear back into a nightmare or a lab or a headline with your name misspelled. His chin tips forward until his face rests in the hollow of your neck, and itâs instinct, not thought that guides him there. His breath stirs the hair at your temple. He swallows hard.
(Itâs you. Itâs you, and youâre warm and safe and alive in his arms.)
Phainon closes his eyes and pretends like everything else in the living room doesnât existâthe weaponised duplicate in the file folder, the surveillance footage broken down to frames per second, the machine built in his image but stripped of everything human. He forgets about the mask you dropped, crumpled on the floor, and the voice in his head screaming that heâs made a mistake, that youâll leave once the shock fades, that nothing good can come of this.
Instead, he listens to your heartbeat. He memorises the slope of your shoulders beneath his palms, the soft way your hand has fisted in the fabric of his suit like youâre afraid he might vanish, too.
It comes to himâterrible and quiet and so obvious it aches.
He could be in love with you.
Not the kind of love he can shove into the seams of his second life. Not the safe, armâs-length affection that lives behind jokes and shared intel and the occasional brush of fingers across a coffee cup. No, this is the dangerous kind. The kind that makes you stupid. The kind that makes you soft. (The kind that makes you want.)
He wants a future he doesnât dare picture. He wants to walk down the street with you in broad daylight. He wants to take off the suit and be Phainon, just Phainon, and know youâll still look at him the same way.
(His hands tremble. You hold him tighter.)
Itâs that simple. You donât push. You donât speak. You just breathe against his chest, steady and unwavering and constant, like you always are. Phainon presses his mouth to your hair. His eyes sting, but he doesnât cry.
Itâs five in the morning, and Phainon is walking down a cracked sidewalk beside you with his suit half-zipped, his mask stuffed into your hoodie pocket, and a buzzing under his skin that heâs trying really hard to ignore. Youâre beside him, arms crossed against the early chill, leading the way like thisâwalking, togetherâis something you do all the time.
Itâs not a date, he tells himself. Itâs really not.Â
But you mentioned waffles. And your voice had been tired but warm when you said it. And he hadnât wanted to leave yet.
So here he is. Not skipping, because heâs got some dignity, but definitely walking with a little too much bounce for someone who found out heâs being reverse-engineered into a murder bot a little over an hour ago.
The cityâs quieter than it ever gets during daylight, the kind of hush that only exists in the space between the last bar closing and the first train running. A low mist clings to the ground, curling around traffic lights and benches and empty newsstands. Itâs eerie, maybe, but not unfriendly. Like the cityâs holding its breath right along with him.
Phainon doesnât know what heâs supposed to be feeling. Dread, maybe. Paranoia. Existential terror. But instead, all he feels is this weightless hum in his chest, the kind that makes you walk a little taller, swing your arms a little looser. The kind that makes you forget youâre still half in your gear and probably look completely insane.
You glance over at him as you cross the street, the corner of your mouth twitching like youâre trying not to smile. âYouâre doing that thing again.â
âWhat thing?â
âStaring at me.â
Phainon stumbles on a crack in the sidewalk. âIâm not,â he says, too quickly.
âYou are,â you say, not unkindly. âLike Iâm going to vanish or something.â
Phainon rubs the back of his neck, grateful for the relative darkness. âWell. I mean. You did break into a lab by yourself, so I wouldnât put it past you.â
âOkay, fair,â you concede, nudging him lightly with your elbow. âStill. Youâve got that face on. The one that makes me feel like Iâve got, like, a mysterious smear of radioactive ink on my forehead.â
âI donât have a face.â
âYou do have a face,â you say. âThatâs the problem now, remember?â
Phainon huffs out a laugh and looks away, suddenly all too aware of the morning air on his skin, of the fact that heâs not wearing his mask, of how easy it is to joke with you. Heâs not sure what scares him more: being turned into a weapon, or feeling like this.
You walk in comfortable silence for a block or two, hands tucked into your sleeves, your breath fogging slightly in the chill. The sky is bruising lavender and gold now, the edges of dawn beginning to soften everything.
Phainon chances a glance at you. Youâre watching the sky change colour like itâs a magic trick only you know the secret to, your expression soft and unreadable. Thereâs a crease between your brows, faint, but it smooths a little when a breeze picks up and rustles your hair. You look tired, not just from the lack of sleep, but from the kind of exhaustion that sinks into a person when theyâve seen too much, done too much, but still canât stop moving.
The diner sign glows into view at the end of the streetâwarm yellow and flickering red, letters half-burnt out so it reads INE R & GILL if you squint. Thereâs a figure leaning against the counter inside, wiping down the same spot with a rag thatâs probably older than both of you, and the place smells faintly of grease and syrup.
You pause in front of the glass door, one hand on the handle. âThis place okay?â
âItâs perfect,â Phainon says before he can stop himself.
You smile and push open the door. The bell on top jingles, and the waitress glances up from the far end of the counter. She gives you both a once-over, raises a tired brow at Phainonâs boots and long sleeves, and gestures to a booth without asking questions. Thatâs the nice thing about New Okhema City; nobody cares too much.
You slide into a booth with a contented sigh. Phainon sits across from you, knees knocking against the underside of the table. The vinyl squeaks under his weight, and the Formica is sticky, but he doesnât care. His hands feel strangely clean without gloves. The menu sticks to his fingers when he flips it open.
You donât even bother looking at yours. âWaffles, scrambled eggs, hash browns. Extra syrup.â
âThat specific, huh?â Phainon says.
You shrug. âGotta know your diner defaults.â
The waitress arrives with two glasses of water and a notepad. âYou kids look like youâve been up all night,â she says, though she canât be more than a few years older than you and Phainon.
âWe have,â you say sleepily, âbut we cracked a supervillain conspiracy, so it was worth it.â
The waitress doesnât blink. âCoffee?â
âYes, please,â you say, and Phainon nods too, grateful. She leaves without another word.
Silence stretches between you again, but itâs easy now, filled with warmth. The sky outside shifts more boldly into gold and peach, casting long shadows against the window. Phainon leans back into the booth and lets himself exhale slowly, deeply.
Your foot brushes against his under the table. He freezes. You donât move it.
He looks up, and your eyes meet his over the rim of your water glass. Thereâs something quiet there, soft around the edgesâexhaustion, sure, but something else too. A kind of trust heâs not sure he deserves. (Still, itâs there.)
Phainon thinks about how this shouldnât be possible. How the night started with fear and screaming and blueprints of his body, and somehow ended with this booth, this silence, this person across from him.
[18:04] Detective Brain: Spidey-lookalike broke into storage depot by Kephale Plaza. Iâm already on scene. Itâs not you, right?
[18:05] Detective Brain: Phainon. Please respond.
Phainon is already out the window by the time your second text comes through, barely bothering to latch it behind him. His fingers fumble for the web shooter at his wrist, and his heart is a fist hammering against his ribs. He almost misses the first jumpâlands hard on the ledge and has to steady himself with a rough palm against brick.
He doesnât even suit up properly. His gloves are half-fastened, the zipper of his suit stuck one-fourths of the way up his spine, but thereâs no time to care. Phainon swings hard across the cityâs mid-rises, momentum jerking through his shoulders, his aim slightly off with each launch. It doesnât matter. Heâll take a bruised wrist if it gets him to Kephale Plaza thirty seconds faster.
Kephale Plaza is a glass-and-steel monstrosity, flanked by wide loading docks and a security perimeter that no longer seems to matter. Phainon can hear the distant thrum of police radios as he swings into the industrial district, following the echo of sirens. Squad cars line the street outside the storage depot, lights flashing in fractured red and blue across the cracked pavement. Officers are forming a perimeter, but thereâs no crowd. Theyâre keeping it quiet.
He lands on the roof of an adjacent building, crouched low as his eyes sweep the scene.Â
He finds you posted just outside the warehouseâs side entrance, pacing like youâre trying not to burst out of your own skin. Your bulletproof vest is cinched tight, and your standard issue sidearm is still holsteredâbut your fingers are twitching near it, like youâre weighing every possible outcome of the past ten minutes. Your hairâs tied back, but loose strands stick to your face from the sweat already clinging to your skin. Heâs never seen you look so still and restless all at once.
He leaps down from the rooftop, landing in a crouch just behind a darkened patrol vehicle. No one sees him yet. He keeps to the shadows as he makes his war towards you.
The second you hear the shuffle of his boots, you whip aroundâand relax just as fast.
âJesus,â you exhale, taking a step forward. âOkay. Okay, thank God. I wasnât sure youâd even seen the message.â
âI left the second I did,â Phainon assures. âWhatâs the situation?â
Your lips tighten, and you turn, nodding for him to follow you a few paces away from the rest of the officers. Behind you, the front entrance to the warehouse stands yawning and dark, a single loading dock shutter half-raised.
âIt showed up fifteen minutes ago,â you say, pulling out your phone and flicking to the security cam footage. You angle the screen towards him. âTook out the motion sensors, and walked in through a window on the north side. No sign of forced entryâit knew exactly where to go.â
The footage is grainy, flickering, but the figure is unmistakable.
It moves like him. Too much like him. In the footage, the figure slinks down the hallway with the same kind of gait Phainon sees in himself. Every footfall, every pause, every angle of entryâitâs like watching him pace through a mirror.
Only this version is sleeker, meaner. Its limbs are thicker with muscle plating, and its suitâif you could even call it thatâis matte-black with streaks of purple circuitry flashing along the ribs and spine. Thereâs no emblem, no mask markings, just a blank, silver faceplate that reflects the ceiling lights like a shuttered camera lens. One blink and itâs gone, vanishing into the blind spots of the camera feed like it knows exactly where every pixel falls.
Phainon swears under his breath. âThey built it,â he mutters. âThatâs Flame Reaver.â
You glance up. âYou sure?â
He nods. Heâs gone through your stolen documents so many times that it feels like theyâve been branded into his skull. âPositive. Same proportions, same gait. But itâs not scanning the building. Itâs buying time.â
âFor what?â
Phainon doesnât answer at first. Heâs too focused on the still-looping footage. The moment the prototype slips out of view, he sees itâa flicker of something. It wasnât raiding. It wasnât looking for intel. It walked into that depot like it had a schedule to keep.
The realisation hits him like a slap to the sternum.
âWait,â he says sharply. âWhereâs your radio?â
You blink. âWhat?â
âYour radio,â he repeats, scanning your hip and vest and frowning when he sees the wire coiled but your earpiece missing. âYou always keep it on.â
âI took it out for a second. There was interference on the line.â
âNo.â Phainon turns, scanning the scene again with a new sharpness in his eyes. âNo, thatâs wrong. Thisâthis whole thingâitâs not a distraction. This is the distraction.â
âWhat are youââ
His head whips around, eyes scanning the perimeter. You were just here, right beside him, one step behind. Your breath was fogging the air. You were talking.
Now youâre gone.
Phainonâs heart lurches.
âWhere is she?â he hisses aloud, and suddenly heâs on the moveâscrambling up onto the nearest shipping crate, trying to get height, trying to see. The precinct lineâs holding firm around the building. Thereâs no breach. No one has come or gone.
Except you. Except whoeverâor whateverâcame for you.
He swings to the rooftop in seconds, breath tight in his lungs, wind clawing past his ears. His eyes sweep the blocks below in sharp, jerking passesâalley to alley, rooftop to ground, looking for anything that feels off.
On the north side, nestled between two disused factories and a rusted chain-link fence, an unmarked van idles in a narrow alley, almost hidden in the dip of a service road. Its brake lights pulse once, too soft to draw attention, but deliberate. A second later, the engine stutters and dies. The door clicks shut. Phainon stills.
From this height, the sounds of the city thin into a muffled hush: sirens echoing somewhere far behind him, police radios buzzing with disjointed chatter. But that alley, that vanâitâs too smooth, too clean. Thereâs no urgency to it, no panic. Just the slow, mechanical precision of something following protocol.
A figure steps away from the van, heading down a side street without looking back. Their stride is steady. Familiar.
Phainon freezes.
