Archive of Our Own

“You’re holding a fish,” Johnny said, staring.

It was three months after they’d first kissed, hot and hungry in the cramped kitchen of Peter’s apartment, Peter’s leg shoved between Johnny’s thighs and Johnny’s apron – I Don’t Cook on Days That End in Y – lying ripped on the floor.

Let it not be said, Johnny had thought, fingers twisted in Peter’s thick brown hair, that a little strip tease never got anyone what they wanted.

Three months since their first kiss. Three months, two weeks, and five days since Johnny’s return from the dead. He preferred not to think about the latter. It seemed to matter less, now that there was Peter, standing in the living room of Johnny’s suite in the Baxter Building. He was wearing half his suit, and that half was splattered with some kind of white powder. He was, in fact, holding a fish. It was very large and it looked like something Ben had tried to hang on the dining room wall once, except that one sang when you pushed a button and this one was just dead and damp.

Peter looked down at the fish and said, “Yep.”

Johnny thought, briefly, about asking why, then decided he didn’t really care.

“Freezer,” he said, pointing first to the fish, then to Peter. “Shower. You know we’ve got that thing, right?”

Peter groaned.

“I’m going to fall asleep,” he said, heading towards the kitchen.

“You’re the one who wanted to go!” Johnny said. “I said, ugh, boring science gala, and you grabbed the invitation out of my hand!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter said, wandering back, thankfully fish-less. “We all make mistakes.”

“You’d better have stuck that thing in plastic wrap or something,” Johnny shouted at him, knowing full well that he hadn’t.

Peter shrugged as he headed towards the bathroom, stripping out of the rest of his suit as he went. Johnny followed partly to enjoy the show and partly to keep yelling at him.

“We’re going to be late!” he said, shoving Peter into the shower. “You’re making us late because you’re covered in – do I want to know what this is?”

“Flour,” Peter said, grunting as the hot spray hit him. “Some cinnamon, a little nutmeg.”

“Did you fight a bakery?” Johnny asked. Peter shrugged, tilting his face up into the spray.

“Union Square,” he said, reaching for the soap. “Farmers market. Did you know flour can be organic? And that it costs a lot and people will get mad about that when you throw the Shocker into it?”

Even belligerent and covered in half the ingredients of a cake, Peter was unfairly gorgeous, all long limbs and tight muscle. Somehow, in spite of the mask, he’d gotten flour on his nose. Johnny sighed, gave up the pretense that they were ever going to make it to the gala on time tonight, and stripped out of his own clothes.

“You just can’t let the poor man shop, can you,” he said, sliding into the shower and pushing Peter back against the wall. He took the soap from him. “No, you’ve got to throw him into a market stall. What did he ever do to you?”

“Uh, threw me through the Whole Foods window? Into a whole display of kombucha, so I’m never gonna get the smell out of my spandex? Tried to electrocute me to death?” Peter said, wrapping one wet hand around the back of Johnny’s neck and tugging him in for a kiss. “Also? Robbing. Not shopping. Nice fish stall. Tried to make off with a whole sturgeon. Told him by the time I was done with him, he’d need a good surgeon instead.”

Johnny ignored the terrible joke. Steam rose around them in curls. “And now we get to the fish.”

“Now we get to the fish,” Peter confirmed.

“As I knew we would,” Johnny said, scrubbing cinnamon from Peter’s skin. “Masked menace steals down-on-his-luck villain’s fish – when will he ever be stopped?”

“That fish was a gift!” Peter said, offended. “The fish stall people gave it to me as thanks!”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny said, snickering. He skated one soap-slick hand down over Peter’s washboard abs. Peter hummed and placed his hand over Johnny’s, none too subtly directing it lower. “What are we going to do with a whole fish?”

“Little old lady tells me to take a fish, I’m gonna take the fish,” he said. “Hey, listen.”

“Nope, no listening,” Johnny said, kissing him. “We’re already late, I’m about to make us later – we don’t have time for listening.”

“So I was thinking,” Peter said, predictably ignoring him in between kisses. His eyes were closed. Johnny couldn’t stop looking at him, the flush high in his cheeks, the dark damp sweep of his eyelashes, the slightly crooked tilt of his nose. It was still unbelievable, that Johnny got to see him like this. “After we get back tonight, let’s put the fish in Ben’s bed.”

That brought Johnny up short and then he was shoving Peter back against the shower wall, kissing him fiercely, hands everywhere. Peter made a pleased noise, fingers in Johnny’s wet hair. The steam curled around them, hot and sticky.

“I hate that you thought of that before me,” Johnny told him, breathless with how much he loved him.

Johnny realized his birthday was coming up like a bucket of ice down his back when Sue idly asked him what his plans for it were, fixing her earrings as they stepped into the elevator.

“It’s just that I haven’t heard anything, and normally this time of the year I have C-List celebrities and their agents flooding the lines, begging for invitations,” she said, rolling her eyes. She caught sight of his reflection in the elevator doors. “Johnny? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He shook his head. How could he tell his sister, yeah, and you’re looking at him?

First birthday out of the Negative Zone. Thirty, on this side of the gate.

But he’d had a thirtieth birthday already, pinned beneath four hundred pounds of alien gladiator, and a thirty-first besides, skewered through on Kal Blackbane’s sword.

Die gloriously, brother, made for one hell of a sorry happy birthday song. He didn’t know what that made today. The years didn’t add up quite right, the Negative Zone’s passage of time throwing everything off.

He breathed out, slow. It was over. It was done.

“I don’t know, Sue,” he said, studying his own reflection in the doors. You look older, they’d said to him when he first came back, but months of food that wasn’t Negative Zone prison gruel and sleep uninterrupted by guards dragging him by his hair into the arena had done a lot to reverse that. Still, there were the little differences: the line between his brows that had never quite faded, and the tenseness in his shoulders he couldn’t quite lose no matter how hard he tried. “I mean, I’m with Peter now -- I have to think about that, right?”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Sue asked. “I’m sure he would try to take the night off if you asked him. It’s not too late to arrange something, though I’m having a little trouble seeing him at one your usual bashes.”

What had Johnny done for his twenty-eighth birthday, again? He couldn’t remember. It all blurred together.

The birthday party that stood out to him right now was his twenty-fifth, which had ended with a lot of expensive champagne, a Sports Illustrated cover girl, an Olympic swimmer, and some very athletic moves between the three of them in a whirlpool tub. All the while he’d been caught between their bodies, Johnny had been trying to forget turning twenty-four and standing in some art gallery at the party that Alicia – or the person he’d thought was Alicia – had arranged for him, the loft space filled with her friends, all very interesting people in the art world who looked at Johnny like he was Alicia’s badly trained puppy.

That was the last time he’d been in a truly serious relationship, when he’d been married to the person he thought was Alicia.

He’d always wondered – had any of Alicia’s friends known something was wrong? Had they been able to pick out something different in her behavior, some in-joke she’d suddenly missed? Or was Alicia just like him in that way – everyone knew them, but no one really paid attention. All he remembered from those times spent with her friends at parties and gallery openings were the glances spared his way, the not-quiet-enough whispers that they never thought Alicia would go for someone like him. What a shock it was that, after the Thing, she’d take up with some shallow blond pretty boy celebrity type.

(And of course, it turned out, Alicia hadn’t.)

“I think Pete and I will just stay in, do something quiet,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. They could get takeout and spend all night on the couch, watching Johnny’s favorite movies, if Peter didn’t have anything else to do. Johnny would even let him make fun of them just to be able to lie there, his head in Peter’s lap, listening to the sound of his voice.

“If you say so,” Sue said, shooting him an odd look. The elevator doors dinged open and Johnny stepped out before she could say anything else, head ducked down.

“Anyway,” he threw his voice over his shoulder, filled with enough fake cheer that he hoped it would pass even his sister’s muster. “I always said I’d be stretching twenty-nine well past the suspension of disbelief, right? We can throw that party next year.”

Johnny’s birthday started uneventfully. Peter woke him up accidentally at the crack of dawn when he crawled through the window and into bed, but Johnny didn’t mind. Peter had the kind of loose-limbed at peace energy he got after a productive night of swinging, and he was happy to kiss Johnny until the sun came up.

“Hey,” he murmured in the little space between them, nipping gently at Johnny’s lower lip. “Happy birthday, beautiful.”

“Aw,” Johnny said, reaching up to tangle his hand in Peter’s hair. “You remembered. That’s so great. Now Ben owes me a hundred bucks.”

“Yeah, well,” Peter said, rolling over on top of him with a playful growl. “He’ll get you back when I forget our anniversary.”

Afterwards, Johnny made them breakfast. Peter protested, but not very hard, and he looked tired and grateful when Johnny slid pancakes and bacon in front of him. After breakfast, they went back to bed.

“Is this my present?” Johnny asked Peter, smiling from the other side of the pillow.

“How cheap do you think I am?” Peter asked, stroking Johnny’s bare hip. His eyes glimmered. “And no, it’s not a car. Who do you think I am?”

“Someone who’s smart enough he could definitely guess my bank password,” Johnny said, widening his eyes meaningfully.

“That’s not me getting you a present, then,” Peter said. “That’s you getting you a present and putting my name on the card.”

“Semantics,” Johnny scoffed. He rolled over, reaching behind him for Peter’s arm and tugging it over his waist, settling his hand against his stomach and sliding his fingers through Peter’s. He closed his eyes, yawning, and murmured, “It doesn’t matter. You’re my present.”

When he woke up again, Peter was gone, of course. Johnny was used to it; Peter would come from swinging, crawl into bed for a few hours, and then have to get up for his real job. Every time, though – every time, Johnny felt that painful rush of loneliness.

He’d hoped that maybe today he’d get to wake up in Peter’s arms. But maybe that was asking too much. Johnny had always known who Spider-Man was. It was part of why he loved him.

The rest of his day passed slow and boring.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Sue asked in the evening, when Johnny was lying on the couch playing video games. She cast a critical eye over his old jeans and the t-shirt he was wearing with the mustard stain on the collar.

In his defense, it was one of Peter’s shirts.

“Yeah?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Quiet night at home, remember?”

“Oh, come on,” Sue said in that specific tone she got when, one way or another, she was going to get Johnny to do what she wanted. Big Sister Voice, he called it. “Put on something nice and we’ll go out to dinner, There’s this new restaurant I’ve been dying to try. I mean, you don’t want to sit at home on your birthday, you’re only turning thir--”

“Alright, alright,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. He turned off the game and leveraged himself up off the couch. “Fine, we can go out. Text Peter and let him know where you’re dragging me in case he comes here instead of his place after patrol.”

