Archive of Our Own

Attachment is the root of all suffering. He wants to be a movie star, to be gigantic and perfectly lit, and I am no stranger to suffering. The wide smile, the low-down glow. The way he’s looking at me now will make him famous.

STUNT MAN, RICHARD SIKEN

Johnny skims a hand over the note, then folds it closed, running a nail along the crisp edges. After a moment, he opens it again, expecting its contents to have changed, but the words are still there, in all of Peter’s chicken scratch glory.

A few days ago, while they were grabbing lunch, Peter had asked Johnny to be his plus one to some upcoming charity gala. “Please?” he’d said. “You know I’m hopeless at this sort of thing.”

Of course Johnny knew. At that moment Peter literally had mustard on his chin. “You’ll have to make do,” Johnny replied, passing him a napkin over the table. “I’d have nothing to wear. Seriously, I don’t own a single suit right now. Not even cufflinks! I’d pull up in my work clothes and they wouldn’t even let me through the doors.”

Johnny shifts his gaze to the three boxes laid out on the table. One has a crisp, cream-colored suit inside, complete with a silk tie. The other, a pair of matching brogues that look ridiculously expensive. Johnny bites the inside of his cheek as he runs a nail along the leather. As for the third — it’s a small, sleek-looking box, and Johnny’s too scared to open it.

“Johnny?” Rogue’s voice calls out, and he scrambles to shove everything aside, but it’s too late. She rounds the corner and pauses. “What’s with the face?”

Johnny coughs. “What face?” he asks, wishing (not for the first time) that he could act.

The packages had been waiting for him here — in the common room — and he’d been too impatient to squirrel them away from his team’s prying eyes. He’s regretting that now. What he really needs to do is get Peter to stop mailing things to the Unity Squad headquarters, but it’s not like he had anywhere else to go after Medusa broke up with him. Maybe it’s time to start bunking at Pier 4, dust and potential rat infestation be damned.

“Like you were in the middle of sticking your hand in the cookie jar!” Rogue says, her amused laughter slowly fading as her gaze shifts to the table. At the sight of the spread, her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. She moves to circle behind Johnny’s chair, and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Hold on a second, why is he acting like he was, in fact, sticking his hand in the proverbial cookie jar? Johnny wasn’t (isn’t!) doing anything wrong. Still, it’s hard not to feel guilty when —

“This all looks awfully pricey,” Rogue comments wryly. “You’d tell me if money got so tight that you had to resort to selling yourself, right?”

Johnny opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, her eyes land on the note. Rogue picks it up, spots the Parker Industries logo on it, and her eyes widen — then she sees what’s actually written on it, and her eyes turn enormous.

“Johnny,” Rogue gasps. “I was joking! You didn’t actually get yourself a sugar daddy, did you?” She frowns at the P.I. logo, then adds: “And of all the damn CEOs you could have chosen… Parker, really? Spider-Man’s boss?”

“It’s not like that,” Johnny says quickly.

“Oh, I should have known,” Rogue says, putting her head in her hands. “He bought you a damn building.”

“For the Fantastic Four!” Johnny exclaims. “Not — not me, specifically.” Nevermind the fact that he’s all that’s left of the Fantastic Four anyway.

Rogue’s gasp startles him out of his thoughts. “He’s the one who keeps sending you things!” she realizes, and Johnny actually winces. “The watches… the cologne, the clothes… the car…”

It’s true, is the worst part. A few weeks ago Peter had sent a batch of Webware watches in the mail, asking Johnny to “test them out” and “send me feedback on the design” because “you know what people find cool, right?”

After that he’d sent several more packages. Glittering bottles of expensive perfume. Several bags of jackets and coats. Brands keep giving me things, the note had said. Harry nearly had an aneurysm when I asked him if I could send them back. I figured you’d appreciate them more.

Then a few days later he’d picked Johnny up from Avengers business in the Spider-Mobile, except Johnny refused to get in any vehicle with Peter behind the wheel. When he told him as much, Peter had only grinned like it was his plan all along. “Thought you might say that,” he’d said as he tossed Johnny the keys.

Trust Peter to use his newfound fortune to find new and creative ways to drive Johnny up the wall.

“Okay, so he’s been buying me a lot of things,” Johnny acquiesces, holding his hands up in surrender. “But it’s really not like that. He can’t be my sugar daddy because I’m not sleeping with him, and besides” — Rogue arches an eyebrow, which makes Johnny falter — “he’s, uh, he’s younger than me?”

Rogue actually brings a hand to her forehead in despair. “Oh, Johnny…”

“I didn’t ask him for any of this! I’ve told him to stop several times!” Johnny protests. That’s also true, but Peter refused to take anything back, and no amount of empty threats regarding setting both him and his entire company on fire have deterred him so far.

Rogue chuckles. “What’d you do to have that poor man so thoroughly wrapped up around your finger, huh?”

“I’m seriously not sleeping with him,” Johnny insists. Though not for lack of trying, his traitorous hindbrain supplies anyway, but he guiltily shoves it aside — unsuccessfully, judging by the knowing look Rogue gives him.

“What you do in your private time is your business,” says Rogue, leaning her hip against the table. She skims a hand over the third box. “So what’s in here? Engagement ring?”

Johnny actually starts coughing again.

That makes her grin. She picks it up and pops the lid open. Whatever’s inside makes her burst out laughing. “You know what?” she says. “I might like your man after all.”

“Please tell me it’s not actually a ring,” says Johnny.

Rogue places the open box on the table. “Nah,” she says, then walks off towards the fridge. “So… Saturday? You’re going with him?”

That’s when Johnny looks at the box — and smiles.

“What choice do I have?” he asks helplessly, running a finger over the pair of cufflinks: they’re tiny, bright red, and shaped like fire extinguishers.

When Saturday rolls around, Rogue pokes her head into Johnny’s room. “Your carriage is here,” she announces.

Johnny huffs a laugh. “Is it pumpkin-shaped?”

“Spider-shaped,” Rogue corrects, wagging a finger at him. She gives him a once over and whistles, long and low. “You cleaned up nice.”

Jan, who’s been flitting around and fluffing at Johnny’s hair, pops back up next to him. “Does that make me the fairy godmother in this situation?” she asks, straightening out Johnny’s lapels with a critical eye.

“That would be Parker’s credit card, I reckon,” says Rogue with a snort.

He passes Synapse in the hallway on the way out. She’s in her workout gear, a pair of boxing gloves slung over her neck. “Torch,” she says abruptly, and Johnny pauses.

“What is it?” Johnny asks, avoiding her eyes in favor of fiddling with his cuffs.

“Your stress levels — ” Synapse starts, frowning deeply. Then, seemingly thinking better of it, she shakes her head and continues stalking off to her quarters without elaborating.

Johnny just flashes a smile at her retreating back, one that doesn’t match the shaky breath he draws in as he pushes past the doors. Sure enough, the Spider-Mobile is parked right in front of the Schaefer Theater in all its hideous bright red glory.

Peter rolls the window down. “How much for the hour?” he calls out, an obnoxious smile already plastered on his face.

Johnny huffs a laugh. “As if you could afford me, poor man’s Tony Stark.”

“I resent that,” Peter says, idly twirling his keyring around his index finger. When Johnny raises his eyebrows expectantly, he adds: “Nope. I’m driving this time.”

Johnny opens his mouth to protest, but one of the windows overhead gets pushed open. Rogue leans out to dangle halfway out of it. “Parker,” she calls out, drawing stares from a few passersby down the sidewalk. “I want him home before midnight, you hear me?”

Peter’s lips quirk. Johnny groans and gives up, circling around to the passenger seat, which opens automatically for him. “They got you scrubbing floors, Cinderella?” Peter asks, amused. “Oh, how the Avengers have fallen.”

“You didn’t figure that out when they signed Deadpool on?” Johnny grumbles. He gives Peter a once over, taking in his slicked back hair and loosely knotted tie. “I need to know — why are all the suits you own gray?”

Peter shrugs. “It was this or a rental tux.” He props his cheek on his hand and eyes Johnny in a slow, considering way that has him fighting not to squirm in his seat. “You look nice.”

“Yeah, well — as long as you’re getting your money’s worth,” Johnny says, hoping he sounds more casual than he feels. “I can’t believe you can’t get yourself a decent suit but bought me… all this.” He wrinkles his nose and adds, “How did you even know my size?”

Peter absently drums his fingers on the wheel. “Figured we’re about the same,” he says. “I mean, I have better shoulders, obviously, but — ”

“You don’t,” Johnny replies automatically.

“I also cross-referenced a couple of your fan sites,” Peter continues, ignoring him. “There’s a ridiculous — and honestly kind of creepy — amount of information on you online. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Dude, there are pictures of me naked online,” Johnny says with a snort. “My measurements are pretty harmless in comparison.”

Peter coughs a little. “Right, well,” he says. “I think they’re kind of dated. The jacket’s hanging a bit loose on you. Have you been eating?”

Johnny bites the inside of his cheek and turns his gaze to the window. “Of course I’ve been eating,” he hedges. “I wouldn’t be able to flame on otherwise.”

He just hasn’t gotten used to eating alone, so used to having a full table. Food doesn’t taste as good when Sue isn’t pointedly nudging greens at him and Ben isn’t hauling Reed out of the lab by his stretchy neck come dinnertime. It’s not fun to cook for himself, either — not when it’s so much better to have a dozen supergenius children running around underfoot demanding scutoid-shaped nuggets and crustless sandwiches. So what if he’s lost some weight? His new uniform fits him better this way.

Peter’s face shifts in his reflection, the dark shadow of the city layered behind it. “Of course,” he says quietly. When Johnny bristles at the needlessly gentle handling, Peter clears his throat and scrambles to add, “Thanks for coming, by the way. I really am hopeless at this sort of thing.”

Johnny slumps in his seat, the brief flicker of anger fading. He doesn’t miss the relief in Peter’s eyes: fight averted. “You could have brought your other best friend.”

“See, I tried,” says Peter, rolling his eyes, “but Harry was all, let me see my damn kids, Parker — go ask your boytoy, what good is he if you can’t use him as arm candy? Blah blah blah.”

Johnny grins. “Boytoy?”

Peter shoots him a sheepish look through the rearview mirror. “Okay, so… you have to think about this from Harry’s perspective,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “I mean, he nearly had an aneurysm when I insisted on bidding for Baxter, and then you stormed in and trashed the place — ”

“You knew I was going to be mad about the announcement, asshole,” Johnny says, crossing his arms over his chest. “You let things happen the way they did to lure me out.”

“Because you weren’t talking to me!” Peter protests. “If you’d just picked up the phone… or responded to any of my texts, or checked your voicemail…”

“I asked you,” Johnny says, breathing in deeply to steel himself. He thinks his hair might be sparking. “I asked you to serve in Reed and Sue’s honor with me, and you said — ”

“I know what I said,” Peter cuts in quickly. He breathes deeply and keeps his eyes firmly on the road. “The point is, I wanted to make things right between us, and the best way to do that, historically speaking, is to let you flambé me a little. Hey,” he murmurs, a brief flash of light from outside softening his gaze, “are we fighting about this again?”

Johnny tweaks one of his cufflinks. “No,” he inhales, then tries to smile. “Also, Harry’s not the only one, by the way. My team is convinced you’re my sugar daddy.”

That startles a choked laugh out of Peter. “I’m younger than you!”

“That’s what I said!” Johnny agrees, laughing despite himself. “So will you stop buying me things now? Before you end up giving even more people the wrong impression?”

Peter makes a quiet, considering noise. “I don’t see what’s so bad about me taking care of you.”

When I said ‘people,’ I really meant me, Johnny wants to say, because Peter is absolutely giving him the wrong impression right now. He’s saved from having to speak by the sight of their hotel cropping up down the road, its marble columns brightly lit in the darkness.

Peter pawns the keys over to the nearest valet. He sticks an arm out at Johnny, one eyebrow raised. “Ready?” he asks, looking vaguely nauseous.

Johnny snorts. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” he says, curling his fingers into the crook of Peter’s elbow. “Of course I’m ready.”

“Oh, good,” Peter says, batting his eyelashes. “Because I’m not.”

“Don’t worry,” Johnny replies. He pats Peter on the arm before leading him up the steps. “Knowing your luck, the Rhino will come crashing into this place head-first before they even break out the canapés.”

“This is why I insisted on driving today,” Peter says, eyeing Johnny warily as he swipes his fourth champagne flute of the hour.

Johnny rolls his eyes as he takes a sip. “Oh, please — even my drunk driving is better than your regular driving.”

No matter how rusty he is at playing nice and looking pretty, it’s like riding a bike: the more of Peter’s business partners and rivals alike he gets to shake hands with or smile politely at, the easier it gets. On the other hand, it only seems to wear at Peter the longer the night drags on. The second he catches Peter glancing out the window, looking ready to crawl out of his skin — or, worse, into his Spider-Man suit — Johnny knows he has to intervene.

“What,” Peter asks as Johnny hauls him towards the bathroom, looking bemused, “gotta powder your nose?”

“Gotta keep you from punching the next hapless Roxxon employee you see, more like,” Johnny mutters under his breath, shutting the door behind them.

“Sorry,” Peter says, moving to flip open a tap. He inhales sharply as he splashes some water on his face. “I just — how do you make it look so easy?”

Johnny shrugs as he leans against the marble sink. “It’s not hard to make small talk when you’re the stupidest person in the room,” he says. “I’ve had plenty of practice with that.”

Peter blinks. “You’re not the stupidest person here,” he replies, and then he grins, making an exaggerated show of glancing around the empty bathroom. “Well, in this room, maybe…”

Johnny laughs and flicks a harmless spray of flames at him. “Shut up, jerk.”

Peter snorts and bats at the floating embers. “I’m still waiting on that villain attack, by the way,” he says. “Then again, I’d hate for you to burn off your suit. Anna Maria will have my head if my date ends up flashing half the tech industry.”

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, about that…” he says, slowly popping open the first few buttons of his dress shirt.

Peter’s eyebrows do something very complicated — at least until Johnny pulls his collar aside and reveals the flaming decal of his uniform underneath. Then he just laughs.

“What’d I say?” Peter asks. “You’re pretty smart, Torchy.”

Johnny shrugs as he swiftly buttons himself back up. “I told you, this isn’t my first rodeo.” He gives Peter a quick once-over and sighs. “It looks like yours, though. Come here.”

He grabs Peter by the tie and reels him in with a sharp tug. “I asked for a clip on,” Peter admits while Johnny starts working his tie; the words make him pause.

“A clip on?” Johnny echoes incredulously. He tightens Peter’s tie with a vengeance, fingers fluttering as he rambles. “I knew you were hopeless, but you’re worse than I thought! Do you have any idea — ”

Peter stills him by grabbing his hand, smiling in that satisfied way he always gets when he successfully gets a rise out of Johnny. “Breathe, Torchy,” he says, thumbing at his wrist — then his eyes drop to the fire hydrant cufflink, and he smiles. “Oh, hey. You actually wore them.”

Johnny huffs. “They’re kind of cute,” he replies begrudgingly, leaning further back against the sink. “Do you remember that one Christmas? You got me a fire extinguisher and I — ”

“ — got me bug spray, yeah,” Peter says, eyes fond.

