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They started the holiday season off right: having a screaming fight about the gift Johnny had bought May and John Jameson Sr.
“She’s never been!” Johnny said, throwing his hands up. “What was I supposed to get her? Socks?”
“You’re supposed to talk to me before you buy my aunt first class tickets to Paris!” Peter shot back. He was half-dressed in his spider-suit, the mask dangling from one ungloved hand. He waved it around like it’d somehow help prove his point.
Johnny, who had just spent the last weekend both a hundred years in the future and nine thousand miles away from home, thanks, was not impressed.
“I’m sorry, what part of ‘surprise’ do you not understand?” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.
“The part where I have a heart attack,” Peter said. “No, Johnny. Just - no.”
“It’s done! It’s paid for!” Johnny said. “It’s Paris, what is your problem?”
“My problem?” Peter said, voice rising. “My problem? Are you serious? No, I am not explaining this to you if you’re determined not to get it.”
“What’s to get?” Johnny said. “You hate fun and happiness! Seriously, Pete -”
“No, nope, I’m out, I’m out of here,” Peter said, yanking on a glove. His face was flushed, his eyebrows furrowed. He looked furious. Johnny clenched his jaw until it hurt. “I was supposed to be fighting a guy dressed like a giant lemming like ten minutes ago.”
“Worst villains,” Johnny sang under his breath, unable to help himself.
Peter looked up, mask rolled halfway down, and his frown relaxed. He let out an annoyed breath before starting forward, leaning in to kiss the corner of Johnny’s mouth.
Johnny put his hand against Peter’s neck, stroking the line between spandex and skin. “Kick his ass.”
“Get rid of those tickets,” Peter said. He was gone out the window before Johnny could scream at him.
There was a billboard across the street looping Darla’s latest interview. She was grinning ear to ear, holding up her hand. The small pink stone was a perfect match for her hair, but the platinum clashed with her skin. Johnny felt somewhat vindicated that Scott Lang couldn’t buy jewelry to save his life.
She looked happy. Johnny guessed that was what mattered.
Except something sour had curdled in Johnny’s stomach the moment Darla had broken the news about her engagement. He couldn’t explain it - normally he loved weddings, and he was happy for Darla and Scott. But a bitter, hollow pang shot through him every time he saw Darla talking about her upcoming nuptials, and it made him feel not quite like himself.
He shoved it aside, just like he had the fight over May’s gift, and walked into Sue’s favorite department store.
She was a little ways inside, making pleasant conversation with the woman behind a cosmetics counter.
“You’re late,” she said when he sidled up next to her.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was buying your kids some ponies and lost track of time.”
She snorted. “No ponies.”
“They’re Shetland ponies, they’re little,” he said. “You won’t even notice them.”
“No ponies and no cars, Johnny,” she said. “We gave you one rule when Franklin was born, it’s not a lot to ask.”
“No flying with the baby,” Johnny mocked. He spun a display a little too hard and earned himself a sharp look from a matronly saleswoman. “No buying the baby his own island. No wonder Ben’s the favorite uncle.”
He wasn’t looking where he was going and he hip-checked one of the gold posts holding up the line for a bored-looking Santa. He shot Johnny a nasty look and Johnny glowered right back. “God, I hate this time of year.”
“Johnny,” Sue warned. She stopped by the elevators, pushing the up button, but didn’t say anything else until they were both inside and the doors had shut. “What’s gotten into you today?”
Johnny shrugged, tilting his head back to gaze at the elevator’s mirrored ceiling. He reached up to fix his hair. “Can’t I just be in a mood?”
“It’s not like you,” Sue said. “You love the holidays.”
The doors dinged open and Johnny made a beeline for the nearest, most expensive thing. Sue followed at a more leisurely pace, flicking around a blazer Johnny thought would probably look nice on Reed, not that he’d ever wear it.
“I love the holidays,” Johnny said. “It’s Peter I want to shove off the roof.”
“Oh,” Sue said, like that solved everything. “You’re fighting.”
“Yeah, what else is new? We’ve been fighting since we were kids,” Johnny snorted.
“Not lately,” Sue said. “You’ve both been on cloud nine for so long, I was starting to wonder if I should worry.”
“Uh, no,” Johnny said. “Last week I put mayo on a hot dog and we screamed at each other for thirty minutes.”
Sue gave him an unimpressed look. “Yes, thank you, you’ve both been setting a great example for the kids.”
“Ben had to physically haul us apart!” Johnny said.
“That’s not fighting for you two and you know it.”
Johnny did, and admitted it. “I mostly did it to watch him turn colors anyway.”
“Mmhmm,” Sue hummed. “So what happened?”
“I bought May first class tickets to Paris for Christmas. Booked her and Jay into that hotel Ben likes,” Johnny said bitterly. He picked up a sweater he kind of hated. “I’m buying twelve of these.”
“That’s a nice gift. The tickets, not the sweater. Put the sweater down,” Sue said absently, and then she stopped and turned to face him. “You did talk to him about it first, right?”
His face must have said it all. Sue rolled her eyes sky high, sighing his name in reprimand, and Johnny bristled.
“It’s nice! It was - I’m being nice!” he said. There must have been something in his voice, because Sue’s face softened. She reached over and grabbed his wrist, squeezing.
“I know you were,” she said. “And I know you care about May, and that you’re not just showing off, but Johnny - you have to talk to him about these things.”
“I tried!” Johnny said. “I said, has May ever been to Paris, and he said, no, and I said, would she like to, and when I looked over he was asleep on the couch.”
“And you thought, that was a good talk, and then called your travel agent?” Sue filled in, her gaze arch.
“I thought about shaving one of his eyebrows off first,” Johnny said.
“And now I assume he’s found out,” Sue said. “What did he say?”
“You know, when he gets really angry he sort of hits this pitch,” Johnny said, waving a hand by his ear. “I think I just instinctively tune it out now.”
“Johnny,” Sue said.
“He wants me to get rid of the tickets,” Johnny admitted, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
He itched all over, just thinking about the look on Peter’s face. It made him want to take the fire escape up to the roof and just flame on, take off and fly until he burned himself out. Sue looked at him like she knew. That, at least, made it a little more bearable.
Johnny grabbed a light blue scarf and looped it around Sue’s neck, tugging on the ends.
“I should just do what he wants and get rid of the tickets, huh?” he said. “That’s what you’re going to say?”
Sue shrugged, turning to look at herself in the mirror. “I think you two should talk about it like adults. No webbing, no fire, and nobody gets their eyebrows shaved off.”
“I’m not agreeing to the last part.”
“Do you know what Reed would look like if I went after his eyebrows every time I was annoyed at him?” Sue asked. Johnny snickered a little, then tipped his head back with a sigh, inspecting the Christmas decorations strung up along the ceiling.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“Secret of the trade,” Sue told him. “Nobody does.”
He huffed in frustration, but let her steer him away from the display full of truly terrible sweaters he’d been about to buy.
“You’ll work it out. I know you will,” she said.
“Yeah but worst case scenario, you’ll help me hide the body, right?” he said. Sue shot him a look and pointedly didn't answer.
“This time of year just makes me sentimental,” she said, running her fingers over the scarf. “Part of me is always going to be that stressed out girl, worrying you were going to hate the stupid present I couldn’t afford in the first place.”
Johnny swallowed hard, swinging an arm over her shoulders. “Yeah, I know. And I never hated any of it.”
“Yes you did,” Sue said.
“Yeah I did,” he confirmed. “But you married your nerd in shining spandex and now you can buy me nice things instead. I’ll e-mail you my wishlist.”
Sue snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up - and you’re one to talk.”
“I’m one to what now?” Johnny asked, momentarily distracted by a watch. Sue elbowed him, pulling him away from the display.
“You married your nerd in shining spandex, too,” she said.
Johnny, who hadn’t needed gloves in winter since he was sixteen, ran his thumb over the ring on his finger and couldn’t argue.
“Wanna trade?” he asked after a second, knocking his elbow against hers. “Yours makes way more money than mine.”
“Don’t ruin the moment,” Sue said.
Peter came home smelling like the Hudson and headed straight for the shower. Johnny followed after him, kicking shredded spandex out of the way.
“Not in the mood, Johnny,” Peter called out over the spray of the shower. Johnny settled back against the wall with his arms folded.
“Yeah, I’ll pass until I’m sure you’re not turning into the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons,” he said. “I just want to talk.”
“I’m not going to explain because you’re determined not to get it. I already had my head bashed into one brick wall once tonight,” Peter said.
“I do get it,” Johnny said, biting back a wince at the image of Peter’s head meeting a wall. Peter was tough, his wiry build a deception. He could take that kind of punishment and walk it off. “It’s too much money. That’s the problem.”
The shower shut off. The glass door slid back. Peter’s eyes were huge and his hair stuck flat to his forehead; fresh bruises mottled his skin.
“Are you actually trying to kill me?” he demanded.
“Your teeth are chattering,” Johnny said.
“I got thrown into the Hudson in December,” Peter said, scathing and miserable.
Johnny made a cooing noise that was only halfway mocking and opened his arms wide. “Come here.”
Peter took a split-second to roll his eyes skyward like he was asking why him before he wrapped himself around Johnny, wet arms around Johnny’s back and cold nose against his neck. Johnny held him tight, leaning back so the wall took both their weight and spreading his legs so Peter could stand between them.
He ratcheted up his body temperature and waited for Peter to warm up.
“Where were you the last dozen years I spent fighting crime in my pajamas in the snow?” Peter grumbled.
Johnny nuzzled against Peter’s temple. “Your hair’s getting all fluffy. C’mon. Let’s go to bed.”
Whatever Peter had been out hitting, it had hit back pretty hard. He fell asleep as soon as they were on the bed, sandwiched between Johnny and the fluffiest comforter he owned, the one he didn’t need but had been too soft to pass up.
Peter was a lot heavier than he looked and conked out he was all dead weight. Johnny threw one arm around Peter’s waist and resigned himself to some serious pins and needles.
Peter slept like the dead for all of two hours. Johnny scrolled through his phone, held up in the air over their heads, and tried to ignore the pit in his stomach.
He was thumbing through his twitter feed when Peter finally stirred.
“Gnuh,” he said. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to stop drooling on me,” Johnny replied, digging his thumb in small circles down Peter’s spine, careful to avoid all his fresh new bruises. Peter’s back was all in knots. Johnny would’ve tried and wrestle him in to see his masseuse but Peter would just turn around and pin him with his pinkie finger.
Peter twisted enough that he got his face out of Johnny’s shoulder. “What’re you looking at?”
“Darla asked half of the internet to be her bridesmaid,” he said, flashing the screen Peter’s way. Peter snorted, turning his face back against Johnny’s neck.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “You look terrible in pink.”
“I look great in pink, don’t lie to yourself,” Johnny shot back. Peter smiled against his neck, slow and sweet. It settled some of Johnny’s nerves.
“I’m crushing you, aren’t I?” Peter mumbled.
“Little bit,” Johnny admitted, regretting it when Peter immediately rolled off, settling down on his usual side of the bed. He never needed body heat, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like it.
Peter sat up with a yawn, stretching and then wincing. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“You’re just as young and sprightly as the day I met you,” Johnny told him, fluttering his eyelashes. Peter snorted.
“I get thrown into one river and that’s it for me,” he said. “I’m getting something to eat, you want anything?”
Johnny glanced at the clock. It was edging towards late and he had an interview in the morning he was already half-tempted to blow off. He probably should’ve tried to fall asleep with Peter, but he’d felt too awake. If he tried to sleep now he’d only end up waiting up until Peter came back to bed. Knowing Peter, he might not come back at all. He had a bad habit of coming back from Spideying, crashing for a beautiful few hours and then swinging right back out the nearest window.
It was a bad match for how much Johnny hated to sleep alone.
“Yeah,” he said, unwilling to lie in the dark feeling lonely and sorry for himself. “I’ll come with you.”
The lights in the kitchen were too bright. Johnny blinked, yawning, and turned to say something to Peter but came up empty when he found his back to him. He wasn’t even hungry. He should’ve stayed in bed.
Peter was busying himself with the fridge, his hair cowlicky and going in every direction. Warm and dry, he still looked half-drowned. He’d grabbed a pair of sweatpants from their floor - they were Johnny’s, light blue and faded soft, hanging low on his hips.
“What are you in the mood for? Ben’s writing his name on stuff again,” he said. He made a noise of triumph, straightening up with a small mountain of Chinese food cartons balanced in his arms. “Score.”
He slid a carton Johnny’s way, then grabbed two forks. The food didn’t taste like anything, but Johnny ate anyway, because otherwise it’d just be him and Peter sitting silently together at the table. They’d never done silent before. He hated it.
Peter pushed his fork around and, finally, spoke, “Did you get rid of the tickets?”
Johnny couldn’t help it; he bristled. “Thought I’d wait, see if you wanted me to cancel all of France while I was at it.”
“You’re not that famous,” Peter said. “You still have them, don’t you?”
Johnny shrugged, a little annoyed for once that Peter could read him so easily. Peter sighed.
“Good,” he said.