It looks like you: the same jacket, same utility belt, even the soft sway of your hair against your collarbone. Your badge glints faintly under the streetlightâyour badge. Not a replica.
Except itâs wrong. Youâre not there.
You wouldnât leave the perimeter without backup, wouldnât ditch your squad without a word, or abandon the very scene that had triggered every instinct in your body just ten minutes ago. At least, not without telling him.
And whoeverâor whateverâthis is, itâs walking away like it knows the exact timing window itâs working with. Like it wants him to follow.
âTheyâre splitting us up,â Phainon breathes, the words ripping themselves from his throat. Suddenly, the air feels thinner, sharper. His lungs burn.
He doesnât hesitate, doesnât even think before launching himself off the rooftop with a grunt, webline snapping out, slicing through the fog-damp air. He swings low, barely clearing a lamppost, and lands in a crouch beside the van. He can smell petrol, faintly.
Phainon yanks the door open. Itâs emptyâno driver, or equipment. Just the sharp, sterile scent of plastic and ozone. Itâs a burner vehicle, then. One they didnât plan on keeping.
âDamn it,â Phainon curses under his breath. He spins on his heel, already movingâuntil he hears a faint crackle. The buzz of a police radio. Your police radio.
He follows the sound, weaving between crates and dumpsters until he skids to a stop at the mouth of the alley, and finds your comm unit on the ground. One of the earbuds still dangles loosely from the coil, blinking a faint blue every few seconds. The rest of the radio is scuffed; not broken, just discarded deliberately, placed just far enough from the van to suggest you followed something willinglyâuntil it was too late.
A boot scuff mars the concrete nearby. There is another drag mark next toâa toe, maybe. Someone shifted. Or struggled. Phainon crouches low, brushing his fingers across the ground. His mind races through probabilities, scenarios. None of them are good.
It wasnât just a prototype in the warehouse. That was the shell, a puppet to get the cops talking, to trigger an investigation. Something visible, something obvious.Â
But this was the play: lure him in with the decoy, use it to lock the precinctâs attention, then send the real threat to steal what they really neededâyou.
Phainon grits his teeth as he stares down at your radio. His mind flashes to the schematics youâd shown him on your wall. Neural mimicry, behavioural mirroring, photo-accurate masking. It wasnât a bluff. They had footage, voice samples, enough to build a close-range approximation of him. Theyâd studied him down to the limp in his left knee.
Of course they had enough on you. You were the officer who was most often assigned with the task of tracking him down, after all.
He thinks of your laugh; the way you tilt your head when youâre about to argue; the furrow in your brows when youâre thinking too deeply. If theyâve copied thatâyouâdown to the way your voice hitches when you say his nameâ
His stomach flips.
âThey took her,â he says aloud, more to steady himself than anything else. âThey took her.â
Phainonâs fingers twitch, curling tight into fists. His web shooters press firm against his wrists. His gloves are still half-fastened. He fixes them now, fastens every strap, zips his suit the rest of the way up roughly. The breath in his chest is shallow and burning, but his hands are steady.Â
He swings back up to the rooftop, lands in a three-point crouch, and bolts across the ledge without a second thought. Every muscle in his body knows where heâs going: the old R&D site, the remnants of what used to be the government-sanctioned Theoros Labs.
Itâs a twenty-minute drive through the industrial corridor to get there. Heâll make it in seven.
Every swing feels sharper now, each launch of webbing tighter, more exact. The buildings blur past him, and his breath comes in hard, rhythmic exhales. He canât afford to be wrong. Canât afford a detour. The further they pull you away, the less chance he has of reaching you before whatever they built decides it doesnât need you alive.
Phainon lands on a rooftop, skids into a roll, fires another web and propels him back into the air. Hold on, he thinks. Please, just hold on.
The air near Theoros Labs smells like ozone and old metal.
Phainon lands hard on the broken rooftop of a utility shed just outside the main building. Itâs darker here than it should be. The outer perimeter lights have all been shut off, either manually or by remote override. Only a few flickering emergency bulbs remain, casting a jaundiced glow over the facilityâs skeletal frame. Ivy creeps up the cracked walls, half-swallowing faded corporate logos and biohazard signs. The chain-link fencing has been torn down in places and rusted through in others.Â
Itâs too quiet.
He moves carefully, sticking close to the shadows as he approaches the main entranceâwhatâs left of it. The glass doors have been forced open, one of them dangling from its hinges. Inside, the lobby lies still and cold, floor tiles coated in dust. But someoneâs been through recently. Fresh boot prints disturb the grime, overlapping in frantic patterns. You were here. He follows your footprints past collapsed hallways and rusted biohazard doors. Most of the rooms are strippedâjust empty labs and decaying workstationsâbut the deeper he gets, the cleaner it becomes. Dust thins. Wires appear. Lights flicker to life as he passes.
Theyâve reactivated the lower level. Phainon descends a wide staircase lined with old safety tape. The sub-basement has power. Soft white fluorescents hum overhead. The floor is concrete, sealed and buffed, with clean drag marks across it. The walls are lined with black server towers, cords feeding into sealed doors.
Phainon stops mid-step; thereâs a tingle in the back of his neck. Someone else is here, too. His muscles go taut, fingers curling half-ready near his web shooters.
âAh, Mr. Spider-Man,â a voice drawls, drawing out the vowels. âOr should I say⌠Phainon?â
Thereâs a hiss behind one of the sealed doors to the left. A vent releases a thin ribbon of steam.
âDonât be shy. Youâve already made it farther than most,â the voice says, and this time, itâs accompanied by footsteps echoing against the polished concrete, slow and confident. âI imagine you have questions. Thatâs good. I admire curiosity. Itâs a very human trait.â
The man who steps into view is tall, lean, draped in a sleep lab coat far too pristine for a place like this. His shoulder-length hair is slicked back, and most of his face is covered by a visor. His ID badge is clipped to his chest, name and clearance codes etched in a crisp black print.
Lycurgus smiles like heâs greeting an old colleague. âThis facility was never truly abandoned, you know. That was just a convenient myth. Theoros was⌠restructured. Privatised. Reoriented towards more ambitious pursuits.â He gestures to the space around him. âWelcome to our prototype cradle. Or, as we researchers like to call it, Stage Zero of Irontomb.â
Phainonâs voice is low, sharp. âWhere is she?â
âYour detective, yes?â Lycurgus says. âShe is safe. Unharmed, though mildly sedated. Sheâs being prepped for mapping. Itâs better if she doesnât wake up mid-scanâthe sensory feedback can be unpleasant.â
Phainon steps forward. âYouâre going to let her go. Now.â
âOh, Iâm afraid thatâs not going to happen.â Lycurgus tilts his head. âSheâs far too important. As are you.â
He moves towards a glass-paneled observation window. Behind it, a dark chamber pulses with slow, blue strobe lighting. Machines hiss softly within. Something looms in the shadowsâtaller than a man, hunched forward, hooked into a loading rig like a sleeping animal.
âI know what you think weâre doing here,â Lycurgus continues. âMass production. Automation. Violence. And, to be fair, yesâwe are building weapons. But not just weapons. Weâre building evolution.â
âYouâre building copies,â Phainon corrects.
Lycurgus lets out a chuckle, quiet and indulgent. âFlame Reaver was a crude iteration. Incomplete, too reliant on mimicry. It served its purposeâchased its prey, gathered its data, misled your little precinct. But Irontomb⌠Irontomb will do more than chase. It will predict, integrate, override, think.â
He turns back to Phainon. The placid smile fades, replaced with something hungrier.
âWeâve spent years reverse-engineering your every decision. Every rooftop sprint. Every moment of hesitation. Every kill you didnât make. We mapped your instincts, modeled your reflex latency, simulated the split-second calculations behind your webbing patterns. All of it.â
He taps the side of his own head. âBut it wasnât enough. Something was missing. Something the data couldnât replicate.â
âYou mean her.â
âYes.â Lycurgusâ smile returns, tight and reverent. âYour control variable. Your compass. We needed to understand how a creature like you formed attachments, what altered your judgement. What humanised you.â
Phainonâs voice is a growl. âSheâs not a variable.â
âSheâs your pivot, Spider-Man. The reason your risk matrix fluctuates. The reason you pause before you strike. She made you less efficient, and, therefore, more valuable. Which is why we modeled her too. Her responses, her patterns, her tone modulation, her biometric data when sheâs afraid. Itâs poetic, really. We used her to finish the algorithm that began with you. The perfect balance of speed and restraint.â
The lights behind the glass pulse brighter. The figure in the chamber stirs. Itâs not the Flame Reaver. Itâs something else.
Its silhouette is bulkier than his, but it looks wrong. It has slender limbs with plated joints; a split maskâhalf red, half mirrored black; a narrow torso fitted with impact dispersal panels. Something that looks like a spine runs down its back, glowing faintly green. Phainon doesnât recognise the material, but he can feel the heat rolling off it through the glass.
âItâs a neural sync model,â Lycurgus says, not even trying to hide his pride, âcoded from your reflexes and her empathy thresholds. Itâs capable of piloting independently or under network command. It doesnât hesitate. It doesnât panic. And, most importantly, it doesnât forget.â
Phainonâs heart hammers. His blood feels like itâs gone cold. âYouâre trying to make a Spider-Man that doesnât need a person inside.â
Lycurgus meets his eyes. âExactly.â
The machine twitches, then steps forward. Its footfalls are silent. Too smooth.
âYou two were only ever reference material,â Lycurgus intones. âAnd now that the templateâs completeâwell. All we need are the final scans.â
âWhere is she? Where is she?âÂ
Itâs all Phainon can do to stop himself from ripping Lycurgusâ throat out. The scientist merely adjusts the sleeve of his lab coat, as if the demand were a mild inconvenience.
âSheâs nearby,â he says coolly. âLower containment. Cell B-4, off the neural calibration wing. You wonât get far without triggering lockdown, of course. And even if you doâby the time you reach her, Irontomb will already be online.â
Behind the glass, the machine lifts its head. The sound it makes isnât mechanical. Itâs worseâsoft, distorted, like the playback of a familiar voice through cracked speakers. It twitches once, then again, shoulders rolling into a combat stance eerily like his own.
Phainon doesnât wait. He fires a webline directly at Lycurgus and yanks. The man stumbles, but Phainon slams him against the server wall hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Wires clatter. A tower crashes sideways.
Lycurgus laughs, even as Phainon pins him in place. âYou think youâre here to save her,â he says, breathless, âbut youâre too late. Sheâs already part of it.â
âI swear to Godââ Phainon hisses, pressing the heel of his palm to Lycurgusâ throat. âI swear to God, if you touched herââ
âI didnât have to,â the man croaks. âShe volunteered. Not knowingly, of course. But those scans she took from our systems? They included a compressed tracer file. As soon as she opened them, our systems opened her. The sync began the moment she pieced it together. Everything she knowsâtactical behaviour, voice modulation, interrogation strategyâitâs all feeding the AI as we speak.â
âYou fed off of us.â Phainonâs grip tightens. Lycurgus grunts.
âYes,â the scientist says. âAnd you should be proud. Irontomb wonât just replicate your choicesâit will refine them, strip away all the guilt, the softness. It will be cleaner. Smarter. Perfect.â
Something shudders behind the glass. The observation lights dim.
A low thrum starts up from behind the glass, like a heartbeat filtered through static. The strobe pulses once, then again, casting the chamber in a deep, electric violet. Inside, Irontomb lifts its hand with unsettling grace and slowly curls its fingers into a fist. The joints click into place with too much precision. A webline ejectsâthin, metallic, laced with a crackle of electric currentâand shoots into the rafters. It latches onto the ceiling brace, and just like that, the chamber is empty.
The reinforced door behind Phainon slams open with a hydraulic hiss. He whirls around. Lycurgus barely has time to flinch before Phainonâs hand closes around his collar and hurls him to the ground. The scientist crashes into the wall beside a rack of servers, skull cracking against plastic. A second later, the emergency klaxons explode to life, screaming overhead in jagged bursts.