Johnny opens his mouth to respond, but whatever witty retort he had dies on his tongue when he catches sight of them in the mirror: Peter practically has him crowded against the sink, and he still hasn’t let go of Johnny’s hand. If anyone walked in right now — if someone saw —

Wrong impression. Seems to be tonight’s theme.

A voice rumbles from the speakers outside, and Johnny quickly pulls away. “Looks like the auction’s starting,” he says. “You good to head back out there?”

Peter blinks. “Uh, yeah.” He licks his lips, eyes darting to the door. “As long as I’m presentable by your standards.”

“Pete,” Johnny says, trying to shake off the odd tingling feeling in his hand, “you’re never presentable by my standards.”

The inevitable attack occurs before the auctioneer can even slam the gavel down to close the first bidding. Several men in full-blown masquerade regalia come swarming out from behind the curtains, swan-feather masks and all, raving about… frankly, Johnny reflexively tunes out villain monologues these days, but they’re raving about something — and then all hell breaks loose.

Johnny’s in the middle of snacking on a salmon-topped biscuit when it happens, Peter looking ready to fall asleep by his side. The second the first gunshot is fired, though — one look is all it takes. Johnny kicks their cloth-covered table over so Peter can crawl underneath and change into his suit, then flames on and burns his own off, soaking the incoming spray into his plasma body in one smooth movement.

“Damn it!” Johnny exclaims, but he’s grinning as he darts up. “I liked those shoes.”

Spider-Man comes swinging past the fleeing socialites and into the fray. “Ask the boss for new ones later!” he calls out. “Eyes on the prize, Storm. And try not to burn the merchandise!”

Johnny sighs dramatically. “Well, it looks like my date ditched me, so I guess I have nothing better to do with my evening.”

As far as the job goes, it’s easy work. Johnny gets the ballroom evacuated in record time, and by the time he loops back around, Peter’s webbed up everyone who needs to be webbed up.

“Did you guys rob a Party City first?” Peter’s saying, head cocked. When one of them tries to reply, he sticks his wrist out and webs their mouth shut. “Oops. Misfire. Oh, hey Torchy.”

Johnny wiggles his fingers at him before flaming off and touching down. “I was going to call the Unity Squad for backup, but…” He looks around at the upturned tables, bullet-lined walls, and a chair that Peter had probably smashed over someone’s head. “Guess Quicksilver gets to keep his night off.”

Peter gets up and dusts his hands. “All in a day’s work,” he says. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Torch.”

Johnny gets it: they need to get out before the police arrive and demand to talk to Spider-Man and Peter Parker — probably at the same time. He nods quickly and flies out the closest shattered window.

They convene by the Spider-Mobile. Peter swings in, and the spider-suit melts away the second he’s behind cover.

“Some night,” Johnny says, stretching out against the hood.

“It’s still young,” Peter replies. “Want to come back to mine? We can do takeout and a movie. I’ve eaten nothing but tiny biscuits with caviar all night and I’m hungry.”

Johnny hesitates, but it’s not like he has an excuse — without anyone to come home to, he really doesn’t have anything better to do with his evening. “Okay,” he agrees. “But I drive.”

Thirty minutes later finds them on opposite ends of Peter’s couch with a mountain of half-eaten takeout cartons on the coffee table and an old sci-fi movie playing on the flatscreen.

Oh, and a bottle of scotch that Johnny had found while digging through Peter’s pantry. His eyebrows had shot up at the sight of all the expensive wine on the rack. (In what world does Peter Parker ever own a wine rack? This one, apparently.) “I told you,” Peter had explained irritably. “People keep giving me things, and apparently alcohol is the default schmoozing gift. I don’t even drink! You want ‘em?”

Johnny knocks back another glass, savoring the burn. Peter, who has one arm propped on the couch, raises his eyebrows.

“Slow down,” Peter says, pointedly eyeing the half-empty bottle.

Johnny wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Relax,” he says. “It takes a lot to get me even a little tipsy.”

“Because of your powers?” Peter asks, planting his cheek on his fist, looking curious now.

Johnny thinks about how much he’s been drinking lately — his tolerance must be ratcheting up to compensate. “Yeah,” he replies, and Peter makes a quiet, considering noise before turning back to the movie.

His fingers itch for another glass, and then it hits him, why he’s feeling so antsy: the last time he’d watched a movie was in New Attilan’s royal holo-chamber.

The last time he’d watched a movie, Medusa had kissed him for the first time.

He remembers it like it was yesterday. The way the music swelled around them, surround sound. The way the hologram made it look like they were underwater, the world awash with blue-green light. The way she’d leaned in — her cold lips had warmed quickly against Johnny’s own, and at the moment he’d thought the way her hair undulated behind her in thick red coils was beautiful.

“Why?” he’d asked, after.

“Because you don’t have the weight of the world on your shoulders, Johnny Storm,” she’d said.

So why does it feel like I do? he didn’t have the chance to reply, not before she wrapped him up in her hair and kissed him again.

When he snaps out of his reverie, Peter is looking at him — just looking. It’s like they’ve been submerged all of a sudden, the light from the screen tinting Peter’s skin blue. He’d yanked off the tie the second they arrived, and his suit jacket is draped over the armrest. The first two buttons off his dress shirt are undone, exposing his clavicle. Suddenly he seems closer than he was just a minute ago. Hadn’t they started out on opposite ends of the couch?

“Johnny?” Peter asks, putting a hand on Johnny’s knee. “You okay? You, uh, kinda — spaced out on me for a second there.”

Johnny just sort of smiles at him. “Sorry,” he says, reaching for the bottle. “Do you like the movie? If not, we could always — ”

“I like it just fine,” Peter says, even though Johnny’s pretty sure neither of them have so much as looked at the screen in the past five minutes. “You didn’t answer my question,” Peter continues, squeezing Johnny’s knee. It’s enough to get him to drop his hand.

“I’m okay,” Johnny says, huffing out a laugh. “I just — I’m a bit tired, I guess. Aren’t you?”

Peter’s gaze is surprisingly heavy. “Not right now,” he says, and suddenly the air feels electrocharged.

Johnny has no idea what Peter reads on his face, but there must be something, because his eyes flicker. He’s going to kiss me, Johnny thinks, the realization hitting him like a lightning bolt, but Peter doesn’t — instead, he shifts and reaches for the remote. He’s gnawing on his bottom lip as he does so.

No, Johnny amends. I’m going to kiss him.

He grabs Peter by the collar and draws him closer. There’s a moment where he just breathes, giving Peter space to pull away, but he doesn’t. There’s a faint clicking noise as he shuts the TV off, and then he’s hauling Johnny onto his lap, and then they’re kissing into the sudden shock of silence. Johnny’s not even sure if he was right; it’s hard to tell who kissed who first, in the end. All he knows is that they’re kissing now, and that the bitter taste of his alcohol on his lips tastes sweeter on Peter’s tongue, and that the rush is going straight to his head — faster than any drug or drink, except unlike any drug or drink, this isn’t a high he can burn off, something even his powers can’t take from him. For a moment, this is all his.

But it’s just for a moment. Peter pulls away first, breathing hard, his mouth as red as an open wound. His eyes are wide and shell-shocked.

Johnny squares his shoulders and goes on the defensive. “You were looking at me like that, and you’ve been getting me all these things,” he bites out, hands still fisted in Peter’s collar. “What was I supposed to think?”

Peter drops his hands from their spot on Johnny’s waist. “Is that what this is about?” he asks, with an even calm that can only mean he’s ready to bolt.

“No!” Johnny exclaims, tightening his grip. Peter’s collar wrinkles in his palms. He swallows hard and shakes his head. “No,” he says again, softer.

Peter is quiet for half a second, and then he slides his hands up Johnny’s hips again, careful this time. “How was I looking at you?” he asks.

“Like that,” Johnny says, barely resisting the urge to flinch. “Like I — Like you — ” He shakes his head and twists around, hands shaking, and picks up the bottle again.

This time Peter doesn’t stop him. He waits as Johnny fills the glass, but before he can take a sip, Peter guides Johnny’s hand towards his own mouth; he tips the glass and drinks, wrinkling his nose. “This tastes awful,” he says, but Johnny is too busy watching the bob of Peter’s throat as he swallows. “I can’t believe you’re drinking this straight.”

“You’re drinking it straight,” Johnny points out as he puts the glass away. Then he swipes his fingers over Peter’s lips, catching a few stray drops.

“It’s not good for you to drink alone,” Peter says, eyeing Johnny up as he licks his fingertips. “Besides” — here he chucks Johnny under the chin, almost affectionately — “I have a pretty good chaser right here.”

Johnny smiles, delighted. “Yeah, alright,” he says, and then he brings their mouths together again, and that’s the end of that.

Kissing doesn’t actually water down the taste of alcohol, but it’s heady and bitter and warm, so Johnny’s not complaining. He chases Peter’s tongue while Peter drags his hands along the ribbed patches of Johnny’s costume. Eventually he ends up tracing a path to Johnny’s chest, and he plants a hand on the flame emblazoned over his heart as they both pull away. Johnny inhales the way he always does after a nova or a long trip to space — sharp and greedy, like he’s forgotten how kind and breathable the air is back on Earth.

“Bed?” Johnny finally asks, after a moment.

Peter hooks his hands under Johnny’s knees, hauling him up. Johnny goes easily, laughing as he tumbles over Peter’s sturdy shoulders, his hands fisted in Peter’s shirt for leverage. “Thought you’d never ask,” he says.

The walk to the bedroom isn’t far. Johnny slides out of Peter’s arms and onto the bed; Peter throws a hand out behind him and webs the door shut without looking back, eyes pinned on Johnny with a single-minded intensity that usually means someone is either getting webbed up or going to jail.

Johnny’s not drunk — not even tipsy — but there’s a pleasant haze over everything, a honey-yellow film that’s making time move differently. For a moment, he just watches Peter work the buttons of his dress shirt in slow motion, and then he swallows hard and starts peeling his costume away.

Peter shrugs his shirt off and crawls on top of him, yanking Johnny’s pants off the rest of the way with one hard tug. Johnny gasps and fumbles with Peter’s slacks while he starts kissing his way down Johnny’s neck, his open mouth leaving a hot trail on its path down Johnny’s exposed abdomen.

When Peter reaches his navel, he palms at Johnny’s hip, smirks against his skin, and says, “Do you always go commando under the suit?”

Johnny throws an arm over his eyes. “I have a limited amount of unstable molecule-treated underwear left, okay,” he whines.

Peter hums as he kicks his pants off. “I’m sure I could get something sorted for you,” he says, grabbing Johnny by the ankle to haul him closer. “Something lacy, maybe?”

Johnny laughs and shoves at Peter’s shoulder with his foot. “In your fucking dreams, Parker.”

Peter sighs dramatically as he digs a thumb into Johnny’s heel. “And what sweet dreams they are,” he says as he slings Johnny’s legs over his strong shoulders, idly licking his lips as he does so.

Johnny rakes a hand through Peter’s messy tangle of hair, fingers tightening when Peter gets a hand around his dick and starts mouthing at the head, stroking slowly. Figures — for all that Peter runs his mouth, it’s no wonder he’s good at using it for other things. He’s always wondered.

He says as much, and Peter has to pull off to laugh. “Talk dirty to me, I guess.”

“I’m insulting you,” Johnny says, using his grip on Peter’s hair to bring him back down.

Peter shrugs and tightens the circle of his fist. He grins when Johnny’s hips buck up into the clutch of his hand. “Same thing.”

The inside of his mouth is wet and hot, his tongue silkier than Johnny might have thought after spending years cutting himself on the sharp end of it. He thumbs at Peter’s cheek, feeling himself from the outside. Peter — surprisingly enough — leans into it, dark eyelashes fluttering.

“Your hand is really warm,” he says, voice scratchy.

Peter, Johnny thinks fondly, would probably be better at giving head if he didn’t keep pulling off to talk. He smooths Peter’s hair down, rolling his palm over his stubborn cowlick, and doesn’t comment on it — would it really be Peter if he wasn’t running his damn mouth, even here?

Despite that, Peter seems to sense what Johnny is thinking, because his eyes narrow and he forces Johnny’s thighs to open wider so he can get his tongue between his legs.

Johnny gasps in surprise, tightening his thighs on either side of Peter’s head without thinking. One of his hands flies to his mouth. “What are you doing,” he says, then bites down on his fingers to muffle the reedy noise that rips itself out of his throat when Peter pries his knees back open and licks a thick stripe over his hole.

“What does it look like I’m doing,” Peter mumbles against the side of Johnny’s thigh.

“You — ah — don’t have to,” says Johnny, but Peter just shakes his head and puts Johnny’s hand back in his hair.

If Peter pausing every five seconds to talk was bad, him keeping silent and putting his mouth to the single-minded task of tearing Johnny open from the inside is worse. Suddenly, Johnny thinks, hands tightening around Peter’s nape, he understands why Peter’s villains are so deathly afraid of him going quiet. The slow drag of his tongue is methodical, his grip on Johnny’s hips firm and unyielding. The way Peter is looking up at him from under his dark lashes is what’s truly torturous, though — like there’s something about him worth looking at. Maybe that was true once. Not anymore.

He’s almost grateful when Peter pulls away, even if it leaves him feeling empty. “Lube,” is all Peter says, voice scratchy, and then he crawls on top of Johnny to reach the nightstand.

When he retrieves the bottle, Johnny tries to take it from him. “Let me do it,” he says. “I’ll be quick.”

“Nope,” Peter says automatically, dangling it away from Johnny’s reach. “Let me do this for you.”

Johnny frowns. “Let me do something for you, then,” he offers, trailing a hand down Peter’s abdomen, his palm scraping along his happy trail.

Peter grabs Johnny’s hand before it can so much as brush his cock. “You’re doing plenty,” he says, then after studying Johnny’s face for a moment: “You want to do something for me?”

Johnny nods wordlessly.

“Alright,” says Peter, tone indulging. He guides Johnny’s hand away. “Then put your hands above your head.”

Johnny does as he’s told. This much he can do. Peter telegraphs the move before he does it, flipping his wrists over slowly, giving Johnny a chance to say no, but Johnny doesn’t say no, and Johnny doesn’t stop him — not when Peter’s fingers press down on the trigger of his webshooter and not when thick strands of webfluid snap his wrists together. The sensation is strange: sticky, but quickly hardening; cool, but Johnny can’t feel cold, just the ghost of its impression.

Peter rubs Johnny’s arms and asks, “Okay?”

Johnny tugs at his bindings. There’s no give. It’s almost surreal — he’s lost count of how many times he’s dreamt of Peter tying him up in this fashion. Now that it’s happening he has no idea what to do with himself. “Okay,” is all Johnny manages to say, and Peter nods before spreading Johnny’s legs open again.

Any guilt he feels about not putting in any work dissipates at the first press of Peter’s finger against his hole, the cold lube warming against his skin immediately. Peter taps at it a couple of times, teasing — of course he would, the bastard — and then he slips it inside to the first knuckle. Johnny bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste a tang of blood.

