Mira (They/She)

He barely lifted his head when he heard you gasp, the lens of his mask focusing on your figure standing there with wide eyes, wearing only an oversized shirt.

“Wrong window,” he choked, then tried to hold himself up but immediately collapsed again. “Dammit,” he cursed, waiting for you to freak out any second now. 

You could have, but instead you rushed to him and knelt beside him.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Your hands hovered helplessly over his body, trying to see how bad the damage was in the dark. “You need a hospital–”

“No!” He snapped, trying to turn away but failing miserably. “I’ll be fine, I heal quickly.”

“You still need to stop the bleeding,” you countered, folding your knees under your body so you could rest on your calves. “Listen, I can help you. I took some medical courses last year and I have a kit somewhere.”

You looked at him with pleading eyes. He’d saved the city so many times, the fucking world, it was the least you could do to give something back. 

He considered his options for a second, and to be honest he didn’t have many. His body was betraying him, and he couldn’t even get up to fix it himself like usual. 

The blood loss made him nod, and you wasted no time in getting up and finding said kit. The blood loss also made him drift in and out of consciousness as you tended to the wounds on his ribs as much as you could. 

It did not make him less cautious of you though. When you noticed the rip on his mask over a nasty gash on his neck and reached for it, his hand closed around your wrist and even half conscious, his grip was strong. 

“Please,” he whispered. Pleaded. “Keep it on.” 

The fear in his voice made you promise you would. Even if you couldn’t get to that gash properly. Even when he fell asleep on your floor and didn’t wake up for six whole hours. 

The next morning, he opened his eyes and found you sitting on your bed, still staring at him. 

His hands patted his chest, and confirmed his arachnid powers had done its job and healed him mostly. But most importantly, his mask was still in place. With no warning from E.V of it being removed. He learned that you’d spent the night making sure he was still breathing without seeing his face. 

That had been one year ago. 

After thanking you profoundly for helping him, he’d repaired your window, apologized several times, and disappeared into the apartment next door. He then considered moving into another building, but the thought was brushed away very quickly when he remembered the balance in his bank account. 

So he acted more careful instead. For a while, he only turned back home when your curtains were already closed, or he only left the apartment when you had already left for your job (because yes, he absolutely researched the hell out of you after that night.)

Then he moved to the attic of the building. Bigger space, no neighbors, no risks. No you. Or at least he thought. 

Because some nights…some delirious nights he still found your window a few stories down, and the accidental visits became less accidental. When he was too badly injured to care for himself, he came to you, even after you confessed your degree had nothing to do with medicine. 

When he noticed you understood about his equipment malfunctioning, he’d bring it for you to inspect. When he became too reckless with himself you talked his ear off about how being difficult to kill did not make him immortal.

Somewhere along the way, you became spiderman’s friend. 

Spiderman was safer. With you, spiderman was the only part of him he could let you see. Because that was the thing, you only knew the masked superhero. 

He’d spent so much time blocking away his identity, making peace with the fact that there was no longer anyone in the world who would call him Peter and know exactly who that person was. That name only belonged to the people that once knew him, and no longer existed, so he never gave it to you.

Never showed you more than a sliver of skin when his mask rode up or glimpses of his abdomen when you tended to his wounds. He always kept that barrier and you respected it, even on those nights he was too weak to stop you. Even if sometimes not knowing the color of his eyes kept you up at night. 

A promise was a promise. 

Maybe that’s why he kept coming. Why he trusted you with a certainty he couldn’t understand. Why he eventually showed you his new living quarters in the attic and let you spend time with him. Why half a year ago, he added another chair next to his desk so you could work together, or help him when he was out patrolling and needed an extra set of eyes.

“I’m officially the girl in the chair, spidey,” you joked that time as you sat next to him, spinning around in your chair.

He’d gone quiet immediately, his body tensing up enough to make you frown, but then managed a small smile and said you were. You pretended you didn’t notice him being too quiet as he worked on his inhibitor after that. 

He was wearing a hoodie, sweatpants and the mask. Always the mask that didn’t quite let you see through him. After a moment of quiet, you rolled your chair closer to his and nudged his arm playfully. 

“You know I can’t keep calling you spidey forever, right?” 

He snapped out of his trance, and the chuckle that came from under the fabric was unmistakable. 

“Why not?” He nudged your arm back, but still focused on the device he was hunched over. “I like spidey.”

You put your elbow on the desk, resting your cheek on your hand so you could lean a little closer. 

“I like it too, but it feels ridiculous after having my hands all over your body almost every night.” 

The moment the words left your lips, you realized how bad that sounded. He straightened up, turning toward you.

“Wow.” Even if you couldn’t see the smile on his face, the lenses of his mask were quite expressive sometimes. He was amused. 

“That came out very wrong,” you said immediately, before he bursted into laughter. He had been laughing more since you entered his life. “You know what I meant,” you whined, laughing too with heat flooding your cheeks. 

“I think I know,” he chuckled, making you roll your eyes. 

“I’m being serious though,” you added, a little more quietly. “You don’t have to say your real name. Just give me something.”

“Mmm…” he acted like has considering it, going back to tinkering with the piece of metal between his fingers, but then his eyes drifted to the flowers he’d bought that morning, and the name came out of his lips before he could think twice about it. “You can call me Maynard.” 

“Maynard?” You repeated, suppressing a chuckle. “You don’t sound like a Maynard. That’s like an 80 year old man’s name.”

“That’s all I can give you,” he shrugged playfully. 

You had a feeling it went deeper than that, but you’d also learned not to push it with him. 

“Alright. Maynard,” you nodded, “but don’t expect me to use that name unless you’re dying. Guess I’ll stick to spidey for now,” you chuckled, going back to your own work as he hummed in agreement. 

The conversation ended there. With him trying not to think about your hands all over his body in…different conditions. 

Peter didn’t know exactly when his gratitude became longing. He could not identify the moment the friendship, the closeness, or just your smile, shifted into something he craved everyday. 

Despite the mask and the fake name, he knew that after years of being no one to everyone, he had become someone to you. And you had become everything to him. Even if it was behind walls he’d built, you were the person who knew him better than anyone alive.

Which is why, the night he lost control of himself after an unknown dust was thrown at him in a fight, he chose not to crash land into your room. 

Peter hit the floor of the dark attic with a loud thud, as his senses went overboard. His suit was sticking to his body uncomfortably due to the sweat coating his feverish skin. The fabric was intact, with no visible wounds in his body, just that burning sensation of something running through his veins. 

And that dark part of him he’d managed to lock down with the inhibitor, trying to claw its way out. 

“What the…what the fuck is going on,” he cursed, clutching his heaving chest as he panted against the worn wood floors. “I can’t–I can’t breathe…” 

The computer’s monotone voice broke through the silence. 

“You have arrived injured. I’m letting her know–”

“NO!” He cut the AI off, “EV, don’t tell her–”

“Message already sent.”  

He glanced up at the digital clock on his desk. 2:18 am. 

He groaned, grabbing his head when a wave of migraine hit him. He knew what came after that. The black eyes. The desire to break. To take. But this time something felt different. It was like a pull, looking for something or someone…for…for you? 

Oh fuck. 

You were going to come in and you were going to see him like this. No, no–

“Spidey?” You asked from behind the door, knocking exactly twice before opening it anyways.

The air changed the exact moment you walked in, and that something inside him shifted too. It became aware that the only thing it craved to survive was in the room now. 

He needed to get to you. He needed to pin you down and– 

“Don’t!” He managed to scream, holding his hand up weakly when you scrambled toward him. 

You stopped right in your tracks, eyes wide and running all over him, searching for torn fabric, blood, or anything that would explain why he looked like every breath was painful. 

“What happened?” You frowned, when you couldn’t find any source. “Did you get hurt?” 

You instinctively stepped forward, but he waved his hand in front of him again. 

“Stop, stop, stop,” he said quickly, “don’t come any closer.” 

The harshness in his voice caught you off guard, but what sealed the deal was him dragging himself further away from you. It was barely more than a clumsy, desperate crawl, but he managed to put a decent distance between you before collapsing against the side of his thrifted couch. 

He avoided looking at you. The oversized shirt covering your body, the comfy shorts you were probably wearing, the way your hair looked messy from rolling out of bed as soon as you got EV’s warning even if you had work the next morning.

You stayed right where you were, watching him. His suit had always fit him like it was painted on his skin, but every pant made his chest rise and fall beneath the fabric so violently that you wouldn’t be surprised if it ripped at the seams. 

This reminded you too much of the changes that happened in him months ago. 

It started with a sharpened temper, then the heightened sensitivity to everything, the black covering his eyes, and moments during patrol when his reactions became simply frightening for someone who had as much strength as he did. But you were supposed to have stopped it. 

“Is it the inhibitor?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest, “is it failing?” 

“I–I don’t know…I was hit with some dust out there,” he breathed. “I think it’s tampering with it…my head is killing me. Everything is too much.”

You nodded, turning toward the workstation. 

“I will check the programming. Just hold on.” Not your best attempt at reassuring him, but he groaned in acknowledgment. 

“EV?” 

The computer woke when you touched the keyboard, illuminating the dark attic in a wash of blue light. 

“Online.”

“Please run a diagnostic on the inhibitor and any possible interference.” 

“Beginning diagnostic.” 

You waited impatiently for the results, tapping your fingers on the desk while you watched him from the corner of your eye. 

Over there, he…he was doing his best trying to breathe. 

This obviously wasn't his first time having sensory overload. When the animal tried to take over the human part of him, everything in the city became impossible to escape. Not a single movement, or sound, or simple existence within miles was unnoticed by him. 

But this time? The rest of the city had disappeared. There were no sirens in the distance, or voices coming through the walls, or every heartbeat in the building pounding in his head. 

There was only you. 

Your rapid heartbeat echoing inside him. He felt every tap of your fingers against the wood, every slight catch in your breathing each time he made another involuntary and pathetic sound from his spot on the floor. 

Your scent…God, your scent filled the entire apartment. 

The scent he found himself coming back to so often that it scared him. He didn’t want the attachment. The possibility of having someone again only to risk losing them again. 

That same scent was making every muscle in his body react in a way he didn’t understand. It made him, and the other him, wanna do things to you he had only dreamed of in his wildest fantasies. Things he wasn’t proud of, things he wouldn’t dare to say out loud, even if he looked at you through the lenses of his mask and you couldn’t see the black in his eyes. 

He pressed the back of his head against the couch harshly. 

This was wrong. So wrong. 

His senses were supposed to consume everything when the change came. Instead, they had fixed themselves entirely on you.

He could feel the heat of your body from across the room as though you were still in front of him. Could remember with sickening detail how soft your hands looked when they reached for him. Could almost feel the burn of the touch that had never landed because he stopped you. 

What if he’d let you? What if he’d felt the way your hands ran all over his body? What if you’d moved them lower, and lower, as your mouth–

“Diagnostic complete.” 

Your heads snapped toward the screen. 

“There’s no external damage affecting the integrity of the device. I detected a foreign biotoxin in the bloodstream that may be bypassing the inhibitor, activating the suppressed arachnid hormones.” 

“What biotoxin?” You frowned. 

“Unknown. No matches found in available databases.” 

Great. He thought. He had no time to take a bath with Yelena Belova to find out what the stupid dust was. 

Tiny, microscopic potato, she would say.

The screen changed, displaying a model of his nervous system. There were yellow bright lines pulsing quickly, running all the way from the base of his brain down the length of his spine. Something unknown was moving through his blood, altering the part of him he had spent months forcing into submission.

He sucked in a breath as he watched you read the screen. Your eyes were focused, and a bead of sweat made its way down the side of your forehead. 

He suddenly felt the need to lick it off. 

Wanted to run his tongue from the base of your neck to the back of your ear. Wanted to fist your hair and make your heart beat out of your chest from how good he knew he could make you feel–

“The effects remain within his enhanced tolerance. However, prolonged exposure to certain hormones can cause extreme distress without relief.” 

“What hormones?” Your voice, worried and unknowing of his thoughts only made him feel guiltier. 

