For Sale: Fire Extinguisher, Never Used

A popular theory is that they’ll get married if the democrats manage to codify gay marriage into law, but Shane and Ilya have not said that. They’re not giving any kind of timeline. They’re sidestepping with a “You know, we never thought we’d even have the option of getting married, and we’re so incredibly grateful for the fact that it’s something that can be in our future now. At the moment, we’re living in different cities and adjusting to being a couple in public, and we plan to spend some time getting our legs under us before we take that step. And I think I speak for both of us when I say that we feel incredibly lucky that we’ve been afforded this chance to sit down and talk practically about marriage and what it looks like for us because for the longest time, we believed that we’d never get to have that.”

They’re dodging the question. They’ve got a list of tastefully planned responses that are aimed at redirecting into how they’re #blessed to even have the option to get married, which a lot of people still don’t have. Support gay marriage rights. They’re pointing at the fact that they live in other cities, that they’re still adjusting to being out and in the public eye as a couple, that they’re both drowning in work obligations and they just don’t have the time to get married right now. But they are absolutely not committing to a timeline.

A lot of people are trying to commit to a timeline for them. They’re convinced that the hollanov engagement will be announced when gay marriage is legalized in the U.S., when one of them wins the Stanley Cup, when they go to the next Olympics, when one of their contracts expires and the other can move to their team. But it’s all internet speculation.

Hollanov is just. An enormously divisive couple. You either love them with your whole heart or you think they crawled out of the pits of hell to lead mankind into perdition. Public opinion exists on extremes.

A lot of the world loves them unreasonably. Shane and Ilya reinvented love on their television screens and it was so real. Shane sprinted from the safety of his own delegation to find Ilya. He fell off the face of the planet, no one knew if he was alive, and when he reappears he’s holding Ilya Rozanov’s hand and he won’t let go of it. His own delegation is trying to force him into a car but Shane won’t go because he’s staying with him, he’s staying with him, he’s staying with him. Ilya begs Shane to go with them and tells him that he only came back so Shane would be safe so please please please just get in the fucking car. Shane Hollander ran to save Ilya Rozanov and Ilya Rozanov came back to save Shane Hollander and the love was just so visceral and painful and real to people.

People are obsessed with their love story. They are obsessed with their love story. The Hollanov wedding might as well be a royal one.

That’s not the kind of the relationship you can just walk away from.

When they get back from Sochi, there’s pressure for them to get married out the fucking gate. If you love each other so much, then what are you waiting for? Shane and Ilya decide to buy themselves time before they get legally married because maybe the attention on their relationship will eventually die down. Maybe then they’ll have options that aren’t a gunpoint wedding.

Real relationships can still fail. People can fall out of love. Sometimes the relationship just doesn’t work out. Maybe one day they can just say they decided they were better off as friends.

They absolutely do not have that option coming out of Sochi.

Their fucking situationship affected global commerce. There is a world power that wants them fucking dead because of this. And that world power may be a little bit more careful about how they try to make that happen if they think the global outcry around how they murdered Hollanov may get them fucked up the ass with tariffs if an assassination gets traced back to them. And like. Shane just threatened his own fucking government with “if you don’t save my boyfriend from Russian detention I will make sure I die on foreign soil in a way that has the voters blaming you” AND SOMEHOW WON THE GAME OF POLITICAL CHICKEN.

There are so many powerful people pissed at them right now that they need the safety of being the world’s most publicly beloved gay couple. They cannot just fucking hit the world with the ol’ “Better Off As Friends <3”

But maybe one day they could. Maybe one day Putin will die of a homophobia induced heart attack and a lot of politicians will leave office and a different gay couple will capture the hearts and minds of man and the pressure on them will be less, somehow. Probably not, but maybe.

Secretly, Shane and Ilya both want time because a part of them is hoping that the other will come to love them for real. But they also want time because they don’t know what happens in five, ten, fifteen years. Maybe if they do end up hating each other they can somehow get out of this before it’s a marriage. They’re buying time.

I don’t see them ever risking the perception that they’re holding their wedding hostage for the gay marriage bill 1) for the reason that you pointed out, it comes off as manipulative and 2) people will hold them to their promise and demand that they get married when that shit passes, but they’re generally not immune from speculation that their “relationship” was deliberately crafted. There will always be some very loud voices accusing them of fabricating this whole thing. It ranges from “Shane Hollander’s REALLY on that sportsmanship award campaign, he did this to save Rozanov and got in too deep” to tinfoil hat style conspiracies about how Obama sent them there and planned the whole thing as an attack on Russia. Funnily enough, “hookup that got really out of hand” is not a popular theory. People either think that Hollanov invented love or they’re deceitful schemers who aren’t even gay.

Some people never get over the fact that Shane gets upset and shoves Ilya away in the Vegas video. They insist that that doesn’t look like a real relationship. Others just are extremely homophobic assholes who can’t believe that two buff men could ever be sincerely attracted to each other. Others are just internet trolls or conspiracy theorists. But this is too divisive of a relationship to evade all scrutiny. Like. Ilya has personal beef with Ted Cruz. They are extremely public figures and as a result criticism and speculation abounds.

One of the biggest points people cited in favor of the idea that this entire thing was deliberately crafted is how little they engage in PDA. They won’t kiss on demand (because that’s fucking weird and more than a little bit humiliating). They’re almost never seen going out on dates (they’re both considered high risk assassination targets). They act professional with each other during games (they’re at WORK and COMPETITORS). They’re both big strong burly hockey playing men and could they REALLY be attracted to each other? (That one’s just homophobia)

They for the most part just ignore any argument of “they won’t make out upon request so is the relationship REALLY real?” because their only option is to just start making out when people ask them to and that’s just straight up demeaning.

But the argument of “this relationship is clearly crafted because they don’t even like touching each other” unfortunately explodes when they get papped in Ilya’s backyard.

They thought they were alone. Ilya’s backyard was fucking fenced. It was in the short gap between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs. There were no practices or team meetings because the coaches wanted the team to rest for the first round, so Ilya was free to spend all day with Shane. Ilya had just launched his campaign to Woo His Own Boyfriend and he thought it was going fantastic. Shane agreed to sleep in his bed during the playoffs and they’d already started and Ilya was waking up every single morning to an armful of Shane Hollander. He’d taken Shane on a real date to a nice restaurant and it had gone great.

They were getting to be a real couple for the first time. They weren’t just fucking and awkwardly avoiding each other in their separate bedrooms because no one could slink back to a hotel. They were talking and relaxing together and just existing comfortably near each other. And Ilya in particular was so excited because his biggest hope for this time was to make Shane feel comfortable while he was living with him and it was actually happening.

They were just kicking a soccer ball around in the backyard and joking around and flirting and ended up kissing on the grass. It got heated and they went inside. It was a private moment that no one was meant to see. It was the exact kind of casual intimacy that Ilya was hoping to build with Shane during this time.

They were just kind of awkward with each other after Sochi. Everything felt so loaded with all of the pressures on their relationship. I think they had a period where they stopped having sex entirely and then ended up deciding that they liked having sex with each other and couldn’t exactly go out and get it from anyone else so they may as well go back to being fuck buddies at least but they were just stumbling. They both wanted more and didn’t know how to ask for it and they couldn’t get any distance from the other to figure out their own emotions.

Then Ilya decided he would just start taking more and see if Shane gave it and Shane just. Did. There was no more of Ilya having to sit in his room staring at the wall after they got each other off wondering what Shane would do if he knocked on the door of his room and asked to spend more time together. Because now Shane was staying with him and sleeping with him and Ilya could do random shit like ask him what he thought of the problems with Tampa’s defense just to hear the grade a bitch out about it or make Shane watch a funny video he saw online or to just sit and play with Shane’s hair while he watched over Shane’s shoulder as Shane scrolled on Zillow and gave him a running commentary about the houses he found there.

Like. Ilya was drunk on it. He just pretended the boundaries didn’t exist and then suddenly they didn’t. He was taking and Shane was giving and suddenly Ilya knew the greed they wrote about in the bible.

He wanted to tease and joke with and kiss Shane Hollander, and so he did. And Shane let him. He teased and joked and kissed back. Shane was smiling and laughing and happy and Ilya was on goddamn cloud nine from it because maybe it could just stay like this. Maybe Shane would wake up one morning and just be… happy that he was with Ilya. And then it’d be real.

