#sugarshocked

Each morning at some ungodly hour he drags himself out of bed and Gwen tries to sling one arm across him, tries to pin him down, keep him there for a little while longer, only half-serious but Peter just smiles soft and sweet, presses kisses to her wrist, to her elbow, to any skin he can reach, and slips away. She sleeps again because the morning is cool but the bed is warm and she smiles into sheets that smell like him and smell like them and, and. When he comes back, she’s asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain outside and him singing faintly in the shower—he thinks he doesn’t, but he does. But she wakes again when he kneels beside her, arching over her, his smile a sunrise.

“C’mon,” he says, almost every morning, arching over her, all long lines and messy hair and that bright, bright smile. “if Aunt May catches you sleeping here again, she’ll have my ass.” It’s a lie, every time, they both know it, but Gwen still tumbles out of bed. And her hair is a mess, too, but she’s smiling, two idiots in love, sort of, somehow, and something else entirely at the same time. She’s pulling her clothes on, trying to stay quiet, treading lightly on the too-cold wood of his floor, her fingers reaching out sometimes to curl in his hair or tug on the corner of his shirt for a moment because she can, because they have this, because, because. “You look tired,” her voice is hushed and sincere, and he ducks his head when he smiles, pushing his suit into his backpack like always, and she loves him for it and she also aches.

They’re just two kids with the vast expanse of pain that should only belong to adults, or no one at all. They go to school, and they go to work, and they swallow it all down or keep it humming just beneath their skin and if there’s a hollow look in Gwen’s eyes sometimes, she can’t help it. Because there are things that still hurt, things that still wake her in the middle of the night, eyes burning with tears she’s been shoving back and back and back. And on nights like those, she curls against his back until their breathing matches up, her fingers running patterns up and down his rocky spine because when he sleeps, he sleeps like the dead. Soon, he’ll shift in sleep, turn to her, and she will pull him against her so she can feel his heartbeat and know she’s safe, at least for now. There aren’t words for the things they’ve buried, but they try to spill them out, try to keep each other afloat. It’s not all bad. It’s not all good. It just is.

 Halloween is hard because her dad used to take her out Trick or Treating, and when she grew out of it, they both took the boys out because Halloween was sugar and simplicity and happiness and she holds onto memories like lifelines. She’s not angry at Peter. She’s not angry at anyone, but sometimes she’s just angry. And sometimes, she’s just sad. When Peter’s sad he tries to shut her out, tries to shut everyone out because he feels like the sadness in him is his responsibility and his burden. She calls bull every chance she gets. Halloween is different types of pumpkin bread being shoved into her face past laughter, and Halloween is eighteen different kinds of candy wrappers strewn across her bedroom floor as they sit cross-legged testing them all out like children, the chocolate tingeing the in-between kisses that are anything but child-like. Halloween is full of memories but now it’s full of memory-making and it’s sugary sweet and she loves him more than ever.

 She’s in a coffee shop full of superheroes and everyone is dressed up for Halloween like they’re kids again, and Peter’s laughing and laughing and laughing. Tony’s got on Steve’s Captain America Suit and is strutting around with a plastic painted shield. Steve’s got this frown on his face but everyone knows he’s just trying not to laugh, his cowboy hat tipped back on his head. Bucky’s dressed as the Mad Hatter, and he can’t keep his hands to himself (after-effects of the spiked pumpkin spice latte). Clint is in the corner, sipping an Americano, blond Legolas wig shimmering in the light. Nat, of course, is nearby, dressed as a vampire, and she periodically reaches over to tug on Clint’s wig. Bruce is dressed as Frankenstein, drinking tea and sharing a muffin calmly with Pepper, who is dressed as Rosie the Riveter. Thor brings Jane and they’re matched as Beast and Beauty, respectively. Jane smiles, demure, shrugs, says, “It’s his favorite film.” Everyone likes her immediately.

It happens on accident, of course, not the way that Peter told Gwen. Because while Peter knows he’s in a coffee shop full of superheroes seventy-five percent of his life, he can’t seem to wrap his head around actually coming out and saying, “hey, look, on top of doing homework, taking the most lovely girlfriend in the world on dates, and working at this wonderful little coffee shop, I also fight crime. Surprise!” He just can’t, so he keeps his mouth shut and serves them coffee because having is better than not having and he’s experienced both and never wants to again. He’s not scared of judgment, he’s just scared in general. Responsibility is hard and the fact of the matter is that secrets are necessary sometimes.

