Hey, you look good today.

A man was sitting on the floor in front of Apartment 6B. Not slouching, he was propped up against the wall, he was clearly not well.

It was him. Your neighbor. You knew him only by the boots, which were now sitting several feet away from him, looking even more battered than before.

He was a mountain of a man. Wide shoulders. Even in the gloom of the 40-watt hallway bulb, you could tell he was powerful. But what stopped your heart was the color.

His gray hoodie was stained a deep, saturated, terrifying crimson. It was a slick patch covering his entire chest. There was another bloom of it on his thigh.

You felt your bag slip from your shoulder, hitting the dingy tile floor with a heavy, wet thud. All the clean clothes, everything you’d worked so hard to maintain, forgotten. You took an involuntary step back. Your mind was screaming run, scream, call 911, but your body was locked.

You had only ever seen the man in brief flashes, a strong profile by the window of the deli, the broad back as he walked away. The image that flashed in your mind now, though, was different. It was the one you knew of him, but had never really seen. A hard, squared jaw. A strong profile. A fading scar.

He didn't move. He didn't speak. He was just… there. Bloody. Imposing. A ghost that had finally made itself solid.

Slowly, his head turned towards you. His eyes were dark, almost black in this lighting, and they were the single most terrifying thing you had ever seen. They held an intensity that was paralyzing. A look that didn't just see you; it examined you, tested you, weighed you.

For the longest, coldest five seconds of your life, he just stared. You were sure this was it. You had stumbled into something you weren't supposed to see, and you were going to pay the price.

His face was a mask of pain and exhaustion, but below that, something else was moving. Slowly, painfully, a muscle in his jaw twitched. A faint crease of what might have been amusement appeared at the corner of his eyes.

He didn’t smile. The expression was too grim for that. But his eyes softened, just a fraction. Just enough to show that whatever he was looking at, it wasn't a threat.

Then, his voice, a low rumble like a concrete mixer, broke the silence.

“Evening, young lady.”

He spoke with a gravelly accent, his tone flat but not unkind. It was the absolute normalness of the greeting, the simple politeness of it, that was the final shattering shock.

You could have laughed. You could have cried. You just stared at him. The man looked like he had just gone fifteen rounds with a buzzsaw, yet he was treating this like a simple encounter on the subway.

His eyes held yours for another second, a wordless message passing between you. Then, he looked down at his own chest, at the fresh pool of blood staining his hands, and the moment was broken.

A grimace of pain finally broke through his mask. He gasped, a low, guttural sound, and his head thudded back against the wall. His body went slack. He was collapsing in front of you.

The paralysis finally broke. You didn't think. You didn't call the police. You ran.

Not away. Towards him.

Your laundry was scattered across the hall floor, but you ignored it, leaning over him. As his shadow fell over you, those dark, intense eyes snapped open again. The sheer speed of his reaction made you freeze, but the moment he registered it was just you, the sharp tension drained from his shoulders.

"You're still here," he muttered, his voice sounding like two millstones grinding together. "Was sure you'd be three blocks away by now, calling every badge in the five boroughs."

"I thought about it," you said, stepping closer and slinging his uninjured arm over your shoulder. "Then I realized if you bled out in the hall, the landlord would find a way to deduct it from my security deposit. Up we go."

A faint, breathless huff escaped his chest—his version of a laugh. "Practical. I respect it."

He grunted as you hoisted his massive frame off the cold floor. He was heavy pure muscle and dead weight. He groaned as he stumbled forward, relying almost entirely on you to keep him upright. You dragged him across the threshold into your apartment, kicked the front door shut behind you, and maneuvered him onto your worn living room couch.

He collapsed onto the cushions with a heavy sigh, his dark eyes sweeping over your small, neat living space before settling back on you.

"Nice place," he rumbled, watching as you ran to the bathroom, grabbing your emergency first-aid kit, a bowel of warm water, and a stack of clean towels to set on the coffee table. "A little small, but... cozy."

"Don't get attached. And try not to ruin the upholstery," you commanded, reaching for the hem of his heavy, blood-stained hoodie. "We need to get this off you."

"Whoa there, Doc," Jon’s lips twitched, a crooked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the pain in his eyes. "At least buy me a drink first."

"Shut up and help me," you grumbled, though your face warmed slightly.

You gently unzipped the front, peeling the stiff, bloody fabric away from his shoulders. "Lean forward. Slowly."

Jon grunted, bracing his forearms on his knees as he tipped his head down. You carefully gathered the thick material of the hoodie, easing it up his back and over his head to avoid snagging the jagged cut near his cheek. As you worked the sleeves down his massive arms, your hands naturally slid against his skin to guide the heavy cotton off him.

Your fingers brushed directly against his abdomen - his stomach was impossibly firm, warm, and ridged with hard, defined muscle that flexed instinctively under your touch. You caught your breath for a split second, your palms lingering against the heat of his skin as you finally pulled the ruined garment away and set it aside.

Jon raised his head, catching the brief hesitation in your hands. A low, rumbling chuckle vibrated in his chest. "Like what you see, sweetheart?"

"I'm inspecting the damage," you retorted quickly, though you didn't immediately pull your hands away from his torso. "You're lucky this missed anything vital."

"Pure skill," Jon murmured. As you leaned in closer to inspect the deep slice near his ribs, his hand moved slow, deliberate, and impossibly warm. His thick, calloused fingers reached up and rested lightly against your waist, steadying himself. The heat of his palm seeped right through the thin cotton of your shirt. "And maybe a little bit of luck."

"A guy with a hole in his side shouldn't be boasting," you said, grabbing a damp rag and gently pressing it against the cut on his jawline.

Jon flinched, a sharp intake of air hissing through his teeth, but his grip on your waist only tightened, his thumb lazily tracing a slow, grounding circle against your hip bone. Your gaze dropped to his hands large, warm, and anchored firmly against your body. "Just making sure you don’t collapse on me," he said, his voice low. "You're hovering. I'm supporting."

"Right." you scoffed, moving down to clean the blood from his ribs, your fingers occasionally skimming the firm line of his waist.

"Jesus, lady," he grunted, tilting his head back against the sofa cushions with a groaning sigh. "You're ruthless."

"You're the one who crashed into my doorway looking like a horror movie extra," you replied smoothly, applying an antiseptic wipe. "What even happened out there?"

Jon was quiet for a second, his dark eyes searching your face. His hand shifted from your waist, his large, rough fingers tracing up your side, lingering over your ribs before coming to rest on the curve of your shoulder. His grip was heavy, possessive, and grounded.

"Occupational hazard," he said softly, the playful banter dropping for just a fraction of a second. "Let's just say... the neighborhood's gonna be a lot quieter from now on."

You looked up, catching the raw, dark edge in his eyes before he smoothed it over with another lopsided grin. The unspoken truth hung between you: the strange, watching feeling that had haunted you for weeks wasn't just in your head and Jon had just personally put an end to it.

"Quiet, huh?" you murmured, pressing a thick pad of gauze to his side and taping it down securely.

"Dead silent," Jon confirmed, his thumb gently brushing the side of your neck, his rough skin sending a shiver straight down your spine. "Which means you owe me. I just upgraded your apartment security for free."

"I pulled you off the floor, saved your sweater's replacement, and brought you inside," you pointed out, leaning back slightly to assess your handiwork. "I'd say we're even."

"Not quite," Jon grunted, his hand sliding from your neck down to your arm, his thumb tracing one last slow line across your wrist. "You still gotta buy me a drink once I can walk without spilling my guts."

"Is that a threat or a date, 6B?"

Jon leaned back against your cushions, bare-chested and bandaged, looking completely at home on your couch with a genuinely warm, crooked smile breaking through the grime on his face.

"Both, young lady," he rumbled. "Definitely both."

You held his gaze, your fingers lingering near his wrist where his pulse hammered strong, steady, and dangerously fast.

"You talk big for a guy who’s one bad shift away from needing an IV," you murmured, tilting your head. But you didn't pull back. If anything, the distance between you was shrinking, the quiet air in your living room suddenly heavy with a thick, electric heat.

"Yeah?" Jon’s dark eyes darkened further, a low, gravelly hum in his broad chest. Without breaking eye contact, his big hand traveled back up your arm, his calloused palm wrapping firmly around the back of your neck. His grip was broad and possessive, pulling you down just an inch until your breath hitched against his lips. "Why don't you test me, sweetheart? See if I'm as fragile as you think."

"Is that a challenge?" you whispered, your hands resting on his chest. You could feel the deep, steady rise and fall of his lungs under your palms, the heat radiating off him like a furnace.

"Call it an invitation."

His thumb stroked along your jawline, tilting your face up just enough before he closed the final fraction of space between you.

The kiss wasn't gentle, but it wasn't rushed, either. It was heavy, deliberate, and intoxicatingly thorough. Jon tasted like copper and heat, his mouth demanding and possessive as he pulled you closer, ignoring the slight wince when his side flexed. A low growl caught in the back of his throat when your fingers tangled into the dark, coarse hair at the nape of his neck, deepening the kiss until you were breathless.

When he finally pulled back just enough to catch his breath, his forehead rested against yours. His eyes burned into yours, dark and intense, a faint, lopsided smirk tugging at his mouth.

"See?" he rumbled, his breath hot against your swollen lips, his hand sliding down to rest heavily on your hip. "Not so fragile."

"You're a terrible patient," you managed to say, your voice a little breathier than you would've liked as your hands traced the hard line of his shoulders, brushing over the fresh bandages. "I should've left you in the hallway."

"Lie," Jon teased softly, his lips tracing a fiery, lingering path from the corner of your mouth, down the curve of your cheek, to the sensitive spot just below your ear. You let out a soft gasp as his teeth lightly grazed your skin before his tongue smoothed over the spot, sending a shiver straight down your spine. "You like having me right where I am."

"I like having my security deposit," you countered, though your fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him back to your lips.

Jon chuckled against your mouth, a rough, dark sound. His dark eyes locked onto yours, blazing with a sudden, sharp hunger that made your stomach drop. His hand tightened at the nape of your neck, and before you could even catch your breath, he shifted.

With a low, gravelly grunt, he reached for your waist with both hands and pulled you directly onto his lap.

The movement was sudden and raw. As you landed straddling his thighs, his body jerked beneath you, a sharp, ragged gasp catching violently in his throat. His eyes snapped shut for a split second, a harsh wince twisting his features as the tension pulled directly against the fresh stitches and bandage on his ribs.

"Jon" you started, instinctively placing your hands on his broad shoulders to lift yourself back off him. "You're gonna hurt yourself"

"Don't," he growled, the word a thick, breathless command. His eyes snapped open, dark and completely unyielding, burning right through you. "Don't move. I'm fine."

To prove it, his hands slid possessively down your back, large, heavy palms smoothing over the fabric of your shirt before gripping your hips. He pulled you flush against him, ignoring the sharp flare of pain in his side as if it were nothing compared to the urge to hold you close.

"You're out of your mind," you whispered, your voice trembling slightly, though you stopped trying to pull away. Your hands slid up to frame his jaw, your thumbs smoothing over the rough stubble on his cheek.

"You're bleeding, 6B."

"I've got plenty of blood, sweetheart," Jon rumbled, a crooked, dark smirk tugging at his lips despite the sweat glistening at his temples from the sheer effort. "What I don't have is time to waste."

His hands were restless, urgent, and hot against your skin. One palm slid up under the hem of your shirt, his broad, calloused fingers tracing the smooth skin of your waist, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. He palmed the curve of your ribcage, squeezing firmly, pulling a soft gasp from your throat. He seemed almost obsessed with the feeling of you, proving to himself that you were real, safe, and right there in his arms.

"Jon..." you breathed, leaning down until your forehead rested against his.

"Look at me," he grumbled, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate circle over your bare hip bone under your shirt. When you met his gaze, his expression softened just a fraction, though the dark, possessive intensity stayed. "Need to feel you. Just for a second."

He didn't wait for permission. Jon surged up, capturing your mouth in a kiss that was deeper and far more demanding than the last. He tasted of heat and copper, his tongue tangling with yours in a slow, heavy rhythm that made your head spin.

He let out a low, satisfied groan into your mouth, his hands sliding lower to cup your thighs, pressing you firmly down into his lap. Every time his side throbbed, his grip on you only tightened, the physical pain completely eclipsed by the desperate, searing need to have you as close as humanly possible.

A messy moan escaped your mouth as you felt his hands rub against your thighs, slowly letting them find their way underneath your sweatshirt.

"God," he rasped, trailing wet, impatient kisses along your jawline and down the sensitive curve of your neck.

"I think we should take this off," he chuckled, his large hands moving with ease as he gathered the hem of your sweatshirt in his fists. He tugged the thick material up your torso, exposing your bare stomach and ribcage to the cool air of the room. He guided your arms out of the sleeves and pulled the top over your head, tossing it onto the floor without breaking eye contact.

He leaned back against the cushions to take in the sight of you sitting flush on his lap. You could feel your cheeks flush under his intense gaze his stare was possessive, heavy, and utterly intoxicating. His calloused fingers slid around your back, hooking under the strap of your bra. With a flick of his fingers, he unclasped it, hooking his thumbs under the shoulder straps and peeling the lace down your arms. You let the fabric drop to the couch, leaving your chest completely bare to his dark, hungry gaze.

Jon didn't waste a single second. His mouth found its way to your nipple, his warm tongue swirling around the sensitive flesh with a slow, deliberate heat. You threw your head back, letting a breathy moan escape your lips to echo softly through your small apartment.

"You like that, sweetheart?" he murmured smoothly, looking up at you through dark eyes as his calloused hands palmed your chest, squeezing gently.

Chewing on your lower lip, you nodded, the dizzying sensation of his hands and mouth making your head spin too fast to formulate a proper thought.

"Use your words. I wanna hear it," Jon grumbled, bringing one hand up to cup your chin, his thumb dragging slowly across your slick lower lip.

"Yes," you managed to choke out, your voice trembling. "I like it, Jon... Please, I need you," you whined, instinctively rolling your hips down against the hard line of his bulge.

Jon’s grip on your hips tightened until his knuckles turned white, a low, guttural growl vibrating deep in his chest at the movement of your skin grinding against his denim. The sharp, searing flare of pain from his stitched-up side didn't slow him down for a second; if anything, the raw friction only stoked the fire behind his dark, heavy eyes.

"Patience, sweetheart," he rumbled, his voice thick and rough like gravel. "We're gonna do this right."

Without breaking eye contact, his broad hands shifted, sliding down to the waistband of your shorts. His fingers hooked under the elastic, dragging them down over your hips along with your panties in one smooth, practiced motion. He lifted you just enough to strip the clothing completely off your legs, tossing the scraps aside so you were entirely bare on his lap.

His hand worked blindly at his own belt. The heavy brass buckle clinked loudly in the quiet living room, followed by the sharp scrape of his zipper. He shoved his dark jeans and briefs down over his hips, freeing his heavy, throbbing length. The tip brushed against your wet, sensitive center, making your breath hitch violently. You were already slick for him, dripping against the hot, rigid length resting between your thighs.

But instead of driving up into you right away, Jon held your hips firm, anchoring you in place. His other hand slid down between your bodies, his thick, calloused fingers finding your slick heat. A dark, crooked smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he felt how soaked you were for him.

"Look at you," he growled low, his thumb finding your sensitive clit and circling it with a slow, agonizing pressure. "Dripping. All this for your neighbor, huh?"

You gasped, your back arching off his chest as a sharp wave of pleasure shot straight up your spine. "Jon—please—"

"Not yet, sweetheart," he teased, slipping two thick fingers smoothly inside you. He gasped slightly at how tight and hot you felt, his fingers curling upward in a slow, deliberate rhythm that had you squirming helplessly on his lap. He worked you open, his thumb continuing its relentless, maddening circles against your bundle of nerves until you were whimpering, your hands clutching blindly at his shoulders.

"Jon, stop teasing," you whimpered, your hips trying to roll down onto his rigid length, but his grip on your thigh kept you locked right where he wanted you.

"I'm establishing baseline, Doc," he rumbled with a gravelly laugh, his mouth coming up to capture your earlobe in a light bite while his fingers slicked you further, pumping into you with an agonizing, expert pace. "Need to make sure you're completely ready for me."

"I am, I'm ready, please—"

Satisfied with your breathless pleading, Jon finally withdrew his fingers, his dark eyes fixed on yours as he guided his broad head to your entrance. He aligned himself and slowly pushed upward, easing into you with a steady, agonizing patience.

The moment he broke past your entrance, your head snapped back, a sharp, choked gasp tearing from your throat. Your toes curled, and your inner walls stretched and fluttered around his thick length, every inch of him filling you so completely it took your breath away entirely. The sheer size and heat of him made your hips tremble, your fingers digging so hard into his broad shoulders that your knuckles turned white.

You let out a soft, helpless whimper, your core arching instinctively to take more of him even as the overwhelming fullness made your head spin. Every sensitive nerve ending fired at once, a thrilling, heavy ache blooming deep in your pelvis as he sank all the way home, locking your hips flush against his.

Jon let out a heavy, shuddering exhale against your neck, his muscles locking under the sheer restraint it took not to tear into you right then and there.

"Jesus, baby..." he gritted out, his jaw clenched so hard a vein throbbed in his temple. He began to roll his hips up into yours, setting a slow, agonizingly deep rhythm that hit every sensitive nerve inside you. "You feel unbelievable. So tight... fucking perfect for me."

You matched his pace, setting a rhythm on his lap, your hips rolling to meet every brutal thrust. Jon’s hands gripped your waist tight, his thumbs pressing into the dimples of your lower back to guide you down hard onto him. The wet, slapping sound of your skin colliding echoed off the small apartment walls, completely drowning out the quiet hum of the city outside.

He leaned up, capturing one of your exposed nipples between his teeth, giving a light tug that made you arch your back and cry out. His hands moved everywhere cupping your breasts, dragging down your sides, and palming your thighs, leaving red marks against your flushed skin.

"Jon—" you gasped out, your vision blurring into stars as the intense, heavy pressure built rapidly in your lower stomach. Your inner walls pulsed around his length, threatening to set him off. "I'm... I'm close—"

"Go on then," he rasped, his mouth claiming yours in a harsh, bruising kiss as his pace turned desperate, his hips driving up into you with relentless force. "Take every last inch of it and let go sweetheart"

The tension snapped, a violent wave of pleasure crashing over you that made your entire body coil tight and shatter. You cried out directly into his mouth, your walls throbbing in tight spasms around him.

The feeling of your release gripping him was the final straw. With a harsh, guttural groan, Jon buried his face into the crook of your neck, his hips driving up one last deep, punishing time as he poured himself inside you, his massive frame shuddering violently on the couch.

"God... baby girl," he choked out against your skin, his voice thick, raw, and completely wrecked as he held you impossibly tight through the final, lingering thrum of his release.

For a long time, the only sound in the room was the heavy, ragged sound of your shared breathing. Jon kept his arms wrapped tight around your bare waist, holding your chest flush against his as his heart hammered heavily against your ribs.

Slowly, his rough hand came up to smooth over your hair, pressing a warm, lingering kiss to the slick skin of your neck, his breath still hot against your ear.

“Everyone’s waiting for us to fix it. Like we’ve always fixed it. Like Galactus is just another normal problem and the Fantastic Four are supposed to have the answer before breakfast.” He laughed once, short and bitter. “And I’m sitting here playing alien Rosetta Stone while the guy who eats planets is still out there deciding whether Earth looks tasty.”

You didn’t say anything right away. The silence sat heavy between you. You could feel how useless you were in it—no genius-level intellect, no stretchy limbs or rock skin or flame powers that could somehow translate cosmic tongues. Just you. Sitting. Watching him grind himself down against something that refused to give.

Johnny’s next words came quieter, almost like he was talking to himself instead of you.

“I keep thinking about what happens if we don’t figure it out in time. If he comes here and we’re still scrambling. Sue’s already not sleeping— especially with Franklin. Reed’s barely a person anymore. Ben’s doing that thing where he pretends he’s fine by making more jokes than usual. And me…” He exhaled hard through his nose. “I’m the Human Torch. I’m supposed to be the one who doesn’t crack under pressure. The funny, hot one. The jokester. Not the one staring at half baked translations until my eyes cross because I’m terrified we’re already too late.”

He finally turned his head. The blue of his eyes looked tired.

“You don’t have to keep sitting here,” he said. Not unkind. Just honest. “I know this is boring as hell. And it’s not like you can… help with any of this.”

And it’s not like you can help with any of this.

The words landed like a slap.

You felt your face go hot, then cold. All the quiet hours of sitting there, of watching him grind himself into the ground over waveforms and alien syllables, of swallowing the useless ache in your chest because at least you could be present—all of it suddenly felt stupid. Transparent. Pitiful.

Johnny didn’t even notice at first. He was already turning back to the audio, pencil moving again, muttering something about patterns. Like the conversation was over. Like of course you couldn’t help. Like that was just a fact of the universe, as fixed as Galactus’s hunger.

You stood up so fast the chair skidded back and scraped against the floor.

“Okay,” you said, voice tight. “Got it.”

His head snapped around. “Wait—what?”

You didn’t answer. You were already moving, crossing the lab in long, sharp strides, pulse hammering in your ears. The door hissed open under your hand. You didn’t look back.

“Hey—come on, I didn’t mean—”

The door shut behind you and cut him off.

You made it all the way to the residential level before the first real sting hit behind your eyes. The shared room was dark when you shoved the door open. You didn’t bother with lights. Just stood there in the middle of the floor with your arms crossed tight over your chest, breathing too hard, trying to decide whether you were more angry or embarrassed. Both, maybe. The kind of both that made your throat ache.

You should leave. That was the thought that kept looping. Pack a bag, go stay somewhere else for a few days, stop taking up space in a place where the actual problems were cosmic and the people who solved them were enhanced geniuses. Stop being the soft, powerless thing Johnny had to step around while the universe waited for the Fantastic Four to save it.

The door opened behind you harder than necessary.

Johnny stood in the doorway, hair a mess, chest rising and falling like he’d taken the stairs at a run. His ocean eyes flickering with leftover adrenaline and something that looked a lot like panic.

“I’m an idiot,” he said immediately. No preamble. “A complete, fucking idiot. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

You turned. Your voice came out quieter than you expected, and more tired.

“But you did mean it. That’s the problem. I can’t help. I’ve been sitting there for hours watching you tear yourself apart over something I don’t even understand, and the only thing I contribute is taking up a chair. I’m just… here. Useless. A burden you don’t need while you’re trying to stop a planet-eater.”

Johnny’s face did something complicated. He stepped fully into the room and let the door shut. The soft click of the lock felt loud.

“Don’t,” he said. Low. Serious in a way he rarely let himself be. “Don’t call yourself that.”

You shook your head, already moving past him toward the closet. “Maybe I should just go. Get out of the way. You guys have enough—”

He caught your wrist.

Not hard. Just firm enough to stop you. His palm was warm—almost hot—and the contact sent a little jolt up your arm. When you looked up, his eyes were bright and intent and a little wrecked.

“You’re not a burden,” Johnny said, voice rough. “Not even close. You’re the only reason I haven’t put my fist through the wall yet. You’re the only thing in this whole building that doesn’t feel like it’s waiting for me to fail. I said something stupid because I’m scared and frustrated and my mouth gets ahead of my brain when the pressure’s this high. That is on me. Not you.”

His thumb brushed once over the inside of your wrist, soft and apologetic.

“I need you here,” he said, quieter. “Not because you can translate cosmic languages. Because when you’re in the room I can still breathe. Because the second you walked out I felt like the floor dropped. So don’t you dare stand there and tell me you’re something I don’t need.”

You opened your mouth—maybe to argue, maybe to fold—but Johnny didn’t give you the chance.

He stepped in, cupped the side of your face with his free hand, and kissed you hard.

It wasn’t careful. It was desperate and a little clumsy with leftover adrenaline, mouth hot and insistent. One of his hands slid into your hair; the other stayed locked around your wrist like he was afraid you’d still try to leave. He made a low sound against your mouth when you didn’t pull away—relief and hunger mixed together—and pressed closer, backing you a half-step until your shoulders touched the wall.

When he finally broke the kiss it was only far enough to speak against your lips, voice rough and wrecked.

“You’re not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not over something I said like an asshole. You’re staying right here with me. Got it?”

His forehead rested against yours. The heat of him soaked into your skin.

Johnny deepened the kiss without warning—mouth opening against yours, tongue sweeping in hot and sure, the kind of kiss that didn’t ask so much as take. His hand slid down your back and locked at the small of it, guiding you backward in slow, deliberate steps. You felt the edge of the mattress hit the backs of your knees a moment later. He kept walking you until the only option left was to sit, then follow you down, knees bracketing your hips, the heat of him already bleeding through his clothes.

You managed to turn your face just enough to speak against his mouth.

“Johnny—wait. The translation. The Surfer. You were—”

“It can wait.” His voice was low, rough, the words spoken right against your lips like he didn’t want to give them any more distance than that. “All of it can wait. Reed’s still got the files. The universe isn’t ending in the next twenty minutes.” He kissed you again, slower this time but no less intense, then pulled back just far enough to look at you. The blue of his eyes was dark, focused, a little wild around the edges. “You’re more important right now. You’re my whole goddamn world, and I need you to feel that. Not hear it. Feel it.”

His hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb stroking once along your cheekbone—soft, almost careful—before his grip tightened just enough to tilt your face where he wanted it. Dominant without being harsh. Soft without being hesitant.

“I was an asshole earlier,” he murmured. “Said the dumbest possible thing at the worst possible time. But I need you to listen to me now, okay? Really listen.” He leaned in and kissed the corner of your mouth, then the hinge of your jaw, then lower, voice still going the whole time. “You are not a burden. You are not in the way. You are the only thing in this building that makes any of the rest of it feel worth the pressure. When I’m losing my mind over Galactus and alien languages and the whole planet looking at us like we’ve already got the answer, you’re the reason I can still put one foot in front of the other.”