“Fuck,” says Peter, sounding amazed. “You’re tight.”

Johnny closes his eyes, an embarrassed flush crawling down his neck. “It’s been a while,” he says.

Peter seems to like something about that statement — he makes a soft noise before pressing his finger in further, experimental, pushing Johnny’s knee aside with his free hand for easier access. He crooks it up and nails Johnny’s prostate in one go, the talented asshole. When Johnny keens and arches off the bed in response, wrists going taut around his bindings, Peter grins and cuts the bullshit, finally. He’s fucking relentless, twisting up against every sensitive point of Johnny’s insides. By the time he gets a second finger in, Johnny’s cock is hard and leaking against his stomach. Peter doesn’t touch it, just works Johnny up to a third finger until his chest is heaving and his legs are shaking and —

“You’re glowing a little,” Peter says fondly, putting a hand on Johnny’s chest, over the stuttering rhythm of his heart. The faint golden glow emanating from inside of Johnny seeps through Peter’s skin, highlighting the web of veins on the back of his hand. “Right here.”

“S-Sorry,” Johnny stutters out through clenched teeth. He reels his powers back. Sometimes it happens — it’s not like he sweats, so occasionally the heat just gets trapped under his skin like a firefly in a jar. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“Of course not,” Peter says, kissing Johnny’s chest. The light gilds the sharp edge of his jaw before flickering out. “Hey, I liked it. Do it again.”

Johnny finds it in himself to smile. “I’m not your personal flashlight.”

Peter laughs as he pulls his fingers out. “Maybe not, but if you ever need a job as one — ”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “I should look you up, yeah, yeah,” he says, shoving his heel against Peter’s thigh. “Are you going to fuck me before your webbing dissolves or not?”

“Is that what you want?” Peter asks, running a hand along the line of Johnny’s calf.

Johnny swallows. “Yeah.”

Peter nods, then carefully rolls Johnny over until he’s flat on his stomach. The sheets are cool and sleek, nothing like the ones in Peter’s old apartment. Johnny inhales sharply as Peter puts him on his knees, using all that strength to get Johnny exactly where he wants him, like a scene ripped straight out of Johnny’s most depraved Spider-Man fantasies.

Peter skims a hand down Johnny’s nape, his fingers catching on the downy curls at the base of it. That same hand moves down the length of Johnny’s spine, stopping over every knob and muscle, mapping out the uncharted plane of his back. He stops to palm at Johnny’s ass, which makes Johnny flush with embarrassment, and then he spreads him open, which makes Johnny actually plant his face on the pillow, though it does little to hide how red his ears have gotten.

He thinks Peter chuckles at that, but he chooses to pretend he didn’t hear, because if he picks a fight now then Peter will start talking, and they’ll never get around to fucking then. Thankfully, Peter doesn’t say anything, just presses a strangely chaste kiss to the shell of Johnny’s ear before slowly sliding in.

“Finally,” Johnny gasps when Peter finally bottoms out with a groan, arching up against the hard wall of Peter’s chest. “Fucking hell — move.”

He expects Peter to say something, some smart remark, but he doesn’t; he just nudges Johnny’s legs even further apart and sets a deep, deliberate pace. The first few thrusts are so jarring that they both get pushed further up the bed. Johnny actually cries out, then bites the pillow, then swallows hard at the feeling of the sheets moving under his knees, the fabric rippling with every shift. The slide is hot and heady — the feeling goes straight to Johnny’s head. He can actually feel himself shaking with the urge to roll his eyes back.

“I hate you,” Johnny bites out, fisting the sheets just to have something to hold. “I actually, genuinely — mmm, fuck.”

“Well,” Peter says lightly, one hand pressed up against Johnny’s stomach, “I think you feel really good.” His head falls somewhere between Johnny’s shoulder blades as he screws up deeper into him, as if that was somehow possible. “Look at you. Taking it so well.”

Johnny’s taking it about as well as anyone can when someone with superhuman strength and superhuman speed is hammering into them, which is to say just barely. Peter’s hand keeps pressing against his stomach like he’s searching for himself inside of Johnny’s body. Then he moves it to circle Johnny’s cock, getting his palm wet and sticky, and Johnny feels himself physically unraveling into the tight circle of Peter’s fingers.

“You just got really tight,” Peter murmurs against Johnny’s skin, which he thinks might be glowing again. “Are you close?”

Johnny nods, screwing his eyes shut. He tries to fuck into Peter’s hand, but Peter holds him steady by the hip and dictates the pace, timing it to match his thrusts. “I’m going to come,” he says through his teeth. It comes out apologetic.

“It’s okay,” Peter says, thumbing at the leaking slit of Johnny’s dick. “Feel good for me.”

The space behind Johnny’s eyelids gets spotty from how tight he’s welded them shut. “I can’t,” he breathes out. “It’s too much.” I don’t know if I’m allowed to feel good anymore, he wants to say, but then he’d been given permission, hadn’t he?

Peter nods. “Yes, you can,” he says, bearing down on Johnny further until his knees give out, pressing his chest flat against Johnny’s back and pushing him down into his mattress.

For a moment it’s just the heat of Peter around him, and the wet grip of his hand around Johnny’s dick, and the way his cock is carving deep into Johnny’s tight insides.

He turns his face over to look at Peter helplessly. Peter just nods and says, “Yes, you can,” again and then — Johnny comes, just like that, spilling wet over Peter’s waiting fingers.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to the feeling of Peter flipping him over onto his back. “Burn this off for me,” says Peter, rubbing at Johnny’s wrists.

The webbing has started to dissolve already, unravelling in thin strands around Johnny’s reddened wrists. Johnny burns off the rest of it, and Peter smiles at him before rubbing at Johnny’s arms. He frowns at the lines marking Johnny’s skin, but thankfully he doesn’t fuss. Instead, he puts Johnny’s hands on him — and what a strange shock of relief it is, getting to touch Peter — before getting Johnny’s legs back on either side of his body.

“Can I?” Peter asks, like Johnny would deny him.

Johnny’s head lolls against the pillow in exhaustion. “Go on,” he says, reaching up to play with Peter’s hair. The very ends of them are damp with sweat; a few locks curl around Johnny’s fingers, clinging.

Peter smiles at him, quick and grateful, before pushing back inside again. The stretch is more forgiving, the second time around.

The room smells like burning fuel now, the scent of sex and sweat lost under the chemical. Peter seems strangely into it, though; he folds Johnny over fucks him faster, his thrusts short and shallow. Johnny locks his legs behind Peter’s back at the ankles, urging him forward.

He’s not sure what to do or say, so he just rubs at Peter’s jaw. He says Peter’s name once — and only once, because after that Peter seals their mouths together, licking up against Johnny’s lips until he finally parts them and lets Peter put his tongue against the softest part of his palate.

He knows Peter’s close the moment he loses himself in the kiss, his teeth going hard and unyielding against Johnny’s tongue.

“That’s it,” says Johnny, tugging at Peter’s hair a little, tilting his head back enough to expose the side of his neck. “You feel so good. Are you going to come? For me?”

Peter nods against the side of Johnny’s face, panting open-mouthed now. Johnny’s hand slides down so he can feel the way Peter’s back goes taut when he comes, hips stuttering for the briefest of moments before he pushes up against Johnny further, spilling into the deepest part of him.

Johnny can’t help it; he rubs Peter’s shoulder, affectionate. “There you go,” he murmurs.

Peter wraps Johnny up in his arms, ignoring Johnny’s protests about how messy they both are. “Was it good for you?” he asks, like he doesn’t already know the answer.

“It was fine, I guess,” Johnny answers, and Peter laughs before burying his face into the crook of Johnny’s neck.

For a while they just lie there. Johnny has always liked to feel his partner go soft inside him after, and this is no exception. Peter doesn’t seem to mind, either. He kisses his way down Johnny’s neck, deliberate and lazy, right before stopping to suck a hickey onto the side of it, ignoring the way Johnny playfully fists at his hair when he does.

After, Peter disappears into the bathroom. Johnny stares at the ceiling, feeling strangely empty in a thousand different ways, for a thousand different reasons. What room had this been, before it became Peter’s? It could have been one of Reed’s labs, or maybe it was that one gym Sue had installed, but then hadn’t Ben insisted on having a rec room on this floor at some point? He can’t seem to remember. The building has been built and rebuilt too many times. In all those years, his family’s presence had been the one constant, and now that’s gone too.

When Peter emerges with a towel, he takes one look at Johnny’s face and softens. “What’s on your mind, hot stuff?” he asks, moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Nothing,” Johnny says automatically. Peter looks wounded at that, for some reason, so he decides to say it: “Do you remember what this room used to be before” — you took over it, would probably earn him that look again, so Johnny bites his tongue — “just… before.”

Peter hums as he starts wiping Johnny down. “It was my old room.” He flicks his gaze up through the dark fan of his lashes and tacks on, “The one they gave me when I was on the team and you were…”

“Dead,” Johnny finishes, only to get that look again. Damn it. “That’s sentimental of you,” he says, rubbing at Peter’s knuckles and trying for a smile.

Peter just shrugs, resuming his task. Johnny’s eyes flutter shut. Suddenly he feels sleepy under Peter’s gentle ministrations.

“It was a practical decision, not a sentimental one,” Peter says, and then his tone shifts. “Johnny, I…”

But Johnny is already drifting off. Whatever it is Peter is going to say, he decides he doesn’t want to hear it. And so he doesn’t.

Johnny wakes up three times that night.

The first time, it’s because of a dream. He gasps awake, eyes flying open. His heart hammers against his ribcage. For a horrible moment he doesn’t know where he is, and then he does, and it’s no less horrible: he’s in the Baxter Building, and his family isn’t, and Peter is in bed with him.

That last part should have soothed the sting, but it doesn’t. After having sex with someone, you’re supposed to fall asleep in a tangle of limbs, wrapped up so tightly in each other that it’s unclear where one ends and the other begins — but that’s not what happened.

They’re not touching under the blankets. Not even by a hair. There’s an ocean of rumpled white sheets between them. At some point in the night, they’d wound up facing each other like two halves of a circle. Johnny shifts closer, bridging the gap. Peter stirs, but only a little, the dark fan of his eyelashes fluttering minutely. His fingers twitch. Johnny doesn’t reach for him. Instead, he starts counting Peter’s freckles. He falls back asleep at twenty-one.

The second time, it’s because of Peter. Johnny wakes up to the feeling of a weight lifting itself off the other side of the mattress. There’s a faint hum as Peter suits up, the liquid nanotechnology of his fancy new costume melding over the hard lines of his body. Johnny keeps his eyes shut and his breathing steady as he waits for Peter to leave.

Something heavy (but so very warm) curls over Johnny’s forehead. Peter’s hand, brushing the golden edge of his fringe away. Just for a millisecond — and then it’s gone. His footsteps are soundless, but the faint creaking of the window is not. A cold draft whistles through the crack. Thwip goes the webshooter, and then the window is sliding shut again, and Peter is gone.

Peter’s side of the bed is still warm. Johnny rolls into the indent his body left behind and goes back to sleep.

The third time is because of Peter again. There’s a thump as he rolls back inside, and a stream of pale light follows. Johnny groans and squeezes his eyes shut in the face of it. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” Peter murmurs, followed by the sound of his costume melting away. “Sorry,” he says again as he climbs back into bed, folding a hand over Johnny’s eyes. “Go back to sleep. I’m sorry.”

“Why is there always something you have to be sorry for,” Johnny grumbles, taking the sheet with him as he rolls over.

Peter doesn’t reply. He clambers back into bed. Their shoulders brush under the blanket, but only for a moment.

When Johnny finally wakes up — really wakes up — it’s seven o’clock in the morning and the bed is empty, but the smell of coffee is wafting in through a crack in the bedroom door.

His lower back stings when he bends over to pick his costume up from the floor. It’s a pain to put it on, and the snap of spandex against skin makes Johnny wince, but it’s not like he has anything else to wear. He briefly entertains the thought of going to the kitchen and making Peter breakfast. Now that’s a memory: making french toast in Peter’s old apartment wearing nothing but an apron and his tightest pair of briefs. He wanted to see if he could taunt Peter into bending him over his peeling countertops. It never happened, of course.

Years of trying to get Peter into bed and it only happens now. During the lowest period of Johnny’s life. Go figure.

That was a different time. Johnny pivots towards the balcony. He slides the glass doors open and steps out into the morning air. The city is already awake below.

Johnny’s just about to flame on and fly off when someone — Peter — touches his shoulder. He turns to see Peter already half-dressed for work, the collar of his dress shirt flipped up and a tie slung carelessly around his neck. He’s holding two cups of steaming coffee.

“Morning,” says Peter, flashing Johnny a lopsided smile.

Johnny swallows guiltily. “Morning,” he says, accepting the cup that Peter hands to him.

The first sip doesn’t make him feel any more awake. Cranking the temperature of his coffee up to the average person’s definition of scalding doesn’t either. He curls both fingers around the mug and wishes he could feel the burn.

For a long while they just stand there together and watch the city. A pigeon flits past in a blur of iridescent feathers. Johnny bites down the urge to follow suit and fly away.

Finally, Peter clears his throat. “Johnny,” he starts. When Johnny turns, the sight of his hair, dark and windswept, makes his chest give a hollow pang. “About last night…”

Peter has that look on his face — brows knitted tight, eyes wide and plaintive, mouth set in a twisted line. It’s the face he gets when he’s about to let someone down. Johnny’s been on the other end of it enough times to know.

“It’s fine,” Johnny says, folding his elbows on the railing. He leans forward and stares at the drop below. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. We had fun last night. That’s all.”

Peter’s tilts his head, leaning into the next gust of wind. It only serves to ruffle his hair even more. “That’s all?” he echoes, running his hands through it. “Can things really be that simple?”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Not everything has to end in rose bouquets and wedding rings and triplets,” he says, turning around to smooth Peter’s collar down for him. “Take it from me.”

Peter looks down, following with his eyes as Johnny’s deft fingers start working on his tie next. “What am I going to do with the extra large crib I ordered now?” he jokes.

Johnny snorts as he yanks Peter’s tie into place around his throat. “There you go, Mr. Businessman.” He pats Peter on the chest once before taking a step back. “Just fun, okay? Let’s not turn this into something it isn’t.”

For some reason, Peter gets that look on his face again. “Okay,” he says, mouth slowly twisting. “Yeah, okay.”

When Johnny arrives at the Unity Squad’s morning meeting ten minutes late, everyone snaps to look at him at once — everyone except Cable, who clears his throat and ushers everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand.

Rogue’s eyes spark with amusement when Johnny moves to gingerly sit next to her. “You didn’t come home last night,” she comments. “I thought you said you weren’t sleeping with that businessman?”

Johnny leans back in his seat. “Well,” he says lightly, “I wasn’t.”

Two days later, Johnny finds himself smack dab in the middle of Times Square, walking through memory lane. He draws the brim of his cap further down, shielding his eyes from the colorful array of flashing lights. Nobody pays him any mind.

Whenever Reed felt stuck, this is where he would go. He’d haul one of his supercomputers into the center of the crowd, get Sue to turn him invisible, and hunker down for an afternoon.