 It happens on a Thursday, when his police scanner in the back room is still on the fritz and Gwen has to call him to tell him that the kidnapping ring had a resurgence. He doesn’t have time to put up the closed sign, but it’s almost midnight and the shop is dead empty anyway, so he rummages through his backpack for the suit, already pulling his apron and shirt off, unbuckling his belt. That is, of course, when he hears the bell of the front door ring. Frozen, half-dressed in clothes, half-dressed as Spider-man, eyes squeezed tightly shut, he waits with his breath held tight inside his chest. “Peter, I’m twenty seconds from a break through but I needed a pastry, where are you?” Tony calls, casual, his voice coming from somewhere near the counter.

 “Could you—” Peter starts, then stumbles over his feet, tripping on the ends of his jeans, has to rebalance himself. “Could you give me just one second?” His voice comes out too strained and he flinches because Jesus Christ, please don’t let Tony come back and see. “Are you okay, kid?” Tony says, voice closer, and Peter feels himself go cold, unable to process or think fast enough to aver the inevitable as Tony pushes the back-room door open and peeks in. “H-Hi,” Peter says, stupidly, tries a smile for good measure, his arm still half in the suit. He doesn’t know how to think or what to think, he just stares, and Tony stares back, blinking. “Holy shit,” he says. “Yeah,” Peter says, apologetic. “Holy—”  he starts again, but Peter just says, “yeah,” again as well and they keep staring, both incapable of words. 

So, the fact of the matter is that Bucky could probably go anywhere and be fine, so it’s not really the coffee that has him curled up on that old, faded couch in the corner of Marvel Café, though he has to admit, it’s pretty damn good. The fact of the matter is that Bucky has ulterior motives, and Peter is enabling him. “You’re enabling me,” he groans one day, muffled because he’s speaking into one of the couch cushions, high top converse curled up underneath him. Peter huffs a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, half amusement and half disbelief. “As if I could really kick you out. Even if I wanted to, you have a metal arm and could probably break me in two or something,” he’s laughing for real now, wiping down the tables with his easy, loping grace. Sometimes, Peter doesn’t really make sense: he’s got long lanky legs that should make him awkward and coltish, and he is, occasionally, but mostly he’s just fluid, which is entirely unfair, because Bucky remembers a half a dozen times that he’d been teased for his lanky figure when he was younger.

 Two minutes, Bucky counts the seconds and milliseconds in his head as they pass, because it happens like clockwork. He has two minutes before Steve walks through the door, headphones around his neck, just the faintest sheen of sweat on his neck as hint to the fact that he’d just been bench-pressing trains or some ridiculous thing like that, because, well, because he can. Natasha laughs from the table by the window, distracts him, and he misses a count, lets out a breath he’d forgotten to exhale. It’s rare, he thinks, Natasha laughing, and he wonders at this, glances towards her. Her eyes are soft when they’re fixed on Clint and suddenly, there’s an inexplicable ache in Bucky’s chest. No, he thinks coldly, harshly, to stop himself, thinks, I’m too damn old to be jealous of someone else’s happiness. He feels entirely too old and entirely too young all at once, because there are jitters in his stomach like it’s first love all over again, but Steve will always be his first love, no matter how hard he tried to forget that. He picks up the count again, but mostly he’s just counting heartbeats now, and he feels stupid, feels small, feels ashamed.

 They were kept apart at first, for safety reasons, because Sergeant James Buchanan was a liability, and Captain Steve Rogers was an asset and those sorts of things are incompatible. Mostly, it was Natasha who brought him back, slowly, surely, with a few setbacks and a few breakdowns, but mostly he just wanted Steve, always asked for him, even in Russian. Even with his lips pressed to hers, there was this ache in him and it was cruel of him, but he thought she could fill it. He thought she could fix everything—she was less cruel, she knew she couldn’t. “We have to be broken before we can be remade,” she always said, smile dark and rueful on her face, because she knew how painful the process could be, would be, inevitably. “I’ve already been unmade once,” he replied, eyes as dark as her smile, his breath short in his lungs, fists curled in on themselves almost involuntarily. Her smile is staccato, ferocious in a way that only Natasha can make look beautiful. “Haven’t we all?” she says, and it’s soft, and he doesn’t mention it again because there’s a story behind her words that she doesn’t ever talk about, because some things they don’t ever talk about.  