Johnny opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. “What?”
“Good,” Peter repeated. “Don’t get rid of them. It’s - they’re nice, it’s a nice gift, May and Jay’ll be over the moon.”
“I thought you said it was too much,” Johnny bit out, unable to help himself. Peter scowled, pointing at him with his fork.
“It’s way too much,” he said.
“It’s not,” Johnny said. “She deserves it.”
The line between Peter’s eyebrows softened.
“Yeah, she does,” he said. “So don’t get rid of them, okay? Just - let me give her my gift first, so I just get upstaged instead of looking like a complete schmuck.”
“Just put your name on the card,” Johnny said. It was what he’d been planning to do. Peter shot him a look. “Or don’t, whatever. Your choice.”
Peter muttered something to himself under his breath, making a free throw for the trash and hitting it dead on.
“Think fast,” Johnny said, and lobbed his own empty carton straight at Peter’s forehead. Peter snatched it easily out of the air, his grin small and crooked. Johnny pushed himself up from the table.
“You have to give me something to work with here, Pete,” he said. “How are you - y’know. Feeling?”
“My stupid husband wants to send my aunt and her husband to Paris,” Peter shot back, leaning back against the counter. “How do you think I feel?”
“Like the luckiest man in the galaxy?” Johnny tried.
“Bzzt. Try again,” Peter said fondly.
“I was going to send you too,” Johnny admitted, mostly because he was pretty sure Peter had already figured that part out. The unimpressed look he got more or less confirmed it. The kiss he got was soft, though, like Peter was trying to make up for all the eye-rolling he was doing.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Let’s just go to space sometime instead.”
“Been there, done that,” Johnny complained, locking his hands behind the small of Peter’s back.
“And it’s always fun, right?” Peter said. “You gotta do just one thing for me one thing, okay. Promise?”
“I’m sending your aunt to Paris and now I’m doing you favors?” Johnny said. Peter bumped their foreheads together, then kissed him.
“Give the tickets to May and Jay in front of Jonah,” he said. “That’s all I want.”
It took Johnny a second to clue in.
“You’re gonna kill him,” he said, unable to help the grin taking over his face. Peter “nah”ed, shrugging.
“Maybe just a small cardiac episode,” he said. “It’s a risk we’re going to have to take.”
“Deal,” Johnny said.
“You’re still an idiot,” Peter said.
“Well, you married me,” Johnny replied, settling his hands at Peter’s lean hips. “So what does that make you?”
“The bigger idiot,” Peter replied. “Obviously.”
“This is completely the wrong kind of wrench.”
“You told me to hand you a wrench, I’m handing you a wrench,” Ben grumbled. Johnny pushed himself out from under the car so he could scowl at him, and Ben scowled right back, massive arms crossed over his chest. Johnny raised his hands so he could make strangling motions, only to have metal slapped into his palm.
“Here, Uncle Johnny,” Valeria said.
“Ha,” he crowed, waving the right wrench in Ben’s face. “A six-year-old knows better than you.”
“And she can pick better ponies than me at the races, too,” Ben said. Val beamed and went back to whatever she was doing with the rest of the tools. He’d decided not to ask out of the fear that she’d actually try and explain it.
He huffed, staring back up at all the metal. The car was supposed to be his comeback, his reintroduction to racing in the coming year. The big, shiny Hey, I’m Not Dead stamp on this one last part of his life. He’d already done the interviews, stripped for the photoshoots. It had to be perfect, and it was fighting him every step of the way.
His concentration was shot. He dropped the wrench, ignoring Val’s huff, and waved his hand in the air until Ben gave in with a roll of his eyes and pulled him to his feet. Johnny grabbed a water bottle off the counter and swallowed half of it in one go.
“Stupid car,” he said, wiping his mouth off on the inside of his wrist.
“Hey now. You love the hunk o’junk,” Ben said. "Little too much, if you ask me."
Johnny huffed and ran a hand over the hood in a caress before rapping at it with his knuckles.
“It’s driving me up the wall,” he admitted. “Nothing I do - I can’t get it just right, y’know? Not how I want it.”
“You’ll get it,” Ben said. “Or you’ll settle.”
“Johnny Storm doesn’t settle,” he said, draining the rest of his water. Ben snorted, but he was looking at Johnny with something weirdly like concern in his blue eyes, and he hadn’t budged from his spot in nearly an hour. Ben’s patience with cars was about the same as Johnny’s with team sports - fifteen minutes, if there were snacks. “Alright, you pile of rocks, what?”
“Suzie said you and the bug are fighting,” Ben grumbled.
Johnny tipped his head back. He breathed out through his nose and very carefully did not set anything on fire. He loved his family, but they were completely unable to keep their noses out of anything, ever. It was almost enough to suggest he and Peter pack it up and head over to the apartment Peter still kept, except Johnny hated that apartment.
Besides, he had the car here. The stupid, uncooperative car.
“Well?” Ben prompted. Johnny shot him a look.
“Quit it,” he said, aiming a kick at Ben’s ankle. “Everything’s fine.”
“I wuz just wonderin',” Ben said, rocky hands held up in front of him.
“Well, it’s none of your business,” Johnny said, lobbing the empty bottle at him. Ben caught it and crushed it, expression disbelieving. “What?”
“If we ran this place on ‘it’s none of yer business’, it’d be smoking rubble,” Ben said, rolling his eyes.
Johnny snickered in spite of himself, gesturing between the two of them. “Smoking rubble. Ha.”
That, at least, got him an almost-smile. “Yeah, yeah, funny. So then what’s got you in knots, wise guy?”
Valeria was listening in. Johnny could tell from the tilt of her head, and the way her busy hands had been tellingly still for the past few minutes. He whistled at her.
“Hey, kiddo, can you get me another water?” he asked. She gave him a skeptical look, and Ben waved the flattened bottle around.
Val’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she turned to leave. Johnny spared a brief moment to think about how he’d seen that expression before through a metal mask, and about how precocious baby geniuses should not be around evil dictators.
“What wuz that about?” Ben asked once Val’s footsteps had faded away.
Johnny stretched, arms high above his head until his stiff shoulders popped. “I didn’t want her to worry. Pete just didn’t come home last night, that’s all.”
He knew Valeria wouldn’t worry - her head was cooler than his. There wasn’t even anything to worry about, rationally. They’d both been gone longer than a single night before. Lives like theirs, how could they not be? That didn’t stop the itch under Johnny’s skin. He’d still been half asleep when Peter had pressed his masked mouth against the corner of Johnny’s and promised to pick up pizza on the way home.
(“From the real Ray’s this time,” he’d said, flicking Johnny’s forehead. Then he’d stolen Johnny’s bagel off his plate because he was a terrible husband.
“Nobody in the world cares about this as much as you do,” Johnny said, leaning out of his chair to shout at Peter’s retreating back. “Go someplace that has Hawaiian!”)
Johnny hadn’t been worried until he’d woken up the next morning with all his blankets where he’d left them and no long-limbed body pressed up against his back.
Ben’s rocky brows rose. “You think somethin’s wrong?”
“No,” Johnny said, running frustrated hands through his hair. “I think he’s out swinging around somewhere on no food and no sleep and he’s dropped his phone forty stories, like usual.”
“If you’ve gotta a feelin’...” Ben said, but Johnny just shook his head. He didn’t have a feeling - and even if he did, he didn’t believe he’d be able to feel it if something had happened to Peter. That kind of thing, it wasn’t in him.
“No,” he said. “He’s fine.”
“Webwit’s tough as nails,” Ben said.
“Could take you in a fight, that’s for sure,” Johnny muttered, just to watch Ben snort derisively. He must’ve looked worse than he felt, though, because Ben didn’t take the bait. He just settled one huge hand on Johnny’s shoulder, gentler than normal.
“It’s rough, kid,” he said. “No two ways about it.”
Johnny grabbed his gigantic hand just below his thumb and squeezed, trying to put enough pressure into it for Ben to really feel it. Then he shrugged him off.
“I just gotta get this baby in working order,” he said, wandering back over to the car. “World’s not going to wait for me to get my act together.”
Ben grunted. “Alright, show me what needs doin’. I’ll try not ta break anything.”
Something hit the bed with a thump.
Johnny had been dreaming - from a dense, hot state and Annihilus’ face staring down and burning so hot he couldn’t hear over the rush - and he woke with a start, hazy-headed, rolling to the side and then up on his elbows.
“Hey, hey, s'me,” Peter mumbled, crouched beside him in full costume. “S’just me.”
“God,” Johnny said, collapsing back onto the mattress. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry,” Peter said. “I’m sorry.”
“Was dreaming,” Johnny said, scrubbing at his face. A giant’s hands around his ribs, squeezing. Getting knocked out of the air, flames scorching the ground. The whistle of the axe through the air.
“Sorry, sorry, hey,” Peter said, pulling off the mask. He leaned over Johnny, hands at his hips, stomach, chest. Fingers pushing up into hair. “Don’t. It’s okay.”
Johnny dragged in a harsh breath, still tasting the Negative Zone’s rotting air at the back of his throat. Peter made a clucking noise, stroking his hair. He stretched out next to him, still in his costume, and stared at Johnny in the gloom, all big doe eyes.
“Where were you?” Johnny asked after a long moment. “You’ve been gone two days. Almost started opening your mail. Nice boxes marked chemical hazard. Could’ve mixed myself some web fluid.”
“You didn’t,” Peter said.
“No, but that’s because Reed made off with all of it,” Johnny rolled his eyes. “Seriously. What were you doing?”
Peter grimaced. “Just stuff. Things. It’s fine. Didn’t want to worry you.”
“Yeah, my husband drops off the face of the planet for two days, doesn’t want me to worry,” Johnny snorted bitterly. “Sure. Maybe call next time.”
“Didn’t want you involved, alright?” Peter said, pushing his face against the pillows so his next words came out muffled. “You’ve been… I don’t know, lately. Didn’t want to spread my problems around.”
Peter was trying protect him. Johnny, who had been in space at sixteen and who had fought gods and monsters and been Galactus’ mouthiest herald, who had died and lived and died again in the Negative Zone to protect the gate - and Peter was trying to protect him.
Johnny burned.
He rolled over and punched Peter in the shoulder.
“What the hell?” Peter groaned, picking himself up on one elbow.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Johnny said, jabbing his finger in the middle of the spider-insignia, then grabbing a fistful of the fabric and dragging Peter in until they were nose to nose. “You agreed to stay married to me, moron! Your problems are my problems!”
“I’m feeling very attacked right now,” Peter said.
Johnny shoved at him, then plucked at one spandex sleeve. “Why the hell are you still wearing this?”
“Too tired to bother,” Peter mumbled, flinging one arm over his eyes.
Johnny huffed a frustrated sigh, getting up and swinging one leg over Peter’s slim hips, sitting back on his thighs. He ran his fingers along the suit, feeling for the seam, then slipped his fingers up underneath and started to peel it away.
“I still can’t believe this is in two pieces,” he said. “That’s ridiculous - sit up for a sec.”
“Ughhh,” Peter groaned. He pushed himself up and Johnny pulled top half of the costume up over his head. It got stuck for a second and Johnny had to yank hard while Peter made a muffled noise of protest, glaring blearily afterwards with his hair stuck up every which way.
“You hate sleeping in it,” Johnny said, tossing the shirt off the side of the bed. He twisted to work at the boots.
“You mean you hate sleeping with me in it,” Peter yawned.
“It gets sweaty,” Johnny said. “Sometimes it smells like pigeons.”
Peter snorted. “C’mere.”
The kiss was warm and welcome, Peter’s fingers tangled in the short hair at the back of his neck. Johnny tilted his head and opened his mouth at the first sweep of Peter’s tongue, thumbs tracing his sharp collarbone. There was a nasty scrape along Peter’s left shoulder.
“Thought you were tired,” Johnny said, nipping at Peter’s bottom lip.
“I missed you,” he said, knocking his forehead gently against Johnny’s.
“Missed you more,” Johnny grumbled, the raw ache in his chest soothed a little by the way Peter’s hands gripped his hips, his lips pressed to Johnny’s jaw.
“Really?” Peter snickered, pulling back a little. Johnny followed him with one short kiss, then two. “We’re that couple now?”
Johnny shrugged one shoulder. “I just - I do actually miss you, you know?”
That brought Peter up short.
“God,” he said after a second. His fingers tightened just short of bruising. Sometimes Johnny wished he wouldn’t be so careful all the time, that one day he’d roll out of bed and have bruises that matched the grounding spread of Peter’s hands at his hips. “God, okay, come here-”
“The name’s Johnny,” he said, unable to help the snicker. He slid his hands down Peter’s insanely nice abs and hooked his fingers into the waistband of his tights. He pulled slightly before letting it snap back, grinning at Peter’s annoyed yelp. “But I guess that works too.”
“Shut up,” Peter said, grabbing Johnny by the wrists. “Shut up, shut up, you’re unbelievable -”
“Me?” Johnny said. Peter’s hands were everywhere, like all of a sudden he couldn’t stop touching him. It lit Johnny up from the inside out. “I’m unbelievable? Really?”