It took him a second to realize what you asked, but EV threw him under the bus before he could say anything. 

“There’s a significant rise in reproductive hormones. The unknown toxin is inducing a strong mating response in him.”

Mating response. He stopped breathing. 

Your eyes slowly moved from the monitor to him, and he saw the moment your attention dropped lower to the tent of his pants. 

That suit concealed nothing on a good day. On one like this? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck–

He shifted almost immediately, but the movement only worsened the pressure, pulling a helpless groan from his throat that made your pulse jump. You looked away at once, turning back to the computer. 

“Is there a way we can…umm…stop it?” You asked hesitantly. 

“The subject is experiencing severe sexual arousal with a fixation on a nearby individual,” she explained, because fuck him if he wasn’t the unluckiest individual on earth. “Acting upon it can be a positive option to relieve sexual tension.”

He wished the floor would open beneath him, swallow him, and never ever EVER spit him back out again.  

Your pulse was absolutely hammering after that. He caught the sudden change in your scent. There was a sharp spark of surprise, nervousness, and something else beneath it that his altered senses fed on immediately.

You kept your eyes fixed on the monitor, although the data had stopped meaning anything the moment you heard fixation on a nearby individual. 

“Is that what you really feel?” You asked softly after a moment. 

His head fell forward, catching it between his gloved hands. He didn’t know how to answer without making everything worse.

Although, after what EV said, could it really be worse? 

“…Yes.” The word came out rougher than he expected. Yet still not enough for what was happening inside him. “It’s like…I can only feel you. All of you.”

Heat rose to your face once again. 

“What does that mean?” 

Don’t say anything, don’t–

“I can smell you.” Great start, idiot. He cleared his dry throat before continuing. “I can smell your shampoo…the lotion you use…the ink on your hands from your favorite pen.” 

He chose not to mention he could also smell the adrenaline on you. The heat gathering slowly beneath your skin. 

Your eyes dropped to your hands, and under the dim light of the computer, you caught the ink stains in them from your journaling session before bed. 

“I can hear your heartbeat changing every time I speak,” he added. Okay, that one slipped out.  

You swallowed. And god, he felt that in his own throat. 

The suit was suffocating him at this point. He wanted to rip it off as much as he wanted to rip off the fabric covering the goosebumps on your skin. 

“Is it only because I’m nearby?” You asked, gathering the courage to turn your chair to him.

White lenses met you across the room. He dragged in another shaky breath of oxygen made of you as he thought about his next words. He could’ve lied. He should’ve lied. But instead, chemically overwhelmed and stripped of every defense he possessed, he gave you the truth. 

“No.”

His voice was firmer this time. No hesitation in it despite the thousand red alarms pounding in his head telling him to shut up. 

“It picked you–no, I picked you for a reason,” he added. “And it’s not just me. The other…the other me wants you too.” 

His voice went lower on the last part, that told you how much it cost him to admit that. 

The silence following his confession was heavy. For a moment he wished he could read your mind. For all he could feel of you, your thoughts were unreachable. 

His own mind was a mess. The impulses didn’t feel like thoughts anymore, just his body feeding him instructions. 

Get up. Cross the room. Touch her. Breathe her in.

His palms shook with the urge to close around you. His teeth ached with the need to graze your skin. His eyes burned with the desire to see beyond fabric. 

Every part of him seemed convinced that the small distance between you was a mistake he needed to correct. That he needed to breathe you in until his lungs burned. Drag his mouth along the inside of your wrist and taste the pulse there.

He hated it.

He hated that something inside him could look at the person he cared for the most and reduce her to an answer for his pain. 

“EV, how long is this state going to last?” He asked the computer, followed by a weak cough as he clutched his side. 

“Your enhanced physiology is struggling to break down the toxin’s structure. I estimate a time between ten to twelve hours before it’s metabolized. However, neurological collapse is expected before that timeframe.”

“What?” You looked at him. “There’s no way we’re letting that happen. Maybe I can–”

“Don’t even start,” he cut you off, shaking his head profusely. 

“So what? I’m supposed to sit here betting on whether your body collapses on hour three or hour six?” 

“I’ll just pass out, big deal. I’m not putting you in danger because of this. I can handle it.”

“You’re barely handling it now. There’s no danger in trying–”

“You don’t understand what’s happening inside me right now,” he argued, raising his voice. “This other thing, the one the inhibitor controls it’s…awake. That part of me doesn’t think like I do. It doesn’t care if you're scared, or hurting–”

“You wouldn’t hurt me–”

“You don’t know that!” He snapped, his fist struck the floor next to him, hard enough to make the worn wood crack beneath his knuckles. 

The sudden noise made you flinch. He smelled the flash of fear moving through your body for only a second. 

One second enough. 

“Fuck–that is what I mean,” he cursed, covering his lenses with his hands. “I don’t…I don’t know if I’d be gentle. I can’t risk this, I can't…shit, I can’t risk you.”

The words, said with so much pain, and honesty, seemed to settle somewhere deep in your chest. 

“Okay,” you nodded, settling deeper in your chair. “But I’m not leaving you like this. I can’t risk you either.”

He shuddered a painful exhale. His head dropped to the couch again, shutting his eyes in preparation of what the next hours of torture would be. 

Except…he didn’t even last ten minutes. 

The suit was killing him, so he decided he’d be better without it. He reached desperately behind his back, clumsily undoing the zippers that tied the suit together.

He could feel your wide eyes on him as he tugged the fabric off his shoulders, peeling it off his sweaty arms. He groaned when he lifted his hips and the suit grazed his swollen crotch. In a matter of seconds that felt like eternity he managed to break free from the spandex, and threw it away somewhere in the room. He’d undressed down to his dark boxers, mask still in place, revealing the marble sculpture of his body.

You let out a shaky breath from your spot, eyes raking over a body you’d only seen partially. He was covered in wounds most of the time, but this time, he only had faint bruises from the night before decorating his chiseled abs. 

His tight muscles flexed with every rise of his chest, his bulge straining harder the more you devoured him, pressing against his pants, making him curse quietly. 

You noticed, and returned your eyes to the screen to track his vitals. 

He felt grateful that you’d given him that grace, but just you being in that room made it very hard for him to think of anything other than your existence. 

Too hard. 

Before he knew his hand drifted down the growing ache in his crotch, trying to feel some relief, but every rub he made over the fabric of his boxers sent a jolt of pain through his body instead of pleasure. 

It only made it worse when he realized you were tense at the desk, trying very hard to keep your focus on the screen and not on the whines he was letting out. 

“…I’m sorry,” he apologized instantly, breathlessly, moving his hand away. “I didn’t–”

“Don’t apologize,” you shook your head quickly, eyes still on the screen. “You…you can do whatever you need.” 

He didn’t say anything, just whined in pain again, so you took it as a chance to say it before you regretted it. 

“But my offer still stands, spidey.” 

What a polite way of saying ‘I’d let you fuck me into next week so you can control your horny arachnid hormones, spidey.’

Fucking hell. 

“I’m okay I just–God I didn’t–I didn’t think it would feel this way…” He laughed humorlessly, staring at the ceiling. “But I–I got this. Yes.”

You kept quiet, hearing him mumble to himself about a hundred times about how he had this.

“I’m okay…I’m good…it’s fine…” 

He wasn’t. 

“Fuck I don’t…I’m going to die…”

For God’s sake. 

“I think I can help.”

By the time he registered the words and looked back at you, you had already moved from your chair and shortened the distance between you, kneeling in front of him. 

His senses went from one thousand to one million. He forced his hands behind his back, trying to keep the animal from grabbing you and getting it over with. 

“What–what are you doing?” He stammered nervously, the lenses of his mask going wide. 

“Maynard,” you said quietly, ignoring the way his body tensed up at that name. “Would it make you feel better if I put my hand here?” 

You placed your hand right in the center of his chest, and your cold palm met his overheated skin. He gasped, feeling every individual fingerprint on his skin. He wanted them marked on him. Tattooed. 

His back arched from the couch, with a strangled gasp breaking from beneath the mask. The relief hit him all at once, through a simple contact that felt like salvation. 

Your hand steadied him for only a glorious second, but now that you had touched him, his body knew precisely what it had been denied.

It wanted more.

His own hand closed around yours so suddenly that you almost pulled back, but he loosened his grip the instant he realized how tightly he was holding you. 

“Sorry–”

“Don’t apologize.” You pressed harder. 

He was burning.

The heat beneath your palm scared you, but what scared you more was the violent pounding of his heart beating against your hand so so quickly. 

“Better?” You asked quietly, trying not to bite your bottom lip at the image of him crumbling under your palm. 

“So fucking better,” he said breathlessly, pressing your hand tighter against his chest. “I…dammit–”

“Breathe,” you reminded.

His head fell back against the couch. Chest rising up and down, up and down, up and down. 

Just take her, man, she’s right there–

Your free hand accidentally brushed his neck, right where the border of the mask started, snapping him right back. He grabbed your hand, not harshly, but firm enough to make your breath hitch. 

“Please.” Was all he said. 

Leave it on. 

It brought you back to that first night he’d crashed into your life. 

“I wasn’t planning on removing it,” you whispered, leaning closer. “You can keep it on. But let me help you…I really want to.”

See? She wants it. She needs it so bad. 

He hated that the other guy was right. He knew you meant what you said because he could smell the proof pooling between your thighs.

Fuck it.

In a sudden movement he reached for your waist, dragging you forward so you were straddling his lap. The bulge you landed on made you gasp, hands instinctively grabbing onto his sweaty biceps for balance when he let out a broken groan that vibrated against your core. 

His hand cupped your jaw, bringing it closer to his face, and your dilated pupils reflected on the white of his lenses. 

“I can feel that you want this,” he mumbled, tilting his head to the side. “Please, say it again…”

You shifted your hips, barely, so minimal yet he felt it travel through his whole body. He hissed, tightening the grip on your jaw. 

“I want this,” you repeated firmly, moving your head closer to his ear. “You can take whatever you need…”

You moved your hips again, more deliberate this time, pulling a broken whine from him. The toxin made every contact feel like electricity racing down his spine, straight to the heavy, aching weight of his cock under you. 

“Yes…yeah just like that…” he panted. “Just let me…”

His hands landed on your waist, moving you back and forth at a quicker pace over his bulge. You gasped at the friction, fingers digging into his shoulders, while he let out a collection of muffled words you could barely understand. 

“...M–more…” he whined, throwing his head back against the couch. “I can’t–I need…”

“What do you need? More what?” 

“More contact.”

His hands left your waist to grab the hem of your shirt. 

“Can I?” He whispered.

You nodded eagerly, gasping when his hands shifted to the collar of your shirt instead, ripping it off your body with a sharp pull. 

“Oh fuck,” he cursed when he realized there was nothing under that shirt, and saw your nipples hardening instantly under the cold air. 

He resisted the urge to bite them through the mask. 

His hands, however, wasted no time to cup your breasts with a broken whine. His thumbs played with your nipples, tugging at them as hard as he could allow himself to without hurting you. 

“Fuck you’re perfect…you’re so perfect…” he whispered, more to himself than you, pulling some soft whimpers out of you when he tugged a little harder. His hands drifted to your lower half, to the hem of the last piece keeping your body from his greedy eyes. “These too,” he said, “please, can I? I want to feel you.”

“Yes,” you nodded, already out of air. 

You didn’t even know why you tried to get off his lap to take the shorts off properly, when he just did the same as the shirt: ripped it in half where it rested on your hips, yanked it off from your body and threw the ruined pieces far away. 

You weren’t wearing anything underneath. 

“I can smell you. God, I can smell you. You’re so–oh God…”

Now he could feel your wetness drenching his boxers, dripping onto the fabric. He could almost taste it in his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to drown in it for hours. 

“Can–can I–?”

You didn’t even let him finish, you grabbed his hand and placed it right between your legs. 

Water. He found water in the middle of the dessert. 

His hand moved carefully through your wet folds once, twice, delighting in your warmth, the way you felt, the way you let out the prettiest sound he had ever heard in his miserable life. 