He shifted his weight, pressing you more firmly into the mattress, one thigh sliding between yours. The heat of him was everywhere—skin, breath— every point of contact felt charged.

“So I’m not going back to that lab right now,” he said, voice dropping into something rougher, filthier around the edges. “I’m staying right here. And I’m going to take my time showing you exactly what you are to me. How much I need this. How much I need you.” His free hand slid under the hem of your shirt, palm spanning your side, fingers splaying warm and possessive. “Gonna touch you until you stop thinking about being useless. Until the only thing in your pretty brain is how hard I am for you and how good it feels when I take care of what’s mine.”

He kissed you again—deeper, wetter, a soft groan vibrating in his chest when your hands finally lifted to his shoulders. When he spoke next it was against your mouth, words half-swallowed by the next press of his lips.

“Tell me you understand. Tell me you’re gonna let me do this. Because I need to hear it, baby. Need to know you’re not still thinking about walking out that door.”

His hips rolled once, slow and deliberate, letting you feel the hard line of him through both layers of clothes. The possessiveness in the way he held you—firm, unhurried, hungry—made the words land heavier.

“You’re staying,” he said, almost a growl now. “And I’m going to make damn sure you feel how wanted you are. Every single inch of you.”

Johnny kissed his way down your body without rushing, like there wasn't a universal sized threat looming in the background of his consciousness. The way he tugged your shirt up and off, the way he unbuttoned your pants and dragged them down your legs like he’d already decided you weren’t getting them back tonight. He settled between your thighs like he belonged there, palms warm and steady as he pushed your knees farther apart.

“Look at you,” he murmured, voice low and rough. The heat of his breath ghosted over your cunt before his mouth even touched you. “Already so wet for me baby. That’s fucking perfect.”

Then he licked a slow, deliberate stripe up the center of you and groaned like the taste of you was something he’d been starving for. The warmth of him was immediate and different—his tongue hotter than any normal mouth should be, the residual fire under his skin turning every stroke into something that sparked and lingered. You felt it when he sealed his lips around your clit and sucked, felt it again when he slid two fingers into you without warning and curled them just right.

“Fuck—feel that?” he said against you, the words vibrating. His fingers moved in slow, deep strokes, the unnatural heat of them making every press of his knuckles feel sharper, denser. “That’s how hot I get when I’m inside you. Can’t even help it.” He licked again, slower, then fucked his tongue in alongside his fingers for a moment just to hear the wet sound it made. “God, you take me so well. So fucking responsive.”

He didn’t let up. He set the pace and kept it—steady, relentless attention all on you. Fingers curling against that spot that made your hips twitch, tongue working your clit in firm, focused circles, the heat of him sinking deeper the longer he stayed. Every time your thighs tried to close he simply pressed them wider with his free hand and kept going.

“That’s it,” he murmured when your breath started coming shorter. “Don’t hold it back. I want to feel you come on my fingers. Want to taste it when you fall apart for me.” He sucked harder on your clit, fingers stroking deeper, hotter. “You’re doing so good. Just let it happen. I’ve got you.”

The heat of his mouth and the heat of his fingers stacked until it was almost too much—pleasure edged with that unique heat only he could give you. Your hands fisted in the sheets. Your hips rolled up against his face and he just groaned and took it, tongue flattening, fingers pumping a little faster now, still controlled but hungrier.

“Come on,” he coaxed, voice filthy and soft at the same time. “Give it to me. Soak my fingers. Let me feel how hard you come when I’m the one making you.”

You broke with a sharp, broken sound, thighs shaking around his head, cunt clenching tight around the heat of his fingers. Johnny stayed right there through it—licking you through the pulses, working you with slow, deep strokes until the aftershocks made you twitch and try to twist away. He didn’t let you. He simply pinned your hip with one hand and kept his mouth on you, gentler now but still present, still hot.

When your body finally started to settle he lifted his head just enough to look up the length of you, lips shiny, eyes dark and satisfied. His fingers stayed inside you, still moving in lazy, possessive little curls that kept the sparks alive.

“There she is,” he said, voice rough with want. “That’s what I needed. You coming on my tongue like you were made for it.” He leaned in and pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, then another closer to where his fingers were still buried. “You good? Or does my baby need more?”

Your answer came out wrecked and immediate—begging, hips shifting restlessly against his hand, the leftover heat of him still throbbing inside you.

Johnny’s smile was slow and dark and completely in control.

“Yeah,” he murmured, already lowering his mouth again. “That’s what I thought. Hold on, baby. I got you.”

Johnny crawled up your body and pulled you into him—turning you onto your side, dragging your back flush against his chest, one strong arm banding tight around your middle so there was nowhere to go. His cock was already hard and heavy against the curve of your ass, the unnatural warmth of him bleeding straight through skin.

“C’mere,” he muttered against the side of your neck, voice low and rough. He hauled your top leg up and over his thigh, opening you wide, and the shift left you completely exposed to him. “Just like that. Let me hold you.”

He lined himself up and pushed in slow but deep, a long, controlled slide that made both of you groan. The heat of him was immediate—thicker, hotter than any normal body temperature, every inch of his cock radiating as he buried himself to the hilt. His arm tightened around your chest, palm splayed over your sternum, keeping you locked against him while he started to move.

“Fuck—feel that?” he breathed against your neck, hips rolling up into you in steady, deep thrusts. “How hard I am inside you? That’s all you, baby. You do this to me.” He kissed the side of your throat, open-mouthed and hungry, then dragged his teeth lightly over the same spot. “So fucking tight. Taking every inch like you were made for it.”

He kept the pace deliberate in a way that he controlled the angle, the depth, the way he held your leg exactly where he wanted it so he could drive up into you without you having any leverage to rush him. Every thrust was a firm upward roll of his hips, cock dragging against that sensitive spot inside you on every stroke, the heat of him making the friction feel denser, more intense.

“That’s it,” he murmured, lips moving against your skin between words. “Just stay right here and take it. I’ve got you. Not letting go.” His free hand slid down to where you were joined, fingers finding your still-sensitive clit and rubbing slow circles in time with his thrusts. “Listen to how wet you are for me. Fucking filthy. Love the way you sound when I’m this deep.”

He kissed your neck again—harder this time, sucking a mark into the side of it while his hips kept working, the wet slap of skin and the low, continuous heat of his body against your back turning the whole thing into something almost overwhelming. His voice stayed right at your ear, filthy and steady.

“You’re not going anywhere. Not after earlier. Not after you tried to walk out on me.” Another deep thrust, another tight squeeze of his arm around your chest. “You’re mine. This cunt is mine. And I’m gonna keep fucking you just like this until you come again all over my cock. Until you remember exactly how wanted you are.”

He didn’t stop talking. Didn’t stop moving. Just held you closer, hotter, and kept pushing up into you with that same controlled, relentless rhythm while his mouth stayed busy on your neck and his voice stayed filthy and sure against your skin.

Johnny’s hand left your chest and slid higher, palm spanning one breast before his fingers found your nipple the exact way you liked—rolling it between warm fingertips, then giving a slow, firm pinch that sent a fresh jolt straight down to where his cock was still driving into you. He groaned against the side of your neck when your back arched into the touch.

“There it is,” he muttered, voice already fraying at the edges. “Knew that would get you. Love how sensitive these are for me.” He kept playing with you—squeezing, tugging, rolling the peak between his fingers while his hips never stopped their deep upward thrusts. The heat of him was everywhere now: the solid furnace of his chest against your back, the thick hot slide of his cock, the warmer-than-human palm working your tit like he owned it.

You craned your head back toward him, searching for his mouth. He met you halfway, kissing you messy and open while his rhythm finally broke into something faster, harder. The wet sound of him fucking into you filled the quiet room. His other hand stayed busy between your legs, fingers rubbing tight, relentless circles over your overstimulated clit.

“Fuck—kiss me like that again,” he growled against your lips, then dove back in, tongue sliding against yours as his hips snapped up sharper. “So goddamn perfect. My perfect baby.”

The dual assault—his cock slamming into that same sensitive spot, his fingers working your clit, the heat of his hand still tormenting your nipple—pushed you over without warning. Your second orgasm hit hard and sudden, cunt clamping down around him in tight, pulsing waves. A broken sound tore out of you into his mouth. Your whole body shook against his chest.

Johnny cursed, low and wrecked.

“Shit—yes, come on my cock just like that. Fucking soak me.” His thrusts turned short and urgent, chasing you. “That’s it, baby. Milk it. Take every drop I’m about to give you.”

He lasted only a few more strokes. The second your walls kept fluttering around him he buried himself to the hilt, mouth locking hard onto the side of your neck. He sucked a deep, deliberate mark into your skin as he came—hips stuttering, cock pulsing hot and heavy inside you, the heat of his release flooding you in thick spurts while he held you locked against his chest. A long, rough groan vibrated against your throat as he emptied himself, still grinding up into you through every pulse like he couldn’t stand to leave even an inch of space between you.

He stayed buried deep afterward, breathing hard against the fresh mark he’d left, arm still tight around you, hand still cupping your breast like he wasn’t ready to let go of any part of you yet.

Johnny kissed you again as he slid out of you—slow, lingering, mouth soft but still hungry against yours. The thick heat of him left you with a warm, messy ache, and he made a low sound at the loss before he carefully turned you in his arms. One hand at your hip, the other cradling the back of your head, he rolled you onto your back and followed, settling over you so your bodies stayed flush. The residual warmth of his skin soaked into yours, steady and familiar.

He guided your face up with gentle fingers under your chin until you had no choice but to look at him. His eyes were dark, a little wrecked, the usual spark dimmed into something quieter and more serious. A faint flush still colored his cheeks. The mark he’d left on your neck pulsed under the open air.

“Hey,” he said, voice rough from everything that had just happened. His thumb stroked once along your jaw, keeping you right there. “Look at me.”

He waited until your eyes stayed on his.

“I love you.” The words came out plain and sure, no performance in them. “Not just because of this. I love you for you. You’re perfect for me—exactly like this. So smart and stubborn and still here. Even when I say stupid shit that makes you want to walk out.”

His free hand drifted down your side, palm warm against your skin like he needed the contact to keep the words grounded.

“I don’t need you to translate alien languages or save the world with me,” he continued, quieter. “I need you. Exactly how you are. When you sit with me when I’m losing my mind. When you let me hold you after. How you look at me like I’m worth something.” He leaned in and pressed another slow kiss to your mouth, then rested his forehead against yours. “You’re not a burden. You’re the best thing I’ve got. And I’m not letting you forget it.”

He stayed there, breathing with you, the heat of his body still wrapped around yours like a second skin. He refused to let the moment slip away without making sure you heard every word.

────────

“Jesus Christ, you feel fucking amazing…” Eddie pants as he fucks you into the mattress. His forehead pressed against yours as he buried himself over and over again in your cunt. It was nights like these that had you questioning everything.

The sex was supposed to be casual. Just a quick way for you both to blow off steam and help each other out. But, when things got so hot and passionate like this, it was hard to remember that he wasn’t yours. That this was just good fun for him. That it was supposed to be devoid of feelings.

“Love the way your pussy feels.” He whimpers “I’m getting close, baby. Need you to- fuck- t-tell me where you want me to cum.”

You wrap your legs around him, hooking your ankles to pull him closer and hold him right where you wanted him.

“Oh fuck-“ He pants “Yeah? Inside of you? Christ….okay, sweetheart. Stay riiight there. Gonna….fucking….cum for you.”

He releases with a fit of heavy pants and gasps as he spills inside of you, his cock twitching as he gives you his orgasm. From below him, it was always beautiful to watch him come apart. Even if he wasn’t yours to keep.

After it was over, he releases your hand that he was holding onto- his fingers laced with yours. He flops onto the bed beside you as he smiles at the ceiling, trying to catch his breath.

“Holy shit.” He laughs “That was…wow.”

You gave yourself five seconds to soak it in- to enjoy the moment before it had to end. Just like it always did.

You sit up in his bed, swinging your legs over the side as you began to get up and search from your discarded clothes that were scattered across his bedroom floor.

You find your underwear, stepping into them as you scan the floor with your eyes- looking for your bra. As soon as you pick it up to put it back on, Eddie frowns.

“You’re gonna sleep in that?” He asks “It looks uncomfortable. Why don’t you just leave it off. S’not like I haven’t seen them before.”

You were immediately confused by what he meant about you sleeping in your bra. It didn’t don on you what he was really saying.

“Oh.” You reply “I mean, I don’t usually sleep with my bra on.”

“Then why are you wearing it, you dork?” He asks, watching as you do the clasp and reach down for your shirt. “Wait. You’re not leaving, right?”

“I…I didn’t think…”

“You don’t have to leave. I like it when you stay. Stay with me.”

This isn’t the first time you’ve stayed the night after a hookup with Eddie. The difference is that this was an actual invitation. Him expressing that he wanted you there unlike the other times where he offered for you to stay because it was already late and there was no point in driving home.

What you didn’t know was that every time that Eddie offered you a place in his bed for the night, he was hoping that you would accept- because he didn’t like how empty it felt without you there. He had grown used to the feeling of you lying next to him at night.

“C’mon.” He pouts “Get back over here. It’s late anyway. And, besides, I can’t sleep without you here.”

“You sure?” You ask, looking up at him from staring at the shirt in your hands.

“Yes.” He rolls his eyes “Now c’mere. I’m already missing your warmth…..and I’m also ready to go again if you’re down.”

You drop your shirt to the ground, shaking your head at him playfully as he grins at you- beckoning you over with one of his ringed fingers.

“You’re such a horny fuck.” You laugh, taking off your bra as you fling it at him.

“That doesn’t sound like a no.” He smirks, reaching his arms out for you “Get back here. I’m getting impatient.”

“Ugh. You’re so obsessed with me.” You joke, flopping down into the bed beside him as he immediately rolls over on top of you, kissing your lips.

“Mmm…I prefer the word ‘addicted.”

“Sounds like you need an intervention.” You sass, causing him to shake his head.

“Nah.” Eddie answers, taking you in with his big brown eyes “I don’t want help. I’m right where I wanna be.”

@spacejjunk 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ jennifer's body

@beasbrain 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ silence of the lambs

@gem-writes 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ obsession

@hamilhansen 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ rosemarys baby

@5lutforeddie 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ carrie

@lofi-fics 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑the exorcist

@mylliy 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ texas chainsaw massacre

@amorieile 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ friday the 13th

@harringtonstar 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ halloween

@eddiemunsonspantschain 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ interview with a vampire

@munsonsdangerousgirl 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ ready or not

@rip-quizilla 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑i know what you did last summer

@aurorairi 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ the conjuring

@monsieurmorpheus 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ evil dead

@moontannedmunson 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ my bloody valentine

@jestthejoker-12 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ silent hill

@cozymoonlight18 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ midsommar

@autumn-rain-embers 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ cabin in the woods

@selenevesper 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ saw

@hamilhansen 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ dawn of the dead

@spacejjunk 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ childs play

@munson-blurbs 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ the shining

coming to a theater near you...

“Thank you.. oh f-fuck thank you,” Peter whines, his pitiful voice barely coherent as he watches you take him in his mouth, head bobbing rhythmically as he lays before you on his plushy bed.

Peter’s hands seek your head, wanting to pull it closer to him, but he ultimately plants them on the bed, grasping at the sheets as if they’re some sort of lifeline. His knuckles turn white, his eyes rolling involuntarily. He can’t focus, how can he?

It’s not like this is the first time, or that he’s too nervous to make such a move… he’s thankful for anything you give him, and doesn’t want to take it for granted.

“Yes, oh god, thank you s-so m-much..”

Every time you suck him off, Peter can’t believe how fucking good it feels. He wonders how you’re so good, then quickly pushes the thought aside. He doesn’t want to think about the how or why.

Peter’s moans are fucking pitiful. Such a whiny boy with shaky thighs and rosy cheeks, the heat of it all rushing to tint his skin. You can taste the pre leaking from him, his cock pulsing against your tongue. The smirk that spreads across your lips as you lick the tip and hold eye contact with him makes Peter huff. His cheeks darken even more, his body heating rapidly at the sight of you as you take him fully again.

“Oh, please… I’m, fuck,” Peter’s pathetic attempt to warn you dies out, his hands gripping the sheets even harder, seemingly seconds away from ripping them. Another reason why he’s careful with touching you. Sometimes, he just can’t help himself. Pathetic.

When you slow down your pace just to tease him, you hear his squeaky whine, the breath being knocked from his lungs. Just as you expected. Peter gets so fucking needy, and you relish in it. It doesn’t take him very long to get close, ever, and a part of you can’t stand it because you want this too. You want to make it last just to see and hear how pitiful he gets.

“No- shit, please,” Peter whimpers, emphasizing his plea to gain some sort of sympathy from you. You oblige, gradually fastening your pace, the filthy, sloppy sounds echoing between you. He can’t help it. His hand flies to your hair, fingers lacing through the soft strands before he tugs. “I-I’m-“

Unable to properly speak, his jaw slacks and his eyelids squeeze shut. Thighs trembling, he chokes out a cry, feeling his cock pulse with each string of cum that stuffs down your throat. Then, it’s over. Just like last time.

Peter shoots up into a sitting position, gulping thickly with a huff as reality sets in. His duvet covers are thick, splayed across his lower half, which is feeling exceptionally more warm than usual. The room is dark, cold, and very much empty. He feels it instantly, the way his briefs cling to his skin, wet and warm.

“Fuck… not again,” he whimpers, peeling his briefs down just enough to expose the globs of thick cum sticking to his skin. Now this wasn’t the first time. It’s almost nightly at this point. He glances over at his door, as if you would somehow know what happened or be there. You never were. He then turns his head toward the alarm clock on his nightstand, 3:14am. “Hey evie?”

Peter’s desktop illuminates with light as numerous monitors flash on, the system starting up.

“Yes, Peter?” evie’s artificial voice responds.

“We need to make a different kinda inhibitor,” he groans, pushing the covers off his legs before getting up, making his way toward the bathroom.

Peter didn’t go back to sleep. He spent hours trying to formulate an inhibitor that would target his arachnid DNA and block hormone levels… particularly his testosterone. With a cheap Newport cigarette lit between his lips, his fingertips pattered across his keyboard, his eyes laser-focused on the screen.

With a soft chime, his phone illuminated on the desk just beside the keyboard. He quickly glanced over, scanning the words across the screen before looking at the map beneath the text, the pinned location insinuating that you’ve arrived to work.

Peter knows it’s wrong. Having secret hidden cameras around the city is one thing, but using them to watch someone that’s not a threat is another.

He tried, really fucking tried, to let it go. To stop. But he can’t.

That’s just another reason why he needs to make an inhibitor that actually fucking works.

Ever since you moved into the apartment across the hall four months ago, he hasn't been able to get you out off his mind no matter how hard he's tried. He’d often think about the first time you met, running into each other in the hall as you rush to work and he heads to get flowers for May.

All of the innocent conversations in passing, the friendly smiles and waves… He tried so fucking hard. You’re just so pretty. So sweet. God, you smell so sweet.

He can smell you from your apartment across the hall, the scent similar to fresh-picked strawberries. He fucking loves strawberries.

That wasn’t what started it, though. After the incident two months ago, with you stuck in the middle of a bank robbery, it was as if a flip had switched and caused a surgical spell. You were sweet and innocent, just trying to deposit a measly check, and next thing you knew, you had a gun pointed at you. Since then, he feels like he has an obligation to protect you — to keep you safe. Knowing you only strengthened that feeling, but your voice… your face… the way you smell. It all adds to it.

He wants to get closer to you, so fucking badly, but he just can’t with how hectic his life is. He tells himself it’s safer for you to stay acquaintances, no matter how much it bothers him.

Ever since that incident, ever since he saw your terrified expression through the lens of his mask, he had your face in his records. He specifically had evie program a separate alert system with facial recognition just for you. So when he gets a legitimate alert, he knows if you’re nearby. That's what he tries to tell himself, anyway.

If only you knew that spider-man had a special system just to keep you safe.

But that's why he needs this to work. It has to. He knows his behavior is wrong. It's weird. Fucking creepy, even...

“Smoke detected,” evie’s voice alerts, prompting a banner message across the monitor screen. Peter’s eyes roll, mentally damning Tony for implementing smoke detection into her programming.

“Just a cigarette, evie. Same as last time, and the time before that,” Peter murmured, his voice muffled from the cigarette trapped between his soft lips.

“Cigarettes can impact your vitals,” evie’s voice responds, to which Peter sighs, pulling the cigarette from his lips and smashing the end into the ashtray beside his phone, the bright amber ash crushing into a pasty grey. He wasn’t a casual smoker. It was usually during late nights or early mornings like this, where he just needed something to ground him. He hated to admit that it calmed him, or at least thought it did. Maybe it was all in his head, but either way, he knew it wasn’t good for him.

While he waits for the inhibitor to finish, Peter thinks of a few ideas on how he could test it. Truly, there’s only one way to really test it. He has to talk to you, really talk to you, without making things awkward. He needs an excuse to see you that wouldn’t lead to a “hi” and “bye” situation. He hates how his heart races every time you smile at him or even pass by him. You have his mind completely scrambled with your fingers wedged in the folds of his brain.

He’s pacing now, crossing back and forth in front of his desk with his eyes planted on the hardwood floor. His hands moved around as he spoke, a somewhat comforting expression he did during deep thought.

“Maybe… I can wait and we bump into each other in the hall? No, that’s stupid. I could just… knock? What would I say?” Peter groans at himself, covering his cheeks with his hands and slowly pulling them toward his temples. “Or I could…”

Peter’s feet come to a halt, his eyes slowly moving to his apartment door, then to his monitor. The pin on the electronic map shows you’re still out in town.

Oh, he has an idea alright.

Not a sane one, at that.

He really needs that fucking inhibitor.

Within minutes, he has his suit on and is swinging around the outside of the apartment building, his webs allowing a clean swing around the brick structure before he lands on your fire escape just outside your bedroom window.

No, this is insane.

With his eyes squinted behind his mask, he looks through your window, immediately spotting it. A beautiful silver chain necklace with a diamond pendant, carefully laid on your nightstand. The same one he sees caressing the skin of your neck every time he sees you. He recalls the way it lies against your chest, the chain slightly pooling against your collarbones. Why’d you leave it today?

No, I shouldn’t do this, he thinks, shaking his head at the reckless idea. But he couldn’t muster any real flaws in the plan. He gets your necklace, then returns it to you as himself. Not as Spider-Man. That’s innocent, right? No, it’s not.

It’s not like he’s stealing it— well, he is. But… he’s giving it back to you. It’s not a total robbery; it’s harmless.

His gloved hands latch onto your window, pushing it up with ease despite the lack of a handle. It’s as if the breath had been knocked out of his lungs, replaced by the intoxicating scent of you.

Fuck it, he thought, slipping through the open window with ease and landing on his feet with precision. His heart was thumping, but not out of nervousness. Excitement.

Glancing around your bedroom, he takes in the sight of your decor, mentally picturing and framing it inside his head against his will. He’d remember regardless.

He slowly stalks toward the nightstand, the finger pads of his gloves gently catching on the chain just before he tightens his fingers around it, holding it up at eye level. Yes, it’s the exact same one you wear all the time. Not particularly expensive looking, as far as he could tell. Not that it mattered much.

Peter felt another thump in his chest, you’ll notice it’s gone. That should’ve been enough for him to put it down. But he’s giving it back to you. Shit, what is he gonna say? That he found it in the lobby? That’s ridiculous.

Peter groans, clenching the thin chain in his fist, pressing it against his mask-covered forehead.

“This is fucking stupid,” he whispers, cursing his own thoughts. No, it’s going to work. It has to. He wants you to understand that you can trust him. He’s more than just your neighbor. He’s your secret protector, but he wouldn’t directly call himself that. He has good intentions, but that doesn’t make his actions any less wrong. He knows it too: “…and creepy.”

The skin on the nape of his neck prickles. He should put it back. This is wrong. This isn’t who he is.

Peter’s thoughts are suddenly interrupted as his head snaps up, his senses spiking. As soon as he hears the familiar jingle of your keys, his throat tightens.

Fuck.

He quickly tucks your necklace into his suit, where his phone would usually sit. Of course he forgot to grab it. Too fucking concerned about getting into your apartment, he was completely unprepared. No wonder he had no idea you were on your way back.

Peter slowly stalked back toward your window, his footsteps completely silent. As soon as his hand grasps the frame of your window, he hears a startled gasp that was awfully similar to a yelp. He whips around, seeing you in the doorway of your bedroom, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Peter’s lenses widened on his mask, emphasizing his own surprise.

For several seconds, the two of you just stared at each other.

“Oh my god.”

Think. Quick!

“Hi,” Peter greets you with a slight change in his voice, lifting a hand and giving you a small wave. He's pathetic, really.

“Spiderman?” you breathe, unsure whether you should take a step forward or a step back. The spider-man is standing in your room. You’ve seen him in person once before, your mind flashing to the incident at the bank. The way he focused on you, but never spoke to you. How could you forget?

Your expression shifts, your wide eyes narrowing slightly, eyebrows leveling and furrowing closer. Why the hell is Spider-Man in here?

“What… are you doing here?”

“Oh- aha. Just a, uh, mixup. Wrong apartment… building. Entirely. I’m a little scrambled. Hit my head on the fire escape,” Peter rambles, mustering lies while using his hands to emphasize his words since he lacked showing expression from behind the mask. His pulse is racing; he's sure you can see the way his suit shifts against his chest.