Some scientists go for sensory deprivation, Sue would tease, but nooo — my husband the contrarian insists that his elastic brain is more creative when stimulated by sensory overload.

And yet she always tagged along anyway. She’d bring a folding chair and a book, and she’d stick by Reed until he solved whatever was eating at him.

Johnny went with them once, just to see what it was that Sue saw — what it was that made it worth it for her.

He didn’t. Not at the time.

At the time Johnny just nagged at Sue. “How long is this going to take?” he’d whined, shooting annoyed looks at Reed’s back as he mumbled to himself, scribbling equations.

Sue simply shrugged and crossed one leg over the other. “However long Reed needs,” she’d said, gazing at her husband fondly from the top of her newspaper.

“Ugh, this is boring,” Johnny had replied, and then he’d stormed off to go shopping.

When he came back a few hours later, they were finally starting to pack up. Reed had beamed at him. “There you are, Johnny,” he said, taking Johnny’s bags — he had one arm stretched out like a laundry line and started stringing them along. “Did you enjoy yourself today?”

“Not really,” Johnny replied. “How do you do it, Sue?”

Sue had laughed before wrapping an arm around Reed. “Time flies when you’re spending it with someone you love,” she’d said, ignoring the fake gagging noises Johnny was making behind her back.

Being around Reed had always made Johnny feel stupid, and being around Sue always made him feel small, and being around them together always made him feel lonely, knowing no one would ever love him the way they loved each other — but now there’s nothing he wouldn’t give for just one more day of being lonely with them.

Someone bumps into him, jarring Johnny out of his reverie. He turns to Reed and Sue’s usual spot, hoping he might see them there together: Reed biting a thumbnail and jotting down a seemingly endless string of numbers, Sue slowly wrapping her arms around his neck from behind.

Instead, he finds himself staring up at Peter.

A billboard of him, anyway — it’s looping an ad for Webware. Johnny never expected to see Peter like this, brightly lit from every angle, watching over the city in a different way. He’s wearing one of his awful gray suits, and his hair is slicked back, but there’s a stubborn lock of hair curling over his forehead that makes Johnny smile despite himself.

The screen shifts to a shot of Peter and Spider-Man together. Hobie in the suit, probably. Seeing them together strikes a discordant note in Johnny’s chest. He looks away and keeps walking, drawing his hat further over his face as he disappears back into the shadows. Behind him, the screen shifts again: this time, it’s just Spider-Man, swinging up, up, and away against the backdrop of a blue sky, his suit shimmering in the sunlight.

By the time Johnny gets back, the Schaefer Theater has been powered down for the night. The only light is coming from the second floor — Cable’s temporary workshop. He flies up to take a look and finds Cable hunched over one of the workbenches, fiddling with his cybernetic arm.

Johnny raps on the window lightly. Cable looks up, his face hard but his eyes gentle. He gets up and lets Johnny inside.

“Thanks,” Johnny says sheepishly as he touches down. The sight of all the unfamiliar machines stuffed into the room makes his chest ache. “Mind if I hang around for a while? I can’t sleep.”

Cable just nods curtly before moving to sit down again. He’s used to Johnny hanging around by now. The first time it happened, it had taken him several days to ask why.

“Maybe I just like hanging around labs where I don’t understand a single thing that’s happening, Cable,” Johnny had said, leaning against the window. “I did it enough with my old team.”

“Suit yourself,” Cable had replied. “All the same, if you ever want to talk science… or anything else… I’m all ears.”

Johnny had chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, but then he decided to rip off the bandaid and just ask. “I know I’m probably not supposed to know,” he’d said slowly, “but is there a date in the future…”

He lost his nerve, trailing off. Cable understood anyway.

“I don’t know if Reed and Sue are alive, or if they ever make it back,” Cable had sighed, “but that can be good news.”

Johnny had bristled at that. “How is that good news?” he’d demanded.

“That means you can keep faith,” said Cable, and all the fight left Johnny’s body at once.

Faith, Johnny reminds himself. He moves to sit an arm’s length away from Cable and puts his face flat on the desk. His breathing evens out to the sound of Cable’s tinkering, familiar by now. When he closes his eyes, he’s in Reed’s lab, and it’s Reed puttering around, and it’s Sue draping a blanket over Johnny’s shoulders, and everything’s going to be okay.

He wakes up again an hour later. His heart is pounding an off-beat rhythm in his chest. Maybe he was dreaming again. There’s a threadbare blanket around his shoulders, which is silly because Johnny doesn’t get cold. He wipes the corner of his mouth and finds Cable looking at him.

“You should go to sleep, Torch,” says Cable. “In a real bed.”

Johnny shakes his head. “Can’t,” he mutters miserably, already wide awake.

Cable hesitates for a moment, and then he shrugs. “Make yourself useful, then,” he says. “Hand me that screwdriver, will you?”

Johnny hasn’t been useful to anyone in a long time. He passes the screwdriver over. “Okay,” he says. “Just tell me what you need.”

A week later, Peter trashes the Spider-Mobile in a high-speed car chase in Shanghai.

“You’ve been getting into a lot of those lately,” Johnny says wryly. “If you want to get into racing, just say the word and I’ll hook you up.”

Peter’s huff is audible, even over the phone. “Like it’s my fault.”

“I’m just saying,” Johnny says, shooting a stream of fire out with his free hand. The giant mutated plant monster that the Unity Squad is currently fighting rears back. “Maybe — just maybe! — it has something to do with your terrible driving skills.”

“I took lessons!” Peter protests. “I have a license!”

Johnny rolls his eyes — and rolls away from the swipe of a massive leafy hand in the process. “That you surely didn’t use your newfound millions to pay for.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Peter sniffs.

Rogue streaks past in a blur of green, the plant monster hot on her heels. “Johnny!” she shouts over her shoulder. “I keep telling you — no phones on the job!”

“Sorry!” Johnny calls after her, putting one hand over the receiver. To Peter, he says, “I — uh, I gotta go. I can come to the garage tomorrow, see what I can do for you.”

“Great,” Peter replies. “It’s a date.”

Then he hangs up, just like that. Johnny only narrowly avoids flying face-first into a building.

The next day, it’s Peter’s secretary who slips Johnny into the building. “Mr. Parker had an urgent meeting to attend to,” she says apologetically. “He’ll join you shortly. In the meantime — he told me to give you ‘free reign’ of the garage.”

Johnny flashes her his most charming smile and tries not to think too hard about the Fantastic Four statue looming large in the background. “Well, ma’am,” he says. “After you.”

The garage is in a different spot, and it looks nothing like how it used to. Once it was Johnny’s safe haven — nobody else touched it except for Reed, and even then only when he and Johnny were working on something together. Now there are no old pizza boxes or playboy magazines littered around the place. For all intents and purposes, the garage is spick and span. Every vehicle in the bay is spotless. It’s clear that nobody uses it on a regular basis.

The only blemish in the room is the Spider-Mobile, looking sad and banged up in the corner. Johnny’s lips twitch at the sight of it.

“You’re as hideous as the day I first built you,” Johnny says, fondly patting the crooked side-view mirror.

By the time Peter arrives four hours later, Johnny’s wrist-deep beneath the hood of the Spider-Mobile and covered in grease. Peter doesn’t look much better — his suit is rumpled, and his hair is messy, the way it always gets messy after a day of Peter running his hands through it.

Johnny raises an eyebrow at him. “Either you just got out of a broom closet with your sexy secretary or a fistfight with the Walrus.” He waves a hand around. “It’s hard to say with you.”

Peter laughs. “My secretary is, like, fifty years old!” he says. “Please tell me you didn’t flirt with her.”

“Alright,” Johnny says, raising his hands in surrender. “I won’t tell you.”

Peter shakes his head, still laughing as he shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it off the side. He starts rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “How can I help?”

Johnny holds a hand up to stop him. “Nuh-uh. You are not getting your hands dirty while dressed like that, mister.” He points to the far corner. “Stand over there and look pretty. I know that’s a tough ask.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Fine, I’ll change.” His suit melts away into his costume, the spider over his heart glowing faintly in the dim light of the garage. He’s not wearing the mask, though — all the better for Johnny to catch him waggling his eyebrows. “Better?”

“As long as you don’t mind getting your spider-suit dirty,” Johnny says, chucking a wrench at him.

Peter catches it out of the air effortlessly. “You used to put me to work in this suit,” he says. “Remember?”

“Of course I remember,” says Johnny, rolling his eyes. “I remember you barging into my house and harassing me into putting this monstrosity together for you.” He slides under the car with a huff. “That’s what I remember.”

He also remembers looking over Peter’s designs, the two of them hunched over the drafting table. Reed’s situational alarm had gone off — some kind of attack on the Hudson Nuclear Laboratories. The Kangaroo, though Johnny hadn’t known at the time. All he’d known was that they had to do something.

“Not ‘we,’ Johnny,” Peter had said, stopping him. They weren’t as close back then. There was no ‘we’ or ‘us’ yet, not for the two of them. “Me.”

Still, Johnny frowned. “You alone?”

“I can handle myself, Storm,” said Peter, and Johnny knew when he wasn’t needed — or wanted, for that matter.

Then again, is there a ‘we’ or ‘us’ even now? With Ben and Sue off in space, and Reed and Sue… gone, I was hoping we could serve in their memory.

We are, Johnny. We’re just going to do it separately.

Johnny is snapped out of his thoughts when Peter grabs him by the ankle and yanks him back out again, the wheels of the creeper clacking against the floor. “Oh, come on,” he says. “You can admit you enjoyed it.”

“You willingly asking for help is a rare occasion,” Johnny huffs, smiling up at him. “Of course I enjoyed it.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” says Peter, moving to sit with him. He’s quiet for a moment, idly skimming a hand through the toolbox. “Those were fun times, weren’t they? Simpler.”

Johnny hums. “Tell me about it.”

“Did I ever thank you?” asks Peter. “For helping me.”

Johnny snorts. “I honestly don’t remember — hey, pass me that wire cutter? — but I’m willing to bet money that you didn’t,” he says. “I mean, the least you could have done was let me build this one. The design might look better on the outside, but it’s a fucking mess on the inside. No offense to your ex.”

“I tried,” Peter protests, flicking Johnny’s forehead. “You weren’t talking to me, remember? Could have spared me the pain of my ex-girlfriend building it only to try and kill me with it later.”

“As soon as I’m done with these repairs, I’ll finish the job for her,” Johnny says lightly. “Don’t worry.”

Peter draws his knees up to his chest. “I’d probably deserve it,” he says. “Hey, you’re right. I probably didn’t thank you then, so — let me thank you now.”

Johnny shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“No, really,” Peter says, surprisingly earnest. “It meant a lot to me. After Gwen died, I… wasn’t myself anymore. So many people tried to get me out of my head, but you were the one who made me feel like myself again, you know?” A tiny smile lights up his face. “I told her that.”

Suddenly it’s too much. Johnny gets up and wipes his hands on his pants. “It really is fine,” he says, making a beeline towards the sink. “You know I can’t say no to that mask. Even if you did give me a heart attack when I saw your driving for the first time.”

“Don’t lie,” says Peter. “You still get a heart attack every time you see me drive.”

Johnny laughs as he wipes himself down. “Okay, yeah. How much did you pay your driving instructor? Be honest.”

“Enough to give my accountant a headache,” Peter says solemnly.

When Johnny circles back around, Peter is just about done packing up. “This is about all I can do today,” he explains, skimming a hand over dented hood of the Spider-Mobile. “I’m missing some parts, some tools…”

“Send me a list,” Peter says, taking a step closer. “Whatever you need. Also… this garage doesn’t see much use, and neither do most of the vehicles, so if ever you get the itch — it’s all yours.”

Johnny blinks. “Uh.”

“Whenever you want,” Peter continues. “The security system, my secretary, everyone who works here — they all know to let you in. Okay?”

“Um, okay,” Johnny replies, instead of you’re insane, which is what he actually wants to say. Peter beams at him, and he swallows hard, putting one hand over the glowing spider on Peter’s costume; he’s not sure if he’s trying to stop Peter from coming closer or if he just wants to touch him.

Fun, Johnny reminds himself when Peter’s eyes flicker down to his mouth. This is meant to be fun. Fun and nice. Casual.

Peter is just insane and intense and also has no idea what ‘casual’ means, so it’s up to Johnny to show him. He swallows hard to steel himself — and then he smiles, trying for slow and seductive as he drags his hands over the webbed indents in Peter’s costume.

“So,” Johnny says slowly, even as Peter’s hands come to frame either side of him, pinning him in place. He slides his coveralls over his shoulders, knotting the arms around his waist, leaving him in just the sleeveless undershirt he was wearing underneath. “Are you going to bend me over the hood of this hideous thing or what?”

Peter grins as he thumbs at a spot of grease on Johnny’s cheek. “Thought you’d never ask,” he says, then goes to do just that.

The next few weeks are an exercise in routine. Johnny wakes up, lets the Unity Squad take him wherever he’s needed, then goes to bed and does it all over again.

The only break in monotony is spending time with Peter. Finishing up the repairs on the Spider-Mobile. Catching lunch or a movie whenever they’re free. Inevitably having bed-breaking sex and refusing to talk about it afterwards. The usual. What’s changed, really.

Johnny used to think life would be better if Peter loved him, and then Peter did love him (enough to fill Johnny’s spot on the team, enough to become part of Johnny’s family, enough to accept Johnny’s last will and testament — “We all love you, Pete” — without a second thought) and things didn’t get any better. So then he thought life would be better if Peter was attracted to him — not just a passing acknowledgement that Johnny was good-looking, but a ‘cut a movie short to shove his tongue down Johnny’s throat’ type of attraction — and now Peter regularly cuts their movie nights short to shove his tongue down Johnny’s throat and life isn’t any better, only infinitely more painful and complicated. But it’s fine! Things are fun and casual and he’s satisfied with occasionally having Peter’s tongue in his throat. Rose bouquets and wedding rings and triplets are for other people, people who are well-adjusted and otherwise more deserving of happiness than Johnny.

He’s in the middle of rolling out of bed when Peter’s hand suddenly shoots out to grab his wrist. “Stay,” says Peter, shifting so that one side of his face is propped up on the pillow, his eyes wide and unreadable in the dark.

Johnny laughs — nervously, he doesn’t want to admit — as he starts plucking his clothes from the floor. “Don’t you have that, ah, that thing tomorrow?” His eyes flick to the clock. “Later today, actually.”

“Not until the evening,” Peter says evenly. “You could stick around for it if you want. I wouldn’t say no to help.”

“Help,” Johnny repeats. Peter’s been complaining about having to host this company dinner at his place for days now. What does he want Johnny to do, dig out the good china? “You do realize what that would look like, right,” he says flatly.

Peter shrugs, and the sheet slides off his shoulders. “What would it look like?”

Johnny, not for the first time, has a brief but vivid fantasy of strangling Peter. Then he takes one look at Peter’s guileless face and sighs before slipping back into bed.

“No, seriously,” Johnny says that afternoon as he’s popping a tray into the oven. “You do realize what this looks like, right?”