 He looks across the coffee shop now and watches her steal one or two or three of Clint’s donut holes and smiles because he’s the one who saved her in the end, not Bucky. Bucky wasn’t ever whole enough to save Nat—she needed Clint Barton, in the end, because he had Bucky’s mouth but Cap’s steadiness, and she needed both of those things. Clint was the first to save Natasha, years and years before Bucky ever met her as himself and not the Winter Soldier. He was the first to save Natasha, and he would be the one to save her in the end, it was only right. Bucky doesn’t hate him for this, or hate her, or hate himself. He just smiles down at his hands because she was right in the end, also. He needed to break to be remade. But more than anything, he just needed Steve. His two minutes are almost up and he doesn’t feel ready—he isn’t ever really ready for the bright light of who Steve is, was, and will continue to be. He looks up only to find Peter sort of staring and smiling awkwardly, shyly, at him before flitting away to his next job, and Bucky fights the flush on his face. He knows, he thinks, and this is stupid.

 In comes Steve and the world is blinding again. He blinks a few times, adjusting to the dimmer light inside, and when his eyes refocus, they’re focused on Bucky, so he lets slip the grin he’s been holding inside because why the hell not, it’s Steve. Automatically, Steve’s face lights up and he crosses the shop in two strides to drag him into a hug—Bucky had been on a mission in Scandinavia, it had been weeks since they’d seen each other at all. It took months before they were even allowed in the same room together, let alone able to talk, let alone able to touch, so then there are moments like these and they are actually miracles. His arms around him are just a hair too tight, but Bucky doesn’t mind because it’s something that he has, that they have, and that’s a good thing. He catches Peter watching them over Steve’s left shoulder and glares until he stifles a laugh, mouths, “just tell him already” and meanders away. “I missed you,” Bucky breathes, because he can, and he feels Steve’s body sort of tenses and then rolls into relaxation as he hums some sort of noise of approval. He’s always looser and happier after his runs, and Bucky feels stupid knowing that, like how he feels stupid knowing that Steve brushes his teeth for exactly five minutes every morning, or that he prefers two percent milk to any other kind, or that he hardly tosses and turns when he sleeps but he definitely snores. He feels, generally, very stupid around him, as it turns out.

 “Coffee, Steve?” Peter calls from behind the counter, smile wide and easy and a little bit amused, a little bit teasing, and Bucky wants to kill him, except he doesn’t, not really. There’s something so simple about Peter, not that he’s simplistic, just that he’s soft and gentle and kind and doesn’t need an excuse to touch people—he uses his touch like words, just the smallest brush of his fingers against people’s skin like key-strokes, as if he’s typing across the white, blank parchment of someone. It’s easy for him, it seems anyway, and Bucky envies this because he has to rationalize why he can’t let himself near Steve, and it’s unfair to be so close to someone he loves without touching, because touch is a miracle that they didn’t use to have, and Bucky feels like hoarding them until he knows it’s secure again—that he can still reach out and mess up Steve’s hair and watch his eyes crinkle up, happy. He misses this and doesn’t let himself see it enough, starves himself of the affection he craves because what if, what if, what if. But he died once before and he lost him once before and he doesn’t want to go through all that again. Grow some balls, Jesus, he thinks, tightens his arms around Steve once more before letting him go.

Because, at the moment there are a bunch of superheroes congregated amongst his armchairs and tables, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to respond or react because, superheroes. It’s almost laughable, because of the uniform he wears when he isn’t at work, because of the secret he keeps close to him at all times, the secret only one person in all the world knows now. He thinks of her, smiles to himself because there are normal things in his life and there are bright things in his life, and she’s one of the brightest people he knows. 

And honestly, she’s still glowing when Peter finds her in the shop with Tony pinned, squirming helplessly, against one wall using nothing but her fierce gaze to keep him there—but it’s a different sort of light, it’s a spark, it’s a fire, and he wants nothing more than to cross the space between them and kiss her right on the mouth, but there’s the problem of Tony being trapped, unprepared for her onslaught of righteous indignation. “If you hurt him at all, you will have me to answer to,” she’s saying, as if reprimanding a child—she’s actually wagging her finger at him, and Peter suddenly wants to sink into the floor. “do you understand me, Stark?” Tony’s blinking vigorously as if this shows his acquiescence, which it really doesn’t, so when she leans in a bit closer, he holds up both hands, says, “easy, tiger,” but he’s not at all sarcastic or defensive or condescending and Peter stops to sort of blink at him, brain functions still sleep-slow, and tries not to notice the gentle sort of look that Gwen gives him at that.