And then the day passed and Ilya fell asleep to the feeling of Shane Hollander gently scratching his scalp as he dragged his fingers through Ilya’s curls and woke up to the sight of Shane Hollander’s freckles in the golden light of the morn after and also to three missed calls from Shane’s mom because some fuckass reporter papped them in the backyard with a long-range camera and now photos of them making out were on the front page of tabloids in countries neither of them had ever been to and also everyone had correctly guessed that they went inside after to fuck each other senseless. And they had to talk to. Shane’s mom. about that.

Body language experts had been insisting for months that those two men were more attracted to each other than any other two people had ever been in human history and suddenly the world had photographic proof that in their free time they liked to cram their tongues down each others throat’s. Which like. Shane feels like all of his current life problems are because the world already knew that so he doesn’t know why they have to act like this is news.

It dredges up the ol’ “this was just a con they’re not even intimate with each other” conspiracy theory because THAT SURE SEEMED INTIMATE. How do we feel about this theory NOW.

It’s also just. Food to starving animals.

The world fell in love with Hollanov in front of the car. It was the honest, sincere, raw emotion of that moment that captured so much attention. And they haven’t really gotten to see that kind of naked emotion out of Hollanov since they escaped Russia.

They’re guarded and reserved in interviews. They’re not bringing the same energy to a press scrum that they brought to fuckin. Moments of life and death.

Some people have been following them for every beat since Sochi. They’ve watched every game. They’ve poured over every interview. But most of the audience stopped watching during the gratitude tour and are only now tuning back in. Ilya making the playoffs has reignited interest in Hollanov. People want to see how baby Jessica is doing now that she’s out of the well.

And then they get papped in the backyard, and suddenly people see the sincere emotion they fell in love with. Shane and Ilya are captured in a private moment. They are smiling and happy and kissing and incredibly fucking hot together. They still have the love that the world fell in love with, but now, they get to be happy together. And they get to fuck each other like it’s their job.

There’s a painful irony in the moment. Because the moment is real. For five minutes, Shane and Ilya just got to be two people who loved each other who were just silly and sincere and attracted to each other. The world loves the moment because it is so real.

And it is the world’s love that makes it so difficult for Shane and Ilya to have more real moments. They don’t get to be two people who smile and kiss in Ilya’s backyard anymore. They don’t get to have the same easy and thoughtless moments of flirting and laughing and kissing anymore. Because they’ve been reminded that they need to be vigilant about people seeing them. They’ve been reminded of the cost of their rescue.

It’s the external pressures on their relationship that makes it so hard for them to make this real. Those five minutes of joking and laughing and flirting and kissing turned into an international affair. Hollanov is back and more in love than ever—when are they going to finally tie that knot? It’s endless commentary about how hot they are together and fuck, who do you think fucked who when they got into the house. Hollander’s probably the one taking it, right? It’s Ilya getting asked in an interview that’s supposed to be about the playoffs about whether he thought it was appropriate to be carrying on like that with another man in public and what if a child saw them (Ilya would probably ask the child why he’s hanging out of a fucking helicopter with a long range camera pointed at Ilya’s extremely fenced and very private yard).

And the biggest external pressure is this inescapable question of When is the wedding? People have been asking them if they’ll be hearing wedding bells soon since the day the plane touched down from Russia. And a lot of people really expect Ilya to propose to Shane when he wins the Stanley Cup. The speculation around the idea is strong enough that the NHL Board of Governors has secretly told the broadcast camera operators to get the camera the fuck off of Roger Crowell as quickly as possible if Ilya Rozanov wins the Cup because if he gets down on one knee they don’t think Crowell would be able to hide his disgust and that would probably make Obama less willing to go golfing with some of them.

And at the time this speculation is happening, Ilya is trying to convince himself that one day Shane Hollander could want to marry him for real. Shane could fall in love with him and be happy with him and want to spend the rest of his life with him without a gun to his head.

A LOOSE OUTLINE OF CLIFF MARLEAU’S ATTEMPTS TO SUPPORT HOLLANOV IN THE SOCHI OUTING AU:

When they first get back from Sochi Cliff goes viral for the moment when he first reunites with Shane and Ilya.

He + the Boston Raiders meet with them when Hollanov + the Ally Squad’s Aren’t You Glad You Risked WWIII To Save Us Gratitude Tour takes them to Boston. Hollanov + the Ally Squad’s first stop upon returning to North American soil is the White House, where Shane has to finally face Obama, who has probably patriot act’d his sexts. Neither of their teams are present for the D.C leg of the journey. The Metros owner and the Raiders owner are both there (+ the NHL Commissioner who is just. Boiling in his own homophobia) but their teams aren’t. The owners came to a gentleman’s agreement that they would ban their team members from flying to D.C. to greet Hollanov when they arrived so that way they’d both have more time to force their players through diversity + sensitivity training in anticipation for having to reckon head on with the ol’ Cap’s Back With His Secret Gay Lover, The Enemy realization. The Metros have already clocked that some of the team is not rushing to D.C. to welcome Shane back with open arms and is fuckin terrified of the absolute powder keg Montreal will become if they realize that not everyone on the team is happy that Shane made it out of Russia alive. The Raiders meanwhile are still dealing with the fallout from their entire roster of first and second line regulars announcing that Ilya Rozanov is straight and they are the ones who talk regularly about taking Shane Hollander manfully against a wall and they need as much time as possible before those assholes are on camera again. They agree to quietly ban their players from flying out to see Shane and Ilya before they return to their respective cities so that way the public isn’t able to nitpick over who shows up versus who doesn’t. Hayden nearly. Explodes. Let him be with his boys.

Anyway cliff cries multiple times, decrees Shane an honorary Boston Raider, and gifts him a Raiders jersey that’s been customized to read “HOLLANDER” on the back, which Shane could not possibly have received with less enthusiasm. Wow. That’s. Wow. What a gift. These moments all go viral. It is not his most viral moment.

His most viral moment is him staring at Shane holding Ilya’s hand with undisguised wonder, shaking his head, and asking “How did this happen?” with so much bewildered awe that it perfectly encapsulates how the world at large feels about this relationship. How DID this happen.

Cliff is just. Coming out the gate as the world’s biggest Hollanov shipper. He loves #HisBoyandHisMan. Love is real and his boy HAS it. Has there ever been a more beautiful couple.

I think understanding Cliff’s role in this needs more backstory about how I imagine Cliff and Ilya’s initial arc in the Sochi Outing AU so we’re gonna do some backstory first.

The Cliff that lives in my head is a consummate big brother who is very loud about how he loves people. He wants his loved ones to know that he’s happy for them and cares about them. And he’s purposeful about it.

I love giving Cliff a lesbian sister and in my mind there’s an age gap between him and his lesbian sister. Like, 10ish years. And once he got over the initial horror of having direct confirmation that his parents still had sex (inherently gross and wrong), he was so fucking here for being a big brother. His baby sister was his little princess. If anyone ever touched her he would Kill Them In Real Life

His little sister went through like, the gauntlet of being a trouble teenager. She was just struggling and unhappy and uncomfortable. In my mind, they grew up in a more conservative area, and when she started realizing she was gay, she just. Did not know if her family and specifically if Cliff would still love her. He was older than her. He moved out when he got drafted so he wasn’t living with her most of her childhood. He was a fucking hockey player. He was in a very homophobic space and he used homophobic language without even thinking of it as specifically homophobic. Like. I think he and pretty much all of the Raiders have thrown around “cocksucker” as an insult in front of Ilya at least once and not even really thought of it as “the insult is that he’s gay.” It was just something you say.

But he threw around that kind of language in front of his sister. And it contributed to why she was so worried that he just wouldn’t love her anymore if he knew.

When he eventually finds out why his sister has been struggling and realizes that she was scared of him, it was one of the lowest moments of his fucking life. I think he always sort of took for granted that his sister knew he was in her corner no matter what and the realization that she didn’t know that was really hard on him.

He’s like, a really loud and kinda inelegant and enthusiastic ally to her as a result. Every time he sees a rainbow he’s texting her a photo of it like “thought of u.” He’s trying to talk to her about what celebrity women are hot and she’d actually much rather they never talked about that ever. He’s making plans to fly her down to Boston for Pride. In 2014, she’s still a teenager and he only found out that she was gay like, the offseason before Sochi. This experience is Fresh for him.