Peter dips a finger into the batter. He dances away when Johnny swats at him, laughing. “Enlighten me.”

Johnny lets out a frustrated sigh. “Go set the table already!” he says, making shooing motions with his hands. “You’ll understand what I mean when your business partners arrive and assume I’m your trophy wife.”

“Ooh, upgrade from sugar baby,” Peter whistles. “Nice.”

Johnny chucks a handful of flour at him vindictively.

Two hours later, after the guests arrive, Johnny accepts the compliments to his cooking with perfunctory politeness and tries not to pick at his food too hard. Peter keeps shooting him looks from across the table, screaming help me with his eyes, and all Johnny can do is hide his laughter into the rim of his wine glass.

It’s not all bad, though. Dinner passes without fanfare. Dessert, too — mostly thanks to Anna Maria, who had talked Johnny through her tiramisu recipe over the phone. (“Normally I’d either have to kill or marry you for this,” she’d said. “But throw in some embarrassing stories about Peter and we’ll call it even.”)

After, when everyone is leaving, someone catches Johnny by the door — Max Modell, Peter’s old boss. There’s a curious look on his face as they exchange pleasantries. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says. “But were you ever Peter’s roommate…?”

Johnny covers his mouth but fails to smother a laugh. “Oh, right,” he says. “That was around the time he was working at Horizon, wasn’t it?”

“I thought you seemed familiar,” says Max. “Aside from the usual reasons, I mean. Peter used to talk about you a lot.”

Johnny’s eyebrows shoot up. “That so?” he asks, watching Peter from the corner of his eye; he’s talking to Max’s husband, Hector, the two of them laughing about something. When he catches Johnny looking, Peter tilts his head. “Nothing but bad things, I’m sure,” Johnny says, only half-joking.

Max chuckles just in time for Hector to come around, linking their arms. “You’d be surprised,” he says, smiling.

Later, when they’re doing the dishes, Johnny asks, “What’s this about you talking about me with your old coworkers, huh?” as he passes a plate over to Peter.

Peter snorts, jostling Johnny with his elbow playfully. “I had to rant to someone about how you were driving me up the wall,” he says.

Johnny sniffs. “I was a great roommate, thank you very much,” he says, screwing the tap shut. “Who makes you breakfast now, huh?”

“My favorite bagel shop, that’s who,” Peter says, whacking Johnny with a dish towel. “And it doesn’t throw crazy parties in my apartment. Or open weird portals in my closet.”

Johnny sticks his tongue out and makes to leave. Peter laughs and spins him around by the hip, crowding him against the counter.

“I kinda miss it, though,” Peter admits, his hand still hot where it’s wrapped around Johnny’s waist. “I never check the weather app, and nobody’s around to remind me to bring an umbrella.”

Johnny laughs and shakes his head. “You’re a billionaire now! You don’t need me anymore,” he says, slowly winding his arms around Peter’s neck. He closes his eyes. “You can buy as many umbrellas as you want.”

A few weeks later, Avengers business takes Johnny to Tokyo, which is also coincidentally where regular business takes Peter — he texts Johnny after seeing him chucking fireballs at ninjas on the news. Need a date, he says. You free after this?

So here Johnny is now, sitting in Peter’s hotel room after ditching his team (and staunchly ignoring Quicksilver’s judgmental gaze). Peter had gotten him a suit at the last minute — it’s navy and well-fitted, but he had to borrow one of Peter’s ties. It clashes a little, but what can you do?

He fiddles with his cuffs as he watches Peter pace around the balcony through the glass sliding doors. His phone is wedged between his ear and his shoulder as he fixes his own tie, mouth running a mile a minute as he talks to Anna Maria. Something she says makes him throw his head back and laugh; the setting sun in the horizon lights up his face, every bit handsome despite the tired lines under his eyes. Johnny twists his fingers into the pristine sheets and looks away.

After, Peter tucks his phone back into his pocket and steps inside, chilly evening air hot on his heels. He flashes Johnny a smile before stepping into the bathroom, but there’s something melancholic about him all of a sudden, his good humor abruptly gone.

Johnny follows him inside and finds Peter hunched over the sink, splashing cold water on his face. His eyes are hard when he looks himself in the mirror, but they soften when he sees Johnny leaning against the doorway through the reflection.

“You alright?” Johnny asks, folding his arms over his chest.

“I’m fine,” Peter lies. “Just — tired.” He scrubs a hand towel over his face. “Anna Maria says hi. And to put some Webware on you. Advertising or something.”

The mention of Anna Maria makes Johnny tilt his head, the reason behind Peter’s weird mood suddenly clicking. “I would have known,” he says after a moment.

Peter pauses. “What?”

“Otto,” Johnny says simply, and for Peter’s sake he pretends not to see the way the name makes him flinch. “I would have known. I should have been there for you.”

He remembers — hearing about it from Iron Man, of all people. Filling a USB stick with all the movies and music Peter had missed, because he knew what it was like playing catch up after a prolonged stint with death. Thinking, I would have known. I should have been there. Sometimes he thinks they’re still playing catch up. Both of them. It’s what the movie nights are for. That’s what Johnny thinks, anyway.

Peter shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s done.” His smile goes a little shaky as he hangs the towel back up. “Hey, I have something for you.”

“Is it a puppy?” Johnny asks, trailing after Peter, who rolls his eyes.

“Nah, that’s you.”

“If I was an animal, I wouldn’t be a dog!” Johnny protests, hopping back onto the bed. “I’d be something unique and majestic, like — I don’t know — ”

“A puppy,” Peter says flatly. He moves to sit next to Johnny and passes him a small velvet box. Johnny bites down a tactless joke about getting on one knee first; it gets lodged somewhere in his throat. “Here. Fetch.”

Inside are another set of cufflinks. One’s shaped like a spider, the other a web studded with gemstones that look like dewdrops.

Johnny’s mouth goes dry. “You don’t even own cufflinks yourself.”

Peter shrugs. “Yeah, but you’re weirdly insistent on them,” he says. “Let me help you put them on.”

So Johnny sits there and lets Peter slip them into his cuffs, his fingers absently brushing up against Johnny’s wrist, quick and careless. Meaningless. The light catches, making the silver edge of the spider glint. Peter could have marked him some other way — pushed him up against the headboard and put a bullseye-shaped hickey onto his throat, webbed his hands together and left angry red indents on his arms, anything — and it would have probably felt less scandalous.

Peter snaps the last set in place and pulls away, smiling up at Johnny obliviously. “You ready to go?” he asks, eyes flicking to the clock. “We have thirty minutes.”

You’d be surprised, Max said.

Yeah, Peter does have a way of doing that, doesn’t he?

The Red Skull worms his way into Johnny’s brain a few weeks later. That’s when Peter really surprises him.

Afterwards, the Unity Squad gets the weekend off. Johnny spends it watching a spider crawl its way across the cobweb-ridden ceiling of his favorite bar. He lifts his glass to the light, and the last of his drink slides along the curve of it. The spider looks like a dark smudge on the other side.

A server drops a drink on his table. She says, “For you,” then nods towards a table by the window. The woman sitting there with a friend wiggles her fingers at him flirtatiously.

Johnny musters a smile. He lifts the glass up in her direction. She beams and does the same, but he doesn’t move from his seat. Maybe if things were different, he thinks, closing his eyes. If he could afford to buy her a drink back. If he hadn’t gone to the Statue of Liberty at Quicksilver’s request, expecting Peter; if the Skull hadn’t nearly made him kill Peter; if the Skull hadn’t nearly made him kill himself in front of Peter. If he had his family, if he didn’t have Peter, if —

He picks up the glass and takes a long swig. It’s a sweet drink, a little fruity, the rim coated in sugar, but it burns on the way down all the same. That’s what counts.

I think I’ll let Johnny Storm watch as he roasts you, the Skull had said through Johnny’s mouth. Peter had still been crouched on the ground, clutching his head after Synapse’s attack. Vulnerable.

But then everyone was vulnerable, all of the time, to Johnny — to a living, breathing, exploding star. He could have killed him, could have killed them all. He very nearly had.

He’d been relieved when the Skull made him pick up the broken shard of glass.

Spider-Man, you and the Torch were friends for a long time, the Skull had said. He knew too much. He’d seen too much in Johnny’s head. If I can’t make him watch as I kill you — perhaps you’ll enjoy watching as I kill him.

Johnny didn’t fight it when his hands moved of their own accord, the jagged piece of glass poised over his heart. If he died, that was one less threat to the city. If he died, things would be easier. If he died —

If he died, Peter wouldn’t be able to take it. He’d heard it in Peter’s voice, the sharp shout, high and tight, almost desperate. He’d seen it in the way Peter’s head twitched. Spider-sense.

And still he didn’t fight it.

Peter got to him first anyway — webbing on his hands, then every joint afterwards, enough to string him up. It didn’t hold him for long. He’d burned free eventually, dreaming of Reed and Sue, the children. Going up in flames. His flames.

The fight circled back to the wreck that was the Avengers Mansion. When his head cleared, seeing Spider-Man on the other end of his flames made his heart drop.

“Johnny.”

And then, after — Xavier’s brain, extracted from the Skull at last — Torch, I need you, Rogue had said. Meet me upstairs. The sight of her hovering amongst the golden clouds, the horizon stretched long beyond them. The way she clutched the box. The forlorn look on her face. Send Charles home, she’d said — and he had — the ashes, they’d scattered —

“Johnny?”

That’s all he’s good for now. The violence of it all.

Fusing Ultron to the deck of the ship, sealing his fate. If Hank was in there, then he’d burned in the sun with him. It’s not, Vision had promised… but it sounded so much like Hank. Don’t leave me. Wait. Please.

Going full nova on the Hulk at Cable’s command — now or never. Nothing can survive this. He was almost relieved when the Hulk had, against all odds, survived. And then he wasn’t when Banner came out of the whole ordeal in a body bag anyway.

“Johnny!”

When he blinks back to reality, he finds that his glass is empty and that there are three Peters standing in front of him.

“Oh, hi,” Johnny says, blinking hard. He reaches out and tries to touch Peter — one of them, anyway — but his hand phases right through.

Peter grabs it for him. When Johnny looks up again, all the different Peters have been superimposed into one. “Are you okay?” he asks, brows drawn tight with worry.

“I’m fine.” Johnny smiles. “What are you doing here?” He drags a chair out and motions towards it. “Hey, sit down.”

“Movie night,” Peter says simply. He doesn’t sit down. “You didn’t show up, so I went swinging early. Figured you’d be here.”

“Ah, shit,” Johnny says, rubbing his temple. “I lost track of time. I’m sorry.”

Peter leans his hip against the table. There’s a thoughtful look on his face. “I’m not used to being stood up.”

Johnny snorts. “Yeah, because you’re usually the one doing the standing up,” he mumbles. “How does it feel to be on the other side of things for once?”

“Hey now,” Peter says lightly, but his frown has deepened. “I’ve been showing up for you, haven’t I?”

Johnny props his cheek on his hand. “It’s your guilt thing,” he says wryly, idly tracing the rim of his empty glass. “You feel bad for me. You know I… don’t have anyone else.”

“No,” Peter says slowly. “It’s because I — ” He glances over his shoulder, looking hunted, but then Peter always looks hunted. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I told you, it’s not good for you to drink alone.”

Johnny presses the heel of his palm against his eye. “Then stay here and drink with me.”

Peter snorts. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I’ll be outside. Don’t keep me waiting.”

“Or what?” Johnny calls after him.

Peter shrugs with all the confidence of someone who could haul Johnny out kicking and screaming if need be. Johnny groans and puts his face flat on the table. He hears Peter conversing with the bartender — quiet, friendly — and then he feels it when the door opens and closes, the intermingling of the cold from the outside and the heat from the inside.

When he lifts his head again, it’s like Peter was never here. Maybe he hallucinated him. He looks up at the ceiling and finds that even the spider is gone, too.

After a moment, Johnny pushes himself up. The woman who’d bought him that drink — also gone. He steps up to the bar and tries to pay for his bill, only to find that Peter has already done so for him. Johnny hisses under his breath and staggers outside, ready to give Peter an earful, but then he finds Peter sitting on the sidewalk under the golden light of a lamppost in just a short-sleeved shirt, trying to seem unaffected by the cold, and the fight leaves his body at once. He sighs and puts a hand on top of Peter’s head, using his powers to warm him up from the top-down. Peter acts like this, too, doesn’t affect him, but Johnny has known him too long not to catch the way he melts into it.

“I was going to yell at you for paying off my tab,” says Johnny.

“Well then,” says Peter, eyes fluttering shut. “Let’s hear it.”

Johnny sighs. “I can take care of myself just fine.”

Peter takes Johnny’s hand. “Maybe I need this,” he says, getting up. “Ever thought about that?”

“No,” Johnny says honestly.

Peter still hasn’t let go of his hand. They’re standing on the sidewalk together now, spotlit by the lamppost overhead, and they’re sort of holding hands like a couple would. The yellow light makes Peter’s eyes look less nebulous than they usually do. He slides his hand up so that they’re not holding hands anymore; now he’s clutching Johnny’s wrist like he thinks Johnny might run away, but he knows full well Johnny has nowhere else to go, so Johnny has no idea what Peter is so worried about.

Peter breaks the silence by turning around and hauling Johnny out of the light and into the nearest alleyway. Johnny has a brief but vivid fantasy of Peter pushing him up against the wall and shoving a hand down his pants, quick and dirty. He’s drunk enough that he wouldn’t mind. If anything, he thinks it’s what he needs tonight.

But Peter only lets go of him and turns away to fiddle with his watch. The spider-suit melts over his body. When he turns to look at Johnny again, it’s through the blank white lenses of the mask.

“Let’s go,” says Peter, putting a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Burn everything out of your system for me, will you?”

For me. Johnny closes his eyes. “Alright.”

Johnny lets Peter take off swinging first. He leans against the wall and watches until Spider-Man is nothing but a red speck in the distance. Then he flames on and takes off after him. It takes less than a minute to catch up — though it would have probably taken a little longer if not for Peter deliberately slowing his swings, looking over his shoulder just to make sure that Johnny’s following.

He lets Peter lead him around. They loop around buildings and billboards and back again, taking the scenic route. When they finally make it to the Baxter Building, Peter slips inside first. He makes to grab Johnny’s hand before he’s flamed off, and Johnny recoils from the window with enough force to push him an arm’s length away.

Peter blinks up at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t do that,” Johnny hisses, shoulders raised. His voice crackles sharp and angry through the flames. “I could have burned you.”

Peter tilts his head. “You wouldn’t have.”

Johnny’s mad enough that he nearly flies off, but he sighs and slips inside, snuffing his flames so fast that it nearly throws his balance. “I almost did,” he says. “I could have killed you.”

It takes Peter a moment to realize that Johnny is talking about the Skull. “That wasn’t you, Johnny,” he says quickly. “And you nearly got killed, too. None of that was on you.”