“What part of shut up is so hard for you?” Peter demanded. Johnny spared a second for one brief, fond eyeroll. Peter saw it, opening his mouth to continue sniping, so Johnny caught his face between his hands and kissed him. He ground down against Peter’s lap, the hardness trapped by Peter's tights pressing up against him. Peter made a soft sort of noise, a stifled groan, and Johnny bit at his lower lip before breaking the kiss.
“Right,” Peter said, grin a little dazed. “Maybe I should shut up.”
“Best idea you’ve ever had,” Johnny told him.
Johnny slipped back under the covers and Peter groaned, twisting to the side.
“I one hundred percent came home intending to sleep, Torch,” he said.
“Nope,” Johnny said, settling down. Peter rolled back over to face him, the look on his face that perfect mix of exasperated and sappy. “You missed me. You probably couldn’t wait to come home to me.”
“You’re a supervillain,” Peter groused.
“Missed me,” Johnny sang.
“I'm gonna get you a big fluffy white cat,” Peter said. “Maybe one of those spinny chairs.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Johnny talked over him. “It’s not your fault. I’d feel the same way if I was married to me.”
“A laser you can point at Australia,” Peter finished.
“Sweet talker,” Johnny said, smothering a grin when Peter swatted at his hip, then threw his arm over Johnny’s waist. Johnny put up a token fight just to watch Peter grumble, then went limp and let him haul him close until they were nose to nose. Peter’s gaze was bleary but intense, his face oddly serious. He trailed his fingertips down Johnny’s arm, touch so light he could barely feel it.
Still trying to protect him, and probably not from just any one thing. It made Johnny feel sixteen and ready to shove Spider-Man straight off the nearest pier again. He did the next best infuriating thing and leaned forward, pressing his lips to the furrow between Peter’s eyebrows.
Peter’s nose wrinkled, his mouth twisting to the side. Johnny was feeling too good to really laugh in his face, so he did it once more, his hand coming up to cup Peter’s jaw, thumb brushing two days worth of stubble.
“Can’t call, can’t shave…” he said.
“I was in Mexico. Technically, my phone is still in Mexico.” Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, face relaxing. “File the complaint tomorrow, wouldya?”
“Clone Club stuff?” Johnny asked.
Peter’s hum was noncommittal. Considering he’d spent over a decade living a double life he was a truly terrible liar. But he loved his broody evil twin.
“I don’t like him,” Johnny said. Peter snorted.
“That is so much nicer than what he said about you,” he said.
“I can’t believe he doesn’t like me,” Johnny said. “Everyone likes me. You like me.”
“Eh, you’re alright,” Peter said, yawning. “Go to sleep.”
The other night the bed been cold, and not in the muted, muffled way Johnny felt actual temperature - just empty. He’d rolled out of bed and gone down to the garage to work on the car, and even made some headway until he’d looked up at the clock and realized that Peter wasn’t coming home again.
He’d ended up on the couch he kept down there, flipping through Netflix until he’d passed out halfway through a dumb movie.
Peter was already asleep, his breathing deep and easy. His face was relaxed, one hand still stretched towards Johnny, palm up and open. Johnny was used to it, the spark in his chest when he thought about how much he loved Peter - what still felt impossible was that Peter was here. That they were both here.
New rules for a new life, Johnny repeated to himself before he put his head down on Peter’s chest, ear over his heart.
Christmas morning dawned bright and early, with snow dusting the city like sugar and, thankfully, a complete lack of doombots.
“I need the Doom thing explained again,” Peter said, yawning. “Maybe with pictures. Nice PowerPoint presentation.”
“Shh,” Johnny said, stealing Peter’s coffee mug out of his hands. It earned him a bleary glare. “I went to church with Sue and the kids - I need it more than you.”
“I swung by a church,” Peter grumbled, grabbing it back. Johnny groaned and put his head down against Peter's shoulder while the kids ran by at full volume.
It was perfect once the caffeine kicked in, though. The kids got wrapping paper everywhere. Sue pretended to be surprised when she opened the earrings he knew she’d seen him buy and Ben actually was surprised at the XXXXL jersey Johnny had gotten autographed by every single player on his favorite team. Reed smiled, pleased, at a tie with a pattern of tiny beakers all over it.
Christmas afternoon with the Jamesons, on the other hand, Johnny could’ve lived without.
He’d rallied for holding it at the Baxter Building, or at least some third party neutral territory, to the best of his abilities. He’d argued, he’d wheedled, he’d bribed, he’d waited for Peter in the dark wearing a very old, very inappropriate Halloween costume. But one comment about Jay’s old bones not being able to take the cold, and Peter had folded like a house of cards. Next thing Johnny knew he was at J Jonah Jameson’s apartment, getting eyed like he might steal the silverware or suddenly become some kind of inferno monster.
Peter, Johnny’s very own personal supervillain, had one glass of eggnog and immediately started arguing with Jonah about the spelling and pronunciation of Hanukkah.
“Next year, in Majorca,” Johnny said. May smiled, shaking her head as Peter’s argument devolved into squawking rage, and obligingly topped off Johnny’s glass with some of Jameson’s expensive scotch.
She got teary-eyed when he gave her the tickets.
“It’s too much,” she said.
“That’s what he said,” Johnny said, jerking a thumb at Peter. Peter shot him a wry smile, May’s hands clutched in his own. “But it’s really, really not.”
Jonah even grudgingly joined Team Paris, and at the end May and Jay took the tickets.
Johnny wandered into the kitchen around the time Jonah and Peter abandoned Jewish holidays in favor of arguing, in equal measure, about Christmas carol lyrics and politics. He thought of previous holiday dates at nice, private, prohibitively expensive ski lodges where nobody did any actual skiing, and drained half of his drink in one go.
John Jameson sauntered into the kitchen a moment later, throwing a look over his shoulder like he couldn’t quite believe the scene in the living room either.
“They don’t quit, do they?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” Johnny snorted. “I’m going to have to hear about this for at least the next week.”
“Ouch,” John said. “Glad I’m heading back home tomorrow.”
“Lucky,” Johnny said.
“We never really got a chance to talk, after Apogee 1,” John said, leaning back against the counter. “What you and Spider-Man did up there was above and beyond.”
“We were just glad everyone made it out alive,” Johnny said honestly. John grinned and held out his hand.
“Still,” he said. He had an easy smile and a disarming kind of air about him, and Johnny honestly wondered where he’d gotten it from. Not his dad, obviously. In the living room Jonah's voice reached a pitch only dogs could hear. “Without the two of you, I doubt I’d be here today. Which was just a lead up to me asking if you wanted that drink topped off, actually.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Johnny said, taking another slow sip. “Trying to keep a clear head in case I have to help Pete hide the body.”
“Smart man. I have to admit, though - I did sort of wonder about you and Spider-Man after what happened on Apogee,” John admitted after a moment, timing it just right to make Johnny snort scotch up his nose. “No offense, but you two bicker like an old married couple.”
“Yeah, well,” Johnny said, biting the inside of his cheek. He flashed the ring on his finger. “There’s still a lot of bickering in my actual marriage, but the making up’s a lot nicer.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” John said. “You and Peter… you seem like a good match. Despite what my dad says.”
If Johnny had ever particularly cared what J Jonah Jameson thought then the raging argument over the lyrics of Baby, It’s Cold Outside in the other room was curing that real fast.
“Someone should break them up,” he said, jerking a thumb towards the doorway.
“Yep,” John said. Neither of them moved.
There was a long, awkward moment of silence, before John coughed and said, “So, uh. You still friends with Jennifer Walters? She ever, uh, ask about me?”
“Yeaaah, you know what?” Johnny said, staring down into his empty glass. “I’m going to need that drink after all.”
It had stopped snowing by the time they left Jonah’s apartment, but the ground was frozen under their feet and the wind blew flakes every which way. They melted before they hit Johnny but Peter ended up with snow dusting his hair and his shoulders.
It was a pretty sight, Peter’s insane rant aside.
“He’s just so wrong!” he said, holding his hands out in front of himself in a vaguely strangle-y sort of motion. “About everything!”
“I actually didn’t catch your point the first seventeen times,” Johnny said. Peter tipped his head back and groaned. “Hey, I was in favor of pretending there was a crisis and spending the whole day in bed.”
“No,” Peter said, breath clouding in the cold air. His cheeks were pink. Johnny slung an arm over his shoulders and pulled him close enough that their thighs brushed with every step. He adjusted his own temperature from just warm to Human Space Heater levels. “I’m glad we went. May was happy. I didn’t actually murder Jonah with my bare hands.”
“The only two things that matter, huh?” Johnny said. Peter gave him a sidelong grin and Johnny couldn’t say why but his heart skipped a beat.
Sometimes everything about Peter just hit him all over again.
“Hey,” Johnny said, stopping. Peter turned to look at him, his eyebrows quirked. There were snowflakes dotting his eyelashes.
Johnny leaned in and kissed him, short and sweet and easy as that.
“What was that for?” Peter asked when he pulled back. He was smiling that you’re ridiculous sort of smile, the one Johnny liked best. Somewhere along the kiss his hands had ended up in Johnny’s coat pockets.
“No real reason,” Johnny said, flicking melting snow from Peter’s collar.
Peter called while Johnny was down in the garage. He’d just closed the car’s hood and he wiped his hands off on the nearest piece of cloth - his own abandoned shirt, which he was pretty sure had actually been Peter’s at one point - before answering.
“Hey,” he said, rolling his stiff shoulders back. “What do you want for dinner? I’m thinking from that barbeque place Ben found.”
“There’s a fire on 57th and Broadway,” Peter said, way too loud and way too fast the way he always talked when he was swinging. “Can you get down here? Preferably five minutes ago?”
Johnny tossed the shirt on the bench and sprinted for the elevator. “Gimme two.”
“So demanding,” Peter said before hanging up. Johnny’s heart was pounding - he wanted to believe it wasn’t that bad, if Peter was cracking jokes, but the fact was Peter never stopped.
It had to be bad, if Peter was calling for help.
Franklin and Val were sitting on the couch, Val with a book in her lap and Franklin with his feet kicked up, idly flipping through the channels. They brought him up short the way they always did since he’d come back from the Negative Zone - only a handful of months for them, but he’d missed so much.
Alone in his cell, he’d replay it sometimes: his last glimpse of them half-hidden behind Ben on the other side of the gate. Val’s chin tipped up, jaw set firm, and Franklin’s tear-stained face. He’d only let himself look at them once, because otherwise he would’ve wanted to turn around.
It had been too late to turn around.
“Uncle Johnny?”
Valeria was looking at him, little brow furrowed - a miniature copy of the face Reed wore when someone wasn’t telling him something he thought he should already know.
“Hey, princess, do me a favor and call your mom?” he said. “There’s a fire and we might need her help.”
Franklin whistled as the news came on. The blaze was huge; Johnny found himself searching for a figure in red and blue as the camera swung upwards.
“Okay, that’s my cue,” he said, turning on his heel. “Call your mom!”
“Be careful!” Franklin shouted at his back.
The kids had hardly ever wished him that before the Negative Zone. He guessed they’d just never doubted he’d be back. He wanted them to have that certainty back - he wanted it back, too. No creeping doubt whenever he dove into a situation too big for him. No fear in his throat when Peter was out all night: it happened to you, it can happen to him.
It had been stupid. He missed being able to be stupid.
The fire was huge. Johnny saw the smoke long before he saw the flames, and even then he felt it - the heat of it tugging at the heat in him.
He pushed himself faster.
The scene was crowded with civilians and emergency responders and a handful of Avengers. He caught sight of Jessica Drew on the ground helping an elderly woman away from the building. Reed was down below, too, stretched over a group of firefighters, and Johnny breathed a sigh of relief that the kids had actually called their parents. He pointed to Johnny at one point, probably explaining what Johnny was about to do. Sue was nowhere to be found, but that never meant anything.
He couldn’t see Peter.
He swept himself upwards, ignoring the way the fire down below almost jumped, and gave the block a second look: nothing. No lithe figure, no flash of blue and red. Just old webbing hanging from awnings and corners.
Johnny knew he was in the building - of course Peter was in the building. There was never any doubt in Johnny’s mind: when Peter Parker saw a burning building, he dived straight through the nearest window. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
That didn’t stop the desperate hammer of his heart.
“No, no, no,” he said to himself, a mantra as he swooped around the building. The flames stretched and sparked after him.
Seconds stretched on painfully slow before Peter swung out of a window, costume a little charred but no worse for the wear. He had a coughing man held under one arm and a birdcage with an angry parrot dangling from his hand.
“Is it clear?” Johnny shouted down to him. Peter’s head snapped up. “Is there anyone else in the building? I can’t take care of the fire if there’s anyone in the way -”
“This is the last of them!” Peter called out. “Go, go - now, do it now -”
Johnny had moved as soon as Peter had confirmed the building was empty. He flew in circles, calling at the fire, coaxing and tugging. It roared and twisted, resisting him. Fire never wanted to go where anyone wanted - Johnny got that, but he wasn’t going to give it a choice. He grit his teeth and pulled harder.