“Already done,” Sue called out as he left the living room. “Wear that new navy suit! And don’t spend two hours on your hair, it looks fine as it is!”

Sue agreed they could take his newest car, at least. It was a cherry red little convertible that was the current apple of his eye, sleek and sexy enough that it had even gotten Peter to bend him over the hood – not that he’d told Sue about that part.

It was just past rush hour in the city, the traffic heavy as ever, and a boring drive. At least, it was boring until he saw the message.

“Johnny!” Sue said in reprimand as the car screeched to a halt. Someone behind him honked at him. It didn’t matter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOT STUFF, was webbed across the Daily Bugle’s building in huge letters, big enough to block out most of the windows. Johnny smiled so hard his face hurt.

“Unbelievable,” Johnny said, laughing. He felt so full of love that he thought he could explode with it. Next to him, Sue blew out a sigh.

“Most men send flowers,” Sue said, massaging her temple.

“This is better,” Johnny said. He dug out his phone and raised it to snap a picture.

“This is vandalism,” Sue corrected. More cars began to honk. “Johnny, you’re holding up traffic and we’re late as it is.”

“You’re just mad no guy has ever vandalized the middle of New York for you,” Johnny told her, taking another look at Peter’s message before he started to drive again.

I love you, he thought, glancing at it one last time in the rear view mirror. He couldn’t stop smiling. I love you.

Sue’s directions took them downtown. Beyond telling him when to turn, she flatly refused to let him know where they were going, even when he resorted to whining and what few scraps of sibling blackmail he still had on her after all these years. By the time they drove into the Meatpacking District, he’d given up trying.

Johnny glanced around for the restaurant as they parked, but Sue was already strolling confidently across the street. She put her hand on the door of a big brick building with darkened windows, glancing at him over her shoulder.

“Coming?” she asked him. Johnny shrugged and jogged after her. The building didn’t look like much, and it certainly didn’t look like Sue’s usual taste in restaurants. What it looked like was closed.

“This doesn’t look like a restaurant,” Johnny said, following Sue through the door. It was dark and quiet inside. “Ugh, did you drag me to one of those secret dining club things on my birthday --”

The lights went on and a couple hundred voices went up in cheer, yelling “SURPRISE!” as red and gold confetti fluttered down from the warehouse’s high ceiling. There were disco balls sending multicolored lights across the floor, and Johnny could see both a bar and a DJ station set up. At the front of the gathered crowd stood Ben, smirking at him. He saluted with the beer in his hand.

“You didn’t,” Johnny said, staring wide-eyed at the assembled party.

“Happy birthday, baby brother,” Sue said, kissing his cheek. “Surprised?”

“I’m gonna murder you, and then I’m going to get Rocky,” Johnny said.

Laughing, Sue shoved him into the crowd.

“It’s your birthday!” she shouted as the music started to play. “Have fun!”

He had to hand it to Sue, he couldn’t have done a better job throwing a real Johnny Storm birthday dash if he’d done it himself. The music was loud, the, the location chic, and the champagne freely flowing. Jen was already dancing up on a table, Wyatt circling underneath her with his hands held out – worried about her or the table, Johnny couldn’t say.

The only thing missing was Peter. But that was okay. Johnny was going to dance the rest of his birthday away with a whole host of hot people, get drunk off his ass, and then at some indeterminate morning hour fall into the bed with a waiting and hopefully naked Spider-Man.

Best birthday ever.

The guests were a mixed collection of friends, family, the caped crowd, and a scattering of non-superpowered celebrities. Given that Sue had sent the invites, Johnny had to laugh at the mental image of her asking her secretary to just invite whoever had been on the cover of People in the last six months.

Darren Winters, a one-time actor turned late night talk show host, was standing by the bar, holding a drink in his perfectly manicured hand. He wouldn’t say Darren was somebody he liked, but he was somebody Johnny’s agent liked him being seen with, and vice versa, so they were trapped in a cycle of polite invitations and fake smiles for the camera. Tonight he was wearing a slim cut navy blue suit like he’d been made for it, although more likely it had been made for him. Johnny could see him assessing Johnny’s own outfit from behind his thin-rimmed designer glasses, and vaguely wanted to punch him in the face.

Instead, he smiled and said, “Darren! So glad you could make it, buddy.”

“Johnny!” Darren returned, his own enthusiasm only marginally better faked. “Happy to be invited. Another year older, huh?”

Johnny shrugged. “Hey, as long as you don’t look it, right?”

It was a low blow, considering the rampant plastic surgery rumors surrounding Darren, but Johnny had learned early in his career that if you couldn’t dish it back they’d just keep making you take it. He ordered an appletini from the bartender as Darren’s jaw tightened, straining the edges of his polite smile.

“Where’s that infamous new beau of yours?” Darren asked, looking through the crowd with interest. “A couple of us have been just dying to meet him, especially after Heroes Weekly caught you the way it did. On a rooftop in Queens, Johnny, really?”

“What can I say?” Johnny said, suddenly feeling itchy just under his skin, like he was walking into some kind of trap. He swallowed half of his appletini in one gulp. “He really lights my fire.”

The Heroes Weekly article hadn’t even been all that bad; Peter had been in plainclothes, freshly thrown over his Spider-Man gear, and all they’d been doing was kissing. Johnny hadn’t told Peter about it, and if Peter had seen it himself, well – he hadn’t mentioned anything either. The photographer hadn’t gotten a clear shot of Peter’s face; maybe it just didn’t mean that much to him.

“So?” Darren said. “Everyone’s just dying to meet the mystery man.”

“He’s at work,” Johnny said, setting his jaw. “He’ll be here later.”

Even he could hear his own doubt in the words.

“Hm,” Darren said, staring at him from behind his glasses, and Johnny suddenly remembered that Darren had had it out for him ever since he’d had to skip out on his show with, oh, about ten minute’s warning.

In his defense, there’d been killer robots in Central Park and it wasn’t like the audience hadn’t loved Trixie the juggling poodle. As Darren’s people had told Johnny’s, at least she had talent.

He told himself not to take the bait, and he even managed to keep to it – for all of about ten seconds.

“Hm, what?” he asked, his tone coming out prickly. He hoped Darren wouldn’t notice, but the gleam in his eyes told him there was zero chance of that. He’d caught the chink in the armor. Johnny had practically offered it up to him on a silver platter.

“Does this new man even like you?” he said, staring at Johnny with faux concern over the tops of his glasses. “Or is this just the latest in a long line of cries for attention? I’d have thought Johnny Storm, back from the dead, would’ve kept you going for a few more months.”

Johnny’s blood ran cold, then flashed hot.

“What?” he said.

“I mean,” Darren said, shrugging with that kind of deceptive casualness Johnny recognized so well but had never been able to replicate. “This new boyfriend rumor’s everywhere, you’ve been snapped a couple times, but he’s never around you, he hasn’t met any of your friends. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him, and now this? He can’t even be bothered to make it to your birthday party?”

“Peter’s busy,” Johnny said. And I don’t have any friends. He gripped his drink hard. “I understand that. It’s not important to me if he’s here tonight.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Darren said, infinitely pitying. “Everyone knows you aren’t the brightest bulb in the box – forgive the wordplay – but this fake boyfriend stunt is a new low, even for you.”

For one cold moment, Johnny imagined being a different kind of person. Throwing his drink in Darren’s face, or lighting his stupid tacky tie on fire. Punching his lights out the way Ben had taught him as a skinny sixteen-year-old who didn’t know whether his thumb went on the inside or the outside of his fist.

A hand landed on his elbow and he jumped.

“Johnny!” Alicia said, a touch too brightly. “There you are. I was hoping you’d saved a dance for me.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, swallowing hard. He pasted on a bright smile, more for everyone else than Alicia, since she couldn’t see it anyway. “Yeah, of course. I’d be happy to. Alicia, do you know Darren Winters--?”

“I can’t say I’m familiar. Excuse us,” Alicia said to Darren, perfectly polite, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. It was the tone Alicia used when she couldn’t stand someone, and Johnny fought hard not to laugh.

“Thanks for the save,” he told Alicia as they made their way onto the dancefloor.

She squeezed his hand and laid her head on his shoulder so they could talk softly over the music. “Any time, birthday boy. Are you having fun? I told Ben and Sue that I didn’t think they had to go all out this year, but, well. You know how they can be when they’re set on something.”

“Did Ben make the caterer cry?” Johnny asked, snickering. It was nice just to dance with someone who actually liked him for him after playing celebrity shark pit with Darren.

“Sue,” Alicia said. “And it was the DJ.”

“Classic,” Johnny snorted. He sobered, staring out over the top of Alicia’s head at all of the people gathered around, the real ones mingling with the fake ones. “I said I was fine not having a party. She never believes me.”

“She just wants you to be happy, Johnny, especially after everything you’ve been through,” Alicia said, turning her face up towards him. Her hair hung around her delicate face, her pink lips softly parted, and Johnny swallowed hard as something unpleasant curled in his stomach. “We all love you, you know.”

The memory hit him like a truck, brought on by the way the lights danced off Alicia’s red hair: a different person wearing Alicia’s face, in a different warehouse, on a different birthday, saying that she loved him.

He fumbled, blindsided, and let go of Alicia’s hand, stumbling away from her. He bumped into someone – he didn’t even notice who – and gruffly apologized, shrugging away from them. His skin burned with phantom fire.

“Johnny?” Alicia asked. She reached out for him and he snatched his hand away. Suddenly being touched seemed like the worst thing in the world. “What’s wrong?”

Guilt swept through him. It wasn’t Alicia’s fault. It had never been Alicia in the first place. He took a deep breath and tried to chase the memory away, reaching out to take her hand.

“Nothing,” he said, drawing her close again. He hoped she couldn’t feel that his hands were shaking. “I just – tripped.”

Alicia raised a hand to his face, her brow creased in concern. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he said, forcing a smile she couldn’t see. “It’s my party, isn’t it? Hey, I’m going to go get a drink. You want anything?”

“I’m fine,” she said, still frowning. “Are you sure you’re –”

“Fine,” Johnny said, stepping away from her. “I’m fine! I’ll see you later, Alicia.”

He felt like a coward, running away from her, but he couldn’t stand to stay there for a second longer, not with the memories playing unbidden through his head, his own personal alien abduction horror story. I Married a Skrull, starring Johnny Storm in the role of a lifetime.

It felt silly to him now, to think he’d ever thought he was in love with Alicia, but he’d been a dumb kid chasing after the kind of relationship Sue and Reed had -- like Ben and Alicia had. He’d been missing Ben and shying away from the kind of feeling he got whenever Spider-Man swung an arm across his shoulders. Trying so hard not to feel the things he really felt. He knew all of that, now.