“Maybe not,” Johnny agrees. He starts to pace, restless, gnawing at his thumbnail. “But when I left Ultron to die while he begged for his life with Hank’s voice? That was all me. I went full nova on Banner. Even with Xavier’s brain, I… and I couldn’t even help save Cable’s because I was trying to set you on fire — ”

Peter grabs him by the shoulders. “You can’t think like that.”

Johnny shakes his head and wrenches himself out of Peter’s grip. “You keep a loaded gun around,” he starts shakily, “and no matter how careful you are, sooner or later it’s gonna go off.” He inhales sharply, eyes watering; he has to press his hands to his eyes to staunch the tears. “And someone will get hurt. It’s only a matter of time.”

Peter gets a hold of Johnny again, this time around the arms. He spins him around so Johnny has to look at him, at the worried set of his brows and the sad twist of his mouth. “You can’t talk about yourself like that, either,” he says softly.

“But it’s what I am,” Johnny says, turning away so he doesn’t have to see the way Peter’s face falls. “With my family, I could be something else, but… there’s just no hiding it anymore, Peter.”

Peter sighs, then wrestles Johnny over to the couch. “Come here already,” he says, drawing Johnny up into his arms. “You know I suck at comforting people.”

“Sorry,” Johnny mumbles into Peter’s shoulder. It feels lackluster, especially when he has a thousand things to apologize for, but it’s all he can seem to muster. Every emotion has been drained out of him, like the Skull had taken them with him when he vacated Johnny’s mind.

Peter drags a hand through Johnny’s hair. “The only person you’ve hurt is yourself, Johnny,” he says. “You do realize that, right?”

Johnny shrugs. He tries to roll out of Peter’s grip, but Peter only tightens the hug.

“Stop that,” Peter admonishes lightly, knocking their foreheads together. “You’re scaring me. You’ve been scaring me. My spider-sense went off for you, did you know that? You picked up that shard of glass and I just…”

“I saw,” Johnny says miserably. “You got that twitch.”

“It usually only goes off if I’m in danger,” Peter says, voice distant now, like he’s musing to himself. His hand moves to Johnny’s back, rubbing light circles. “Then that happened, and — danger to you, danger to me, apparently. That means something.”

Well, what does it mean? Johnny wants to ask, except he also doesn’t, because then Peter would have to answer. He swipes at his eyes again (unnecessarily, since he hasn’t actually been crying) and pulls away, ignoring the pained look Peter gets when he does.

“Well, it’s done,” Johnny says, controlling his breathing. He flashes Peter a wavering smile. “I just… need to be more careful now.”

Peter bites his bottom lip. Then he smiles back, tentative. “Sure,” he says. “You’re right. It’s — It’s done.”

Johnny disappears into the bathroom. When he emerges again, the TV is on and Peter is fiddling with the remote. Only now does Johnny notice the pizza box on the table. He vaults over the sofa to crack it open and finds that the pizza inside is untouched, now congealing. Peter must have bought it earlier — for the movie night Johnny had forgotten to show up to.

Johnny chews on the inside of his cheek, eyes flicking to the clock. They have time. “Put something on,” he says to Peter, nodding at the TV. “And I’ll heat this up.”

That actually gets Peter to crack a smile. “You’re not going to complain about the anchovies?”

“Oh, I was just going to burn them off,” Johnny says nonchalantly, then finds it in himself to laugh when Peter elbows him.

They don’t even make it halfway through the movie before it’s abandoned in favor of making out on Peter’s admittedly comfortable couch. At some point Peter’s arm had slung itself over the back of the sofa, and Johnny had turned to make a remark, and their faces had been closer than he thought they would be — it was just a matter of gravity from there.

“We shouldn’t,” Peter gasps out when Johnny’s hand starts traveling south. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

Johnny presses the heel of his palm against the obvious tent on Peter’s pants. He flutters his eyelashes a little. “Who’s taking advantage of who?”

Peter sits up on his elbows, tilting his head in consideration. His hair is mussed, the shape of Johnny’s fingers still visible in it, and his lips are swollen. “What do you need?” he asks, strangely serious.

What a funny question. “I think you know,” Johnny says lightly, slipping one finger under Peter’s belt.

“Okay,” Peter says as he sits up, idly licking his lips as he does so. “Okay. Whatever you… okay.”

He puts Johnny on the floor, then on his knees. Johnny moves his hands behind his back automatically. He doesn’t mean to think about Medusa, but he does — the way she would always wrap Johnny in her hair whenever they kissed, or whenever she put him to bed, like she knew it was the only thing she could do to keep him from falling apart. Peter seems to understand just the same, because without Johnny having to ask, he flips his wrist over and binds Johnny’s hands that way, locking them together with a single shot of webbing. A sad look flits across his face, however briefly. He must be thinking about the Skull again, about the way he’d tied Johnny up to keep him from driving that shard of glass through his heart.

But Peter says nothing as he draws his cock out of his pants, and he says nothing when he gets one hand behind Johnny’s neck to guide him forward, and he says nothing when Johnny opens his mouth. He only speaks when Johnny takes him to the root for the first time, a quiet fuck that has him tightening his fingers around Johnny’s hair.

It’s not like Johnny can talk back, not with Peter steadily fucking into his mouth. He just curls his tongue around the crown of Peter’s dick and focuses on tasting his skin, letting the hot slide of it against his palate erase every other thought from his head.

He closes his eyes without thinking. When he opens them again, he finds Peter staring at him. Carefully, with the hand not holding Johnny’s head aloft by the hair, he moves to touch Johnny’s throat, as if searching for proof of himself inside Johnny’s body. His breath hitches when he finds it, and then he pulls out just enough to let Johnny breathe.

“I’m close,” he murmurs.

Johnny only nods. “I’ll swallow,” he says, voice scratchy. “All of it.”

He slides back over Peter’s cock, gagging only a little when the head bruises up against the roof of his mouth. Peter mumbles an apology, but Johnny just shakes his head and screws his eyes shut as he hollows his cheeks.

When Peter comes, he does swallow, but some of it slips past his mouth when Peter bites off a moan and tries to pull out too quickly. Johnny tries to wipe his face with the back of his hand, but Peter bats it away and catches the stray drops with his fingers. Johnny turns his head just enough to suck Peter’s thumb into his mouth, trying to make good on his promise. He watches Peter’s throat bob as he swallows hard at the sight.

The inside of Johnny’s mouth tastes bitter. He runs his tongue over his teeth and decides that he likes it.

After a moment, Peter says, “Let me do you.” He hooks his hands under Johnny’s arms and tries to haul him back onto the couch, but Johnny just shakes his head and places his cheek on Peter’s knee, eyes fluttering shut. Thankfully, Peter seems to understand. He puts a hand on Johnny’s head, a comforting weight, while he pours solvent down his wrists. The webs dissolve, sloughing off his skin like wet glue, but Johnny doesn’t move his hands, and Peter doesn’t ask him to. Instead he runs his fingers through Johnny’s hair — over and over, up and down and back again.

At some point Johnny drifts off like that, not quite asleep but just about, and he finds himself distantly aware of Peter lifting him up and carrying him to the bedroom. He’s deposited on top of the mattress, and a sheet is drawn over his body, but Peter doesn’t join him. Johnny keeps his eyes closed and waits for the tell-tale sound of the window opening. It comes a minute later. He thinks he might feel the faint brush of lips over his forehead, but that part he might have dreamt.

For once, Johnny gets a full uninterrupted night of sleep. When he wakes up, the bed is empty. There’s no indent in the sheets or a spot of warmth on the other side of the mattress. Johnny almost assumes that Peter hasn’t come back from swinging yet, but he can hear the coffee machine working in the kitchen.

He finds his phone on the nightstand. There’s a work email from Steve and a few texts from Rogue waiting for him. Something about taking back the former Avengers Mansion? After he replies, he finds it in himself to get out of bed and quickly wash up in the bathroom. The bedroom door looks strangely daunting — or maybe it’s what lies beyond it that scares him. Still, Johnny twists the knob and steps outside.

Everything is quiet. Even the coffee machine has stopped humming. Johnny finds Peter asleep on the couch, still in his spider-suit. He must have dozed off while waiting for his coffee, exhausted from a long, sleepless night. Johnny stares for a moment, unsure of how to feel, then drapes a blanket over him and heads to the kitchen.

Peter stirs awake half an hour later. Johnny hears his groan from the couch, followed by the sound of joints popping as he stretches.

“Johnny?” Peter calls out, still groggy.

“In here,” Johnny says, tipping backwards so Peter can see him past the corner.

Peter’s sitting up on the couch now, and when he sees Johnny he stares back somewhat incredulously, like the sight of Johnny in his kitchen is something strange and wonderful. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make breakfast with clothes on before,” he says.

Johnny mimes whacking him over the head with a spatula. “See if I ever cook for you again,” he says. “Or get naked for you again, for that matter.”

Peter raises his hands in surrender. “My bad.”

He winds up hanging upside down over the toaster while Johnny scrapes scrambled eggs onto a plate. As soon as the toast is done, he flips back right side up and starts setting the table.

Johnny opens the fridge and fishes out a half-empty carton of orange juice. “So,” he says over his shoulder. “Busy night?”

Peter, already sequestered by the kitchen island, shrugs. “Not really,” he says around a mouthful of eggs.

Johnny scrunches up his nose in thought. “But you got back so late,” he says, moving to sit with him.

“I was just… thinking,” says Peter.

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Well,” says Peter. He takes a long sip of his coffee, and then he gets up and disappears into his room without another word.

Johnny blinks. Then he tips his chair back and shouts, “Are you going to finish that sentence or what?”

Peter bangs a fist on the bedroom door in response.

He re-emerges five minutes later. “Found it,” he says, then slides something flat over to Johnny.

Johnny stares. It’s a keycard. “What?”

“I heard that the Unity Squad is staying at the Avengers Mansion for the time being,” says Peter. “Except that place is a wreck right now, so I thought…” He makes a frustrated noise, then taps at the keycard. “This grants full access to this building. It’s also the only type of keycard that has access to this suite, specifically.”

“Oh,” says Johnny. “You’re asking me to…”

“I’m asking you to move in with me,” Peter confirms. When Johnny says nothing, he continues, “I bought this building for you. Well, for the Fantastic Four — but that’s you, and it’s only right that you live here. I mean… it doesn’t have to be here, specifically. There are plenty of guest rooms, if you’d like to refurbish one. I just thought — ”

“Pete,” Johnny cuts in, rubbing his temple. “What are you really asking me?”

“Move in,” Peter says. “Move in and be with me.”

Johnny sighs. “I thought we agreed — ”

“ — that we wouldn’t turn this into something it isn’t, I know,” Peter says, leaning into his space. “So I’m not. I’m turning this into exactly what it is. Johnny, are you seeing anyone else?”

“…No,” says Johnny.

“Neither am I,” Peter says. He motions with his hands — there you go. “So…”

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “You’re not?”

“No,” Peter says. He stares at Johnny like he’s crazy for even suggesting it. “What — did you really think — who would I even — ”

Johnny throws his hands up. “I don’t know, literally anyone.”

Instead of taking the bait and starting a fight, Peter inhales and closes his eyes. He’s trying; Johnny can see him trying. “Move in with me,” he says again.

“And then what?” asks Johnny, leaning back in his seat. “We wait for one of us to inevitably blow things up? Probably literally?”

Peter’s eyes spark, wry. “Aren’t you supposed to be an optimist?”

“I’m trying to be realistic for once in my life,” Johnny says, getting up. The chair scrapes loudly against the floor. “Everybody’s left me, Peter. You’re all I have. Try to understand.”

“I haven’t left,” Peter reminds him. “I’m trying to show you, right now, that I’m not going anywhere.”

Johnny starts to stack their plates. “It’s a nice thought,” he says, keeping his tone measured as he sweeps towards the sink. Peter trails after him with their cups in hand. After they dump their dishes in the sink, Johnny turns around and offers: “I… appreciate the gesture.”

Peter holds his gaze steady. “So accept it,” he says, pressing the keycard into Johnny’s hands.

Johnny tries to give it back. “I can’t,” he says, swallowing hard.

Peter shakes his head. “Only you believe that.”

“I have nothing to offer you,” Johnny says, eyes flickering down to his hand. Instead of the usual 4 that all of Baxter’s keycards used to have, this one has the P.I. logo on it.

Peter puts his own hand on top of Johnny’s. “Only you believe that, too.”

A long time ago, they’d both spent Christmas Eve flying around in the Fantasticar, searching for the Sandman — just to end up tied back-to-back in a water tower. Only one of them could breathe at a time. Johnny had expected Peter, with all his strength, to push him under. Instead, Peter had kept Johnny afloat, trusting him to understand the plan: dry off, burn the rope, get them both out alive. This isn’t too different. He understands what Peter’s been doing all this time; he’s been keeping Johnny afloat. Without Peter, he probably would have gone under a dozen times over by now.

“I know what you’re doing,” Johnny says at last. “This whole time, you’ve been trying to give me my life back.”

This is the last piece. Living in the only place he’s ever truly called home, but with none of things — the people — that made it so.

“Is that so bad?” asks Peter.

Johnny smiles at him helplessly. “My family is what made it worth living,” he says. “Without them… being a superhero, all of the parties and the glamor, even this building — it’s all meaningless.”

“I can’t do anything about Reed or Sue, or even the kids,” Peter says. “Ben… well, if we steal a spaceship, I think I’m strong enough to haul him back to Earth kicking and screaming, but you have more experience with hijacking rockets, so you’d have to help.”

Johnny laughs, but not like anything’s funny. Peter’s lips twitch, and he brushes the back of his hand along Johnny’s cheek, light and affectionate.

“I’m your family too,” Peter says. “You said that yourself. You gave that to me. So let me give you something back.” He tilts his head and adds, “Please?”

Before Johnny can say anything — not that he had anything good to say, nothing Peter would want to hear — Peter’s watch beeps loudly, and he takes a step back.

“I have to go,” says Peter, the red of his spider-suit giving way to the dull gray tones of his business suit. “Meetings,” he adds, rolling his eyes.

He goes off in search of his briefcase. Johnny catches him by the door.

“Wait,” he says.

Peter turns around, eyes wide and hopeful. A stray lock of hair falls over his forehead.

“I… it’s going to rain,” Johnny says, handing him an umbrella. He swallows around the lump in his throat. “Take this.”

“Thanks,” Peter says. The twist of his mouth is rueful as he turns to leave, half his profile touched by the fluorescent hallway lights. “Just think about what I said, okay?”

“…Okay,” Johnny says to the door as it shuts. He tucks the keycard into his pocket. When he turns his hand over, he finds that it’s left a mark on his palm: long and red, right over the spotty curve of his heartline.

Rogue finds Johnny while he’s in the middle of packing his things. “So where are you headed, anyway?” she asks. “Did your billionaire baby finally ask you to live in the building he bought for you or what?”

Johnny laughs and shakes his head. “I keep telling you — ugh, nevermind.”

Rogue holds her hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying,” she says. “It’s not fair that you get to go live in your ivory tower while the rest of us are squatting in the rubble of the Avengers Mansion.”

“Hey now, it’s mostly intact,” Johnny says mildly. He folds the last of his clothes into his bag; it’s not like he owns a lot of anything these days. “And it’s not squatting. The previous owners abandoned it and the city is letting us use it for a couple of weeks as a ‘thank you.’ You know, for saving thousands of lives?”