CONTAINMENT BREACH. HALL A-7. PRIORITY UNIT ACTIVATED.
Red warning lights flare to life, pulsing in harsh rhythm. The sterile corridor floods with shadow and noise. Phainon bolts.
Thereâs no time to thinkâhe fires a webline into the open mouth of the elevator shaft and dives. Wind roars past his ears. He drops three floors in seconds, catches himself on a rusted support beam, and slams down onto the concrete sublevel with a bone-jarring thud. His boots hit the ground hard enough to rattle the pipes overhead.
The lower corridors are not like the rest of the facility. Thereâs no dust, no decay. These halls are clean, too cleanâlike the world above was only a façade. Bright, artificial light hums from the ceiling. Every footstep echoes.
He sprints forward, ducking under support beams and sliding past corners. NEURAL CALIBRATION â, the wall tells him. He follows the signs, pulse thundering. Every flicker of motion at the edge of his vision makes him tense. Every blinking light feels like a red eye watching.
Phainon skids to a halt in front of a door labelled Cell B-4.
The door is solid, made of reinforced steel with a flat-panel biometric reader. Thereâs no handle, or keypad. Phainon swears. âCome on, come onââ
From the other side, something shifts. He hears a voice, muffled and strained. â...Phainon?â
He chokes on relief. âIâm here.â
Youâre alive.
He scrambles to his web shooter, fingers flying over the dial. He adjusts the pressure valve, toggles it to maximum discharge, and fires at the scanner from point-blank range. The panel erupts in sparks. Circuits shriek. The door eases open, exhaling sterile, recycled air into the hallway.
Youâre inside, strapped to a containment recliner, limbs limp but intact. Wires trail from your temples, your clavicle, your pulse points. A monitor nearby is still running diagnosticsâwaveforms still climbing and falling in time with your heart. Your eyes crack open, bleary, and your head lolls to the side.
âHi,â you whisper, voice thin as gauze.
âHi, yourself,â Phainon says, crossing the room with long strides. His voice breaks.
His hands go straight to the leads, fingers trembling as he tears them free. Adhesive snaps off skin. Electrodes clatter to the floor. He moves gently, cradling your jaw to keep your head upright as he removes the final lead from behind your ear.
He lifts you from the chair. Your body sags against his chest, legs folding beneath you. You groan softly as your feet try to hold your weight, but he doesnât let them. He tightens his grip until youâre fully anchored against him. You smell like static and sedation. Like cold metal and something scorched.
âIrontomb,â you breath, half-slurred. âItâs awake. It⌠used me. Ran simulations. My voice. Myââ
âI know,â he murmurs. âI know. Weâre getting out of here.â
You lean heavier into him with every step he takes away from the chair. Your breathing is uneven, shallow. But Phainon can tell youâre coming backâyour pulse steadying, your fingers twitching where they rest near his collar. He wants nothing more than to get you out, to break every wall between here and the surface, to make you forget this place ever existed.
But the walls hum. The lights tremble. Heâs not fast enough. The reinforced door behind him explodes inward.
Irontomb barrels through in a burst of silver and red. The strobe overhead flickers with the force of its entry, casting the scene in freeze-frame shadows. It doesnât look like a machine as it charges. Phainon spins, turning his back to the blast to shield you. Debris pelts his shoulder as the room shakes. Irontomb stops, silent and still, in the doorway. Its mirrored mask splits slightly, revealing a narrow gleam of green light that pulses in rhythm with the lithium core humming somewhere deep inside it.
The voice it speaks with is your own.
âPhainon.â
The blood drains from his face.
You stir weakly in his arms. âThatâs notâthatâs not meââ
âI know,â he whispers.
It tilts its head, mimicking the motion exactly. âYou hesitate at a 3.2% deviation rate when sheâs within ten feet. Your aim skews left. Your heart rate spikes.â
Phainon doesnât respond. He adjusts his grip around your waist, gently easing you towards the floor behind him.
âYou always protect the variable, even when the variable is hunting you down,â Irontomb says. âThat makes you predictable.â
Phainon doesnât wait for it to move. He fires. A blast of webbing snaps towards the machineâs legsâbut it dodges, not quickly or instinctively, but perfectly. It anticipates his angle, catches the web in midair with one mechanical hand, and yanks hard.
Phainon is ripped forward off his feet and slammed into the wall hard enough to fracture plaster. He recovers fast, flipping up and sticking to the ceiling. His shoulder throbs. The moment Irontomb lunges again, he launches, meeting it midair. They clash in a whirl of webbing, steel, and bone. Irontomb fights like itâs studied him for yearsâand it has. It parries his kicks, reads the tension in his arms before he swings. It knows where heâll move before he does.
Every strike Phainon throws is met with a calculated block, every dodge answered with a counter-blow. The machine is faster. Stronger. But not desperateâand Phainon is desperate.
âThe server room!â you shout, and Phainon sees you staggering up to your feet, still valiantly trying to fight whatever they injected into your bloodstream. âTake it to the server room! Follow me!â
Phainon doesnât hesitate. He hears your voiceâunsteady, but clearâand thatâs all he needs. He spins midair, flips back onto the ceiling, and fires a pair of quick weblines towards Irontombâs shoulders. They stick, just barely. The machine lunges to rip them off, but Phainon yanks hard, using the momentum to slam Irontomb face-first into the far wall with a screech of metal on metal. The moment the machine hits, Phainonâs already moving.
âGo!â you shout again, breath ragged. âDonât fight it hereâthey control the lithium core from the server room!â
Phainon tears towards you, lands beside you, and sweeps an arm around your waist to stabilise you just as you start to buckle. Your skinâs cold with effort, sweat sheening your forehead, but your grip on his suit is firm.Â
âCan you run?â he pants.
âCan you carry me?â
He grins through bloodied teeth. âAlways.â
He hooks one arm under your legs and lifts you effortlessly, pivoting towards the corridor just as Irontomb peels itself from the wall. The lights in the hallway ahead flash red with the alarm, casting everything in pulses of warning. Phainon doesnât look back. He runs.
You clutch at his shoulder as he barrels down the corridor, webbing the corners ahead of him to pivot faster. Irontombâs footsteps are thunder behind youâprecise, mechanical, relentless. It doesnât rush. It doesnât pant. It just follows, its gait perfectly even as it absorbs every new piece of data from your movement, your trajectory, your speed.
âItâs learning again,â you murmur.
Phainon grits his teeth. âTell me where to go.â
âLeft!â you gasp, pointing weakly down the branching corridor as you cling to his shoulder. âThe blueprints said the server room was by the freight lift, and IâI stole Lycurgusâ key card before he sedated meââ
Phainon veers sharply, feet sliding for purchase on the slick floor as he swings you into the left hallway. Behind him, Irontomb adjusts its trajectory instantly, recalibrating mid-chase, its movements eerily silent save for the low whir of its servos and the electric buzz of its core. Every footstep lands with surgical precision, not wasting an ounce of energy.
He finds the lift shaft up ahead, the gate already torn off its hingesâsomeone had passed through here in a hurry. Phainon doesnât stop running. He fires a webline to the upper scaffolding and swings both of you through the open shaft.
The moment youâre both airborne, Irontomb enters the shaft behind you. You hear it climbing. It doesnât need webbing. Itâs fast, powerful, climbing straight up the walls like a spider. A cold burst of static prickles the back of your neck as you look over Phainonâs shoulder and see its split-face mask glowing faintly with that same green hum pulsing in time with your own heartbeat.
âDonât look down,â Phainon mutters through clenched teeth.
âYou mean donât look up,â you reply, voice tight.
He doesnât argue. Two more floors. Thatâs all you need.
Phainon angles towards the next levelâs opening, yanks hard on the web, and swings both of you clean through it. You hit the ground hard, momentum rolling you both across the floor in a rough tumble. He absorbs most of the impactâshoulder first, then hipâbut keeps you tucked in his arms the whole way.
The server roomâs door looms ahead, sealed with thick glass and reinforced by a biometric panel.
âCan you override it?â he asks, already placing you down on your feet.
You stagger once, then nod. âIâI can try.â
Phainon presses a palm to your lower back, steadying you as you stumble towards the wall-mounted keypad. You swipe your stolen access cardâLycurgusâ clearance still hot in the systemâand slam your hand against the override scanner. It flashes yellow, then green.
The second the server room door hisses open, Phainon knows itâs wrong. The air is too clean, too still, not like a hospital, but lifeless, like the room itself doesnât care if he walks in or burns alive. Server towers stretch in columns across the floor, blinking. The lights arenât just white, theyâre clinical, buzzing just above his pain threshold. Everything smells like copper and static and scorched plastic.
At the far end, housed behind reinforced glass, is the core. It pulses, like a heartbeat, except itâs not alive. Itâs lithium, itâs electricity, itâs something that was never supposed to breatheâbut it is, somehow.
He doesnât like it.
He crosses the threshold, half-dragging you with him. Youâre a weight he doesnât mind carryingâyouâre grounding, real, a reminder that not everything in this godforsaken place is synthetic or made in a lab.
âIâll buy us a minute,â he mutters.
You donât respond. Youâre already goneâmentally, physicallyâmoving with purpose even though you can barely stay on your feet. He wants to help you, wants to make you sit down, but he doesnât. Youâve always been like this: stubborn, focused, razor-sharp under pressure. He admires it even when it scares him.
He stations himself at the door, arms braced and knees bent. His ribs hurt. His headâs still ringing from the last slam against the wall. But adrenaline is louder than pain.
The wall explodes. He hears it before he sees itâthe thrum of Irontombâs feet, the deep thunk-thunk-thunk of heavy footsteps.
âPhainon,â it says again, in your voice. âYou hesitate at a 3.2% deviation rate when sheâsââ
âYou said that already, dipshit,â Phainon snarls, hurling himself forward.
He slams into Irontomb. The impact jars through every vertebra in his spine, but he doesnât stop, doesnât give it time to recalibrate. His shoulder clips its chest hard enough to knock them both off balance, and they go crashing through a row of server towers in a spray of sparks and shattering plex.
Irontomb hits the floor, skidding, its limbs flailing for a fraction of a second. Phainonâs already on it, knee to the chestplate, webbing its arm to the ceiling in a single fluid movement.
âYou donât get to use her voice,â he spits, voice hoarse, hands shaking as he fires again. Webs stick to its mask, its joints, anything he can reach. âYou donât get to be her.â
Irontomb doesnât flinch. Its head tilts again, that creepy mimicry sparking rage like gasoline in his chest.
âShe is a variable,â it says, still in your voice. âAll decisions lead back to her. All risk converges.â
He grits his teeth. âShut the fuck up.â
It wrenches its arm free from the ceiling and drives a knee into his ribs. Something cracksâhe doesnât have time to find out what. The air is knocked out of him, but he rolls, using the momentum to web-sling up to the overhead rigging.
He fires a line down, yanking hard. Metal groans, and a rack of exposed conduit tears free, crashing down onto Irontombâs legs. The machine stumbles, crushed under the weight for a beat too long. Enough for Phainon to dive.
He hits it again, fists slamming into metal, fury blinding him. He doesnât have a plan anymore, doesnât need one. He just needs to keep it away from you. Even as he fights, he hears the beep of the console across the room, feels the glow of the core intensify.
Youâre doing it. Youâre actually doing it. Irontomb knows.
It shoves him back with unnatural strength. Phainon hits the wall hard enough to dent the steel. Before he can stand, itâs already halfway across the room, limbs unfurling, shoulder joints clicking, webline primed to fireâ
âNo,â Phainon croaks. He pushes himself up, panting, every inch of him burning, and fires. Web meets Irontombâs leg. The pull is immediate. But instead of resisting, he yanks himself towards itâinto itâslamming shoulder-first into the side of its neck just as it raises an arm to fire at you.
They crash to the floor, grappling, fists slamming into one another like machines. Except Phainon isnât one. His body gives, bruises, bleeds. Irontombâs doesnât.