Your eyes are intensely boring into him as you take in the explanation. Strange, but believable.

“Well... are you okay?” you take a step forward, the space between you shrinking, dangerously close. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Peter feels like he’s about to fucking explode. Is he okay? No, not at all. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to see him.

“I.. yeah! I’m fine, I’ll just go—“ he stammers, turning back toward your window.

“Wait-“ you stop him, slightly lifting your hand in his direction to halt him before crossing your arms over your chest. You couldn’t help but wonder. “This might be a stupid question, especially since I'm sure hundreds of people a day, but… do you remember me?”

Peter’s eyes widen again, his mask mirroring his expression. He turns back in your direction, his eyes scanning your face. Of course he does. He knows you way more than you think. It’s not a stupid question, but kind of ridiculous considering what Peter knows about you.

Though, you’re referring to him infiltrating the bank robbery, saving you amongst other innocent civilians. A pang strikes in his chest as he remembers how terrified you were, but it quickly dissipates just being in your presence.

“Uh, well,” he ponders, quickly trying to muster a response that doesn’t sound creepy while also wanting to validate your curiosity. He mirrors you and crosses his arms over his chest, trying his best to shove his panic to the side. “Now that I think about it… yeah, I do.”

“Really?” your eyes light up, and you take a step closer, your arms falling to your sides now that you feel less strange for asking. “I just- I never got to thank you.”

“Oh, no need. You don’t have to-“

“I know,” you shrug, your lips spreading into a slight smile as you step even closer, your eyes shifting from his face to his chest, then his biceps— fuck, he’s built. “but, thank you. Really. I feel a lot safer here, living here alone and all.”

Truth is, you don’t have any family here in New York. Peter didn’t know that, though. You weren’t sure what compelled you to tell him, either. Regardless, he's Spider-Man — not a threat.

Peter’s breath hitches in his throat. This is exactly what he’s been craving; your undivided attention. He made an impact, and you made it a point to mention it. He quickly shakes it off, taking in your words.

You’re not alone here. You’re so blissfully unaware that he is the same man living across the hall from you. He tries not to think about the way he feels himself twitching against his briefs within the suit the closer you step toward him. He physically can’t help it, and it doesn’t matter how tender the conversation is. He can practically feel the warmth radiating from your body despite being just a few feet away.

He needs to leave. Now.

If he doesn’t, if he allows himself to sink into your spell any further, he’s afraid he won’t be able to help himself. He can’t avoid the filthy visuals raiding his mind, disarming him of critical consideration. Your fingers had somehow sunk even deeper in the crevices of his brain. Leave.

“O-of course! Yeah, no worries at all,” he waves you off, his voice matching his relaxed, confident persona. He climbs through the window, stepping onto the fire escape with ease. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

“Whoa, hey! You can’t just break into someone’s apartment and then leave like it's normal,” you softly scoff, arms raised at your sides to express your disagreement.

“Technically, I didn’t break anything. Just came through the window, which was unlocked,” he quips with a matter-of-fact tone, the space enabling him to finally breathe and collect his thoughts.

“How is that any better?”

Well, it’s not.

Avoid the question.

With his hands still planted firmly on the windowsill, he tilts his head at you, “Lock your window.”

Mirroring him, you tilt your head as well, raising a brow at the order, “Why, so no one else can stumble in here after getting concussed?”

“Because there are people out there who aren’t as nice as me. Now lock it, and keep it that way unless you’re home, yeah?”

It’s somewhat of a cocky response, but it’s true. He lets you sit with that for a moment, the two of you just sharing a few seconds of silence before he shoots a web to the top of the building, making a quick getaway.

You stand there astonished, still trying to comprehend the fact that you came home to find Spider-Man in your room. You wish he stayed at least a little bit longer. There was something about him that felt comforting and familiar, but you couldn’t quite figure out why. You have to admit, you feel a sense of pride at the fact that he remembers you.

If only you knew.

Two nights later, Peter is pacing around his apartment, per usual. The clock on his monitor strikes 9:34pm; he's been contemplating for hours. The more he thought about how he'd return the necklace to you, the more he realized how risky it is.

There was no way he could return it as himself, as Peter, and manage to pull off a lousy lie about how he found it.

All he can think about is how you'd figure it out. He can't risk you putting the pieces together. Fuck, why didn't he think of this beforehand?

Truth is, his behavior has been beyond risky and ridiculous. You quite literally drive him insane to the point where rational decisions are nonexistent. For a split second, he even considers moving away, saving himself the absolute torture of living beside you and not being able to do anything about it.

Deep down, he knows he would never do such a thing... but he can't involve himself personally with you, he just... can't.

He has to return your necklace, but not as Peter. He understands that, but what is he going to say?

Doesn't matter. He can say a lot more with a mask on, knowing you won't figure him out. In fact, he could just tell you he took it and face zero consequences, but what's the fun in that?

As he waits for the inhibitor that’s just nearly finished, Peter lies down on his bed, staring up at the cracked brick ceiling. Maybe a tranquilizer is what he needs. He doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until evie’s voice cuts through the haze.

“Inhibitor complete. Trial number forty-seven on standby.”

Finally.

The washer in Peter’s apartment tumbled, numerous articles of clothing swishing and sloshing, covered in suds. His suit was laid flat on top, shaking along with the rumbling of the machine.

“Alright,” Peter sighs to himself, reaching around to settle the inhibitor on the back of his neck. He feels it latch on, letting out a small grunt as his eyes scan the monitor in front of him.

“Arachnid levels decreasing,” evie states as the orange-tinted bar lowers in real time.

“And my hormones?” Peter inquires, raising a brow.

“Decreasing,” evie’s responds, pulling up a second page on the screen to show various hormone levels. Peter lets out a breath of relief, nodding to himself.

“Perfect," he whispered, snatching his suit off the top of the washer.

In your bedroom, you're comfortably sprawled out, sketchbook in hand as you continue marking the thin sheet of paper with a charcoal pencil. A loud knock startles you, causing you to jump and inevitably scratch the pencil across the paper, ruining your work.

Your head whips in the direction of the sound; your window. On the other side of the glass stands Spider-Man, his arms crossed comfortably on the outside of your windowsill as he waits for your response. His suit is glistening, the loud pattering of rain bellowing in his ears.

You quickly close the sketchbook, tossing it aside before standing from the bed.

Peter would usually feel his heart racing the moment you look at him, but he feels calm. Much better. Even though you look so fucking good in your pj shorts.

Hands finding the latch, you unlock the window and push it up, opening it swiftly. The sound of the rain pattering loudly against the fire escape and nearby streets is much clearer now. Before you can even ask why he's here, his voice shuts you down,

“Good girl,” he drawls out in a high teasing tone, voice still quippy and unrecognizable. You blink, your lips parting slightly, but no words come out. What an introduction.

That's the first thing he says? Not that you can complain. You'd be lying if you denied the way it made your stomach twist deliciously.

“W-What?”

“You locked the window.”

You let out a breath, unable to contain your smile and the slight tint in your cheeks. Face flushing, you turn away from the window to make your way back toward your bed, sitting on the edge of it.

“You scared the shit out of me. I can’t keep seeing you like this, you know,” you say, which catches him completely off guard. You can't see it, but a sense of hurt mixed with panic flicks in his eyes before he can control it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean with you, at my window, uninvited,” you explain. Peter’s mouth opens slightly, words dying in his throat. Before he has a chance to panic further, your next words take him by surprise. “Come in.”

“What?”

“I said come in. You can’t be uninvited when I’m telling you I want you here,” you add softly. You took the chance, throwing the ball into his court for him to catch.

Was it bold? Yes. Did he find it hot? Also yes.

Feeling an instant wave of relief, you hear a cute, "Oh," before he chuckles, slipping through your window, his feet landing effortlessly on your bedroom floor as he stands upright. He takes in the environment, your ambient lighting causing the droplets of water on his suit to reflect even brighter.

"Care to tell me why you've blessed me with your presence again? Everything okay?" you ask jokingly, yet still surprised by his sudden return. It's been two days, and you'd be lying if you said you hadn't thought about him since then. That’s what he hoped, at least.

"I was just coming to check on you," he lies, standing still so as not to get any of your belongings wet. Besides your floor, of course.

“Why?”

“Because someone broke into your apartment.”

Another lie.

“That was you."

“I meant the building.”

“Still applies.”

“I’m aware,” he quips, the eyes of his mask squinting playfully at you as he tilts his head slightly. You snicker. This back-and-forth game gives him a rush he hasn’t felt in a while. He feels much more confident this time, much more willing to play such a game.

That fucking smirk, he thinks.

“Well, as you can see,” you start, holding your arms up at your sides. “I’m fine.”

Peter tsks, sucking his teeth slightly as he steps toward you, almost as if he's sizing you up. "Well, that's not the only reason I'm here."

You watch as he lifts his hand, loosening the grip of his fingers to release the chain in his fist, dangling it in front of you. Your necklace.

"Oh my god," you softly gasp, reaching for the silver chain and grasping it from his hold. "How did you... Wait, did you take this?"

Now he's panicking.

"W-what? No, no. I found it," he lies again, his tone strong but his legs are feeling a bit weak. Shit.

"...In my room?"

"No," he laughs, trying to muster an explanation before you can dig any deeper. His heart is thundering so fast, he can feel it in his veins, causing him to twitch slightly. "Why would I steal from you?"

Good thing you're gullible enough to believe Spider-Man wouldn't steal from you. Because that's not who he is, right?

"Where was it?"

He rehearsed this, but the way you're looking at him makes it impossible to mutter out a lie. On the ground outside of Delmar’s? No. Fuck it.

"Don't worry about it."

"But how did you know-"

"I've seen you wear it," he admits, unable to control the smile spreading across his lips beneath the mask.

You don't think much of it. He must’ve recognized it from the bank. Opening the clasp, you reach behind you to latch it around the back of your neck, the necklace now resting against your collarbones, the pendant nearly reaching your cleavage. You twist slightly to face away from him, “Can you help me, please?”

He doesn’t answer, immediately grasping the ends from your delicate fingers. His gloved fingers graze the nape of your neck, and he notices the instant goosebumps that litter your skin. He struggles at first, the chain being so small and not having much to work with, but he manages, “anddd... got it.”

You turn back and smile up at him, at his figure standing directly in front of you, head peering down at you.

You felt incredibly inferior, watching him stare with his head tilted in such a way, like you were some sort of prey. If only you could see what's underneath the mask.

"Thanks. I owe you one, again,” you smile, eyes fluttering up at him. His stomach is doing somersaults.

"We talked about this. You don’t owe me anything," he quickly responds, referring to your last conversation. All in all, he’s grateful to return it without consequences. He appreciated the gratitude, but he didn’t expect a damn thing from you. Just the ability to see you.

Pausing, unable to form a proper response, you gaze up at him. Never, ever would you have thought you would be in this position before. Especially with him being so intimately close to you.

You stand, instantly feeling the heat radiating from him. He’s so close. Less than a foot away, chests just barely touching. His posture is steady as he awaits your next move, shocking even himself. If it weren't for his inhibitor, his mind would be going absolutely nuts.

"I know," you finally murmur a response, your eyes searching for his, but all you can see is white mesh. You lift your hand, instinctively trying to reach for him, but you stop yourself. He doesn't move.

You do it anyway. Your hand finds rest at his jaw, your thumb softly rubbing over the ridges of the mask. What is it about him that gets you so?

Is it that he saved you? No...

Maybe the fact that he remembered you and made it a point to make you safe.

It's not like you could stay casual after hearing him praise you like that.

"You... you should probably stop," he warns softly, but doesn't pull away from you. He knows you can feel his chest thundering just a mere inch from you. Despite that, the inhibitor was working, because if it wasn't... you'd definitely not be standing any longer.

"Do you want me to?"

He doesn't answer immediately, his eyes intently focusing on yours through his mask. Is that even a question? It's not like he could just tell you that this is practically torture for him.

"No."

That's just enough for you to raise your other hand, fully grasping his jaw on both sides to get a good look at his mask. Curiosity gets the best of you, your thumb reaching down and gently tugging at the edge of his mask beneath his neck. You just want to feel his skin, feel how warm he is. Feel how real he is.

In a flash, his hand wraps around your wrist, stopping your hand in place.

"Hey, hey. I didn't say you could do that," his tone is playful but his thoughts are a complete contrast, his grip tight on your wrist, but not too tight. Just enough to convey the message. God, he wanted to let you, though. So fucking bad.

It’s too risky. No matter how badly he wants to.

Even if he only shows his lips, he’s sure you’d recognize them after so many small talks. After so many exchanged smiles.

"Then how am I supposed to..." you trail off, the word kiss dying in your throat as your eyes trail down to where his lips would be beneath the mask, then down to where his hand is wrapped around your wrist, his grip firm but soft. He understands immediately.

"You don't."

It killed him to say it.

"I can't kiss you?"

"No."

Your lips curl into a small frown. You understand and respect his boundaries, but you can't deny how much you've thought about this. Rehearsed this. Ever since you caught him in your room, you couldn't help the thoughts that pooled in the moment he left. The fact he'd saved you once before only strengthened that.

What if he just took you, right then and there? God, that's fucked up. You knew that, but... the way you'd feel your core twist and get damp, fuck.

I mean, who doesn't want to fuck him? He's a hero. He's sweet. He's incredibly muscular, and his suit only accentuates that. You could go on and on.

It's not crazy to think about. You're not the only one that thinks this either, confirmed by the many reddit forum threads you dove down after he left. But, you are the only one to have this kind of luxury. The luxury of him being in your room, so close to you, touching you

"You're right, I'm-" you cut yourself off, taking a step back as you rethink your actions. What the hell are you doing? You don't even know him. You're being ridiculous - pathetic, even. You shake your head at yourself, shyly plastering your hand over your face. "I'm so sorry-”

"No, no, don’t be,” he whispers, releasing your wrist from his grasp, shaking his head. If this is his chance, he’d be a goddamn fool to pass it up.

“I can’t kiss you, but..” he continues, his hands moving to find your waist, gently gripping your soft skin through your soft, silky shirt. "I can touch you.”

No, he shouldn’t be doing this. He should’ve left right after giving you the necklace. This wasn’t part of the plan at all.

Tilting your head back up, you peer at him through the gaps of your fingers, your cheeks tinted rosy pink.

“Wha.. what?”

It's a bold move, he knows that. At least it's something he can actually give you.

Slowly, he backs you up, the back of your knees hitting the edge of the bed, inevitably making you fall back down into a sitting position. He leans down, hands planting on your plushy covers on either side of your thighs. You’re trapped.

“You heard what I said. I can touch you— I want to touch you,” he repeats, his teasing grin beneath the mask widening as he watches your eyes melt. Despite his rather audacious idea, Peter truly didn’t have a dominant bone within him. Not when it came to sex, anyway.

He would try for you, though. If that’s what you wanted.

The heat radiating from your skin through your shirt was a clear sign of just how much he was affecting you. You don’t know he can tell, but he does. He can sense it. He can smell it.

Despite how much he’s wanted this, how much he’s been dreaming of this, he couldn’t shake the thought in the back of his mind that this wasn’t right. This feels too fast. No real connection. No romance.

But if you want this just as much as he does, he’s not fucking leaving.

“I…” you start, your words absolutely failing you. You feel so small below him, so vulnerable. An idea sparks, and there’s a particular glint in your eye. Fine, you can play that game. “If I can’t see you, then you can’t touch me until I say so.”

Oh.

Peter wasn’t expecting that. Not by a long shot.

“Oh really?” he murmurs, his purr causing you to instinctively squeeze your thighs together. You’re fucking leaking. Maybe he can… just only when you tell him to. You’re calling the shots. His padded fingers move to gently caress your jaw, softly grasping your chin. “You sure about that?”

Who is he kidding? Peter knows he would be a fucking mess if you told him when he could and couldn’t feel you or take control of himself. He loves seeing you flustered, though. It’s a sight he will never forget.

You grab his hand, pulling it away from your chin before pushing him over to land beside you. He lets you, allowing himself to plop down on the bed, his legs still hanging off the edge. He stabilizes himself, sitting up to grab your waist as you straddle him.

Just before his hands can make contact with you, you quickly grab his wrists, shaking your head at him with a grin, “Nu-uh.”

“That’s not very fair.”

“You heard what I said.”

Peter let’s put a short, weak huff of protest at you using his own words against him. You’re fully aware that he’s much stronger than you could ever be, and yet he was letting you control him. You release his wrists, pressing a hand against his chest, pushing him down until his back is against the bed.

Softly grinding your hips on his way down, you could feel him twitching and hardening against your clothed cunt, his suit failing him tremendously.

“Shit, you’re that easy?” you tease, moving your hips back and forth, the friction only worsening the wet spot forming on your panties, seeping to your shorts. He could feel it.

“F-fuck, so are you,” he whimpers in defense, unable to control how pathetic he is from the change in dynamic, his gloved fingers grasping at the blanket to avoid touching you without permission. “You’re so wet.”

“You can feel that?” you smile, leaning forward to cup his jaw, running your thumb over his mask-covered lips. You lift yourself up, and he whines at the loss of contact. A playful smirk tugs at your lips, “Aw, don’t be like that.”

Your hand moves from his face and down his chest until you feel his abs, feeling them twitch beneath your touch. You need to see him.

“Take it off,” you demand softly, removing yourself from his lap and moving to lay properly on the bed, watching as he struggles to regain himself to stand. Once he does, you watch him discard the suit, taking note of the way the cloth tightly hugs his muscles until it’s gone. Your eyes light up as soon as his abs are exposed, you almost want to throw the whole game out the window and have him take you. But you had to admit, watching him struggle and fall apart was even better.

Your eyes trail down to his briefs, the large tent exposing just how much he needs you. Of course, he kept the mask on. He stands there, unsure of what to do, suit discarded to the floor.

You twist your wrist, motioning for him to come closer with your finger, curling it toward you. His drops his bare hands to the bed, carefully crawling onto your covers until he’s hovering over you.

“Now take mine off.”

Holy fuck.

Swallowing thickly, Peter’s hands shift to the hem of your shirt, wanting to slip them underneath and touch your warm, bare skin. He contains himself just enough. He gently pulls your shirt up, his heartbeat picking up once again. He pushes it above your waist, exposing your bra that's so pretty and lacy. Almost as if you'd planned this already.

"You're so beautiful," he whispers to himself, the barrier of the mask making it difficult for you to hear. You don't bother having him repeat himself, lifting your back slightly to allow him to pull your shirt over your head.

He reaches to grab your clothed breast, eyes wide and hungry, but he stops himself. Still lifted, you unclasp your bra and before you can even move another inch, he's tugging it off you, the straps easing off your shoulders.

"Shit," he nearly moans, the sight enough to have him leaking. He's already throbbing, it's almost painful. He wants to touch them, to squeeze your plushy skin, but you haven't told him to yet. "You're so pretty. You know how fucking pretty you are?"

"I've been told," you smile irresistibly, your shoulders lifting slightly in a shrug. You've been told? By who?

Stop it, he thinks to himself, to his own thoughts. He has you right here, underneath him.

His hands shift downward, eager and cold, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of your shorts. He doesn’t waste any time. As he tugs your shorts down your thighs, you hear a pitiful, muffled whimper. You look down to see his thumb just barely grazing the wet spot on your panties.

God, you smell so sweet.

“Please,” he whimpers again, his fingers hovering over the side of the thin cotton, wanting to pull them aside. You smile, your hand lowering and wrapping around his to guide his hand, having him push them over, exposing your slick folds.

"Go on," you nod, slightly condescending and full of pity as you hand-over-hand guide him further, allowing his finger to graze before pushing closer, his finger slipping between your wet slit and making a filthy squelch. 

“Pretty,” he huffs. He’s fucking vibrating. Every bone in his body, his mind, everything is telling him to just take you. He’s being good, though. You have to give him that credit. 

He pushes his finger inside you, a puff of air being knocked out of his lungs as he feels your walls hug around it. You’re tight. He curls it inside you, earning a tiny moan from you as you buck your hips up ever so slightly. All restraint is lost. 

“Oh, god,” you whimper softly, melting beneath him. You sound so pretty. He can’t take it. He can’t keep holding back. He needs you to break and give in fully. 

Peter’s free hand moves to your lower stomach, pressing down to hold you in place as his finger works inside you, pumping slowly yet deliciously loud. 

“S-shit, so wet. So fucking wet,” he murmurs to himself, easing in a second finger. It almost feels like he’s done this before, or it’s just from the spike in confidence after hearing the pretty noises you make. 

Softly biting your lower lip, you try to grasp his hand, wanting to stop him just to tease him but he surprises you. Quickly, moves his free hand to grab yours before holding it down against your stomach, on the same spot that his was previously. “J-Just.. wait. Please, let me.”

Of course, you give in. Peter experiments, pumping his fingers as deep as he can, the veins in his hands prominent. He watches, completely mesmerized, at the way your pussy sucks in his fingers, accepting them, your juices leaking around them. The filthy sound your pussy’s making combined with that warm squeeze — he can’t wait any longer.

If you smell this good, he can only imagine how you taste. He needs to know. He pulls his hand back, looking up at you.

“Please… Cover your eyes,” he demands in a gentle tone, waiting until you cover them with your forearm, your back resting comfortably against your plushy sheets. He pulls the mask up just enough to expose his lips, raw and plump from him biting them, trying to keep himself from sounding utterly fucking pathetic. 

He doesn’t even bother properly removing your panties first, he just keeps them held to the side as he dives down. You gasp, feeling his tongue dip between your folds, collecting your wetness on his tongue before swiping it up to your clit. You taste just as sweet as he thought you would; even more so. 

He groans against you, the vibrations shooting straight into your core. His lips wrap around your sensitive bud, pulling a loud, unapologetic moan from your throat. The pretty sound causes his cock to twitch against his briefs, his hips starting to slowly rutt into the mattress. He’s ravenous. 

“Fuck, you taste so sweet... so good.. s'good,” he slurs incoherently, his tongue working almost expertly, swirling around your sensitive bud with such focus, softly sucking then lapping at it. Over and over. 

You feel his fingers push inside you again, your mouth falling open with a pitiful cry. His mouth works meticulously with his fingers, feeling your orgasm creeping closer, the spindle in your core tightening with each passing second. 

“My fucking g-god, you’re… you’re doing so good,” you breathe between your words, your chest rising and falling rapidly as he laps at your messy cunt like a little puppy. He whimpers against you, his fingers curling each time he sucks around your bud. The friction he's created, rutting his cock against the mattress, he's already fucking close.

So are you. It shocks you, really. You’ve never had someone get you so close so quickly. It’s like he was made for this.

“Shitshit, I’m— fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you squeak softly, whimpering when you feel his free hand on your waist, his fingers squeezing your soft, plushy skin. He keeps the same pace, not wanting to ruin this for you. He can feel you squeezing around his fingers that are expertly pumping inside you, curling deliciously to graze your sweet spot. “F-fuck!”

Your thighs squeeze together, trapping his face against your messy cunt as you start to cum, your eyes blowing wide. You’re shaking, and not just because of the force of his fingers ramming into you, working you through your orgasm. Peter can feel how hard you’re breathing, his thumb rising and falling on your stomach as he keeps his grip on your waist firm, holding you.

Just as you start to reach down for his head to pull it closer, he pulls away from you, the filthy pop of his lips disconnecting from your clit echoing between you. 

"Shit, what's wrong?"

"Nothings wrong," he responds a little too quickly.

You can hear the rustling of him pulling his mask back down, your heart jumping in your chest. 

“You can look now,” he breathes, moving to hover above you, his cock throbbing against your thigh within the confines of his briefs. You’re still panting as you move your arm away to see him hovered above you, your eyes searching his through the mask. “Did I do a good job?”

“Such a good job,” you huff, a smile pulling at the corner of your lips. Your hand instantly moves down to his clothed cock, your fingers curling around him. You feel the definition, and how much he’s throbbing. 

Nearly instantly, he’s whimpering. You feel his two fingers, still wet and messy from you, pushing against your lips. You were hoping to taste yourself on his tongue, but this’ll do. You part them, sucking them as soon as they touch your tongue.

Peter didn’t expect it to feel so good, the way your tongue wraps around his fingers makes his head spin. You hadn’t even really touched him yet and he’s a leaking, moaning mess. 

Taking him by surprise, you slip your hand into his briefs, your soft fingers wrapping around him to slowly stroke him as you continue sucking on his fingers. His eyes roll, his head tilting back slightly as he relishes in the feeling. It’s just like how he imagined it. 

Despite being unable to see his face, you can tell he’s falling apart. You swear it’s like he knows what he’s doing, but has never been touched before. Maybe he really is just that pathetic. 

You start to fasten the pace of your hand, but just as you start, he’s just as quick to stop you.

“S-stop,” he whimpers, pulling his fingers from your mouth and lifting his hips. You retract your hand, and before you can ask what happened, he’s quick to continue, “I’m already getting close.”

What?

He pushes his briefs down the rest of the way, kicking them off. You see the way his cock springs free, aching red and already leaking precum at the tip. In an instant, he's hovering over you again, his cock just mere inches from you. From where you want him the most.

“You poor thing-” your teasing is cut short when you feel his arms wrap around your thighs, pulling them closer to him. You gasp, eyebrows raising as he softly grinds his tip against your slit free-handed. He’s rushing and he knows it. He can’t fucking help it. 

You wanted to degrade him, to remind him of his rules, but he's just so desperate. So needy. It's a pretty sight.

“J-Just tell me when I can, please,” he huffs, his tip rubbing between your folds causing a filthy squelching sound. His eyes are focused on your pretty cunt, at the way his tip fits perfectly against your slit before he starts to push in, “Oh my god, fuck, please. Tell me. Tell me I can—“

"Of course you can, baby. Touch me," you purr teasingly, your hands move to his hips, gently tugging to pull him even closer. The pet name nearly makes him rut, but he's hanging on to the last thread of control he has left. He pushes in slowly, the pitiful sound he makes nearly making you gush.