“Fuck…” you cursed softly, moving your hips eagerly when he kept stroking slow. Too slow. “Touch me, please.”

He obliged, fingers finding your clit in movements that had you gripping his shoulders tighter, eyes fluttering shut so beautifully he had to bite his lip to not let out a pathetic sound. 

“Been wanting this,” he mumbled. “Longer than today. Longer than tonight.”

His finger slid inside of you, making you moan when he curled it just right. 

“There were…there were nights I thought about you riding my hand,” he kept going, voice cracking as he added a second finger, stretching you more. “I’ve wanted you for so long–not just because of this shit in my blood. Because it’s you.”

Every word made you clench around his fingers. Every admission pulled another shaky moan out of your throat. You were a mess already, breathless, hips rolling down to meet the thrust of his fingers. 

“Oh my God–don’t stop, please don’t stop–”

“Not stopping, baby.” 

He kept working you open, the white lenses of the mask never leaving your face. His free hand slid up your chest, settling between your breasts. 

“I’m–I’m close,” you managed. “I’m so close–”

“Come on…you’re perfect. You’re so fucking perfect like this.”

The heel of his palm lifted to press against your clit. You were right there, right on the edge, about to come on his hand and drip down his boxers–

“Please,” he begged, unable to keep it in. “Let me fuck you after this…please. I need to be inside you. I’ve needed it for so long–just let me, after you come, please, please–”

The plea undid you.

You came with a broken cry, stopping your movements as your walls pulsed around him. The sound you made against his shoulder nearly finished him right there. 

It took you a second to just breathe again, your chest synching up with his in the search of oxygen. He kept rocking his hand slowly, not just to work you through the aftershocks, but because the friction of your pussy in his hand brought the tiniest relief to him. 

You just stayed there as the last soft waves rolled through you. 

Once you were able to see clearly again, you let out a breathless chuckle and straightened back up. 

He needed you. He needed you so badly you really thought he was going to die if you didn’t help him. 

You placed one hand on his chest as the other reached under you, slipping inside the fabric of his boxers without breaking eye contact. 

The second your bare fingers brushed him, his hips jerked hard under you. 

“You said please,” you whispered breathlessly. 

You wrapped your fingers around him and pulled him free.

His cock sprang out, heavy and flushed between your bodies, so thick and hard and painful. The head was red and shiny, with precum dripping down the vein that ran along his length. The tip brushed the skin of your stomach, leaving a warm, wet patch that made the hair on your arms go up. He could smell the small flicker of intimidation sparking inside you, but the want that followed was stronger. 

You stroked him a few times, slowly just as he’d touched you at first. 

“Oh my God, your hand–your hand–”

Another thick bead of precum welled up and spilled over your fingers. Whether it was the toxin or just his enhanced physiology, he was dripping for you.  

Flustered wasn’t enough of a word when you had his leaking cock in your hand. 

His hands slid down to your hips, gripping tighter, guiding you up as if he was about to lift you then pulling you back down immediately. 

Fuck her. Fuck her right now. 

“Please, I need–I need to feel you…” he cried out. “Let me…let me…”

You nodded just as desperately, lifting yourself up as he helped, steadying you with shaking hands until the thick head of his cock nudged against your entrance. You both exhaled hard at the same time when you started to sink down, taking him inch by inch.

He was big. Almost too much. The burn of it made your breath hitch, but the way he cursed under his breath multiple times, completely at your mercy, made you keep going until he was buried balls deep.

You sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, and so full of him. 

When the initial sting faded away, you started moving. He let you set the pace as you adjusted, holding back his need of thrusting up. His fingers dug on your skin, not lifting just holding you, but the more that you moved, the more that control started to waver. 

He could feel it coming. The change. 

You kept moaning, bouncing on top of him, completely unaware of his self restraint crumbling away. 

His grip slowly tightened when his eyes began turning completely black under his mask. That careful, pathetic boy who’d been begging disappeared beneath something more…primal. 

Fuck. Whatever had been holding him back finally snapped.

The next thing he knew, his hands slid under your thighs with sudden strength. He lifted you up in one motion until only the thick head of him remained inside you, held you there for a second as the last part of him tried to remember how to be gentle–then snapped his hips up hard.

That first thrust pulled a sharp moan out of you, but there was no chance to adjust this time. He set a relentless pace almost immediately, using pure strength to bounce you on his cock while he drove up to meet every drop of your body, buried so deep it stole your breath every time he bottomed out. 

“Oh my–May…Maynard–” the name you barely used on him slipped out in the middle of the frenzy, but his hand reached behind your head to pull your hair back slightly as he kept thrusting up. 

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, his voice so different from just minutes earlier. “It’s Peter. Call me Peter when I’m inside you.” 

He didn’t even give you time to process, still lifting and dropping you onto his cock at the exact hard rhythm he wanted. The only one that satisfied the need inside of him. Your hands instinctively reached for the edge of the arm of the couch he was leaning against, fingers digging into the worn fabric as he hit that spot inside you over and over again. 

“Of fuck…Peter–fuck…yes…”

“That’s better,” he approved. “I was right, you’re so so perfect…taking every inch like you need it as bad as I do…”

A desperate sound slipped out of you at the praise, he could feel your walls clenching tight around him as your body went for that second orgasm, your eyes were fluttering shut, almost there–

“Nuh–uh,” he denied immediately, stopping mid thrust, holding you pressed against him as you gasped, surprised and confused. 

“What–what happened? I was about to–”

“I want you to hold it for me. I know you can.”

That twisted part of him enjoyed the slow realization on your face. 

Even if you couldn’t see his eyes, you knew the same spiderman he’d been without the inhibitor, was the one with your body at his mercy now. 

Good. 

He stayed buried to the hilt for a moment, breathing hard behind the mask. When your breathing finally slowed down and accepted that the high never came, he stood up. Still inside you, he walked you to the bed in the corner of the room. 

His bed.

He pulled out with a wet sound that made both of you groan, then laid you down roughly near the edge of the mattress. He kneeled down, strong hands hooking behind your knees and dragging your legs over his shoulders, folding you open for him completely.

“Look at the ceiling,” he ordered. “Don’t look at me.”

You obeyed, staring up at the wood beams high above you while he tugged the bottom of the mask just high enough to free his mouth. 

Peter leaned down and pressed a few soft kisses to your swollen folds. He wasn’t necessarily eating you out, just giving a few loud smooches that felt good enough to make you grip the sheets. 

“M’sorry, you were so perfect there…” he mumbled condescendingly against your most sensitive spots. “But I need you to hold on a little longer. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?” 

You nodded, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Maybe too eager. Maybe too pathetic. Just like he’d been. Had he pumped that toxin into you? 

Either way, you didn’t care. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like this version of him. 

He laughed right over your clit when you moaned loudly, after he moved his tongue in a slow, torturous swipe over it. 

“Was back there too much?” He cooed. “Maybe I just need to stretch you more...”

Two fingers slid inside you, so easily, but the sudden stretch still dragged a whine out of your throat. He curled them immediately, finding the spot that made your hips jerk. 

“Peter…” 

“Huh?” He acted coy, pumping his fingers with a rhythm that kept you right on the edge without letting you tip over. He added a third finger, making your back arch from the mattress. “Keep holding it in.”

Every shake of your body fed the stupid toxin inside him. Having you like this…really trying to keep your body from coming apart because he said so. 

God. He was never going back. 

“You just took my cock. I think you can take three fingers with no problem.” 

He kept the same relentless pace, chuckling when your body started twitching again. 

“Shhh, you’re perfect, absolutely perfect…”

“Peter…” you called out again, hand dropping the sheet to find his shoulder instead. “I need…need…”

“Need what?”

“Need you inside me…please I won’t–I won’t hold for much longer just–fuck me.”

He stopped altogether, a smirk you couldn’t see stretching the corner of his mouth. He pulled his fingers out with a wet pop, licking them clean before tugging his mask back in place and standing up. 

“Yeah?” 

Your legs dangled off the edge of the bed for a moment before his hands gripped your hips and turned you over. He moved you higher up the bed, grabbing one of the pillows, and shoving it under your hips, tilting your lower body up for him. 

He then climbed onto the bed behind you and knelt between your spread thighs, the mattress dipping under his weight as one hand stroked down the length of your spine. 

But something made him stop. 

“This fucking mask–” he cursed under his breath. “It’s suffocating me.”

The sweat on his forehead had pooled under the mask, making it so sticky over his eyebrows that it was affecting the lenses he was trying to see you through. 

“I need you to be a good girl for me,” he added breathlessly, yet still commanding enough. “Keep your head on the mattress. Ass up. Don’t turn around.”

You nodded. Too eagerly again. Couldn’t care any less again. 

He didn’t think twice, just yanked the mask off and tossed it aside. It landed near you, making you bury half your face on the sheets as if staring at the mask alone would be disobeying his commands. 

The sound he made when the cool air hit his face was pure relief. He swiped the sweat off with his forearm, finally seeing you clearly. Face down. Eyes squeezed shut. Already clutching the sheets. 

“You look so pretty like this,” he mumbled. “All spread out for me…waiting.”

“Peter…” you whined, lifting your ass slightly from the pillow. 

“I know, I know. You’re okay.” He couldn’t keep the smirk away when he added, “you said please.”

He reached between you, guiding the thick head of his cock between your thighs until it nudged against your entrance. You were still soft and ready and perfect. 

Peter pushed in slowly, letting you feel every inch as he sank deep and deep and deeper. 

He braced one hand beside your head and kept the other on your hip, pushing you into the mattress as his thighs hit the back of yours. Slap. Slap. Slap. The position left almost no space between your bodies, with Peter pressing his chest against your back. 

“Fuck…you feel so good like this…so pretty taking me.”

He kept going, making the mattress creak and the base of the bed hit the brick wall repeatedly. Your desperate moans ran through his body like electricity, making something inside him crack open again. 

What? What is–

The moment his rhythm stuttered, he shook his head, trying to clear it. Beads of sweat flew from his hair to your back. 

“God–you…you’re making me–” The roughness of his thrusts slowed down immediately, inhaling a sharp intake of air as he felt the change again. “I can’t, I can’t…”

He lifted his gaze to the window behind the bed and noticed his eyes had turned back to its original color. 

“Oh my god,” he gasped, stopping altogether. He straightened up, still kneeling and inside you, but panicking. “I’m…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened I–“

“Peter!” You cut him off, pushing yourself back, closer to him, without turning around. “Shut up and fuck me.”

The order left your mouth breathless, pushing back against him even more to make the point clear. His hands twitched when they gripped your hips again. 

“Okay, okay…” he panted, groaning when you dropped back on the bed and his cock almost left the warmth of your pussy. “I’m sorry–if I was too rough, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

He picked up the pace again, but the words tumbling out of him now were pure pleading Peter again. 

“Don’t turn around–don’t turn around–fuck, fuck…” slap, slap, slap. “You can come now. Please. Please, I want to feel it–you’d come apart so pretty on me, I know you would…pleasepleaseplease–”

His final permission and the desperate way he said it made you crash harder than the first time, crying out into the mattress. The second he felt you coming around him, he knew he couldn’t last much longer either.

“Can I–inside…please, can I??…let me fill you up–”

“Yes–inside, Peter, do it inside me…” 

He buried himself to the hilt with a strained groan and finally came. The orgasm tearing out of him was harder and longer than anything he’d ever felt, holding you there, filling you up. 

You gasped against the sheets, breathless, as the waves of cum seemed to go on forever, flooding you with warm and thick ropes in every spurt as he emptied himself inside you. 

“Thank you…thank you…” His forehead dropped between your shoulder blades, sending broken gasps against your skin as he kept coming. “You are so perfect–fuck…so perfect…thank you…”

The pollen wrung him dry until he could barely breathe, and even then he kept rolling his hips weakly, chasing the last of it while he slowly softened inside you. 

When it finally eased, the pain, the need, the hunger…he pulled out slowly with a whine, and half collapsed over you. His arms held most of his weight as he planked above you, but you could feel every ridge of his muscles brushing your sweaty skin. 

Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, feeling exhausted and aching in the best way, almost lulled by the sounds of your agitated breaths. 