As a result, Cliff goes right from the gauntlet of his sister crying as she tells him she’s gay and blatantly afraid of him as she does it and into the fucking life grenade that is realizing that His Motherfucking Boy, who he thinks of as the little brother he never had, has been outed in Russia as Shane Hollander’s respectful(?) bisexual lover.

Cliff really struggles while Ilya’s in Russia and it’s unclear if he’s going to be allowed to leave or if he’ll even survive. Like. All he can think is that Ilya may actually die thinking that Cliff wouldnt love him if he knew that he liked men too.

Cliff is very much a big figure brother to Ilya in this. He outright thinks of himself as Ilya’s big brother. Cliff is a decent few years older than Ilya. In my mind, Ilya straight up billeted with him his first year with the Raiders. He helped acclimate Ilya to America. He thought that this was going to be a relatively run of the mill “he’s the 1OA draft pick so he’s going to have a lot of attention on him and needs help adjusting” and then it turned into the NHL going all in on him and his rivalry with Shane in a way that was unprecedented. Cliff’s very protective of him after seeing the pressure on Ilya his first year and he loves him like a little brother.

Which is one of the reasons why he is shipping Hollanov as hard as he possibly can. Cliff is the one who has the most inklings of the fact that Ilya does not have a happy home life. He saw hints over the years that something was fucked and Ilya would never talk to him about what had happened.

Then Ilya gets outed in Russia. His family isn’t backing him. His country now hates him. And Cliff is stuck in another fucking country with extremely limited ability to help Ilya. He felt like he’d just have to watch Ilya be murdered or imprisoned and he couldn’t do anything to change that fact.

Then Shane Hollander flees his own delegation to go find Ilya. He refuses to go to safety unless Ilya is brought with him. No one was supposed to save Ilya but Shane does it anyway. Shane is like this beautiful gay hockey playing angel to Cliff. He owes Shane a blood debt for saving His Boy and he will PROUDLY take a bullet for him as a result.

I cannot emphasize enough that Cliff is so happy that Shane and Ilya found each other. Cliff met Ilya as this poor fucking 18 year old who, for all of his bravado, had been plainly abused beyond belief and had never been loved the way he deserved and then Cliff finds out that not only did Ilya bag the baddest bitch in hockey, but that guy loves Ilya to the point of self destruction. Shane risked his life to get Ilya out of Russia with him and so now Cliff feels like Ilya found someone who loves him the way he deserves to be loved. He is weeping tears of joy at the overwhelming beauty of Hollanov. What. What do you mean it’s not real. Of course it’s real. He’s seen it with his own eyes. #trust

Ilya’s early arc in this fic is dedicated to unpacking his family’s abuse and how that impacts his idea of love and relationships. And Cliff is a big part of doing that.

I previously said that Shane and Ilya experience a reversal of fortunes in the season. Shane’s fortune goes from fair to foul. Ilya’s fortune goes from foul to fair. And Ilya’s fortune at the start of this fic is very, very foul.

Ilya has been subjected to horrible abuse from a young age. Love has always been very very conditional as it applies to him. He is just something for his loved ones to eat. He is farmed for money, for influence, for his image, and his family constantly demands more, more, more. He is only as good as what he can give them, and he is never good enough.

On a level, he knows how his family treats him is wrong, but they are still his family. He wants them to love him. And he doesn’t know any other kind of love. It is not that he likes being treated as a cash cow. It’s just that he’s never had any other kind of dynamic. It is familiar. He knows how it goes when he is offering something to the people he is in a relationship with.

Shane Hollander explodes that entire dynamic and then sets fire to its remains.

His entire relationship with Shane drags Ilya into completely unfamiliar territory and strands him there. His entire life, he has only ever been worth as much as he can give other people, and he feels like he cannot give Shane anything.

Shane is not in genuine danger in Russia. He is protected by his delegation. Russia would have never dared go after a visiting Olympian—especially when he didn’t initiate the kiss with Ilya and actively shoved Ilya away at the end of it—if Shane hadn’t started escalating the situation at every possible turn. He actively puts himself in danger for Ilya’s sake. From Ilya’s perspective, Shane had a way out of this. He could have called Ilya a perverted freak who forced a kiss on him, look, Shane had to shove that asshole away twice to get him off of him, it’s right there on the video. Ilya is convinced that Shane could have walked away from this relatively scott free and instead he’s trapped himself in an extremely public, extremely scrutinized, extremely inescapable relationship for Ilya’s sake. In Ilya’s mind, he is the only one who gets any kind of benefit from the fake relationship. Shane sees no return on this.

And again and again in Sochi and its immediate aftermath Ilya feels like Shane has to sacrifice for Ilya’s benefit. He has to abandon the Olympic finals so Russia will let Ilya leave. They get back to the States and have to face Shane’s parents, who are on the tarmac with two bouquets of flowers and ready to welcome Ilya into the Hollander family. They are so, so sorry they made Shane feel like he couldn’t tell them but they love him and they’re going to love Ilya and they just want them to know that as far as they’re concerned they sent one son to Russia and got two back.

Shane and Ilya then have to cop to the fact that the relationship is fucking fake.

They already talked about it. Shane can’t lie to his parents for the rest of their lives and frankly they need his mother’s PR savvy to help them figure out how to sell this fucking lie. David and Yuna are immediately brought in the circle about everything save Svetlana’s involvement, which Shane and Ilya aren’t telling to anyone outside of the federal agent debriefing them on what the fuck happened in Russia. And there’s this scene where Yuna is kind of panicking trying to explain to Shane the enormity of what they just did. They are now the face of gay marriage. The fucking democrats are already working on codifying gay marriage into federal law and planning to name the fucking bill after them. The public will likely expect them to get married under it if and when it passes. The entire world is following their relationship. There is a massive fucking target on their back now and they are dependent on the goodwill of the American and Canadian governments to keep them from dying in a Russian hit. They may legitimately be killed in the street if people find out this wasn’t a real relationship. They can’t break up. They may never get to marry for love because they likely have to marry each other and they just said that they don’t love each other. This. This is the rest of their lives. This is the rest of their lives.

And Shane’s like. I know. Mom I know. We had no other choice. We know what this costs so just, just help us figure out how to pay it—

And Ilyas sitting there feeling like shit. Because in his mind, Shane did have another choice, and it was to let Ilya die. He could have said he wasn’t gay, and Ilya forced the kiss on him, and he was just too much of a class act to tell people what a fucking freak Ilya was, and Ilya knows for a fact that Shane could have done this because the Canadian delegation actively tries to get him to do this. They push Shane hard before America intervenes. The prime minister at the time was very conservative and did not want to be a champion for gay hockey Romeo & Juliet. He also didn’t want to face the upcoming election as the guy who left Shane Hollander, the beloved hockey prince of Canada, to die in Russia. His people put extreme pressure on Shane to try to walk back his relationship with Ilya and just say that Ilya forced the Vegas kiss on him. But Shane dug in his heels. No, they were in a committed, romantic relationship when that kiss happened. Really. Shane only freaked out and shoved Ilya away because they were in public. He loves Ilya. He’s loved Ilya for years. He’s not leaving this country without him. It’s a real relationship, it’s a real relationship, it’s a real relationship.

I’m playing with the idea that Ilya’s family 1) picked his entire team for him when he was 18 and freshly drafted as a way to control him and 2) exploited that control to rob him blind while he was just fighting for his goddamn life trying to find a way out of Russia. His family picked his financial advisor, and his financial advisor started draining his accounts when Ilya was outed. All of the money he had in Russian banks is a lost cause, he’s never seeing that again, and his family starts actively draining his American accounts. His bank eventually realized what was happening and froze his accounts, but by that point, he’d lost a lot of money. And realizing that it wasn’t enough to abandon him, his family actively chose to steal from him when he was in mortal danger is just an agonizing blow to Ilya. He shouldn’t be surprised by this. All they’ve ever done is hurt him and use him. But this just is still so fucking painful to him.