There was one more moment of resistance and then, just like that, surrender. The fire fled from the building, up into Johnny. There was one jarring moment, one second of wrong, before the new flames settled against his own.
Peter landed behind him, perched on the nearest safe ledge.
“All clear,” he said. He whistled low. “That was some fancy flame work. You saved the day, Torch.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. The words felt fuzzy. The fire had run deep and hot - it felt electrical, sparking angry inside him. Johnny needed to burn it off.
“You okay?” Peter asked.
“I gotta let off all this extra heat,” Johnny said, but he kept losing his words over the rush of the flames. Peter’s face was a red blur, big white eyes staring back at him. He thought he looked worried.
“Go,” Peter told him, one hand held up like he wanted to touch Johnny, but the flames were in the way.
Johnny flew straight up, higher and higher until the city below was tiny, skyscrapers like flecks on a map. He hesitated for one long moment, held suspended there, just looking down at everything. Then he let go.
The first second of going Nova was always not-quite pain, like something inside was being ripped from him, before every sensation faded out in a white hot rush. He always came back to himself like a punch to the gut long before he hit the ground, but this time hit hard. He flew back in shaky circles, snuffing his flames the moment his feet hit the ground.
He couldn’t find his footing. He sucked in a deep breath, heedless of the lingering smoke, and leaned heavily against a smoldering wall. There was a hand at his elbow a minute later and he didn’t need to open his eyes to know it was Peter.
“I’m okay,” he promised.
“You really don’t look like it,” Peter said.
“Too much, too fast. I’m okay,” Johnny said. “Not barbeque.”
“What?”
“For dinner,” Johnny said, finally opening his eyes. “Let’s not get barbeque.”
Peter snorted, dragging Johnny’s arm up and around his shoulders. Johnny went with it, leaning heavily against him. Peter’s hand settled at the small of his back.
The building was a smoldering ruin. Johnny bit at the inside of his cheek.
“Here, one Matchstick, slightly charred,” Peter said, manhandling him Reed’s way. Reed made a careful noise, wrapping himself around Johnny just enough to keep him standing.
“Hey, brother-in-law,” Johnny said, grinning dopily. A little ways away he could see Sue and Ben, both hefting broken beams out of the way. There was a sooty cat in Reed’s arms, trying its best to do what a couple hundred bad guys had failed: kill Mr. Fantastic. “You’ve got teeth in your arm.”
“Mmm,” Reed said, glancing down. “I’m hoping she’ll get bored.”
Johnny scratched the top of the cat’s head; it hissed and yowled. “Just a thought - maybe let the angry animal go?”
Reed’s eyes drifted towards a little girl sitting on the edge of a nearby ambulance. Johnny snorted.
“Sucker,” he said, poking Reed in the side.
“She doesn’t want her to get lost,” he said sheepishly.
“Uh-huh, sure,” Johnny said, leaning back against the steadying pressure of Reed’s triple-looped arm and closing his eyes. “Pete shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?” Reed asked.
“Grabbed me like that,” Johnny said. “Rumors’re gonna start up again. He hates them.”
Johnny didn’t mind - he sort of liked it, the wild speculation. There wasn’t anyone to hurt. He was in love with Spider-Man. It was all true. That was part of what made it fun. There was always that spark in his chest, the flickering thrill of satisfaction when he saw photos of himself and Peter.
There was reassurance, too, something to ground him during those split-seconds when he looked around and couldn’t quite believe where he was.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Reed said. He sounded distracted. Johnny had to elbow him twice before he continued, “No one was looking.”
It was like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him; his eyes snapped open. Reed’s arm tightened around him.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Johnny said, words numb in his mouth. “Yeah, fine. What do you mean, nobody’s looking?”
“What I said,” Reed said, giving him one brief quizzical glance before he smiled. “Congratulations, Johnny: I think you two are old news.”
Johnny was still shaky by the time they packed it up. He headed back home with Sue rather than flame on again. His sister’s hand was a steadying pressure against his back, her force field familiar under his feet. Nova always left him exhausted and starving, entire body aching, but the pit in his stomach was new. He couldn’t explain why he felt sick.
He’d been home half an hour before Peter made an appearance. Reed’s security system announced his presence long before the elevator dinged, so Johnny dragged himself up off the couch.
“Wow, you look rough,” was the first thing Peter said to him.
“Yeah?” Johnny said, gesturing at the huge rip in Peter’s costume. “That a new fashion statement?”
“Got snagged,” Peter said. He pulled off his gloves, cracking his knuckles. He looked about as bad as Johnny felt, which made him wonder how awful he must’ve looked, for Peter to comment on it. He ran a hand through his hair a little self-consciously. “That was really something, what you did.”
“It’s what you called me for,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, but I was watching when you flew up,” Peter said, spreading his hands and waving his fingers. He wasn’t smiling. “That was one hell of a light show.”
“The Human Firework, that’s me,” Johnny said. “You’ve seen me go nova before.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t be impressed,” Peter said. “Seriously, Torch. You did good out there today.”
“Gee,” Johnny said, bite in his voice. “Thanks.”
Peter grumbled something under his breath and started to shrug out of his costume, and annoyed as he was that was never a view Johnny passed up. Peter’s movements were stiffer than usual, though, and as he peeled the fabric off Johnny saw why. There was a burn spread across Peter’s back up to his shoulder - not a bad one, but enough to make Johnny suck his breath in through his teeth.
“What?” Peter asked, twisting around like he didn’t know - he winced at the movement.
“You know what,” Johnny said, slipping behind him, clamping one hand down on Peter’s good shoulder in a futile attempt to keep him still. He ghosted his palm over the burn, feeling the heat of it.
“Hey, I’m okay,” Peter told him. “It’s not bad.”
It was like feeling for the blaze in the building, but on the smallest scale: Johnny pulled the excess heat from Peter’s skin, passing his hand from the edge of the burn at Peter’s spine up over his shoulder, twisting it away. Peter exhaled slowly, tension slipping from his shoulders.
“Hell of a party trick,” he said. “How long have you been able to do that?”
Johnny shrugged. He didn’t know; he’d never tried it before.
“Hey,” Peter said, twisting around. Johnny leaned in for the kiss automatically, but he still felt off, empty. The easy press of Peter’s mouth against his own did nothing to settle the nervous feeling trapped in his chest. “You drive me insane, you know?”
Johnny waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Peter snorted.
“I’m being serious,” he said, hands slipping up to cradle Johnny’s face. “What’s the matter?”
Johnny grabbed his arm, just holding him there, and stroked his thumb over Peter’s bony wrist. Peter’s free hand came up, palm to Johnny’s forehead like he was checking for a fever. He caught himself at the last second, laughing a little like he was embarrassed at forgetting, and that made Johnny smile too.
“Nothing’s the matter with me,” he said. “I’m fine. Really.”
“The fire took a lot of out of me, too,” Peter said, talking over him. Johnny huffed and let him, leaning forward. Peter’s eyes were huge and worried, his thumb stroking restless across the curve of Johnny’s cheekbone.
Johnny had seen this soft side of Peter before - with his aunt, with Mary Jane and Harry Osborn, with Franklin and Val and the Future Foundation kids. He’d seen it directed his way, too, way back before the marriage and even before the Negative Zone, a handful of times when Johnny had been injured or down.
Still, though, every time he saw it he wanted to soak it up like the sun.
“It’s just hard sometimes, Hothead,” Peter said, and Johnny hummed his agreement, even though it hadn’t been hard at all, a rough and rushed Nova aside. He’d had plenty of those, more than anyone would ever know. “I get it.”
Peter didn’t get it, but that was okay. It was stupid, the pit sitting in Johnny’s stomach.
“I’m just beat,” he said. “I just want you, me, half a takeout menu’s worth of food and some really, really bad TV, okay?”
“To think I married you for the fame and fortune,” Peter said. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you want. Hey - thanks. The thing you did with my back - thank you.”
“Doesn’t actually heal anything,” Johnny said.
“No,” Peter said, “but it’s going to be a whole lot of less annoying to put a shirt back on.”
“Ugh, see,” Johnny said, cracking a grin he didn't really feel. “Now I regret it.”
The feeling stuck with him and nothing he did seemed to make a difference. Not working on the car, not spending money like it was burning a hole in his pocket, and not the truly outrageous amount of sex with his incredibly athletic husband. No attempt to banish it worked.
It stayed there, just under his skin. He felt in his spine, and it reminded him of being on his hands and knees in the ring, struggling for a second wind - like the first split second of razor claws in his skin before the pain kicked in. Like no matter what, he couldn’t get enough air.
In a fit of desperation, he asked Jen to help him brush up on his hand-to-hand, flamed off, after she was done teaching the kids about how bills became laws or whatever.
“It’s Ethics today, Hotshot,” she said, the sleeves of her pink power suit straining when she crossed her arms. “But yeah, okay.”
It wasn’t the best plan. Hitting Jen was like hitting a brick wall, and she wasn’t like Ben - no pretending not to but secretly taking it easy on him, no stopping for minutes at a time to explain some college football metaphor. Instead, ten minutes in found Johnny, bruised, exhausted and down on the mat.
“Told you to quit five minutes ago,” Jen said, smirking down at him.
“I don’t quit,” Johnny said, shoving at Jen’s green shoulders. She smirked and put a little more weight on him until he squawked. “Okay, okay, I quit!”
Jen snickered, rolling off of him and onto her feet. She grabbed a water bottle. Her hair was still perfect - meanwhile, Johnny felt like he’d thrown himself against a brick wall ten times too many. “I meant to ask before but what’s this about, anyhow? Getting hit’s not really your thing.”
“Don’t know,” Johnny said. “Felt restless. Needed to work it off.”
“Don’t you have a bendy-looking husband for that?” Jen snorted, settling down next to Johnny in a perfect Lotus position.
“Okay, you got me,” he said, hand on her purple spandex clad knee. “Take me now, you emerald amazon.”
“Not if you paid me,” Jen said. “But it’s good, though?”
“What?” Johnny said.
Jen rolled her eyes. “Your marriage, hot stuff. What else?”
“Yeah,” Johnny said slowly. “Why?”
Jen shrugged one shoulder. “You know.”
“What, just because I’m asking seven-foot green women to throw me around, something’s got to be wrong?”
“It’s just,” Jen said, breaking off to take a long gulp of water. “And I love you, alright? I’d jump in front of a truck for you -”
“That wouldn’t do anything to you,” Johnny said. “You’d smash the truck.”
“I’d still jump in front of the damn truck,” Jen said, knocking her fist against his shoulder. “My point is - you’re, y’know. You. And you’ve never been great at the whole commitment thing.”
He opened his mouth to protest - even before Peter, there’d been Crystal - but Jen just held up one green palm and put her lawyer face on.
“I’m saying it because I’m the same way,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Johnny. We just get bored.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m not bored, Jen.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
“I’m really, really not bored,” Johnny promised. Jen stared at him hard, but when she smiled it was warm.
“Okay,” she said. “Good. I’m glad. Because I don’t do divorce cases.”
Peter was sitting on the couch when Johnny got back upstairs, picking through a pile of photos. His hair was sticking up in all directions like he’d been running his fingers through it. Johnny circled the back of the couch, leaning over him.
“Future Foundation homework,” Peter said when Johnny made a grab for the photo. “For the photography class I’ve been giving the kids on weekends. They were supposed to pick something that represents what they’d like to do with their future and long story short, I have no idea what any of this means.”
“Why are there so many pictures of Ben?” Johnny asked.
“Moloids,” Peter said.
Johnny snorted, ducking his head to press his lips to the back of Peter’s neck. Peter hummed, picking up another photo.
“I threw together some waterproof cameras for the fish kids, ones that can handle deep pressure,” Peter said, tilting his head and flipping the photo upside down. “I have literally no idea what this is supposed to be. Are those fangs?”
“With Vil and Wu? Better not to ask,” Johnny said.
Peter snorted, setting the photos down. He scrubbed at his face with his palms, tipping his head back and narrowly missing Johnny’s nose.
“I need a break,” he said. “I’m pretty sure Bentley put some kind of secret code in his assignment and it’s making me want to rethink my stance on becoming a supervillain.”
Johnny’s fingers crept down under his collar, only to hit spandex. Peter was wearing the suit. Suddenly it clicked into place - Peter’s hair was mask-messy, not finger-mussed, the scraped knuckles from fighting, not chasing precocious baby geniuses around. Peter had been out swinging. He’d come home, and he’d shrugged his clothes on over the suit and he hadn’t said anything.
Johnny’s stomach felt like lead. He tweaked the edge of the suit. Peter smacked his hand, rubbing at the spot.
“What was that for?” he said. Johnny shrugged one shoulder.
“So maybe next time you’ll tell me when you go out hitting stuff,” Johnny said. Peter quirked an eyebrow.
“I said I was going out,” he said.
“You know when most people hear that, they assume you’re going to get coffee, or milk, or doughnuts, maybe see friends,” Johnny said. “They don’t hear, I’m going out, and fill in, dressed in my spandex pajamas to highkick weird crime in the face.”