"O-oh my, fuck. Thank you. Shit, you're so tight," he whines, pushing into you slowly, watching your pussy take him, sucking him in inch by inch. Your hands tighten on his hips, your nails sinking into his taut skin.

“Feels so good, doesn’t it?” you purr, intently watching the way his movements stutter at your teasing. He can't take it. He can't fucking take it anymore.

"Yes, yes. Feels so fucking good," he whimpers, pushing in the rest of the way before bottoming out completely with his hips snug against yours. The feeling makes your eyes roll slightly, your head tilting back against the pillow.

When you move to roll your hips against his, his hands fly from your thighs to your waist, pushing you slightly up the bed with such ease, stopping your movements, "S-stop, stop."

You look up at him, naturally searching for his eyes through the mask, "It's okay, we can stop."

"No, I just," he grunts, his hips shaking slightly as he fights to control himself. "I need a second."

“Okay,” you nod softly, lifting a hand from his hips to wrap it around the side of his throat, your thumb gently caressing his adam’s apple. He swallows thickly, and you feel it bob under your touch. 

With the remnants of your orgasm still rippling through you, you can’t control the way your cunt flutters around him. Fuck, is he gonna have to cum before he can keep going? He wants this to last. 

Slowly, his hips start rolling against yours, “I-I’m okay, sorry, m’sorry,” he whispers, looking back down at where you’re connected before rambling on. 

"You have no idea-" he grunts, eyes locked onto the way his cock is fully stuffed inside you, your pussy taking him so good. So wet and eager. He pulls his hips back until his cock slips out halfway, glistening with your juices before he slowly pushes back in, listening to the filthy sound it makes, "-how much I've thought about this."

His hands are still tightly gripping your waist as his hips work to keep a steady pace. He doesn't want to go too fast, he can’t. This is so embarrassing. 

Your eyes light up at the admission, hand still gently wrapped around the side of his neck, “Shit. I’m- me too.”

His ears perk, his hips never faltering. His thrusts are slow and deliberate, your response making him whimper. 

“I want to see you,” you whisper, your fingers slipping down to the edge of his mask at the base of his neck. “Let me kiss you.”

He stills. Is it too risky? At this point, how would a kiss be more ridiculous than him literally eating you out?

Well, it’s not, but it’s too much risk. 

“You can’t.”

“Why? You don’t have to tell me your name.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

How is he supposed to answer that? 

His hands leave your waist, leaving your skin cold. He slips a hand underneath you, between your back and the mattress, lifting you enough to press your chest against his. Your face rests just above his shoulder as his hips continue thrusting against yours, deep and slow. His arm stays there, tightly holding you against him, your eyes struggling to stay focused. That’s when you hear it. 

With his free hand, he pulls the mask off, but purposely holding you close enough that he could hide his face over your shoulder. 

“Y-You really don’t trust me?” you manage with a moan, feeling his bare chest tighten against yours at the accusation.  

“That’s not it,” he groans softly against the side of your neck, his lips finally touching the skin of it, warm and wet. You feel his cock twitch inside you, your eyes hooded with the inability to focus. 

“Mmh, then what is it?”

“I trust you. I don’t trust what might happen.”

“Please.”

“I can’t, f-fuck,” he whimpers against your skin, his hips starting to fasten in pace at the sound of your plea. The filthy fucking sounds your pussy is making is driving him insane, his cock easing in and out effortlessly. You know there’s no winning this. 

You wrap your arms above his shoulders and around his back, holding him as you tuck your chin into the crevice between his neck and shoulder. You feel him breathing into your neck, his breath shaky and weak. That oh-so familiar scent has Peter’s head spinning. 

“You smell so good. I fucking dream about this, about you,” he pathetically admits, voice weak and breath hot against your neck. “Y-You- fuck, you make me fucking cum in my sleep. Make me- agh, wake up all messy.”

He’s losing it. He’s so vulgar.

He hears your gasp, so close and soft beside his ear, it sends a chill down his spine. 

“It’s pathetic, isn’t it?” he whimpers, his voice barely audible when all you can focus on is how much of a loud fucking mess he’s making of your poor cunt. “I dream about fucking you, just like this, making you cum around me, s-shit.”

The thought has his hips stuttering before he picks up the pace even more, his hips smacking yours with a force that causes your body to jolt with each thrust. His grip is tight as he holds you, feeling you jolt against him all while he whimpers in your ear, struggling to not look at you. His other hand remains on your waist, helping to stabilize you as he fucks into you. The filthy squelching of your cunt grows even louder, and you feel the vibrations of a low growl against your neck, “F-Fucking god, do you hear it?” 

“Mh-m, yes,” you moan, your nails digging into the skin of his back. Peter wouldn’t be able to explain the sudden confidence boost, particularly with his words. 

“S’fucking messy,” he whimpers, your wetness splashing on his thighs after each deep thrust, dribbling down his skin. You feel his lips connect with the side of your neck, sucking a harsh love mark into your skin before softly licking it to soothe it. He does it again, over and over, his pitiful noises vibrating against your throat.

Your eyes roll at the feeling, your senses overloading. You feel your core tightening, your second orgasm growing dangerously close. 

“I’m gonna… mmph, fuck, I-I’m close,” you moan into his ear, your pussy milking him with each jolt he causes. With the arm wrapped around your back, he pulls you closer. With his other, he releases your waist, his free hand moving to grab your arm and guide your hand down to your stomach. Pressing his hand on top of yours, he forces you to feel your lower stomach.

You feel it immediately, your stomach bulging slightly with each pump of his cock. He’s in your fucking guts.

“Y’feel it? Feel me in your tummy?” he moans softly in you ear, his pathetic expression one that he’d be embarrassed for you to see. There’s no way you don’t feel it, even he can as he holds your hand down against your rapidly bulging skin. “Feel me filling y’up.”

That was a statement. A demand. Your eyes roll back again, your body growing weak in his hold as he takes complete control. You don’t have any fight left in you to tease him. You’re so fucking close, facing an internal conflict with the need to cum and the desire to keep going. 

“Fill me up,” you whimper, rolling your hips against his, purposely squeezing your pussy around him, wanting to milk every last drop. “I wanna feel you cum.” 

“O-oh my, haah, g-god, aaagh,” Peter instantly whines, his mouth parting open as he starts driving into you faster, pounding his hips into yours. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

He was being so good, now he’s rushing just because you told him to fill your pretty cunt with his cum? 

How pathetic can he get?

“You’re doing so fucking good,” you praise softly, feeling him fuck into you even deeper with your hand still prisoned between his and your stomach. That’s all he needed. 

“S-shit, t-thank you,” he whines louder, his voice cracking in your ear as his chest tightens against yours, his breath growing shallow. He doesn’t have time to warn you before he’s cumming. “Thankyouthankyou, fuck!”

His cock twitches with each spurt of thick, warm ropes of cum stuffing inside you. The pathetic sounds he’s making and the feeling of his cum filling you up is enough for you to break, your pussy spasming around him uncontrollably. Your body goes slack against him, thighs trembling as you gasp like all the air in your lungs was violently knocked out.

What’s shocking is he doesn’t stop. His hips keep moving, pistoning relentlessly as he keeps cumming. Your pussy can only contain so much, the leftovers of cum leaking out of you, bubbling around your slit and making a filthy mess each time he pulls his hips back and thrusts back in. It’s like he purposely wants to overfill it, to stuff you full and keep fucking it back into you, not wanting to waste it. 

With your limbs weak and achy, you’re completely limp, but that doesn’t mean you want to stop. You lift your hand from your stomach, lacing your fingers with his before he plants your hand back down against your plushy skin, not letting up. You move your other hand from his back to the nape of his neck, barely grazing his hair as your fingers unintentionally land on his inhibitor.

Oh dear. 

“F-fuck, don’t. Don’t touch that,” he struggles, a whiny moan escaping him as he feels your pussy squeezing him so fucking tight. He pulls his hand from yours on your stomach, quickly moving to grab your wrist, but it's already too late.

He feels it detach from his skin.

You didn’t mean to, only wanting to grab onto him, but it catches onto your fingers and slides out of place. 

“Shit!” he grunts, his free hand moving to cover your eyes. He sits up, still inside you as he looks around for the inhibitor that’s now fallen and out of sight.

“W-what! What was that?”

“Just- don’t move,” he pleads, his head twisting as his eyes search the bunched up sheets. “Fuck, where did it go?”

“Please, just let me see you,” you beg, your hand moving to grab onto his that’s blocking your vision. 

“N-no! Just hold on a second—“

“Peter.”

Oh, no.

He stills completely, eyes widening as he takes in hearing his name coming from your mouth. His ears start ringing. 

“Peter, I know it’s you.”

“What? That’s… not my name,” he lies, eyes still wide, his cheeks flushing rosy red. 

“Inhibitor complete. Trial number forty-seven on standby.”

This can't be happening.

“What did you say?”

Peter gasps, his back shooting up from his bed. Eyes wide, heart pounding. He’s in his room. Peter’s hand quickly moves up to graze the back of his neck. His skin is damp, a cold chill creeping through him at the realization he never had the inhibitor on.

No, no, no. It felt so real.

Whipping his head in the direction of his monitor, he sees the notification that the inhibitor is complete, blinking across the screen. The same notification he swore he already saw. But he didn’t.

When he laid down for that nap at nine, he never truly woke up.

How did he possibly wake up from a nap, put the inhibitor on, and go see you, all within one dream? It made sense, considering how fast things escalated and how he knows what your bedroom like looks now, but…

Something is wrong. It felt too fucking real.

He glances over at his nightstand, the clock blinking 6:26am. Beside his alarm clock was… nothing. No, he could’ve sworn that’s where he put your necklace, carefully laid on the stained wood.

What is going on?

That’s when he feels it. The dampness in his briefs, warm and sticky. His hands fly to his face, a frustrated groan bellowing from him.

“Fuck!”

You had known Lena since freshman orientation, when she dropped an entire stack of registration forms in front of the dean and then laughed so hard at herself that three people helped her pick them up. She had been impossible not to like after that. Warm without being simple. Pretty in a way she never knew what to do with. Quick to fall into things; classes, friendships, crushes, and then twice as quick to panic once they started looking back at her.

By noon, she had come into your room three times.

The first time, she held out toast.

You stared at it from under your blanket. “Absolutely not.”

She shrugged. “It’s dry.”

“That’s really not a selling point.”

“Steve said toast helps.” You scowled at her words and pulled the blanket over your head. 

Lena laughed at you freely. “So he called.”

Your voice grumbled under your warm covers. “Unfortunately.”

“And?”

“And he recommended hydration.”

“That’s all?”

You stayed still beneath the blanket, breathing in warm cotton and the faint smell of your shampoo from your pillowcase.

Lena sat on the edge of your bed then. The mattress dipped, and you hated that she was gentle about it.

“He got you home,” she brought up, clearly more at ease than she'd been about the topic last night.

“I got myself home. He walked nearby.”

“Sure.”

You detested her agreement. “Do not use that tone.”

“What tone?”

That was when you let your head peek out from under the covers, your eyes squinting slightly to readjust in the bright light. “The one where you act like I’m a wet cat you found in an alley.”

She poked your shoulder through the blanket with a pout. “You are a wet cat I found in an alley.”

You kicked at her weakly, and Lena caught your ankle and squeezed once before letting go. Her next words came all too casual. “Robin said he was worried.”

Your whole body went still.

There it was. His worry, passed around like evidence. His concern, made public. His goodness, sitting heavy in your room next to your hangover and your shame. The thought already grated on your day even more.

You pulled the blanket down just enough to glare. “Robin should worry about her own romantic crisis.”

“She is. We’re getting coffee tomorrow.”

You blinked flatly for a moment, and Lena tried to look nonchalant. She failed immediately.

“Coffee,” you repeated hesitantly.

“Just coffee.”

“Coffee with Robin?” The clarification was more for effect than knowledge. 

Lena seemed far too interested in your linens now. “Yup.”

“At The Hideout?”

“No, Melvald’s.”

“Melvald’s has terrible coffee.”

A shrug. “She suggested it.”

Your voice turned gentler as you looked at your friends, taking in their obvious energy. “Then she’s either nervous or cheap.”

“Both, probably.”

You let the blanket fall back. Despite yourself, your mouth softened. Lena saw it and smiled too, small and completely terrified.

You were good at this part. Other people’s feelings were easier when they didn’t involve you. You could hold Lena’s panic in both hands, turn it over, and make sense of it. You could tell her what earrings to wear and what not to overthink. You could remind her that Robin’s sarcasm was a pressure valve, not disinterest. You could be useful.

Useful was safe.

So you sat up, ignored the headache spearing behind your eyes, and told Lena not to wear the green sweater because she kept pulling at the sleeves when she was nervous.

She stared at you with a frown on her cherry-tinted lips.  “You noticed that?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re scary.”

“I’m helpful.”

“You’re both.”

You accepted that.

For the rest of the weekend, you occupied yourself with Lena.

You helped her choose shirts. You listened to her rehearse three different ways to say hi, all of which sounded exactly like hi. You sat at the kitchen table with your chin in your hand while she spiraled over whether coffee counted as a date if neither person used the word date.

“It counts if both of you spend too long thinking about lip gloss beforehand,” you couldn't help the words from slipping out as you looked at her panic pointedly.

Lena froze with the tube halfway to her mouth. “I hate you.”

Your response came back sang. “No, you don’t.”

“I do right now.”

“You’ll thank me when you’re married to the radio station gremlin.”

Lena’s face went pink but didn't deny it. “Don’t call her that.”

You made a noise and let your mouth tilt sideways. “Oh, we’re defensive now.”

She threw a dish towel at you and pretended like she didn't continue to fuss over her appearance. 

It was easy to laugh with her. Easy to feel normal for a few minutes at a time.

Then the phone would ring, or footsteps would pass outside your apartment, or Lena would say Steve’s name in a sentence about Robin, and your stomach would clench before you could stop it.

You didn't call him.

You didn't thank him properly.

And you did not mention the stairs, the water, the jacket, the porch, or the god-awful small confession you had left between you like a dropped glass nobody wanted to clean up.

On Monday morning, you saw him outside the library and crossed the street before he could lift his hand.

That was when avoidance stopped feeling like a choice and started becoming a schedule.

Steve had promised himself he would not chase you.

It lasted almost nine full hours.

By Monday afternoon, he had already walked past your usual table in the dining hall twice, slowed outside the bookstore when he saw a sweater that might have been yours, and stopped himself from calling your apartment so many times Robin threatened to unplug his phone and beat him with the cord.

“You said you’d leave her alone,” Robin reminded him, and the reminder had him groaning. 

Steve sat backward in the desk chair in his room, arms folded over the top rail, chin resting there like a sulking child. “I am.”

“You asked me if Lena mentioned her four times.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I asked you.”

Robin stared at him from the floor, where she was surrounded by cassette tapes and half-written notes for her radio shift. “You understand how information travels between people, right?”

“I didn’t call her.”

“Gold star.”

Steve groaned and dropped his forehead against the chair. His fingers twitched against his forearms restlessly. “She crossed the street.”

Robin’s expression shifted; he knew because he didn't look at her, but he felt it anyway. There it was,  the sympathy. The carefulness. He hated carefulness when it was aimed at him. It made him want to stand up straighter and pretend he was fine.

“She was probably overwhelmed,” Robin’s voice came low and left no room for panic. Steve made some anyway.

He frowned at the memory. “She didn’t look overwhelmed. She looked like she saw a gas leak.”

“That might be her being overwhelmed.”

Steve lifted his head, and begrudgingly he finally exhaled. “Do you think she regrets it?”

Robin’s mouth pressed together, and it only made his hands scrub over his face harder.  Steve looked away before she answered.

That was the thing nobody told you about trying not to be the old version of yourself. It didn't make you new overnight; instead it only made you aware, constantly, of all the ways you could still get it wrong.

In high school, Steve would have taken your distance personally and covered the bruise with attention from someone easier. He knew that about himself. He could see the path clearly enough to really hate it. Some girl would smile at him at a party, and he would lean into it because being wanted was simpler than being understood. He had done it before. He had been good at it.

Now, he did not want easy.

He wanted to know whether you had eaten breakfast. He wanted to know if your headaches had gone away. He wanted to know if you remembered saying you hated toast and if that meant crackers had been the right answer or the wrong one.

He wanted to know if you had meant any of it sober.

That was the worst part.

Because if he asked, he might corner you.

And if he didn’t, he might lose you by being decent too late.

Robin flicked a cassette case at his knee. Her sigh came out exasperated.  “Stop making that face.”

“Which face is this one now?”

“The face where you decide to ruin your own life for sport.”

“I don’t have that face.”

“You have several.” Steve could only sigh.

Robin softened, though only slightly. Her kindness always wore elbows. “Look, she’s not Lena.”

His brows scrunched together at the random comparison. “I know that.”

“No, I mean—Lena panics outward. She talks. She asks questions. She calls me and then hangs up and then calls back pretending it was an accident.”

Steve’s brows lifted, and a small smile stretched over his lips at his best friend's detailed account. “She does?”

Robin went red on principle and sharpened her voice. “Not the point.”

His tone turned teasing before it could have been helped. “I don't know, it feels point-adjacent.”

“Steve.”

“Sorry.”

Robin picked at the frayed hem of her jacket. “Your girl seems to panic inwardly.”

The correction came almost embarrassingly solemnly. “She’s not my girl.”

Robin gave him a look so flat he deserved it. He looked down quickly.

“She’ll bolt if she thinks you’re trying to get something from her,” Robin shrugged, then continued. “Even an answer.”

Steve rubbed at his jaw. Every word seemed to do little to ease his tension. “So I do nothing?”

“Maybe you do normal.”

His voice was exasperated now as he looked at her. “I don’t know what normal is here.”

“I don't think anyone could be normal in this situation.” Her words certainly aren't helpful, but they were true. 

That was how he ended up trying.

Not grandly. There are no speeches, no waiting outside your classes with flowers like some idiot in a John Hughes movie. Just normal. A nod if he saw you. Space if you looked away. No chasing across the quad. No calling your apartment again. No asking Lena for updates, even when Robin came back from coffee looking dazed enough to walk into a doorframe.

He tried. He really did.

But trying not to look for you did not stop him from seeing you everywhere.

You became very good at almost missing Steve.

Not actually missing him, since that would have required less precision. You got good at the lesser injury: seeing him from a distance, noticing him before he noticed you, and making yourself disappear.

Campus helped at first. There were alternate routes to almost everything if you were willing to be inconvenient. You cut behind the old science building even though the sidewalk flooded after rain. You started getting coffee fifteen minutes earlier. You took the side stairs in the library. You sat in the back of your American Lit lecture, even though you hated the draft from the window and the girl in front of you chewed gum with her mouth open.

The girl’s name was Tessa Morgan.

You knew her because she knew everyone. Or wanted to. Tessa had feathered blonde hair, glossy pink nails, and a laugh she released in careful little bursts after looking around to make sure there was an audience for it. She wore perfume strong enough to survive lecture halls and cigarette smoke. She was not cruel, exactly. That would have made your feelings cleaner. She was friendly in the way girls became when they had learned friendliness was a kind of currency.

On Wednesday, she sat sideways in her chair before class, talking to two girls behind her.

“I’m serious,” she spoke animatedly, lowering her voice just enough to make sure it carried. “He picked me up from work. In the Beemer.”

Your pen stopped moving with a disturbing quickness. It did little to freeze the moment. One of the girls gasped beside her. “Steve?”

Tessa smiled down at her notebook, pretending to be modest. Or maybe, she truly was. You had a feeling that you couldn't be an unbiased narrator in the moment. “Who else has that car?”

Your stomach dropped with such sharpness that you thought, for one stupid second, you might actually be sick. 

The room continued around you. Coats rustling. Fluorescent lights buzzing against your eyes. Someone tapping a pencil against a desk in sets of three. Outside, bare branches scraped against the window whenever the wind pushed them hard enough.

“He’s so sweet when he wants to be,” Tessa continued on like you weren't actively prepared to feel repulsed by the words on impact.

You stared at the blank margin of your notes.

Sweet.

The word sat in your throat like spoiled milk.

You had no right to feel anything. You repeated that uselessly while Tessa described how Steve had waited outside the hardware store after her shift because her car wouldn’t start. You repeated it when she said he drove her back to the dorms. You repeated it when one girl asked if they kissed and Tessa laughed instead of answering.

The grip became useless with how tight you held it.

You were the one who had crossed the street.

You were the one who had told him not to make it something.

And you were the one who had made every exit obvious enough for even Steve Harrington to finally take one.

Still, your body reacted like betrayal had happened without your permission. You pressed your pen too hard into the page until the tip tore through the paper.

When class started, you took notes without understanding a word.

Afterward, Tessa caught up beside you in the hallway. You were sure life just enjoyed making ironic jokes. 

“You’re in Professor Allen’s section too, right?” she asked brightly and you stayed still for a moments lull. 

You looked at her, and up close, she had a tiny smudge of mascara beneath one eye. It was utterly human. Annoyingly human.

“Yeah,” you nodded your head because what else could you do? 

“I always see you writing everything down. You’re so good! I get distracted.”

“I noticed.”

She blinked, then laughed, unsure whether to take offense. You weren't sure what you'd wanted either. “Anyway, do you have last week’s notes? I missed part of the lecture.”

Because Steve Harrington drove you home, you thought.

Out loud, you settled for, “I can bring them Friday.”

“Oh my God, thank you.” She touched your arm lightly. The action had your face scrunching slightly in its unearned familiarity.  “You’re a lifesaver.”

You looked at her hand until she removed it. She smiled again, a little less confidently, then headed down the hall.

You stood there with your books held against your chest and hated yourself more than you hated her.

The feeling came with more familiarity than her touch. 

That night, Lena came home from studying with Robin and found you cleaning the kitchen.

Not casually. And certainly not normally. There really couldn't be anything normal considered for the situation. The counters had been wiped twice, the stove burners were soaking, and you were on your knees scrubbing a stain near the baseboards that had probably been there since 1974.

Lena paused in the doorway, with one hand gripping her keys. Her expression came confused as she came nearer. “Should I be scared?”

Your voice came flat. “Nope.”

“You’re cleaning grout.”

“It’s dirty.”

“We rent.” True, you only kept scrubbing.

She put her bag down carefully in the kitchen island near the fruit bowl. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She wasn't convinced, and you felt stupid to expect her to have been. “Okay…”

You heard her move around the kitchen, opening the fridge, closing it, and taking out the orange juice. She did not try to push immediately. That was the annoying part of loving someone who knew you well. They had learned where not to press first.

After a minute, she cleared her throat in a way that already set you on edge, “Robin asked about you.”

Your hand stilled and the feeling that flashed through you must have crossed your face because her voice came quickly once more. 

“Not in a scary way,” Lena added. “Just asked if you were okay.”

“Tell her to ask Steve.” The words came out before you could stop them. They were stupid and childish,  and you hated that on principle. Lena went quiet and you resumed scrubbing, harder than necessary.

“Oh,” she said.

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said oh.”

“It was a small ‘oh’!”

“It had meaning.”

“Most sounds do.” You dropped the sponge into the bucket and sat back on your heels. The kitchen smelled like bleach and old linoleum. Your knees ached from the floor.

Lena leaned against the counter, glass of orange juice in hand, watching you with careful eyes.

You hated careful eyes.

“I heard he’s seeing Tessa Morgan,” you decided to say, your voice was lower now and unnaturally small. 

Lena’s brow furrowed and she sipped at her glass. “Who told you that?”

“Tessa Morgan, basically.”

Her face scrunched up at the words. “What does basically mean?”

“It means she talked about him picking her up from work in class.”

Lena’s face shifted through confusion, realization, and then something like annoyance. “That doesn’t mean they’re seeing each other.”

You scoffed because her words seemed fruitless. “Girls don’t talk about Steve Harrington driving them home unless they want people to think there’s something to talk about.”

“Maybe she wants people to think that.”

“That’s not better.”

“It’s not worse.”

You gave her a look and she only sighed and set down her glass. “You could ask him.”

You laughed once, then paused when you realized she in fact, wasn't kidding. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

You sputtered at her implication. “Because I’m not insane.”

“No, you’re just scrubbing invisible dirt because a girl with frosted lipstick mentioned his car. Totally fine. ”

You stood too fast and got lightheaded. Faint corners of black twisted at your edges before clearing back up.  “I am fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“No, you're not. You’re doing the annoying thing where you decide wanting something is humiliating and then punish yourself for it.” The room went still even more because Lena looked like she regretted saying it, but not enough to take it back.

You swallowed.

“Congratulations,” you rolled your eyes at her.  “Robin taught you therapy words.”

“That wasn’t Robin.”

“No?”

“No,” Lena shook her head softly. “That was me living with you.”

You looked away first because that was too accurate of a response. 

The kitchen light buzzed overhead. Outside, rain tapped against the window above the sink. Somewhere in the apartment below, a television played too loudly, canned laughter rising through the floorboards.

Lena came closer, but not too close.

“I’m not saying you have to do anything,” her tone told you the opposite, but you let out go.  “I’m not even saying Steve deserves anything. I just don’t think pretending you don’t care is making you care less.”

Your throat tightened and you could only reach for the bucket once more in the still. 

Lena let you.

Steve didn't pick Tessa Morgan up because he wanted a date.

He picked her up because she worked closing shifts with a guy from his fraternity, and her car had coughed twice in the parking lot before dying with the dramatic finality of a machine that had given up on life. Steve had been there buying duct tape and light bulbs because the house was falling apart in several preventable ways and no one else seemed particularly worried. Tessa had looked near tears, and the parking lot had been dark, and he had a car.