Shane and Ilya are facing a lot of expenses when they get back. They have to hire a security team. Ilya specifically has to replace his agent, his lawyers, his accountant, his financial advisor, everything. Ilya needs a lawyer to immediately file his application for a visa with a path to American citizenship. They have to break their leases and move into buildings with better security. They need new phones, cars with tinted windows that are approved by their security expert, etc. They have to pay for top of the line suits for their Aren’t You Glad You Risked WWIII To Save Us Gratitude Tour. That all costs money. Ilya still has money but his finances have taken a severe blow at the worst possible time.

And Shane is like. Okay. Okay. We can—they’re trying to get the stolen money back, and you’ll get more money once the season resumes and we start getting paid by our teams again, but for right now you have your existing credit lines and we’re going to add you as an authorized user to my bank account and just get you in a new, safer living situation and get you with a bodyguard and a new team and just figure it out from there. And Ilya does not want to do that. He does not want Shane literally paying his way. And Shane insists that he’s fine with it and Ilya can pay him back later but it’s just one more way that Ilya feels like this relationship is coming at Shane’s direct cost.

Calvin Klein comes out the gate with a very aggressive offer to make Shane and Ilya brand ambassadors out of Sochi. The brand wants to dress them for their gratitude tour and also every other event for the next few years and also to give them the biggest, sluttiest pride month spread in the history of the brand. Here is a seven figure compensation offer that’s expiring soon because you need to be in Calvin Klein for the gratitude tour if you want this deal to go through. It is not the kind of deal Ilya would normally go for. For one, these kinds of offers just weren’t getting to him because his agent was actively limiting his ties to America on his family’s orders, but for another, Ilya liked having the freedom to dress himself. So much of what he liked about America was the choices he got there. He doesn’t want his outfits to be dictated by a contract—he wants to keep as much freedom as he can in the moments he gets to have it. He would normally be willing to go for a modeling gig, but they want more than that—they want Ilya to agree to let them dress him for the duration of the package. He is losing choices to this.

Ilya goes for the deal in part because he wants to limit the perceived burden on Shane. He effectively sells himself for the cash so he doesn’t have to owe Shane anymore than he absolutely has to.

Shane meanwhile perceives these same events completely differently. He’s fucking stressed because he’s 1) since realized he could have tried to lie that the entire Vegas kiss was a fucked up hazing ritual, why the fuck didn’t he think of trying that, he’s so fucking stupid, and 2) realized that his lie has completely taken over Ilya’s life. He feels like he borderline kidnapped and trapped Ilya in this relationship, obviously for his own sake and not for Ilya’s. He is fucking nervous about how much control he’s getting over Ilya’s life. He doesn’t want Ilya financially dependent on him because 1) it’s incredibly fucked up that his family did that to him, Shane is SO fucking angry and 2) he doesn’t want his fucking sexual partner to feel like his livelihood and safety is dependent on putting out. Shane gets into it with his mom at one point because Yuna thinks she should just take over Ilya’s management—and she objectively has a point about it, because they cannot risk telling his agent the truth. They need a united front, and his agent just would not be working with all of the information. But Shane does not want his mom managing Ilya because he doesn’t want Ilya to feel like Shane has taken over his entire fucking life. Shane thinks Ilya went from trying to end their situationship because he doesn’t like Shane and didn’t want to keep hooking up with him to suddenly being trapped in a publicly romantic relationship with him and suddenly his career opportunities and safety are seemingly chained to keeping Shane happy. He wants Ilya to have an agent and a team who have absolutely no loyalty to Shane so that way Shane can feel a little bit less like he got Obama to kidnap him a boyfriend. Shane is so unimaginably stressed about how his fucking plan has trapped Ilya in a position where he may feel like he’s obligated to give Shane more than he wants to give and meanwhile Ilya’s sitting there like “I can give him nothing NOTHING I am a leech draining him and he will come to regret all the sacrifices he’s making for me.” Like. They could not possibly be more different in how they perceive what’s going on.

Ilya is just completely uncalibrated by his early dynamic with Shane. The only person in his life before Shane that made him feel like their love wasn’t transactional and he wasn’t just there to be farmed for wealth was Svetlana, and he has lost her. Svetlana sacrifices her own safety to protect Ilya, and now she is still stuck in Russia. He is adrift. He knows he doesn’t want his relationship with Shane to be like his family’s relationship with him but he doesn’t know how to have any other kind of relationship. He has been raised to have his entire sense of self worth be tied to what he can give to other people. That sense of worth is completely upended by his early dynamic with Shane. And a big part of his arc is freeing himself from this sense that love is transactional. Cliff is critical to that.

I do not think Shane and Ilya are good candidates to be each other’s support system at the start of this fic. There is just too many external pressures on their relationship, which has had almost no time to develop before they were outed. Again, Shane is very worried that his rushed plan has forced Ilya into a position where Shane is now his only option for sex and romance, where he may dictate (at least for a time) his financial wellbeing and physical safety since he needs to hire bodyguards, and where his fucking mom may take over his career opportunities. And while Shane firmly believes his mother’s love for him would not extend to her letting a client’s hockey career be anything less than the best, Ilya doesn’t know that. Shane does not want Ilya to feel like Shane is his only option for emotional support on top of everything else. He’s so fucking stressed out about the power imbalance here. And Ilya, meanwhile, feels like he’s taking endlessly from Shane and giving nothing back. He doesn’t want to make Shane give him emotional support on top of everything else. He tries to hide how hard he’s struggling after Sochi so Shane doesn’t feel like he also has to give Ilya a shoulder to cry on.

But Shane clocks that Ilya’s struggling, and I think he’s the one to float the idea of Ilya bringing someone into the secret. He wants Ilya to have a support system. They’re all struggling with the weight of the world’s attention on them, but Ilya’s the one who’s most alone in doing so. Shane and J.J. have each other, Shane also has his parents, Scott and Carter have each other, but Ilya lost his family and Svetlana in one fell swoop. He’s all alone in Boston, and Shane doesn’t want him to be. Seriously, they can make it work. If Ilya wants to bring someone in on the secret, he can, and they can make contingencies for if whoever he picks tries to tell the public.

Even then, I think the only reason why Ilya agrees is because it’s ultimately framed as transactional. J.J. and Shane are really struggling with lying to Hayden. Shane and J.J. get to tell Hayden and Ilya gets to tell one of the Raiders. This is no longer just for his benefit, so Ilya feels more comfortable to admit he needs it. And Ilya picks Cliff.

And it’s his relationship with Cliff that ultimately goes the farthest to free him of this idea of transactional love. When Ilya was living with Cliff, he had a bunch of little ways of making sure Cliff was getting return on this relationship. He could buy Cliff’s drinks, set him up for sick fucking goals, bring him back dinner, etc. But the transaction starts becoming unbalanced when Cliff is being brought into the fold. Cliff just doesn’t need support the way Ilya does right now. Ilya needs more than he can return right now. Cliff is just happy to be here for his bro. All he really needs is the occasional advice about how to be a good and supportive brother to his lesbian sister. #ally

Cliff slips under ilya’s radar entirely. He is this constant source of You Do This For Your Bros, You Do This For Your Bros, You Do This For Your Bros. Ilya is so hyper aware of the perceived imbalance in his relationship with Shane but because he already has an established dynamic with Cliff, he doesn’t initially perceive it as imbalanced. Ilya always makes sure this relationship is worth it to Marley, until he can’t anymore. And that helps him realize that this relationship isn’t transactional to Cliff—it is sincere and unconditional love. Cliff isn’t here because he’s getting something out of Ilya—he’s here because he loves Ilya. This is just what you do for the people you love. This is what Ilya always should have had.

But Ilya doesn’t know that’s why cliffs here. Cliff doesn’t even know that’s why Cliff’s here. Cliff thinks he’s here in part to Help His Boy Woo His Man. Cliff has SEEN it. Ilya has already Won His Man’s Heart. Ilya’s just gotta show Hollander that he wants all that gushy couple stuff with him and he’ll HAVE that. #trust

Boris is the least willing member of the Counsel For Shane Hollander’s Heart. Like he kind of has to be around for the most part to keep Ilya from dying in a terrible passion in a state sanctioned hit so he’s implicated by proximity. Jesus Christ he wants to hear less about that man’s freckles.