You both felt the warm trail of liquid leaking out between your bodies and neither of you moved or said anything for a while. He could’ve stayed like that forever, really. With your naked body under him, no masks, no barriers, just your swollen pussy leaking out his seed–

“Successful ejaculation brought down the arachnid hormone levels immediately. Inhibitor working within regular parameters now. Congratulations, Peter.” 

EV’s monotone voice cut through the silence. 

It took two seconds of shock before you both broke into breathless laughter. His teeth grazed your back as your bodies vibrated in sync from the amusement and overall flustering after everything that happened. 

“Thank you, EV,” Peter muttered. 

“You’re welcome. I gathered data and the released semen volume exceeds standard parameters by two hundred and twenty six percent due to the high hormonal concentration. Hydration, clean up and rest are advised.”

“For fucks sake…” Peter cursed under his breath. 

“Oh god…” you mumbled against the sheets. 

That was your call back to reality. 

Peter felt you move under him, reaching blindly to the side until your hand found the mask. You lifted it over your shoulder, offering it to him without looking. 

“I don’t want to,” he said, too quickly, then cleared his throat. “I…I don’t want to put it back on.” 

“Then I’ll close my eyes,” you offered instead. 

“No–I mean…you don’t have to. I don’t want to wear it around you anymore. Not after…all of this,” he admitted sheepishly. 

“But you told me to not turn around,” you reminded him, dropping the mask on the mattress again. “And that was you, not the darker you.”

He chuckled, nodding even if you couldn’t see him yet. 

“Yeah, because if I saw your face while I was balls deep inside you I would’ve busted before you came.”

There it was. He said it. No turning back now. 

At least it got a chuckle from you too. 

“Listen I…I meant everything I said. Everything. The wanting, the nights I thought about you,” he confessed. “I don’t want you to feel like I just used you when…when there was always a reason why I needed you like oxygen tonight.”

Your breath hitched, and his hand found your waist, pulling you closer to him, and when you didn’t push away…he exhaled in relief behind you. 

“So maybe…you can turn around now. If–if you want to. Know the real me.”

“I would really like that,” you whispered without hesitation. 

You tried lifting yourself up to turn around, but he did most of the job, moving away the pillow he had placed under you and helping you roll onto your back. You closed your eyes, at least until you were facing him completely, and took a deep breath. Holding onto his biceps for moral support, you finally opened them again. 

Seeing his face for the first time felt so intimate, even after everything you just did. 

There he was. The same guy who just fucked you into next week, looking more shy and boyish than you could’ve ever imagined. 

Brown eyes. Dark, curly hair sticking to his forehead. A nervous smile tugging at the corner of his gorgeous mouth. 

So young. So earnest. So yours. 

Not spidey anymore. Just Peter. 

Your Peter. 

Thank you so much for reading 🤍 I used to write Peter so much back in the day (shoutout to my starktonyx era) and I’ve missed him dearly.

Feedback is always appreciated 🕷️

Divider by @andromeda-graphics

Jimmy knew love.

He knew it in the way he knew the sunny spot on the rug moved three times a day.

He knew it in the way he knew Max’s suitcase meant betrayal, but Max’s hoodie left on the chair meant forgiveness.

He knew it in the way he knew Sassy was going to hit him before she hit him, because her tail did a particular twitch first.

And he knew it because the most beautiful creature in the world lived on the balcony next door.

She was white.

She was fluffy.

She was round in the way expensive pillows were round.

She had a face like she had been disappointed by every human alive and was simply enduring the world until someone finally presented her with the appropriate throne.

She was, Jimmy had decided, a goddess.

The first time he saw her, she was sitting on the neighbouring balcony while the late afternoon sun made her fur glow.

Jimmy had been minding his business.

He had not been doing anything wrong.

He had merely been standing on the back of the sofa, pressing his nose against the glass door, while Max said, “Jimmy, don’t even think about it.”

Jimmy had not been thinking about anything.

Then she appeared.

White fur. Blue collar. A little gold bell. Eyes the colour of rainwater.

Jimmy forgot how to breathe.

Sassy, from her place on the armchair, opened one eye.

“Don’t,” Max said from the kitchen without looking up.

Jimmy placed one paw against the glass.

The white cat blinked at him.

Jimmy made a very soft, very dignified sound.

Sassy lifted her head.

Max looked over.

“Oh no,” he said.

Jimmy did not know what that meant, but Max sounded like he had just lost a race before the lights had even gone out.

The white cat turned, showing him the full glory of her tail, then disappeared behind a curtain.

Jimmy remained frozen.

Sassy yawned.

Max came over, crouched beside him, and looked through the glass toward the empty balcony.

“No,” Max told him.

Jimmy looked at Max.

Max narrowed his eyes. “I know that face.”

Jimmy did not know which face Max meant. He had several. 

“No escaping,” Max said. “No dramatic Romeo and Juliet balcony situation. I don’t have time for this.”

Jimmy understood only three words in that sentence.

No.

Escaping.

Balcony.

All deeply concerning.

He pressed his paw harder to the glass.

Max sighed.

Behind him, Sassy jumped down from the armchair, walked over, sniffed Jimmy’s ear, and then smacked him on the head.

Jimmy accepted this. Sassy was his sister. She had been smacking him on the head since they were kittens. It was one of her love languages, probably.

“She is right,” Max said.

Jimmy did not think Sassy was right. Sassy was never right. Sassy once hissed at a cucumber. Sassy had no authority here.

The next day, the goddess returned.

This time, Jimmy was prepared.

He had positioned himself on the dining chair closest to the balcony door after breakfast. He had ignored Sassy when she called him pathetic with her eyes. He had ignored Max when Max walked past and said, “Still? Mate.”

Jimmy was not still.

Jimmy was devoted.

The goddess appeared just after noon, carried out onto the balcony by a woman with soft hair and a long cardigan.

The woman was not Max.

Jimmy knew most humans were not Max. Humans had different smells and voices and levels of competence. Max was his human, which meant he was the best human, even when he left for loud weekends and came home smelling like champagne, rubber, and other people’s hands.

The woman next door smelled faintly of vanilla, laundry soap, and something floral. She spoke gently to the goddess as she placed her on a cushion in the sun.

“There you go, princess,” the woman said. “Fresh air.”

Princess.

Jimmy’s ears went forward.

Yes.

Correct.

The goddess was a princess.

Maybe a queen.

Maybe something above queen.

The goddess settled onto the cushion and looked across the gap between balconies.

Jimmy stood.

Sassy made a disgusted little noise from the back of the sofa.

Jimmy ignored her.

He lifted one paw.

The goddess blinked slowly.

Jimmy nearly fell off the chair.

Max, who had been drinking coffee, looked up from his phone.

“Why are you making that noise?”

Jimmy had not realized he was making a noise.

He closed his mouth.

Sassy swatted his tail.

Jimmy did not even care.

The goddess had blinked slowly at him.

That meant something.

Jimmy did not know what, exactly, but it meant something.

For three days, Jimmy watched her.

For three days, the goddess appeared on the balcony in the afternoon.

For three days, the woman in the cardigan spoke to her in a warm, amused voice.

“Careful, Cleo.”

Cleo.

Her name was Cleo.

Jimmy had a name now.

A real name.

Not just goddess, though goddess still applied.

Cleo liked sleeping in the sun. Cleo liked turning her face away when her human tried to take photos of her. Cleo liked batting lazily at the leaves of the potted olive tree on her balcony. Cleo did not chase bugs because bugs came to her. Cleo did not run. Cleo reclined.

Jimmy admired this deeply.

Sassy did not.

On the fourth day, when Jimmy climbed onto the sideboard for a better view, Sassy joined him.

For one hopeful moment, Jimmy thought his sister had come to support him.

Then she shoved him.

Jimmy landed on the floor with a soft thud.

Max looked up from where he was stretching on the mat.

“Sassy.”

Sassy sat down exactly where Jimmy had been and looked at Max like she had done him a favour.

Jimmy got up and shook himself.

Sassy began washing one paw.

Max sighed. “You deserved that, probably.”

Jimmy did not deserve that.

Jimmy was a lover.

Sassy was a criminal.

The problem was the door.

The door was glass.

Glass was unfair. Jimmy could see through it, but he could not pass through it. This was one of the great cruelties of the universe, along with empty food bowls, closed bathroom doors, and Max refusing to let him sit inside the suitcase.

But Jimmy was not stupid.

Sassy thought he was stupid because Sassy thought everyone was stupid except herself and sometimes Max, depending on whether Max had fed her recently.

Jimmy was clever.

Jimmy had observed the humans.

The balcony door opened when Max pushed the handle down and slid it across. The handle was high. Jimmy could not reach it.

But sometimes Max left the door not quite closed.

Max had a habit of doing this when he came in after watering the plants. He would slide it mostly shut, then get distracted by his phone or a call or the other human who sometimes came over and made him laugh in the soft voice.

Jimmy waited.

He was patient.

He was a hunter.

He was a romantic hero.

He was also, according to Sassy, extremely annoying.

On the fifth afternoon, the opportunity came.

Max had been on a phone call for a long time, pacing barefoot through the apartment.

“No, I know,” Max said into the phone. “But it’s stupid. Why would we do that?”

Jimmy did not know what was stupid. Many things were stupid. Vacuums. Rain. Sassy’s attitude.

Max went onto the balcony with his phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, watered the plants, argued with someone named GP, then came back inside.

The door slid almost closed.

Almost.

Jimmy’s heart began to pound.

Cleo was on her balcony.

She was sitting on her cushion, watching him.

This was a sign.

Jimmy crouched.

Sassy, from the sofa, lifted her head.

Her eyes narrowed.

Jimmy ignored her.

He pushed his nose into the tiny gap between door and frame.

It moved.

Not much.

Enough.

“Jimmy,” Max said.

Jimmy froze.

Max was still on the phone, looking directly at him.

Jimmy looked back.

Max pointed at him. “No.”

Jimmy considered this.

Then he ran.

“Jimmy!”

The gap widened under his shoulder. The balcony air hit his whiskers. The floor was warm under his paws. Behind him, Max swore.

Jimmy darted across the balcony.

There was a gap between his balcony and Cleo’s balcony.

It was not enormous.

It was, however, a gap.

Jimmy stopped at the edge.

Cleo watched him.

Jimmy looked down.

That was very far.

Jimmy looked back.

Max had dropped his phone somewhere inside and was coming toward him with the expression he wore when someone on television said something stupid about his driving.

“Don’t,” Max said.

Jimmy looked at Cleo.

Cleo blinked.

Jimmy made his decision.

He did not jump across the gap.

Jimmy was romantic, not suicidal.

Instead, he discovered something better.

There was a low dividing wall at the far end, where the two balconies met around the corner. It was narrow. It was slightly ridiculous. It was absolutely climbable.

“Jimmy, I swear to God—”

Jimmy climbed.

Max lunged.

Jimmy was faster.

He scrambled onto the wall, tail high, paws careful, heart full of purpose.

The world became ledge and air and Max saying words Jimmy was probably not supposed to understand.

Sassy appeared at the open balcony door.

She did not look concerned.

She looked entertained.

Traitor.

Jimmy crossed the little wall and dropped onto the neighbouring balcony.

Cleo did not move.

Jimmy landed, shook himself, and looked at her.

He had done it.

He had crossed kingdoms.

He had defied glass.

He had escaped.

He had proven his love.

Cleo stretched one front paw luxuriously, then the other. Her bell gave a tiny, perfect chime.

Jimmy approached slowly.

Cleo did not hiss.

Cleo did not swat him.

Cleo leaned forward and sniffed his nose.

Jimmy’s entire soul left his body.

From the other balcony, Max said, “Oh, you little idiot.”

Jimmy did not care.

Cleo had touched noses with him.

Jimmy was never going home again.

Then the balcony door behind Cleo opened.

The woman in the cardigan stepped out.

For a second, everyone froze.

Jimmy looked up.

The woman looked down.

Cleo sat beside him, serene and innocent, as if she had personally invited him for tea.

“Oh,” the woman said.

