Chapter Text
Oscar felt completely disoriented.
The last things he remembered before losing consciousness were the glow of the stars above him, the sound of rushing water beside him, and the sharp, lingering memory of Lando’s expression. That look of betrayal and pain he had thrown at him before leaving the house.
He tried to open his eyes, but the light coming through a nearby window felt like a blade stabbing straight into his skull. A low groan escaped his lips as the pain in his ribs immediately flared up again.
Wherever he was, the ground was no longer stone and grass.
He was lying on something soft. A bed. A thick wool blanket rested over his body, heavy but warm.
The room was completely unfamiliar.
Cozy, almost comforting. Wooden walls painted by hand, decorated with childlike drawings. An open window revealed the Catskill Mountains in the distance, with the soft sound of a river flowing somewhere nearby. A delicate ceiling lamp hung above him, clearly part of a child’s bedroom.
Oscar felt more lost with every passing second.
But his body refused to let him get up.
The pain spread through him in waves, sharp enough to make him feel sick. He slowly sank back into the mattress, realizing he would not be able to stand on his own.
And so his mind drifted back to New York.
He thought about his uncle, who would probably be worried sick if he did not return home.
He thought about Lando and how unfairly he had taken his frustration out on him.
He thought about Victor, who was most likely already tearing the city apart looking for him.
He thought about the completely unknown place he was in.
He thought about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
And then he thought about everything he should have considered before becoming Spider-Man.
And everything he should have thought about after becoming him.
He thought about Mark.
His thoughts were suddenly cut off by the sound of a door creaking open.
A tall blond man stepped inside, holding Oscar’s suit in his hands.
Oscar startled immediately, trying to push himself up in defense, but his ribs screamed in protest the moment he moved. A sharp hiss of pain escaped him.
The man turned toward him, raised one eyebrow, and calmly placed the suit on a chair near the door.
“Charles! The blond kid woke up. Have you figured out who his parents are yet?” the taller blond called out through the door, clearly talking to someone else in the house. At least that’s what Oscar assumed.
“No, it doesn’t look like anyone was reported missing last night. And if someone was, they haven’t noticed yet.”
The voice came from somewhere deeper in the house. It had a different accent, definitely not American, and the more Oscar listened, the more disoriented he felt in that room.
“What are your parents’ names, kid?” the blond man by the door turned back to him with a frown, like Oscar had done something personally offensive, as if he had just ruined a carpet. His tone carried the same unfamiliar accent Oscar had noticed earlier.
“Hm… I don’t know.”
Oscar’s voice came out barely above a whisper. Even if he did know, he would not tell strangers. These men could be working for whoever had hurt him and brought him here.
“For God’s sake, the kid’s so drunk he doesn’t even remember his own family.”
The disbelief in the blond man’s expression made Oscar uneasy. He had no idea what they were talking about. Why would he be drunk? He was underage.
Oscar’s attention shifted immediately when another figure entered the room.
A man of similar height to the blond, but with brown hair and tanned skin, stepped inside and approached the bed.
“The kid’s all beat up and you’re arguing with him, Max? Go get a first aid kit so I can take care of him. Hurry up, I don’t have all day.”
The blond man, apparently Max, muttered something under his breath in a language Oscar did not recognize before leaving the room.
“Hello, dear. My name is Charles, and that grumpy one is Max. We found you near the creek this morning, unconscious.”
The man’s voice was calm and gentle. He even reached out to softly brush Oscar’s hair aside.
“Do you remember anything from last night’s party, or anything from the past two weeks?”
The question sent Oscar’s mind spiraling back. The pressure from the media trying to uncover his identity. Lando’s growing frustration with how dangerous everything had become. The increasing number of injuries. The fight. The chase.
Oscar remembered everything. Maybe even more clearly than before.
“Hmm… I remember everything, yes. But I wasn’t at any party last night. I’m not even from here. I live in New York.”
Charles’ eyes widened until they looked the size of jabuticabas, and his hand flew to his mouth as he tried to hold back a shocked gasp.
Neither of them noticed the blond man re-entering the room.
With heavy steps, he walked around the bed where Oscar was lying and sat beside him, opening the first aid kit. Calmly, he began organizing the materials, methodically preparing everything to clean Oscar’s wounds.
“Max, did you hear that? New York! Either he’s completely delirious or something very serious happened to him,” Charles said, completely stunned, ignoring Oscar as if he weren’t even in the room, speaking as though they were somewhere else entirely.