Again, Ilya’s self worth is tied to what he can offer other people due to his family’s abuse. He drives so hard for his cup win because he views it as a way of showing people he was worth saving. And he wants so badly to show specifically Shane that he was worth saving.

By the end of the season, Shane’s life is falling apart. His fortune is reversing. I think I said in an earlier post that Ilya wasn’t super aware of just how bad the season went for Shane because he’s so fucked up from watching Shane get almost murdered in the Olympic semi-finals that Cliff had to cut him off from watching Shane’s games, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would still get back to Ilya even if Ilya wasn’t watching his games. Ilya doesn’t know the full extent of how bad it got—it gets bad enough that multiple members of the coaching staff have to be replaced, the team doctor has to be replaced, and Thompson straight up will not leave Shane alone with many of his teammates anymore because he views them as a threat to Shane’s physical safety—but he knows that Shane’s team is falling apart and has to be rebuilt. He knows Shane’s facing severe scrutiny from the public over whether he left before the Olympics finals match for Ilya’s sake and lied about it being due to complications with his injury. He knows Shane’s struggling badly.

Ilya feels like the cost Shane pays for saving him is just increasing by the day and he wants to change that. He wants to show Shane that he can give something back to him. He can make Shane happy. This doesn’t have to just be a relationship he trapped Shane in—it can be real.

Ilya’s plan is to unleash the nuclear option of wooing during the playoffs. He is leaving no stone unturned. His fridge? Stocked with the nation’s supply of ginger ale. Its temperature has been adjusted to the ideal serving temperature for ginger ale. He has the yogurt with the right texture that Shane likes. He has ensured that he’s ready with enough of Shane’s preferred brand of shampoo, conditioner, soap, and toothpaste to carry them through the goddamn apocalypse. He is making excruciatingly detailed plans for how to make Shane feel comfortable and happy while he’s living with Ilya.

Ilya wants Shane to like being with him so badly.

Ilya wants Shane to like being with him so badly.

This is the first time they’ll ever be spending more than a few days together. The playoffs go on for months if the raiders manage to go all the way, and then there’s the offseason, and fucking. Pride month and all the ways they’ll be expected to perform for it. And, critically, they have next to no ability to get distance between each other in that time. Every time they go out, they have to deal with the ensuing security nightmare. One of them can’t just leave and get some space. They have to spend this time together. And they’ll have to share a room and a bed with every single away game, and Ilya is planning to make a play for Shane to share his bed during the home games too. They have never had to be in close proximity for this long before.

They are staring down the barrel of a lifetime together. They may have to get married to keep this lie up. And the playoffs is their first test to see if they can handle being in close proximity with each other for an extended period of time. Ilya wants so unbelievably badly to be able to make Shane happy during this time because maybe then he’ll be able to make Shane happy for the rest of their lives. Maybe Shane could be genuinely happy being in a relationship with Ilya and being married to Ilya and all of those other things suddenly in their future because he had to blow up his own life to get Ilya out of fucking Russia alive.

Cliff thinks that they’re gonna knock his man’s goddamn socks off. They’re gonna fuckin’ dazzle him, Roz. Hollander won’t know what’ll hit him. But it’s gonna be love.

Boris thinks that love bombing is famously the foundation of every healthy relationship.

And Cliff is like. It sure fuckin’ is. You set off a big bomb of love in your man’s life. You detonate that love bomb.

And Boris is like. No, no, love bombing is BAD. Just fucking tell him you love him for real.

But Ilya simply will not do that. That kind of communicative skill is three years off at LEAST in canon and nowhere to be found here. His plan is thus:

He is going to fuck Shane Hollander within an inch of his life.

And then he is going to start advancing like goddamn Napoleon while Shane’s still fuzzy in the afterglow.

I spoke in a different post about how Shane and Ilya both retreat to sex as a source of safety and familiarity in their dynamic and Ilya’s really relying on it here. At this point, they’ve worked out enough that they’re back at their old dynamic of having sex, but Ilya wants so much more from Shane. He wants to kiss his freckles every morning and to tell him he loves him and to share their deepest thoughts every day for the rest of their lives. He wants their relationship to be real. So he’s just going to start shifting their relationship dynamic and see how much shane lets him get away with it.

Ilya’s first play is to get Shane to sleep in his bed even they’re staying at his house during home games (I think I mentioned this in another post but I see them giving each other their own rooms in each other’s houses at the start of this fic so they have their own spaces) and he is absolutely front-loading that conversation with sex. He is opening the door to Shane and Thompson and closing the door right in Thompson’s face. Thank you so much for bringing him here Thompson but Ilya has got it from here maybe go see the constitution or something it is a very special boat that he is sure Thompson will love. Take the whole rest of the day for Thompson Time because Shane will not need to go out until tomorrow at earliest. Ilya will take good care of Shane’s body until the next time Thompson needs to guard it. Goodbye and do not contact them for anything short of an immediate and mortal threat.

Thompson is. So tired.

Ilya’s opening overtures is just the tuna melt sequence. He is deferring all conversation until he’s wrung at least two orgasms out of Shane and then he’s asking him to stay and sleep in his bed during the whole playoffs and also at every opportunity for their rest of their lives please please please he wants to wake up with Shane in his arms forever and he wants Shane to feel happy waking up there. And Shane, who has been nursing shameful fantasies about getting to drag his fingers through Ilya’s gorgeous gorgeous curls again in the soft grey light of the dusk is like. Yeah sure man we could try that. Ilya probably just wants to get into a routine for the playoffs anyway.

Ilya tries so hard during the 2014 playoffs. He tries so hard. And in many ways he succeeds. He really does gain ground in his relationship with Shane during this time.

He just finally has the time and opportunity to try for sincere intimacy with Shane. These men have had absolutely no chance to date leading up to this. They warped straight from early situationship era to the public trying to make a countdown to their wedding based on when the goddamn gay marriage bill named after them is likely to pass.

I think Ilya straight up plans a date for them in the days before the playoffs start. Their opportunities to go out on a date together have been limited because, again, it’s a security nightmare every time. They’re both at active threat of Russian assassination, and the Russian government loves poisoning people. They can’t just casually go out to dinner—they have to go out of their way to do background checks on the staff and secure the kitchen in advance and it’s just this massive logistical mess. They got to go on one (1) date in Montreal during the gratitude tour and it was mostly treated as a publicity stunt. Like. They found out that they were going on a date because someone handed them an itinerary with the word “date” on it.

Again, they both feel like they trapped the other in this relationship, and Ilya’s the first one to make it to “but maybe I could make it real anyway.” He doesn’t want Shane to feel like Ilya’s treating him like “well I’ve successfully trapped you into staying with me so there’s no need for me to pursue you.” He wants to wine and dine Shane. He’s trying to woo his own boyfriend over here. He’s putting in so much effort so it’s clear to Shane that he thinks Shane’s worth the effort so please love him back please let this be real please be happy being with Ilya maybe forever maybe for the rest of their lives.

Cliff is all in on the date preparations. He’s dating himself and his bros for a bit. He’s dragging his fellow raiders out for dry runs at potential date locales on Ilya’s behalf and not explaining why because Boris said he wasn’t allowed to. Sometimes you just want a nice dinner with your bros. He is making detailed notes about whether the lighting at the restaurant was right and whether the restaurant was too hot or cold and whether the music was too loud. He is engaging in extensive debate over whether Hollander would like flowers and if it’s possible to give someone a bouquet of hockey pucks.

Cliff’s main role during this arc is to be Hollanov’s biggest hype man. His job is like the opposite of what the memento mori guy did in Rome. Brother you WILL live forever and it WILL be with your man. #trust

In practice a lot of his support is dedicated towards making the other raiders be fucking cool about this

It’s 2014. They’re hockey players. The Boston raiders mostly tripped face first into their allyship because Cliff decided to come out for all of them as shanesexual on international news and they just kind of maintained that energy going forward. Okay cool so cap likes dudes that’s. That’s fine. They’re cool with that. Super glad he didn’t die in Russian detention.

But knowing abstractly “cap’s gay for Shane Hollander” is different from seeing Ilya bring Hollander a ginger ale in the airport lounge because he notices the things Shane likes he notices everything about Shane please love him back and then tenderly kissing the back of his knuckles. It’s different from getting daily news reminders that Cap’s having constant lucky playoffs sex with Shane Fucking Hollander.