Max, from the other balcony, said, “I am so sorry.”

The woman looked across.

Jimmy turned his head.

Max was standing on his own balcony with one hand braced on the railing, hair messy, wearing an old Red Bull T-shirt and the expression of a man whose cat had just ruined his life.

The woman blinked.

Then she smiled.

It was a nice smile.

Jimmy noticed because Max noticed.

Max always noticed things like apexes, tyre degradation, and people smiling at him.

“Is he yours?” the woman asked.

Max looked at Jimmy.

Jimmy sat down beside Cleo.

Cleo’s tail curled around her paws.

Max exhaled through his nose. “Unfortunately.”

Jimmy did not know what unfortunately meant, but Max used it often when talking about people he loved.

The woman laughed.

Max’s expression changed.

Not a lot.

A little.

Jimmy knew Max’s faces. Max had many faces even though humans often thought he only had three. There was angry Max, sleepy Max, race Max, cat Max, soft Max, and the very rare Max who had just realized someone pretty was laughing at something he said.

This was that one.

“He seems very sweet,” the woman said.

Max looked at Jimmy again.

Jimmy looked back with dignity.

“He is not,” Max said. “He is a menace.”

The woman crouched and held out her fingers.

Jimmy sniffed them politely.

Vanilla. Laundry soap. Flowers. Cleo.

Acceptable.

“Oh, he is sweet,” she said.

Max snorted. “He waited five days to break into your balcony.”

“Determined, then.”

“Stubborn.”

“Romantic.”

Max paused.

Jimmy’s ears twitched.

The woman smiled down at Jimmy. “He came to visit Cleo.”

Cleo lifted her chin.

Yes. Obviously.

Max dragged a hand through his hair. “I should come get him.”

“I can pass him over.”

“No, no. He will act like you are murdering him. Better if I come around.”

The woman stood. “I’m in 42B.”

“I know,” Max said, then immediately looked annoyed with himself. “I mean—not in a weird way. It is just next door.”

The woman’s smile widened.

Jimmy thought Max was doing badly.

This was surprising. Max was usually good at things. Driving. Cats. Looking angry at people. Opening food pouches.

Flirting, apparently, required Jimmy’s supervision.

“I’m Élise,” the woman said.

“Max.”

“I know.”

Max’s eyebrows lifted.

Élise looked amused. “Not in a weird way. It is just next door.”

Max stared at her for half a second.

Then he laughed.

Jimmy had heard Max laugh many times. Loudly, with his friends. Softly, at his phone. Breathlessly, when Sassy fell off the sofa and pretended she had meant to do it.

This laugh was different.

It came out surprised.

Jimmy was very proud of himself.

He stayed beside Cleo while Max disappeared from the balcony and reappeared a few minutes later at Élise’s front door.

Jimmy heard the bell.

Then footsteps.

Then Élise opening the door.

Then Max saying, “Hi.”

Then Élise saying, “Hi.”

Then nothing for a moment.

Humans were so inefficient.

Jimmy leaned toward Cleo and sniffed her cheek.

Cleo allowed it.

Best day of his life.

Max appeared on the balcony through Élise’s apartment, looking around like he was trying very hard not to look around too much.

“Nice place,” he said.

“Thank you,” Élise replied. “Cleo has allowed me to decorate it.”

Max glanced at Cleo. “Generous of her.”

“She’s very strict.”

“I have one like that. Her name is Sassy.”

“Is she the one who judges everyone from the window?”

Max nodded gravely. “That is her main job.”

Jimmy was offended. Sassy had other jobs too. Hitting him. Sitting in boxes. Refusing food until Max became concerned, then eating it when he turned around.

Élise crouched beside Jimmy again. “And this one is?”

“Jimmy.”

Jimmy lifted his head.

The way she said his name was nice.

“Jimmy,” Élise repeated, stroking one finger gently between his ears. “You are very handsome.”

Jimmy closed his eyes.

Yes.

Finally.

Recognition.

Max muttered, “Don’t encourage him.”

“I think he has excellent taste.”

Cleo, as though she understood that she was being admired, tucked her paws under her chest and became a cloud.

Max looked at Élise.

Élise looked at Max.

Jimmy opened one eye.

Ah.

There.

The thing.

Humans had it too, apparently.

The slow blink.

Only with more awkwardness.

Max cleared his throat. “Sorry again.”

“It’s fine. Cleo enjoyed the company.”

Jimmy perked up.

She did?

Max picked Jimmy up.

Jimmy considered protesting.

Then he remembered he was in Max’s arms, which was one of the safest places in the world, and chose magnanimity.

Élise walked them to the door.

Cleo remained on the balcony like a queen receiving departing guests.

“Maybe next time he can come through the front door,” Élise said.

Max stopped.

Jimmy felt him stop.

“Next time?” Max asked.

Élise’s mouth curved. “For Cleo, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Jimmy looked between them.

Max was not looking at Cleo.

Élise was not looking at Jimmy.

Interesting.

“I can give you my number,” Élise said. “In case he escapes again.”

Max’s hand shifted under Jimmy’s paws.

“Yes,” Max said. “That would be good.”

Jimmy purred.

He was a genius.

When Max carried him back into their apartment, Sassy was waiting in the hallway.

Her tail flicked.

Max shut the door behind him, still looking faintly pleased with himself.

Jimmy wriggled until Max set him down.

Sassy walked up to him.

Jimmy lifted his chin.

He had touched noses with a goddess.

He had crossed a balcony.

He had helped Max acquire a number.

He was untouchable.

Sassy sniffed him.

Then she smacked him so hard he sat down.

“Sassy,” Max said, distracted, still looking at his phone.

Jimmy shook his head and glared at her.

Sassy turned and walked away, tail high.

She was jealous.

Obviously.

Over the next week, Jimmy escaped three more times.

The second time was through the window above the balcony doors, which Max had not realized opened far enough for a cat until Jimmy proved that it did.

The third time was when a delivery man arrived and Jimmy slipped between Max’s feet with the grace and determination of a professional criminal.

The fourth time was, admittedly, Sassy’s fault.

Jimmy stood by this.

Sassy had pushed a throw blanket off the sofa, distracting Max for exactly four seconds.

Jimmy used those four seconds to slide through the balcony door and make his way to Cleo.

Sassy later denied involvement by pretending to be asleep.

Max did not believe her.

“I am being outsmarted by cats,” Max said that evening, standing on Élise’s doorstep with Jimmy tucked under one arm like a furry handbag.

Élise leaned against the doorframe. She was wearing soft trousers and a jumper with the sleeves pulled over her hands.

Jimmy liked her. She always smelled kind. She always scratched his chin properly. She did not speak to him in a silly voice unless she thought no one was listening.

Cleo liked him too.

Probably.

She allowed him to sit near her. Sometimes she touched his tail with her paw. Once she had groomed his ear for six full seconds before deciding he was beneath her again.

Jimmy was prepared to be patient.

Great love required sacrifice.

“You look very defeated for someone who drives cars very fast for a living,” Élise said.

Max gave her a flat look. “The car usually listens to me.”

“Does it?”

“No,” Max admitted. “But more than Jimmy.”

Élise laughed.

Jimmy purred in support.

Max looked down. “You are the reason I am here.”

Jimmy blinked innocently.

Élise reached out and stroked his head. “Maybe he just misses Cleo.”

“He saw her two hours ago.”

“Love has no schedule.”

Max opened his mouth, then closed it.

Élise’s smile became smug.

Max huffed. “You are enjoying this.”

“A little.”

“You could pretend to be annoyed.”

“I could,” Élise said. “But then you might stop coming over.”

Max went still.

Jimmy felt it.

A tiny shift.

A change in breathing.

A moment where Max, who was usually so fast at everything, needed a second.

Élise looked suddenly less smug.

Jimmy looked between them again.

Humans.

Hopeless.

Max said, “I could come over without him escaping.”

Élise’s cheeks changed colour.

Jimmy’s ears flicked.

Oh.

Interesting.

“Yes,” Élise said. “You could.”

Max nodded once, like he had just received important strategy instructions.

“I could bring wine,” he said.

“I like wine.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Jimmy waited.

Max waited.

Élise waited.

Cleo appeared behind Élise’s legs and gave a small, delicate meow.

Jimmy immediately forgot the humans existed.

He wriggled.

Max tightened his grip.

“No,” Max said.

Jimmy wriggled harder.

“Absolutely not.”

Cleo meowed again.

Jimmy made a desperate little sound.

Élise put a hand over her mouth.

Max looked personally betrayed. “Do not laugh. He knows when people laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You are.”

“I’m smiling supportively.”

“You are enabling him.”

“I am supporting love.”

Max looked at Jimmy.

Jimmy looked at Cleo.

Cleo blinked.

Max sighed. “Five minutes.”

Jimmy loved Max.

Max put him down.

Jimmy trotted to Cleo with great dignity.

Behind him, Max and Élise remained near the door.

“So,” Élise said. “Wine?”

“Tomorrow?” Max asked.

“I’m free tomorrow.”

“I’m free after training.”

“Is that afternoon or evening?”

“Depends if my trainer wants to kill me.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“No. He usually fails.”

Élise laughed again.

Jimmy settled beside Cleo.

This was excellent.

The following afternoon, Max spent too long choosing a shirt.

Jimmy knew this because Max changed three times.

Max did not usually change three times. Max usually wore the first thing that did not smell unacceptable. Sometimes even that standard was flexible.

Sassy sat on the bed and watched him with cool disdain.

Jimmy sat beside her.

They were united, briefly, in judgment.

Max held up a dark shirt.

Sassy blinked.

Max held up a lighter one.

Jimmy yawned.

Max looked at them. “You are no help.”

Sassy began washing her shoulder.

Max wore the dark shirt.

He smelled nervous, though he would have denied this under oath.

He picked up the wine bottle from the counter, then put it down, then picked it up again.

Jimmy followed him to the door.

“No,” Max said immediately.

Jimmy sat.

Max pointed at him. “You are not coming.”

Jimmy looked wounded.

“You are the reason this is happening,” Max said. “You do not also get to attend.”

Jimmy meowed.

Max crouched. “No.”

Jimmy meowed again, softer.

Max’s face changed.

Jimmy knew this face.

Victory was close.

Then Sassy walked over and smacked Jimmy on the back of the head.

Max stood. “Thank you, Sassy.”

Sassy accepted this praise with the regal indifference of someone who had done it for herself.

Max left.

Without Jimmy.

This was unforgivable.

Jimmy sat by the door for three minutes.

Then he went to the balcony.

Sassy followed him.

The lights were on next door. Through the glass, Jimmy could see Max standing in Élise’s kitchen while Élise poured wine. Cleo was on the bar stool, which Jimmy admired because Max never let him sit on the bar stools unless Max did not see him do it.

Max looked more relaxed now.

Élise was smiling.

Cleo flicked her tail.

Jimmy pressed one paw to the glass.

Sassy sat beside him.

For once, she did not hit him.

They watched.

Max laughed at something Élise said. Élise touched his arm. Max looked down at her hand, then back at her face.

Jimmy did not understand everything humans said.

He understood tone.

He understood warmth.

He understood Max looking like the apartment had become a little less empty while he stood in someone else’s kitchen.

Sassy’s tail brushed his.

Jimmy leaned into her side.

She allowed it for seven seconds.

Then she bit his ear.

Normal.

Max came home very late.

Jimmy was waiting in the hallway.

Sassy pretended she was not.

Max opened the door quietly, stepped inside, and looked down at them.

“You two are creepy,” he said.

Jimmy smelled Élise on him.

Wine. Vanilla. Flowers.

Also Cleo.

Jimmy immediately forgave him.

Max locked the door, kicked off his shoes, and bent to scratch Jimmy under the chin.

“She asked if you can come over tomorrow,” Max said.

Jimmy perked up.

“For Cleo,” Max added.

Jimmy purred.

Max smiled faintly.

Then he looked at Sassy. “She asked about you too.”

Sassy stared at him.

Max grinned. “Yes, I told her you are horrible.”

Sassy turned and walked away.

Jimmy thought this was fair.