“If he’s from New York, he should’ve stayed there. Here, the asphalt is harder,” Max replied after a few seconds of silence, still focused on cleaning Oscar’s injuries.
The contrast between Max’s impatience and Charles’s gentleness made them an oddly funny pair to watch. Max was precise and attentive to every detail, while Charles seemed distracted by everything around him.
Max pressed the cotton pads against Oscar’s wounds without any softness. Not cruel, but firm. No room for complaints or pain.
And while he worked, Oscar could feel Max’s scrutinizing gaze analyzing his face, making small expressions as he worked. Oscar had never considered himself particularly handsome, but being looked at like that made him wonder if he looked worse than he thought.
Charles stayed there, like an anxious golden retriever waiting to jump on its owner the moment he walked through the door. Without saying anything, he kept circling Max as he worked, while the blond man sighed in frustration.
“Charles, if you don’t give me space, these bandages won’t be ready until next week.”
Max said it flatly.
And immediately Charles acted like a dog that had just been scolded by its owner—but he never actually moved far away. He was always there, watching, inspecting, trying to help in any way he could.
When the bandages were finally done, Max packed everything back into the kit and stood up from the bed.
“Don’t even think about getting up. Your body can’t even handle three steps.”
His words were not those of a doctor giving instructions for recovery, but the orders of a general who did not tolerate being disobeyed. Max turned, walked toward the door, and carefully closed it behind him as he left the room.
“You don’t need to be scared of him, okay? He can act all grumpy and tough, but he’s basically a melted marshmallow inside,” Charles said in a low voice, like he did not want to be caught saying something stupid.
It was hard for Oscar not to be intimidated by the older blond man. He had a scowl even more intimidating than his uncle Fernando, and he was still in a stranger’s house. These people could still hurt him.
Charles got up from the bed and ruffled Oscar’s hair the way Mark used to do before heading toward the door Max had just left through.
“I know you said you’re from New York and all that, but why on earth would you wear a spider suit like that, mate? I didn’t know American city people were that weird.”
Charles asked, one hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, a confused tone in his voice and one eyebrow raised.
Oscar let out a small laugh before answering.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Charles smiled back, then turned the handle and left through the same door the other man had exited moments earlier, leaving Oscar alone again with his thoughts.
He knew his body was badly injured, and that physically it was impossible to go home in this condition. He would have to stay there for a while to recover before being able to leave.
It was going to be a long recovery.
Time passed slowly for Oscar. Night came, but his body hurt so much he had no appetite at all, and he eventually fell asleep in a restless, painful sleep.
Mark, Fernando, and Lando appeared often in his dreams. They were short, always ending the same way: death. Whether his or someone he loved, every dream ended like life itself would one day end.
With death.
Oscar woke the next day soaked in sweat, shifting restlessly in bed. The first rays of sunlight slipped through the curtains, and the sound of animals outside filled the air, waking all his senses at once.
His body still hurt, but less than the night before. His stomach growled, reminding him he had run for miles and not eaten properly afterward.
His ribs still hurt enough to make standing up nearly impossible, but Oscar had never been good at accepting limits.
His mutated body should recover faster than a normal human’s, so he forced himself up anyway.
His legs gave out the moment he put weight on them.
Pain shot through his ribs, forcing him to curl forward. Black spots filled his vision as he reached for the bedside table to steady himself. Even so, he kept going.
Step by step, he made his way toward the door, leaning on anything he could find, deliberately ignoring his suit resting on the chair beside it.
He turned the handle and realized he was on the second floor of the house. The staircase was right in front of him.
Two doors lined the hallway. One at the end, closed, probably Charles’s or Max’s room, or both. The other beside his own room revealed a bathroom through a small crack.
But Oscar wasn’t interested in either.
He needed to move. To feel like his body still belonged to him.
So he chose the stairs.
He grabbed the railing and carefully placed one foot on the first step. Slowly, he shifted his weight, then brought the other foot down.
His leg almost gave out immediately. His body swayed forward dangerously, and he tightened his grip on the railing just in time to stop himself from falling.
He exhaled in relief and continued.
Step after step.
Until he was about halfway down.
Then he heard a small cough in front of him.
Oscar’s body went rigid.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
Max was standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed, a stern expression on his face. But there was a faint crease of concern between his brows, and a small tray of food rested beside him.
He looked at Oscar like a rebellious teenager trying to sneak out in the middle of the night.
“Get back to bed, Oscar. Your body isn’t ready to move yet.”