Alicia had been safe, and she’d been normal, and at twenty-three safe and normal had been what Johnny had desperately tried to convince himself he wanted. That had turned out not to be true, on multiple levels.

He had Peter now, he told himself. He had Peter, after so many years of wanting him, and it was real. Even if Peter wasn’t with him at the moment. Even if – his hand clenched around his drink – he didn’t care enough to show up for Johnny’s party.

Parties were stupid, anyway, he told himself. That was why Peter hated them: because they were fake. Just glitter and flash.

Just like Johnny.

He ordered another drink.

Peter finally made an appearance at the very end of the night, right around the point where Johnny was sure he wasn’t coming at all. Johnny felt him come up behind him, his powers picking up on Peter’s familiar comforting body heat seconds before his strong arms folded around him, Peter’s chin landing on his shoulder. Johnny leaned back against him automatically.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Peter said. “Geez, I thought I’d have to fight through throng of desperate starlets just to get a shot at you. Who left you all by your lonesome?”

“My dumb boyfriend,” Johnny said, humming. Peter squeezed him tight.

“Sounds like a real jerk,” he said. “Want to dance?”

“More than anything,” Johnny said.

“Sorry work ran late,” Peter joked as they joined the rest of the dancers on the floor. The buttons of his shirt were slightly eschew, revealing a flash of red fabric underneath. Johnny reached up to fix it, hiding the spider suit from view. Peter’s hands came up to frame Johnny’s hips, slowing the dance into something more Peter’s rhythm. It wasn’t a whole lot more than swaying, but it was nice swaying, and Johnny melted into it.

“Are you having a good time?” Peter asked.

“Uh-huh,” he said, looping his arms easily around Peter’s neck. He’d had a few drinks, and Peter’s sudden arrival had left him feeling good. “Better now. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Peter said. “Geez, you look fantastic.”

Johnny’s chest ached. This was real. He knew it was real. Still, those cold words -- this fake boyfriend stunt is a new low, even for you -- rang in his ears.

Sometime during the night, Johnny had lost his jacket – as in, actually lost it. Last he’d seen, Jen had been whipping it around her head, trying to convince Scott Lang to let her and Darla do body shots off of him while Medusa looked on with what appeared to be morbid fascination. So Johnny figured it could be anywhere by now.

“Do me a favor, babe?” Johnny asked, putting his head against Peter’s shoulder.

“The cake’s not big enough for me to jump out of, honey,” Peter said, nosing at Johnny’s hair as they swayed back and forth.

“See that guy over there?” Johnny asked. “The one getting shot down by Living Lightning?”

Peter squinted into the gloom of the club. “Tall, thin, douchey glasses, looks like someone even I would have picked on in high school?”

“That’s the one.”

Peter hummed in consideration, his hand sliding to Johnny’s lower back like a promise. “You know my stance on punching civilians, but I guess it is your birthday, so I’ll do it for five bucks.”

“Cute,” Johnny told him. “Just dance me past him, and do it like you’re madly in love with me.”

Peter’s fingers twined through Johnny’s own. His eyes glimmered like he knew a secret that Johnny didn’t. Next thing Johnny knew, he was getting dipped low, and the crowd was going wild.

“Done,” Peter said, capturing his mouth in a searing kiss.

Take that, Darren, Johnny thought, sliding his hand into Peter’s hair.

“Happy birthday to me,” he mumbled.

Johnny had always known it was only a matter of time before his failed marriage was brought back into focus. As soon as he was in another serious relationship, someone would drag it back into the daylight; it was a fact, plain and simple, something he couldn’t fight. He’d known he should do some damage control, somehow, like hire a lawyer, or at least talk to Peter about it. Peter was smart. Peter would have had ideas. But Johnny didn’t like thinking about that time, and he didn’t like thinking about telling Peter about it.

Peter knew the bare basics about his marriage – Peter was one of the few people who knew the truth, that he’d married a Skrull by mistake -- but the idea of him knowing anything more about that time in Johnny’s life than just that made something deep in Johnny twist unpleasantly, and so he’d put it off again and again.

He’d just supposed he’d have a little more time to prepare. Always a little more time.

Alicia was sitting on the couch when Johnny got home. Ben was standing in front of her.

“You gotta fix this, John,” Ben said, first thing. He shoved the tabloid at Johnny’s chest before he got a chance to ask. Confused, Johnny glanced down at it.

REKINDLED FLAMES? Johnny Storm Gets Cozy with Ex-Wife at Exclusive Birthday Bash. Underneath there was a picture of them dancing together, Alicia’s head on his shoulder.

“Oh,” Johnny said. An odd sort of feeling overtook him, like the distant memory of December cold. His fingertips had gone a little numb. “I wasn’t – I mean, we weren’t –”

“’Course you weren’t,” Ben said with a derisive snort. Like it was impossible. Johnny guessed that it was. “Doesn’t make any difference. This ain’t the only rag runnin’ the story.”

“Ben,” Alicia said, so soft. She turned her face in Johnny’s direction, hanging onto Ben’s huge hand. “Of course we don’t blame you, Johnny.”

Of course. The cheap tabloid paper crumpled in his hand.

“This kind of thing – it’s like when we faked the divorce all over again,” Alicia said. “There are photographers outside my apartment, outside the studio, the gallery for my latest show… It’s too much.”

Johnny swallowed, bitter.

“But, I mean,” he fumbled for something to say. “You get that anyway, right? Being Ben’s girlfriend and – and a famous artist and every--everything?”

His voice had started to shake, just like a child’s, and he hated it.

“Not like this,” Alicia said, shaking her head. “It’s not like this with Ben. Never this kind of – frenzy. It’s like…” She hesitated. “It’s like they’re moths to your flame. Only I’m the one getting burned.”

“You gotta fix it, Johnny,” Ben said in his deep, rumbling voice, putting his huge hand at Alicia’s back. “I don’t want Alicia getting harassed by those putzes no more.”

Johnny opened his mouth and almost asked Ben what he wanted him to do. All he’d done was dance with a friend at his own birthday party, the one he hadn’t planned or even especially wanted. He wished all over again that he’d just spent the night at home with Peter, away from cameras, away from prying eyes, away from the past.

He could taste ash in the back of his throat.

“Johnny?” Alicia said, her brow creased. “You’re upset. We shouldn’t have sprung this on you like this.”

She held up a hand in between them, but she couldn’t reach him, not with Ben’s heavy hand on her shoulder. Johnny still took a step backwards.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I -- I’ll do something. I’ll fix it.”

Except he was with Peter now, so it wasn’t like he could go out and get caught doing something stupid with a celebrity, or spark rumors about a clandestine fling by getting snapped on the top of the Baxter Building with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a blonde in the other, not without it coming back on Peter, too.

Worse, he recalled exactly how the heat had been taken off of Alicia the last time they’d been in this situation. Nobody seemed to care about his divorce after he’d been arrested for burning a college down to the ground. He could still remember lying battered and exhausted on the ground, feeling the heat of his own flames as they ravaged Empire State University’s halls, trying desperately to explain to Sue: he’d been terrified. He’d thought the Skrulls were going to kill him. The last thing he remembered before he’d gone nova was thinking, please, I don’t want to die like this.

He sent the tabloid up in smoke so he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore, and so he wouldn’t have to remember other, older headlines, crueler by far. He extinguished it almost as soon as he realized he’d done it, but the ashes still floated down around their feet.

The sudden rush of heat made Alicia raise her hand to her mouth and left Ben narrowing his eyes. Johnny’s throat burned at his split second lack of control, a miniscule echo of what he’d done to ESU years ago.

“Johnny?” Alicia prompted, drawing him out of it, her brows drawn together in concern. He looked away; it wasn’t fair to her that he couldn’t stand to look at her face in the moment. She wasn’t the person wearing it in the messy jumble of his memories.

“I’ll fix it,” he repeated, surprising himself with the sudden steadiness of his own voice.

Alicia opened her mouth, her head tipped to the side and her hand held in front of her, but Ben cut her off, taking that lifted hand and helping Alicia to her feet.

“See? Johnny’ll fix all of it,” Ben said as he ushered Alicia towards the elevator. “You go home an’ get some rest. Before you know it, it’ll be over. I’ll call ya, babe.”

Ben bent down. Alicia leaned all the way up on the tips of her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, her hand cupped to his face.

“Don’t you worry, either, Ben,” she said to him. “It’ll be alright.”

Johnny’s stomach threatened to revolt. He was suddenly glad Alicia couldn’t see him as she murmured a good night he didn’t have time to return before she disappeared into the elevator.

That just left him and Ben, standing on opposite sides of the room. It felt like there was an entire ocean between them.

“So,” Ben said at last. “You really did it this time, huh, junior.”

“I only danced with her,” Johnny said, still tasting ash at the back of his throat. He could still feel the tabloid’s cheap paper clutched between his hands. “It wasn’t even my idea.”

“It never is, is it?” Ben asked, voice rumbling low and dangerous in his chest, and something told Johnny that if he were smart he’d flame on and leave through the nearest window. “It’s always someone else, ain’t it? Johnny Storm’s never at fault. Didn’t ask her to dance. Faulty wire set my underthings on fire.” A heavy fist came down on the end table, shattering the wood into pieces. “Or it was some Skrull from outer space.”

Johnny stood rooted to the spot. A strange sort of numb buzzing had come over him, coursing unpleasantly from his chest down to the tips of his fingers like an electric shock.

“What?” he said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

Ben’s expression was stonier than usual, his huge fists clenched. He turned his face away from Johnny like he couldn’t bear to look at him.

“Nothin’,” he ground out. “Never mind.”

The smart part of him told him to let Ben let it go. He almost listened. But something inside of him was still buzzing, and suddenly anger was boiling up inside of him, so fast it almost blindsided him.

“No, not nothing. Why don’t you just say it, huh, Ben?” Johnny demanded, stepping in front of him. He’d force Ben to look at him if he had to. Force him to actually see him. “The thing you’ve wanted to say to me all these years, why don’t you just finally say it—”

“I would’ve known it wasn’t really her!” Ben roared, turning on him so suddenly Johnny almost stumbled back.

Johnny let him have it for a second, just taking Ben in: the balled fists, his great hulking shoulders practically trembling.

Then he said, “But you didn’t.”

“And whose fault do you think that is?” Ben said. “I didn’t get a chance, too busy with the way you were flaunting her around –”

He grabbed the sofa, flipping it over. It missed Johnny by a few feet, but he still threw himself out of the way. It was a struggle not to flame on by instinct, but that only ever escalated fights between him and Ben. Johnny didn’t want to fight, not this time, not that way. Not about this.