So, he drove her home.

That was all.

He knew it would become less than nothing in his mind and more than something in someone else’s mouth. He really should have known better. Hawkins had trained him better than that. Campus gossip was only town gossip with better shoes.

By Thursday, two girls had asked him whether he and Tessa were “a thing.”

By Thursday night, Robin found him in the kitchen of the fraternity house stabbing a fork into cold leftover pasta with unnecessary force.

“You heard?” she asked with a tone that told him hell was coming quickly after. 

Steve looked up. “Heard what?”

“That Tessa Morgan is apparently bearing your children.”

He dropped the fork and coughed up a storm. “Jesus, Robin!”

“Ah, so you did hear.”

Steve's brows shot up and repeated his actions. “I gave her a ride home.”

“Obviously.”

His face scrunched up at the word. “Obviously?”

Robin opened the fridge, sniffed a carton of milk, made a face, and put it back. He winced alongside her because he knew the grocery list also seemed to be the last thing on everyone's mind unless it was for a party. “You’re being a wounded golden retriever again. That usually means you performed basic decency and got accused of seduction.”

Steve leaned back against the counter. His words came true but sighed.  “People think what they want.”

Robin looked at him pointedly and he looked away on impact. 

The kitchen was a complete disaster. Beer cans on the counter. A sticky note on the fridge reading BUY PAPER TOWELS OR DIE. Someone had left a jacket over a chair, and the sleeves dragged on the floor. The house smelled of reheated sauce, cigarette smoke, and the old wood beneath everything.

“She probably heard,” Robin noted casually and Steve could only rub his hands over his face in true defeat. 

There was no need to ask who.

“I didn’t do anything,” he let his palm rest over his eyes for a moment before he spoke. 

Robin’s words came with an understanding nod. “I know.”

“No, I mean—” Steve stopped, frustrated. “I didn’t call her. I didn’t corner her. I tried to leave space. She crossed the street, Rob.”

Robin’s expression softened in that brutal way again.

“Yeah, I know,” the way she said it had him scrub a hand over his hair again. 

“What am I supposed to do? Follow her around telling her every rumor isn’t true? That’s exactly the thing she probably doesn’t want.”

“Probably not.”

Steve leaned back now, hands crossed against his chest, and glared at the kitchen island. “So I do nothing.”

“You are very bad at doing nothing.”

“I’m learning.” poorly, he was aware of that at least. 

“You’re pacing while eating pasta.”

Steve looked down and threw his head up in resignation. He was pacing.

He quickly stopped as if that proved his stability. 

Robin leaned against the counter beside him. “For what it’s worth, Lena says she’s been weird.”

Steve turned with wide eyes, immediately leaning over at the new information. “Lena said that?”

Robin winced and it was a sight Steve knew all too well. “I wasn’t supposed to say.”

“Robin.”

She gave a conflicted noise, averting her eyeline from his before giving in.  “Not details. Just—cleaning, I guess. Quiet. Meaner than usual, but in a sad way.”

Steve’s chest tightened unexpectedly. The words landed all wrong on his heart immediately. 

He hated that. Not the mean part. The sad part.

“What did Lena say about Tessa?” he asked, quicker now since he'd gotten some part of the ruined information.

Robin gave him a look and Steve held up both hands in apology. “Sorry.”

“You’re doing it.”

His voice came low and defeated. “I know.”

“You can’t get Lena to translate her for you.”

“I know.”

“And I can’t translate Lena translating her for me.”

“I know Robin”

Robin studied him for a long second. Then she finally  said, “There’s a mixer Saturday.”

Steve groaned and shook his head just as quick as he heard. “No.”

“I didn’t invite you to a mixer.”

He scoffed and gave her a look, his hand coming up in a gesture. “It’s my house. I’m already implicated.”

“Lena wants to go.”

He narrowed his eyes, “you mean you want Lena to go.”

“Two things can be true.”

“And she’ll bring—”

“Maybe.”

Steve’s heart did something embarrassing.

Robin pointed at him and made a loud noise of defeat. “Do not make that face.”

“I didn’t!”

He did. “You did. Put it away.”

He looked down at the cold pasta when Robin sighed. “If she comes, don’t corner her.”

Steve’s next words came out lower, but no less truthful. “I wasn’t going to.”

“Don’t make a speech.”

“Wasn’t planning one.”

“Don’t overcorrect and act like she’s invisible.”

Steve paused because he knew exactly what she meant, and immediately hated it. 

Robin nodded slowly, her hair swinging back against her ears.  “There it is.”

The fork was in his hand again, poking at the plate helplessly. He hadn't taken another bite, his appetite had hit an all time low. “I really hate this.”

“Yeah,” Robin sighed with one hand pushing back at her bangs. “It sucks liking people who don’t come with instructions.”

Saturday arrived with cold rain and Lena standing in your doorway holding two shirts against her chest.

“Which one says casual but available?”

You looked up from your textbook with a furrow in your brows and curiosity in your tone. “Available for what?”

“Conversation. Romance. Emotional ruin.”

You scoffed but answered nonetheless. “The blue one.”

She looked down at it in her hold. “Really?”

“The black one says you’re trying to look like you didn’t try, which means you tried too hard. The blue one says you own a mirror but didn’t negotiate with it.”

Lena stared at you and it made you regret the overexplanation. “That was both helpful and upsetting.”

You could only shrug. “You’re welcome?”

She lingered, but your attention had already gone away. You looked back at your book without reading. And when her voice hit your ears once more, your eyes shut instinctively. 

“There’s a mixer tonight,” Lena cleared her throat in a way that told you she was trying to be subtle and ended up being anything but. 

“I know.”

“Robin asked if I was going.”

“I would hope so.”

“You could come.”

“Hell no.”

“You said that fast.”

You made a face. “I meant it fast.”

Lena fully stepped into the room then. Your bedroom was dim despite the desk lamp, the window streaked with rain. The air smelled faintly of coffee gone cold and the cinnamon gum you had been chewing to keep from biting your nails.

“You haven’t gone out all week,” she immediately dropped her hesitancy and frustration took over. 

You pointed at her in correction. “I went to class.”

“That doesn’t count.”

One of your eyebrows ticked up in a way you knew irritated her. “It counted for attendance.”

She sat at the end of your bed, and finally she sighed. “You don’t have to talk to him.”

The words had you incredulous. “That’s not true.”

“It can be.”

“No,” you scoffed, sharper than you meant and regretted it immediately. “It can’t. Because even not talking to him becomes a thing. Looking away becomes a thing. Standing near him becomes a thing. Everyone makes everything a thing.”

Lena was quiet, which only drove the silence to be more exposing.  You pressed your fingers against the page until the paper bent.

After a moment, she tried again, “Tessa might be there.”

Your laugh came out flat, and you rolled your eyes at the page you'd been attempting to read for the past 5 minutes. “Oh great pitch.”

“I’m not saying that to hurt you.”

Your exhale came out entirely exasperated alongside your words. “Then why even say it?”

Lena only shrugged at your flat look. “Because if you stay here picturing it, it might be worse than seeing whatever it actually is.”

You looked at her and she kept your gaze. 

You hated when she was right in a way that offered no comfort.

“I don’t want to care,” your tongue poked out to lick at the corner of your mouth. 

Lena’s face softened and you regretted speaking. She reached out and touched your ankle through the blanket. “I know.”

The tenderness made you want to snap at her, but you were tired of being cruel to the people close enough to let you. So, you only looked back at your textbook and just repeated, “Blue shirt.”

Lena stood after a moment.

At the door, she paused in a way that made you want to burrow deeper into your bed. “I’ll wait twenty minutes before leaving.”

The words came out quickly. “I’m not coming.”

“Okay.”

She left the door open.

You lasted about seventeen minutes.

The mixer was less chaotic than the party and somehow even more uncomfortable.

The fraternity house had been cleaned just enough to reveal how badly it needed cleaning. Someone had mopped the entryway, but the lemon chemical smell fought with old beer in the corners. Lamps wore scarves over their shades for softer light. Music played from the living room stereo at a volume that allowed conversation but still made people lean in closer than necessary. There were bowls of chips on the tables, a stack of plastic cups, a deck of cards abandoned mid-game.

You regretted coming before Lena finished knocking.

Thankfully, Robin had been the one who opened the door.

For one second, she looked only at Lena. It was so obvious you smiled and then forced it back in because it felt intrusive to the moment. 

Then Robin’s blue eyes finally flicked to you and widened. The surprise was evident.  “Oh. Hey. Hi. You came.”

You lifted one hand in a weak wave, then immediately retracted it with a displeased scrunch of your face. “Observant.”

Robin nodded too many times. It only made you regret everything all the more. “Cool—Good. Not cool like surprising. I mean cool like fine. Normal. Very normal.”

Lena bit her lip at the formation of the girl's words and you looked between them. Your lips pressed against each other and you felt the weird tension just as quickly as it was dished out. “Well, this is painful.”

Robin pointed inside quickly, as if your verbalization of the situation broke her out of the stupor she was in. “Do you want—there’s punch. It might be nonalcoholic. I mean, I think there are two bowls. One is definitely suspicious.”

“Lead with that last part next time,” you exhaled with a numb nod.

You followed them inside because turning around now would have been theatrical, and you really did not have the energy to make your exit interesting.

At first, it was fine.

Not pleasant. Fine.

You really needed the clarification. 

You stayed near the bookshelf in the living room, the one full of outdated encyclopedias, a broken camera, and somebody’s abandoned economics textbook. Lena and Robin stood a few feet away, talking in the halting rhythm of people trying not to scare each other off. You made yourself useful by pretending not to listen.

Steve was not in the room.

That helped.

And then, he was.

He came in from the kitchen carrying a trash bag in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other, talking over his shoulder to someone behind him. His hair was damp from the rain, darker at the edges. He wore a navy sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, denim jeans, and white socks visible above old sneakers. He looked too domestic for a fraternity house, which was unfair and completely unnecessary.

He saw you.

Everything in his face paused.

Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else to catch, but you caught it, because your body had become traitorous about him. 

He didn't come over.

He only nodded once.

Your chest hurt with an instinctive response that repulsed you. 

You looked away first.

“That was mature,” Lena murmured and your glare pressed at her from your side. 

“I’ll leave.”

“I said mature!”

Another hurried whisper. “I heard the  judgment.”

“You hear what you want.”

Robin glanced between you and Steve, then seemed to decide she valued her ignorance and turned back to Lena.

For half an hour, Steve kept his distance.

You hated how much you noticed.

He moved through the house with the careful restraint of someone trying not to spook a stray animal. He laughed with his friends, but he did not get loud. He passed near the bookshelf once to throw something away and didn't look directly at you until you looked first. Then he looked away, too, and that somehow made you feel worse.

You had wanted space and he was giving you space.

It also, strangely, felt like abandonment.

That made you angry enough to drink from the wrong bowl.

The punch was terrible. Sweet, red, and strong enough to make your throat tighten. You took only one cup, then another half because Tessa Morgan arrived and the night became sharply worse to your sanity. 

She came in with two girls from your class, shaking rain from her hair, cheeks pink from the cold. She was wearing a cream sweater and fitted jeans tucked into boots. She looked effortless in the way that probably required effort and then restraint about showing it.

Steve saw her and smiled.

Not the smile you had been storing against your will. Not the small, careful one from the porch. A normal smile. Friendly. Familiar enough to make your stomach sink in that familiar pit. 

Tessa crossed the room and touched his arm.

“Hey, stranger,” she grinned up with vibrancy. 

You heard it because you were close enough and because your attention had become humiliatingly selective.

Steve answered something you couldn’t hear over the music. But you could hear how Tessa laughed. She lifted one hand to push damp hair from her face, and Steve gestured toward the kitchen, probably offering a drink, because of course he did. Of course he was attentive. Of course his basic decency looked romantic when aimed at someone prettier, easier, and less likely to turn affection into a weapon and point it at herself.

You looked down into your cup.

Red punch trembled near the rim.

Lena appeared beside you with a look that had you wanting to run off just so you didn't have to face it. “Don’t.”

You took a drink because it was your only escape from the endless chatter in your mind. 

She sighed and murmured with her face puffed up. “That was extremely don’t-adjacent.”

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that before doing something unwise.”

You mirror her sigh, the sickly sweet mixture hit your tongue all wrong. “You’re busy. Go flirt.”

“I can multitask, I'm a big girl.”

You looked at Robin, who was standing awkwardly near the couch, pretending to read the back of a record sleeve while very clearly watching Lena. “She’s waiting.”

Lena hesitated and it made you feel conflicted with the guilt you felt. 

“Go,” you pushed again, but softer this time.

Her eyes searched your face.

You gave her the version of yourself she needed; steady enough, dry enough, and still capable of being useful.

So she went, and you were glad for her. 

The night stretched.

You still didn't talk to Steve.

Steve still didn't talk to you.

Tessa did.

That felt almost funny, in a cruel little ironic way.

She found you near the bookshelf after class notes became her excuse. “Oh! I meant to thank you,” she beamed up at you, touching your elbow before seeming to remember you didn’t enjoy that. Her hand dropped quickly. “For the notes. Professor Allen is impossible.”

You nodded slowly, because your movements slowed but not your head. “He’s fine if you ignore every third sentence.”

She laughed, the noise was pretty. That was another annoyance.  “I should try that.”

You nodded again, because what else could you do?

She glanced across the room toward Steve, then back at you. Her smile shifted into something conspiratorial. “You know Steve, right?”

Every muscle in your body went unpleasantly alert for its previous lull. 

“Everyone knows Steve,” you let your eyes find a spot to focus on ahead of her. 

“True.” She looked down, smiling into her cup. “He’s been really sweet lately.”

You stared at her and your brows scrunched together at the repetition of her words. She did not seem to notice the danger.

“My car is such a piece of junk, and he’s driven me twice now. He said he knows a guy who can look at it. Isn’t that cute?”

Cute.

You could feel your pulse in your wrist, your throat, the thin skin under your jaw.

“That’s Steve,” that was the only thing that your tongue let you respond with. 

You had meant it to sound neutral.

It surely did not.

Tessa looked up, and for the first time, her face sharpened with awareness. Not malice, that would have actually been welcomed, but with curiosity.

“Are you two friends?” she asked, and even the question was light. 

“Nope.” The answer came too fast.

Across the room, Steve looked over.

Of course he did. He seemed to have a skill for catching you at your worst. Or was it pushing you to act your worst? You couldn't decide. 

Tessa followed your gaze.

A little understanding moved over her face. The sight of it made heat rise behind your ears.

“Oh,” she made a small confused noise. 

You hated that sound now. Oh. Everyone’s favorite little blade.

“No,” you said to her, probably sharper than it warranted. 

“I didn’t—”

“I’m getting air.”

You set your cup down on the bookshelf without checking whether there was space for it and walked out before the conversation could become something you would have to survive.

The rain had stopped thankfully, but the porch was wet and cold enough to bite through the soles of your shoes. You stood near the railing, gripping the damp wood until your fingers went numb. The street beyond the house shone under the lamps, puddles holding broken bits of yellow light. Cars lined the curb. Somewhere down the block, people shouted and laughed on another porch, their voices carrying strangely in the wet air.

You breathed in the cold and tried to make your body behave.

It was not jealousy.

It was not.

It was disgust, you told yourself. Disgust at yourself for caring. Disgust at the ease with which Steve could become important to someone else. Disgust at knowing you'd pushed him away and still somehow expected him to remain exactly where you left him, waiting in the shape of your indecision.

You gripped the railing harder.

The door opened behind you.

You didn't turn because the irony was cruel when Steve stepped onto the porch and let the door close softly.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

You could feel him standing a few feet away. Not too close. Not far enough.

“You okay?” he asked and you didn't realize how some part of you seemed to have missed his voice. The thought came unwelcomed and left rudely. 

You laughed under your breath, nothing was really funny. “You need new material.”

He only exhaled. “Yeah.”

The porch light continued to buzz above you. A drop of water fell from the gutter and hit the step below with a steady, irritating rhythm.

You stared at the street spreading into the horizon. “Tessa seems nice.”

Steve was quiet.

Too quiet.

Your stomach twisted.

“She is,” he said carefully.

You nodded.

The motion felt mechanical.

Steve stepped closer, then stopped himself. “It’s not—”

“Don’t.” The word cut through the cold.

He stopped mid sentence. You closed your eyes briefly. “Don’t explain.”

“I think maybe I should.”

“No,” you repeated firmer. “You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

Because you would believe him.

Because you wanted to believe him.

Because if he said there was nothing going on with Tessa, you would have to confront the fact that the sick feeling in your stomach had not been proof of anything except your own fear.

You opened your eyes.

“Because I didn’t ask.” Steve’s face tightened as soon as you spoke. 

The hurt was quick, but you saw it. You hated yourself for seeing it, and even worse, for causing it. 

“Right,” he seemed like he wanted to stay more, but stopped himself. 

You turned then, leaning back against the railing. The wood was cold and damp against your palms. “You don’t owe me explanations.”

“I know that.”

“Good.”

Steve opened his mouth then closed it, his restless hands found comfort in rubbing at the shorter pieces of his hair resting on his neck. “But you’re mad.”

The word instantly had you reeling at how it simplified you into something so childish. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re something.”

“Don’t analyze me, Harrington.”

He looked away at the name. Not because he hated it. Because he liked it, and you both knew enough now for that to be painful.

Inside, someone laughed too loudly. The sound pushed through the door and vanished into the wet night. Steve looked tired when he faced you again. “I’m trying to do what you asked.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

“You asked me not to make it something.”

Your throat tightened and you gave a few hard blinks at the railing. “I asked you not to act like it already was.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

The patience in his voice made you want to be worse.

“So what is this?” you asked because it seemed the most mature reckless thing available to you. 

His brows drew together. “What?”

“This.” You gestured toward the house, toward Tessa, toward the space between you that neither of you seemed able to name without damaging it. “You leaving me alone until you think I’m upset, then coming outside to do the concerned thing.”

Steve’s jaw shifted, you could see a million thoughts probably running at full speed in his dark eyes. 

“I came outside because you left upset,” he decided to say after a moment. 

You made a displeased face again at the same result the word left in you. “I left annoyed at most.”

“You left because Tessa asked if we were friends.”

Your face went hot.

Damn him.

Damn him for noticing.

Still, you could only scoff and turn your head to glare at whatever was in your direction. “That’s not why.”

“No?”

“No.”

He got quieter when you wanted him louder. “What was it then?”

You had nothing.

Steve only waited.

The silence stretched until it became unbearable. You pushed off the railing. “I’m going home.”

His words came immediately and he pushed out of place to mirror you. “Let me walk you.”

The refusal came immediately. “No.”

“It’s late.”

“I’ve walked places after dark before you personally discovered concern.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

“I don’t think you do.”

You turned on him, finally facing him for more than a total of a few seconds. “Then say what you mean.”

Steve looked at you, and for one second, you thought he might. His face changed with the effort of holding something back. His hands flexed at his sides. The porch light caught the scrape near his knuckle again, half-healed now.

Then,  the door opened.

Tessa stepped out, holding his jacket. You hated how quick you registered it in her hold. 

“There you are,” she reached out to him, but then stopped when she saw you.

The moment froze in a way that would have been funny if it belonged to anyone else.

Tessa looked between you and Steve. Steve looked like he wanted the porch to collapse beneath him. You looked at the jacket in her hands.

His jacket.

The same one he had put around your shoulders.

Your stomach dropped so deep it went numb.

Tessa’s smile faltered flat. “You forgot this inside.”

Steve stared at the jacket as if he had never seen it before. “Right. Thanks.”

She held it out and he took it slowly.

You looked away before his fingers touched hers.

It was nothing. A jacket. A normal exchange. An object moving from one hand to another.

Your body did not care.

“Well,” you spoke up finally, voice flat enough to frighten yourself. “Goodnight.”

Steve stepped forward almost urgently now, “Wait—”

You were already down the porch steps and he followed to the top step. “Please.”

The please nearly stopped you.

Nearly.

But Tessa was still on the porch, silent now, and the whole house was behind her, and you could already imagine the story forming in someone else’s mouth. You and Steve outside. You upset. Tessa with his jacket. Something embarrassing and public and impossible to correct without admitting there was something to correct.

So, you kept walking.

Steve didn't follow.

That hurt too.

By Monday, you had turned the whole thing into something hard enough to hold.

Tessa had his jacket. Steve liked Tessa. Steve had been kind because Steve was kind to everyone, which meant none of it mattered. The stairs had been alcohol. The porch had been exhaustion. The phone call had been guilt. You had misread basic decency because it had been pointed at you during a weak moment, and now you were paying for it with the full-body humiliation of having wanted more.

Fine.

That was more survivable.

You had survived worse than wanting someone who belonged easily to other people.

You went to class. You copied notes. You returned Tessa’s borrowed pages and accepted her distracted thank-you without looking at her mouth, her sweater, her hands, anything that might make her real enough to be unfair to hate.

Lena watched you carefully all week.

Robin came over twice.

That, was new.

The first time, she stood in your kitchen holding a grocery bag and talking too fast.

“I brought soup because Lena said you both forget food exists when midterms happen, which is deranged, honestly, because food is one of maybe five good things about being alive, and before you ask, yes, I paid for it, no, Steve did not send it, and no, this is not a weird emotional bribe.”

You looked at Lena immediately at the condensed version of words and  Lena looked at the ceiling which caused Robin to stop to an abrupt halt. “That was too much.”

“A little,” you gave a little nod but didn't hold any real judgement. Not for her anyways. 

“Great.”

But she still stayed.

She and Lena made soup badly, somehow burning the bottom while leaving the middle lukewarm. You sat at the table with your textbook open, pretending not to enjoy the sound of them moving around each other. Robin talked when nervous. Lena grew quieter, smiling into tasks. They bumped elbows twice. Apologized both times. Neither moved away quickly enough.

You were happy for them.

You truly were.

It just sat beside everything else.

Watching them become brave in tiny increments made your own cowardice louder. Lena had spent years swallowing pieces of herself in public, and now she was reaching for something anyway. Robin lived with fear tucked under every joke, and she still showed up at your kitchen with soup and shaking hands.

You, meanwhile, had crossed streets and fled porches because Steve Harrington might have the power to disappoint you.

It made you crueler to yourself than you were to anyone else.

By Thursday night, you had stopped sleeping properly.

Your room took on the stale quality of a place occupied by someone refusing to leave and refusing to rest. Coffee cups gathered on the crate beside your bed. Your notes spread across the floor in neat, useless piles. The radio played low most nights, static swelling between songs from stations too far away. You kept waiting for your mind to tire itself out. 

It never did.

On Friday, Professor Allen assigned partners for the final paper.

You got Tessa Morgan because fate was cruel, but professors were crueler.

She turned around in her seat with a bright smile that faded slightly when she saw your face.

“Hi,” she tried brightly. 

“Hi.”

“This’ll be fun.”

“Sure.”

She laughed weakly, seeming uncomfortable with your lack of give. You couldn't blame her, you weren't the biggest fan either. “Or productive.”

“That’s more likely.”

You met at the library after class, at a table near the windows where rain trailed crooked paths down the glass. Tessa arrived five minutes late, smelling faintly of hairspray and cold air, carrying a folder pressed to her chest.

“Sorry,” she apologized when she came into view, breathless. “My ride took forever.”

You looked down at your notebook.

Her ride.

She sat across from you and began unpacking colored pens, index cards, a pack of gum, three library books, and a small tin of mints.

You watched the items appear one by one, ordinary and harmless. Then she said, “I feel like you don’t like me.”

You looked up after your face did a weird expression at the abrupt turn of conversation and Tessa’s face had gone pink, but she held your gaze.

You were so surprised that you said nothing.

She twisted one of her rings around her finger. “It’s okay if you don’t. I know I can be a lot.”

The honesty disarmed you in a way you resented.

“I don’t dislike you,” you gave a strained little clear of your throat, your words might’ve been awkward,  but they remained true. .

Her mouth tilted up like she hadn't been expecting to find this humorous. “That sounded very rehearsed.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

Silence settled between you, interrupted by a cough from the next table and the scratch of someone’s pencil across paper.

Tessa looked down at her notes. “Is it because of Steve?”

Your pulse jumped humiliatingly on the mention of his name. “No.”

She gave you a look that was almost kind. You hated that too.

“I’m not dating him,” she said then, causing your pen to freeze over a loop.

Tessa looked embarrassed now, but determined. “I don’t know what people are saying. I mean, I kind of do, because people are obvious and bored. But he gave me rides because my car is awful. That’s it.”

You stared at the table instead of her. The wood grain blurred slightly.

“I didn’t ask,” you only found yourself able to say. 

“I know.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because you look sick every time someone says his name.” That landed so sharply you almost stood up.

Tessa winced because she wasn't blind. “Sorry. That was too direct.”

“No,” you spoke up, but your voice sounded far away. “It’s fine.”

“It wasn’t.”

You pressed your palm flat to the page in front of you.

There it was. The explanation you had refused from Steve, delivered anyway by the girl you had made into evidence. The relief should have been clean. Instead, it arrived tangled with shame. You had been unfair to her. Unfair to him. Unfair to yourself in the most familiar way possible, hurting first and calling it protection.

Tessa opened her notebook slowly. “For what it’s worth, he talks about you.”

You looked up before you could stop yourself and quickly disliked how her mouth softened. “Not in a gross way. Just… he asks if you were in class when he sees me. Or if Professor Allen is still assigning too much reading. Stuff like that.”

You swallowed and went back to the grain on the table. 

“Anyway,” she cleared her throat quickly, looking down at the table as well. “Thesis statements?”