Like. It’s not that they’d forgotten it was gay gay before this. It’s more that it just wasn’t right in front of them. Shane and Ilya have been playing this like they’re the royal family. They’re very physically restrained with each other in public. People acted like they were a freak show novelty act after Sochi and they had no interest in performing pda so everyone could gawk and laugh and take photographs. They sure as hell were not acting like anything more than professional colleagues at games, which is the only time the Raiders have really seen them together beyond the post-Sochi press events. Shane and Ilya always retreated to one of their houses after games, and any intimacy that may or may not be happening was confined to those settings. They just weren’t really thinking about it.

But the press is a nightmare during the 2014 playoffs. For one, it’s the first major event since Sochi. The entire world is watching Ilya Rozanov make his playoffs run after he was saved from Russia. The full force of the world’s attention has been resurrected and trained on them. This is the most watched playoffs run in NHL history and 90% of the global audience is watching raiders games for glimpses of Hollanov.

But for another, it’s the first time Shane and Ilya were successfully papped kissing since the Vegas kiss that outed them and it sends the press into a frenzy trying to get more. Like. They’ve dodged every post-Sochi request to perform a kiss for public consumption. They don’t do that on command, thanks. They’re not show ponies. But then they get papped kissing in Ilya’s backyard and it is not exactly a chaste peck on the cheek. It’s also not exactly a blowjob on the front lawn but the press carries on like it is. Like. It’s a slightly heated kiss and then they go inside immediately after and then suddenly they have international headlines about how it’s gay sex mania in Boston. And the raiders are seeing all of it.

They’re trying. They’re not always succeeding, but they’re trying. It’s Baby’s First Publicly Gay Couple: Co-Starring Men Who Were Raised To Believe Gay People Were Mostly Just A Cautionary Tale.

Shane and the Ally Squad are traveling with the Raiders during the playoffs with ownerships excruciatingly clear directive to make them feel welcome. This is the first time they really are interacting with Shane in close quarters and with Shane and Ilya as a couple. And they are still extremely restrained with each other. They’re not exactly necking on the private jet. They’re making their first forays into hand holding in a semi-public setting. It’s just kinda weird for the Raiders to see because it’s Cap in gay love because it’s Hollander. That’s not homophobic to say, is it? Where’s the slide deck from the last diversity + inclusion seminar ownership made them attend?

Cliff does not fucking want anyone saying it’s weird to see his boy’s beautiful beautiful love. It’s an honor to witness this. They should feel honored.

Like he doesn’t want them being weird on principle but also because he knows how badly Ilya wants Shane to feel comfortable while he’s with them. This last season went very poorly for Shane. Shane didn’t get “mostly supportive with the occasional uncomfortable comment that gets addressed immediately because ownership wants Obama to go golfing with him.” He got “won’t even talk about how bad it went but it ended with multiple members of support staff getting fired and multiple unexpected trades happening in a rush and a league-wide rumor that more trades were in the barrel and going through as soon as trading reopened because they all hate crimed him and ownership needs it to stop because he wants Obama to go golfing with him.”

Shane’s just become visibly on guard around other players in a way he wasn’t before they were outed and Ilya is fucking stressed out about it. At least when he’s with His Boys, the worst Ilya’s had to worry about are stupid questions about like. How do you decide who gets to put it in. Do you flip a coin or something. Shane’s moving like he expects to be jumped at any moment and critically Hayden and J.J. are also moving like that. No one is copping to what exactly happened but Ilya’s getting fucking stressed because he’s getting the sense that it was bad because Hayden now refuses to leave Shane or J.J. alone with anyone who’s not a member of Hollanov + the Ally Squad. Like he’s trying to be subtle about it but also he’s also just not a very subtle man. Ilya left Shane in the airport lounge with His Boys one (1) time to go to the bathroom and when Hayden walked out of a stall and saw Ilya there and realized that J.J., Carter, and Scott’s car was stuck in traffic so it must just be Shane and the Raiders in the lounge right now he took off like there was a bomb threat and he was the only man licensed to defuse it. Haha hey buddy how’s it going was everything fucking cool while he was gone.

Ilya does not want Shane to have to spend the rest of his career walking around like he’s got a sniper trained on him at all moments. They’re going to likely be spending every playoffs together for the rest of their careers. He doesn’t want that time to just be Shane stressed and uncomfortable and on guard—he wants Shane to feel like he’s safe when he’s with Ilya’s Boys.

Cliff also wants that. Everyone be fucking cool about Shane and the beautiful beautiful love he shares with their cap.

Legend has it that if you made a thoughtless comment about how huh it’s kinda weird to see Cap all gushy over Hollander, Cliff Marleau will Appear, Looming And Insisting That It’s Not Weird It’s Beautiful Their Love Is Beautiful You Go Cap You’re Doing It You’re Treating Your Man RIGHT. Don’t You Ever Fucking Say That It’s Weird Again ESPECIALLY Not Where Holly May Hear It.

Beyond that Cliff is just. So enthusiastic about Ilya’s efforts to Woo His Man. He’s texting Ilya after their date night like “brother did he LOVE it” and Ilya is replying with a gif of someone slam dunking a basketball and Cliff is replying with a gif of a bald eagle cawing in front of the American flag. Hell YES look at you you’re DOING it.

Boris is wildly underpaid because he has to have the presence of mind to text Cliff in advance “do NOT congratulate Ilya on the backyard kiss it’s bad that they ended up in the news for that it’s BAD” and thank god because Cliff was in the process of screenshotting the photo from the article and texting Ilya “LOOKS LIKE YOURE KEEPING YOUR MAN HAPPY.” In his defense Shane is smiling more than Cliff’s EVER seen him smile in those photos and he meant it more about the smile than as a sex thing. He’s. He’s confused but he has a lot of spirit.

Every time Ilya dares to hold Shane’s hand in public or to gently tug him over to sit with him on the plane instead of with Hayden or J.J. and Shane lets him do it Ilya looks up and finds Cliff shooting him two thumbs up and a massive grin. Cliff could you be fucking cool about this.

One writing decision that I normally wouldn’t have liked for writing Spider-Man but I loved in the context of this movie is to have Peter have no discernible source of income. They never explain where his money is coming from. Normally, I think Peter’s financial struggles and how they relate to Spider-Man are a core part of his character that should be shown explicitly. He’s out here fighting for his goddamn life and trying to make the world a better place and then he goes back to a shitty fucking apartment and paying its rent is a daily source of stress and all he has in his fridge is half a can of Arizona ice tea and an expired cucumber. That is part of what makes Peter Parker so compelling as a character—his struggles are similar to those of so many people out there, and his efforts as spider-man come at direct cost to his life as Peter Parker. So much of that cost is shown in how he struggles to hold down a job because of the demands of his vigilantism. He is constantly on the struggle bus. That being said, I think having no discernible signs of a job was the exact right move for this movie. Because the point is that he hasn’t gotten to be Peter Parker in a very long time.

Having to hold down a job and fight for his income gives Peter something outside of spider-man. He still gets to be a real boy at work. Excising work from the plot entirely was the exact right choice for what this movie was trying to do.

At the end of no way home, Peter Parker has been erased from this reality, and Peter sets fire to his one route back to having something in his life as Peter. He chooses to not tell MJ and Ned the truth. He excises Peter Parker from his own existence. And the costs of that is perfectly continued in this movie. Peter doesn’t get to be Peter anymore. All he has left is Spider-Man. Giving him a job—even if it’s a shitty job that he hates—is giving him something outside of Spider-Man. I think the movie made the exact right decision in just not having anything about his income because it allowed them to cull any part of his life that still let him be Peter.

I do also want to give them credit for the decision to be completely silent on how he makes money. Giving him a random job would have harmed their message by giving him something outside of spiderman. But explaining how he was making money outside of a random job would have had inherent narrative implications that they just didn’t have the narrative space to deal with. Like. Is he getting paid to be spider-man? Have people been donating money to him? Did he sell some tech he invented and he’s living off that? All of those options have narrative consequences that you would have to grapple with, and it doesn’t really come with narrative pay off. You don’t need to answer that question to tell the story you’re trying to tell, so just don’t. Let the audience draw whatever conclusions they may. You don’t have to give them the answer to every question. Answering “how does he make money” does nothing to move forward the plot, so narratively, it’s dead weight. So often I see writers get themselves in trouble by trying to answer Every Possible Question but they just don’t have the narrative space to deal with the implications of their answers and it fucks them over in the long run. Simply not bringing it up was the perfect move here.