“I never did that!” Johnny said. “I never wanted to rub your face in it, Ben – for fuck’s sake, you weren’t even on the planet when it started and I still felt so guilty!”

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as the words left his lips.

“You felt guilty, huh?” Ben said, voice like gravel. The armchair joined the sofa and Johnny cringed, thinking about what Sue was going to say. “Not guilty enough not to touch her.”

Something sour curdled in Johnny’s stomach. He felt sick suddenly.

“That’s, that’s not –” he said, thrown completely off by the memory: Alicia’s lips brushing his. Alicia’s arms around him. Flat on his back with Alicia over him, on top of him. Alicia, moving against him in the dark.

Not Alicia. Never Alicia. Lyja, wearing his friend’s face. Using her voice. Telling Johnny things he’d wanted to hear. Convincing him that Alicia loved him. That someone could love him as much as Reed loved Sue – or as much as Alicia loved Ben.

”We’re neither of us children, Johnny.”

His throat burned. Suddenly he couldn’t see, couldn’t think – couldn’t feel where Ben was in relation to himself. He heard him coming and turned, sharp and awkward, nearly tripping and falling over his own two feet.

A hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt, yanking him back. Johnny’s head spun with how fast Peter moved, planting himself in front of Johnny, one hand braced against Ben’s heaving chest.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said in that tight, controlled voice Johnny only ever heard when Peter was really angry. “But I’m going to need you to back off.”

“Don’t do this, Webs,” Ben said, pushing forward. Peter slid a scant inch on the carpet, and then he dug his heels in. Ben’s gaze lit upon Johnny, scathing. “You think you’re just gonna hide behind him, huh? Just like you did the last time?”

Johnny sucked in a breath, feeling a thousand times worse than if he’d been hit.

“Hey! You don’t talk to him like that,” Peter said.

“You don’t tell me how I talk to him,” Ben replied, right in Peter’s face. “This ain’t your business, bug.”

“He’s my business,” Peter said, shoving Ben viciously backwards, hard enough to actually make him take a step back. “I come home, I see you yelling, pushing him around –”

“Pete, stop!” Johnny said, grabbing at him. He pulled at his arm sharply; Peter didn’t budge. “Knock it off!”

“Nobody talks to him like that!” Peter said, shrugging out of Johnny’s grip and moving to shove Ben again.

“You come home?” Ben said, talking over Peter. “You think just because he’s playin’ house with you right now, this is your home?” He leaned over Peter until he could look Johnny straight in the eye. He lowered his voice and said, “How long d’ya figure it’s gonna take before one of you screws it all up anyway?”

Johnny’s breath caught painfully in his throat.

“You want to go here, big guy?” Peter said, voice taking on that pitch he hit when the fight was really about to start: low, controlled, and dangerous. Johnny tried to move in front of him, to get between them, but Peter held out an arm without so much as glancing at him. “You really want to try me? You’re stronger, sure, but I’m fast and I’m smart.”

Ben bared his teeth in a snarl and Peter cocked his head to the side, gone cold in his rage. He raised one hand and gestured at himself.

“Come on, Ben,” he dared, his chin lifted proudly up. “What are you? Scared?”

“Peter, let it go,” Johnny said, grabbing onto his arm, pulling at him in vain. His eyes burned at the corners, tears turning into sparks before he let them fall. “Ben, please!”

It felt like neither of them could see him or hear him. Like he was invisible and powerless. Like nothing he did mattered, all over again. He had no control.

The air at the center of the room expanded – no, not the air. A force field. Johnny sagged in relief as all three of them were pushed back against different corners of the room. He surrendered to it even as Ben and Peter both struggled.

Sue was standing in the doorway, one hand outstretched, her hair floating around her head like a halo. Valeria was standing behind her, peering curiously around her legs with a hand fisted in her long skirt.

“What,” Sue said, her voice tightly furious, “do you three think you’re doing to my living room? What is going on here?”

Johnny opened his mouth to come up with some story, to spin something that wouldn’t sound as bad as the truth, but the words wouldn’t come. It was like Sue’s forcefield had lodged itself into his throat, too. He couldn’t find his voice, so he just sat there with his mouth hanging open like a dumb fish.

“Nothin’,” Ben said, having finally gone limp within the confines of Sue’s forcefield. “Just a little disagreement, Suzie. You know how me and Matchhead can get.”

“Is that what you’re calling it?” Peter spat out. “A little disagreement? You could’ve taken his head off! Sue, let me out of this thing or I swear --”

“You swear?” Sue challenged, flexing her fingers. Peter set his jaw stubbornly before turning his face away. Johnny could still see his mind working, though, see him calculating what kind of force it would take to break his sister’s forcefield, could see his shoulders stiffen with the effort not to try it. “I’m going to let all of you go on the count of three, and then whatever this is – was – I want you all to drop it. Is that clear?”

“Like crystal, Suzie,” Ben ground out.

The forcefield fell and they all dropped. Johnny took a look around the room, seeing everything with fresh eyes: the overturned furniture, the new dent in the wall from where Ben’s back had collided with it, the ash in the carpet. He wondered if Sue would hate him if he was sick in one of the houseplants.

“I’m goin’ out for some air,” Ben said, shaking himself off.

“One of you is cleaning this room up later,” Sue said.

“Yeah, yeah, tell it to someone who cares.” Ben waved her off, lumbering from the room. He didn’t spare Johnny a second glance.

Just like that, it was over. Johnny suddenly didn’t think he could stand. He sagged back against the wall, his knees trembling. A small part of him wondered distantly if he was about to pass out. Sue glanced in Johnny’s direction for a second, making a move like she was going to go towards him. Johnny cut her off with a shake of his head. She still hesitated before she followed after Ben’s echoing footsteps.

Peter was in Johnny’s space immediately, making little soothing noises, completely at odds from the way he’d been acting minutes before.

“You’re okay,” he asked, cradling Johnny’s face. His thumb stroked gently over his cheek, grounding something in Johnny. “Hey, hey, look at me. You’re okay.”

Johnny shook his head.

“You can’t do that,” he said, letting Peter pull them both to their feet. “Never, Peter, promise me. You can’t start a fight with Ben.”

“He doesn’t talk to you like that,” Peter repeated, hand at the back of Johnny’s neck. “Okay? That doesn’t happen. Anybody talks to you like that, they’ve got a problem with me.”

“This is just me and Ben, Pete,” Johnny said, taking a deep breath. He tried to pretend like it was just any other fight with Ben as he fit his hands to Peter’s waist. “We blow up at each other, and then it blows over by the next morning. You gotta let us fight.”

Peter made a frustrated noise, tugging Johnny’s head down and pressing his lips to his forehead. “I don’t have to like it.”

He loves you, Johnny tried to tell himself. He was desperate to hang onto any feeling but the void where his marriage to Alicia’s imposter lay, the scorn in Ben’s voice. He put his hands on Peter’s chest and tried to feel it, to soak it up like he could the warmth of his body. He loves you.

The fear crept up from the base of his spine, spreading through his veins: But what if you don’t know what it’s like to be really loved?

“I’m tired,” Johnny said, looking up into Peter’s eyes. “Let’s go to bed.”

Johnny woke up in the middle of the night feeling sick. He should have been used to the old dream by now, but somehow it took him by surprise every time. The familiar hands on him, the familiar voice in his ear – soft and sweet and then shifting suddenly, long dark hair and cooler, harder skin. Green out of the corner of his eye, gone by the time he turned his head.

He breathed out, ragged, as he sat up in bed. Peter was instantly awake.

“What?” he said, practically shooting up in bed. “What, what’s happening –”

“Go back to bed,” Johnny told him, hand over his eyes.

“Johnny?” Peter said, a little more blearily. “What’re you doing up?”

“It’s nothing,” Johnny said, breath hitching. “Go back to sleep, I’m – I –”

“Hey, hey. What’s the matter?” Peter soothed, hand on his knee.

“What’s your favorite movie?” Johnny asked, head in his hands. He couldn’t look at Peter right now.

“At right this very moment?” Peter said, thumb rubbing circles against Johnny’s skin. “It’s Academy Award winning thriller where you tell me what’s wrong.”

“Don’t be cute,” Johnny snorted, but he realized he’d never played this game with Peter before -- prove to me you’re really the person who’s supposed to be in my life. Ben, Sue, and Reed all answered quickly, used to it by now; Wyatt offered up The Empire Strikes Back without hesitation. Even the kids had their answers ready. The first time Johnny had asked Franklin had felt like the lowest moment in his life. He took another shaky breath. “What’s the – the first time we met up at the Statue of Liberty. What were we doing?”

He’d always thought he’d know Spider-Man anywhere, in any time. Bound and blindfolded, he still thought he would be able to pick Spider-Man out of a lineup, he knew him that well. It felt like a joke that now that he finally had Peter in his bed, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

It was so stupid of him, anyway, to be playing this game. Reed had installed sensors after Alicia’s father and Ben had forced Lyja to reveal her true identity. But Skrulls were always coming up with new technology, better ways to get around Reed’s security – Lyja had walked right into the building wearing Sue’s face during the Skrull invasion.

Skrulls had killed his father. Skrulls had tried to kill him and Reed and Sue and Ben time and time over again. A Skrull had married him and sometimes it felt like she’d destroyed any chance he’d ever have at feeling safe with a lover again. So he asked questions. So he played stupid games.

He was supposed to trust his family. He wanted to trust his partner. She’d taken that away from him.

“The first time we met at the Statue of Liberty? Chasing after some lunatic forger,” Peter answered automatically. Johnny sighed in relief, falling backwards against the pillows. He dragged his hand away from his eyes, up through his hair.

“Okay,” he said. “And –” it was always so hard, searching for stories that existed only between him and another person. Johnny was a talker; he liked sharing stories, especially if they were funny, and so many of his stories about Peter were favorites. He grappled desperately for something he’d never told anyone but Peter, something private just for them. “And I – the first time we kissed, I –"

“Was standing in my tiny kitchen wearing nothing but an apron and a smile,” Peter said, leaning over him, braced on his palms over Johnny. His hair fell messy across his forehead; his eyebrows were drawn together in concern. “Hey hotshot, I know I say this a lot around you, but what the hell --?”

“And,” Johnny said, forcing himself to breathe deep. He was sure now – he’d never really doubted in the first place. But he still needed to ask. “What stupid thing did you mime to make me guess your identity?”

“The itsy bitsy spider,” Peter said, frown deepening. “Johnny?”

“I dream about her. The Alicia I married,” Johnny confessed. The back of his throat tasted like bile. “Lyja.”

“Oh,” Peter said, quietly.

“I dream,” Johnny said, searching for the right words, so hard to say. “I dream I’m -- with somebody, and they’re not themselves. They’re not who I think they are, and I … I…”

He was going to cry. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want Peter to see him cry about this.