You nodded because speech had become unsafe.

For the next hour, you worked.

Tessa turned out to be smart when she stopped performing being charming. She had good instincts about the novel and terrible comma habits. You corrected one, and she rolled her eyes but wrote it down. By the time you left the library, the rain had stopped and the pavement outside shone under a pale evening sky.

You stood at the entrance with your books in your arms.

Tessa hesitated beside you.

“I really don’t like him that way,” she became quieter, but no less determined. 

You looked at her with furrowed brows and she gave a small, awkward smile. “He’s nice. But he spends half his time looking around rooms for someone who isn’t me.”

Your chest tightened. You didn’t know what to do with kindness from the person you had been quietly resenting for a week.

So, you only nodded.

“Thanks,” you exhaled.  It sounded insufficient because it was. Tessa accepted it anyway.

Steve found out from Tessa, which was not how he wanted to find out anything.

He was outside the Hardware store again, this time actually helping her jump-start her car, when she leaned against the driver’s side door and spoke v up, “Your girl is really intense.”

Steve hit his head lightly on the open hood from how he jumped at the words. 

“Ow.” He straightened, rubbing the back of his head. Steve quickly cleared his throat. “She’s not my girl.”

Tessa gave him a look. He was really getting tired of that look from everyone.

“She’s not,” he insisted, though the insistence really just pricked at his skin more than relieved him. 

“Okay.”

“She isn’t.”

“I heard you.”

He focused on the jumper cables because machines were easier than people, even when he barely knew what he was doing. Finally, after a begrudging moment,  he spoke up again. “What does intense mean?”

“It means she hates me less now, I think.”

Steve looked over,.surprised by the words. “What?”

Tessa shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “I told her we weren’t dating.”

He stared blankly and Tessa’s eyes widened. “Was I not supposed to?”

“No, I just—” Steve stopped, turning away from the car. His own eyes widened quickly after. “She thought we were?”

Tessa’s expression shifted into something regretful.

The parking lot was cold and gray, the store sign buzzed above the entrance. Cars passed on the road beyond, tires hissing over wet asphalt. Steve could smell gasoline, rain, and the metallic dust from the engine. His hands were dirty.

He thought of you on the porch, eyes fixed on his jacket in Tessa’s hands, and he felt stupid enough to deserve the headache forming behind his eyes.

“She wouldn’t let me explain,” he looked down at the engine once more because that was an easier target. 

“Did you try again?”

He looked at her, a bit caught off guard, and Tessa lifted both hands up at once. “Sorry. None of my business.”

“No,” Steve shook his head a bit. “It’s okay.”

But it was not okay.

Nothing about this was okay in the way it could have been if either of you knew how to ask for what you needed without making it sound like an accusation.

Tessa’s car finally started with a miserable cough.

She cheered and even Steve managed a smile and unhooked the cables.

On the drive back to campus, he thought about going to your apartment. He thought about calling. He thought about leaving a note. Every option felt either too much or not enough. Robin would tell him not to Steve it. Lena would probably tell him to be honest. You would probably look at him like honesty was a trap.

He parked outside the fraternity house and sat in the car after turning off the engine.

The quiet suddenly felt huge.

His hands rested on the steering wheel. He stared at the dim reflection of himself in the windshield, his hair flattened from the rain, face tired, and shirt collar slightly crooked.

He wanted to be the kind of person who knew how to stay.

He was afraid you only knew how to leave first.

The next time you and Steve ended up in the same room, neither of you chose it.

Lena chose it, technically, by getting sick.

Not badly. Just enough fever and congestion to turn her dramatic and useless on the couch. Robin came over with more soup and a stack of tapes and Steve drove her because it was raining again and because Robin didn't have a car and because the universe enjoyed putting you through small, specifically ironic trials.

You opened the door expecting Robin. Steve stood behind her, holding a paper bag from Melvald’s.

For one second, all four of you froze in the narrow doorway.

Lena croaked from the couch, “If that’s soup, everyone lives.”

Robin recovered first. “It’s soup, cough drops, and the magazine  you asked for with Rob Lowe on the cover, which I’m choosing not to take personally.”

Lena lifted one weak hand, her face turning sheepish with its flush. “For medical reasons.”

Steve looked at you, but you couldn't find it in you to meet his eyelids as strongly. Instead, you stepped back from the door.

Nobody said anything about the fact that you let him in.

The apartment felt too small immediately.

Robin went to Lena. Lena, despite looking half-dead under a blanket, brightened so visibly it softened the room. Robin sat on the floor beside the couch and began unpacking the bag with the focused care of someone who needed tasks to manage terror.

That left Steve standing near the kitchen entrance with wet hair and uncertainty.

You busied yourself with mugs instead of the sight. 

“Tea?” you asked the room.

Lena nodded her head weakly. “Yes.”

Robin spoke up, “If it’s not a hassle.”

Steve said nothing.

You filled the kettle and set it on the stove. The metal clanged too loudly. Your fingers felt clumsy.

Steve came to stand near the kitchen table, but not close enough to crowd you.

“I can go,” he delivered it quietly.

You kept your back to him, busying yourself with the water kettle.  “You just got here.”

“I know.”

The kettle sat cold on the burner. You turned the knob, watched the blue flame catch beneath it.

“Do you want to?” you asked. The question came out sharper than intended.

Steve was quiet for a second.

“No,” he decided on saying. 

Your throat tightened.

You reached for four mugs instead of three.

The small action sat between you.

Steve noticed, of course. 

For a while, the evening became almost normal.

Robin played a tape too low to bother Lena’s headache. Lena made terrible jokes through congestion. Steve fixed the wobbly kitchen chair without being asked, tightening a screw with a butter knife because none of you knew where the actual tools were. You pretended not to watch him crouched beside the chair, sleeves pushed up, and with his brow furrowed in concentration over something so ordinary it made your chest ache.

He caught you looking once. You looked away immediately and hated yourself for acting incriminating 

He didn't smile.

That was worse than the actual evidence.

Later, Robin took Lena’s temperature and announced she was not dying, only disgusting. Lena called her cruel. Robin said cruelty was part of her healing practice. Their hands touched over the thermometer, and Lena did not pull away.

You saw Steve see it.

His face softened, proud and quiet.

For the first time all night, you remembered why this had started.

Not because he wanted to hurt you.

Not because he wanted Lena.

But because he loved Robin enough to panic badly.

You went into the kitchen to rinse mugs that did not need rinsing.

A minute later, Steve followed.

The living room noise covered the first few seconds of silence. Water ran warm over your hands. The sink smelled faintly of dish soap and metal. Rain ticked against the window.

“I’m not dating Tessa,” he told you once again, softer than the first time. 

You shut off the water.

Your hands stayed in the sink. Steve stood behind and to the side of you, far enough away that you could leave if you wanted.

“I know,” you bit at the inside of your cheek and have a hesitant, but sturdy nod. 

He let out a quiet breath and his own head nodded.  “Okay.”

“Tessa told me.”

“Yeah. She told me she told you.” You dried your hands on a towel, buying time you didn't know how to use.

“I didn’t ask her,” you felt the clarification was useless, but your stupid pride needed it. 

“I know.”

“I didn’t ask you either.”

“I know that too.” You turned around then. 

Steve’s face was open in a way that made you want to look anywhere else. He seemed tired, but not angry. That almost made it stranger. Anger would have given you something familiar to push against.

“I wasn’t mad,” you reached for one last time. 

His mouth twitched sadly at the corners. “You keep saying that.”

“Because I wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

A frown made its way into your face before you could've steered it away. “You don’t believe me.”

“I think you were hurt.” The words were too direct for your liking. 

You looked toward the living room. Robin was laughing softly at something Lena said, their heads close together over the magazine.

Steve followed your gaze, then looked back at you. “I’m not trying to trap you into admitting anything.”

“Then stop saying things that require answers.”

He nodded once. 

That should have ended it.

But you were tired. Tired from not sleeping, tired from avoiding routes, and tired from turning every feeling into proof you were stupid for having it.

So, you decided to be uncharacteristically vulnerable, “I thought you moved on.”

Steve stared at you with such intensity it had you wanting to leave your own home. 

The words hung there, ugly and bare.

You folded your arms, immediately defensive against your own honesty. “Not that you had anything to move on from.”

Steve's jaw shifted slightly, and you knew he was restraining himself.

“Right,” he nodded again, smaller this time. 

You hated that answer.

You had built him a hallway and then punished him for walking through it. You knew that. Knowing didn't make you less afraid, though. 

Steve rubbed a hand over his mouth, then dropped it. He looked at the back of his hand because if not, he'd look at you and say things that would only scare you further. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

The sentence wasn't necessarily cruel.

It still hit like it was.

You looked down at the floor.

“I don’t either,” your brows furrowed in their displeased, familiar confusion. 

The living room went quiet for half a second, then Robin sneezed loudly enough to make Lena laugh herself into a cough.

Neither of you moved.

Steve’s voice lowered, and it seemed to have cost him effort. “I can leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

There it was again.

The offer.

The knife.

You closed your eyes for a momentary escape. 

Part of you wanted to say yes because yes was clean. Yes meant no more waiting for him in rooms. No more Tessa-shaped panic. No more watching his hands flex while he tried not to reach for you. No more feeling seen and wanting to punish him for it.

Another part of you wanted to say no so badly it felt humiliating.

Instead, you opened your eyes and chose the worst possible middle.

“I don’t want to do this in my kitchen.”

Steve nodded slowly. His face had gone careful again.

“Okay,” he settled for carefully. 

You hated the carefulness.

You hated yourself more for needing it.

In the living room, Lena called weakly, “Is the tea dead?”

You stepped away first. Steve stayed in the kitchen for a moment before following.

The rest of the night passed in pieces.

Tea. Soup. Robin pretending not to panic when Lena fell asleep against her shoulder. Steve washing dishes because his hands needed something to do. You handing him a towel without looking at him. His quiet thank-you. Your quieter acknowledgement.

When Robin finally woke Lena enough to say goodbye, the rain had eased into mist. Steve stood by the door, jacket on, keys in hand. Robin hovered beside him, still watching Lena with a face she probably thought was subtle.

You opened the door.

Cold air entered the apartment and Steve paused on the threshold.

For one second, it was just the two of you again, with everyone else distracted behind him.

“I’m not going to disappear,” Steve spoke up quietly into the quiet night air. 

Your hand tightened on the door. He looked at you, then away, like he was making himself give you room even in the sentence.

“But I’ll stop standing in front of the exit,” he added and you did not answer.

You couldn’t.

Steve nodded again once, accepting the silence even though it clearly hurt him, and then stepped out onto the porch.

Robin followed after giving Lena one last awkward wave.

You shut the door and made no movement to move away from the frame. 

Lena, still half-asleep on the couch, opened one eye. “You’re both idiots.”

You leaned your forehead against the door. The wood panel felt cold against your skin. 

“I know,” your words were barely above a whisper. 

Outside, Steve walked Robin to the car.

Neither of them spoke until they reached it. Robin got into the passenger seat, then waited while Steve stood in the mist with his hand on the roof of the BMW, looking back at your apartment.

“You okay?” she asked, throwing him a careful look from his side. 

He laughed once, all weak and breathless. “That obvious?”

Robin smiled faintly. “Yeah.”

Steve slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door. The car smelled faintly of old leather, rain, and the paper bag from Melvald’s. He put the keys in the ignition but didn't turn them just yet.

“She thought I moved on,” his fingers tapped against the unmoving wheel in front of him.

Robin’s face softened when he continued. 

“And I think part of her wanted that,” he continued, and Steve's head went tipped back. “So she could be right.”

Robin looked out the windshield at the wet street, the porch light glowing behind them.

“Maybe,” she only decided to say and Steve rested his head back against the seat a bit harder this time. 

The wipers sat still against the glass. Mist gathered in tiny beads until the streetlights blurred.

Then, quieter, “I told her I wouldn’t disappear.”

Robin nodded appreciatively. “That’s good.”

“I also told her I’d stop standing in front of the exit.”

Robin turned to him, and her softened blue eyes made him want to groan. “That’s better.”

He closed his eyes for a second.

“It feels like leaving,” Steve murmured and his face turned displeased at the unwelcome thought. 

“It’s not.”

“How do you know?”

Robin was quiet long enough that he opened his eyes. She was twisting one of her rings, thoughtful and nervous and, for once, not reaching for a joke first.

“Because leaving is about you being done,” she then decided to settle for.  “This is about giving her a choice.”

Steve swallowed and sighed when Robin patted his shoulder, he started the car quickly after that.

Across the street, your apartment window glowed warm through the mist.

He let himself look once, then he drove away.

Inside, you stood in your room with the lights off, watching his taillights disappear through the rain-blurred glass.

Lena had gone back to sleep on the couch. The apartment was quiet except for the radiator and Robin’s forgotten tape still playing low, some soft, crackling song from the other room. Your reflection hovered faintly in the window, tired and indistinct.

Steve’s words stayed with you.

I’m not going to disappear.

But I’ll stop standing in front of the exit.

You hated how much that sounded like care.

You hated that it also sounded like he was learning how to love someone better than you were learning how to let him.

On your desk, your American Lit notes sat open to a page where your pen had torn through the margin days ago. Beside them was a mug of cold tea Steve had washed and placed upside down on a towel before leaving.

You stared at it until your vision blurred. Then you turned away, crawled into bed fully clothed, and pulled the blanket over your head.

In the dark, you told yourself this was what you wanted.

Space.

Quiet.

No pressure.

No Steve Harrington standing too close with careful hands and a patient voice.

For the first time all week, nobody called. Nobody knocked. Nobody chased you across a porch or caught you at the sink or asked whether you were okay in that maddening, sincere way.

You had finally gotten what you kept asking for.

It felt awful.

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“You have to go?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he whispered apologetically, his warm hand brushing the hair out of your eyes. “I have to go.” 

With a quiet sigh, you turned into his hand, kissed his palm, his wrist. Protectively pressing love into old scars. “Be safe.” 

“For you? Always,” Frank swore. Gruff, resolved. 

You hummed, smiled small and sleepy as he stroked your cheek with rough knuckles. “Go back to sleep, hm?” 

With that, he slipped away, and so did the rest of the world as you fell easily back into slumber.

˙⋆✮⋆˚࿔:

At first, in your foggy half-asleep haze, you think you’re dreaming of him. Like you so often do when his side of the bed has been cold for days. When you’ve slipped between the covers each night, donning the lacy tank top you picked out together just for certain nights, a pillow wedged beneath your hips. 

A signal, a desire silently communicated, to take without explicit permission.

Even upon waking to sunlight and snowfall, untouched by rough hands, without bruises left by deft fingers, it felt good anyway. 

It felt like trust. It felt like giving yourself to him completely–even when you hadn’t given him anything at all. 

So, after many mornings like that–left without the aching reminders of capable hands, solid muscle, a fullness that made you feel whole–you thought you were dreaming. 

But those sounds aren’t echos of hushed goodbyes under cover of early morning shadows. Those touches, they aren’t apologetic, tender. They aren’t trying to commit your every detail to memory for safe keeping.

Instead, they’re tangible, desperate, unrestrained. The touch of a man starved. 

“Fuck,” a low voice grunts, rough with the vowel all stretched out. 

A familiar feeling follows: fullness.

It’s like someone has dumped ice water on your head, shone a very bright light in your eyes. Adrenaline spike causing the dark room to come into blaring focus, a survival response initiated as you gasp and shoot up in bed. Almost like a Very pistol shot off in the dense wilderness, illuminating everything in a bright red glow. 

Your heart pounds, blood pumping, awake enough now to really feel the stretch. The space between your legs filled. Your chest flares with anxiety, but–

Deft hands–and unintentionally, insistent hips which keep you pinned to the mattress–are quick to rub reassuring patterns into your back, between your exposed shoulder blades.

“Sh, sh, sh, hey,” he whispers. “Hey–s’just me.” 

That well-known timbre–like a shot of diazepam injected straight into your bloodstream–instantly loosens your shoulders as you sigh and drop your head back onto the pillow.

“Frank,” you whine, pussy aching and so fucking wet as you blindly reach back in search of his hand. 

When he interlocks your fingers your relief is palpable–all the worry and fear you’ve held for him this week, gathered like a tight knot in your chest, loosens with a single touch.

“Just me,” he repeats as his hips begin to roll, eliciting a low moan from your throat. “There ya go…”

You hone in on that feeling: his hands roaming over your smooth skin, his cock stuffed snugly inside of you. The resulting hot pleasure that drips into your gut, rolling through your body in waves, like the wall of heat erupting from an oven ajar. 

Sticky warmth coats your thighs, soiling the pillow that tilts your hips toward him for the easiest access. Allowing him to fuck you from behind, his hand falling away from yours to grip your thigh where its hiked up over rumpled sheets. 

All the predictable noise of the city–honking taxi’s, indecipherable shouting, late-night laughter–drowned out by his homecoming. The outside world nullified by the sensations that hold you captive, like a prisoner with Stockholm Syndrome.

“Missed you,” you sigh, the words pushed out of you by the hypnotic rhythm of his hips. 

“So much,” Frank confesses through a groan, his hands shifting to clutch your waist harshly. Hope sparks like a fire–a hope to find a garden of bruises blooming there tomorrow, in vibrant hues of green and yellow, perhaps some blue and purple. 

High on the surprise, the sleepiness, the slick sounds of his dick sliding home, delirious laughter bubbles up your chest, morphing into a moan. 

Frank chuckles darkly. “Yeah?”

“Y-yeah,” you affirm wantonly. 

Though the question isn’t fully formed, you both know what he means: Feel good? Your answer is a confirmation of a shared feeling. 

The rush of the initial shock is half the fun. Waking to feel him inside of you is invigorating, exhilarating as the first time you fucked–the both of you bloody and high on adrenaline after Frank effortlessly and brutally picked off the team of mercenaries hired to kill you. 

A feeling to relish as this specific indulgence of yours is rare. The initial thrill is a high for the pair of you, but you’ve heard the way he groans, and felt the way he pounds into you when you settle once you know it’s him whose fucking your unconscious form. 

That you trust him enough to use your body like this–that’s his favourite part. 

Sighing as his balls slap against your flushed skin on a particularly rough thrust, Frank’s dull nails bite into the unmarred flesh of your hips. The sigh melts into a yawn, and Frank must notice because he leans down, his plush lips brushing the shell of your ear. 

The sensation coupled with the anticipation for his almost certain snide remark at your apparent sleepiness induces the shivers. Frank’s hand glides over your shoulder, like he’s trying to warm you up.

“Y’wanna go back to sleep f’me, sweetheart?” 

His voice is as deep and dark as the night, rumbling sensually through his chest like the engine of a sports car. It’s not just the quality of his voice, but the content of his question, that warms your cheeks. A hushed and surprising inquiry that sends your heart aflutter. 

Go back to sleep for him. So he can revel in the warmth and pliability of your body. How it yields to him even in sleep–especially in sleep. When your body is here in your shared bed, beneath him, being used by him, and your mind is elsewhere–a thousand miles away in dreamland. “Or y’want me to give ‘er what she needs first?” 

After over a week, your man is finally fucking home, and he’s finally fucking you. His weight pressing you into the bed, trapping you beneath almost 200 pounds of muscle. His cock, his fingers, his mouth–all eager to please, to touch, to thrust until you’re dizzy with it. 

He’s offering to make you cum. You’d be fucked in the head to choose sleep over a week-overdue mind-numbing orgasm. 

But you have to admit, sleep tugs at you after a week’s worth of sleepless nights spent worrying, your eyelids drooping as he presses a kiss to your nape. The gentle rocking of the bed lulls you into a sleepy stupor. 

Moreover, you realize that what you really want is for him to take what he needs right now. To feel all the trust you so eagerly place in his hands, and all the safety and predictability of that trust, in the way your unconscious body accepts him without objection. 

To give that to him might be more gratifying right now than letting him make you cum. A pleasure found not in your sexual peak, but in the feeling of trust, of usefulness, of being needed. 

Let him choose whether he pulls out and paints your back in cum or fills your cunt with it so you wake up with his spend lavishly dripping from you. A decision as inconsequential to him in your unconscious state as it would be were he fucking a doll. 

“Mmh, m’tired,” you mumble, half asleep already. Full. Soaked. Content.

You feel the quirk of his lips against your warm skin. 

“Alright, go back to sleep.” He places a tender kiss atop your head, stroking your hair lovingly like he isn’t about to ruin you while you sleep. “I’ll keep you nice and full, baby.” 

You hum and settle into the pillow as he stills, fully sheathed inside of you. His tip kissing the deepest part of you as you drift off. 

“Keep him warm ‘til ya fall asleep.”

It’s the last thing your brain registers–though it sounds far away, like you’re underwater–as sleep pulls you under once more. 

˙⋆✮⋆˚࿔:

Sometime later, as you roll over in bed, you’re vaguely aware of the squeak of the pipes as the tap is turned on in the bathroom. Some quiet shuffling, a soft grunt or two penetrate your sleepy haze before you drift off again. Memories so bleary and muffled they could be part of a dream. 

Now, a gentle pressure between your legs–a sensation too intense to be phantom. Empty of Frank’s thick cock, now, you realize, traded for his tongue.

Gasping at the intrusion, you look down your body to find Frank buried between your thighs.

“Fuck,” you gasp as you bury your hands in his hair, drawing your knees up to give him better access. Dark eyes hungry as he licks you out incessantly, his tongue curling inside of you. 

He growls, his arms winding around your thighs, forcing his tongue deeper inside when he tugs you closer. A resulting high-pitch squeak echoing off the empty corners of the room as his tongue presses between your gummy walls. 

Regrettably, the wet muscle curls up and slides out, leaving you empty for the very first time in all your waking minutes tonight. 

“Please–don’t stop,” you lament, desperate now after graciously giving up your first orgasm. 

Ignoring your pathetic plea, Frank crawls up the bed toward you, and you pout petulantly up at him, his face hovering above yours now. 

Placing a hand on your neck, his fingers rest just beneath your jaw as he squeezes, a euphorically dizzy feeling descending upon you. Lightheadedness softening the hard lines of his face.

The heavy handed act of possession has you smiling up at him, your bottom lip drawn between your teeth, probably giving him the most blatant fuck-me eyes. You’re sure he can feel the erratic thrum of your heart against your jugular. 

Just like that, he kisses you for the first time in over a week, wasting no time in sliding his tongue into your mouth. Though it isn’t the only intrusion as his warm seed flows from his tongue to yours. 

Moaning in surprise, eyes rolling, you accept it like a gift. Letting the smooth, mild substance fill your mouth as his fingers loosen around your neck. 

Frank kisses you once more, almost chaste, his index trailing over your lips when he pulls away. Near-black eyes meet yours in the dim room. 

“Swallow for me.” 

His voice is scratchy and his words set you alight, your entire body warming instantly, like stepping into a room set ablaze. 

It has you feeling floaty and safe as the edges of your little world soften and narrow down to him. Just him–him and his ruggedly handsome features. 

Nimble fingers play at the strong lines of his stubbled jaw, consumed by rich coffee-coloured eyes, admiring his prominent nose–slightly misshapen from repeated fractures. 

Frank’s hand snakes between your bodies, his other cupping your face as his thumb rubs your temple, like he knows you’ve retreated inside your head. 

“Swallow,” he prompts again, gently as he starts circling your clit. And you know he’s sensed the change in you. He always catches it right away, when you slip away into that warm, muddled space that only he can put you in. With his commanding voice and skilled hands. 

Finally, you comply, missing the taste of him immediately. 

Without so much as another thought, like it’s second nature (in a way, bearing yourself to him is), you obediently present him with your clean tongue. 

A smirk tugs at his lips and he nods, pleased, drawing in a steadying breath. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises before licking over your tongue and kissing your mouth passionately. 

The action is so dirty, somehow more so than him feeding you his own cum, that you whimper into the kiss. Arms winding around his neck possessively. 

When he pulls away, a gossamer line of spit connects you until it snaps when he redirects his mouth to your neck. Head tilting back to give him more room, you thread your fingers through his dark locks, sighing. 

His own digits are sticky on your skin as he tugs your tank top down to expose your tits. Skilled tongue swirling around your nipple before pulling back to blow cool air over the wet nub. A coldness that stings like a bee, and has your back arching with a choked gasp–half shock, half pleasure. 

Chuckling at your reaction before moving on to the other, repeating the process and scraping his teeth over it to elicit a sharp inhale. 

“That was mean,” you whine, relishing in the lavish kisses he trails down your belly. 

“Shut up, you like mean,” he husks. 

“I–fuck.” 

Whatever retort was on your tongue is lost at the practiced way his tongue flicks over your clit, making your hips jump.

Frank’s hands press into your hips, muscling you down into the mattress. Heat simmers low in your belly at his sheer strength–you couldn’t get free even if you wanted to.

“Don’t have much to say about it now, huh?” he chuckles against your skin, kissing and nipping at the apex of your thigh. He’ll leave marks on the sensitive flesh that you’ll savour the dull sting of every time you press your legs together tomorrow. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” 

You giggle a little deliriously, heart pounding against your ribs as you exhale a halfhearted, “Fuck you.” 

Frank’s lips pause where they were pressing gentle kisses over your mound, and you know you’re in for it now. Skin sizzles like the asphalt on a hot summer’s day. 

“Yeah?” he asks. “Fuck me?” His tone is so rough–like high-grit sandpaper–it makes your pussy clench. 

“Mhm.” The sound is pitched-up and small. A little pathetic if you’re honest, even as you courageously meet his eyes. They’re sparkling with mirth, grateful to have a reason. 

He tilts his head at you, flashing his teeth in a smirk. “Y’wanna look me in the eye and say it?”