“Of course that’s what it means,” Peter asked, twisting around. “Were you dropped on your head? I’m Spider-Man -”
“I know!” Johnny said. He couldn’t stop seeing it all of a sudden: one enemy’s aim too sure, one missed swing, Peter unmoving on the ground. It was stupid, so stupid. It had happened to him, not Peter. Peter was too smart for that. Peter was too smart for his own good.
“What do you want from me?” Peter asked.
“That Cracker Jack ring you promised me,” Johnny shot back so he didn’t say anything he was thinking, then shut his mouth, his teeth clicking. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
For once Peter’s face was unreadable, his gaze steady, thick eyebrows just slightly furrowed. For years Johnny had been able to look at Spider-Man’s masked face, those big blank eyes, and had just known what he was thinking.
He hated it, looking at Peter and not knowing what was going on in that big brain.
Peter looked away with a sigh, and Johnny’s heart sank.
“Okay,” Peter said, starting to unbutton his shirt. “Come on, we’re going out.”
“Dressed like that?” Johnny said. Peter shrugged out of his shirt, revealing the suit underneath.
“Dressed like this,” Peter confirmed. When he looked up he was grinning. “C’mon, Flamebrain. Let’s go flying.”
Peter swung out first with a wild whoop and an impossible amount of grace. He spun for a moment, seemingly just for the hell of it, before he touched down, clinging to the side of the next building over. The sun was just starting to set, the skyline pink and orange. Johnny closed his eyes for a moment, arms spread.
“What are you waiting for?” Peter shouted, hands cupped around his mouth.
Johnny grinned and lit up, streaking across the sky.
“Thought I’d let you have a head start!” he called as he swooped past Peter.“You know, give you a chance.”
“You want a race, Sparky?” Peter asked.
“Well, yeah, I want a race,” Johnny said, flipping onto his back and lazily floating by. “Too bad there’s no one here who can keep up with me.”
“Oh, oh, it is on,” Peter said, launching himself into the air.
Johnny took a moment just to watch - no real rush, after all - as Peter twisted and flipped in the air, the way he moved, long-limbed and free. It had always been too easy, watching Peter swing and feeling that familiar sharp, bright ache in his chest.
He wanted to say something, to tell Peter how he felt looking at him, but he could never find the right words. Everything sounded stupid and meaningless the moment it came out of his mouth.
Johnny took after him instead, catching up in seconds. “What’s our finish line? The usual place?”
“Oh honey, where would you like to go tonight?” Peter quipped. “I don’t know, dear, how about the usual place?”
“I get it, we’re boring,” Johnny said. “Where do you want to go, then, genius?”
“The Flatiron?” Peter suggested, twisting around in midair so he was facing the right direction.
It had been ages since they’d done this, soared above New York City’s busy streets together. At first it’d been the press, still out for blood. Peter had declared pretty early on that being accused of stealing his own husband and being in a love triangle with himself was too weird even for him.
(“And I had six arms once,” he’d pointed out, which shamefully didn’t make Johnny love him any less.)
So they’d put the kibosh on the team-ups. Just for a little while, they’d said. It wasn’t going to be forever.
It was harder than Johnny ever thought it would be, getting back into the saddle. Even when things had cooled down, even now they were old news - and being old news always stung, even when Johnny knew in his heart it was a good thing - it was still hard. Peter had both his lives and Johnny had the Fantastic Four.
Spider-Man was the best of the best, but he was street level. Johnny knew that was how Peter wanted it, just him and his city. Johnny couldn’t be like that. New York just wasn’t in his blood the way it was in Peter’s.
“Hey, slowpoke, you could at least try and make this interesting for me!” Peter shouted, swinging by. Johnny scowled and put on an extra burst of speed, chasing him down the avenue.
They made it all of three blocks before they started trying to sabotage each other.
“Hey, watch out for that corner, it’s got a little something --” Peter sang as Johnny had to swerve upwards to avoid a wall of webbing. “Oooh, close call. You okay, dear?”
“Peachy, sweetheart,” Johnny said through gritted teeth, swooping back down so they were level. Cutting in front of Peter was a complete accident, though the indignant squawk he heard told him Peter wasn’t going to buy that.
Johnny made it to the Flatiron first. Peter was tricky and too smart for his own good, but ultimately Johnny was always faster. He briefly contemplated forgoing the gloating, then decided against it.
In hindsight, maybe the cartwheels were a bit much.
“I’m divorcing you,” Peter said, swinging around and landing.
“Don’t hate me because I’m better than you at everything,” Johnny replied, grinning. He snuffed his flames, stretching. The sun was almost completely down now, the city starting to light up like a Christmas tree.
Peter groaned, flopping down. “That was good, the part where I’m pretty sure you tried to throw a plastic bag in my face aside --”
“I would never,” Johnny interrupted him. “That was the wind.”
“The part where you tried to throw a plastic bag in my face aside,” Peter repeated, obnoxiously loud. “I’m trying to say I missed this, alright?”
Johnny hummed his agreement. “Yeah. I missed you being a sore loser, too.”
“Oh, I’m the sore loser, that’s what he says,” Peter mumbled, snickering a little. He moved to the edge and sat down, legs dangling over the side, leaning forward to stare out at the street below. Johnny stayed standing, chill wind at his back, heat at his fingertips.
It was Peter who leaned back, braced on his palms, and said, “So are we going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” Johnny asked. Peter shrugged.
“Don’t know,” he said. “That’s why I’m asking if we’re going to talk about it.”
Johnny’s breath spiraled up as white smoke. He weighed, for a long moment, whether it was worth saying. Whether he should make something more ridiculous up, or something less, and how Peter would probably know he was lying anyhow.
“We were in People four months ago,” he said. “You know - Stars, They’re Just Like Us.”
It had been a nice picture, too. A late August day, Johnny in a tight shirt and his favorite pair of jeans, sunglasses slipping down his nose. Peter had just swung in, his hair sweaty from the mask and his t-shirt wrinkled where he’d stuffed it in a bag. He was leaning in close to tell Johnny all about what he’d been hitting half an hour before. Their heads were bent together and they were wearing matching grins. Johnny’s arm was wrapped around Peter’s shoulders.
THEY STEAL EACH OTHER’S COFFEE! the caption in the corner gleefully informed, pointing out Peter’s hand creeping towards Johnny’s Starbucks. They looked happy and conspiratorial, like they were in on the world’s best secret. Johnny had kept it as his phone background for weeks.
Peter tilted his head to the side, just enough that Johnny could tell he was staring at him like he was crazy.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “And?”
“And,” Johnny said, breathing in sharply through his nose, “we were in People four months ago.”
It took Peter a moment to catch on, and when he did all he could say was, “Oh.”
Johnny clenched his jaw against the burn in his throat. They’d been snapped for other things, of course: gossip websites, the FF fanblogs. The occasional photoset on tumblr. A picture of them had made its way into some conspiracy piece all about how Reed was really from Mars, here to lay the groundwork for the eventual invasion - which, yeah, okay. Johnny had long resigned himself to going along with Reed if one of those theories turned out to be actually true.
End of the day, though - they were old news. Johnny had never done well with being old news.
He’d really thought he was over it, this feeling like he didn’t really exist if everyone’s eyes weren’t on him.
“We should get divorced,” Peter said, so suddenly Johnny’s head whipped around.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Whole big public blow-up. I’m cheating on you! You’re cheating on me! We had a wild night with the X-Men and now the shame’s too much and we can’t live with each other.”
“What?” Johnny repeated, dumbfounded.
Peter stood, hands animated. “I’ll say really unflattering things about you to the worst, most sensational publications I can find. You’ll burn my stuff in Times Square!”
“Pete, what the hell?” Johnny said.
“We can get Sue and Reed to join in! Sue’ll stand by you, of course, but Reed’ll see my side of the story, and Ben can be neutral territory. We’re tearing this family apart!” Peter swooned backwards with his hand clutched to his heart. He straightened up and grabbed Johnny by the arms. “So I’ll cry in some bars, you’ll date a string of starlets before switching to weirdos who sort of look like me, and then we’ll decide we couldn’t live without each other. We can keep this going for months! What do you say?”
Johnny had started laughing somewhere around the mental image of a scorned Peter sitting teary-eyed in some dive. He leaned in, his forehead against Peter’s.
“Might be a little much,” he said. “That’s like a triple life where you’re concerned.”
“Flying too close to the sun, huh?” Peter said.
“I’m not divorcing you,” Johnny said. Not ever, if he could help it. “People magazine can suck it.”
“Mmhmm,” Peter said, tilting his head. Kissing was a bad idea in the mask even this high up, not the least of which because spandex left an odd taste in his mouth. They were already too close, but Johnny couldn’t bring himself to pull back. “Wanna go to Vegas?”
Johnny snorted.
“Sin City!” Peter said. “We can have a big fight at a casino. You throw a drink, I tip over a poker table. We’ll both leave with our own personal Elvis impersonator, how about that?”
“I want white jumpsuit Elvis,” Johnny said.
“Meanwhile, I duck into an alley, change into my suit,” Peter said, “because I’ve gotta be honest here, I’ve always wanted to fight Donald Trump.”
Johnny snorted. “You can knock it off now.”
“I was a little serious about the Donald Trump thing,” Peter admitted.
“And Vegas is terrible,” Johnny said. “There’s a much better casino town out over in Alpha Centauri, I’ll take you sometime.”
“Torch,” Peter said, sliding his hands up Johnny’s arms, thumbs stroking the inside of his elbows.
“I know, alright?” Johnny admitted. “I know I’m being ridiculous.”
Peter huffed a sigh, bumping their foreheads gently together one last time before he pulled back.
“Well as long as you know it,” he said. “That stuff - it doesn’t matter, Johnny.”
“I know,” Johnny said, taking a few steps backwards. He tilted his head up, eyes on the sky.
“Okay,” Peter said, sounding doubtful. He stood there, hands spread like he wanted to touch Johnny or say something else. Johnny waited.
Then Peter’s phone rang.
“Where do you even keep that?” Johnny demanded. Peter flapped a hand at him, making shushing noises.
“It’s May,” he said, answering it. “Heeeey, Aunt May. No, I’m good. Johnny’s - yeah, he’s good. We’re good. Hey, we miss you. How’s the Eiffel Tower?”
Johnny felt restless, energy crawling under his skin. He pointed up at the sky and mouthed ‘be right back’ to Peter, who shrugged at him and then flipped him a thumbs up.
He flamed on and flew straight up, then dove. It was an aimless flight, more an attempt to shake off the feeling in him than anything else. He flew in lazy circles, drifting a few stories above street level. He didn’t realize he had an audience until he saw camera flashes.
They were obviously tourists, a group of middle school-aged kids in parkas and two harried-looking chaperones. They held out half a dozen phones in his direction, and some of the kids were jumping up and down. He waved.
One of the chaperones, a round, harried-looking woman, settled her hands on a bouncing kid’s shoulders and shouted her apologies. Johnny started to wave her off, then had a better idea. He flew up high enough to avoid any passing pigeons, then wrote out NO PROBLEM! before swooping back down.
Okay, he had to admit: the applause were nice.
“Where are you guys from?” he asked, then spent the next ten minutes spelling out their names in flame, the name of their school, and JEALOUS, LARRY? at the request of the second chaperone.
When he glanced up he found Peter leaning over the side of the Flatiron. He waved when he caught Johnny staring, then flashed him the thumbs up.
“Could’ve waited until I had my camera,” Peter said after Johnny had waved goodbye to the kids and flown back up.
He snuffed his flames and preened. “We can set up a private shoot, if you know what I mean.”
“You’ll take naked photos of yourself and then set them as my wallpaper while I’m distracted so when I check my phone in public I nearly choke on my own tongue?” Peter said.
“It was a pretty good photo, though, right?” Johnny said. “Only the best for you.”
“You’re a menace,” Peter said.
“Maybe don’t make your passcode your aunt’s birthday,” Johnny told him. “Just a tip.”
Peter wasn’t listening though - he’d whipped around, his head tilted just so. Spider-sense - it had taken Johnny a while to be able to pin down that look. For a while, somewhere between the ages of seventeen and twenty, he’d been pretty sure Spider-Man had been doing it just to mess with people. Him, specifically.
“Trouble?” he asked, but Peter was already moving, scrambling towards the edge of the building.
“Down below,” he said.
“So much for our night out,” Johnny said, flaming back on.
“Hey, I know you know but,” Peter called out, “I love you.”
“I know,” Johnny said, grinning through the flames.
Their annual New Year’s Eve party, held December 30th because the Avengers were jerks who refused to share, was cancelled by a mysterious energy anomaly that had Reed in some pretty literal knots. He and Peter all but barricaded themselves up in the lab with Valeria and half the Foundation kids in tow and half a dozen other super geniuses on speed dial.
“Should I, y’know, be concerned?” Johnny asked.
Sue shrugged, levitating the hors d'oeuvres tray off the counter and out of reach before Franklin could make a grab for it.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said. “Still, I’m cancelling the party. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Terrific,” Ben said, settling his hat down on top of his head. “I’m going to get a little New Year’s poker game going. You in, Firefly?”