“So just now, with the questions…” Peter said. Johnny watched the wheels turn, watched Peter put the pieces together. He stayed close but he wasn’t touching Johnny, not anymore. Shame burned hot in Johnny’s chest.

He won’t want you anymore, not if he finds out everything, the ugly little voice in the back of his head whispered.

“I just do it sometimes,” he made himself admit, looking down at his lap. “You can ask Sue, or – or Wyatt or Reed. Favorite movie… the last time I saw Lyja, she was wearing Sue’s face, but I knew something was wrong and when she couldn’t tell me Sue’s favorite movie…”

“West Side Story,” Peter said, distantly, and Johnny laughed bitterly.

“Thanks,” he said.

“The fight with Ben earlier,” Peter said. “That was about this?”

There was a long pause before Johnny admitted, “Yes.”

Peter swore, unexpected and vicious, like the words had been torn from his throat. Johnny jolted in response and Peter dragged a hand up and down his arm, comforting. His palms were big and warm, nothing like Alicia’s small, often chilly hands.

“Sorry,” Peter said. “Sorry, it’s not you. Well, it’s about you but it’s not – you didn’t do anything wrong. Shhh, hey. Need me to leave for a while?”

“No,” Johnny croaked out. His eyes were burning, sparks blurring his vision, because he’d learned a long time ago that it was better to cry fire than bitter tears.

“It’s okay,” Peter said, so gently it hurt. “I can go swinging, give you a little time, a little space…”

“Don’t,” Johnny said, grabbing him by the wrist.

The dream had left him shaky and anxious, but space wasn’t what he needed. He ached all over for Peter’s familiar touch, so badly it nearly hurt. He latched onto Peter, fighting to keep him on the bed, and immediately Peter fell back against him. His hands were soothing, his lips sweet. He mumbled soothing nothings against Johnny’s cheek, stroking his sides.

It wasn’t enough. Johnny hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud until Peter’s hands stilled against him.

“What do you want me to do?” Peter asked at last.

“What I want,” Johnny said hotly, “is you, Pete.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Peter chanted, leaning in to kiss Johnny. Johnny deepened it immediately. “Okay, you’re okay. You got me.”

“I want you,” Johnny repeated, clutching at Peter’s strong, dependable shoulders, so familiar under his hands now. “Peter, I need –”

“Hey, I got it,” Peter said, pressing Johnny back down on the bed, kissing his way down Johnny’s neck, nipping at a sensitive spot before traveling his way down. He spent a long moment with his lips pressed to Johnny’s chest, just over his heart. “I got you. You just tell me what you need.”

“Fuck me?” Johnny asked. He hated how small his voice came out, how needy.

Peter hesitated. He lifted his head and looked down into Johnny’s face, like he was searching for something. Johnny’s throat felt tight.

“I’m sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. He didn’t know what he was apologizing for, but he knew that he had to if he wanted Peter to stay. He won’t want you now, the little voice in his head said. He turned his face away so he wouldn’t have to see Peter leave.

Strong fingers touched his cheek, gently but firmly turning his face back towards Peter.

“No, don’t do that,” Peter said, knocking his forehead against Johnny’s. “Don’t apologize to me for what someone else did to you.”

Johnny’s throat felt tight. Peter gripped the back of his neck and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“You’ll tell me if there’s anything you don’t –”

“Pete,” Johnny cut him off, tugging at his hair. “Have I ever been anything but vocal in bed?”

Peter huffed, damp against Johnny’s skin. “I’m allowed to worry about you sometimes.”

“Don’t, it makes me feel weird,” Johnny said, swallowing against the tight feeling in his throat, the prickle in his eyes. “Call me something mean already, all this niceness is freaking me out.”

“It’s way too late for that old game, hot stuff,” Peter said.

There was a line of tiny pinprick scars just under Peter’s palm, barely visible to the naked eye. The Negative Zone’s worms had left their mark. Johnny couldn’t remember which death that particular set had come from, whether it was the sharp thrust of Kal Blackbane’s sword or the swing of Annihilus’ axe or one of a dozen other deaths that had split his chest open – it had started to blur, after a while. There’d been no point in remembering.

“Pete,” he said. He closed his eyes and let himself blissfully surrender.

They laid there wrapped up in each other afterwards for a long time, Peter sweaty and Johnny sated. He raised a hand to stroke through Peter’s hair, and surprised himself when he found that it was shaking.

Peter reached up and tangled their fingers together, bringing their joined hands to their lips.

“I got you, hot stuff,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry.”

It took Johnny a moment to get his throat to work, and when he did his voice sounded wet and pathetic as he said, “You weren’t that bad.”

Peter laughed quietly, shaking his head. He placed a kiss against Johnny’s neck, his thumb rubbing little circles at his hip.

“What are you sorry for?” Johnny asked.

Peter shrugged once, a little gesture Johnny took to mean both nothing and everything, which was so like Peter that it hurt. Johnny smiled a little bit, his eyes misty.

“Sit up,” he said gently. “I want to see your face.”

Peter leaned up on one elbow. The moonlight shone down on him, catching on the crooked bend of his nose and his hair, which had been tugged every which way by Johnny’s fingers. Johnny reached up to touch his face, trailing careful fingers over his eyebrow, cupping his jaw.

“I missed you,” he murmured.

Peter’s smile was crooked, too, and a little tired, but so full of love that Johnny had no idea what to do with it all.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Peter said.

“No, but I did,” Johnny said. He sighed a little, leaning in closer. “The Negative Zone.”

The smile fell from Peter’s face. His eyes grew hard, and then terribly sad. He reached up to cover Johnny’s hand with his own, silent with that kind of weighty consideration Peter only gave to the really important things -- the life or death, make or break things. Johnny’s entire chest hurt like it was being sewn up all over again. He tried to smile through it.

“Pretending you were there with me made me feel less alone,” Johnny admitted, stroking Peter’s cheek with the tips of his fingers, skimming over his cheekbone, down to his stubbled jaw, feeling for that one little nick of a scar. He’d always thought he’d known Peter’s face so well even before they’d gotten together, obsessed with learning every detail as soon as the mask came off. He’d had no idea.

“Well, you’re not getting rid of me now,” Peter said, turning his face into Johnny’s hand. He kissed his palm. “You know me. You’re always going to know if it’s me. Nobody else can drive you up the wall like I can.”

Johnny choked out a laugh, eyes prickling. Peter’s thumb swiped under his eye.

“And I’ll answer questions,” he said, palming Johnny’s face. “Whenever you need me to answer them.”

“I don’t want you to have to answer anything,” Johnny said.

“But you need me to,” Peter said, “and that’s okay. I’ll tell you all my secrets, even the time a very unfortunate seam split on my costume while I was fighting the Vulture.”

“All your secrets, huh?” Johnny said, laughing.

“Every single humiliating one,” Peter confirmed, joining in, even as he continued to thumb the tears away from Johnny’s eyes, and even though in the moment Johnny felt like there was nothing funny about either of their lives.

“What did you think, then? The first time you saw me?” Johnny asked with just one brief stab of guilt. This was a test, too, and one he felt sick over when they’d been so wrapped up in each other only minutes before. When he was still keeping that stolen little bit of Peter’s body heat trapped in his chest, a miniature star that burned just for him.

“I thought, ugh, what a jerk,” Peter said, cracking up. “You with your stupid hair and your face on everything… I was envious. I thought you had everything I wanted, and that you didn’t even care.” His voice dropped to a whisper, like he telling a secret. “And I thought you looked like the sun.”

Johnny swallowed, hard. He had to kiss Peter again, hard and messy, trying to pour everything he felt for Peter into it. Everything Peter made him feel.

“I can’t believe you thought my hair was stupid,” he said.

“Thought?” Peter snorted, sliding his hand into the back of Johnny’s hair. “I still think it.”

Johnny felt too tired to snipe back at him. He pressed his face back against the pillows and extended one middle finger in Peter’s direction, biting his own lip when Peter’s soft laughter made something glow, soft and warm, in the middle of his chest.

“You gonna sleep?” Peter asked after a moment, stroking his thumb over the nape of Johnny’s neck.

“Think so,” Johnny said, yawning. His eyes had already slipped shut, heavy. The solid press of Peter at his back was so soothing. He laid his hand over Peter’s where it was pressed against the center of his chest, and laced their fingers together.

“Okay,” Peter said. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” A pause. “I might read, though.”

“Just don’t wake me up,” Johnny said.

Peter woke him up. Or rather, Peter’s phone woke him up, blaring the theme from JAWS at what Johnny had to assume was the crack of dawn.

It woke Peter up, too, which was some small comfort. He shot straight up in bed, getting tangled in the blankets and almost elbowing Johnny in the eye. Johnny groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow over his head and trying to drift off back to sleep. It wasn’t going to work; he could feel Peter pacing, a line of bright heat in the otherwise cool room.

Johnny’s powers always did this after sex, after a night spent sleeping with someone. It was unfair; he clung like a limpet anyway, even without his powers deciding what he really needed was to tie into someone’s body heat, to be able to feel them like they were right on top of him even when they were in the next room. He’d learned how to stop it, embarrassed to feel like he was latching onto flings who already seemed bored with him after one night, but he really had to try.

He never really tried with Peter.

He felt it when Peter leaned over him, even before the pillow was taken away. He screwed up his eyes against the sunlight as Peter bent to press a kiss to his bare shoulder.

“Are you leaving?” he mumbled, turning over onto his back.

“Another teacher’s out sick. I was told to stop blowing my beautiful celebrity boyfriend and get my ass into work,” Peter said, kissing Johnny quick, once, twice, three times. He settled over him, putting one hand on Johnny’s knee. “The mouth on some of these secretaries.”

“Could you start blowing me first?” Johnny asked, hand at the back of Peter’s neck. Peter hummed, the hand at Johnny’s knee slipping tantalizingly up his naked thigh.

“Rain check, blondie?” he said. “She might’ve said “oh what’s on fire now” before the line went dead.”

“Fine,” Johnny said, with one last quick kiss. Four, he thought muzzily, for a member of the Fantastic Four. And Peter was a fantastic kisser. Johnny lingered, his nose brushing Peter’s. “I’ll just take care of myself. In the shower. All slick and wet. You don’t like me wet, do you?”

“If I swing into a billboard thinking about how much I don’t like you wet, I’m forwarding the bill,” Peter said. He brushed his thumb against Johnny’s jaw. “You okay? You say the word, I’ll stay…”

“I’m okay,” Johnny said, squeezing the back of Peter’s neck. “Go, do your teacher thing, mold some young minds. Pretend you still need to make money.”