âYour biology is compromised,â it says. âYou are inefficient, slower, in pain. The variable will not survive long without augmentation.â
âYouâre not her,â he spits. âYou donât even sound like her.â
Out of the corner of his eyeâthrough the haze of painâhe sees you rise to your feet, the console spitting warnings in every direction. Your hands hover over the control screen. One more step, one more commandâ
The core behind the glass begins to scream, not audibly, not to the ears, but inside his skull. Irontomb shudders beneath him. Its limbs jerk erratically, the green glow from its spine flickering. Sparks burst from the plates along its back.
You did it.
Phainon throws himself back just as Irontomb seizes violently, crashing to the floor, limbs twitching. Its mask fractures. Smoke pours from the base of its spine as the lithium core begins to destabilise.
He doesnât exhale until the lights stop flickering. Heâs already moving before the sound fades completely, his muscles sluggish, overworked, body bruisedâbut moving. His chest is burning. His lungs taste like copper and ozone. His ribs feel cracked. But none of it matters.
Youâre still on your knees, hunched over the console, and for one horrifying second, youâre not moving.
âHey.â He drops down beside you fast. âHeyâhey. You good? Talk to me.â
Your head lolls towards him, eyes glassy with exhaustion but alert. You nod and he catches your weight as you say sideways into his shoulder.
âIâm here,â you say, voice like sandpaper.Â
âYeah,â he breathes. âYeah, you are.â
He pulls off his mask and folds one arm around your back and steadies you against him, his gloved hand cradling the back of your neck, just to prove youâre really here. Still warm. Still breathing. Your heart thuds weakly through your shirt when he presses his other hand to your chest, just fast enough to reassure him that the nightmare hasnât reset.
You lean into him more fully, your head tucked under his jaw, like youâre afraid to look at the room behind you. Good. You shouldnât have to. Heâll look for both of you.
The servers are smoking. Irontomb is a heap of metal now, sparking quietly beside the remains of a shattered cabinet. One of its hands is still twitchingâreflex, probably. Not real. Not alive.
Still, Phainon keeps you close.
You shift, barely enough to get your mouth near his collarbone. âYou okay?â
Phainon lets out something halfway between a laugh and a groan. âGonna need twelve years of physical therapy. Minimum.â
Your breath catches on a tired laugh. It sounds like a miracle.
âYou look like hell,â you murmur, slurring a little now, like the adrenalineâs finally wearing off.
âYeah, well,â he mutters, pressing his forehead to yours. âYou shouldâve seen the other guy.â
Itâs three in the morning, and the sky is the colour of soot.
The city below doesnât sleep so much as it holds its breath. The clamour of traffic has thinned to a distant hush, streetlamps stutter, and a single train rumbles across a bridge miles away. Sirens have long gone quiet. No engines scream. No horns beg for way. The night is still, but not gentle.
Itâs a stillness born of aftermathâsharp-edged and hollow, as if the concrete itself remembers what happened.
Phainon hangs upside down from a rusting fire escape three storeys above your apartment window, legs hooked neatly over a bar that groans faintly under his weight. Heâs perfectly still, suspended in gravityâs indifferent hold, his fingers hanging loose above the cracked sidewalk below.
This is how he thinks best lately: inverted, half a world away from the one that keeps asking him to play hero. The metal is cold through his suit. The air smells like dust.
Heâs grown used to these late hours. Heâs begun to need them.
After Lycurgus vanished off the grid, escaping into whatever black-market pipelines recycles men like himâscientists with messiah complexes and fingerprints scrubbed cleanâPhainon finds his pulse only slows in those long hours between dawn and dusk.
He watches your window. Itâs open again, just slightly. It always is now. Heâs never asked you why.
The official line is a âbiochemical systems breach.â Itâs what the public got. But the real reportsâclassified, sealed, redacted in wide black strokesâtold a different story. Theoros Labs didnât just go rogue; they were funded, sponsored, protected. There was infrastructure behind Irontomb, names buried in layers of clearance, strings running all the way up into the gut of the government. Someone had authorised the prototypes. Someone had approved neural mapping. Someone had known what they were doing.
Youâve testified three times already. You come home each time stiff-backed and silent, eyes rimmed in exhaustion, your voice quieter than usual like youâre still somewhere inside the sterile halls of the oversight committee. You never tell him the details, but you donât have to. Heâs seen the files. Heâs seen it in person. He knows what Irontomb made of your voice, how it pitched your laugh, how it whispered his name. He knows what it did to you.
You both have nightmares now.
Sometimes itâs Irontomb itself, eyes burning green behind a mirrored face, moving too perfectly to be real. Sometimes, itâs worse: itâs you, only not. Itâs him, only cold. Versions of yourselves that werenât forged in kindness or fear, but in numbers and algorithms, in prediction models and nerve signal scans. He wakes choking, palms clenched, sweat cold on his back.
Thatâs when he comes to you, climbing through the window, silent and unmasked. You never greet him. You just shift in bed, roll slightly toward the wall, and make room beneath the blanket without opening your eyes. Some nights he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Others, he faces you. Sometimes your fingers find each other under the sheets and tangle in that uncertain, half-asleep way that makes the silence easier to bear.
Phainon stares at your open window, at the way the curtain ghosts inward on the faintest breeze. The world looks soft from up here, but his world is down there, just beyond the windowsill.
He drops from the fire escape without a sound.
The thud of his landing on the balcony is soft. His boots press against the worn stone for half a second before he steps toward your window, one gloved hand brushing the glass as he ducks inside.
Your apartment is dim, lit only by the sleepy spill of orange streetlight filtering through the curtains. The air is warmer here, touched with the faint smell of cinnamon and coffee roast, and the remnants of detergent in your sheets.
Youâre curled up under the blanket, spine facing him, shoulders rising and falling in that slow rhythm heâs memorised. He doesnât know if youâre asleep or pretending. It doesnât matter. You always know when heâs here. You always leave the window cracked just enough.
He toes off his boots quietly, then strips off the top half of his suit, the fabric sticking to sweat-damp skin. His body aches with something deeper than bruises, like fatigue. But it fades the moment he lowers himself into the mattress behind you.
(Heâs in love with you, heâs pretty sure.)
âDo you want to date me?â
The question startles Phainon so much he almost drops the wire heâs threading back into place, and nearly slides off the metal railing altogether. He catches himself with a clatter, boots locking tighter to the beam, arms splayed for balance.
â...Sorry, what?â he calls down.
Youâre standing several feet below him, arms crossed, watching him with an unreadable expressionâequal parts brave and vulnerable. You donât repeat the question. You just lift your chin a little, eyes steady.
Phainon blinks at you from his upside-down perch, hair hanging towards the concrete, the city stretching behind him. Heâs in his suit, sleeves rolled up, mask bunched around his neck, grease on one knuckle, a thin wire looped loosely around his fingers. The early evening air is warm, golden light pooling along the skyline.
âYouâyou mean date-date?â he asks dumbly, like thereâs another kind.
You nod once, not smiling. âYeah. Date-date.â
Phainon stares at you, the wire still slack in his fingers. The sunlightâs catching on the edge of your cheekbone, painting it gold. You look so certain, so calm, like you havenât just thrown his entire nervous system into a tailspin.Â
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Then he scrubs a hand over his face, smearing a bit of grease across his jawline. âOkay. Thatâsâjust to be clear, youâre asking me if I want to date you. Like, go on dates, hold hands, maybe make out a little? Eat food together that isnât waffles at five in the morning?â
âYou make it sound so romantic,â you say dryly.
âIâm hanging upside down in my Spider-Man suit with wire cutters in my hand,â he says, voice rising an octave. âYou kind of caught me off-guard.â
You raise an eyebrow. âYou want me to come back when youâre right-side up?â
Phainon laughs, but itâs strained, caught somewhere between breathless and disbelieving. He shifts slightly on the bar. âNo,â he says. âNo, donâtâdonât go. I justâŚâ His fingers curl loosely around the railing. âYou really mean it? Like, seriously?â
You shrug, but your voice softens. âWhy would I joke about that?â
âI donât know,â he says. âI mean, have you met me?â
You walk a step closer, now standing directly beneath him. âYes. Thatâs kind of the point.â
Phainon stares at you, still upside down, still blinking like he hasnât quite caught up with reality. His breath stutters, shallow through parted lips. The last of the sun has dipped below the horizon, and now the city is painted in deepening blue, rooftops etched in sharp lines against a sky the colour of cobalt ash.
You, however, are still golden; still lit from the inside out, like the question didnât cost you anything, like you didnât just tip the entire balance of his world in six words flat.
He swallows hard.
âI want to,â he says. âI want to date you.â
You nod, just once. But the tremble in your exhale betrays you. âOkay.â
You shift a little closer to where heâs hanging. The wind tousles your hair. You squint at him.
âCan I kiss you now?â you ask.
Phainon opens his mouth. No sound comes out.
His brain is screaming, Yes, God, yes, obviously, what do you think Iâve been dreaming about every night for the last year? But what actually escapes his mouth is an undignified, âI meanâyeah. If you want.â
You smile, small but warm, and step forward until youâre close enough that he can see the flecks of light in your irises. His pulse pounds at the base of his throat.
âHold still,â you say.
And PhainonâSpider-Man, night-patroller, rooftop-skulker, awkward wreck of a man in loveâholds so, so still.
You reach up, slowly. Your hand is warm as it cups the curve of his cheek. He flinches a little, not because of the touch, but because of how gentle it is. Heâs not used to being touched like that. Your thumb brushes the edge of his jaw, dragging across the grease-stained skin. He forgets how to breathe.
Then, you lean in and kiss him.
Itâs awkward, at first. The angleâs all wrong. You have to stand on your toes, and he has to tilt just right, his body swaying slightly with the breeze, but none of it mattersânot when your lips touch his, not when the world goes so achingly, impossibly quiet. Itâs soft, firmer than he expects, and yet not rushed. You kiss him like youâve wanted to for a long time, like youâve thought about it, like the moment had already existed somewhere in your mind long before you asked the question.
Phainon melts. He doesnât move for the first few seconds; just hangs there, lips barely parted, letting you take the lead because heâs terrified that if he so much as breathes, youâll disappear. But then something in him sparksâan ancient, quiet wantâand he kisses you back.
He moves slowly, deliberately, meeting you where you are. His lips are dry and chapped from hours in the wind, but heâs warm beneath them, and his breath hitches in that small, helpless way that always happens around you. He tightens his grip on the bar, as though holding himself in place is the only way to keep from falling for real.
Eventually, you pull away.
His eyes open slowly, lashes low over dark, dazed pupils. His lips are parted, red and kiss-bruised.
âThat wasâŚâ He clears his throat. âWow.â
You smile, head tilting. âStill want to date me?â
âI want to marry you,â he blurts, then immediately flushes crimson. âI meanâhypothetically. Not now. Obviously not now. Iâm hanging upside down. Iâve got wire cutters in my pocket. But you get the idea.â
You laugh, and he grins.Â
âCome down, you idiot,â you say, still smiling. âBefore your brain floods and I have to explain to emergency services that Spider-Man died because he let his blood rush to his head.â
âYes, maâam,â he mutters, already adjusting his grip. With a practiced motion, he swings backward once, then forward, and flips cleanly down onto the concrete beside you in a crouch, landing with a thud and a soft grunt. He straightens slowly, rubbing at the back of his head.
When he looks up again, youâre already walking towards him. You grab the front of his suit, tug gentlyâand then kiss him again, properly this time. He melts into it, hands hovering at your hips. You take the initiative again, stepping closer, your fingers sliding up his chest to cup his face as your mouth slants against his. The second kiss is deeper, more certain, less careful.
When you pull away, you donât go far. You rest your forehead against his, both of you breathing hard. His hands settle around your waist now, not hesitant anymore, not unsure.
âYouâre sure about this?â he whispers.
âIâm sure.â
âOkay,â he says. âOkay.â
He kisses you again, because he can, because he wants to. Because thereâs no machine looming over his shoulder, no countdown, no artificial voice running simulations on how to hurt you best.