“Nah, thanks. Not tonight,” Johnny said, already pulling up his recent messages.
party at the baxter building off, Johnny texted Darla. end of the world or whatever. change of venue?
????? Darla sent back a minute later, followed by, ok and the address of a club they both liked.
Darla’s wedding was a little over three months away and Johnny couldn’t glance at a newsstand without seeing her face accompanied by headlines speculating on her custom Janet van Dyne wedding gown, the secret message in the lyrics of her new song, the possibility of cold feet. The other week Peter and Ben had spent ten straight minutes laughing when Avengers Insiders’ cover story suggested that Scott participated in interspecies orgies with his ants.
“That’s ridiculous,” Darla said. “He just, like. Spends a lot of time petting them. It’s kind of cute.”
“Yeah, no,” Johnny said. Darla ignored him. She’d arrived straight from a performance in a dress so bright it was hard to look directly at it, thrown herself in a seat and proclaimed Johnny her “one married friend, except for my weird cousin,” before proceeding to talk his ear off about the wedding.
She looked good - really, truly good. Her smile was bright and her hair was pinker than ever. There was a new tattoo scrawled across the inside of her wrist that Johnny was a little jealous of. The ink always burned right off him, which was probably for the best. If either he or Ben had been able to get tattoos they would’ve goaded each other into some truly stupid things long ago. Ben would have YANCY STRT written across his knuckles. Johnny would probably have a spider tramp stamp, which, alright, might have worked out in the end.
“You’re coming, right?” Darla said. They were sequestered in a private room at the back of a club they both liked. “You have to come.”
“I thought there was some kind of ex-boyfriend rule,” he grinned. She tossed a cocktail napkin at him.
“Technically, you introduced us,” she said.
“Think that was more Reed’s doing, if we’re getting technical,” Johnny said.
“Come to my wedding, jerk,” Darla said. “Don’t make me write a song about it.”
“Be the most publicity I’ve had in a while,” he said, trying to make it sound like a joke. It failed, if the look she was giving him was any indication, but she just cleared her throat and didn’t ask. He wasn’t sure whether he was happy about that.
He knocked back the rest of his drink and barreled on, unwilling to sit in awkward silence with his ex. “But you’re excited, right?”
“Are you kidding me?” Darla said, fluttering one hand in front of her chest in some completely unsubtle ring-flashing. “I’m so nervous I’ve spent the past month feeling like I’m going to puke. I haven’t been this anxious about anything since my first Grammy!”
“It’s easier than a Grammy,” Johnny said.
“For you anything would have to be,” she teased. “I’ve heard you sing.”
“I have the voice of an angel, and you and MTV need to stop kidding yourselves,” he said. “Look, I’m serious. If it works, then - it’s good. It’s really good. Unbelievably good.”
Darla set her drink back on the table, eyes soft.
“Hey,” she said, laying her hand over his. “I want you to know - you were sort of a terrible boyfriend.”
“Would it surprise you to hear I’ve heard that before?” Johnny asked, dry, and she snorted the way she did after she’d had a few drinks and forgot to laugh like a superstar.
“Uh, no. That’s not my point. My point is I’m glad it worked out this time. I’m happy you’re happy and all that jazz.” She tipped her glass his way, eyebrows raised until he cracked a real smile and clinked his cup against hers. She grinned, sunny and bright and nowhere near the picture perfect smile she’d always given him when they were dating.
“It’s really good,” he promised her. “Scott’s a good guy. You don’t have to be Grammy-level nervous.”
“I know he’s a good guy,” she said, biting at the corner of her neon pink mouth. “He’s fantastic. He’s super. Literally! I called him earlier and he had to go because he was fighting a guy in a gorrilla suit. Or an actual gorilla. Not really sure.”
“So…?” Johnny said.
“It’s just, that’s who Scott is. A superhero. I’m still not sure if that’s my case,” she said, twisting her ring around. It was still awful. She was wearing her Thing Rings, too, which was probably smart, the both of them out in public together. "I'm Miss Thing. I'm so C-List it hurts."
"You're Darla Deering," he said, "and you're always A-List."
She grinned, sticking her tongue out at him. “Shut up. This is the only place you get to be more famous than me. I feel like I should be talking to your husband about this.”
It took Johnny a second to clue in: he always forgot, how small their community was - he’d lived in the middle of it for so long that it felt like the whole world. It was his whole world, and within that community, the number of people who knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man? That was the real deal, the ultimate elite club.
“I’ve seen his work, y’know,” Darla said, continuing before Johnny could try and think of something to say. “His photos? That book he put out ages ago. He’s really good. Does he do weddings?”
“Are you trying to get me to talk my husband into taking free photos of the biggest pop wedding of the decade?” Johnny asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Scott picked the photographer,” Darla grumbled. “He was making noises about how I was choosing everything, so I let him. Probably should’ve let him have the cake. Or the flowers - he’s okay at flowers. Well, the ants are.”
“City hall wedding,” Johnny shrugged. “My niece and nephew picked the cake. Easy.”
Darla frowned, toying with her drink.
“I always wanted to know - why no big fancy wedding?” she asked. “I thought, the Human Torch, you’d be skywriting your vows, it’d be the biggest thing. Mutant doves and a billion dollars and Beyonce singing at the reception. City hall’s just not you.”
Johnny shrugged. They’d never told anyone outside his family that the whole thing had been a giant sham at the start - Johnny forgot himself, sometimes, and when he remembered it was like a bucket of ice down his back: the idea that it could have gone any other way. That Peter could still be his husband in name only.
Or not his husband at all.
“It’s true. That’s not my style,” he admitted, and then he went forward with a different truth, “but it is his. And I kind of hate that, but I love him. I just wanted - him.”
He remembered, clear as a bell, Peter’s clammy hand in his own, Peter’s half-shy, half-manic grin. The moment on the steps when Peter had risen to the bait and dipped him. That first kiss.
(“I was so nervous,” Johnny had admitted one night, and Peter had laughed at him in disbelief.
“You? You were nervous?” he scoffed. “No, I was about to fall through a crack in the earth - you were fine.”
I was so in love with you I thought my heart was going to explode, Johnny wanted to say, but the words were stuck, so he just took a long drag off his drink and said, “Well, I don’t sweat, so.”)
The flash of a camera brought him out of his thoughts.
“The look on your face was too good,” Darla said. His phone pinged as she sent him the photo. The expression of his face was unmistakably, painfully lovesick, his smile soft and his eyes faraway. “Don’t worry, I won’t share it.”
“Nah,” he said. “Go ahead. Remember when we broke twitter? Let’s go for round two.”
“Ugh, my management’s going to hate me,” she said, leaning around the table to get in the shot with him, “but if they didn’t kill me after Miss Thing…”
Two seconds later, the photo was on the internet: night on the town with @jstorm1! happy new year!! and a martini emoji. Johnny smiled down at it, at the look on his own face, then put his phone away.
“Oh,” Darla said, eyes catching on something behind him. He started to turn before she finished speaking. “My other guests just got here.”
Cassie Lang was standing there in a sparkly dress with a shy smile.
“Remember me?” she asked.
“Like I could forget,” he said, getting up and opening his arms wide for a hug. She grinned and threw herself at him. “How’s the prettiest girl in whatever grade it is you’re actually in?”
She laughed, but it was short and forced, and then she was quiet.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said. “I know you’ve been back a while, but I missed it.”
He stilled, then muttered a curse, pulling her in closer. He’d completely forgotten. “Yeah, well. We’re in the club, you and me.”
“Back from the dead club,” Cassie said, very quietly. She suddenly seemed smaller. Johnny squeezed her around the shoulders, swallowing the lump in his throat. He hadn’t found out about her until Reed had brought Scott on board, and the unfairness of it all - little Cassie Lang, Franklin’s babysitter, the kid who’d eaten Sunday dinners at their table - had killed him a little.
“Back from the dead club,” he seconded. “I’ll get us some jackets.”
“No flames on them,” she said.
“Who made you club president?” he said.
Her team was clustered a little way away, half of them feigning disinterest and the other half staring. Johnny made eye contact with the tall blond boy, the one he was pretty sure turned green, and he immediately ducked his head and started whispering to the brunet in the Defenders shirt, tapping at his ring finger.
“Your friends want an autograph?” he asked Cassie.
“Ignore them,” Cassie said. “They probably have one off eBay anyway.”
“I do sign a lot of stuff,” Johnny said.
The girl-Hawkeye old-Hawkeye was always hanging around was waving her arm in the air, expensive watch and all. Cassie stuck her tongue out at her.
“I have to go,” she said. “You’re coming to Dad’s wedding, right?”
“Doesn’t look like I have a choice,” he said. She grinned and headed back to her friends, walking backwards so she could wave. He waved back, laughing, but his throat felt tight, thinking about himself and Cassie and Scott Lang all still being here. Being back.
When he turned back Darla was watching him with her fingers laced under her chin.
“That was adorable,” she said. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”
“She spent a lot of time with us a few years back, because of her dad,” he said, hovering by his chair. He could see Cassie with her friends. The peroxide blond - Speed, Johnny was pretty sure, the Quicksilver mini-me - had his arm slung over her shoulders and they were both giggling while his twin turned red to the roots of his hair. “She’s a good kid.”
“I know,” Darla said, smile sappy-sweet. “Scott’s crazy about her.”
Cassie caught his eye and gave him one last wave.
“Not that I can talk, considering what I was doing at their age,” he said, sitting back down. “But aren’t they a little, y’know, young to be in here?”
“I’m marrying her dad!” Darla said, teary and, Johnny was pretty sure, completely smashed. She put her head down on the table. “I just want her to like me!”
Johnny went ahead and signaled for another round of drinks.
Johnny was drunk when he made it home. He’d almost flamed on and flown, distantly aware he could burn the alcohol from his system in an instant, but it was a good kind of drunk. He felt floaty right down to his teeth and everything bad seemed a distant memory. He wanted to savor it.
It was long past midnight and the city was beautiful, covered in ice like a layer of diamonds, people still out in the streets wrapped up from head-to-toe against the cold. Johnny could look out at New York and know what Peter saw, what he loved about it.
The building was still standing, which was always a good sign.
Peter was in their bedroom, his hair damp from the shower and dressed only in a pair old sweatpants. He hung high up on the wall, reading upside down. When he caught sight of Johnny he pulled himself free and landed noiselessly on his feet.
“Hey, pretty boy,” he said, snagging Johnny by the neck of his flimsy three hundred dollar t-shirt and reeling him in close. “You look like you had a good night.”
“Pretty good,” Johnny said, smiling against Peter’s mouth. “Better with you.”
“Did you get crashed by a guy dressed up like a giant animal?” Peter asked. Johnny shook his head no. “See? You got to drink in peace. Not better with me. Worse with me. Paying for the repairs with me.”
“Always better with you,” Johnny told him.
“Wow,” Peter said, hands at Johnny’s waist, slipping up under his shirt. “You are really and truly drunk.”
“Thought the world might be ending,” Johnny said, momentarily distracted by the way Peter’s fingers curled around his sides before he slid them to the small of Johnny’s back, locking his hands together and trapping Johnny in the circle of his arms.
“No, you didn’t,” Peter said and kissed him. “What were you drinking?”
“Not sure at the end,” Johnny said. “It was, um. Red and fizzy. Kiss me again.”
Johnny loved everything about Peter’s mouth. The ridiculous words that came out of it, yeah, of course - nobody made him laugh like Peter did - but also the shape of it, the way his lips were always slightly chapped, the soft noises he made when Johnny kissed him. The press of Peter’s lips against his own never failed to set off sparks in Johnny’s chest.
The bed was a quick three steps away, Johnny trying to steer them without ever breaking contact. Peter’s hands were everywhere, long-fingered and clever under his shirt, shoving it up, but Johnny wasn’t about to stop kissing him long enough for him to pull it off. His hands flexed at Johnny’s sides like he was about to put all that strength to good use, but as much as Johnny loved that it wasn’t what he wanted.
One easy shove and Peter hit the bed. Johnny climbed after him, pulling his shirt up over his head. Peter grabbed his hips, his hands steadying.
“Whoa, cowboy,” he said, laughing. He flicked open the button of Johnny’s jeans, tugging impatiently at his fly. “Tell me the truth - were unstable molecules invented just so you could get these pants on?”
“You can either tear them off or you can quit complaining and let me get out of them,” Johnny said. Peter’s fingers twitched, his eyebrows quirked. Johnny grabbed his wrists, pulling his hands away. “Do not tear them off, you don’t know what I had to pay for these -”
“Reason enough to ruin them -”
“And I will be really mad when I sober up,” Johnny said. He held Peter’s hands pinned to the mattress, hovering over him on all fours. Peter was flushed from his face to his chest, damp hair falling across his forehead, and the look in his eyes was one Johnny knew too well. “Don’t you dare flip me.”
He knew how it would go, if Peter flipped him. He’d be flat on his back on the bed and Peter would crawl over him, touch burning against Johnny’s skin. He’d tear Johnny’s stupidly expensive jeans off after all, secure in the knowledge that Johnny had another two pairs stashed in his closet. Peter would slip his hand under Johnny’s knee and hitch his leg up over his hip and -
Johnny shivered.