The visits became regular after that.

Sometimes Jimmy went to see Cleo.

Sometimes Cleo came over to see Jimmy, carried in Élise’s arms like royalty visiting a lesser court.

The first time Cleo entered Max’s apartment, Sassy acted as though an enemy nation had invaded.

She sat on top of the bookshelf and glared down at the white Persian with magnificent hatred.

Cleo did not care.

Cleo walked directly to Jimmy’s favourite blanket, sniffed it, and sat on it.

Jimmy nearly fainted.

Sassy hissed.

Cleo blinked slowly.

Sassy seemed offended by the elegance of the response.

Max, standing beside Élise, whispered, “This is going better than expected.”

Élise whispered back, “Sassy looks like she is planning a coup.”

“She always looks like that.”

“Has she ever attempted one?”

“Several.”

Élise laughed softly and leaned into Max’s side.

Max went still for one tiny second before his arm moved around her waist like he had been doing it for years.

Jimmy saw.

Sassy saw.

Cleo probably knew already.

Cleo knew many things.

Later, when Élise and Max sat on the sofa with wine glasses on the coffee table, Jimmy lay on the rug beside Cleo. Sassy remained on the bookshelf, refusing to participate in diplomatic relations.

Élise’s voice was soft.

“I’m glad he escaped,” she said.

Max hummed. “Jimmy?”

“Yes.”

“He is very pleased with himself.”

“He should be.”

Max looked at Jimmy.

Jimmy closed his eyes and pretended not to listen.

“He is still a menace,” Max said.

Élise said, “Maybe. But a useful one.”

Max was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “Yes.”

Jimmy’s chest warmed.

He did not know what useful meant, exactly.

But Max’s voice was soft.

That was enough.

Cleo shifted closer until her side touched his.

Jimmy stopped breathing.

Sassy, from the bookshelf, made a noise of disgust.

Jimmy ignored her.

His sister could be mean.

Max could be stubborn.

Humans could be very slow.

Glass doors could be cruel.

But Jimmy had known love when he saw it.

White fur glowing in afternoon sun.

A gold bell.

A slow blink from a balcony.

And now, Max laughing softly beside Élise while Cleo slept next to Jimmy on the rug.

Jimmy had crossed kingdoms for this.

He had escaped four times.

He had been smacked by Sassy, carried by Max, praised by Élise, and blessed by Cleo’s presence.

Worth it.

Completely worth it.

Then Cleo opened one rainwater eye and gently placed her paw on top of Jimmy’s.

Jimmy purred so loudly Max looked over.

Élise smiled.

Sassy jumped down from the bookshelf, marched across the room, and smacked him.

Jimmy barely felt it.

You waited for him to explain, but he returned his attention to his phone, forehead creasing at whatever message he was reading. You told yourself there was nothing unusual about it. He sometimes removed it when he trained, and once or twice he’d forgotten to put it back on before leaving the house, although usually he noticed within an hour and sent you a message about it.

This time, however, the ring remained on the bedside table.

It was still there when he left for the factory the following morning. It sat beside his watch, placed neatly on the dark wood rather than abandoned carelessly, which somehow made its absence from his hand feel more deliberate.

“You’ve forgotten this again,” you said, holding it out to him as he came back into the bedroom to retrieve his wallet.

Max looked at the ring, then at you.

“I didn’t forget.”

Your fingers slowly curled around it. “You’re not wearing it?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly, without the sheepish smile you had expected, and something unpleasant tightened beneath your ribs.

“Why not?”

Max sighed, already sensing that the conversation was becoming more serious than he believed it needed to be. He stepped closer and placed his hands on your waist, rubbing his thumbs over the soft fabric of your jumper as if affection alone would smooth the concern from your face.

“It’s uncomfortable, it catches on everything,” he explained. “Especially when I’m driving or training. I keep noticing it and I don’t really like wearing jewellery anyway,” flexing his fingers as though the ring had been causing him some terrible physical hardship rather than a faint inconvenience.

“You’ve worn it for nearly two years.”

“Yes and it’s annoyed me for nearly two years.”

You stared at him but he just smiled, trying his best to make it sound harmless. “Not because it’s our wedding ring… just because it’s a ring.”

“It never seemed to bother you before.”

“It did. I just didn’t say anything because I knew you would take it personally.”

“I’m not taking it personally.”

“You are.”

“Well you never said anything.”

“Because I knew you'd be upset.” His answer came too easily. You looked at him for several seconds, waiting for some awareness of how unhelpful that confession was, but Max merely took a small step back.

“So you knew it would hurt me, and you decided to do it anyway.”

His expression tightened. “That’s not what I said.”

“It’s very close.”

“I just told you.” Max lifted one hand to your cheek. “It has nothing to do with you. I love you. I am married to you. I am completely committed to you and a ring does not change any of that.”

“It represents it.”

“To other people maybe.”

“To me.”

His hand fell away from your face and he looked briefly frustrated, although he tried to conceal it. Max had never understood attaching enormous significance to objects. He cared about actions, loyalty and the things that existed privately between you, the parts of your marriage that did not require an audience. To him the ring was a symbol of something he already knew with complete certainty and symbols had always mattered less to him than facts.

The fact was that he loved you.

The fact was that he came home to you.

The fact was that he had stood in front of everyone who mattered and promised that there would never be anybody else for as long as he lived.

He didn’t understand why a narrow band of gold should carry more weight than all of that.

“It doesn’t make me more married when I wear it,” he said carefully. “And taking it off doesn’t make me less married. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“I suppose I was asking you to care that it means something to me.”

Max’s expression faltered, but only briefly. He stepped back towards you and placed both hands on your waist again, drawing you close despite the stiffness in your body. His voice softened as he kissed your forehead, evidently believing the affection should reassure you more effectively than any further discussion.

“I care about everything that matters to you,” he murmured. “But I think you’re taking this personally when it has nothing to do with you.”

You pulled back enough to look at him. “You keep saying that as if it helps.”

“It should help. I love you.”

“I know.” you repeated

“Then trust that.”

You did trust it. That was almost the most irritating part.

It’s not like Max was trying to appear single. He wasn’t ashamed of you, nor was he concealing your marriage from anybody. He spoke about you constantly, often without realising he had done it, he’d developed a habit of beginning stories with my wife even when your marital status had absolutely no relevance to what followed. There was no hidden intention behind his decision as far as you could tell.

Still, it hurt.

Perhaps because you remembered how he’d looked at the ring on your wedding day, turning your hand beneath the light with a tenderness that had made your chest ache. Or maybe because he’d spent weeks before the ceremony pretending not to care about the design only to privately contact the jeweller three separate times to ensure the engraving was exactly right. Possibly because after the wedding you’d caught him looking down at his own hand with a small, private smile, as though the ring proved something he’d once been afraid he would never have.

It had meant something then.

You didn’t understand why it suddenly meant nothing now.

“I don’t want to argue before you leave,” you said, placing the ring back on the bedside table.

Max studied your face. “Then don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’ve hurt you.”

You gave him a thin smile. “You should go. You’re already late.”

He kissed your forehead before leaving, lingering for a moment as though reluctant to end the conversation there, but he still left the ring behind.

Over the next week you tried to let it go. You reminded yourself repeatedly that he hadn’t changed. There no secret motive for you to uncover, no suspicious behaviour hiding beneath his decision and no sudden reluctance to acknowledge your marriage. Max spoke about you constantly, often with an unmistakable pride that made even strangers aware of how thoroughly his life had rearranged itself around you. He introduced you as his wife when everybody in the room already knew who you were, kept photographs of you tucked into places he thought you’d never noticed and called you after almost every meeting, flight or race because he seemed to measure the passing of his days by when he could speak to you again. He still reached for your hand beneath restaurant tables, and he still pulled you against him in his sleep as though even unconsciousness made him possessive of the space between you. He continued to behave exactly like your husband.

He simply did it without looking like one.

Other people noticed.

His mother asked whether his fingers had swollen from training. One of the mechanics jokingly asked if he’d already lost it. A journalist’s gaze dropped conspicuously towards his hand during an interview before she carefully rephrased a question about how married life was treating him.

Max answered every comment with the same calm explanation.

He didn’t like jewellery.

The ring was uncomfortable for his style of work.

It did not mean anything.

You smiled whenever somebody looked towards you for reassurance, unwilling to admit that each repetition made the irritation beneath your skin burn a little hotter.

The final push came at a sponsor dinner in Monaco.

You were standing beside Max while he spoke with a group of executives, only half following the conversation as you watched a woman at the edge of the group look him over. She was subtle about it, but not subtle enough. Her attention lingered on his face, his shoulders and then, predictably, his bare left hand.

Her smile changed.

She stepped closer.

You watched her direct questions exclusively at him, laugh too brightly at comments that were not particularly funny and touch his forearm while making a point. Max remained oblivious, answering politely and occasionally glancing towards you, but he didn’t move away from her touch until he saw your expression.

Then he shifted immediately, placing a hand at the small of your back and drawing you closer.

“This is my wife,” he said, although you’d already been introduced.

The woman looked briefly embarrassed. “Of course.”

Max’s hand remained firmly against you for the rest of the conversation.

In the car afterwards he glanced towards you several times before eventually saying, “You’re quiet tonight.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re annoyed.”

“I’m apparently always annoyed now.”

“She knew I was married.”

“After you told her.”

Max frowned.

“She looked at your hand, saw no ring and thought she could try.”

“And then I told her you were my wife.”

You turned towards the window. “Exactly.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’re making this into something it’s not.”

“I— I, maybe.” You stuttered slightly, and then looked back out the window.

The ease of your agreement made him suspicious, but he decided to let it go as you said nothing else.

The following morning you removed your wedding ring.

You didn’t announce it, you didn’t leave it pointedly on his side of the bathroom counter or place it somewhere he would be forced to notice. You simply slipped it from your finger while getting dressed and put it inside the small jewellery box in your wardrobe.

For the first few hours Max didn’t realise. He kissed you goodbye, left for a meeting and sent you two irritated messages about traffic. When he returned home in the afternoon he found you in the kitchen arranging flowers that had been delivered earlier that day.

He walked behind you, wrapped both arms around your waist and kissed the side of your neck.

“Who sent these?”

“The foundation.”

“For what?”

“The charity dinner next week.”

He reached around you to examine the card, and his gaze fell upon your hand.

His entire body went still.

You felt the change immediately, although you continued trimming the stem of a flower.

“Where’s your ring?”

The question sounded remarkably similar to the one you’d asked him a week earlier, except there was none of your tentative confusion in his voice. Max sounded sharp, alert and instantly displeased.

“In my jewellery box.”

“Why?”

“It was uncomfortable.”

He released you slowly. You could almost feel him arranging his response, separating what he wanted to say from what he was allowed to say. When you finally turned around, his jaw was set and his eyes were fixed on your bare finger.

“Your ring has never been uncomfortable. You’ve taken it off because I stopped wearing mine.” Max sighed frustrated.

“I thought you said it didn’t matter.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Perhaps it’s annoyed me for years and I never said anything because I knew you would take it personally.”

His gaze lifted to yours. “You’re doing this to prove a point.”

“I’m just doing the same thing you are.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Why does the reason matter if the ring doesn’t? How is it different?”

“Because you like wearing yours.”

“You don’t get to decide whether I like wearing it.”

“I know you like it.” His voice tightened. “You play with it when you are nervous. You touch it whenever somebody asks about the wedding. You never take it off unless you’re showering or sleeping.”

“Maybe I changed my mind.”

“You didn’t change your mind. You’re trying to irritate me.”

You returned your attention to the flowers, choosing another stem. “Why would it irritate you? A ring doesn’t make me more married, and taking it off doesn’t make me less married. You know I love you. You know I’m committed to you. I shouldn’t need jewellery to prove that.”

Max stared at you in silence.

Hearing his own reasoning returned to him should have ended the argument. Instead, it seemed to make something darker and more complicated move behind his eyes.

“I don’t like it,” he said eventually.

You tried not to smile. “That sounds personal.”

“It is personal.”

“Interesting.”

“Put it back on.”