You swallow, chest heaving as your nerves build. You could tuck your tail between your legs and retreat, submit with the shake of your head. But where’s the fun in that? 

Two simple, but effective, words seal your fate: “Fuck. you.”

With the twitch of his upper lip and the work of his jaw, all he mutters is a resolute, okay, before sitting up on his knees and spreading your legs apart.

Just as you’d looked him in the eye and bravely–stupidly–cussed him out, Frank holds your gaze as he delivers a sharp slap to your cunt, eliciting a weak cry from your lips as you keel over. 

Like tossing a stone in a lake, the pleasure/pain ripples through your body in seemingly endless waves. 

He rubs your thighs, breathing hard, calloused fingers digging into malleable flesh. “You sorry yet?” 

You sigh a little too dreamily for someone who’s just been smacked by her older boyfriend, but this is a familiar and well-discussed routine. One that leaves your pussy warm and throbbing so hard it feels like it has its own heartbeat. 

“Nuh-uh.” You shake your head, catching the way his eyes flare in the low orange light spilling in from the streetlamp outside. 

“No? You need another?” 

Wordlessly, you draw your legs up again, spreading yourself out before him in offering. 

“Yes, please.” It’s so breathy it might as well be a sigh. 

“Fuck,” he grunts in disbelief. You’ve given him so much tonight and now you’re literally begging for more. 

Pressing your thighs to the mattress with eager hands, Frank instructs, “Deep breath now.” 

Just as you begin to draw in lungfulls of oxygen, Frank delivers another harsh smack to your pussy. All the air is punched out of you on contact as just the tip of his finger manages to graze your clit. Legs twitching violently as all sound gets caught in your throat.

“M’sorry, m’sorry,” you babble, the lingering sting over your sensitive bundle of nerves enough to have you acquiescing. Though you’re sure, even as your pussy surely swells, Frank would’ve been happy to dole out further punishment. “M’sorry.”

You’re breathing hard, like you’ve just run from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

As if to soothe, Frank leans down and spits directly onto your already soaked center, watching as it drips down to your hole. An addition to the already sloppy mess he’s made of you. 

“Good girl.” Frank runs his hands soothingly up and down the length of your thighs with a kiss to your knee. Achingly soft yet raspy when he murmurs, “Want me kiss ‘er better, sweetheart?” 

“Fuck, yes, please,” you whine, and Frank presses his palms into the backs of your thighs, spreading you out before him. “Frankie…”

When he doesn’t immediately dive in, you watch curiously as he scoots your ass closer to the center of the bed. 

Heat creeps up your neck when he stares, thumbing up your center, spreading around his spit and your arousal. You’d squirm at his focused attention if you weren’t so high up in the clouds. 

Instead, a whimper slips past your lips, earning you a mean pinch to the sensitive inner flesh of your thigh, a gruff ‘Nough of that tacked on. Pain melds into pleasure. He could kiss you between the thighs or sink his teeth into you, and it would all be the same to you. 

At last, Frank tilts his head, and just like he’d promised, kisses your cunt. Stubble grazes your skin as his lips press tenderly to your center. He groans, guttural, as he slowly makes out with your pussy. 

Tongue laving over stinging skin, head tilted to simulate the angle at which he’d kiss your mouth. Taking his time, he teases around your weeping hole before dipping inside like he’s pressing his tongue into your mouth. 

Now that he’s had a taste–his first in far too long–he becomes crazed, insatiable. Can’t help but yank you toward him as he switches the angle so that he can better devour you. Licking broadly all the way up your pussy, swirling his tongue around your clit. 

It’s all you can do to gasp and bite into the flesh of your hand, submitting fully to his desire. 

His toned arms encircle your thighs. One of his hands rests on your belly, the other squeezes at the plush flesh of your thigh. He becomes an animal between your legs; growling at your taste, shaking his head like a dog. Desperate, eager for your pleasure to peak as overwhelmed tears blur your vision. 

It’s only now that you become aware of the sweet ache. Now that you’re fully awake, the pleasure his tongue provides lighting you up–a potent stimulant. The ache from being stretched on his thick cock for the first time in days. An ache that fills the blank space where your memory should be. 

A sensation that tells you all you need to know about how good he fucked you. How deep he got when he came inside of you. 

The words spill from your mouth just as easy as he spilled inside you. “How–” you moan when the tip of his nose bumps your clit. “–How was it?” 

The ache has piqued your curiosity, your tone filled with wonderment and interest. 

This isn’t a question you usually ask him until after. After he’s cleaned you up, spoken to you so gently, caressed you so kindly. 

By asking it now, it’s become part of the game. This teasing, thrilling game of cat and mouse you like to play. The one where you poke the bear just to see what the bear might do. Where he can’t resist entertaining the poking because of this thing inside him that is gratified by doling out punishment. 

Frank’s response is anything but hasty. Maybe he’s lost in the wet heat on his tongue. Or maybe it’s all part of the game. 

You huff petulantly. Far too impatient for someone who’s being licked out so generously. 

When his eyes drifts up to yours, dripping in honey, he grunts into your sex, a crease forming between his brows. The vibrations settle over just the right spot, causing your eyes to roll. 

“F-frank,” you prompt beneath a moan. “Please…I want–need to know.” 

Dull nails scratch at the skin beneath your navel, your hips twitching in response. 

When he pops off your clit, his lips swollen and glistening, he rests his head against your thigh. 

“Well,” he’s out of breath, little puffs of air cooling your sticky skin. “I filled this little hole up, so what d’you think, hm?” 

“But–” His thick fingers slide inside of you, and when you finish your sentence, it’s anything but productive. “–Oh, fuck.”

His name on your tongue is pitchy and barely sounds like you at all as you toss your head back. Heat creeps up your neck, finally fully awake and full of him. 

“What was that, hm?” His voice is gruff, even deeper still with lust, and mocking as his free hand rubs up and down your thigh. Now who’s poking the bear? 

Huffing in defiance, you work up the will to meet his eyes again. 

“C’mon,” you pant, wanting to know now. Wanting his words to push you over the precipice. Wanting to hear the things he did to you, how it felt, while you were sleeping–for him. 

“Pretty please?” you try with pleading eyes. 

He chuckles darkly, fingers curling inside you, reaching that delicious spot that has you kicking out and gasping his name like a prayer. 

His withholding nature was a real problem early in your relationship. You felt like you had to pull things out of him, and it was frustrating in the worst way. It made you red in the face. Now, when he’s withholding in bed, that frustration creeps in again, this time making you burn–trading anger for lust.

A fever induced by his cheeky stubbornness–a conflicting, and arousing, combination. 

“How ‘bout…” he begins contemplatively, like he doesn’t already have a plan for you. 

Frank’s always got a plan. Plans you’re usually not privy to until he’s got you on your knees with his boot wedged between your thighs, or pressed against a cool brick wall in a dark alley with his hand up your skirt. “How ‘bout you cum on my tongue like a good ‘lil girl, and maybe I’ll tell you, yeah?”

 “Mhm,” you whine. 

“Yeah?” his voice pitches up at the end. 

“I said: yes,” you intone brattily. 

Laughter rumbles low in his chest as he grumbles to himself, “Dirty fuckin’ mouth, oughtta bend you over my knee.”

“Why–why don’t you?” 

Detrimentally, you’re getting bold now. So close to getting what you want and willing to sabotage it just to pull a reaction out of him. 

As always, he sees right through you. Managing to keep you on your toes, he admits, “Cause this pussy was good to me while you slept.” 

Because this was your reward–his tongue between your thighs. A reward for being so good for him, so quiet, so still, so…asleep while he had his way with you. 

Mouth parting around a quiet gasp at his words, his fingers stretching and filling you, pleasure builds and builds, brick by brick. A building erected just to be demolished. 

You can sense his cocky smirk even as your eyes slam shut, pussy squeezing his thrusting digits, right on the edge as he rambles praise: That’s right, there you go…Good…good…There it is…Feel my fingers, that’s it.

Reattaching his mouth to your cunt, Frank expertly rolls his tongue over your clit as his fingers curl inside of you. Even with everything that came after, it’s his little maybe that has you hot all over. 

Of course you’d find pleasure in hearing him describe what he did to you. But there’s also some sick satisfaction you derive from not knowing. A dizzying heat settles in your gut at the thought of letting him keep that from you, all for himself. 

It’s his uncharacteristic pleading, near-whiny, cum for me, sweetheart that does you in. Like the epic conclusion to an extravagant orchestral arrangement, your pleasure peaks. Just as a dam bursts under immense pressure, or an explosion erupts upon gas meeting flame, so too do you come undone. 

It rips through you like a hurricane, ravaging your body in waves of pleasure. Aftershocks like lingering musical notes echoing off the ornate walls of an ancient theatre. 

Vaguely, as you suck in greedy breaths, you feel the press of Frank’s sticky mouth to your thigh. Calloused fingers tracing the skin there softly, lovingly, adoringly. 

His voice pulls you out of your post-coital stupor when he whispers, “Y’didn’t squirm.” 

The meaning of his words take a moment to register with you. 

You lift your head from the pillow, glance down at him. His dark hair falls into his eyes, his chin soaked with you.

Soft lips press below your navel, trail up your belly, and teeth graze your nipple before he meets your eyes again, adding softly, “Y’couldn’t get all…mouthy with me when I fucked ya nice an’ slow.” 

Your breath hitches as your eyes lock with deep, earnest ones. A kiss planted lovingly at the base of your neck, the corner of your mouth, wet spots left across your skin. Like blood spatter evidence at a crime scene, they’re patterns revealing the exact method of love and pleasure used against you. 

“You were…you were fucking perfect, sweetheart,” Frank finishes, sounding nearly pained by it before he kisses you, square on the mouth. Your resulting sigh is appreciative and contented.

“Thank you,” you whisper after pulling away, his fingers playing at your hair, stroking over your flushed cheeks. 

“You were perfect too,” you profess, thumbing at his wet chin.

Frank kisses the pad of your thumb before pressing his forehead to yours. You’re treated to a soft smile, barely contained elation in the squint of his eyes as he kisses the tip of your nose. 

Quiet laughter bubbles from you at his affections. 

It’s a gentle moment, a moment you treat tenderly, carefully, like picking up shattered glass. Frank deserves that–you both do. After all the pain and anxiety of the last week. It’s written on his face, and probably all over his body, in fresh cuts and black-and-blue-stained skin. 

A moment soaked in the muted glow of the city lights just outside your bedroom window, lightened by hushed whispers, soothing hands, and a peaceful, dreamless sleep wrapped in his protective arms. 

Thank you so much for reading! Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated xx

*Check out my other works here

That was the thing about the new edges of him. The mutation hadn't settled cleanly after everything. It had sharpened in odd places, overcorrected in others. Sound arrived layered now: the scrape of chalk, someone’s gum clicking against a molar three rows back, the pulse in the throat of the guy beside him who had definitely not done the reading. The city beyond the lecture hall kept pressing itself into his skull in a dozen distant frequencies, sirens and pipes and pigeons beating frantic wings beneath the eaves.

And then there was your pen.

Cheap black ballpoint. Cap chewed, not recently. A faint crescent of teeth marks near the clip.

Peter picked it up before he thought better of it.

You turned in your seat, a little embarrassed but not enough to make a performance of it, your brows rising when you realized someone had retrieved it. “Oh. Thank you.”

Your voice did not do anything impossible. It didn't rearrange him. It just sat warmly in the air between you, lower than he expected, slightly hoarse like you had been up too late or had laughed too much the night before.

Peter gave you the pen. “No problem.”

You smiled, quick and polite, and turned back around.

That should have been the end of it.

Peter knew that. He knew it with the same blunt clarity he knew not to crawl across ceilings in public or listen through apartment walls just because he could. Some lines were simple because crossing them made everything else complicated. You were a person in one of his classes. He had handed you a pen. That was all.

For nearly four minutes, he managed to leave it there.

Then you tapped the pen twice against your notebook, paused, and wrote something in the margin instead of on the lecture line where everyone else had written CRISPR and informed consent and somatic inheritance. Peter saw the movement from the corner of his eye. His vision caught too much when he let it. A tilt, a shadow, a word half-formed before your hand covered it.

He should not have looked.

He still looked.

You had written: who decides what counts as damage?

Peter stared at the back of your head for one second too long.

The question stayed with him after class, needling under his skin while students packed laptops and shoved water bottles into canvas bags. You stood slowly, stretching your fingers once before sliding your notebook away. Someone called your name from the aisle. You glanced over your shoulder and gave a tired little laugh when a girl with chipped blue nail polish asked if you were coming to the library later.

“Maybe,” you said after you gave a few experimental blinks.  “I have work first.”

Peter bent over his backpack, pretending he had not heard.

He had heard too much.

Your keys clinked inside the front pocket of your bag. Your phone buzzed twice. You smelled faintly of vanilla shampoo and rain-damp wool, though it had not rained since morning. Your heartbeat was steady, quicker when your friend mentioned a party, slower when you said, “I’ll see how dead I am after closing.”

Normal details. Human details. None of them belonged to him.

He walked out ten paces behind you anyway.

Only because the door was in that direction, he told himself. Only because everyone was leaving through the same narrow hall, shoulder to shoulder, voices bouncing off institutional beige walls. ESU’s biology building had bad ventilation and worse fluorescent lighting. It made everyone look slightly ill. You squinted against it, one eye narrowing more than the other.

Peter noticed that too.

He hated that he noticed that.

Outside, late autumn had made the campus restless. Leaves skittered over the pavement in dry little bursts, trapped briefly against bike racks before the wind worried them loose. The sky hung low and silver behind the brick buildings. You tucked your chin into your scarf and walked toward the Square with your friend still talking beside you, one hand moving as she described something, the other hooked around the strap of your bag.

Peter stopped at the stairs.

He could have gone the other way.

He had laundry. He had a chemistry problem set. He had a rent reminder folded under a magnet on his fridge and a suit stuffed behind a loose panel in his closet that still smelled faintly of smoke from a warehouse fire in Queens.

You crossed the quad and his senses followed before his body did.

Your laugh carried back once, loose and surprised, and Peter felt something in him lean toward it. Not physically. Worse than physically. Some quiet, starved part of him that had been living on memory and obligation and the bruised discipline of not needing anything.

He watched until the crowd took you.

Then he went home and searched your name.

He didn't call it that at first.

Peter called it checking. Curiosity. Normal curiosity. The kind people had when they met someone in class and wanted to know whether they had mutual friends or if they posted notes online or if maybe they were in a study group. He sat at his small desk with the radiator clanking beside him, his laptop open beneath the yellow cone of his lamp, and typed in the name he had heard your friend say.

The first result was an ESU page with your department listing: Undeclared concentration, biology track. A campus volunteer archive from last spring. A photo from a charity 5K where you stood at the edge of a group shot, squinting into the sun and holding a paper cup too tightly. Your social media accounts were not private enough.

Peter exhaled through his nose and sat back.

“No,” he spoke aloud to his empty apartment and the only response to his words was the radiator hissing. 

He closed the browser.

For about eighteen seconds.

Then he opened it again.

By midnight, Peter knew you worked three evenings a week at a bookstore café two neighborhoods over. He knew you liked old horror films but hated jump scares. He knew you reposted stray cat videos when you were stressed. He knew you had once written, in a post from two years ago that made his stomach pull tight with secondhand tenderness, that you hated how easy it was to become background noise in other people’s lives.

Peter shut the laptop so hard the sound cracked through the room.

He stood, paced three steps, turned, paced back. His hands flexed at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling with leftover strength he had nowhere to put. The window showed him his own reflection layered over the city: too thin, too tired, hair still damp from a shower he barely remembered taking.

“You’re not doing this,” he told himself with restriction, and even his reflection looked unconvincing.

You did not think about Peter Parker after class.

Not really.

You remembered the pen only because you found it later at work and noticed the cap had a little dent from where you always chewed it during exams. You remembered his face in the vague way you remembered classmates you saw twice a week: brown hair that looked like he had dragged a hand through it one too many times, gentle eyes, shoulders folded slightly inward like he was trying not to take up space.

Cute, maybe.

But cute in the background way. The kind of cute you acknowledged and then forgot because a customer had spilled oat milk on the pickup counter and your manager was muttering about inventory under her breath.

By eight-thirty, your feet hurt. The bookstore smelled of damp coats, burnt espresso, dust, and cinnamon syrup. Someone had abandoned a paperback facedown on the windowsill. Outside, people hurried past with collars lifted against the wind, their reflections smeared across the dark glass.

You were restocking the staff picks table when the bell above the door chimed.

You glanced up because it was habit and Peter stood just inside, shaking cold from his hair.

For a second, he looked as surprised to see you as you were to see him. Then his face softened into recognition, bashful and easy enough that you almost smiled before you realized you were already doing it.

“Hey,” he greeted and his voice hit your ears with a peaceful calm. “You’re in Menken’s class, right?”

You straightened, a book still in your hand. “Yeah. Peter, right?”

His smile widened a little, and it did something irritatingly pleasant to his whole face. “Yeah. And you’re…?”

You gave him your name and he repeated it, not too quickly, not too slowly. Like he cared about getting it right.

That was your first mistake, though you wouldn't know that for weeks. You noticed the care and mistook it for kindness. Maybe it was kindness, in part. That was the inconvenient thing about Peter. He wasn't lying every time he was gentle.

He bought a coffee he barely drank and a used copy of a short story collection you had placed on the staff picks table that morning. When you rang him up, he looked at the handwritten card tucked beneath the stack.

“Your pick?” he asked with his eyes moving over the loop of the script. 

A small puff of air left you as your mouth twitched. “Yeah. It’s weird.”

“I like weird.”

“You say that now.”

He glanced up through his lashes, and there was an awkwardness to it that made him seem younger, more human than he had been in your mind. “Is that a warning or a recommendation?”

You huffed a laugh more visibly this time. “Both.”

Peter nodded as if that settled something important. “Then I’ll take it seriously.”

You liked that he didn't try too hard to stretch the conversation. He thanked you, dropped his change into the tip jar, and moved to a table near the window with the book and untouched coffee. He read for almost an hour.

At least, you thought he read.

Peter had read the same paragraph six times.

The book sat open beneath his hands, but you kept shifting around the café in the warm spill of overhead lights, and his attention kept betraying him. You wiped down the counter with economical movements, pushed loose hair back from your face with your wrist, nodded when customers spoke but went distant the second they turned away. You had a habit of pressing your tongue to the inside of your cheek when you were trying not to react to something. You disliked the register drawer because it stuck and made you use more force than you wanted. You hummed under your breath when the espresso grinder drowned out the room.

None of this was information anyone needed.

Peter collected it anyway.

He had promised himself he would only look. In person, that sounded even worse. He knew how it sounded. He could hear a familiar voice in his head, dry and unimpressed, though any real familiarity was gone from his life in all the ways that mattered now. He could hear May too, not in words, just in the old shape of disappointment.

But it had been a bad week.

That wasn’t an excuse, he hated that his mind reached for one so quickly.

It had been a bad year, or rather, years.

Worse.

The world had forgotten him in pieces so cleanly it felt surgical. He still had photographs where people stood beside him with no memory of the moment. Peter still knew birthdays no one invited him to, inside jokes that died the second he tried to speak them aloud. He still woke up some mornings with his hand reaching across the bed toward nothing because loneliness had become muscle memory.

And then there was you, chewing on a pen in class and writing questions that made the room seem less airless.

Peter watched you laugh with your coworker behind the counter, your head tilting back for half a second before you caught yourself. Not loud or careless, but real.

Something in him ached with it.

Peter should have left.

Instead, when you came by with a rag and asked, “Everything okay over here?” he looked up too fast.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m probably overstaying.”

You waved him off without much thought. “No, you’re fine. We don’t close for another hour.”

“I can go if you need the table.”

You glanced around the mostly empty café with a ghost of a smile on your lips. “Peter, there are seven tables.”

He laughed, a little embarrassed, but not nearly as much as he should've felt. “Right. Good point.”

You smiled at him fully now. This time it lingered. His pulse kicked hard enough that he felt ashamed of it.

The second time he came in, you were not surprised.

The third time, you teased him about the coffee.

“You know you don’t have to keep ordering it if you hate it.”

Peter looked down at the cup like it had betrayed him. “I don’t hate it.”

You looked up at him through the table unsure. “You’ve taken two sips in forty minutes.”

“I’m pacing myself.”

“You ordered an iced coffee in November.”

“I can contain multitudes.”

You snorted before you could stop yourself, and he looked so pleased by it that you looked away first.

It was not instant. That mattered, later. You didn't fall into it without thought. You were busy, and careful in the way people became careful when they had learned affection could come with hidden invoices. You had classes, work, rent, a roommate who left wet towels on the bathroom floor, and a mother who texted at odd hours asking if you were eating enough.

Peter became familiar gradually.

A chair near the window. A brown jacket with a frayed cuff. Fingers stained faintly with ink because he wrote equations on his hand when he ran out of paper. A voice that went soft when he asked questions and quicker when he forgot to be nervous. He seemed to know when not to interrupt you. He remembered that you disliked caramel syrup but liked cinnamon. He started bringing you the extra banana from the convenience store near campus because you once said your blood sugar crashed during evening shifts and you always forgot to pack food.

“That’s weirdly thoughtful,” you made a face and said the first time.

Peter shrugged with his eyes lowering when he spoke. “It was two for one.”

You knew that was not the whole truth, but it was close enough to something charming that you let it pass.

From Peter’s side, every small success made him feel worse.

He really hadn't meant to learn your schedule exactly. Not at first. But once he knew the bookstore shifts, his brain filled in the blanks with humiliating efficiency: Menken’s class Monday and Wednesday. Lab on Thursday. Café Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. Library most Wednesdays after six, second floor if you were alone, basement if your friend came with you because she liked the vending machine down there.

Peter didn't need to know that.

He especially did not need to know that you always took the longer route home when the weather was mild because you liked passing the laundromat with the orange cat in the window.

The first time Peter followed you all the way back to your building, he almost turned around six times.

Almost was becoming a dangerous word.

He stayed across the street, hood up, hands in his pockets, moving with the practiced absence Spider-Man had perfected. He told himself it was only because the neighborhood had been rough lately. Two muggings near the park. A stolen car three blocks away. He had reasons. Responsible reasons. Hero reasons.

Then you stopped beneath the awning of your building and turned suddenly, looking back down the sidewalk.

Peter froze behind the corner of a closed bodega.

For one wild second, he thought you had felt him there. Not heard, not seen. Felt. The way people sometimes sensed weather changing in their bones.

But you only searched your bag, found your keys, and went inside.

Peter waited until the lobby light swallowed you.

His hands were shaking when he got home.

He stripped off the mask he had not needed and sat on the floor beside his bed, suit half-unzipped, chest rising too fast. The room smelled of dust, old laundry, cold takeout. Somewhere upstairs, a couple argued about dishes and somewhere outside, a siren split the night and faded.

Peter pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, the pressure doing little to relieve him. 

“You’re scaring yourself,” he whispered and that should have helped.

It did not.

Because the next morning you came into class with tired eyes and a bandage wrapped around one finger, and Peter noticed before you even sat down.

Paper cut, he guessed.

No. Too clean. Knife slip. Cooking? No, the angle was wrong. Box cutter at work.

He started hating the part of him that solved you like a problem.

During lecture, Professor Menken asked a question no one wanted to answer. You lifted your hand after three seconds of silence.

Peter watched you speak with intent.

You were not perfectly confident. Your voice caught often and you glanced at your notes too often. But you had a way of thinking aloud that made uncertainty seem active instead of weak, like you were willing to stand inside the unfinished part of an idea and invite everyone else to look at it with you.

Peter stared at his notebook and wrote nothing. After class, he found you outside the building, wrestling with the zipper of your bag.

“Hey,” he said when you came into view casually enough for him to do the same. 

You looked up with no real hurry. “Hey, coffee multitudes.”

Peter laughed, surprised by the nickname. “That’s going to stick, huh?”

“It might.”

“Then I should probably earn it.”

You raised an eyebrow and looked him over. “By drinking coffee?”

“By asking if you want to get some. Somewhere I actually finish it.”

There it was. The moment Peter had arranged too carefully to pretend it was spontaneous. He had known your next class had been canceled because he had seen the department email reflected faintly on your laptop screen the day before. He had chosen this window. He had planned the route. He had checked the café he suggested to make sure it had the tea you liked, the kind you mentioned once in a post from eight months ago and again at work when you complained your roommate stole the last bag.

He was disgusting.

Peter smiled anyway, small and nervous because he was also still himself.

You hesitated, it wasn't long enough to be cruel, but it was long enough to be honest.

“Now?” you asked and your hand twitched to a still around your bag

“Only if you’re free.”

“I am.” You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. A small twitch of your brows came and went when the familiar phantom of a smile touched your face. “Actually, yeah. That sounds nice.”

Nice.

The word landed in him with such undeserved warmth he nearly forgot to breathe.

The café was crowded, too narrow and overbright near the counter, with little tables pressed close enough that everyone became part of everyone else’s conversation. You ordered tea. Peter ordered coffee and drank half of it out of sheer determination.

You talked about class first because that was safe. Menken’s refusal to upload slides. The guy in the front row who treated lectures like a personal podcast interview. Your mutual dread of the upcoming exam.

Then, the conversation loosened.

You told him about the bookstore café and the regular who came in every Sunday to rearrange the mystery section “by vibes.” Peter told you about taking photos for the Bugle, then stumbled when you asked if he liked it.

“Sometimes,” he settled for after fumbling for his words. 

“Only sometimes?”

He turned the paper sleeve around his cup. “It’s hard to like something that mostly pays you to be hated.”

You frowned and it was so genuine it made Peter feel disgusting all over again. “That sounds miserable.”

“It builds character. Probably. Or joint pain.”