Peter’s mouth twisted to the side in interest, like he knew what Johnny was thinking. Johnny mock-scowled down at him, squeezing his wrists.
“Do not,” he repeated.
Peter heaved one deep, sarcastic sigh, eyes gleaming, before he went limp.
“No flipping, no flipping, alright, I get it,” he said. Johnny let go, working his jeans down over his hips while Peter waved one imperious hand, affecting a terrible accent, "Carry on then, love slave."
Johnny bit back the urge to bicker as he flung his jeans off over the side of the bed, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear. Instead he put his mouth to better use, sucking kisses down Peter’s long neck. Peter hummed a little, eyes fluttering closed.
“I just need to touch you,” Johnny said, slipping his hand down the waistband of Peter’s ragged-soft sweatpants. He let his fingers brush up against Peter’s erection before he slid his hand over to palm at his bare hip. He rubbed his thumb up over Peter’s hipbone.
“Yeah?” Peter said, voice hitching. “You could be doing a better job of it, y’know.”
Johnny snickered and squeezed the back of his thigh, fingers digging into solid muscle as he rolled them over so they were both on their sides. He grabbed a handful of Peter’s sweatpants, dragging them down until Peter got the hint and kicked them off. Peter’s open mouth met his, the kiss heated.
Johnny slipped his hand between their bodies, dragging his fingernails lightly down Peter’s stomach before he wrapped them both in his grip and started to stroke.
One year of marriage and Johnny was pretty much a certified expert in making Peter Parker’s eyes roll back.
“Just want to touch you,” Johnny said and Peter groaned. He wrapped one hand around the back of Johnny’s neck and missed his mouth on the first try, kissing his chin, his cheek, the corner of his lips.
“Just want to touch you,” Peter countered, and it was amazing how he even made that sound like an argument. His hand came down to cover Johnny’s, thumb pressing briefly against his wedding ring. Johnny was pretty sure Peter had a thing for the rings and the thought sent a thrill through him every time - but then Peter picked up the pace, grip hot and tight and sure, and Johnny forgot to think anything at all.
Peter came first, his groan stifled against Johnny’s neck and fingers digging into Johnny’s hip. Johnny followed soon after, gasping as he spilled over their hands and Peter’s stomach, momentarily blindsided the way he always was by how overwhelming everything was with Peter.
For a moment the only noise in the room was their own breathing, ringing loud in Johnny’s ears, and then Peter sighed, shifting them into a more comfortable position.
“Well,” he said, stomach jumping with silent laughter. Johnny leaned in to kiss him and Peter threaded his fingers through Johnny’s hair, smiling up against his mouth. “Happy New Year to me.”
“My will still stands,” Johnny said around 6 AM, when he was inching towards sober. He rolled onto his stomach, up on his elbows, and grabbed Peter’s hand. He pressed his mouth to his knuckles. “If anything happens to me, you get my team.”
“I don’t think I could get rid of them if I tried,” Peter said. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I saw Cassie Lang,” Johnny admitted. Peter’s slow wandering hands stilled. “Darla invited her and the rest of her team. I know what happened to her, when I was dead.”
“Not dead,” Peter corrected, the way he always did, like if he said it enough he could convince the both of them that it wasn’t true. Johnny didn’t mind. It was nice sometimes, pretending Peter was right, but it didn’t change anything.
The Negative Zone still clung to him, heavy between his shoulders and in the nearly invisible pinprick marks scattered across his chest and back.
“Sure,” Johnny said. Peter breathed out, slow, and squeezed Johnny’s fingers until they tingled.
“God,” he said. “Cassie Lang. That was awful.”
Johnny had forgotten - the Avengers had been there when she’d died. Peter had been there. His heart sank, but there was a flicker of anger in his chest, too. At least when he’d died, he’d been alone.
“Is she okay?” Peter asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Johnny said, swallowing hard. “Yeah, she’s - she’s always been a tough kid. Just got me thinking, that’s all.”
“That’s a change,” Peter said, the tease in his voice at odds with the way he brought Johnny’s hand to his chest and turned his head so his nose was pressed briefly to Johnny’s temple. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Not my point,” Johnny said. “I’m saying - I meant it then and it’s still true. Everything I have, my family - it’s yours. You get it.”
Peter’s inhale was shaky, his grip too tight on Johnny’s hand. He was running his thumb over the ring, back and forth, back and forth. “Okay. Okay, you too. You know that.”
“Yeah? What do I get?” Johnny asked, pressing his lips to Peter’s neck. He didn’t want to think about it - it was one thing, when it was him. It was completely different if it was Peter. “Do I get the suit?”
“You absolutely do not get the suit,” Peter said. “I changed my mind, you stay away from my stuff.”
“Webbing?” Johnny asked. “Oh, can I have your comic book collection?”
“I don’t have a comic book collection,” Peter said.
“That’s not what your aunt says,” Johnny muttered, knocking their foreheads together, hands sliding up Peter’s shoulders to cup his neck. Peter leaned into the touch. The ache in Johnny’s chest was like a jagged canyon, like he’d been split open and put together wrong. He felt every single one of the old scars like they were fresh.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Peter said. “So you leave those comic books alone.”
“Nerd,” Johnny said. “Okay. Don’t.”
“I’m not.” The kiss was fierce; Johnny relaxed into it, just enjoying Peter’s pulse beneath his fingers, the heat of him. The way they fit together. “You’re stuck with me.”
“Yeah?” Johnny asked. “Where’s my ring?”
“On your finger, jerk,” Peter said, and kissed him again.
The kids were laughing about something. Johnny glanced up blearily, only half-awake, and belatedly realized they were giggling at him.
“What?” he said. “What’s on my face?”
“Nothing,” Val said primly, then cracked up, ducking her head so far down her hair ended up in her cereal bowl.
Franklin was turning colors, he was trying so hard not to laugh. Johnny flicked a cheerio at him, then gave up the ghost.
“Right, whatever,” he yawned, tilting dangerously to the side. No pointy shoulder halted his slide. “Where’s Pete?”
“Ran inta him early this mornin’,” Ben said. “Said he had somewhere to be. Told me to tell ya not to worry.”
“Ugh,” Johnny said. “I’ve been abandoned. Sue, my husband’s abandoned me.”
“Have some breakfast,” she told him. “It’ll help.”
“I’ve been jilted and you expect me to eat breakfast?” he whined. “It’s New Year’s.”
Ben slid a plate of pancakes across the table. “Quit yer whining. Webs probably just went for coffee.”
He gave Reed a long, hard look. Reed had the decency to look slightly guilty.
“I said I’d fix the machine,” he said.
“Right, you said you’d fix it,” Ben grumbled. “Meanwhile the kid at the corner Starbucks remembers ta put sprinkles on my jumbo peppermint mocha but can’t spell my name.”
“You can’t spell your name,” Johnny muttered.
“That was depressin’,” Ben said. “Even for you.”
“I’ve been abandoned,” Johnny repeated.
“We’re all torn up about it,” Ben said, shaking out his newspaper. “Eat yer breakfast.”
Peter didn’t come back in the morning, or in the afternoon. By evening Johnny was starting to wonder if one of his weirder villains had tied him to the Times Square Ball. He headed back to his floor, weighing the pros and cons of going out looking for him on New Year’s Eve.
(Pros: maybe finding his missing husband. Cons: almost definitely running into a bunch of guys dressed like an evil zoo, snacks and champagne in the fridge at home.)
He saw the note as soon as the elevators doors dinged open, where it definitely hadn’t been a few hours before. It was webbed to the wall and it read what’s the one place I swore I’d never go on New Year’s Eve? in Peter’s chicken scratch handwriting with a little spider scrawled underneath it.
“Easy,” Johnny snorted, turning on his heel.
Ben was on the couch eating potato puffs and watching Alison Blaire’s coverage of Times Square.
“Darla’s up next,” he said, waving at the TV screen. “Want to stick around?”
“Nah,” Johnny said, slipping on his favorite jacket. When Ben shot him a look, he said, “Thought I might head out to there, actually. Want to come with?”
“Are you outta yer flaming head?” Ben said. “Have you seen that crowd?”
“So come with me and be my battering ram?” Ben snorted derisively and Johnny shrugged. “Fine, I’m going anyway.”
Ben grumbled, but then the TV flickered off.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “Just lemme get my coat.”
The crush of the crowd was worse than it had looked on TV. Even in safety of Ben’s massive shadow Johnny found himself shoved in every direction.
“You’ve finally done it,” Ben said as he and Johnny tried to push their way through the celebration. “You’ve taken us straight to hell.”
“I hate this,” Johnny said, eyes sparking as someone’s sharp elbows connected with his side. “I can’t believe he did this to me. I’m going to set Carson Daily on fire and blame him on national television.”
“Keep your cool,” Ben said, one hand settled on top of his head as a crowd of tourists in 2017 glasses threatened to bowl them straight over. “This was your bright idea, in case ya forgot.”
“I’m supposed to be looking for something,” he said, but even as he said it he knew it was pointless. He balled the note up in his fist and set it alight, groaning. “This is impossible! There’s a million people here! Literally a million! I’m going to kill him.”
“Uh, Matchstick,” Ben said, stopping in his tracks. He grabbed Johnny by the back of his jacket, reeling him back before he could trip face-first into a group of drunk Australians. “You might want to look up.”
There was webbing up all along the Olive Garden in Times Square: MEET ME AT THE USUAL PLACE.
Jameson was going to have a field day.
“You vandalized a chain restaurant to get my attention,” Johnny said, touching down at the Statue of Liberty. He snuffed his flames and straightened up, picking out Peter’s red and blue spandex easily in the gloom. “You’ve set the standards too high - I want two dozen supervillains webbed up in a bow for Valentine’s.”
“But that’s what I got you last year,” Peter said, stepping forward. His mask was off and he looked nervous, tapping the fingers of one hand against his thigh. His other hand was balled up into a loose fist at his side.
“What’s so important you had to call me out here?” Johnny asked.
It had been ages since they’d been out to the usual place - months, now that Johnny thought about it. In the honeymoon phase that had followed Johnny’s confession they’d swung out one evening just for kicks. All of their history up there, that one shade of teal Johnny would forever associate with Peter - he’d jumped him in the middle of Peter quoting The New Colossus.
(“Yearning to breathe free, Torch!” Peter had mumbled against his lips.)
Long story short they’d had to fish Peter’s pants off a spike on Lady Liberty’s crown before any tourists could ask questions.
“I have something,” Peter said, sounding stilted. “For you, something for you, and I thought - this is the place.”
“Are you having a stroke?” Johnny asked, but then Peter held out his hand, palm open.
There was a ring. Peter was holding a ring. Johnny’s brain might’ve been a little broken.
“I,” he tried, but couldn’t think of anything to say after that. “What?”
“Please don’t make me get down on one knee,” Peter said, “because I think that’d be pushing it.”
Johnny opened his mouth again and then shut it. Peter grabbed his hand and placed the ring there, right in the middle of Johnny’s palm, and something about that moment - Peter’s slightly wild expression, the distant sound of the city’s celebration and the ring in his hand - made everything click back into place.
“This is plastic,” Johnny said, and then burst into hysterical laughter.
“Stop laughing!” Peter said. “I ate three boxes of Cracker Jacks for that!”
“You ate three boxes of Cracker Jacks?” Johnny snickered. The ring was so light in his cupped hands that he was half afraid the wind would carry it off.
“Two were for the kids, but it turns out they hate Cracker Jacks,” Peter said. “Actually, turns out I hate Cracker Jacks, so after box three I gave up and bought it on eBay.”
Johnny squawked, doubling nearly over with laughter. “You bought me an eBay ring?”
“I paid $12.50 for your eBay ring!” Peter defended. “Plus shipping!”
“Oh my God,” Johnny said, shaking his head. He picked up the ring, turning it over. “This is too good. Is it engraved? Did you Breakfast at Tiffany’s me?”
“It’s not engraved,” Peter said, rolling his eyes briefly when Johnny booed. “I did get Reed to dunk it in an unstable molecule solution, though. No melting.”
Johnny stopped laughing, smile softening. “So I can actually wear it, huh?”
“Kind of the point of a ring,” Peter said, ducking his head and shrugging, suddenly bashful. “Do you hate it? Don’t wear it if you hate it, I’ll get you something else.”
“What, you’ll switch sides, rob a jewelry store for me?” Johnny said, turning the ring over in his hand. It was simple and gold-colored with a fake orange stone set at the front. It was completely, totally plastic. He couldn’t stop smiling. “All I have to do is bat my pretty eyelashes, right?”
“You’re so high maintenance,” Peter groaned, still looking at Johnny’s hand with that sheepish, embarrassed little smile.
Johnny slid the ring onto his finger, on top of his wedding band. “It fits.”
“Again: unstable molecules,” Peter said. “I’m not totally hopeless.”