Thereâs only this: you, and him, and the golden hour dimming into twilight. Phainon lets you pull him back into the world right-side up.
Phainon thinks heâs a pretty good boyfriend.
Okay, maybe not, like, great. He has a running tab of things heâs fumbled: texts left on read for six hours because he was halfway across the city chasing someone with rocket boots, half-finished promises to pick up groceries, laundry thatâs been folded but never quite put away. Date nights sometimes fall through. Movie plans get postponed. He loses track of time a lot.
But he always comes home. He always makes you laugh, even when you pretend to be annoyed with him. He never forgets the dates that matter, and never lets you go to sleep without hearing that he loves you, mumbled or whispered or scrawled on a Post-It if heâs back late. Heâs trying. God, heâs trying.
And right now, looking at youâmessy-haired, breathless, flushed and sprawled across the mattress like you belong there, like you belong with himâhe thinks maybe heâs doing alright.
Phainon kisses down your ribs, trailing his mouth across your stomach. You shift beneath him, a little restless, a little expectant. He likes thatâyou trusting him enough to be open like this. It still hits him sometimes, like an aftershock, that you let him touch you like this. That you want him to.
He exhales slowly as he nudges lower, one arm curled under your thigh. His lips brush the inside of your hip, the softness of your skin, and he feels you shiver. Gently, he moves lower, and flicks his tongue over your clit.
You gasp, hand threading into his hair, and he smiles against you, slow and lazy and a little smug. He likes knowing he can do this to you. Likes knowing exactly how your breath hitches when he moves just right. He doesnât rush. He never does with you. Every motion is measured, learned, almost reverent. He listensâto the catch in your throat, the flex of your fingers, the little half-sigh you try to swallow and canât.
His grip on your hips tightens as you shift, as your thighs close around his shoulders, and he groans low in his chest, the sound vibrating softly between you.
âPhainon,â you whisper, voice thready. He loves the way you say his name. He hums again in response, and the way you respond to thatâyour spine arching, your mouth letting loose a litany of moansâmakes him want to give you more.
When he finally slides two fingers into you, careful and deep, you let out a sound that makes him smile. Phainon exhales against your thigh, the sound shaky with restraint. Your muscles flutter around him, every inch of you wound tight. He watches you fall apart in incrementsâyour fingers twisting in the sheets, your jaw slack with pleasure, your chest heaving.
âRight there?â he murmurs, half-teasing but wholly focused.
You nod, or maybe you donâtâyouâre too far gone to speak, but your body answers for you: the way your hips shift, the way your leg curls around his shoulder, the soft whimper that escapes your lips. He presses in again, just a little firmer, curling his fingers the way he knows you like.
His mouth trails slow kisses along the inside of your thigh, tongue flicking over sensitive skin. He never rushes. He never wants to. Not with you.
âPhainon,â you breathe again. âOh, fuckââ
He presses his mouth back to your folds, his fingers still working inside you with the same care. Heâs mapping you like heâs been doing since the beginningâlike every sigh is a star to chart by, every moan a signal flare. Heâs learned to read you in a language no one else gets to learn.
Youâre shaking now, your whole body strung tight as wire beneath his mouth. Your nails bite into his shoulder and you donât even seem to noticeâdonât seem to careâbecause youâre so close, teetering at the edge of your orgasm, sharp and sweet and inevitable.
A few more strokes and sucks and licks have you coming for himâarching, gasping, crying out his name. When the aftershocks start to fade, he eases off, kisses the softest parts of your skin as you tremble under him. His fingers slip from you gently. He brushes a hand over your thigh, up your hip, until heâs sliding over you again, kissing a slow trail back up your ribs and chest until heâs beside you.
Your eyes are closed, lips parted, still catching your breath. He watches youâeyes half-lidded, lashes damp, chest rising and fallingâand then you blink up at him, a smile tugging at your lips like youâre not quite sure how to speak yet. Your skin is still warm, flushed in a way that makes Phainon want to memorise every inch of you all over again.
He brushes his knuckles over your cheek in that way he does when he doesnât know what to say. âStill in there?â
You blink once, then smile with that crooked little grin he loves. âAsk me again in five minutes.â
He huffs a soft laugh and shifts to lie beside you, propping himself up on one elbow. His hand trails lazily over your stomach, fingers smoothing across the soft skin just above your hipbone, drawing idle shapes.
âNot bad for a guy who forgot to buy milk this morning, right?â he says.
You laugh and shove his shoulder. âPhainon!â
âI mean, I mightâve failed you on the breakfast front, but I like to think I made up for it in⌠other areas.â
You scoff, but itâs half a laugh, and the sound curls like a ribbon in Phainonâs chest. He watches the way your face softens when youâre amusedâhow your eyes crinkle at the corners, how your mouth fights not to smile wider.
âThatâs debatable,â you say, rolling to face him fully.
âOh, come on,â he says. âYou sounded pretty convinced a few minutes ago.â
âDonât let it go to your head.â
âToo late.â Phainon grins, and leans forward to bump his forehead against yours.
He feels like his heartâs trying to claw its way out of his chest, not in the life-threatening, nine-storeys-up, villain-hurling-him-off-a-building kind of way, but the kind where itâs just him and you, tangled in sheets, skin flushed. The kind of moment that makes his brain go a little fuzzy and his chest go tight, because heâs pretty sure this isnât just a good dayâitâs the day. The one people write songs and poems and stupid rom-coms about.
(Youâre right there, inches from him, breathing the same air, and all he can think is: I hope I never forget this.)
He tries to play it cool, like heâs not falling apart from something as small as the curve of your smile, the way your fingers brush along his jaw like youâre trying to memorise him right back. But itâs a losing battle. Heâs smiling too hard, the stupid kind that tugs at his cheeks.Â
âYouâre staring,â you say.
âYeah,â he says, without even pretending otherwise. âI know.â
His hand is still on your waist, the tips of his fingers tracing small, slow patterns into your skin. He wants to tell you a thousand thingsâabout how heâs never felt safer than he does when heâs beside you, about how it doesnât matter if the world ends tomorrow so long as he got to know what your laugh sounded like when it was just for him. But the words get stuck somewhere behind his teeth.
You roll your eyes at him like you always do when youâre trying not to smile. âWhat are you thinking?â you ask.
Phainon opens his mouth to say something clever. He doesnât. Instead, he says, âThat I like you.â
âYeah?â you say teasingly. âI had no clue.â
He smiles. âSometimes I think this isnât real. Like Iâm gonna wake up in some busted rooftop vent or in the middle of a car chase, and all thisâll just be some nice dream I had when my brain was low on oxygen.â
âItâs real,â you whisper. âDo you want me to kiss you like real people do? Because I will. Donât test me.â
(Phainon kisses you first, just to prove heâs real enough to do it.)
a/n: this is my favourite fic that iâve ever written. thanks for reading!
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âśď¸ Acts of Service (starring . qifrey the witch)
synopsis . Trying to coax your usually gentle partner into fucking your throat whilst giving him head. content . afab!reader, somewhat established relationship, oral sex (m!receiving), dirty talk, face fucking, pet names, brat taming, praise, sadism, etc.
author's note: i need him so bad like pls. anywho, answering this request (kinda lol). banner from: âKubitsuri Danshi to Nikushoku Joshiâ
âY-Yes, down your throat now. Oh my-, just like that. Perrrfect.â Qifrey couldnât help the words that floated out of his mouth, a hand grasping at the top of your head tightly enough to reveal veins against his skin.
He tried not to buck his hips too much almost every time you sucked him off but it was difficult not to when your head was bobbing so vigorously, letting his twitchy tip kiss ân cling to the very back of your throat. He told you he had a stressful day, so all you wanted to do was relieve some of that stress for himâeven though he typically advises against doing so adamantly.
Youâve no idea why heâs so keen on remaining stressed and pent up. Nor do you understand how the man goes on and on about how much he hates water and all things wet, yet heâs throbbing against your flattened tongue the moment you stick it out for him.
His wishes aside, all you longed for was to see that other side of him he tried so hard to keep hidden from those most dear. Though, Qifrey had a way of hiding all intimate parts of his personality from those he treasured most.
With the sole exception of sex, of course. While it did relieve some amounts of stress, it most certainly was too satisfactory of an act for him to indulge in with just anyone.
Which is where you come inâhis pretty lilâ partner.
âCan you-, hahhh⌠p-possiblyâfuckâslow down, my love?â Qifrey tried to warn you, his fingers taut atop your head as his the muscles in his thighs tensed and his desire to buck his hips upward increased. And yet, you merely lifted your gaze up to meet with his and then began to bob your head up ân down even quicker. âN-No, not faster. I-, hnngh.â
The hold he has on you suddenly steels and your eyes widen as you realize youâre hardly able to move. Qifreyâs mentally apologizing for the way he begins to thrust up into your mouth and push your head down to meet with each one.
âI cannot maintain my composure when you suck on me like that,â He huffs, lashes fluttering whilst his pretty face twists up in pleasure. Then heâs tilting his head to the side and casting a half grin down at you, âFuuuck, you made me do this, yâknow. S-Staring at me like that⌠god, you look so gorgeous with my cock in your mouth.â
You felt your thighs clamp together tightly in an attempt at soothing the sudden ache his words spurred from your body. You werenât sure if he realized it or not, but this was all you really wanted from him.
âYeah? You like that, do you?â Sweat begins to build up against the smooth planes of his skin and heâs nearly irritated by it. So much so that he finally slips up and drops that gentle, kindhearted act of his, âOh, I bet you do.â Your lips smooch down against his swollen base as he holds you in placeâthe faint tuffs of a white happy trail tickling your skin. âTell me then, tell me how much you like having your mouth properly fucked. Come now, let me hear it.â
âMmmph!â You mumble around him, batting your eyes up rapidly at him.
Qifrey chuckles. He did quite enjoy it when you tested him, and that feeling only doubled down when he saw you like this, âStill putting forth your best efforts even whenânngh⌠y-your mouth is all full of me. How cute.â
Your partnerânever boyfriend, for reasons youâre entirely unsure ofâgains that different shaded glimmer in his eyes all of a sudden. You relish in the feel of his dick drooling something pleasantly nasty down your throat and he seems to be delighted by the sight of it. That, and the sexy way in which you squirm in between his legs like you wanted him to be meaner to you or something.
âSlow, my love.â He tried to warn you, tried to apply pressure to your head and steady how quickly you sucked at his cock. âS-Slow down, Iâm close.â
His voice was so delicate even as his orgasm approached and you found yourself moaning around his shaft as his tone wavered and pitched in reaction.
Then your hands met his legs and you gripped at him, lifting your gaze back up and swirling your tongue across every reachable vein he had to offer you. He wanted you to slow down again, but just like the last time, you refused to do so and proceeded to suck faster ân harder.
Things click for him right then.
âAh? You want me to⌠oh.â His cock was throbbing all against the constricting walls of your throat and he knew you felt it. Even so, you still swallowed him in deeper and ignored how gags threatened to interrupt your actions. Qifrey found himself grinning, âYouâd like to swallow it, would you?â
Naturally, you nod.
The witch before you was many, many thingsâbut a complete pushover for you was not one of them. If you were going to actively disobey his orders of slowing down just to get what you wanted, then he was going to only allow your desires to come forth on his own terms.
Which is exactly why he holds your head as he pushes himself up to stand. You try to pull back as if you needed to breathe but your mouth is rapidly clogged by the length of his cock pushing forward in one, mean thrust.
His balls smack against your chin and he feels you whining around him as he grunts, âNaughty girl.â Qifrey readjusts his hands to the sides of your pretty face before letting out a soft sigh. Though, his calming exhale was rather opposite to the vicious look in his eyes as he began having his way with your mouth, âI do hope this-, hah⌠satisfies your fantasies well. Mmgh.â
You somehow gain the bratty nerve to try and wiggle your head away from his steeling grip and he seems to find that most humorous.