Peter kissed him on the nose. “You obviously haven’t seen what they pay me.”

He was out the window a few moments later, his suit tied up in a neat little websack, Peter Parker’s solution to beating the morning traffic. Johnny fell back against the bed with a sigh. He closed his eyes for a second, but it was pointless. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, not when the other half of the bed suddenly felt so cold and empty.

Why did everything have to be harder when Peter was gone? Sometimes Johnny thought it was easier, before he’d ever had him in his arms. He’d known how to exist with less, then.

“Enough feeling sorry for yourself,” he said to the empty room, bringing a hand up to scrub at his stinging eyes. He only laid in bed another twenty minutes more before he got up and dragged himself into the shower.

Ben was sitting on the couch, channel surfing in the living room when Johnny finally emerged from his bedroom. He looked up and Johnny hesitated for a moment, then joined him on the sofa.

“If you put on some stupid football game, I’m melting the cable box,” he yawned, grabbing a throw pillow and hugging it to his chest.

Ben snorted. He tossed the remote at Johnny’s feet and said, “Here, squirt. Knock yerself out.”

Johnny knew a peace offering when he saw one. He grabbed the remote before Ben could take it back and for a few moments everything was peaceful, the only sound little snippets of racing, cartoons, and the news as Johnny flipped between channels.

It didn’t last. Ben cleared his throat, and Johnny felt his shoulders start to stiffen.

“The other night,” Ben said, voice gruff. “Never seen the bug go off like that before.”

“I have,” Johnny said, moving to lounge against the armrest. He kept his eyes determinedly on the screen. “Speed Demon trounced me once, so Peter threw him through a building.”

Ben harrumphed. Johnny bristled.

“He loves me,” he said.

“Aw, kid,” Ben said, something weary in his sigh.

“No,” Johnny said. “I know – I know the kind of things I’ve said before. About being in love. You know better than most that I – that I can jump the gun. Make things into something that they aren’t. Pretend like everything is fine when it isn’t. But he loves me, Ben. He does.”

“You’ve been head over heels for that schmuck, makin’ big moon eyes at him every time you looked at him, since you were this tall,” Ben said, leveling a hand off at a height far shorter than Johnny had been at age sixteen, thank you very much. “And all of a sudden now, he’s lookin’ back. Forgive me for bein’ cautious.”

But somebody has to be went unsaid but heard loud and clear. They both knew caution had never exactly been Johnny’s strong suit. He glared at Ben anyway and was surprised when, after a minute, Ben glanced away.

“What I meant was, I shouldn’t’ve blown up at ya,” Ben said, shaking his head. “S’just – when I think about Alicia, alone on that space ship… of everything that coulda happened to her… if we’d never found her again…”

There was a lump in Johnny’s throat, a tight itchy feeling that made it hard to swallow.

“When I think about back then,” Ben said, “all I can do is remember how I wasn’t there to protect her.” He lifted his head and looked at Johnny, and Johnny was bowled over by the pain in those blue eyes. “I wasn’t there to protect you, either.”

“Ben…” Johnny started, but Ben cut him off with a shake of his head.

“Don’t think I don’t blame myself,” he said. “There’s a lotta grief I coulda saved you from. A lot of pain. And sometimes … sometimes I just…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, big guy,” Johnny said, slipping his arm through one of Ben’s and pillowing his head on Ben’s rocky forearm. His eyes slipped closed. “I know.”

“Hey,” Peter said, stepping out of the elevator. He was still dressed for his day job, which meant he’d come straight from work, no spandex detours. His tie was crooked, his jacket slung over one arm. Johnny hadn’t expected to see him for hours yet.

“Hi,” Johnny said, getting up to greet him.

Peter had a takeout bag dangling from his fingers. He set it down on the coffee table before he reached for Johnny, drawing him in close.

“I got dinner,” he said. “That fancy Chinese place you like, the one with those dumplings.”

“You hate those dumplings,” Johnny said, smiling as he wrapped his arms around Peter’s neck.

“The dumplings are great,” Peter said. “I hate you saying they’re better than sex with me.”

“What I said was that they were as good as sex with you,” Johnny said before Peter cut him off with a kiss.

“I was thinking about you,” Peter said, ardently pressing kisses to Johnny’s lips. His hands held tight to his waist. “All day.”

“All day?” Johnny teased, eyes fluttering shut. It was easy to relax against Peter, to let Peter hold him up against him, let him take care of everything.

“Accidentally almost let a delinquent set me on fire, thinking about you all day,” Peter confirmed, resting his forehead against Johnny’s and nearly going cross-eyed trying to look at him. “You okay?” When Johnny nodded, he continued, “Because you had me pretty worried last night.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said, breaking away to take a seat on the couch.

“Hey, no,” Peter said, beginning to unpack the food onto the coffee table. “Don’t apologize. It’s my job to worry about you. I want you to tell me when something’s wrong.”

“Even if I’m being annoying?” Johnny asked, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You being annoying is a turn-on for me at this point,” Peter snorted. He nudged Johnny’s ankle with his foot. “You don’t annoy me, Torch.”

Johnny didn’t really believe that, but it was nice to hear. He smiled at Peter, who raised his eyebrows as he smiled back, then none too subtly pushed the food towards Johnny.

He should have left it there, but he didn’t.

“Can I ask you a question?” Johnny asked after a few quiet minutes of pushing his noodles around with his chopsticks.

“Sure, hotshot,” Peter said, his mouth half full. “Shoot.”

Johnny hesitated a moment, right up until Peter glanced at him curiously, his eyebrows raised.

“Do you like me?” Johnny asked.

Peter frowned. “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you I love like, a hundred times this week alone.”

“I know you love me,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. He looked down at the coffee table. “But do you, you know – like me?”

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand the question.”

“It’s pretty easy,” Johnny said. He scuffed his toes against the carpet. “Do you like me, Pete?”

Just say yes, he internally begged him. If Peter said yes, Johnny could move on and forget he’d ever had to ask in the first place. But Peter didn’t say anything, and so eventually Johnny had to look up. He wished he hadn’t – Peter was staring at him with a look on his face like Johnny was an alien, like he was something unfathomable, like Peter was looking at a problem that he couldn’t solve.

Johnny’s chest clenched uncomfortably. He shouldn’t have asked. He had more in this relationship than he’d ever had before – he had someone he loved, someone he wanted, who loved and wanted him back. What did it matter if Peter liked him? He loved him, and he put up with him. It should have been enough.

“Johnny, look at me.” Peter leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. Johnny fixed his gaze on them so he wouldn’t have to look at Peter’s eyes anymore.

“I am looking at you,” he said, frowning.

“At my face, Johnny,” Peter said in that tone of voice that brooked no argument. Normally it gave Johnny the good kind of shivers, but right now he couldn’t really think of anything else besides trying to figure out if he could make it to the time platform in Reed’s lab before Peter caught up to him.

Slowly, feeling very much like a petulant kid, Johnny raised his eyes.

“Why are you asking if I like you?” Peter asked, almost painfully soft. Johnny knew that voice – he’d heard Spider-Man use it on little old ladies and frightened kids and once, memorably, on a cat stuck in a tree. Peter meant it to be soothing; it just made Johnny feel pathetic.

Johnny licked his lips, looking down, and said, “I asked you first.”

Peter was staring at him, worry written all over his face, and Johnny felt a stab of guilt that he had done that, gone and made Peter worry about him two days in a row now when he was fine. Or he would be fine, anyway, which pretty much amounted to the same thing, didn’t it?

“Did someone say something?” Peter asked. “Harry? Or Flash? Because Flash doesn’t have any room to judge my love life, okay, I’m pretty sure the last time anybody kissed him it was that creepy alien that’s bonded to him, and Harry – well, Harry --”

“No,” Johnny said, cutting Peter off before he got to whatever it was about Harry’s personal life he thought deserved that tone. “No, it wasn’t – nobody said anything. None of your friends did.”

It was true; Flash mostly seemed to get flustered around him, and Harry had once made a snide comment about his shoes, but aside from that, Peter’s friends were nice, and had only ever done the bare minimum of wondering what the hell someone like Peter Parker was doing with someone like Johnny Storm in front of Johnny.

“Did someone else say something?” Peter asked. He sounded like if Johnny said yes he would go find that person and beat them up. He sounded like he thought it was Ben.

There was no way for Johnny to explain. He’d been in love with Peter for so much longer than Peter had been in love with him, and he didn’t regret that, but sometimes he didn’t know if there was any way to put to words the gap that left between them. Peter would never be Johnny, standing in the kitchen doorway watching Peter play with Franklin and Val. Peter would never know what it felt like when Sue had come up behind him and sighed, “Oh, honey. You have so much to offer. Don’t you think it’s time you tried to move on?”

If he told Peter, Peter would take offense. He’d get angry on Johnny’s behalf. He wouldn’t understand just how long it had been, and that Johnny’s family had only ever been looking out for him.

“Can we just forget I said anything?” he said, a tight, anxious feeling building inside of him like a fire when Peter continued to frown. Johnny ducked his head, his eyes burning. He could laugh this off, if he only had a moment. “I – this was stupid. I’m just being stupid.”

“No,” Peter said, his voice soft.

Johnny looked up, mouth hanging open.

“Hey,” Peter said, leaning forward. “I like you. A whole lot, actually. Have for kind of a while.”

Johnny laughed a little, raising a hand to swipe at his eyes. “Yeah? How long is a while?”

“Hm,” Peter said, reaching out to take Johnny’s face between his hands. He leaned in until their noses brushed. “About fifteen years, give or take.”

Johnny laughed, sharp and startled, a tight feeling in his chest as Peter reached up to thumb away a tear from the corner of his eye.

“That entire time?” he said.

“Pretty much,” Peter said, laughing. “I always liked you, Torch. Even when you drove me up the wall. How could I not?”

Johnny swallowed hard, his laughter growing softer, as he wondered how to tell Peter that he could very easily imagine how he could not when Johnny didn’t even like himself half of the time. But he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

“You need me to tell you why?” Peter asked, his voice gone soft and concerned. He didn’t laugh when Johnny nodded, only swiped his thumb underneath his eye again, his deep brown eyes staring into Johnny’s with the kind of intensity that made him want to look away before Peter saw too much. He didn’t look away. “Okay. Come here and I’ll tell you.”

It was a few days before Peter and Ben happened to be in the same room again. It wasn’t, exactly, a meeting that Johnny had been actively trying to stop so much as he’d taken advantage of the fact that Ben and Peter’s schedules didn’t usually mesh.