“Would you like a coffee, Tony?” he asks inanely, just to say something, then squeezes his eyes shut in shame as soon as the words exit his mouth because that’s irrelevant and needless—but his girlfriend is giving a world-famous billionaire the Spanish Inquisition. His head hurts, suddenly, but there’s also a feeling curling around his stomach that feels a lot like pride, and a little bit like fondness. Sometimes (always) Gwen still astounds him. Tony shoots him a glance that screams “help, do something” but Peter can’t help laughing, and it eases out of him like water as he presses a soft kiss to Gwen’s temple. “She means well,” he offers a bit helplessly, as explanation, though she doesn’t necessarily need justification, and he’s stupidly, stupidly, stupidly pleased. “I do,” she says, face softening again and though her voice is still antagonistic, there’s a smile tugging on the edge of her lips. Tony looks a little less cornered at this, starts to smile also, and all is well again.

“You remind me of my assistant,” Tony says to Gwen, turns to Peter as he slips back behind the counter, says, “she reminds me of Pepper.” Peter glances up, another easy laugh blooming on his lips unbidden. “If he hits on you, you have my permission to hit him,” he says to Gwen, and she glows in affirmation, shoulders her book bag. Peter doesn’t know what he was expecting when he offered to renovate the old coffee shop, didn’t know what was going to happen, just acted on impulse as he is (sometimes unfortunately) wont to do. He didn’t expect superheroes, didn’t expect Tony Stark to like him (let alone come to his coffee shop every day), didn’t expect, before, long, long before, for Gwen to ever like him, and sometimes, his expectations are dashed to pieces, and sometimes this is a good thing. Still, though, there are expectations that he never wanted to have, never asked for, and these are not productive or good in the slightest.

Peter’s life is darker underneath the surface, dark like the night sky is. There’s still a gaping hole in him where he should have the love of his father, had the not-so-fleeting chance to replace it with Uncle Ben, couldn’t hack it, and lost this chance forever—a hole that grows and grows and grows and he feels hollow inside, sometimes, when he looks at families crowded about the shop on holidays, fathers holding sons. He feels indistinctly, faraway, the ghost of his father’s hands on his shoulders, his voice saying, “be good,” before he went away forever, and it hurts—but there’s Tony and there’s Gwen and there’s this secret hiding in him that he loves and hates and accepts because it’s real and it’s there and it’s right. It’s ironic, he ended up just like the dad he lost—full of secrets, held close to his chest. He’s still so angry, but Tony is an unexpected kindness, the way that Gwen was a kindness, who met him at a very strange time in his life. There’s still a hollowness there, though, where he shovels down his guilt because he could have saved her father, or maybe he couldn’t, or maybe he shouldn’t dwell on that too much, because it makes his skin itch. But regardless of the pain, of the fear that’s followed them since that night, Gwen leans across the counter, lips parted slightly, her eyes twinkling and if Peter’s life is the night sky, Gwen is the North star, leading him home, home, home.

"Love you, kid,” she murmurs, smiling, and Peter reaches for her like a lifeline, like he’s drowning, presses the wrecked line of his mouth against hers like he’ll lose her, and there’s that brokenness in him, too. He’s so tired of losing people, so tired of the darkness it throws him into, that empty, vacant place full of insecurity and guilt and, and. Tony’s tossing out mild insults across the room, none of them heated or hurtful, because mostly he’s just missing Pepper, and Peter knows this. He’s missing that he can’t kiss her like this right now, can’t feel her close, and Tony isn’t used to not getting what he wants, except that he is, really. He’s trained himself to take it in stride, but he expects loss, expects abandonment because that’s all he’s known—and Peter knows that hurt, too.

"It’s like you’re raw around the edges sometimes,” Gwen told him once, gently, as if breaking hard news to him, keeping her distance because she’d just tried to hold him and he’d flinched away. It ached in him, and as this realization dropped like a stone in the well of his heart, it echoed, haunting. He was overwhelmed by the truth of it—how when he’s hurting, he’ll pull away, retract himself when all he wants to do is sink into someone else’s warmth instead. It’s constant and it’s consistent, he does the opposite. He’ll separate himself because that’s what he feels will protect him, because being alone cannot possibly be worse than being abandoned—at least in the former, he has a choice. “I’m not leaving you,” she whispers later, fingers tangled in his hair and he bites back a broken sort of sound that threatens to come out of his mouth. “I’m not ever leaving you,” she breathes it again, then again, then over and over, pressing her warmth and her glow against him until he feels it all over, the tingle and the burn—the sparks of her setting him on fire. He’s so in love with her it hurts.