I thought they did a great job at elegantly creating a sense of isolation at the beginning. Very minor moments went a long way. The little sign saying to leave the takeout at the door—he’s not even talking to the fucking delivery man. He has one neighbor recognize him enough to say “oh we live on the same floor” and he immediately moves into the attic. He has a treadmill and it’s inside his apartment—he’s not going to the gym and getting outside contact that way. He doesn’t have gym friends. He doesn’t have anyone.

And they cut these moments of isolation with this constant contrast of Spider-Man’s success. Spider-Man’s Doing Great. Key To The Goddamn City. Everyone Loves Him. Crime’s At An All Time Low. :) NYC Loves Spidey. :)

The narrative initially invites Peter and the audience to speculate as to whether it’s better to excise Peter Parker from his own life. Peter Parker is nonexistent. He has no friends, no obligations, no life. And on the surface, that is fucking great for Spider-Man. He doesn’t have to try to make it to class because he doesn’t go to school. He doesn’t have to go be there for his girlfriend’s big event or his friend’s birthday or his aunt’s dinner because he doesn’t have anything outside of spiderman anymore. Spider-Man is thriving because he no longer has to compete with Peter Parker for existence. And maybe it’s better that way.

The narrative then spends the rest of the story disproving that notion. You need both. You need the humanity of Peter Parker to inform spiderman. He cannot just be one or the other. And that was so expertly outlined by his struggles with his mutating abilities, but more on that later.

At the beginning, Peter is allowed two lifelines to his identity as Peter Parker, and they are lifelines he is struggling to hold onto. He has his memory of May, and he has his memory of Ned and MJ. That is it.

There is a two second clip of the movie that I think was brilliant, and it was the fact that at one point you see a reminder on Peter’s phone telling him to buy May flowers. Why does he need a reminder to do that? He seemingly doesn’t have a job competing for his time. All he has is spider-man, and that has the most flexible hours imaginable. He lives in the land of 24 hour bodegas. He could go to buy May flowers any hour of the day. Why does he feel the need to pick a specific time and set a reminder on his phone to go do something he could do whenever?

To me, that two second clip at least invites the interpretation that Peter is struggling to hang onto the few moments he still has of being Peter Parker. He is setting a reminder because otherwise he will forget. Spider-Man is consuming more and more of his life in the same way his spider dna later starts consuming his genome.

Peter is similarly struggling to hang on to his memory of MJ and Ned. He has a piece of paper in a cup that he keeps shut up in a drawer. He has Ned’s Instagram and he is narratively punished for watching it. When I was watching Ned’s Instagram reels I was like “oh my god did I write those” because the movie uses social media in the EXACT WAY THAT I WOULD

There is an extremely painful irony in every single one of Ned’s Instagram videos. Ned tells MJ she can’t pretend that she’s never been more happy and she’s like “you’re right, I can’t.” Ned has a fucking laundry list of best friends who aren’t Peter that he made at school, couldn’t imagine this time without them. Peter cannot escape the reminder that they do not remember him, they do not miss him, they are happy without him. Every time he watches a video, he pays a price. And in the final video, MJ implicitly diminishes the idea that these videos mean anything to anyone. Who is even watching these, Ned? They are his sole remaining lifeline to the people he loves, and he cannot escape the reminder that the importance of these videos is entirely unilateral. He is clinging to videos that do not truly mean anything to the people he loves. He is reminded, once again, that his love for them is one-sided. He is never allowed to fantasize that this is real, and so he gets no unconditional relief from watching these. And so he is once again invited to let go of his life line to Peter Parker. Doesn’t it hurt to watch these? Don’t you just want to forget? Let go, let go, let go.

I don’t remember if they did this but if I could go back and watch it again I’d try and see if anyone even calls him by his own fucking name before Jean Grey does when she breaks into his apartment. He uses fake names when he goes to the party at MJ and Ned’s apartment and at ESU. When was the last time anyone’s called Peter by his own name?

I’ve said this already but having the police officer earnestly tell spiderman that he’d never hurt him he loves him and having Peter be like “oh. Okay.” Was the EXACT COMEDIC BEAT I myself would hit to the point where I was sitting in the theatre wondering if I was soulmates with whoever wrote the script.

First thing I didn’t like in the movie: Peter should not have had an AI.

Marvel has this obsession with giving every tech savvy character an AI and I absolutely hate it. First, this world should be fucking allergic to AI after age of ultron. AI was restricted by the Sokovia Accords themselves, and it was the only part of the Sokovia Accords that I thought was fair. But then every two seconds they decided we needed another fucking AI. Yeah, let’s only enforce the discriminatory police state bullshit out of those things. Let’s not give a shit about the thing that actually caused the problem in Sokovia. It’s soooo hypocritical.

Beyond my ongoing beef with the Sokovia Accords, I think giving Peter an AI was actively detrimental to what they were trying to do here.

You want to emphasize Peter’s sense of isolation in this movie. Giving him the AI gives him something to talk to. His loneliness would have been reinforced if he doesn’t even have a computer to chat with.

I do want to acknowledge the narrative benefit of having an AI. You’re dealing with a visual media. You do not get the benefit of an internal monologue. You need to rely on dialogue to explain a character’s thoughts. That’s a little hard to do if he has no one to fucking talk to. So I get why you have an AI character.

That being said, I think you could have remedied it by having him just talk out his thoughts aloud when he’s alone. Plenty of people talk to themselves, and it would have reinforced his sense of isolation. Like. I would have had that man pulling a Wilson on Castaway in every apartment scene. He’s has to talk to himself because he has no one else to talk to. He’s talking through his thoughts aloud and then it’s a hard cut to his empty apartment. He doesn’t have MJ. He doesn’t have Ned. He’s alone, he’s alone, he’s alone.

The AIs are just so often used by marvel to make their characters less. Why is the fucking AI figuring out why Peter’s mutating? Let him do that. Showcase his intelligence. You could have gotten the same result with a five second Bella-Swan-Google-searching-vampire style montage but one gives Peter’s character the benefit of making him smart enough to solve his own problems. He doesn’t need a robot to tell him what’s going on. He figured it out for himself.

I also would have made his setup/computers a little bit shittier to imply he’s still got the struggle bus going on in the background. Make it look like he pulled those monitors out of a dumpster.

I’m gonna tip my hat to them on one point with respect to the AI, and that’s the fact that they didn’t give it much of a personality. It helps with the sense of isolation. I still think it would have been better to not have an AI at all, but they mitigated the damage of it by stripping it of most of its ability to give much of an illusion of companionship.

We’re gonna get all of my initial complaints out of the way at the same time. He was way too buddy-buddy with DeWolffe (I don’t remember how to spell her name) and the police in general. Like babe you are an illegal vigilante.

Spider-Man is not a government employee. Even when the city loves him, he is an outsider. Why is he getting the same alerts as the police and why do they know he’s getting those? If he has access to those, it’s because he hacked their fucking systems. He should not officially be on restricted channels. Why do the police have his fucking phone number? Why are they chit-chatting on the morning commute? Why does DeWolffe know he’s been getting headaches? Don’t tell them fucking weaknesses.

They were just way too familiar and it narratively harmed his sense of isolation. This is again something I’m going to give them credit for on—they also mitigated the harm they did with this plot point. They made a point of saying that Peter doesn’t even know DeWolffe’s kids names. I just think it would have been better for him to have even more space from her. Have him pull back hard from any concern or attempts to probe into whether he has any fucking life. Have him call from pay phones or burner phones. Give him more distance and it’s more of a payoff when he shows he’s learned her kids’ names at the end.

I’m also going to give them credit in this respect—he is narratively punished for trusting the government as much as he did. Damage Control had weapons prepared specifically for him all along. They shouldn’t have been trusted. But this punishment is isolated to Damage Control itself, so the credit I’m giving them is limited.