Ben liked his routine. Johnny had lived with him so long that he could set his watch by it. He always drank his coffee at the same time, always read the same newspaper. Always wandered down to the same Yancy Street diner on Saturday mornings to catch up with the crowd he lovingly referred to as “the rest of the bums.” Always liked to watch the news in the evenings, provided that the Fantastic Four wasn’t starring in it.

So it wasn’t like Johnny had been actively steering Peter away from the parts of the Baxter Building Ben was likely to be in or anything. He just hadn’t been encouraging him there, either. If it meant more time spent alone in their room – in bed, in the shower, one memorable occasion pinned to the ceiling – well, that was just how the dice happened to fall.

Sometimes even Johnny Storm got lucky.

It was something of a surprise, then, on account of all the not-avoiding, when Johnny and Peter walked into the kitchen one evening to find Ben and Alicia already there, Ben standing by the fridge and Alicia seated at the island. They were both dressed to the nines, Ben in a tux and Alicia in a gold evening gown and matching gloves.

Well, there were two bright sides there, Johnny thought, pausing in the doorway. Ben probably wouldn’t try to punch Peter in front of Alicia, and he probably wouldn’t want to ruin his tux.

Peter, who’d nearly bumped into him when he’d stopped short, took one look at his face and then one look at Ben. His face went stormy. Peter, Johnny thought with a small amount of alarm, would have no reservations about ruining Ben’s tux.

“What are you two all dressed up for?” Johnny asked, quickly and loudly, cutting Peter off before he could even open his mouth.

“Oh, Johnny,” Alicia said, turning towards the doorway with a smile. “Ben’s taking me to the opera tonight.”

The opera, of course – Johnny had forgotten how Alicia loved the opera. She and Ben always went together when the season started, sometimes with Reed and Sue. Johnny had gone with them a few times, too, at first tagging along in an attempt to impress Dorrie Evans, who had cleared her throat pointedly every time Johnny had so much as fidgeted the entire evening, and once with Frankie Raye, who had gone to the restroom halfway through the evening and not bothered to return, not that Johnny could blame her.

He had gone with Alicia – not with Alicia, but with the person he’d thought was Alicia, with Lyja -- a few times after that, when she’d suggested it. It had been tense and stifling and utterly miserable, and at the time Johnny had blamed that on the opera part.

It hadn’t been the opera part.

“Does Ben look handsome?” Alicia asked, jogging him from his reveries. “He never describes himself to me.”

He struggled to keep the smile on his face as he says, “He looks about as handsome as a pile of rocks wearing black tie can.”

“She’s saved from seeing my ugly mug all day so why should she have to hear about it?” Ben snorted, shutting the fridge. “Alicia’s gettin’ me some culture.”

“Ben, you have lots of culture,” Alicia said, laughing gently.

“Oh, yeah,” Ben said. “Culture out the wazoo, that’s what I got.”

He waggled his rocky brows salaciously for no one’s benefit, considering Alicia couldn’t see him, but maybe she knew he was doing it anyway because she went a delicate shade of pink, her smile widening.

“We’re just waitin’ on Reed and Suzie,” Ben grunted at Johnny. He wasn’t looking at Peter. “Then we’ll be outta your hair.”

“Johnny,” Alicia said, reaching out a hand. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine,” he told her, taking her hand and squeezing it briefly. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was true enough for the moment, and he didn’t want to ruin her night making her worry over him. “Don’t worry about me,” he added, which had the bonus of his meaning it. He’d always been better at selling the truth.

Alicia didn’t quite look like she bought it, but she smiled at him anyway. Johnny thought it would probably never be like it was before she’d been abducted by the Skrulls. Before Johnny had been pulled into Lyja’s web, because Ben had been gone and he'd been an easy target, young and desperate to be loved the way he’d seen Ben and Sue and Reed be loved. He and Alicia hadn’t been close, then, but there hadn’t been this distance between them either. He hadn’t felt the shadow of anyone else when he looked at her.

He hadn’t had to wonder what she felt about him, either, knowing he’d gone and married someone pretending to be her. He’d just been her boyfriend’s annoying kid brother figure, and everything had been so simple, and at the time Johnny had really felt like that could last forever.

But it had all happened already. There was no point wishing he could undo it. Johnny had had enough experience with Reed time traveling to know that it didn’t work that way. It wasn’t fair for him to dwell on it and make it worse for Alicia.

Peter, still standing in the doorway, was frowning. Johnny wished he wouldn’t because he really was fine now, for the most part.

Alicia seemed to sense something in the atmosphere, because she climbed to her feet, letting her fingers trail over Ben’s arm as she moved past him, saying, “I’m going to go see what’s keeping Susan and Reed. Meet you in the lobby?”

“Sure, baby,” Ben said, and she patted his elbow with a smile before she wandered out of the kitchen.

Johnny desperately wanted to call out for her to stay, because he was pretty sure Peter and Ben wouldn’t actually come to blows as long as she was in the room, but the words felt stuck in his throat. He wanted to reach out and take Peter by the hand, tug him out of the kitchen, but Peter had that stubborn look on his face, his jaw set as he looked as Ben.

“You wanna say something?” Ben asked, his voice a deep rumble that promised nothing good.

“Oh, plenty,” Peter said, and Johnny cringed. Peter glanced at him. “But I’ve been told I should keep most of it to myself.”

Ben sent Johnny a look. Johnny began to weigh the pros and cons of just flaming on and flying away. Sure, they might kill each other, but at least he wouldn’t have to watch.

“Listen, Webs,” Ben said to Peter. He hesitated, glancing away. “I’m sorry for wipin’ the floor with ya the other day.”

Johnny sucked in a breath. It was the kind of gruff love that he was used to, but Peter – well, there was a good chance now that today was the day Peter was going to decide to break his fist on Ben’s face.

Peter stood stock still for a second, a hard look in his eyes, his head cocked to the side.

“That’s not how I remember it,” he finally said, the corner of his mouth twitching. He leaned on the counter, every inch of him lean and dangerous. “As I recall I was two seconds away from making you cry for mercy before Sue interrupted.”

Ben raised a rocky brow and Johnny briefly considered just setting the kitchen on fire as a distraction – before Ben started to laugh. It wasn’t a big laugh, more like a quick snort, but it was a laugh all the same.

“Yeah,” Ben said, smirking at Peter. “Sure. That’s what happened. Ain’t that right, matchstick?”

“I have no idea what’s happening right now,” Johnny confessed, looking from Ben, back to Peter, and back again.

“I could beat you, though, if I ever really wanted to,” Peter said, never one to leave well enough alone. “Just so we both know.”

Ben snorted and rolled his eyes. “All I’d need to squash you is a rolled up newspaper.”

Peter narrowed his eyes, and Johnny held his breath. Then slowly, the corner of Peter’s mouth curved up in a smirk.

“Will it be a copy of the Bugle?” he asked. “Because they’ve been trying to squash me for years. I bounce back.”

Ben snorted and lumbered off without another word. Peter watched him go with a smirk on his face like it was a surrender and not a stalemate. Johnny tried not to sigh in relief.

“You know I could beat him, right,” Peter said, glancing at Johnny.

“Sure, honey,” Johnny said without much feeling, trying to calm the wild beating of his heart. “If it makes you feel better.”

Peter scowled at him. Johnny smiled back innocently.

“Don’t get too excited,” Peter said after a second, too nonchalant, the way Peter got when he was thinking too hard about something. Johnny instantly paid more attention. “But I got you something and I thought, with everyone out, tonight would be a good time to give it to you.”

“Is it clothes?” Johnny asked. “Tell me it’s not clothes.”

“Yes, Torch, because I can afford to get you all the new fall lines out of gay Paris,” he said, pronouncing it Pair-ee with an exaggerated roll of his wrist and a little bow thrown in for good measure. “No, it’s not clothes. Do you always make that face when someone gets you a present?”

“It’s not alive, is it?” Johnny said. “Because I’m not sure Sue’s forgiven us yet for that one time we got Franklin a puppy.”

Peter was starting to look affronted. “I didn’t get you a puppy. Will you just come with me already?”

“Is it a car?” Johnny asked, just to be annoying.

Peter didn’t say anything.

“Oh my God,” Johnny said, excitement mounting within him. “You did not get me a car!”

“Will you just come with me?” Peter asked, a note of pleading in his voice.

“You can’t afford to get me a car,” Johnny said. “What is it? Is it a Lego? Did you pull something rusted out of the Hudson? Did you steal it from an impound lot?”

“What do you think I do when I’m not in your direct line of sight?” Peter asked.

“All kinds of things,” Johnny said, grabbing onto his hand. “Steal me cars, apparently!”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. He picked up the pace a little as they approached the elevators. “You want stolen goods, go date my ex.”

“Do you think Felicia would date me?” Johnny teased, winding his arms around Peter’s neck from behind. He jumped onto his back and Peter caught him, strong hands slipping underneath Johnny’s things as Johnny blew in his ear. “She’s so hot.”

“Keep this up and I’m not giving you zip,” Peter said, but he carried Johnny into the elevator so Johnny knew he didn’t really mean it.

“No!” Johnny crowed in delight as Peter pushed the button for his garage. “You’re not serious. It really is a car!”

“It could charitably be called a car,” Peter said, squeezing Johnny’s thighs. “Quit it, you’ll ruin your own surprise.”

“Does it come with a receipt?” Johnny asked. “In case I don’t like it.”

“If you don’t like it, set it on fire,” Peter said, his voice nonchalant but with just a hint of real annoyance behind it, like now he was thinking about what he would do if Johnny really didn’t like his gift.

He tightened his arms around Peter a little, pressing a kiss to the side of his head, and Peter sighed, tipping his head back.

“Don’t make me regret this,” he said, just as the elevator doors slid open.

Peter let Johnny slide from his back as they stepped into the garage. It was a large room in one of the Baxter Building’s basements now, although for a while Johnny had had it in the middle of the building. Not very convenient, but he’d liked the way the sunshine streamed through the big windows while he worked.

Then Doom had gone and shot the building into space. Johnny had lost a lot of nice cars that day.

The garage had been rebuilt a handful of times since then – when they’d lost the building, when the building had been knocked down, when the building had been taken over by killer flowers from a distant galaxy and they’d spent three weeks taking the kids on a trip around Europe while a team of trained specialists got the pollen out of everything.

The garage had always been a little bit of a disaster space. Tools were haphazardly organized, old pizza boxes he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out stacked in the corner. Magazines littered the floor – most of them had him on the cover. Some of them had Spider-Man. A pair of coveralls was abandoned in the middle of the floor. The garage had always been the one place in the Baxter Building that was really, truly his that way. He felt at home here.

There was something large and new sitting in the middle of the floor, covered in an oil cloth.