Max said a few more things while lecturing him, but Oscar was focused on something else entirely.
He couldn’t make it back up on his own.
Going down the stairs had been easier. Going up felt impossible.
He stared at the floor in silence, embarrassed to ask for help and even less willing to sit through another lecture. When Max finally stopped talking, Oscar slowly lifted his eyes and gave him his best abandoned puppy look.
“Can you help me back up?”
His cheeks turned pink immediately, the color creeping all the way to his ears. He hated asking. He hated needing it even more.
Max only looked at him for a moment before letting out a tired sigh and walking over to help.
He slipped one arm under Oscar’s shoulder and helped him shift his weight against him. Together, they climbed slowly, Max muttering complaints about annoying teenagers under his breath the entire time.
He guided Oscar back into bed, made sure he was lying down properly, and then brought him a proper meal.
He helped him eat.
And when Oscar finished, Max left without another word.
Oscar didn’t see Charles that day, only Max, who appeared at meal times, always on schedule, always silent, always efficient.
The next two days dragged on like molasses.
Charles became more present again, almost constantly in Oscar’s room. They talked about everything and nothing at the same time. Oscar learned that Charles was Monegasque and had never been to New York.
He also learned there was no phone signal or TV reception in the house, so news only arrived through newspapers.
Max was rarely in his room, but always nearby in the same quiet way. He would appear at fixed times to help Oscar eat, and every night he helped him change his bandages and take a shower.
Always helpful.
Always silent.
On the fifth day, Oscar was finally cleared to walk again.
Max examined him like a doctor running an experiment and declared he could move on his own, as long as he avoided sudden movements and stayed careful.
Charles practically bounced with excitement when he heard it. He immediately promised to show Oscar the farm and give him a tour of the house.
And he did.
The house was smaller than Oscar expected.
Downstairs there was a modest but cozy kitchen and a living room with a small sofa and a fireplace. Unlike most houses, there was no television, since there was no signal in the area.
The farm itself wasn’t large either.
A horse and two cows stood in a pen, a small chicken coop held a handful of hens, and a few sheep wandered across the fields.
Near the front door, Max stood with two animals resting at his feet. A cat and a dog curled into each other on the ground.
The sight reminded Oscar of Max and Charles.
The dog tried to climb on the cat, while the cat complained but never really stopped him. That was the dynamic Oscar had been watching for days.
Charles insisting on helping with everything.
Max complaining about the mess but never actually pushing him away.
Max making tea for Charles every morning.
Charles leaning on Max whenever they went up or down stairs.
Watching them felt like watching a choreographed dance, except each step was slightly improvised. Planned, but still uniquely their own.
Oscar felt a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with broken ribs.
A deeper pain. One he had been ignoring with adrenaline and masks.
When the cat finally gave in and let the dog rest its head against it, Oscar closed his eyes.
For a moment, he could almost smell Lando’s presence again, that city-like, familiar scent of home he had thrown away in their last argument.
He pushed the feeling down.
And followed Charles through the rest of the farm tour.
The rest of the day passed slowly.
Oscar spent more time downstairs with Charles and Max. At dinner time, he felt like dead weight while the others worked. Without knowing what else to do, he went to the kitchen sink and started washing dishes.
Max immediately stopped what he was doing and stepped behind him, leaning over Oscar’s shoulder to inspect his work.
Oscar felt uncomfortable, but didn’t move away.
He just kept washing calmly.
Until he heard a quiet grunt behind him and the weight disappeared from his shoulder.
“Careful with the knives, Oscar. Charles sharpened them too much last week.”
Oscar didn’t respond.
But something warm settled in his chest, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a small smile.
Slowly, he was winning over the man made of stone.
And earning his trust too.
That night, however, was not as peaceful as the day had been.
Oscar couldn’t see anything. His spider senses were completely shut down, except for the relentless tingling at the base of his neck. He could hear screams for help, but he couldn’t tell where they were coming from or who was calling. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, and with every second it got closer and closer, until he could finally recognize it.
Lando.
Oscar tried to move, only to realize he was tied up. He struggled against the ropes, but nothing changed. Meanwhile, Lando’s screams grew more and more desperate, and Oscar couldn’t do anything.
The last thing he saw was Victor’s face.
“Missed me, Oscar?”
Oscar woke up with a jolt, breathing uneven and sharp. His chest rose and fell painfully as he looked around, searching for any trace of Lando or Victor, but all he could see were the bedroom walls painted with trees and clouds, and hear the crickets outside.