You laughed, but softer this time and he looked up for it.

You were watching him with a kind of attention he hadn't expected. Not the polite attention people gave when waiting for their turn to speak. You were actually looking, as if you had noticed some seam in him and were deciding whether to touch it.

Peter felt the old panic start. The instinct to deflect. To become funny, harmless, and too quick to pin down.

Instead, he took a breath and decided for, “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

You didn’t ask what else he was used to.

He liked you more for that.

Your first date was not officially a date until halfway through, when your knees bumped beneath the table and neither of you moved immediately.

After that, things gathered speed without feeling rushed.

A walk through campus after class. His jacket over your shoulders when the wind turned sharp, even though you protested you were fine. A late-night diner where he stole fries from your plate only after asking and still looked guilty each time. A movie at your apartment with your roommate passing through twice and giving you looks so obvious you threatened to throw a pillow at her.

Peter was almost unbearable in his thoughtfulness.

Not grand, that would have made you suspicious sooner. He didn't flood you with flowers or declarations. He learned the small things and acted on them with quiet precision. He sent you a picture of the familiar street cat when you were stuck at work. He remembered which movie sequel you thought ruined the original. He ordered your food without onions after you mentioned once that you hated the texture, then looked genuinely confused when you stared at him.

“What?” Peter asked when you stared at him so openly in surprise. 

“You remembered.”

His fork paused halfway to his mouth. “Was I not supposed to?”

“No. It’s just…” You looked down, smiling despite yourself. The words came out quieter than, like they weren't for him. “Most people don’t.”

Peter smiled too, but something flickered beneath it. Not guilt, exactly. Not anything you knew how to name.

You reached for your drink and let the moment pass.

From his side, the flicker had been a wound reopening.

Most people don’t.

He should have been most people.

He should have learned you at the pace you gave yourself. Through conversations, through mistakes, through the natural awkwardness of two lives coming carefully closer. He should not have known about the onion thing because you had complained in a forgotten comment thread under a photo of takeout from last winter. He should not have known your favorite seat in the library because he had followed your location once after convincing himself it was only to make sure you got home. Peter should not have known your ex’s name, your rent split, the brand of melatonin in your bathroom cabinet because your roommate posted a mirror selfie with the bottle blurred but readable.

He was not always hacking.

That was another excuse, and he hated it because it was technically true. Most of the time, people gave themselves away without needing to be broken into. Public accounts, careless apps, tagged photos, reused usernames, browser autofill flashing in reflections, notifications blooming on lock screens. The city was full of open windows, and Peter had become very good at looking through them.

But sometimes, he did more.

The first time he accessed one of your accounts, he threw up afterward.

It was not dramatic. There was no thunder outside, no cinematic collapse. Just Peter hunched over the tiny sink in his bathroom, one hand braced against cracked porcelain, breathing through nausea while the laptop sat open in the other room.

He told himself he had only wanted to know why you had gone quiet.

That was how Peter framed it at first. You had canceled plans with a too-bright apology and then stopped answering texts for five hours. Five hours was nothing. People had lives. You had work. You had friends. You had the right to be unreachable.

His body did not understand that.

His senses had made emergencies out of smaller things. A skipped heartbeat, a distant scream, glass breaking four blocks away. Absence became data. Silence became threat. He tried cleaning. He tried going on patrol. He stopped a bike theft, webbed up a drunk man trying to punch a parking meter, helped a kid find her mother outside a pharmacy, and still your unread text sat in his head like a lit match.

So, he checked.

Not with tools he would ever have explained to you. Not in steps he let himself think about for long. A shortcut here, an old breach there, one soft digital door after another until the screen opened on enough of your life to make him feel both relieved and monstrous.

You were not ignoring him because of him.

You were in a group chat with your friend, talking about a fight with your mother. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing he needed to know. Your last message had been: I just don’t want to be a person today.

Peter read it three times.

Then he closed the laptop and hated himself with a clarity that should have changed him.

The next morning, he brought you soup from a place you liked but rarely ordered from because it was overpriced. He stood outside your building in a gray hoodie, hair damp from the rain, holding the paper bag awkwardly when you came downstairs.

“You said you didn’t feel great,” he greeted with that comfortable thread of familiar concern and composure. 

You hadn't said that to him.

Not exactly.

But you were tired, and the soup was warm against your hands, and Peter looked so quietly worried that the difference dissolved before your could examine any holes in his story accurately.

“You’re kind of insane,” you scoffed, but gently when your eyes softened at him. 

Peter cleared at his throat. “Bad insane?”

You looked at him for a moment. Rain gathered in the ends of his hair. A drop slipped down his temple, and he did not seem to notice.

“No,” you said after a moment,  and his mind latched into that with great energy. “Good insane.”

His smile hurt to look at.

Peter stayed in your life.

That was how it felt from your side. Not that he entered suddenly, but that he remained. Peter was there in the margins of your days until the margins felt less empty. You started expecting his texts. You started saving little stories for him because you liked the way his face changed when he listened. He had a habit of going very still when you spoke, like he was afraid to miss a word.

You had dated people who made you feel edited. Too loud here, too sensitive there, too difficult when you asked for basic decency. Peter made you feel observed, and at first you mistook that for being understood.

Maybe part of it was understanding.

He didn’t push when you were quiet. He made jokes when you needed room to laugh and went serious when the joke would have landed wrong. He was late sometimes, often with flimsy excuses and a bruise hidden badly beneath his collar, but he apologized like he meant it. He washed dishes at your apartment without making a performance of helping. He made friends with your roommate by fixing the kitchen cabinet hinge and pretending it had been easy.

Still, there were moments.

A book you never remembered mentioning appearing in his backpack.

A song you had listened to alone showing up in a playlist he sent you “randomly.”

His face changing before you told him bad news, as if he had sensed it through the phone.

Once, while walking back from dinner, you stopped outside a bodega because the smell of oranges by the door reminded you of your grandmother’s house. You hadn’t said that to him yet. You had barely said it to anyone.

Peter bought two oranges without asking and handed one to you.

“You looked like you wanted one,” he had told you. 

You held it in your palm, thumb brushing the textured peel. “You notice too much.”

He went quiet.

Only for a breath, but you felt it.

Then he smiled, crooked and a little sad. “Occupational hazard.”

You laughed because you thought he meant photography.

Peter loved that about you and hated himself for loving it. The way you filled in the blanks with something better than the truth.

By December, the city had gone hard with cold.

Snow came early in thin, dirty gusts that melted along curbs and froze again overnight. ESU students moved in bundled clusters across campus, hunched over coffee cups and exam notes. The bookstore café hung paper snowflakes in the window that curled at the edges from the heater. Your apartment radiator screamed every morning at six.

Peter spent more nights at your place, never officially staying over at first. He would fall asleep on the couch after a movie, wake at two, apologize, and kiss your forehead before leaving. You began telling him he could stay. He began pretending to refuse before giving in.

The first time he slept in your bed, you woke to him sitting upright in the dark.

You blinked at the shape of him, bare shoulders tense, head turned toward the window.

“Peter?”

He didn't answer immediately.

Outside, a truck rolled over a pothole and hit Peter's ear drum loudly. Somewhere down the block, glass clinked in a recycling bag. Your room was cold beyond the blanket, the air smelling faintly of your body wash and the laundry detergent your roommate bought in bulk.

“Sorry,” he rasped out finally. His voice was rough. “I heard something.”

You pushed yourself up on one elbow, still half asleep. You gave a few hard blinks to try and even out your blurry vision, your fingers moved without instruction to thee side of his bare arm. “In here?”

Peter's voice was still rough with sleep, and something else you couldn't grasp. “No. Outside.”

You listened in a pause, your fingers stilling on his forearm. 

Nothing.

Peter looked embarrassed, almost boyish in the dim light. “I’m a light sleeper.”

You believed him because there was no reason not to.

You tugged gently at his wrist, your skin meeting his. An exhale escaped you as the disruption did little to drain you off your drowsiness. “Come back.”

For a second, he didn't move. Then,  he let you pull him down beside you. His skin was cool where the air had touched it. You pressed your face against his shoulder and felt him go very still before he carefully settled his arm around you.

“You’re safe,” you murmured after a moments still, barely awake, because you decided it was needed. 

His hand tightened once at your back and you pressed into his side deeper at the action. 

The words should have comforted him.

Instead, they ruined him.

Because he knew exactly what kind of safety he had made. A curated one. A watched one. A version of closeness built from stolen context and real affection tangled so tightly he no longer knew where one ended and the other began. Peter knew the quickest route from your apartment to the hospital. He knew which neighbor left his door unlocked. He knew your roommate’s schedule, the building’s fire escape pattern, the loose latch on the roof door, and even the dead zone in the security camera by the mailboxes.

He knew too much.

You fell asleep against him after a few more breaths and smooths of his hand at your back and Peter stared into the dark until dawn diluted the room.

Later that week, you fought.

It was small at first, which immediately made it worse. He canceled on you again, this time fifteen minutes before you were supposed to meet. Something about work. Something about a last-minute assignment. The lie was poorly built because Peter was tired and bleeding under his shirt from a fight with a guy in a mechanized suit who had tried to rob an armored truck in Midtown.

You heard the strain in his voice and assumed the wrong thing.

“Do you actually want to see me tonight?” you asked into your phone and frowned so visibly you saw it in the mirror that reflected you all ready for your now cancelled evening. 

Silence.

Then, “Of course I do.”

Your voice felt smaller than it was. “Because it’s fine if you don’t.”

“It’s not that—”

“You keep saying that.”

Peter closed his eyes on the rooftop where he crouched behind a water tower, one hand pressed against his ribs. His spider-sense still fizzed faintly from leftover adrenaline. Snow blew sideways across the tar paper and some of it landed cooly on his shoulders

“I’m sorry,” he only apologized after a tired noise escaped him. 

You hated how sincere he sounded. It made anger harder to hold cleanly. “I’m not asking you to be available all the time. I just need you to stop disappearing and then acting like I’m supposed to understand without you telling me anything.”

Peter breathed in sharply, and for a moment you thought he might finally say something real. Instead, he said, “You’re right.”

The answer was too neat. Too controlled.

You laughed once, humorless. “That’s not a conversation, Peter.”

“I know.”

Your voice came more pointed now. “Then have one.”

He looked out over the city. A siren wailed far below. Three blocks away, someone screamed, but it was laughter. Six blocks away, not laughter. His body turned toward it before his mind caught up.

“I can’t right now,” he immediately winced at how it sounded coming out 

Your voice went immediately quiet. “Okay.”

That one word did more damage than shouting would have.

Peter heard you hang up.

He should have let you be angry. He should have shown up the next day with honesty or at least enough humility to deserve your attention.

Instead, fear did what fear had been doing to him for months. It found a door and opened it.

He checked your messages again.

You were texting your friend. Not cruelly or even dramatically, but so visibly tired. 

I like him, you had written. I really do. But sometimes it feels like he’s already decided what I need before I say it. I don't know how to feel about that. 

Peter sat on the edge of a rooftop while snow collected in his hair and read the sentence until the screen dimmed.

It was the closest you had come to seeing him.

Not the suit. Not the powers. Him. The shape of the thing he was doing.

He wanted, suddenly and violently, to confess. To climb through your window, kneel on your worn rug, and hand you every ugly piece. To say he had been lonely in a way that made him dangerous. To say he had turned care into surveillance and called it love when he was too ashamed to name it properly. To say you could hate him if you needed to, but please, please do it with your own voice.

Then, another message appeared.

He’s also really good to me though. Like scary good. He knows me better than anyone has in a long time.

Peter’s breath caught.

The city kept moving beneath him. Traffic lights changed. Steam rose from a manhole cover. A woman tugged a child across the street by one mittened hand. Somewhere, somebody needed him.

Peter put the phone away amd he went to help.

He came to your apartment the next night with a split lip and flowers from a deli bucket, the cheap kind wrapped in crinkly plastic with one stem already bent.

You opened the door and stared at him with the expectation of clear cut annoyance but it stuttered when you saw him. 

He looked awful. Pale beneath the bruising, hair flattened by weather, and eyes rimmed red from no sleep. The flowers trembled slightly in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” Peter only said what you needed to hear. 

You crossed your arms, the indentation of where you bit at the inside of your cheek had his eyes fluttering across your face. “For which part?”

He flinched, and you hated that it softened you.

“For making you feel like you were asking for too much.” He swallowed then went on. “You weren’t—you aren’t. I’m bad at explaining where I go. That’s on me. Not you.”

It was not enough, everything in you knew it was not enough.

But he didn't make excuses. He did not tell you that you were overreacting. He didn't punish you for being upset. He stood there in the hallway looking like someone who expected the door to close and thought he deserved it.

You sighed, and it sounded tired all the way through. “Come in before my neighbor starts listening.”

“She already is,” Peter said before he could stop himself.

Your eyes narrowed and he blinked at his abruptness. “I mean—the door across the hall. It opened earlier.”

You glanced past him. Mrs. Alvarez’s door was indeed cracked half an inch. Despite yourself, you laughed.

Peter smiled faintly, relieved and ashamed.

The flowers went into a chipped vase on your desk. You ordered takeout and ate sitting on the floor because your small table was buried under textbooks. The apology became a conversation, halting but real enough around the edges. He told you he had trouble letting people worry about him. You told him that was not noble, just annoying. He laughed into his noodles, then winced because of his lip.

You touched his chin lightly, your face softened by several degrees and you made sure to be careful with your pressure. “Who did that?”

The reply came instantaneous. “Work thing.”

“Peter.”

He looked at you and your frown made is way back to your face, doing that horrible thing to his heart. 

For one second, the room thinned around the truth. Then he exhaled, “I promise I’ll tell you someday.”

You should have pushed.

Instead, you let your thumb skim once beneath the bruise, gentler than either of you deserved.

“Someday better not be a scam,” you said and the frustration in your words were poorly hidden. 

“It isn’t.” Peter meant it, which was almost worse.

By Christmas break, you were not officially in love with him.

You avoided the word because it felt too large and too easy to misuse. But you missed him when he left. You saved the corner of your blanket for him without thinking. You caught yourself looking at his hands when he talked, the long nervous fingers, the faint scars, the way he touched things carefully despite being strong enough to break them.

Peter was strange. Sweet. Frighteningly perceptive. Too private. Too self-sacrificing in ways that made you want to shake him. He apologized too much and withheld too much and kissed you like he was grateful and guilty in the same breath.

On New Year’s Eve, you took him to a party he clearly did not want to attend.

It was in someone’s too-small apartment near campus, crowded with students wearing glitter and cheap cologne, the kitchen floor sticky with spilled drinks. Music pulsed through the walls. Someone had taped tinsel around a bookshelf. Someone else had brought a dog wearing a bow tie, and the dog looked more composed than anyone else there.

Peter stood close to you without crowding, his hand resting at your lower back only when you leaned into it first. He watched the room the way he watched everything: lightly, and constantly. You saw his eyes track exits, open windows, and even drunk strangers moving too quickly.

“You okay?” you asked with a small tilt of your head. 

He looked down at you, refocusing. “Yeah.”

You weren't easily convinced. “You look like you’re planning seventeen escape routes.”

“Only twelve.”

You smiled. “Progress.”

Peter leaned closer so you could hear him over the music. His voice didn't reach you louder, it came as soft as it always tried to land. “I’m not great at parties.”

“I noticed.”

“But you wanted to come.”

“I wanted you to come with me.”

That landed somewhere visible in his face. A small astonishment, gone quickly but not before you caught it.

“Well,” he paused, cleared his throat, and his voice softened, “then I’m good.”

You believed him.

At midnight, everyone shouted too early, then corrected themselves, then shouted again. The countdown dissolved into laughter. A stranger bumped your shoulder. Confetti popped weakly from a tube and scattered over the floor.

Peter kissed you at twelve.

Not like a movie. Someone’s elbow knocked his arm and you laughed into his mouth because the dog started barking. His nose was cold from where you had stood near the window. The kiss started awkward and turned warm, one of his hands lifting to your cheek, and his thumb careful near your jaw.

When he pulled back, you exhaled, “You know me so well it’s kind of unfair.”

You meant it lightly.

A little intoxicated by the room, by the year turning over, by his mouth and his attention and the fact that he had come even though crowds made him tense.

Peter went still.

Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for you to feel the pause beneath your palm where your hand rested against his chest.

Then he smiled, but it took work. “Is that a complaint?”

You shook your head. “No.”

“Good.” He kissed you again before you could see his face too clearly.

Later, walking you home through streets rinsed blue-black with cold, Peter listened to your steps beside his and tried not to come apart.

You know me so well.

The words looped, soft and damning.

Snow had begun to fall again, thin flakes catching in your eyelashes. You tucked your hands into your sleeves and complained about your toes going numb. Peter offered you his gloves. You refused. He only offered again. You took one glove and made him wear the other, which was impractical and ridiculous and somehow made his chest hurt more than anything else.

At your building, you lingered beneath the awning.

You looked tired, happy, and a little wind-burned. Real in a way his stolen images of you had never been. The glow from the lobby light turned one side of your face gold.

“Do you want to come up?” you asked and you smiled up at him with an expression that did little to help his constantly spiking pulse. 

He did.

God, he wanted to badly.

But Peter also knew what waited inside him if he did. The lie beneath every comfortable silence. The stolen knowledge under every thoughtful gesture. The way wanting had taught itself to wear the face of care.

“I should head home,” he forced the words out and they felt beyind wrong exiting him.  Your expression shifted, just a little.

Peter felt it like a physical blow.

“Okay,” you whispered in the night air, and even you seemed surprised at how small it seemed. 

He needed the clarification to stick desperately. “I had a good time.”

“Me too.”

Peter touched your hand, his own reddening fingertips grabbing your own cold ones. “Text me when you’re inside?”

You gave him a look that made him feel stupid and wanted all at once. “I’m literally going upstairs.”

“Humor me?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

The chuckle that escaped him camd freely at just how accurate you were. “Historically, yes.”

You smiled, leaned up, and kissed him once. You lingered there for a moment, suddenly turning to nervous to face him, then repeated the action once more and pulled away. “Goodnight, Peter.”

“Goodnight.”

He waited on the sidewalk until your apartment light came on.

Then he waited another minute.

Then, another.

His phone buzzed.

inside. still alive. tragically glove-deficient.

Peter laughed under his breath, alone in the snow. He typed: I’ll survive with one cold hand.

Your reply came quickly.

brave little toaster.

He stared at it until his fingers hurt from the cold. Then, the little typing bubble disappeared.

He should have gone home.

He didn't, that had become an unsavory pattern for him.

Peter climbed.

Not to your window, not this time. He told himself that mattered somehow. He went up the side of the building with practiced silence, fingers finding brick, and his shoes sticking lightly where they touched. The city dropped away beneath him in a wash of headlights and wet pavement. He reached the roof and crouched near the ledge, close enough for his senses to map your apartment in fragments.

Water running..Your shower. A cabinet opening. Your roommate not home. A towel drawer sticking. You humming the chorus of a song from the party, off-key and sleepy.

Peter closed his eyes and exhaled a cloud of air into the cold night. 

The right thing was to leave.

He stayed until the shower shut off.

He stayed while you moved through your room, while fabric whispered over skin, while your phone clicked against your nightstand. He didn't look through the window, he kept his eyes on the roof gravel beneath his hands. That restraint felt obscene because he wanted credit for not doing the worst thing while doing something terrible.

His breath fogged faintly in the cold.

“I’m done,” Peter whispered out loud and the city did not answer.

“I mean it.”

He didn't really know who he was promising. You. Himself. The ghost of every person who had loved him before the world forgot how.

Below, you laughed softly at something on your phone and Peter’s head lifted before he could stop it.

That sound.

It moved through him with humiliating force. Warm, private, and entirely unguarded. He thought of you in the café, in class, in his jacket, on your floor eating noodles, under party lights with confetti caught in your hair. He thought of all the ways he had already ruined the clean thing he wanted.

Peter stood abruptly.

He crossed the roof, dropped into the alley, and landed soundlessly beside a stack of abandoned boxes dusted with snow. His ribs ached. His hand throbbed from where he had split the knuckles earlier that week. He pulled his hood up and walked away without looking back.

For almost three blocks, Peter believed he could really stop.

Upstairs, you finished drying your hair with an old towel that had gone rough from too many washes.

Your apartment was quiet except for the radiator knocking beneath the window and the muffled bass of someone’s music two floors down. The party had left glitter along your collarbone, one stubborn fleck near your wrist, and a faint headache tucked behind your eyes. Your skin still held the clean heat of the shower. You wore an oversized shirt and sleep shorts, your damp hair brushed the back of your neck as you climbed onto your bed and tucked one leg beneath you.

You checked Peter’s text again.

I’ll survive with one cold hand.

You smiled to yourself, biting lazily at the edge of your thumbnail.

Sweet, impossible Peter.

He was always saying things like that. Small things. Harmless things. Little jokes that sounded clumsy enough to be real. You liked that about him, the way he made awkwardness feel almost deliberate, the way he carried tenderness like something he had stolen and still wasn’t sure he was allowed to keep.

You set your phone down, and then after a few paused moments, you picked it back up.

For a moment, you sat still, listening.

Not to anything specific. The building settling. Pipes clicking in the walls. A car passing below, tires hissing through dirty snow. The soft ordinary life of the city stacking itself around you. You could still feel the ghost of his glove on your hand, the warmth he had given up without making it a whole noble thing.

You opened your phone again.

The screen lit your face in the dark. Peter’s last message sat at the top of your conversation, sweet and plain, but you swiped away from it and opened the app folder buried between weather, notes, and a language app you hadn't used since September.

His location refreshed after half a second.

A small blue dot moved underground, following the subway line away from your neighborhood.

You watched it for longer than you needed to.

There you go, you thought, something soft and fond turning over in your chest. Going home like he'd promised.

Your thumb hovered near the map. The little dot stuttered once, then continued. Queens-bound. Alone. Probably standing instead of sitting because he always did that, always gave up seats without looking around to see if anyone noticed.

You smiled again.

Then you opened the second page.

Recent searches loaded beneath a synced browser tab.

Your name. Your bookstore café. Your old campus volunteer archive.

Your social media username with two letters transposed from the first time he had guessed wrong.

A search about whether ESU library study rooms had exterior cameras.

Another about the laundromat near your apartment.

Another about the orange cat in the window, which made you press your lips together to keep from laughing because that one was so painfully, pathetically cute you almost wanted to forgive him on the spot.

Almost.

You scrolled slowly, thumbnail caught between your teeth.

Peter had tried to be careful. That was the adorable part. He deleted things late, never immediately. He cleared histories in batches. He used different browsers for different kinds of guilt. But he was tired too often, distracted too easily by whatever terrible, secret life kept putting bruises beneath his clothes, and sometimes he left little openings behind him.

You'd only needed one.

After a minute, you reached for your laptop in your bedside table. 

The screen woke too bright in the dim room. You lowered the brightness, entered your password, and opened a folder hidden two layers beneath a boring label from last semester’s statistics course.

No full name sat at the top.

That had been one of the first strange things you had found out. 

There should have been more. A student record with a clean history. Tagged photos. Old classmates. Family posts. Some trail of a boy becoming himself in public, even if it was messy, even if it was private, even if most of it had been half-abandoned and badly archived.

Instead, there were gaps.

Not empty, exactly. Emptiness had a shape. This was far stranger, a life with the identifying edges rubbed raw. Campus systems recognized him enough to place him in classrooms, but old references thinned out when you pulled too hard. Public databases returned fragments. Security logs showed a face without a stable story attached. Search results curved away from certainty.

So you had named the folder yourself.

coffee boy.

You clicked it with familiarity and the profile unfolded across the screen with neat, patient organization: screenshots, timestamps, saved browser activity, transit pings, campus camera stills, bookstore security clips, location trails, and blurry street footage collected from public-facing feeds he probably assumed no one would bother checking. There were no tidy records calling him anything with a true name. No clean archive of a life before you. No easy explanation for why the boy in your biology class seemed to appear out of nowhere with old grief in his eyes and no one behind him looking for him.

But, there were patterns.

A brown jacket crossing ESU’s north quad at 8:12 a.m.

The same jacket outside your café at 6:47 p.m., eight minutes after your shift started.

A hooded figure lingering across the street from your apartment on the night you had closed alone.

A campus camera catching him turning his head before anyone else reacted to a car backfiring near the curb.

A security feed from three weeks ago, grainy with snow and bad lighting, showing someone dropping from a brick wall into an alley with impossible ease before pulling on that same brown jacket and walking into the street with his head down.

You dragged the timeline forward a few seconds.

There.

His face turned toward the camera.

Half-shadowed. Bruised. Undeniably him.

Your room reflected faintly in the laptop screen. You didn't look frightened in the reflection.

You looked tired. Curious, almost fond.

Because really, what were you supposed to do with him? 

Poor Peter, watching you from corners and rooftops and café tables, thinking his wanting made him monstrous because he had not yet understood that wanting was only ugly when it lacked imagination. He had searched your name like a confession. He had tracked your schedule like a prayer. He had learned your tea order, your walk home, even the little pauses in your texts.

He knew you so well.

It was sweet.

Not good, not harmless.

But sweet, in that sad, crooked way he was sweet when he brought soup and pretended it had been a normal thing to do.

Your phone buzzed.

Peter: Sleep well.

You glanced at it, and your smile came slowly, private enough that no one else would have known what to call it.

For a few seconds, you only sat there in the blue-white wash of the screen, hair damp against your shirt, thumbnail resting between your teeth.

Then, you looked back at the laptop.

His location dot kept moving. His searches waited beneath your cursor. And the paused footage held his face in the alley, caught between who he pretended to be and whatever he became when no one was meant to see remained awaiting you.

You kept scrolling.