five |

There’s a boy with scars as wide as the Texas sky across his face across the counter from Peter Parker, and, wait, hold on, can I go back, try that again? Let me start all over, from the top, five six seven eight: Okay, so there’s this boy. There’s this boy across the counter from Peter Parker and no one knows his face because they never quite made a film about him. Peter has never met him, but may have seen him, once or twice, but maybe not, because people who see him usually remember him, unless they don’t. Unless they avert their eyes and try to forget because there’s a boy with scars as wide as the Texas sky across his face and his name is Wade, or was Wade, and sometimes he’s not really sure about that anymore. Peter blinks at him once, twice, valiantly tries not to stare, asks him if he wants anything, and for a second he’s torn between asking for a coffee and asking for a kiss. Not that he’s usually so forward, except that, well, he sort of is (I wouldn’t really be me if I didn’t push the boundaries a little bit, or a lot a bit).

 But as things turn out, he asks for a coffee instead, shit-eating grin on his fucked-up face and he’s met with saucer-eyes and somehow, this is a sad thing. Somehow, this makes his stomach muscles clench—but he should be used to that look by now, likes a good mask because some things should never really see the light of day. But, well, he hasn’t really been one for social etiquette, after all, so he doesn’t see why it should matter. So he stares back into Peter’s face, direct, glowering, smoldering, and Peter blinks back at him again, then smiles, and that’s it, that’s fucking it, he’s asking for a kiss next time. But he’s got blood caked under his fingernails and a laundry list of wrongs he’s done, and this kid is smiling like an idiot (albeit a gloriously attractive idiot) and there are some things that are just a little too out-of-this-world to be believed. “This is like a work of fiction,” he says, slapping money on the counter.

Peter’s smile falters, tempered with confusion. “Sorry, what?” he asks, pours a cup of coffee, and his face does this weird fidgety thing like he can’t stay still, his mouth twitching sideways, his lips pushed forward. Well, this is an odd one, he thinks, or feels, because these things are different and sometimes he’s thinking and sometimes he’s feeling and sometimes there’s a little bit of both and maybe that’s the case, or maybe it isn’t, he isn’t sure about that anymore either—isn’t sure about lots of things except that this boy has a smile wider than a Texas sky and he wants to kiss those fidgeting lips because he’s smiling, because he’s looking at him (really looking, too, not half-assing it the way most people do), because, because. There’s a distant sound as the front door opens and closes, the faint ring of a bell, and it seems like it’s forever away even though it’s close, because there’s noise outside and there’s noise inside and there’s noise in his head and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

“Hiya Tony,” Peter says, manages an awkward, stupidly charming wave around the baked goods he’s juggling, trying to place them decoratively in their case. The boy with the scars turns to glance at the man walking towards the counter and he knows exactly who he is, almost everyone with a television would. Tony Stark is pretty damn legendary, pretty damn memorable. He wears a mask, too, and they have that in common, but he’s never had to work a day in his life to make ends meet, and that just makes him angry—he’s had to work and work and work, been alone since sixteen, has had everything ripped from his hands, innocence lost, paradise lost, if you could call where he used to live paradise. But that’s a sob story for another time, or possibly never, or possibly it’s none of your fucking business. Ease up, tiger, no need to get excited, remember the last time that happened? Blood on the tiles and blood on the ceiling, and the sickly-sweet smell of it all over you—this is a coffee shop, cool your jets. “Hey,” Tony shoots back, lackadaisical. “Who’s this?” Peter blinks, looks at him, me, the thing with the scars, smiles this slow sort of smile that burns in Wade’s gut.

“I completely forgot to ask your name,” his voice has gone soft and sort of shy and it’s stupid and it’s lovely. He offers his hand across the counter, says, “I’m Peter.” Wade’s gloves cover enough of the scars that he doesn’t mind too much reaching over to shake his hand, feeling all in a rush the warmth of Peter’s wrist beneath his bare fingertips. “I’m Wade,” he says, summoning his confidence, smiles like his smile is winning instead of terrifying. And that’s it, it’s done, and he moves on, there’s nothing inherently special about it, just the warmth of his smile still tingling in Wade’s stomach, but that he can tolerate, that he can ignore. And the coffee shop returns to its normalcy that Wade assumes is always there without him in the equation: Tony asks for a white mocha, Peter looks pleased, another person comes in, Peter knows them, too. It’s like a family, if Wade knew what that even looked like anymore, but whatever it is, he likes it, likes to leech off the second-hand happiness of it.