He flinched when the door creaked open and instinctively raised his arm to defend himself, but there was no threat.
It was just Max, carrying a thick blanket and a cup of tea.
He walked slowly to Oscar, placed the cup on the bedside table, covered him with the blanket, and sat down in the armchair beside the bed.
“No demon is going to get you here, Oscar. Before that happens, they’d have to get through me and Charles.”
Max didn’t say anything else, and Oscar didn’t force himself to respond either.
The tears came anyway.
Not all at once, but like a dam finally giving in. Quiet. Heavy. Honest. They rolled down his face slowly, soaking into the pillow and the blanket Max had just placed over him.
Oscar let himself sink into the warmth of it all. The silence between him and Max wasn’t empty. It was steady.
And, for once, safe.
Even as he cried, the firm presence beside him reminded him that he was still just a kid. And that, maybe, he was allowed to be taken care of too.
The kind of care he had stopped Lando from giving.
The same kind of care wrapped in protection and sarcasm. The kind only Lando seemed to know how to give, and Oscar had never learned how to receive.
He drifted back into sleep.
This time, without dreams.
The next day was calmer than any Oscar had experienced on the farm so far. It was cold and cloudy. Max was no longer in the armchair beside him.
Oscar got out of bed carefully, his ribs only mildly protesting now. The pain was still there, but it felt distant, like a reminder that he didn’t quite belong here and would eventually have to leave.
He went downstairs slowly, already smelling fresh coffee.
In the kitchen, Charles was at the table and Max was by the stove making what looked like scrambled eggs.
Oscar pulled out a chair and sat down, grabbing a piece of bread. Breakfast passed quietly, and soon all three of them ended up on the sofa wrapped in blankets.
Silence filled the room, broken only by wind against the windows and rain hitting the glass. The fireplace crackled softly.
Oscar watched the fire consume the wood and realized something.
Like the fire, he couldn’t stay still for too long.
He needed to be what New York expected him to be.
An unstoppable force.
But for the first time, he also knew he had somewhere calm to return to when the ashes became too heavy.
Charles broke the silence gently.
“Oscar, have I ever told you why Max and I ended up here?”
Oscar looked at him. They both knew he hadn’t. Still, Oscar just shook his head slightly, listening.
“Max and I are European. He’s from the Netherlands, and I’m from Monaco. Two places people usually don’t leave behind for anything.”
Charles’s voice was soft, almost warm, as he spoke. Even though the story was sad, he didn’t seem weighed down by it. His attention stayed on Max, who was dozing beside him, tucked into the warmth like it was the only place in the world that mattered.
“When we started dating, his family didn’t take it well. Mine wasn’t exactly thrilled either. So we did something stupid, like two reckless young adults do.”
He smiled faintly.
“We took the first flight we could and ended up in the United States. But we knew it wouldn’t be hard to find us, so we kept moving. We took a bus, ended up in a small town about half an hour from here, and after a few years we managed to buy this farm.”
Charles glanced down at Max again, almost fondly.
“We just wanted a place that was ours.”
Oscar didn’t know what to say. His heart felt too full for words, and his mouth couldn’t keep up.
So he just looked at Charles, hoping it was enough.
And maybe it was.
This felt like the right moment to say it.
Oscar swallowed.
“I never told you how I ended up here either.”
Oscar spoke casually at first, like it was nothing important. Charles listened and simply nodded, signaling for him to continue.
So Oscar did.
He explained everything. How he got his powers, the spider bite, the strange changes in his body, and the idea that had slowly taken root in his mind: saving the city.
Charles never interrupted him.
Not once.
And for the first time in a long time, Oscar felt seen. Like someone who had spent years in darkness and finally stepped into light.
He also talked about Lando. About their fight. About the fear of hurting him, or hurting his uncle Fernando by association.
When he finally finished, Charles only looked at him, directly, deeply, like he could see through every layer Oscar had built around himself.
“Why, Oscar?” Charles asked softly. “What’s the reason for all of this? For giving yourself away like that, for bleeding for a city that doesn’t even see the value of your blood being spilled instead of theirs?”
The questions were heavy, but his voice was gentle, almost like a mother guiding a child through something painful and uncertain.
Oscar knew the answer.
But it felt smaller in front of Charles’s certainty.
“My uncle Mark,” Oscar said quietly. “He died trying to make the world better. I know I can’t fix the world… but I can at least make sure more families get to go home safely. Like I wish I had.”