“How did you even get this in here?” Johnny asked with delight. It was definitely a car; he could make out the vague shape of it underneath the cloth. But he didn’t make a move to pull it off just yet. He wanted to savor the moment.

“You have a sister who turns invisible,” Peter said, “and I’m very good at heavy lifting.”

“I know you are,” Johnny said, leering at him for good measure. “I like to watch.”

Peter snorted. He put his hands on the drop cloth and then looked up at Johnny, something almost like hesitation on his face, and suddenly Johnny realized he was nervous. It took him by surprise; Peter was so rarely honestly nervous in front of him that sometimes Johnny forgot what it looked like.

Peter being nervous was supposed to be reserved for things like the really bad alien invasions and seemingly unwinnable battles and the time when Franklin decided it would be better to ask Spider-Man about the birds and the bees than his parents. He wasn’t supposed to look nervous around Johnny.

“You ready?” he asked.

“I love it already,” Johnny told him, meaning it all the way.

“Try to hold onto that feeling,” Peter said. Johnny, nearly vibrating with excitement, gestured at him to make with the big reveal already.

Peter ripped off the cloth, and there it was: a near perfect replica of the ugliest car Johnny had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Johnny felt himself start to smile. He cupped a hand to his mouth to hide it, but he wasn’t quite fast enough if the look on Peter’s face was anything to go by.

The car in front of him was a red and blue buggy, its two seats upholstered in beige leather, its wheels emblazoned with a familiar mask. Johnny would have known it anywhere. He should; he’d built the original.

“You got me the Spider-Mobile,” he said, grinning up at him. “Oh, Pete. It’s –”

“Amazing?” Peter said, leaning casually back against a Jeep. “Spectacular? Dare I say it, sensational?”

“Hideous,” Johnny finished.

“It is that,” Peter said.

“I love it,” Johnny said, turning to beam at him. “Where did you get it?”

“I built it,” Peter said.

“You what?” Johnny said, unable to help a surprised laugh. He remembered vividly the time they had built the first Spider-Mobile, barely in their twenties and fumbling around a dynamic no longer built out of Spider-Man trying his best to be a pain in Johnny’s ass.

Now, with hindsight and a much deeper knowledge of the man behind the mask, Johnny knew Peter must have been grieving, then. He’d lost Gwen only months before, and there had been no one he could share everything with – the people who knew him as Spider-Man couldn’t comprehend his loss, and the people who knew him as Peter had no idea of the other life he was shouldering. And yet there he’d been, climbing in Johnny’s window and roping him into building the ugliest car in the world.

“Look,” Peter said, putting a hand on the hood and leaning forward. “I wanted to get you something special, but there’s only so much I can give you here, Torch, that you can’t buy. Even less that you couldn’t build yourself because I know I joke, but you can do anything when you set your mind to it. But I thought… this is a pretty good memory, right?”

Johnny’s smile felt too delicate to be seen, so he put his hand over his mouth, pressing his fingers to his lips.

“The best,” he agreed. Then, putting a little bit of a whine into his voice, he added, “I can’t believe you rebuilt it without me!”

“Then it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise,” Peter said, shrugging. “The car doesn’t run. I figured if you wanted…”

“Oh,” Johnny said, smiling. Peter had left it for him to finish. Peter had known he’d want to be the one. His throat was tight and his eyes hot, but he couldn’t have stopped smiling now if the building started to fall down around them. “You couldn’t figure it out. You’ve always sucked at cars.”

“I’m a genius and it’s a box with an engine in it,” Peter scoffed.

“You couldn’t, could you?” Johnny said, stepping forward and twining his arms around Peter’s neck. “It’s okay, baby. Cars are tough. It takes a special kind of man to get the engine going on a sweet little thing like this.”

“Do you want to be alone with it?” Peter asked, raising his eyebrows even as his hands slid into the back pockets of Johnny’s jeans, tugging him close against him. The kiss was soft and lingering, and Johnny thought he’d be good just staying like this, standing close to Peter, kissing in the garage in the presence of the ugliest car he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.

“Yeah, do you mind turning around and giving us a moment?” Johnny asked when they broke apart, rocking up on his toes to kiss the tip of Peter’s nose.

“You haven’t even seen the best part,” Peter said.

“It gets better?” Johnny asked.

“Sure does,” Peter said, kissing the side of his head. He pulled out his phone. “I filmed Harry trying to figure out how to use a wrench.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Johnny said.

Peter had looked less tense disarming bombs. He tugged at his tie, leaving it crooked, and Johnny sighed as he leaned forward and smoothed it back down his chest, making sure the collar of Peter’s shirt hid the costume underneath.

“You’re really chancing wearing this tonight?” he asked, tweaking the center of Peter’s chest.

“When your annoying little friend turns out to be the Chameleon in a rubber mask, you’ll thank me," Peter said.

“He’s not my friend,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes.

“Your celebrity nemesis, then,” Peter said, shrugging. “Your enemy of the non-villainous variety.”

When Darren Winters’ people had reached out to Johnny’s people to offer him a spot on his show, Johnny had thought about saying no, at first. Then he’d done something stupid and joked about it to Peter, rolling over onto his stomach on their bed and saying how funny it would be if he just went on national television and introduced the mysterious boyfriend everyone was trying so hard to get a glimpse of.

Okay, Peter had said, his eyes stone cold and his fingers warm as he played with Johnny’s hair. Let’s do it.

What? Johnny had said, his jaw dropping open.

And then, somehow, they’d ended up here. He’d spent days waiting for Peter to say he was just kidding, and then a few more on the verge of panic after he realized that Peter wasn’t going to. Peter was actually going to do this.

“You’re not doing this to try and humiliate me in television, are you?” Johnny teased. “What, are you going to pull out my embarrassing baby pictures? Pretend to go down on one knee?”

“Believe me, I keep asking your sister for your embarrassing baby pictures. She’s not sharing,” Peter said, fidgeting with his tie again. He glanced up and fixed Johnny with a long, hot look, the kind that always made Johnny shiver. “And when I ask you to marry me, it’s not going to be on some stupid nighttime television show.”

“Oh,” Johnny said, feeling a little faint. “Okay.”

“Just so we’re clear,” Peter said, clearing his throat a little, but his dark eyes were intense, and his voice contained no hint of a joke.

“Oh,” Johnny repeated again, a little afraid now that he wouldn’t be able to remember how to say any other words for the rest of the night. He was going to go on late night TV and make a fool out of himself, which, well, wouldn’t have been the first time, but Peter had never seen it happen from this side of the screen. Johnny had sort of hoped to keep it together for him. He should have known Peter would ruin that for him by being the absolute worst and implying that he might want to, someday, ask Johnny to marry him.

Johnny’s mouth felt dry. His knees felt like jelly. If he passed out right now then at least it wouldn’t be in front of the camera. Peter was the king of excuses, so he could make some for him.

“Hey,” Peter said, chucking him under the chin. “Showtime. Sure you’re dressed up enough?”

“What?” Johnny said, spreading his arms. His bomber jacket was bright orange, covered in sequined gold and red flames. He guessed it did look a little flashy next to Peter’s plain navy suit. “You think it’s too much?”

Peter raised an eyebrow as he said, “No, it’s fine. I think we want them to be able to see you in New Jersey.”

“I’m changing,” Johnny decided, making a move for the wardrobe. Peter, laughing, caught him by the arm, reeling him back in against himself.

“You’ve changed twenty times already,” he said. He squeezed his arm gently, leaning in close. “You look great. Wonderful. Wouldn’t change a thing. Hey, did you know I’m carrying a real torch for you?”

“Can you tell me more without smudging all that concealer on your jaw?” Johnny asked.

Peter had come home several hours later than promised that night sporting a growing bruise on his face. He’d started saying something about a pizza shop and some guy on stilts who was usually Daredevil’s problem, but honestly Johnny had stopped listening after confirming he wasn’t bleeding from anywhere important.

“Please,” Peter scoffed. “I’m a professional.”

Johnny sank his fingers into Peter’s hair as their lips met. He was doing him a favor, messing it up. Peter would thank him for it someday.

“Hey, loveboids!” Ben called from the hall, rapping his knuckles against the door. “Quit neckin’ in there, the car’s outside.”

“We’re not necking!” Johnny yelled back. He tilted his head as Peter kissed his throat. “Hey, come on, you heard the big guy. Car’s waiting.”

Peter’s lips brushed against his skin as he spoke, his big hands hot against Johnny’s hip. “Yeah, I was thinking about that, actually.”

“About what?” Johnny asked, feeling a little breathless, and oh, this was bad, he needed to put a pin in this until after the show. His hands flexed at Peter’s shoulders but made no attempt to push him off. “The car?”

“Got it in one,” Peter said, pulling back finally and then pressing a kiss to the tip of Johnny’s nose. Johnny got a little dizzy trying to follow him. “The studio’s only a couple of blocks away. It’s wasteful, taking a car. It’s bad for the environment. As a superhero you should be against that kind of behavior, pretty boy. You need to leave a very clean carbon footprint, set an example for the kids.”

“What kids?” Johnny said, distracted by Peter’s lips pressed quickly against his, thrown off by the rhythm of his rambling. “What’re you getting at? You want to, what, walk? I’ll get mobbed.”

“What I’m suggesting is that you tell Ben to tell the driver to take some time off, get himself a Thing Shake at the Fantasti-Café,” Peter said, waggling his eyebrows. “And you can fly me over.”

“What?” Johnny said, doing a doubletake. “You never want me to fly you. You always complain the whole time.”

“I do it out of love,” Peter volleyed back. “I don’t think that whole dangling thing is good for your joints. But I’m saying, just this once –”

“Just this once!” Johnny cut in, scowling. “Fine, next time we’re in the middle of a fight I’ll just let you plummet to your death --”

“Just this once,” Peter said, raising his voice to speak over him. “I’m allowing it. Because you’re the Human Torch, and I’m just plain Peter Parker, ordinary civilian.” His eyes softened. His voice lowered. “Just a regular guy, who is devastatingly in love with you, and who definitely can’t swing from a web.”

Sometimes Johnny didn’t know how he didn’t just burst into flames from all the love caught in his chest. It left him breathless at the oddest moments, still found him caught entirely off guard by Peter even after all these years.

“You have to promise you won’t complain,” Johnny said, somehow managing to smile through it.

“Hey, I know how you love to make an entrance,” Peter said, which wasn’t him promising at all. Johnny decided to let it slide.

Ben knocked on the door again, louder this time, and Peter laughed, catching Johnny’s mouth in another quick kiss.

“So, pretty boy?” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “How about it?”

“Yes,” Johnny said, laughing, as he tugged Peter over to the windows and flung them open. He’d let Ben figure out where they went. “Let’s do it.”