Rogue crosses the threshold to sit with him. “Right,” she says. “Well, don’t think this means you get to skip out on clean up duty.”

Johnny grins at her. “You’re so much stronger than I am and you still want me to do the heavy lifting?” he teases.

Rogue shrugs, but there’s a playful twinkle in her eye. “I need my walking incinerator,” she says. “Besides, Jericho thinks he can summon magical assistance to have the mansion rebuilt — with Wanda’s help, anyway.”

“Hm,” says Johnny, raising his eyebrows. “I take it you’re warming up to her presence, then?”

Rogue huffs. “We’ll have to see.”

Johnny gets up. “Well, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He takes off flying.

Pier 4 was one of the few assets of the Fantastic Four that Johnny’s managed to keep amidst the team’s — disappearance, disbandment, death? When he moved to New Attilan, Medusa helped him bring a few things out of storage (mostly Reed’s supercomputers so he could play video games), but after they broke up he promptly moved them back and hasn’t touched them since (the old family photos only serve to make him feel worse).

Johnny looks around and finds that everything is where he left it. Most of the items in storage are Reed’s gadgets, all covered in tarp and plastered with old sticky notes that say things like DON’T TOUCH and STAY AWAY, JOHNNY. The lights are dim, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. He reaches out and swipes some off with his thumb, then pulls away to cough.

When they lived here, Ben used to get up bright and early. He’d do his morning stretches on the pier in nothing but his robe and fuzzy slippers like he owned the Hudson River, only to get heckled by passing boaters. Sue liked to sit around in the living room while doing their taxes and paying their bills so she could keep an eye on Franklin while he played with his toy cars and superhero figurines. And one day Reed had filled the foyer with roses for Sue: what felt like hundreds of them, starbursts of red and blue and pink petals everywhere. Johnny would never forget the look on Sue’s face when she came home to sight of them. How speechless she was. The way she’d lit up when Reed had given her a single red rose — like none of the other flowers mattered except the one that had come straight from his hand.

The foyer is empty now.

Johnny lingers there for a moment before shutting the lights back off. He drags a piece of cloth off an old couch — one of the few pieces in the warehouse that doesn’t have a sticky note urging him to stay away — before moving to lie down on top of it. Like this, right here, he can pretend that he’s the same as everything else in the room: nothing but one of the Fantastic Four’s old relics, long since abandoned and forgotten by time.

Johnny spends the next week going through the motions. The Unity Squad rebuilds the Avengers Mansion, ruins their progress in a petty squabble with Graviton, and rebuilds again. He gets to work on cleaning Pier 4. There’s a whole lot of dusting involved. Peter doesn’t text or call or web an S.O.S. to the side of the Empire State Building, but Johnny does run into Spider-Man one day.

He’s out flying when he takes a detour to stop some petty street crime around the same time Spider-Man swoops in — he makes a terrible knock-knock joke, webs up the mugger, and leaves all within the span of five minutes.

Johnny catches up to him easily. “What’s the hurry?” he asks lightly.

Spider-Man fumbles his swing. “Torch!” he exclaims. “I mean — hey, Johnny. No hurry. Or, um, some hurry. Just… places to be, crimes to stop, you know the drill.”

Johnny tilts his head. He stays quiet long enough to make Spider-Man squirm, and then his face splits into a smile. “Hi, Hobie,” he says.

Hobie sighs as he resumes his swinging. “What gave me away?” he asks, and then, slightly more alarmed: “Is it — ”

“No, it’s not obvious,” Johnny says, easily keeping pace. Peter swings much faster. “Don’t worry. You just move differently, and you’re broader around here,” he says, gesturing around the shoulders. “Also? You’re funnier.”

Hobie laughs. “I’m going to tell him you said that.”

Johnny speeds up enough to overtake him. Unlike Peter, who would have probably dislocated his shoulder trying to keep up, Hobie hangs back.

“You do that!” Johnny calls out over his shoulder, lifting a hand to wave.

All in all, it’s not terrible. Most of the suffering in Johnny’s life stems from attachment, or rather the aftermath of attachment: what becomes of him when he is inevitably left behind. By his family. By his partners. By what few friends he has. He’s always taken his breakups poorly and their team breakups even worse. But for all that he likes the Unity Squad, Johnny has always known his time with the Avengers is limited — at first because he believed that the Fantastic Four would be back in business soon, now because he knows the Unity Squad is a disaster and that it’s a miracle they’ve stayed together this long. And if he pursues nothing with Peter, then he has nothing to worry about on that front, either. The only person you’ve hurt is yourself, Peter said. Well, better Johnny than anyone else. Soon enough Peter will move on from this flight of fancy and find someone well-adjusted and overall better suited for him than Johnny. Unlike Johnny, who has nothing real to offer beyond the surface flash of his powers, love has always come easy for him.

So he’s content to go on this way, and he does — until Ben calls.

Ben is already at the pizzeria when Johnny arrives, decked out in a hat and a matching trench coat. Just the sight of him — his rocky orange face lit up by the neon lights outside — makes Johnny so emotional that he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

He shoves them into his pockets. “Careful,” he says, with a lightness that he doesn’t feel. “It’s bikini season. That stuff will go straight to your hips.”

Instead of taking the bait, Ben gets up and gathers Johnny into his arms. Though Johnny will never admit it, Ben’s hugs are his favorite hugs; for all that he complains about how it feels like being hugged by a rock, he always feels safest in Ben’s arms. Like he’s safe from the world, sure — but also like the world is safe from him. He’s never had to worry about burning Ben.

“Hey, kid,” says Ben, resting his cheek against the side of Johnny’s head. “There you are.”

They catch up over pizza, except only Ben eats because Johnny is too nauseous to really think of food. They talk — about Johnny’s stint with the Inhumans, Ben’s time with the Guardians.

Reed showing up in Ben’s hotel room. Telling him to kill Doom. No way in hell.

“Victor’s running around like Iron Man and we got kicked out of our building,” Ben huffs. “It’s like we woke up in one of those crap alternate universes.”

Johnny shakes his head. He puts his palms flat on the table and pushes himself up to his feet. “Just be happy we’re not all talking animals.”

Ben looks at him then, really looks at him, his blue eyes sad. “Sorry I haven’t been around.”

“I’m not,” says Johnny. And isn’t that just the thing? He thought things would be better if Ben had stayed. Now he’s not so sure. “I think about them all the time. All of us. It’s hard to look at you — it just makes me think of them.”

“It ain’t fair.”

“You would think we’ve done enough good stuff in our lives to earn a little — ”

“Right?”

He turns away, unable to look Ben in the face any longer, not without thinking about how the booth isn’t full — about how Reed and Sue should be sitting together, pressed up against the glass, with Franklin and Val bickering about pizza toppings on the other side.

“I miss my family and I want to go home,” he decides. “Sorry.”

“Johnny!” Ben calls out, hurrying after him. “Don’t go.”

Don’t go. It’s a strange thing, being asked to stay. Doing the leaving for once. Instead of being vindictive, he just feels guilty.

“Call me,” Johnny says, which is more than Ben had spared him when he left. He flames on. “I — I gotta go.”

Ben shouts his name again, but he can barely hear it over the crackle of fire. He squeezes his eyes shut and resolves to fly around aimlessly for the rest of the night. It’s not like he can cry when he’s flamed on. Small mercies.

Down below, a child clutches her mother’s arm. “Look, mom,” she calls out, bouncing on her heels. “Make a wish!”

“Honey, that’s not a shooting star,” her mother says warmly, clasping her hand. “That’s the Human Torch.”

Johnny opens his eyes. Down below the mother and her daughter are walking down the block together, hand in hand, bickering happily amongst themselves. I miss my family and I want to go home. The worst part is, after saying something like that, there’s only one person he can think of.

And only one place he can go.

The Baxter Building’s lobby is powering down for the night when Johnny arrives. Peter’s secretary jumps at the sight of him staring at the statue, one hand over her heart. “Mr. Storm!”

He smiles at her tightly, twisting his hands. “Just Johnny is fine.”

She gives him a look that informs him that it is not, in fact, fine. “Mr. Parker is away,” she says apologetically. “But his flight should land in” — she checks her watch — “half an hour.”

“That’s alright,” Johnny says. “Thank you.”

He heads to the elevator. Behind him, the sound of her heels clicking echoes throughout the mostly-empty lobby. The keycard Peter gave him allows him to access the penthouse suite. As warned, it’s empty when he arrives. Peter’s clearly been gone for several days. No wonder Hobie’s been swinging around so much on his behalf, keeping Spider-Man’s enemies guessing. Since he has nothing better to do, Johnny starts wandering around, pausing only to pick up a couple of messes Peter left behind. A used mug left behind on the coffee table. Some clothes spilling out of the laundry bin. The things in his fridge that have gone bad.

After he’s fussed enough, Johnny goes to lie down on the couch. He turns on the TV just to fill the silence. When he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he’s falling asleep to the sound of people.

When Johnny wakes up again, it’s to the sound of the door opening. He sits up on his elbows with a groan, lifting a hand to rub at his eyes. It’s still dark outside. The shadows stretch out long and low into the room.

Peter freezes at sight of him. “Johnny?”

“Hey,” Johnny says, voice still hoarse with sleep.

Peter opens his mouth, then closes it. “What have you been watching?”

Johnny’s eyes dart to the TV. He squints. “No idea.”

Peter huffs a laugh at that, and then he looks away. Blue light from the screen limns the sharp edge of his jaw. His fingers busy themselves with tugging his tie loose. For a while, Johnny just stares at him and Peter pretends not to notice Johnny staring at him and they both say nothing.

“Is this the part where I Jerry Maguire you?” Johnny asks at last.

Peter drops his suitcase. “If this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen,” he quotes, and then he promptly ruins the moment by chucking his tie at Johnny’s face.

Johnny snorts and shoves it away. “You did not have me at hello.”

Peter shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it over the back of the couch. “Did I have you when I broke into your house for the first time?”

“It’s your house now,” Johnny says. “And I’m the one who broke in, so.”

Peter slings himself on top of the armrest. “It doesn’t have to be just my house.”

Johnny flashes the keycard at him, smile wry. “Yeah, well,” he says. “It didn’t exactly work out the last time we lived together. You were the one who hated it the most, in case you forgot.”

“You’d have more room to throw crazy parties here,” Peter says mildly. “There’s, like, a whole floor we’re not using right now, I’m pretty sure.”

Johnny smiles again, equally as wry. “Luckily for you, I’d have no one to invite.”

Peter reaches for the remote. “Just you and me, then. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

Johnny stretches out on the sofa, turning his head to watch as Peter starts idly flipping through the channels. “Guess not,” he says, shoving his socked foot at Peter’s thigh. “How was work?”

Peter’s lips twitch a little as he grabs Johnny’s ankle. “It was fine. Busy. I was in Shanghai most of the week.”

“I thought so,” Johnny says. “I saw Hobie.”

Peter snorts. “Yeah, he said. What’s this about him being funnier than me?”

“Truth hurts, Parker,” says Johnny, shrugging.

“Whatever.” Peter rolls his eyes and moves to sit properly. He drags Johnny’s foot with him and puts it on his lap. “So,” he says, watching Johnny from the corner of his eye. “What’s wrong?”

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

Peter rolls his eyes again. “Johnny…”

“Okay, okay,” Johnny says, scrambling to sit up. “I…” He looks around. Then he grabs the remote and shuts the TV off, plunging them into darkness. Suddenly it’s quiet. “I talked to Ben.”

“Ben,” Peter repeats, tone sharp with disbelief. “He’s back?”

“He’s working for S.H.I.E.L.D. or something,” Johnny says, rubbing his temples. Peter makes a sympathetic noise and starts rubbing circles around the knob of Johnny’s ankle. “He told me something about, like — apparently Reed showed up in his hotel room? And told him to kill Doom?”

Even in the dark, Johnny can see the way Peter makes a face. “What are you thinking? Skrull?”

“No,” Johnny says quickly. “Or — maybe. But when I was in the Negative Zone,” here Peter’s hand flexes around Johnny’s leg, “Annihilus… he showed me one of those other Reeds. From a different universe, you know? And he wasn’t like our Reed. He was… cold, I don’t know. So maybe it was something like that.”

Showed is a generous word. It was more like Annihilus had grabbed him by the hair and dragged Johnny kicking and screaming. That hadn’t been nearly as bad as seeing Reed again, only to realize it wasn’t Reed at all. Not the Reed that mattered to Johnny, anyway.

“Maybe,” Peter agrees. “What happened next?”

“Nothing,” Johnny says. “I… I had to go. I couldn’t be there any longer. It’s too hard to look at him, Pete. I can’t do it without thinking of what’s missing. So I told Ben that I miss my family and that I want to go home, except you’re my family — the only family I have left — and this — this is my home — ”

“Hey, hey,” Peter clucks, going for soothing right away. He sits up and gathers Johnny in his arms, pressing a kiss into his hair. “Of course I am. And of course it is. I told you, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny says miserably, pressing his face into the crook of Peter’s neck. “I really do have nothing to offer you.”

Peter shakes his head. “Shut up,” he says, squeezing the back of Johnny’s neck gently. “Just shut up, alright?”

“Never,” Johnny mutters. “Can we go to bed? I’m tired.”

Peter hooks a hand around his back and lifts him up in response. “That we can do,” he says. “Where have you been sleeping all this time, huh? Don’t tell me you were actually slumming it in the ruins of the mansion.”

Johnny shakes his head. “Pier 4.”

“Like that’s any better,” Peter huffs. “When’s the last time anyone cleaned that place? Are there rats?”

“I cleaned,” Johnny mumbles. “And I only saw one rat.”

“Jesus,” Peter says as he deposits Johnny onto the bed. “One rat,” he mutters as he climbs on top of him, like he’s trying to shield Johnny from something. “Do you hear yourself?”

Johnny finds it in himself to snicker a bit. “Ben said it’s like we’re in some kind of crap alternate universe.”

“Tell me about it,” Peter grumbles, but he cracks a smile when Johnny pops open the first few buttons of his dress shirt. “Well, it’s not all bad.”

“No,” Johnny agrees, smoothing a hand over Peter’s clavicle. “I guess not.”

This time when he looks at Peter and thinks, he’s going to kiss me, Peter actually does, tipping Johnny’s chin up with two fingers and sealing their mouths together, slow and sweet.

They’ve always communicated best without words. Back when they were dumb kids chucking webs and fireballs at each other, pulling their punches, trusting the other not to do any lasting damage. Back when Peter had gone under that Christmas in the water tower, believing that Johnny would know the plan even though they couldn’t speak. Back when Peter had revealed his secret identity to him with nothing but the itsy-bitsy spider to mime, and when Johnny had figured out what Peter had in mind right away. And now with this, too.

When Peter pulls away, he has a worried look on his face, and Johnny doesn’t understand why until he realizes that he’s been crying. As well as Johnny can cry, anyway — the tears beaded along his waterline keep fizzling off into sparks, making steam curl around his eyelashes. Before he can say anything, Peter brushes at Johnny’s cheek with his fingers, and Johnny grabs his wrist.