The biggest thing I did not like about this movie: the one (1) line Peter had about running facial recognition across every camera in the city. That was fucking big state propaganda. That line was sponsored by goddamn Flock cameras. Fuck you fuck you fuck you

I am not joking or exaggerating in the slightest about that. That line was propaganda. This is legitimately how people have historically used art to desensitize the public to violations of their rights. Marvel specifically has a history of doing this. I bitched about this with EDITH and I’m bitching about it now.

You see a superhero with the most invasive fucking tech that violates countless human rights and it’s fine :) you can trust them with it :) they’re the good guy :) great power great responsibility etcetera etcetera :) :) and it actively desensitizes you to viewing that as a bad thing or a violation. It’s pure fucking police state propaganda.

Why the fuck did Tony stark have a fucking weaponized satellite that let him call out fucking missile strikes on people with such little oversight that a teenaged boy could call one out on another teenaged boy by fucking accident? NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT. Why did he think it was okay to casually be able to search every fucking phone on the planet including the ones of people who are not even accused or suspected of doing something wrong? That kind of tech is inherently immoral. It is violative by merit of its own existence. But it is presented as fine :) you can trust them to have it :) they are the good guys :) do you really need to worry about this if you have nothing to hide :) FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART THEY ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE AS PROPAGANDA

There was no need to have Peter be searching every camera in the fucking city in some weird police state bullshit move. He found the Scorpion when he attacked a fucking government base. This wasn’t a “oh my god he was just barely clipped by a camera outside of a bodega and we would have had no other way of finding him were it not for our fuck off invasive camera sweeping program” it was a “yeah he SHOWED UP WITH A MECHANICAL ATTACK TAIL UNIQUE TO HIM AND STARTED STABBING PEOPLE WITH IT so it’s a pretty big hint that this is the scorpion.” They could have just had someone phone the fucking attack in. The facial recognition software line had no narrative benefit and came at the cost of Spider-Man’s character. That’s some pretty great power that he should be questioning if he’s using responsibly. It was there as fucking propaganda and it was the only part of the movie that I actively hated.

That being said, that’s just like. three things off the cuff that I didn’t like, none of them related to very substantive aspects of the plot, and most of them could have been fixed with very minor script changes. My standards with writing are very high, so to like a movie this much is crazy for me.

Another minor point that I really liked was how they handled scorpion coming out of his possession. He had a very innocent confusion in how he spoke. There was something about the way he was like “what… spider-man?” that almost sounded like he was asking Peter for help. I just loved how the actor did it because in that moment, Scorpion wasn’t genuinely the antagonist. He needed help. And he didn’t get it from Peter, because that was one of the moments where his spider hormones surged.

The entire conflict with Peter becoming more spidery was so perfectly reflective of the core message of the movie. He is losing his humanity, he is losing himself, he is losing Peter Parker, and of course he is, because he was barely hanging onto Peter Parker as it was. But he needs Peter Parker. His humanity is what makes Spider-Man good.

When he is overwhelmed by his spider aspect, his morality goes out the window. He brutalizes Scorpion. He almost kills a responding officer. He even dangles MJ off of a building. He should be much more mindful of the safety of the possessed victims when he’s fighting Jean but when the spider is in charge he just isn’t.

When his hormones are surging, he also loses the ability to see Jean Grey. They give this a mechanical explanation in the movie—it’s seemingly related to his sensory overload—but I felt that this plot point was at least open to an interpretation that was reflective of the core message of the movie. Peter’s losing the very human part of himself that always saw the individual that he was saving. He doesn’t see Jean anymore, just like he doesn’t see MJ when he’s dangling her off the roof or scorpion beneath his possession. He is blind action and reaction. He is missing his humanity. He’s missing the part of himself that is always saw the person that needed saving. He is missing the part of him that is Peter because that’s the part of himself that he’s been slowly starving to death. And he cannot truly be spiderman without that piece of him. His humanity is what’s missing.

This entire movie was a masterclass in maintaining a coherent narrative message. The narrative rewards him when he clings tighter to his lifelines. He goes to the party at MJ and Ned’s and he gets his first confirmation that a part of them missed him. Ned is looking for spider-man. MJ feels like she’s meant to be waiting for something in the city. A part of them recognizes the hole he left in their lives.

They narratively reward him again during the fight with the Hulk. The solution isn’t to just Punch Harder or Fight Better—it’s to say Bruce, it’s Peter. You know me. Being Peter Parker is what saved him.

The fact that MJ did not just go back to Peter when she found out was written with me specifically in mind. They are in my fucking head.

Peter makes a decision for both of them at the end of NWH, and that decision comes at cost. They cannot just reset to where they were years ago. She’s not the same person she was back then. He is not the same person he was. She doesn’t even remember him. They can’t just go back to what they were. Maybe they could have gotten what they lost back if he had given her the choice back then, but he didn’t, and they both have to live with that.

I am not saying it’s impossible for them to ever be romantically involved again. I hope they do ultimately get back together. MJ and Peter are one of my favorite romantic pairings of all time. But it just shouldn’t be as simple as “oh my god now that I know this we can erase the last few years and pretend we’re those same fucking teenagers again.” If they want to be together, they would need to rebuild a relationship. It would require time and effort and purpose.

I love this so much because it gives MJ the dignity of being her own person. She is not just handed to Peter as the prize to the hero with all interiority hand-waved away. A real person would not just fall into some rando’s arms with no issues after years apart. And it also makes it clear that the choice that Peter made for both of them at the end of the last movie comes at cost. It doesn’t just narratively walk back one of the biggest decisions from his franchise. Like oh my fucking god YES thank GOD they didn’t just get back together

Even though the romantic dimension isn’t present in their relationship, the care and compassion is still there. MJ is so human with him. She invites him up to say hi to Ned. The romantic love is missing but she still cares about him as a person.

Peter is again narratively rewarded for clinging tighter to his lifeline. He goes and he spends real time with MJ and Ned, and that is how he figures out that damage control lied to him. It’s such a coherently communicated and internally consistent message that I could cry.

I have so many good things to say about Jean Grey and her presence in this movie but I got a different ask about that already and I’m still typing it out. We’re just gonna say that I loved it for right now and expand on that in the other ask.

Pairing him with Frank in this movie was the perfect move. Sometimes I see MCU pairings and I’m like “you just had more movies to run out on that actor’s contract huh.” I have this entire rant about how step one to fixing the trainwreck that was doctor strange: multiverse of madness is to cut doctor strange. He had no business being in that movie. His dead weight dragged the entire film down—it should have been Scarlet Witch or America Chavez headlining that movie. But picking Frank for this was PERFECT. You needed him and his genuine isolation to foil Peter’s imposed isolation. You needed that scene of him saying “you aren’t here yet and you don’t want to be.” He is the exact character I would have picked to be support in this movie.

I think it’s obvious that I think their dynamic was perfectly drafted considering it’s the dynamic I gave them four years ago in my fucking fanfic. 10/10, could not have possibly loved it more. Exactly how I always imagined them together.

The ending

Oh my god the ending

The narrative again rewards Peter for embracing his lifeline to Peter Parker. He saves Jean through his memory of May.

One of the things I hated most about the reboot is how they erased Ben from the narrative. I understand not wanting to film the same fucking origin story that’s been the subject of multiple major motion pictures, one of which was released only a few years prior, so I’m actually okay with the decision to skip the spiderman origin story in the MCU. But Ben should have haunted the narrative in the way he just didn’t. His loss shaped Spider-Man’s core and yet there was next to no trace of him.

Subverting his origin story and having it be delivered through May in NWH was one of the best writing decisions in the entire MCU. I hated far from home because it felt like marvels dedication towards fucking chaining spiderman to Tony stark like Prometheus to his goddamn rock had eviscerated his comic book identity. But they returned Spider-Man’s core and depth to him in NWH in no small part through May and they used her perfectly to anchor him in this movie

Peter saves Jean by inviting her into his head to “speak” with May. And then he sits down at her side in May’s place. He speaks to her himself. He saves her as Peter Parker. And it is as a Peter Parker who has internalized and decided to live May’s teachings to him the same way Peter in the comics internalized and lived Ben’s teachings to him. It was such peak spider-man.

I WAS THE TARGET AUDIENCE OF THE DECISION TO HAVE HIM RECONNECT WITH NED AT THE END OF THAT MOVIE. He’s not showing up with flowers to chase a woman who’s already rejected him. He’s chasing platonic love. Friendship!! Y E S