Cocking his head to the side and narrowing those rude eyes at you, âStillâkeep still,â He groans, rolling his hips forward more thoroughly so that you could feel each inch of his cock twitch around your mouth. To his surprise, you manage to stop your squirming, and for that he smiles and says, âGoooood. Now swallow.â before cumming directly down your tongue.
When he soon pulls out of you, heâs left to watch gallops of saliva and his cum string between his tip and your lips. The sight shouldâve been seen as disgusting, given how wet and sloppy it was. And yet he was still hard, still twitching in front of your face even as he panted to catch his breath.
It really was unfair how gorgeous of a partner heâd obtained.
He couldnât help but want to fuck every drop of his frustrations out into youâespecially when you were peering up at him with those glossy eyes of yours, looking as though you wanted to go again and again until he had his fill of you.
You move to wipe at your mouth, âQifrââ
âActually,â Heâs cutting you off rather sharply, taking his dick into one hand and shuddering from the sensitivity of it before his feet shift his body closer to you. Then his other hand finds the top of your head and heâs glaring at you like youâre nothing more than some toy for him to make use of, âI quite enjoyed that.â
You blink once.
Qifrey had a tendency to focus on your pleasure most days, claiming that doing so is most enjoyable for him too. But you knew there was another side of him he wasnât showing you quite yet, and apparently this was it.
His fingers disappear into your hair and his palm is nearing the back of your head. You knew he was about to absolutely ravish your throat based on the way he was holding onto you.
âLetâs go again, shall we?â Serves as the only warning from his plush lips. Then you watch him move his hand from his dick and to your jaw, tipping your chin up before he swipes a thumb over your cheek in awe. He hates water but it would be quite the sight to see it falling from your face all because of him, âPreferable until youâre crying⌠and after that, youâll keep quiet about this. Understood?â
Qifrey had to make sure your silence was a given these days, seeing as youâd created a small habit of hinting at the intimate nights you experienced with him. And to make those matters worse, heâd found out that you shared these vague details with Olruggio of all people.
Hence why youâre pouting, âNot evenââ
The witch cuts you off by nudging the hardened edges of his cock in between your lips all unevenly, letting his shaft gloss over your wiggly tongue and deep down into the back of your tracheaâeasily causing you to gag.
âYou will tell no one about this.â He orders, yanking your head back so that only your lips are left to quiver around his tip, âNot a soul. Now nod if Iâm understood.â
Obediently, you do.
Then his cheerful grin returns, despite that darkened look remaining present in his eye. âGood girl.â
lohen sneaks into darling's room and asks for cuddles
-
mornings in mondstadt are always peaceful. the wind and breeze blowing softly, carrying the songs and poems written by the bards of the city of freedom everywhere. the hustle and bustle of the plaza and the chiming bell of the cathedral adds more liveliness for the region ruled by barbatos.
in your cozy bed, you can hear the knights training just outside of your room at the knights of favonius' hq. but you cant be bothered by it. you were up late last night, and you've decided to spend the rest of your day in your humble abode.
that was the plan, until the soft sunlight hit your face, along with the chirps of finches from the nearby tree. instead of muffled noises, the sound is clear, as if you had left the windows ajar before, which you dont.
you still dont want to wake up though, trying to turn the other side and pull your blanket to cover your face. however, you find yourself unable to move about, nor your blanket was to be found anywhere near you.
and the fact that you failed to sense someone was straddling you is both concerning, yet endearing for the preparator.
you grumble, sighing before fluttering your eyes open. you were expecting your usual ceiling, but someone is blocking your view. his familiar mint green hair and piercing two toned eyes immediately wakes you up from your grogginess.
"l-lohen ? what ..." looming on top of you, he's looking down at you with a gentle gaze, no malicious shenanigans whatsoever that he always pulled on the knights occassionally. he just sits there, smiling softly as both his hands rest on both side of your head.
"good morning, sleepyhead. sleep well ?" he asks in a quiet voice. you are no stranger to this side of lohen, especially in private. as much as a battle maniac he is, its hard to believe he has a soft spot for you in his heart.
you simply nod. you bask in the tranquil of the early morning, observing your beloved in this rare moment. his coat is slipping down from his shoulder, revealing his sleeveless undershirt with a peek of his developing muscles.
"good." lohen leans down, pressing his face on the nape of your neck while peppering your skin with little kisses. he carefully drops his weight on top of you, enveloping your presence with his. he wraps his arms around your body, quietly caressing your mess of a hair.
lohen continues to kiss upwards your neck, your ear and cheek, before trailing down your jawline with much passion that it sends shivers down your spine.
"h-how long have you been here ?" you squeak, trying your best to not let out any weird noises. you cant help but to feel fuzzy with how he's treating you right now.
he chuckles at the shakiness of your voice, but doesnt comment anything about it. "since .... dawn ? and, you are quite the careless one. leaving your windows unlocked at night ? who knows anyone might break in while you're sleeping. thats a no no."
his lips finally finds the corner of your lips before straightening his back to see your face. bashful, red and shy. just the way he loves it. he adores you like this.
"thats because my boyfriend here doesnt like using the door like everyone else. its your fault for not wanting my spare key." your arguement is valid indeed. lohen has make it his habit to climb through your windows since the first day you both date each other. without a doubt, your boyfriend is something else and you've just grown accustomed to his antics.
he laughs, but not to mock you. he absolutely loves it when you try to talk back to him. its somewhat hot. threading his fingers through your bangs, he places a loving kiss on your forehead, while his other hand caressing your cheek gently. "you could've force me to take it and lock the windows at night. dont tell me you secretly enjoyi-"
"its not like that !" hands slapping his mouth shut from spewing more nonsense, which in return, makes him laughs again, yet muffled at your reaction. he pries your hand away before kissing the knuckles, like the knight he is.
"alright, alright. no more teasing~ how about we cuddle for a bit ? i know you have the time today." which is true. you dont have anything urgent to be done today. might as well take his suggestion into consideration.
even so, you cant bring yourself to refuse him everytime when he asks so nicely like this. as if saying 'yes', you curl your arms around his body. surprisingly, he doesnt reek of poison or blood this time. perhaps he has already cleaned himself up before sneaking into your room.
"you owe me another hour of sleep."
"sugarplum, i wont mind if you decided to hibernate like a wolf. be greedy, wont you ?"
lohen finally slips out from his coat and tosses it somewhere in your room. cupping your face, he gives you the most slow and passionate morning kiss. the way his lips fit right onto yours is like puzzle pieces. he moves carefully, not wanting to overwhelm you this early.
after a minute, he parts from you, resting his forehead against yours as he smiles sheepishly in victory, satisfied that he can spend his time with you like this.
"im not letting you out of my sight today, sugarplum."
"dont plan to, my dear vice captain."
-
a/n: this was inspired by @ISB_47 lohen's fanart on twitter. unfortunately, i dont know how to do the hyperlink thingy to show you guys which fanart is it đ§đťââď¸but to give you an idea, its lohen straddling us in bed, with his coat slipping off and exposing his shoulder //slurps// and he has this soft and sweet smile that i just woaoskdkdkfllfkskdkfk i am softie lohen believer đŤ
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WORD COUNT. 5.7k total (i got carried away, please stick around)
NOTES. Just fluff through and through. I wanted to write for so many more characters!! Do let me know who else you would like to see :))
Fem!reader !! she/her pronouns are used.
ALBEDO
You spend a lot of time in Albedo's lab. You're not entirely sure when it started becoming routine, but somewhere between him seeking your presence and you deciding to stay longer than necessary, it just... happened. You'd sit in the corner with a book or just watch him work, the way he moves through his experiments with methodical precision.Â
Today, though, you're in the Favonius library instead. Albedo needed to research something specific, and you went along with him without question. You're sitting at one of the tables while he browses the shelves, pulling down various tomes with focused precision.
Lisa is at the front desk when Albedo brings his stack of books to check them out. You're waiting nearby, and she glances between the two of you with that knowing smile of hers.
"My, my, someone's been spending a lot of time with our dear Chief Alchemist," she says to you, her voice sweet as honey. She's already flipping through the first book. "Taking quite the interest in his work, are we?"
"Just curious," you say, suddenly very aware of how close Albedo is standing.
"Mm, how thoughtful of you." She continues scanning, her eyes flickering up to Albedo for just a moment. "Your lover must appreciate having someone so interested in what he does."
She says it so casually, so mixed in with the mundane task of checking out books, that it takes a moment for the words to actually register. By the time they do, she's already moving on to the next book, completely unbothered.
Albedo pauses. You notice it immediatelyâhis hand stills on the counter, and there's a moment where he seems to be processing something. His gaze drifts to the side, not quite looking at Lisa, not quite looking at you. He's just... considering. Turning the words over in his mind the way he does with everything else.Â
Then, just as quietly as the pause came, he seems to release it. He doesn't correct her. Doesn't say anything at all. Just sets down the remaining books on the counter in that careful way of his.
âOh, uhm,â You begin, looking over at Albedo. âWe, uh, arenât together.â
Lisa glances up, catches something in his expression, and her smile widens slightly. But she says nothing more.
Later, when you're back at the library and Albedo is focused on his research, you find yourself thinking about what Lisa said.
"Do you think I'm a distraction?" you ask casually, not looking up from your book.
Albedo doesn't pause in his work. "No." The answer is immediate. Certain. You turn a page.
"Lisa thinks we're together," you say.
He sets down the vial he held with careful precision. Turns to look at you fully, and for a long moment, he doesn't say anything. His soft, analytical gaze is fixed on you, and the silence stretches outâlong enough that you start to feel uncomfortable, long enough that you begin to wonder if you've said something wrong.
And then, as though he had reached a conclusion so simple and obvious, "Would that be so strange?"
You realise you don't have an answer for that. And more importantly, that perhaps, no, it would not be so strange after all.Â
AYATO
The Kamisato clan commissioner rarely ventured into the markets. Usually, he would have sent either Thoma or one of his other myriad helpers to fetch whatever it was he or Ayaka needed. But, today, perhaps as a change of environmentâaway from the towering paperwork he had to fillâAyato decided to accompany you in your shopping. He always had a peculiar habit of trailing behind you, even when it was unnecessary. You had gotten used to his presence in your life. A shadow. An extremely coy and teasing shadow, that is.Â
Besides, perhaps the presence of the commissioner would snag you a couple of good deals while out and about.Â
You curled a bolt of silk green fabric around your wrist. Pretty, smooth. Ayato peeked over your shoulder, scrutinising the item in so much more detail than you were at all.Â
You turned back to look at him and huffed, a sound of amusement, âWhat, is it not to your liking, Ayato?â
âWell,â he seemed to draw out, catching your eyes. âI hardly think itâs your shade.â
Not your shade? Just as a retort bubbled up in your throat, you were interrupted by the sound of the vendor. âAh, commissioner!â He said. âInterested in imported silks, are you?â
The man seemed to be pulling out more cloth, shades of different coloursâsilver, lavender, pink, blue. His hands moved with practiced efficiency as he laid out the fabrics over the counter. He seemed to be going on and on about where each piece was imported fromâthis one from Liyue, the other a local craftsman from Inazuma, the other cultivated in the meadows of Mondstadt.Â
But then he picked out a specific piece and looked over to Ayato. âIâm sure your lover would look stunning in the deeper blues,â he said. âDoes the lady have a preference, or should we let the commissioner decide?â
You tensed.Â
Lover? And the man had said it so casually, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. You felt your cheeks warm and suddenly you seemed to become all too aware of the little distance between you and Ayato. As though hypersensory, you could feel the way Ayatoâs hands stilled, resting for a moment at your hip. You looked over at him.Â
And yet, there was no change in his expression. If anything, the small smile he had on his face had stretched a fractional amount. His head tilted to the side.Â
âI think she would look rather beautiful,â Ayato said. Simple and casual, his eyes snagging on you for half a second. It was like he hadnât even heard the former part of the sentence. Or, scratch that, like he hadnât heard anything the vendor had just said.Â
The vendor was simply ecstatic to have sold something to the commissioner, andâapparentlyâhis âlover,â and had left to wrap the item.Â
You paused for a second, before turning to the man next to you. âWhat was that?âÂ
Ayato hummed non-commitally as he looked at you. âWhat was what?â He feigned ignorance, that smug idiot. He never missed a single thing. Once you had changed the scent of your perfume from Sakura Bloom to Naku Weed, and he had caught it the moment you stepped into his office; there was no way he hadnât heard that.Â
âHe just called me your lover!â You pressed.Â
Ayato just tilted his head, his fingers tapping against the wooden counter. âYes.â
âAnd you didnât correct him.â
âNo.â
The heat in your face seemed to rise in temperature. Just what exactly was he playing at? Why was he staring at you like this was the most normal thing ever? Was he not bothered? And the way the merchant had said it, too, it was like everyone in the entirety of Inazuma knew about this except for you!