His voice was barely a whisper, fragile and tired. If Charles hadn’t been so close, he might not have heard it at all.
“And the best way you found to do that was destroying yourself?” Charles replied. “Your uncle was right when he said ‘with great power comes great responsibility,’ but you didn’t embrace the responsibility.”
For a moment, Oscar felt offended. Ready to argue back. To prove he had been handling things the right way.
But Charles kept going.
“No, Oscar. With great power you don’t just save strangers. You still worry your family. You still get hurt past your limit. You fought with the most important person in your life.”
His voice softened even more.
“You know, your Lando reminds me of my Max when we were younger. We used to hate each other. But he was always there, trying to take care of me, even while insulting me five seconds later. It was always love… just buried under layers of frustration.”
Something shifted inside Oscar.
Like a key turning in a locked place he didn’t even realize existed.
Lando wasn’t fighting him.
He was trying to take care of him.
Oscar had always known he cared about Lando more than what made sense for “just friends,” but he had buried it under the idea that it didn’t matter. That it would ruin things if he looked at it too closely.
And somehow, that was exactly what he had done anyway.
Ruined it.
Lando had always been there. Stepping into his fights. Cleaning his wounds. Listening to his endless rambling about science and engineering. Pulling him out of his darker moments. Staying.
Oscar was just too slow to realize what that meant.
And in that moment, he understood something painfully clear.
Every time he thought he was going to die, he never imagined glory.
He thought of Lando’s face.
A knot formed in his throat. He looked down at his hands, suddenly aware of how carefully they had been cleaned and bandaged by strangers. Charles’s voice kept going somewhere in the background, talking about courage and sacrifice, but Oscar barely heard it anymore.
He didn’t need a farm in the mountains to be okay.
He just needed Lando to be safe.
And to one day, look him in the eyes and say everything fear had kept locked away.
He needed to go back.
Not for New York.
Not for responsibility.
But for the boy who had always been his true north.
Meanwhile, in New York, things were very different.
Lando had never felt this kind of pressure in his life.
He pressed his fingers against his temples, a dull, pounding headache matching the restless neon glow of Times Square outside. The silence of Oscar’s apartment was unbearable. Every corner screamed absence.
And every time Fernando asked if there was news, Lando felt like he was choking on his own lies.
New York had fallen back into chaos.
The disappearance of Spider-Man was no longer just a mystery. It was a wound the city could feel.
Lando didn’t care about Spider-Man.
He cared about who was under the mask.
Oscar had been missing for almost a week, and Lando felt completely unanchored, like a compass that refused to work without him.
The newspapers wondered where Spider-Man had gone.
Crime was rising again. The thieves who once feared him were back on the streets. The police were overwhelmed, and the city felt less safe with every passing day.
And then there was Oscar’s family.
Fernando had filed a missing person report, but the police had bigger problems than a teenager who didn’t come home. Every time he asked Lando for updates, Lando broke a little more while lying through his teeth.
If Oscar were alive, Lando would’ve strangled him out of pure frustration.
But that thought always came with something worse.
Guilt.
Because he didn’t know if Oscar was alive.
His body could be anywhere.
Or worse, it could be somewhere he was still suffering.
And Lando still remembered the last time he saw him.
The disappointment in his eyes. The way he left without looking back.
Lando had spent years trying to show Oscar how he felt. How much he cared. How much he loved him in a way that didn’t fit neatly into words.
But Oscar never seemed to catch up.
So Lando waited.
Every day he told himself “maybe tomorrow.”
And tomorrow never came.
Now it felt like it never would.
The regret sat in his chest like a blade he refused to pull out. Because pulling it out would mean accepting the bleeding.
He walked past Oscar’s apartment door again and again that week, hoping for something, anything. A sign. A sound. Proof.
He promised himself that if Oscar came back, things would be different.
He would say it.
No more waiting.
Even if he had to say it to a grave.
Lando stood in front of the closet and looked at the spare Spider-Man suit hidden under the false bottom. The red and blue fabric looked lifeless now, like something abandoned mid-dream.
And for the first time, he wondered if this was how it ended for both of them.
Quietly fading.
One waiting for a signal.
The other lost somewhere far beyond reach.
It had officially been one week since Oscar disappeared.
Oscar knew from the moment he woke up that he had to go back.
His body was almost fully healed, and he had already stayed away from home far too long. Not for himself, but for everyone who had been left behind.
He just didn’t really know how to leave.