You looked at him then, unable to conceal your disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am serious.”

“So you can decide that you don’t want to wear yours, but I have to wear mine because you’ve told me to?”

“I didn’t tell you that you had to.”

“You just said, ‘Put it back on.’”

Max looked increasingly frustrated, not with you so much as with the fact that he had walked directly into a trap constructed from his own words. He rubbed a hand across his mouth, glancing again at your empty finger.

“You’re my wife.”

“And you’re my husband.”

“I know.”

“People can’t tell that when they look at your hand.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“And I’ll tell them,” you shot back quick.

“That’s not the point,” The words escaped before he could stop them.

Your eyebrows rose. “No?”

Max closed his eyes briefly.

He knew he was being hypocritical. He knew every argument he wanted to make could be dismantled with something he’d already said to you, and more importantly, he knew you knew it too.

You waited, but he had nothing else to offer. He couldn’t admit that the sight bothered him without giving validity to everything he’d dismissed, and he was too proud to concede the argument when he still believed his original reasoning made sense.

“All right,” you said eventually. “Then it shouldn’t be a problem.”

The following days became a quiet war.

Neither of you wore your ring and neither of you mentioned it. Max’s discomfort however, became increasingly obvious.

At dinner with friends he watched the waiter smile at you for a little too long while describing the specials. When you thanked him, Max’s hand immediately settled possessively on your thigh beneath the table. At a party an acquaintance you’d met only once before touched your elbow and asked whether you were attending alone. Max appeared at your side before you could answer.

“No,” he said, sliding an arm around your waist. “She’s here with her husband.”

The man blinked. “I didn’t realise.”

You pressed your lips together to hide your amusement.

Max did not find any of it amusing.

Without your ring every innocent interaction seemed to catch his attention, he noticed men looking at you in bars, strangers finding reasons to start conversations and old friends becoming slightly too familiar. Most of them likely would have behaved exactly the same way had the ring been there, but Max no longer had that immediate, visible claim to comfort himself with.

It made him restless.

It also made him clingy.

His hand rarely left your waist in public, he introduced you as his wife with unnecessary frequency. He kissed you more openly, sometimes in the middle of conversations, and stood so close behind you that the front of his body remained pressed to your back.

You knew precisely what he was doing.

He was replacing the symbol he had dismissed with constant physical reminders that you belonged together.

The hypocrisy was so obvious that you expected him to surrender.

Instead, the disagreement became something neither of you could address without reigniting the original argument. Max refused to wear his ring, and you refused to wear yours, while both of you quietly resented the other for making the same choice.

The situation finally broke at the next race weekend.

A set of images from a sponsor dinner appeared online showing you and Max standing several feet apart during a conversation. In one photograph his bare left hand was visible and in another, so was yours.

The speculation began almost immediately.

Most people dismissed it, but enough accounts repeated the suggestion that your marriage might be in trouble for the rumour to reach journalists. A reporter asked Max about it during a media session, disguising the question as casual concern.

Max’s face hardened instantly.

“My marriage is fine,” he answered.

The journalist began to clarify, but Max interrupted.

“It’s more than fine. My wife and I are very happy and there’s no story.”

When he came back to the hotel that evening, he was furious. You were sitting on the sofa when he entered, his phone clenched in one hand. He tossed it down on the table and began removing his jacket with agitated movements.

“They’re saying we separated.”

“I saw.”

“We could’ve released something.”

“A statement announcing that our marriage is intact but neither of us likes wearing jewellery?”

Max looked at you sharply. “This is not funny.”

“I don’t think it’s funny.”

“They’re saying you’ve moved out.”

“I’m sitting in our hotel room.”

“They don’t know that.”

You held his gaze. “You can tell them.”

The reminder of his own words made his jaw clench.

“I did tell them.”

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“There is a problem when thousands of people think my wife has left me.”

“Why do you care what they think?”

“I don’t care about them.”

“Then who?”

Max turned away, pacing towards the window before facing you again.

“I care that somebody might believe you’re available.”

There it was again, the truth he kept revealing in pieces without ever allowing himself to examine it fully.

“You know I’m not.”

“That’s not the point.”

You stood slowly. “That’s exactly what you said to me.”

“I know what I said.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, and I still believe it. I know you’re committed to me. I know a ring doesn’t change that.”

“But you hate other people not knowing.”

Max didn’t answer.

“You hate the possibility that someone might look at my hand and think there’s space for them in my life,” you continued. “You hate having to explain that I’m your wife after they’ve already approached me, and you hate that people are looking at photographs and questioning whether our marriage is secure.”

“Obviously.”

The answer was quiet, but it came without hesitation.

“That’s how I felt when you took yours off.”

“It’s not the same.”

Your frustration finally broke through. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because I didn’t take it off to hurt you!”

“And I didn’t take mine off to make people think I’d left you, I took it off because you made me feel foolish for caring about it.”

Max stopped. You had said versions of the same thing before, but never so directly. His anger faltered as he looked at you.

“You treated the ring like it was meaningless,” you said. “You made me feel shallow.”

“I never said you were shallow.”

“You kept telling me that your love should be enough, as though wanting the symbol as well meant I didn’t trust you. I never thought you were going to cheat on me. I never thought you wanted to look single. I only wanted you to understand that it meant something to see you choose to wear it.”

Max’s eyes lowered towards your hand.

“And when you refused,” you continued, your voice less steady now, “I started looking at mine and feeling stupid. Every time I wore it beside you, it felt as though I was publicly claiming something you’d decided was too inconvenient to acknowledge in the same way.”

“That’s not what I was doing.”

“I know… logically I know, but it’s how it made me feel.”

He came closer, but you stepped back before he could touch you. The movement seemed to wound him more than anything else you’d said.

“I need some air,” you murmured.

“It’s late.”

“I’m going downstairs, not leaving the country.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“I’d like to go alone.”

Max’s face changed. His protective instinct battled visibly with his awareness that following you would only make the situation worse.

You picked up your phone and left before he could decide.

The hotel bar was quiet, occupied mostly by guests finishing late drinks after the event. You found a seat at the far end of the counter and ordered water, wanting space more than alcohol.

You’d been alone for less than ten minutes when a man took the seat beside you. You recognised him vaguely although you couldn’t remember his name. He worked for one of the sponsors and had spoken to you earlier in the evening while Max was occupied.

“Escaping the crowd?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

He smiled. “I was hoping I might see you again.”

The intention behind the comment was clear enough to make you straighten.

“I’m married.”

His gaze dropped predictably towards your hand.

“I heard there might be some uncertainty about that.”

“There isn’t.”

The firmness of your answer should have ended the conversation instead he leaned one arm against the bar. “Then your husband is a very lucky man.”

“We both are.”

“Does he know you’re down here alone?”

You turned towards him fully. “I don’t need my husband’s permission to sit in a hotel bar.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“It sounded like it.”

Before the man could respond, a familiar voice came from behind you.

“She also doesn’t need to explain herself to you.”

Max stood several feet away, his expression too controlled to be anything but anger. His sleeves were rolled unevenly, the top buttons of his shirt undone like he had followed you before he could stop himself.

The man rose. “We were only talking.”

“I heard enough.” When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but unbridled jealousy sat beneath every word.

“Max,” you warned.

His gaze shifted to you, softening for only a second before returning to the man.

“She told you she was married.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Then leaving should be easy.”

The man muttered something beneath his breath but walked away. Max watched until he disappeared through the doors, then turned towards you. His restraint was already fraying.

“What were you thinking?”

Your disbelief was immediate. “Excuse me?”

“Sitting down here alone without your ring while people are saying we separated.”

“I told him I was married.”

“He didn’t care.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you angry about?”

“That he looked at you as if he had a chance!”

His voice rose enough to draw attention from the other end of the bar. Max noticed it too, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to lower his voice, but the emotion was still there, sharp and impossible to hide.

For a second neither of you said anything more. Then Max looked around the room, like he had only just remembered where you were.

“We’re not doing this here,” he said.

You should have argued. Part of you wanted to, just to make him stand there a little longer with all that jealousy burning under his skin, but the truth was, your own chest felt too tight, and you hated the idea of strangers pretending not to listen.

So you walked past him towards the lifts.

Max followed half a step behind you, close enough that you could feel him there, but not touching you. That somehow made it worse. He was usually all hands when he was like this hand on your waist, fingers at your back, some small claim disguised as care. Now he seemed to know he had lost the right to do it.

The lift ride was silent.

The moment the hotel room door clicked shut behind you, the argument picked up exactly where it had left off.

“You don’t get to be angry at me for this,” you said, turning on him.

Max was already facing you, one hand still on the door handle. “I’m not angry at you.”

“You are.”

“No I’m angry because he thought he had a chance, he sat beside you because he thought you were alone and when you said you were married he looked at your hand and decided he didn’t have to respect it.”

“That is exactly what happened to me when that woman approached you.”

“I know.”

“You dismissed it.”

“I know.”

“Then why are we still having this argument?”

Max stared at you, breathing hard as the anger gradually drained from his face. In its place came something far more exposed.

“Because I was wrong.”

The admission was not enough to soothe you immediately, particularly after weeks of stubbornness.

“You could have said that days ago.”

“I always understood that it upset you,” he continued. “I guess I just didn’t fully understand why.”

“And now?”

Max looked down at your hand. “Now… I still think a ring doesn’t make us married,” he admitted. “I still think what we have is more important than whether other people can see it.”

You waited.

“But I hate that they can’t see it.”

There it was, not quite an apology, but close.

You leaned back against the table. “Why?”

His eyes narrowed slightly, as if the answer should have been obvious.

“Because you’re mine.”

You gave him a warning look laced with a smirk.

“You know what I mean,” he said quickly. “Not that I own you, but you’re my person. You’re my wife, and I don’t like somebody looking at you and thinking that place beside you might be available.”

“It isn’t.”

“No.” Max stepped closer. “But I like that it tells them before they ask.”

You studied him for a long moment Max came to stand between your knees, his hands settling on your hips. Unlike all the other times he’d touched you over the past week there was no performance in it now, no deliberate need to show anybody what you were to each other. It was only the two of you in the small room.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You made me feel ridiculous.”

“I’m really sorry.”

He bowed his head towards yours, “I thought you were putting too much meaning into an object when you should already know how I feel. I didn’t really consider that wearing it was one of the ways I showed you how I feel.”

“And?”

“And I have been an enormous hypocrite.”

A laugh slipped out before you could stop it.

Max’s mouth twitched. “I knew that would make you happy.”

“A little.”

He brushed his thumb over the place where your ring usually rested.

“I don’t like jewellery,” he said. “That part is true. I still find the ring uncomfortable sometimes.”

You gave him a flat look.

“But I would rather notice it a hundred times a day than make you believe I don’t value what it represents.”

“Then we can find one that isn’t.”

He looked at you. “What?”

“A thinner band. A different material. Something you barely notice. I never said it had to be the exact ring we bought for the wedding.”

Max frowned as though this practical solution had somehow never occurred to him. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“The ring matters because you’re choosing to wear it. I don’t care whether it’s gold, silver, silicone or something you found inside a cereal box.”

“A cereal box?”

“Perhaps not that.”

He smiled properly then, his shoulders finally relaxing.

“I’ll wear the original when we go somewhere important,” he said. “And we can find something more comfortable for every day.”

“That sounds fair.”

“But you have to put yours back on.”

You lifted an eyebrow.

Max corrected himself reluctantly. “I would very much like you to put yours back on.”

“And not because you nearly had an aneurysm when a man assumed I was single?”

He slid one hand around the back of your neck, leaning closer until his forehead rested against yours.

“I trust you,” he murmured. “I don’t trust other people to behave properly around you.”

“You can’t be angry with them for not knowing I’m married when you’re the one who said I shouldn’t need a ring to show it.”

“I can be angry about whatever I like. I simply can’t blame you for it.”

You smiled. “Growth.”

His mouth found yours the kiss beginning soft before deepening with the same possessive edge that had coloured his behaviour all week. His hands tightened around your waist, pulling you firmly against him, and you felt the last of the tension in his body finally ease when your arms settled around his neck.