âWhy not?â You asked, growing more shifty by the second.Â
Ayato let out a laugh, a sweet, melodic little sound, âYou didn't seem eager to correct him yourself.â
You opened your mouth to argue, and then closed it again. âW-Well, I was just aboutâbut then, IâŚâ Any and all justification that rose in your throat withered away. Especially when Ayato was staring at you like that. Like he was challenging you to question that assumption, daring you to change it.Â
That day, the two of you walked away having bought an expensive indigo fabric. Matching the Kamisato insignia.
CHILDE
The training grounds were empty except for the two of you. You'd been sparring with Childe for the better part of an hour, and he was still grinning like he was having the time of his lifeâwhich, knowing him, he probably was.
"Your footwork's off," he called out, circling you with that predatory grace he had when he was actually engaged. "You're telegraphing your next move."
"Maybe I want you to know what I'm doing," you shot back, lunging. He sidestepped easily, but you'd anticipated that, spinning to catch him off-guard with a follow-up strike. He blocked it, and the impact sent a jolt up your arm. "Or maybe you're just slow today."
"Slow?" He laughed, and there was an edge to it nowâthe kind that meant he'd stopped holding back. He came at you with a series of quick strikes, testing your reflexes, and you matched him, parry for parry.Â
Your muscles were already burning from the previous rounds, but you pushed anyway because he'd give you that look of approval when you did, that slight nod like you'd passed some invisible test. "You're the one who's slowing down. Your last five moves have been predictable."
"Only because you're boring me," you said, breathing harder now. You twisted away from his next strike, used his momentum against him, and nearly got him off-balance. Nearly. He recovered with infuriating ease, but you caught the flash of something in his expressionâgenuine interest now, not just amusement.
The sparring continued, and at one point, you overextended on a strike. His hand came out to steady you, gripping your arm just above the elbow. It was meant to be instructionalâa correction of your formâbut he held it for a moment, his thumb brushing against your skin before he released you. Neither of you acknowledged it. He just stepped back and said, "Again. Better this time."
You came at him again, and somewhere in the middle of it, there was a moment where he caught your wrist mid-strike. His hand was warm, his grip firm but not painful. He could have thrown you. Instead, he held it for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, and you were close enough to see the slight raise in his eyebrowâa challenge. You twisted your arm, trying to break free, and he let you go with a grin.
"Getting better," he said.
"I've always been good. You're just finally noticing," you replied, and charged at him again.
By the time you both called it, you were both breathing hard. Sweat dripped down your temple, and your arms felt like lead. Childe was still smiling though, that infuriating, easy smile of his that suggested he could do this all day. He grabbed his water bottle, tossed you one, and you caught it easily. The cold water was a relief as you drank, trying to catch your breath.
You were leaning against the nearby pillar, still catching your breath, when you heard voices approaching. Not close yet, but getting closer. You recognized one of them immediatelyâPaimon's high-pitched chatter, and underneath it, Lumine's quieter responses. You didn't think much of it. They were probably just passing through the training grounds on their way somewhere else.
Childe was standing a few feet away from you, already looking refreshed despite the exertion. He had that energy about him, the kind that didn't seem to deplete no matter how hard he pushed himself. He caught you looking at him and raised an eyebrow.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" he asked, already moving toward you.
"Just wondering how you're not completely dead," you said. "Normal people need recovery time."
"I'm not normal people." He stopped beside you, close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off him. Without any real thought to it, he reached over and fixed a strand of your hair that had come loose during the sparring, tucking it back behind your ear. It was such a casual gesture, the kind of thing he did without thinking. Your breath caught slightly, but he was already pulling his hand back, already grinning at you like he hadn't just done something that made your heart rate pick up for reasons that had nothing to do with the exercise.
"Definitely not normal," you muttered, looking away.
"Hey, Childe! Lumine and I were justâoh!"
You looked up to see Paimon floating toward you both, her expression shifting to something almost knowing as she took in the sight of you two standing close together, both flushed and breathing hard. Lumine followed behind her, her eyes flickering between you and Childe with that quiet observation of hers.
"We were just heading to the Adventurers' Guild," Paimon continued, but there was a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "But wow, looks like you two have been going at it pretty hard. I'm just glad Childe's finally found his special someone! But sheesh, do you have to go that hard on her?"
There was a beat. You opened your mouth to correct her, to clarify whatever assumption she'd just made, but Childe moved first. His arm came around you without hesitation, pulling you against his side in one smooth motion. It was the kind of casual contact you two shared all the time, except it wasn't casual now. Not the way he was looking at Paimon, not the way his hand rested at your hip like it belonged there.
"Yeah, well," he said, his voice easy and warm, "took me long enough to find someone worth the effort."
Lumine's lips curved into the faintest smile. "That's one way to put it," she said, and there was definitely something knowing in her tone.
You felt your face flush. You pushed against his chest, your hand flat against the fabric of his shirt.
"You're insane," you said, but you were already laughing despite yourself, despite the way your heart was doing backflips.
Paimon giggled, seeming satisfied with whatever she thought she'd figured out, and Lumine gave you both a small wave before they continued on their way. You watched them go, still half-pressed against Childe's side, and the moment they were out of earshot, you pushed away from him properly.
"You want to enlighten me on what you were implying there?" you asked, turning to face him.
Childe's grin was still there, but something underneath it had shifted. He wasn't quite looking at you directly, was instead focused on something past your shoulder, his expression caught between amusement and something you couldn't quite read.
"Was I implying something?" he said, but there was no real teasing in it now.
"You just told them we're together."
He finally looked at you then, and his expression was softer than you'd expected. Still smiling, but there was something real behind itâsomething that made your stomach twist in a way that had nothing to do with the sparring.
"And?" he said softly. "I wasn't lying though, was I?"
KAEYA
You'd been coming to the tavern with Kaeya for weeks now. It started innocuously enoughâhe'd asked if you wanted a drink after a particularly grueling shift, and you'd said yes mostly because you were too tired to say no. Somewhere along the way, it became routine. Every few nights you'd find yourself at the counter with him, and he'd order for you without asking. He always got it right, which was irritating in its own way.
Tonight was like any other night. You were sitting at your usual spot, the one that had somehow become your spot, when someone approached. One of the regularsâa member of the Adventurerâs Guildâsomeone you'd seen around enough times to recognize but not enough to know by name.
"Kaeya," the man slurred, leaning against the bar. "Your girlfriend's looking particularly radiant tonight."
You felt your spine stiffen slightly. Girlfriend. The word hung there for a moment, waiting to be corrected.Â
You looked over at Kaeya, waiting for him to say something, to clarify, to do whatever it was he normally did when people made assumptions. But he just smiled. That easy, lazy smile of his.Â
"Isn't she always?" he said, and the man laughed like it was the most charming thing he'd ever heard, and walked away.
You stared at your drink. The ice was melting slowly, diluting the amber liquid into something weaker.
"You could've corrected him," you said, looking over at him with barely concealed flustered confusion.
"Could have," Kaeya agreed. He wasn't looking at you, was instead focused on something across the bar with that detached amusement he wore like a second skin. "Didn't seem worth the effort."
You let it go. It was small enough, harmless enough. Kaeya was always like thisâplaying into characters, scenarios, whatever amused him in the moment. And besides, this was the tavern. People were drunk, made assumptions, barely thought twice about anything. Everything Kaeya said carried that thin veneer of humor, that deliberate lightness that suggested nothing he did was ever meant to be taken seriously. This must have been yet another attempt at his particular brand of entertainment, or maybe an effort to fluster you. Which you weren't falling for. Obviously.
But a few days later, he suggested dinner at Good Hunter's. You'd gone, mostly because you were hungry and he was there. Sara smiled when she saw you two sit down underneath the parasol.Â
âMaybe the both of you would like a seat thatâs more private instead?â She had suggested. Your face erupted into flames when she suggested that. And although you tried to correct it, Kaeya had already confirmed, and you found yourself in a shaded area to the side. The kind of area that everyone implicitly agreed was for honeymooning couples.Â
You sat across from him, irritated, and tried to focus on your food. Kaeya, for his part, seemed entirely unbothered. He ate with deliberate slowness, and at one point he leaned across the table, his eye catching yours with a particular brand of teasing softness.
"You're scowling," he said, like it was an observation about the weather.
"I'm not scowling."
"You are." He reached over and tapped your forehead with one finger. "Right here."
You pulled back, but he'd already retreated, that infuriating smile still in place.
By the time you were walking back through the city, your irritation had crystallized into something sharper. Something that demanded to be addressed.
"What are you doing?" you asked, stopping abruptly in the middle of the street.
"Walking," Kaeya said simply. "Same as you."
"Don't be difficult. Everyone keeps thinking we're together and you're not correcting them. You're actuallyâ" you gestured vaguely at the space between you, "âplaying into it."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, that low, warm sound that always seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his chest. When he looked at you, there was something in his expression you couldn't quite place. Something that felt almost like he'd been waiting for you to notice.
"I think you like it more than you're willing to admit," he said softly. His eye was half-lidded, that familiar amusement still there, but underneath it was something else. Something that made your chest feel tight. "The question is whether I should keep pretending not to notice."
He was already walking ahead, already moving past you with that lazy stride of his, and you were left standing there, flushed and furious and unable to quite articulate why his assumption felt less like teasing and more like he'd read something in you that you weren't ready to show him.
Damn Kaeya.
LOHEN
The training grounds were filled with apprentice knights, all watching intently as you explained the formation they'd be running through. Lohen stood beside you, arms crossed, and you could already feel the restlessness radiating off him like heat.
"This is boring," he said, not bothering to lower his voice. "Just let them fight something real."
"They need to understand positioning first," you replied firmly, not even looking at him. "We're not sending them into the field unprepared."
"Unprepared is half the fun," he said, and you heard the grin in his voice.
You turned to face him. "You know what? Not everyone gets a thrill from almost dying."
"Their loss," he said, and there was something playful in his eyes, something that suggested he enjoyed getting a rise out of you. One of the younger apprentices nudged their friend, both of them watching the exchange with barely concealed amusement.
"This is why we have strategy," you continued, turning back to the group. "Lohen charges in andâ"
"And it works," he interjected.
"And you get lucky," you corrected.
He laughed, "Lucky. Right. That's what we're calling it."
The training started smoothly enough. The apprentices moved through the formations you'd drilled into them, and you were positioned to observe and correct. Lohen was supposed to be doing the same, but his attention kept drifting, his foot tapping with barely contained energy. You could see him watching the apprentices with the kind of hunger that meant he was already bored. At one point, you caught him staring at you instead of the recruits, and when you raised an eyebrow in question, he just grinned wider.
After about an hour, one of the younger recruits approached as you and Lohen were standing together reviewing the performance. The recruit was still catching their breath, clearly impressed by how well the formation had held.
"It's lucky that the two of you are paired together," they said, glancing between you both. There was genuine respect in their voice. "Aren't the two of you together?"
The moment those words left the apprenticeâs mouth, you could see something wicked shine in Lohenâs eyes. You opened your mouth to clarify, but Lohen moved before you could. He crossed the distance between you in a few strides and pulled you against his side, his arm wrapping around your waist like it had always belonged there. Your face went hot immediately, but he was looking at you with that chaotic grin of his, like he'd just been handed the best entertainment of his day.