He had arrived there on instinct, running purely on adrenaline and fear of being caught. But going back the same way was physically impossible. His body still wasn’t ready. He could barely manage a single block without pain.
Sitting on one of the rocking chairs outside the house, Oscar let ideas rise and fall in his mind. None of them stuck.
He had no idea how to reach a place this isolated, let alone how to leave it. The Catskill Mountains were breathtaking, but to him they felt like a wall separating his real life from the strange pause he had been trapped in.
“So if you stay there another second, your brain’s going to fry. What are you thinking so hard about?” Max’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
“I need to go home,” Oscar said simply.
He didn’t need to explain further. The weight in his voice said everything.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
The bluntness of the question caught him off guard. And suddenly Oscar found himself wondering the same thing.
What was he waiting for?
His family needed him. His friend needed him. His city needed him.
He glanced at Charles’s jerico standing near the barn, then back at Max.
“How about a ride?” Oscar asked.
Max raised an eyebrow, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
A few hours later, Oscar was attempting, with limited success, to guide Max through the streets of New York so they could reach Lando’s apartment. Nearly three accidents and a few near pedestrian incidents later, they finally made it to Queens.
Before Oscar stepped out, he paused.
“Thank you. For everything.”
Max looked at him with something close to warmth, shaking his head slightly as he handed Oscar a folded piece of paper.
“Always, Oscar. And make sure you come back sometime so we can meet this famous Lando.”
Then he left.
Oscar opened the paper.
An address, and a small note.
Don’t get lost, Spider boy.
He laughed quietly, slipping it into his pocket before entering the building.
As he climbed the stairs, he remembered the version of himself who had run down them a week ago. The boy who thought he understood everything.
Now he knew he didn’t understand anything at all.
Standing in front of the apartment door, he hesitated.
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to explain any of it.
But that didn’t matter anymore.
He knocked gently.
Inside, he heard Lando’s voice.
“I already said I don’t want to ea—”
The sentence died instantly.
Lando froze.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Lando stepped forward.
His legs wobbled, like the floor beneath him had stopped being real.
Oscar wasn’t ready for what came next.
Lando hit him.
Not hard enough to hurt, not really. But fast. Repeated. Frustrated. A storm of punches and small hits that carried everything he hadn’t been able to say for a week.
“You idiot. You selfish idiot. How do you just disappear and then show up like nothing happened—”
His voice cracked.
Oscar didn’t stop him.
He deserved it.
The anger broke first.
Then the strength.
Then Lando was shaking, breathing unevenly, tears building in his eyes that he clearly refused to let fall.
When his fist lifted again, Oscar caught his wrist gently and pulled him in.
The fight collapsed instantly.
The tears Lando tried to hold back were released, and his crying began like the fall of the Berlin Wall: violent, rebellious, and renewing. The smell of Lando’s shampoo reminded him of where he always belonged, the weight of his body against Oscar’s served as an anchor for his mind. A cry of: Stay!
One of Oscar’s hands moved up and down Lando’s back, giving him support, while the other caressed his hair until the crying stopped and all that remained were the involuntary spasms of Lando’s body. The brunette lifted his head and looked at Oscar with tear-filled eyes, his lips and nose red and with small tears running down his cheeks. It was one of the most beautiful sights Oscar had ever seen, much more than the Catskill Mountains.
And, unable to hold himself back, he brought his lips closer to Lando’s, kissing him in a gentle and delicate way, like someone holding a very important porcelain piece. Lando’s lips tasted like the damn Monster he insisted on drinking every day. For a moment the brunette seemed startled, but then he kissed back. Seconds later, Oscar separated his lips and rested their foreheads together.
"I love you."
Oscar whispered like a desperate prayer to the gods that needed to be heard, with the force of a river current that flows into the sea for more than a thousand years, with the sincerity of a child seeing something new in his routine and with a love that only he had for Lando.
Lando smiled at him and, with a whisper as light as a feather and with the love that only he could have for Oscar, he said:
"I love you more."
In that moment nothing else mattered; he had Lando.
How to explain his disappearance to his uncle, how he would go back to doing rounds in the city just like that, how he would deal with Victor or with the pressure from the media about knowing who he is behind the mask?
It didn’t matter. He knew who he was behind the mask. He was Oscar.
And, in that moment, all that mattered to him were the safe arms holding him, the beautiful lips that whispered beautiful words to him, and the beautiful green eyes that saw him as who he was — as Oscar.