When he pulled back, he kissed the corner of your mouth once more.

“Will you wear it tomorrow?”

“I haven’t brought mine,” you said.

“It’s here.”

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I put it in the hotel safe.”

“You’ve known where it was this entire time?”

“Yes.”

“And you brought it with us?”

His expression became faintly sheepish. “I didn’t like leaving it at home.”

The confession was so painfully hypocritical that you stared at him.

“You carried my wedding ring across countries while insisting it did not matter?”

“Hey, I’ve already admitted I was wrong don’t I get some credit for that?”

“Will you wear yours?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it’s uncomfortable?”

Max sighed dramatically. “Until we replace it.”

You pretended to consider it.

“Then yes.”

The relief on his face was almost comical.

Later he retrieved your ring from the safe and placed it in your palm without immediately asking you to wear it. He sat beside you on the edge of the bed, his knee pressed against yours while he waited.

He held out his hand.

You took his ring first.

For a moment you simply turned it between your fingers, tracing the engraved date hidden along the inside. Then you slid it slowly back onto his finger. Max watched you with an intensity that made the moment feel strangely reminiscent of your wedding, stripped of the ceremony and the guests but not of its meaning.

He picked up yours next.

“I don’t need this to know you love me,” he said, looking at you rather than your hand.

“I know.”

“And you don’t need mine.”

“No.”

“But I will wear it because it matters to you.”

You softened. “And I’ll wear mine because it apparently keeps you from glaring at every innocent man who speaks to me.”

“None of them were innocent.” He growled.

“Max.” You laughed as he slipped the ring back onto your finger.

His thumb passed over it once, then again, and you watched the familiar satisfaction settle over his face. He lifted your hand to his mouth, kissing directly above the band before lacing your fingers together.

The rings didn’t make you married. They didn’t create the loyalty between you nor did they guarantee it. They couldn’t carry the full weight of every promise you had made or every private thing your marriage had become, but as Max stared down at your joined hands, both bands finally returned to their places he seemed to understand that symbols did not have to replace the truth to matter.

Sometimes they simply reminded you of it.

The soft rumble of the Impala’s engine outside her apartment had become a sound she knew by heart. She would tell herself not to look through the window. But she always did. There he’d be, leaning against the driver’s door with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, looking exhausted. Like he’d spent weeks carrying the weight of the world.

He never knocked twice.

“You awake?” he’d ask when she opened the door.

“You knew I would be.”

And just like that, the distance between them disappeared for a night. Pizza boxes left open on the coffee table, old movies neither of them actually watched. Conversations that wandered from stupid jokes to childhood memories, to hunts that almost went wrong, to dreams neither of them dared believe could ever happen.

Sometimes he’d fall asleep on her couch before making it to her room. Yet, their bodies would always find together some time throughout the night. He’d wake before sunrise, already pulling on his boots. Every single time. 

“You don’t have to leave yet,” she would whisper, still wrapped in a blanket. Dean would pause and for one impossible second, she’d think he might stay. Then he’d force that familiar crooked smile onto his face.

“I do.” No explanation, just those two words.

He’d press a lingering kiss to her lips, grab his keys, and disappear before the sun had fully risen. The only proof he’d been there was an empty coffee mug in the sink and the faint scent of leather and motor oil that lingered long after he’d left.

She tried convincing herself not to wait for him anymore. She dated other people when he was gone for months. Ignored his messages. Promised herself that the next time the Impala rolled into her street, she wouldn’t answer the door.

Then, weeks later, headlights would sweep across her curtains. And despite everything, her feet would carry her to the door. Because somehow Dean Winchester always knew exactly when to come back. Just never how to stay.

One rainy night, as he stood in her doorway with damp hair and shadows beneath his eyes, she looked at him for a long moment before speaking.

“You only ever come here when you’re running from something.” His jaw tightened.

“I’m not running.”

“No?” She folded her arms. “Then why do you always leave before morning?”

Silence stretched between them. The rain tapped against the windows. Finally, Dean looked down at the floor.

“You know this is complicated.” Her chest ached.

“Because of my dad?” 

Dean was her father’s best friend. The man who had carried her on his shoulders when she was little. The one who taught her how to throw her first punch, change a tire, and drive stick in the Impala after weeks of relentless begging.

He wasn’t supposed to look at her differently. (Y/n) wasn’t supposed to notice the gray beginning to dust his stubble. Or the way his voice dropped when he said her name. Or how lonely he looked when he thought nobody was watching

He kept quiet, ran a hand through his hair, and stared at her with those green eyes until she sighed and let him in; once again. An hour later, empty takeout containers littered her coffee table. Dean sat with one arm stretched across the back of the couch, his head tipped toward her as she talked about her week. He listened more than he spoke, smiling at the parts she didn’t even think were funny.

“You disappeared for five weeks,” she eventually said quietly.

“I know.”

“No call.”

“I know.”

“No text.”

Dean rubbed a hand across his face.

“I know.”

Her frustration had been simmering for weeks, and now it spilled over. It felt ugly, too cutting, too intense. “You vanish, Dean.”

He looked away.

“I had a job.”

“You always have a job.”

“You know what my life is.”

“And what am I?” Her voice cracked despite her best effort. “Some place you stop when you get tired of running?”

His jaw tightened at her words. “Don’t.”

“No.” She stood, putting space between them while anger began to drip from her words. “Answer me.”

Dean rose too. The apartment suddenly felt too small, the room too cold

“I come here because it’s the one place I don’t have to think, don’t have to play some role. Don’t take this from me.” His eyes finally snapped back to her. They were full of something he’d spent months trying to bury. “It matters too much.” 

The words stole the air from the room. She laughed once, bitterly. “You keep pretending this is easier than it is.”

His shoulders sagged. For the first time since she’d known him, Dean looked defeated, head hanging, hands balled into fists.

“You make me forget,” he admitted. “For one night I forget all the things waiting for me out there. And then morning comes and I’m reminded of the years between us, the memories, the promises.”

She reached up before she could stop herself, brushing her fingers lightly over the bruise on his jaw. His hand found hers, almost cautiously, as though he expected her to pull away. She didn't.

“You know I don’t care about the age gap or you being my dad’s best friend. All I care about is you, Dean.” A long silence stretched between them.

“So simple,” he murmured.

“It could be.”

He gave a small, sad smile. “No.”

The word hurt more than she expected. She started to step back, but Dean caught her wrist. His thumb brushed against her pulse.

“I’m sorry.” His gaze dropped to her lips for the briefest moment before snapping back to her eyes.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she spoke quietly. “This has to end, Dean. I won’t survive otherwise.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His grip loosened, giving her every chance to walk away. Instead, she closed the distance. The kiss was hesitant for exactly one second. Then weeks of distance, missed phone calls, unsaid apologies, and impossible feelings crashed together all at once.

His hand slid to her cheek, and hers tangled in the front of his shirt as if she was afraid he’d disappear before she could convince herself he was still real. When they finally broke apart, their foreheads rested together, both of them breathing a little harder. Dean closed his eyes.

“One last night is all I’m asking for,” he whispered.

She didn’t answer. (Y/n) stared at him for at least ten seconds before nodding her head, hoping to cover the hurt laced in her gaze. He followed her to the bedroom, the familiar path he had walked too many times to count. 

It didn’t take long for their clothes to hit the floor, one by one the layers were stripped away. Lips found skin, fingers found roots to tug on, hearts found a similar beat. One last night. One last high. One last kiss. The house of cards was about to collapse, and there would be nothing but hurting memories afterward. 

“Dean,” she panted his name, pressing herself closer to him while he lingered between her thighs. He cherished her taste, let it linger on his tongue while his arms had a tight grip around her thighs. He was set on pushing her over the edge with his mouth first, needing to watch her fall apart without being distracted himself. 

She shook as her orgasm rose, pulsing through her like a second heartbeat. His name left her, her fingers tugged on his roots, but his gaze never wavered. It stayed glued to her trembling body until her first high let go of her. 

“Condom?” She shook her head at the question. 

“Not if it’s our last time.” She had always asked for extra protection, not daring to wonder if he spent his weeks away around other women. But tonight she couldn’t care, tonight she needed all of him. 

Dean kept quiet at that. He moved up her body, lips leaving kisses every now and then, and then entered her, slowly, cautiously. Both moaned at the sensation, bodies adjusting after all that time apart. 

“Fuck,” it was a deep breath leaving him. He moved slowly, taking his time while she kept her legs wrapped around him. Their bodies met with every thrust, he was set on leaving marks as if he wanted to make her remember this for the next weeks. But (y/n) was sure her heartbreak would do a good job of reminding her anyway. 

“Atta girl, fuck, my pretty girl, you feel so good like this.” Tears gathered around her lashes, she tried to blink them away, but without luck. They began to drip down her cheeks while he kept moving, oblivious to them at first. It felt as if watering a grave, an empty home with a soul no longer there, yet the love remained, like it always would. 

The second he looked down at her, eyes no longer closed, his pace began to falter. He wiped the tears away with his thumb, but he kept quiet, not speaking words she needed to hear, confessions, promises, nothing. 

Her walls fluttered around him, even though she fought against the sensation. She didn’t want to cum yet, didn’t want to end it this quickly, but his fingers began to circle her bundle of nerves, pushing her over the edge once again.

Dean fucked her through the high, eyes not leaving hers while chasing his own release. He pulled out of her seconds before letting go, painting her stomach white with a deep groan. Both were heavily breathing, staring at one another until he closed the gap for another kiss. 

…

Morning arrived too soon, sunlight slipping through the curtains in thin stripes across the floor. Everything felt strangely still, as though the world outside had agreed to wait just a little longer.

She lay on her side, watching Dean pull on his T-shirt in silence. Neither of them mentioned what had happened. Neither of them needed to.

The air between them had changed. He sat on the edge of the bed to lace up his boots, elbows resting on his knees for a moment before he let out a slow breath.

“So,” he started quietly.

“So.”

His lips twitched into a tired smile.

“We’re really bad at ‘one last time.’”

She smiled despite herself. Dean reached for his jacket from the floor, turning it over in his hands before finally slipping it on.

(Y/n) wondered what would happen after today. She imagined Dean leaning against the kitchen counter with a beer while her father complained about a hunt. Sam would probably notice the silence first. He always noticed; her dad wouldn’t. He’d clap Dean on the shoulder, laugh too loud at one of his jokes, maybe even say something about how good it was to have everyone together again. The thought made her stomach twist.

“You think he’ll know?” She asked, eyes not meeting his. 

Dean’s expression hardened.

“No, he trusts me.” The words landed between them like broken glass. Dean closed his eyes for a brief second before crossing the room until he was right in front of her again. “I don’t regret you.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

“Not for a second.”

His thumb brushed gently across her knuckles.

“I regret the position it puts you in.” She had no answer to the words, aware that there was no use in fighting Dean Winchester on a decision like this.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

It sounded strange. Not like a promise, more like a warning.

“Tonight,” she began, unable to finish while her throat grew tighter. 

“We go back to pretending.” The words seemed to hurt him too, making his face harden. 

Dean looked toward the apartment door and then turned from her. He opened the door, hesitated with one hand on the frame. For just a second, she thought he might come back. Instead, he looked over his shoulder.

“You deserve more than stolen nights.”

Before she could answer, he was gone.

…

By seven that evening, the bunker looked exactly as it always had. The smell of burgers drifted from the kitchen. Classic rock echoed faintly from the garage. Her father was laughing before she even stepped through the door.

“There she is!” he called. “Perfect timing.”

She forced a smile while greeting her dad. 

Dean was already there, leaning against the counter, beer bottle in hand. He looked up as she walked in, just for a heartbeat. There was no smile, no lingering glance. Nothing anyone else would notice.

“Hey, kid,” he said as casually as if he’d last seen her weeks ago instead of hours.

Her father tossed Dean another bottle from the fridge. “Dean was just telling me about that hunt in Wyoming.”

Dean smiled with practiced ease. It was the same smile everyone knew. The same one that hid everything. Across the room, their eyes met for the briefest moment. No one noticed. No one could.