“Did I burn you?” he asks quickly, breath hitching.

Peter says, “No, of course not,” but Johnny turns his head and sucks Peter’s thumb into his mouth anyway, drawing heat away by licking over the faintly reddened skin.

“Better?” Johnny asks, turning Peter’s hand over.

“Fucking hell,” Peter says softly, drawing him into another kiss. “It’s like you want me dead.”

“Kind of,” Johnny mumbles against Peter’s lips. His hands are busy working at the rest of Peter’s buttons. “I want justice for sixteen year old me. You terrorized me like crazy.”

Peter grins as he slides a hand under Johnny’s shirt. “What, you didn’t like the web bat?”

Johnny sticks his tongue out at him. They get out of their clothes pretty quickly after that. Then Johnny sits up against the headboard and eyes Peter carefully. “How do you want me?”

Peter hauls him onto his lap. “We’re doing missionary with the lights off tonight,” he says.

Johnny laughs. “Yeah?” he asks, breath hitching when Peter’s index finger sinks into him. “Do I get to come?”

“It’s going to be boring, so — no,” Peter says, even as he twists his finger up against Johnny’s prostate.

Johnny hips jump up automatically. He bites his lip. “You promise?”

“You stop that,” Peter says, laughing. “I just said it’s going to be boring! Don’t make it a thing.”

“Sorry,” Johnny says, though he’s not sorry at all. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. Is this your idea of what regular couples get up to?”

Peter shrugs as he puts Johnny on his back. “Well, what do they get up to?”

“You think I know?” Johnny shoots back, but he spreads his legs for Peter anyway. That makes Peter laugh, so he smiles, drawing them closer together. “Come here,” he says, “and let’s find out.”

Peter gets a hand under Johnny’s knee, hiking his leg up higher around his waist. He pushes in carefully, breathing going choppy the way it always does when he’s really turned on, and once he’s fully sheathed he puts his forehead on Johnny’s chest for a moment.

“It’s been a while,” he mutters.

“Not so long,” Johnny says, petting at Peter’s hair, but the stretch burns more than usual — a little while, then. “You feel good. I missed you.”

Peter braces his hands on either side of Johnny’s head. “Yeah?” he asks, finally starting to move. His pupils are blown wide in the dark, his hands hot, every part of him seeking.

“Yeah,” Johnny breathes, throwing his head back at the feeling, the slow building of heat inside of him. Really good, he doesn’t say, because Peter’s got a big enough head as is.

They stop talking for once. The pace Peter sets is deep and bruising, almost unhurried. He licks at the faint residue of tear tracks on Johnny’s cheekbone, which makes him giggle and turn his face away, ticklish. The scent of sweat and burning fuel slowly unfolds in the room. Peter grips Johnny’s waist tighter and starts fucking him faster, panting open-mouthed against the side of his neck.

“Did you know,” Peter starts, fingers moving to dig into the side of Johnny’s thigh, “that you always leave my bedsheets smelling like kerosene, and it’s been driving me fucking insane.”

Johnny idly traces the bead of sweat carving its way down Peter’s neck with his finger. “Sorry,” he says. “I know it’s hard to wash out.”

“No, it’s — I can’t swing past gas stations anymore,” Peter says, screwing his eyes shut. “You’ve, fuck, conditioned me or something, I don’t know.”

That makes Johnny laugh, tired but delighted. “You’re so weird,” he says, leaning up to kiss Peter again.

Peter smooths a hand over Johnny’s stomach, and Johnny grabs it, dragging it further up. “Right here,” he murmurs against the corner of Peter’s mouth. “I can feel you right here.”

“Jesus,” Peter groans. “You’re going to kill me.”

“I’m going to come,” Johnny says, moving Peter’s hand down again. “You said I can’t.”

“I did say that, didn’t I,” Peter agrees, and so he gets a hand around Johnny’s cock and squeezes, just shy of painful. When Johnny throws his head back and groans, he lets go and says, “Later, okay? After me.”

Johnny bites the inside of his cheek and nods before flinging his arms around Peter’s neck. He surges up to kiss him again, and Peter’s hand finds the small of his back, trapping his fingers under the arch. When Johnny closes his eyes, he can feel their heat signatures melding, like their bodies are melting into each other. He opens them again just in time to catch the way Peter’s face twists when he comes.

The way Peter shoves in on the last thrust is hard enough to jar them both. Johnny knows what it feels like to be split in half, and the feeling isn’t dissimilar, just sweeter. Peter’s mouth slips, moving to kiss its way down Johnny’s jaw and neck and collarbone as he rides out his orgasm.

Peter plants one last kiss on Johnny’s shoulder before pulling out. “So good to me,” he murmurs, brushing a lock of golden hair off Johnny’s forehead. “Okay, your turn.”

Before Johnny can say or do anything, Peter gets his hands on Johnny’s hips and gets his mouth on him. All Johnny can do is gasp, hands flying to clutch at Peter’s hair. He’s so worked up that the first slide of Peter’s tongue over the crown of his cock is nearly enough to set him off.

“I’m not going to last,” says Johnny, yanking lightly at a few hairs curling around Peter’s neck.

Peter raises his eyebrows in response, a silent that’s the point, and he probably would have rolled his eyes if he didn’t have Johnny’s dick in his mouth. Johnny laughs a little and thumbs at Peter’s cheek, enjoying the way he can’t seem to decide whether to lean into the touch or shiver. He tugs at Peter’s hair again, more insistent this time, trying to pull him off, but Peter’s eyelashes flutter as he levels Johnny with a look, his eyes startlingly dark, his pupils shot through with desire and blown wide. It’s that look that gets Johnny to come into his mouth, his cock pulsing against the soft swell of Peter’s tongue.

Johnny curses and scrambles to grab some tissues from the nightstand. He unfurls his hand and says, “C’mon, spit it here,” but Peter just shakes his head, grinning as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, his throat bobbing as he swallows.

“Well,” Johnny huffs, “just don’t complain.” He hooks a finger behind Peter’s teeth and pries his mouth open, but it’s empty. Peter sticks his tongue out at him.

“You want a taste?” he asks, already crawling back on top of Johnny.

“Ugh, gross,” Johnny says, but he parts his lips when Peter kisses him anyway, leaning up into the bittersweet edge of it. He can feel some of Peter’s come still wet against the inside of his thigh, but he can’t bring himself to move, too caught up in the sore satedness of the afterglow.

Peter rolls over and drags Johnny with him, fitting Johnny’s back to his front like puzzle pieces. “Stay,” he says, burying his face somewhere between Johnny’s shoulderblades.

Johnny tries to twist around to look at him, but Peter locks his arms firmly around his middle, and Peter isn’t someone who can be moved unless he wants to be moved. “I’m going to need to get up at some point,” he says reasonably. “To piss. And to get your come out of me.”

“You know what I mean,” Peter says, and Johnny swears he can hear him rolling his eyes. “Also, cut it out. Deflecting is my thing.”

Johnny blinks. “I was going to make a joke about how you can’t afford to patent it, but then I remembered you actually can now.” Peter lets out an annoyed sound and bites at his nape, so Johnny laughs and squirms in his grip. “Usually I’m the one who has to ask people to stay. It feels weird being on the other side of it.”

“Not just tonight,” Peter says, as if Johnny didn’t understand that. “Just — stay.”

Johnny finally softens. “Yes, Webhead,” he says. “I’m going to stay. Where the hell would I go?”

“I don’t know,” Peter mutters, sounding miserable. “Somewhere I can’t follow. Somewhere terrible, probably.”

Johnny looks down at their intertwined fingers. “I’m sorry.”

Peter finally loosens his hold enough that Johnny can turn around. When he does, he finds Peter looking at him, gaze steady. “Why is there always something you have to be sorry about?”

It stings a little, but the fact that Peter remembered something Johnny said while half-asleep and delirious makes his lips twitch. “I don’t know,” he says, bringing Peter’s hand up to his mouth so he can kiss his fingertips. “Because I’m a fucking mess?”

Peter laughs. “Well, so am I,” he says. “It’s like we were made for each other.”

“Look at us,” Johnny says wryly, still playing with Peter’s fingers.

Peter gets his hands around Johnny’s waist. “Look at you,” he shoots back, staring at Johnny like he’s really, truly something worth looking at.

Johnny rolls his eyes fondly. “There’s nothing to see,” he says, and for once he doesn’t sound bitter about it.

Peter makes a soft noise. “Only you believe that,” he says, drawing Johnny back into the safe circle of his arms, closer this time.

Johnny tucks his face into the crook of Peter’s neck and just breathes, ignoring the way his eyes have gone wet. The tight fist curled around Johnny’s heart slowly unfurls its fingers, giving it room to beat again. He drifts off to the feeling of Peter’s hand resting on the small of his back, holding him afloat.

Three days later, Johnny has — for the most part — fully moved back into the Baxter Building. Peter had gone with him to Pier 4 to grab a couple of things. They’d found an old photo album that Johnny hasn’t had the courage to open, but he has obsessively wiped it clean of dust. It’s under the bed for now.

There’s not enough room in Peter’s closet for all of Johnny’s clothes, so while Peter is at work, Johnny finds himself sprawled out on the floor of their now-shared bedroom, putting a new dresser together.

“Are you sure you can do it yourself?” Peter had teased before he left, and Johnny had chucked a packet of bolts at him, which Peter had caught effortlessly out of the air.

Johnny gets it done himself, because despite what Peter might think, he is literate and capable of reading instructions. He’s in the middle of screwing the knobs in place when his phone starts ringing.

He dusts his hands off and goes searching for his phone. It takes a few minutes, because it somehow wound up wedged between the mattress and the headboard, probably one of the casualties of today’s disastrous attempt at morning sex (Johnny’s alarm had gone off around the same time Harry started blowing up Peter’s phone).

Johnny’s smile freezes on his face when he finds that Ben had left him a voicemail. He paces around the room a bit, but eventually he gives in and sits on the floor, back pressed to the bed.

He lets the message play.

“Hey, kid. Can’t believe you told me to call ya and left me to the mercies of your voicemail anyway… Eh, I suppose I deserve it, all things considered. What I wanted to tell ya is that I’m in Amsterdam right now. Doom set me up in a swanky vacation home, believe it or not. Long story. It’s got plenty of rooms, though. A nice view. Some expensive wine. I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is that not having anyone to share it with is a crying shame. So… Whaddya say, Matchstick? You could ask Spidey to take ya in his private jet. Yeah, I heard about you two. What a revoltin’ development. You’ll have to tell me how it happened later. Anyway, I miss Stretch and Suzie-Q — of course I do — but Johnny, we’re still family. You gotta know that. Call me back, alright?”

When Peter comes swinging in through the window, he finds Johnny sitting on the floor with his phone in his hands, staring at the wall in deep thought.

He perches on the sill. “What’s up, hot stuff?”

Johnny turns just in time to watch Peter pull off the mask. His eyes drop to the bouquet in Peter’s hands, the stems still wet and dripping a puddle onto the floor. He drags his eyes back to Peter’s face, which looks distinctly abashed, and raises his eyebrows.

“Figured it’s too soon for weddings or babies, but I thought — flowers, I can do,” he says. “Catch.”

Peter chucks the bouquet, and Johnny fumbles to catch it. He turns it over and finds that they’re roses. Red ones. Suddenly he thinks of that day again: Reed, Sue, and a foyer filled with flowers. Johnny off to the side, thinking, I wonder if anyone’s ever going to love me like that. He’s in a good enough mood that the memory is more of a pleasant ache than a knife to the heart. When he looks up, he sees Peter still dutifully sitting on the windowsill, watching him like he’s half-expecting Johnny to set the flowers on fire.

Johnny grins and gets up. He takes Peter by the hand and leads him to the bed, tugging until he sits. “Thank you,” he says. “They’re really pretty. Do you even own a vase?”

“Who do you think I am?” Peter asks, running a hand through his hair. He snorts. “No, of course I don’t own a vase.”

Johnny huffs a laugh. “Thought so.” He plucks one of the roses out of the bunch and hands it over to Peter. “Here.”

Peter softens a little and accepts it. For a moment he just fiddles with it, snapping a thorn out of the stem. Then he says, “Are you okay? You looked a bit — dare I say it — contemplative for a moment there.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Go on, make the joke I know you’re dying to make.”

Peter jostles Johnny’s shoulder playfully. “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Ugh,” Johnny says, but he’s smiling.

“So?” Peter prompts, taking Johnny’s hand. He brushes a thumb along the row of his knuckles. “What do you need?”

Johnny puts the flowers on his lap. He takes a deep breath and turns to face Peter, who’s looking at him with wide, inquisitive eyes.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Johnny says.

Johnny jostles awake to slight turbulence. He lifts his head from Peter’s shoulder with a groan, then lifts a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. Next to him, Peter is playing with Johnny’s fingers with one hand and typing on his laptop with the other, which seems wildly impractical.

Johnny rubs his eyes. “Have I told you that it’s super weird and ridiculous that you have a private jet?”

“Only twenty-one times in the past six hours,” Peter says dryly. “And so help me if the next words that come out of your mouth are — ”

“Are we there yet?” Johnny asks, grinning.

Peter throws his head back and groans. “I’m seriously considering fulfilling my lifelong fantasy of strangling you.”

“Ooh, kinky,” Johnny says, waggling his eyebrows. “We haven’t tried that yet.” He gasps and grabs Peter’s arm. “Is that why you own a private jet? For mile high club activities?”

Peter bursts out laughing. “Supervillain,” he says, rubbing his eyebrow. “You’re a supervillain. Or you’re going to turn me into one. I’m not sure which yet.”

Johnny yawns. “You think I can get you to break out the old black suit? Is it programmed into your fancy shifting costume?”

Peter puts a hand on Johnny’s head and guides it back to his shoulder. “Please go back to sleep,” he begs, but Johnny can hear him smiling.

Johnny does end up going back to sleep. When he wakes up again, the world outside is bright and golden, every cloud in the sky gilded by honey-yellow light. Peter is staring out the window, his face unreadable but breathtakingly beautiful.

Naturally Johnny has to poke his cheek. “What’s with the face?”

He feels Peter’s muscles shift as he smiles. “I was just thinking,” he says, curling a hand around Johnny’s wrist.

Johnny blinks up at him. “About what?”

This time it’s Peter who puts his head on Johnny’s shoulder. “Are we getting a happy ending?”

His tone is airy, the way it always gets when Peter is joking, but the words give Johnny pause. He thinks about it for a moment, really thinks about it. What’s changed? Reed and Sue and the kids are all gone. He has no idea when they’ll be back, or if they’re even alive — but maybe Cable was right. Maybe Johnny just needs to keep faith. Peter had done so from the start. Until the day the FF are finally back. And that day will come, Johnny. Besides, he’s about to see Ben again, and when this is all over, he has somewhere to go — someone to come home to.

Johnny smiles at Peter tentatively. “Something like that,” he replies, slowly lacing their fingers together.

Peter squeezes his hand. Johnny squeezes back. He doesn’t let go.

The plane begins its descent.