"And she's the only person who could ever keep up with me," he said, loud and theatrical, and you could tell he was leaning into it now, performing for the apprentices. You felt your cheeks burn as you realized what he was doing, deliberately making a show of it, spinning this into something bigger just to see you get flustered. The manic energy was at full throttle, and he was clearly enjoying every second of your embarrassment.
Your face went hotter. One of the apprentices bit their lip to keep from smiling, while another looked away, clearly uncomfortable with the display. But most of them were watching with interest, waiting to see what would happen next.
"Lohenâ" you started, trying to extract yourself, but he didn't let go. His grip on your waist was firm, not painful, just insistent.
"And she's brilliant," he continued, spinning you slightly so he could look at you properly. His hand was still on your back, and he was looking at you with an intensity that made your breath catch. "Everything I'm not. Everything that keeps me from getting killed in a ditch somewhere." There was something underneath the chaos when he said it, something that suggested he meant it more than he was letting on. A few of the recruits exchanged glances, and one of them smiled knowingly.
"You'd be lost without her," one of the bolder apprentices called out, earning a few quiet laughs from the others.
"Completely lost," Lohen agreed, but there was something in the way he said it that wasn't entirely joking. For just a moment, the manic energy seemed to settle, and he looked at you like you were the only thing in the training grounds that mattered. "Actually, yeah. I would be."
Then he released you, and the chaos returned. He was already moving away, already tossing some comments to the apprentices about formation angles, leaving you standing there flustered and hyperaware of every eye on you.
The rest of the training passed in a blur of corrections and positioning. By the time you finally dismissed the apprentices, your face had only just stopped burning. Lohen was already collecting his things, and you found yourself watching him move with that restless energy of his, wondering what he'd actually meant in that moment when everything had seemed to pause.
THOMA
You were sitting in one of the Kamisato estate's quieter rooms, mending a tear in one of the ceremonial clothes when Thoma appeared with tea. He set it down beside you without asking and settled into the seat across from you.
"That's going to take forever," he said, watching you work the needle through the delicate fabric.
"Only if I rush," you replied, concentrating on your stitching. "You taught me that."
He smiled at that, leaning back and watching you work. It was comfortable, the kind of silence that didn't need filling. You'd been coming to this room more often lately, always finding some reason to be here. Mending. Reading. Just sitting. And somehow Thoma always seemed to find his way in.
After a while, he got up and moved to sit beside you instead. He didn't ask permission. He just shifted closer until his shoulder nearly touched yours. He picked up a different piece that needed mending and started working on it without preamble.
"You're still doing that stitch wrong," he said after a while, no judgment in his voice.
"I know," you said, not bothering to correct yourself. "But you always fix it for me anyway."
He smiled, and you swore you could see the pupils of his green eyes dilate a fractional amount. His hand came over yours, guiding the needle through the proper motion. His fingers were warm, and he moved slowly, making sure you understood. When he pulled back, you found yourself missing the contact.
You worked like that for a long time. Sometimes he'd hum something soft under his breath. Sometimes you'd ask him about his day, and he'd answer while still focused on the mending. At one point, you reached for more thread at the same moment he did, and your hands brushed. Neither of you moved away. You both just continued working, shoulders close, existing together in the quiet of the afternoon.
"You're thinking too hard," he said once, glancing at your face.
"How can you tell?"
"You get this little crease," he said, reaching over and smoothing it away with his thumb. It was such a gentle gesture that you forgot to breathe for a moment.
You were so focused on the mending that you didn't notice when Ayaka appeared in the doorway. She had a few attendants with her, but she stopped when she saw the two of you sitting close together, heads bent over the work, your shoulders nearly touching.
"Oh, there you two are," she said warmly. "I've been meaning to mention something." Thoma looked up, and you followed his gaze.
"There's a couples' festival coming up at the end of the month," Ayaka continued, her tone genuinely kind.Â
"I thought perhaps you two might enjoy attending together. It would be nice for you to have some time away from the estate."
You felt your face warm. Thoma's reaction was immediate. His entire face flushed a deep red, from his neck all the way to his ears. He set down the cloth quickly, maybe too quickly, like he needed something to do with his hands.
"Oh, we'reâ" he started, his voice slightly strained. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, he was trying for his usual politeness, but the fluster was unmistakable. "We're not actually together, Lady Ayaka. We just spend a lot of time together because of work, that's all."
The correction was gentle, the way everything Thoma did was gentle. But there was something in the way his hands gripped the cloth a little too tightly, the way he wouldn't quite meet Ayaka's eyes, that made your chest tighten. One of the attendants looked faintly disappointed.
Ayaka's expression softened with understanding, and she nodded. "I see. My apologies for the misunderstanding." She excused herself politely, and the moment she left, the room felt smaller somehow.
You picked up your mending again, but your hands felt clumsy. Thoma did the same, but neither of you were really focused on the work anymore. The ease you'd had before was gone, replaced by something tense and uncertain. The afternoon light filtered through the screens, and the silence stretched between you, heavy with things unsaid.
When the sun started to set and you finally set down your work, Thoma was already moving. You said something soft to break the tension, just to ease it.
"That was kind of awkward," you said quietly, not quite looking at him.
He paused, his hand lingering on the cloth. You could see him turn it over in his mind, searching for something.
"I didn't mean to be rude," he said, finally meeting your eyes. "She was just... it caught me off guard."
"I know," you said, offering him a small smile. "It's fine. These things happen."
He looked at you for a long moment, and there was something in his expression that made your breath catch. Something that looked like regret, like he was reconsidering something he'd just said.
"Actually," he said, and his voice was steadier now, "about that festival."
You looked at him, waiting.
"It might not be a bad idea," he continued, and there was a careful consideration to his words, like he was choosing each one deliberately. "For us to attend together, I mean. Not because anyone thinks we should. But because..." He paused, searching for the right words. "Because I'd like to spend that evening with you. If you'd want to."
Your breath caught slightly. There was nothing casual about the way he said it, despite how carefully he was choosing his words. There was intention there, and something that looked a lot like hope.
"Yeah," you said softly. "I'd like that."
VENTI
Venti had dragged you out to yet another performance. You weren't sure why he felt the need to do thisâinvite you specifically, stand you in a particular spot in the crowd where he could see you, like your presence mattered to the mechanics of him playing. But he'd shown up at your door this morning with his elfish smile and asked if you were busy. A pointless question, really. He would have begged and whined until you relented had you said no.Â
On the way to the fountain, he'd been insufferable. He kept humming fragments of melodies, stopping abruptly to ask your opinion on them, then laughing at your answers like you'd said something hilarious when you were just trying to be helpful. At one point he'd grabbed your wrist and spun you around on the street for no reason, just to see your expression, probably.
"You're going to make me dizzy," you laugh, pulling your hand back.
"Is that a complaint, windblume?" he asked, and there was something in his tone that suggested he already knew the answer.
"Yes," you lied.
He had just smiled like he could see right through you.
Now, standing near the fountain while he set up, you watched him adjust his lyre with great care; the kind of care reserved for especially special things in oneâs life. Which, for Venti, was music andâyou were noticing more and moreâyou.Â
He kept glancing over at you, making sure you were in the right spot, making sure you could see him properly. You found it funny, it was almost like a nervous tick. A flick of his gaze to you every few seconds to make especially sure that you had your eyes on him. It was unnecessary. Of course you could see him. You were always looking at him anyway.
Another bard approached as Venti was finishing his setupâsomeone you recognized vaguely from around the city. They exchanged greetings, the kind of easy familiarity that suggested they knew each other from the musician's circles. You turned your attention back to the fountain, not really listening until the other bard said something that made you tune back in.
"Your recent stuff has been different," he was saying to Venti. "All of it sounds like it's about the same person."
You felt something shift in your chest. His recent stuff? You hadn't really paid that much attention, if you were being honest. But now that it was being pointed out, you found yourself wondering if that was true.Â
You'd been hearing him play new things lately, pieces you hadn't heard before, and now you were suddenly wondering who they were about.
The bard glanced over at you, then back at Venti, and you watched something click into place behind his expression.
"That your muse?" he asked, gesturing vaguely in your direction.
Venti laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made people turn their heads, that seemed to move through the air like something physical. He spunâactually spun, his coat catching the lightâand when he looked at you, there was something deliberate in the movement.
"The best one I've ever had," he said, and he was looking directly at you when he said it.
Your face went hot. The other bard laughed too, charmed, and the conversation continued between them, but you weren't really listening anymore. You were stuck on that phrase, on the way Venti had said it, on the realization that apparently his recent compositions had been about you and you'd been too oblivious to notice.
An hour later, after the performance was over and you'd managed to slip away, you found yourself at the tavern. You were nursing a drink when Venti sat down beside you. He waved a hand to the bartender, and Charles just sighedâa routine. And then Ventiâs gaze was fixed on you.
"You've been thinking about what I said," he observes.
"I haven't," you say, which is a lie and you both know it.
"Mm." He's amused. You can hear it in his voice. "That's exactly why youâve been zoning out since my performance?â He had that teasing lilt in his voice. You wanted to puncture his voice box.Â
"You can't just say something like that and expect me not toâ" you start, then stop because you're not actually sure what you're going to say. Expect you not to what? Wonder if he meant it? Wonder what it means? Wonder if you're reading too much into it?
"Not to what?" Venti prompts, and there's that tilt of his head again, that soft amusement in his expression.
"You know what," you snap, trying not to sound flustered.Â
Venti, all he does is laugh. You really want to puncture his voice box.Â
đđ+ đŚđđ§đ˘ | he sends you a voice message while heâs away.
âhey sweet thing. missing yaâ.â
his voice erupted, you could only hear the sound of his breathing, imagining the slow rise and fall of his chest.
âhow have you been, mm? eating well? hydrating? you best be taking care of yourself while âm gone.â he laughed, that squeaky one where you could tell his throat was tight from holding something in.
âwish you could feel how much iâm missing you.â you heard his breath shake at the last syllable, then the tell-tale sound of his zipper slipping down rang out. a loud zzziipp like he wasnât even trying to hide it.
a moment of silence then a harsh hiss came from his side as he wrapped a hand around his aching member, stroking it to full mast. âshit baby, iâm so hard just thinkinâ about you.â he groaned, then a rustle of clothes came as he shoved his pants down to his ankles.
he shifted his phone so that it was placed right beneath his cock, you could hear it slap against his phone screen, hot and heavy. âlisten to it. listen to what you do to me.â he panted, beginning to pump himself, every tug of his length drawing a throaty sigh from him.
âwish you were here. yâknow, sucking me off.â he paused to breath, stifling a whine as he imagined the scene in his head. âgosh, youâd look so pretty, mouth full of me. choking on me.â he continued.
âor you could just sit on it. let me hump you âtil you pass out, all dumbed out on my dick.â he rasped, voice dropping a milky octave. you could hear him spit down on his cock, smearing the glob of saliva over his length.
âif you were here, iâd bend you right over this desk and fuckââ he sped up his strokes, you could tell he was close with how whiny he got. âiâd do so much to you darling, but youâre just not here. and itâs killing me.â
âmiss you, so fuckinâ bad.â his voice cracked, you could hear the lewd fap-fap-fap of him fisting his cock ruthlessly, teetering on the edge of release.
âbet youâre touching yourself too, huh?â you could hear his smirk through the phone, âbet youâre getting off at seeing me so desperate and needy. youâre evil.â he grunted.
âshit, iâm close.â he cursed through gritted teeth, you could hear his chair creak under his weight as he pumped his cock, chasing his orgasm.
âthis oneâs for you.â he panted, the sounds of his fist becoming slicker. after a couple more strokes, he came all over himself with a muffled groan, making a mess everywhere.
âitâs so much.â he grumbled, already regretting what he did knowing he would have to get up and clean off. âand i blame it on you.â he chuckled, you could hear him tucking himself back into his pants.
âanyway. iâll be back soon. love you, byee.â he spoke before blowing an obnoxious kiss to the phone and cutting the voice message.