“Come here,” Johnny said, holding out his hand. Peter’s eyes were fixed on the ring, so the kiss took him by surprise. He made an annoyed sound, hand tightening around Johnny’s like he was loathe to pay attention to anything else, but he didn’t stop kissing Johnny. “You got me a Cracker Jack ring. You have problems.”
“You’re impossible to shop for,” Peter said. Johnny bit back a laugh, cradling Peter’s face between his hands, kissing him languidly before breaking off to press his lips to the corner of Peter’s mouth, the side of his nose, the space between his eyebrows. “You already have everything.”
“I can pretty safely say I didn’t have this,” Johnny said. Peter’s hand was locked around his wrist, thumb stroking over both rings. “What’s the occasion?”
The look Peter gave him was deeply unimpressed. “Don’t tell me you’re going to make me spell it out for you.”
“Size 300 Times New Webbing, thanks,” Johnny said. “Dude, we’re kind of already married.”
“Dude,” Peter mocked. “I completely didn’t notice. Wait, was that you in my bed?”
“Quit it,” Johnny said. “You got me a ring. Why?”
“I wanted you to have a ring,” Peter said. “So I got you a ring. You alright? You fly into a wall on your way here?”
“Shh, shut up,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. He headbutted Peter very, very gently, staring into his eyes. “I’m following that part okay. Why did you want me to have a ring?”
“Because I thought you wanted a ring,” Peter said, like that made any sense at all.
“I have a ring,” Johnny said. “You put it on my finger in front of my sister, your aunt and a portal full of aliens.”
“But it’s not real,” Peter blurted out. Johnny glanced down at his ring, then back at Peter, and opened his mouth to ask what the hell Peter was talking about, but Peter was still talking a thousand words a minute. “I mean, it’s real, it’s a real ring, but I didn’t know when I put that on your finger.”
Whatever Johnny was going to say, he couldn’t remember now. All that mattered was the slightly crazed look in Peter’s eyes, Peter’s hands at his waist, the feather light weight of the ring Peter had bought him around his finger.
“I didn’t know,” Peter said.
“Yeah,” Johnny said, as eloquently as could be expected when his husband was giving him a Cracker Jack ring on top of the Statue of Liberty.
“But I know now,” Peter said. “And I know you care that people have stopped trying to figure out whether the color of your shirt means we’re over or having a threeway with Angel or adopting the moloids, and I know you feel like that makes it less real. But it’s not.”
“Okay,” Johnny said, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I know that.”
“So,” Peter said, and licked his lips, eyes searching Johnny’s face.
“So,” Johnny repeated, but his voice broke on the laughter. Peter groaned, head falling forward onto Johnny’s shoulder. “Should I book us a catering hall out on Long Island?”
“I changed my mind,” Peter said. “Give me my plastic ring back, I’m getting a refund.”
“No, it’s mine forever now. How about New Jersey?” Johnny said. “Ben says I’m not qualified to wear white anymore, though.”
“Well, Ben’s right,” Peter said.
“Remember last time we were up here?” Johnny said, waggling his eyebrows.
“I remember being very glad Carol moved,” Peter said. “Slow down a sec, Flamebrain.”
“Oh, you give me a ring on top of the Statue of Liberty on New Year’s Eve and you want me to slow down,” Johnny said, twining his arms around Peter’s neck.
“I’m being serious!” Peter said, but his eyes were dancing and the corner of his mouth was twitching like he was fighting a smile. It was pointless pretending he didn’t want to kiss that stupid look off Peter’s face, so he did. Peter pinched his side. “Focus. You like it?”
“I’m never taking it off,” Johnny said.
“I almost threw it in the river on my way over here,” Peter said. “But I’d already vandalized Times Square, so I figured I’d stick to my guns and let you laugh in my face. Which you did.”
“Laughing with, not at,” Johnny said, nipping at Peter’s bottom lip. “Okay, a little at. But I’m justified. You’re ridiculous. I love it, you idiot.”
“I’m glad,” Peter said.
“Yeah?”
“Glad I didn’t waste $12.50,” he finished.
When Johnny kissed him it was only about 70% to shut him up.
There was a WHO WORE IT BETTER in Heroes Weekly: A shot of Johnny’s hand, cheap Cracker Jack ring proudly displayed on the left, and a vintage shot of a twelve-year-old girl sporting the same on the right.
Darla had tweeted a cell phone shot of it, too - what do we think of jstorm’s newest bling??, followed by the diamond ring emoji and a string of spinny hearts.
still better than yours, Johnny texted her.
MINE IS GREAT!! yours is tacky af, she sent back, twenty seconds later. fire your husband.
Peter was out cold and snoring in the bedroom. He’d swung through a thankfully already open window hours before, given Johnny an off-center kiss, and then collapsed face forward onto the bed.
It was pretty ridiculous how much Johnny loved him.
His phone trilled.
jen says she’s done planning my bachelorette party, Darla said. i’m scared
Johnny grinned. strippers!!!!! jen goes hard, ur gonna die.
youre not invited, Darla texted back. youre already married, u don’t get strippers
Peter chose that moment to reappear in the doorway, looking only about half-dead. He gave Johnny a grunt of acknowledgement before he staggered out of the room. Who said romance was dead?
“Hey, Darla says because we’re married I don’t get any strippers,” Johnny called after him. “You don’t care, right?”
“Take it up with the strippers,” Peter muttered. Two seconds later he reappeared back in the doorway. “Wait. What?”
Darla’s venue was gorgeous. The space was huge, with all the privacy Darla could buy and the security half a guestlist’s worth of superheroes provided.
“Food ain’t so great, though,” Ben muttered, balancing a cucumber slice topped with salmon mousse on one huge forefinger. Peter snorted in agreement.
“Get the whole tray next time he comes around,” he said to Ben, who made a considering noise.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Johnny said, snagging a drink in one hand and Peter’s elbow in the other. “C’mon, we’re mingling.”
“Save me!” Peter called to Ben.
“I’ll remember ya fondly, kid,” he said, saluting them with his champagne flute.
People were starting to take their seats down on the green lawn, though, and Reed was waving all three of them over. The main tent stretched above their heads, providing shelter from the early spring chill. It was strung with fairy lights and dotted with flowers.
Cassie was standing at the front with Scott, wearing a red dress the same color as her costume. She waved when she spotted Johnny.
“Aw,” Peter said. “I really wanted the best man to be an ant.”
Sue shushed them as the music started up.
Tong came down the aisle first, tossing flowers onto the ground, into the air and mostly into the crowd.
“I see the rehearsals went great,” Peter said, flicking a petal off Johnny’s ear.
Darla swept in a moment later, arm in arm with her mother. Jan had really gone all out on the dress - it was champagne pink with a flowing skirt that swished around Darla’s ankles. The back was trademark Jan and dangerously low. She looked beautiful. Scott looked damp-eyed.
So did Peter.
“Do you always cry at weddings?” Johnny teased, nudging him.
“They’re emotional!” Peter hissed, pinching his thigh when Johnny snickered. “Shut up.”
Everything went smoothly, right up until Darla said, “I do,” and stretched up on her toes to kiss Scott.
Then someone started shooting. Johnny wished he could’ve been surprised.
He threw himself onto Peter, knocking them both off their chairs and onto the ground. Peter grunted at the impact, then grabbed at Johnny’s shoulders and twisted them over.
“Are you trying to shield me?” Johnny demanded incredulously, the grass soft through his jacket. Overhead people were screaming, chaos erupting, but Johnny was sure Sue had already thrown up a force field. A quick glance over Peter’s shoulder revealed Jen was ripping half her bridesmaid dress off so she could move and Cassie Lang was twenty feet tall. The groom was nowhere to be seen. Darla’s mother looked about ready to faint. “I can light on fire, idiot!”
“Then why haven’t you?” Peter demanded, fingers tugging viciously at the knot on his tie. Johnny knocked his hands out of the way and used the half a second’s worth of surprise to flip them back over. A white lawn chair went with them.
“I would if you would listen to me for two seconds!” Johnny said. He ducked his head low and started on Peter’s tie. “Are you wearing your suit?”
“Of course I’m wearing my suit,” Peter said.
“No, your other suit,” Johnny hissed.
“Yes! That suit!” Peter said. Johnny got his top button undone and saw a sliver of red spandex underneath. “Wait. What suit were you talking about?”
“Oh my God,” Johnny said, rolling off of him. He climbed to his feet and flamed on. “You’re impossible.”
“Who’s on first? No, I’m asking you, who’s on first,” Peter said. His shoes went flying somewhere off in the distance. Johnny hoped he remembered later.
“Get your clothes off already!” He almost couldn’t believe how annoyed he sounded, saying those words.
“Quit riding me!” Peter hissed, struggling out of his shirt.
“This is so not me riding you,” he replied. Peter made a choking noise.
“Children present, Torch!” Peter said, working on his belt. He lost patience after a second and just ripped it off, the leather snapped, the buckle gone flying. Johnny cringed - he was pretty sure that’d been his belt. He pulled his mask on. “Just go!”
“Yeah, speaking of,” Johnny muttered, catching sight of Tong rolling up her frilly sleeves and looking ready to clobber a gunman with her flower girl basket. He touched down in front of her, snuffing the flames on one hand so he could plant his palm flat against the glass of Turg’s capsule. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of red and blue come swinging out from behind the tent. “See the Spider-Man, kids? Follow him!”
Vil and Wu stared unblinking and defiant at him, but Onome jumped to attention, grabbing them by the hands. Bentley, however, was standing his ground, staring past Johnny with his little fists balled.
“They’re ruining Miss Deering’s wedding,” he said, voice tremulous with anger. “I was going to do that!”
A strand of webbing caught Bentley by the back of his jacket and lassoed him to safety. Peter gave him a careless salute, tossing Bentley over his shoulder and ushering the other kids into the tent.
“God, I love him,” Johnny said to himself.
Sue had the civilian guests covered with a force field. She caught Johnny’s eye as he flew past, rolling her eyes as if to say can you believe this and he snorted. To make things better, someone tried to shoot at him.
“Really?” he said. “Human Torch? You don’t think there might be a flaw in your plan?”
He aimed a fireball at the gun, just to prove his point, but he blinked and his guy was webbed to a tree.
“That was mine!” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Making friends, Torchy?” Spider-Man said, swinging in.
“Where are the kids?” Johnny asked.
“They’re fine,” Peter said. “Reed’s got ‘em, they’re okay. Wow, the bride looks mad.”
Johnny turned just in time to see Darla clock a man out cold, then stop to shake out her hand. She was still holding her bouquet.
“Thing Rings!” he said to her. “Clobber on or whatever!”
“Are you kidding me?” she said, gesturing to her dress. Somewhere nearby, Jan’s tiny voice echoed the sentiment. “It’s my wedding!”
“At least kick off the heels,” Johnny said, right as Darla drove her stiletto straight down on another attacker’s toes. He screamed, Darla hit him and Johnny melted the gun. “Okay, never mind.”
Spider-Man whistled, swinging overhead. He webbed up their sobbing man, adding him to the collection up in the tree. Darla gaped at him.
“Where did you come from?” she said.
“Wherever holy matrimony is in trouble, that’s where I’ll be,” Spider-Man said, saluting her.
“Hey, be careful, okay?” Johnny said.
“Aren’t I always?” Peter scoffed, swinging off.
“Almost never!” Johnny shouted at his back.
Darla’s eyes traveled from Spider-Man, back to Johnny, and then to Spider-Man once more. Johnny could see the wheels turning.
“Oh my God,” she said quietly. Then, rounding on Johnny, “Oh my God!”
“Shhh,” he said, one burning finger to his lips.
“I can’t believe this!” she said, throwing up her hands. “This is ridiculous! All the gossip sites were right! What is wrong with both of you?! And,” she made a particularly threatening motion with her bouquet, “how could you not tell me?”
“Consider it your wedding present?” Johnny shrugged.
“I’m going to clobber you,” she said. “Just as soon as I finish with the guys trying to ruin my wedding.”
“That’s fair,” he said.
As wedding attacks went, the whole thing was over pretty quickly. Twenty minutes later Darla was peeling off her gloves, attempting to fix her hair using the front facing camera on her phone and comforting her mother at the same time.
“Mom, it’s really okay,” she said. In lieu of a handkerchief she handed her mother one of her ruined gloves. Mrs. Deering looked at the blood stains across the knuckles and burst into tears all over again.
“This never would have happened before she met you,” she wailed, pointing at Johnny.
“And that’s my cue to go,” he said as Darla sighed. He snapped his fingers at her, sending up a spark. “Stay beautiful.”
“Oh my God,” Darla said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smothering a grin with her palm. “Shut up.”
Peter was standing by the Langs, hurriedly buttoned up. His hair was in every direction. He’d lost his tie. Johnny couldn’t take him anywhere.
“This is still better than my first wedding,” Scott was saying to him, his hands on Cassie’s shoulders. “My father-in-law has this friend, Jim, and Jim has a few too many…”
“Dad, not the Drunk Jim story again,” Cassie said, picking mournfully at the tattered remains of her dress. She had a tablecloth draped over her shoulders.
“Sorry, baby,” Scott said. He squeezed her shoulders, then put his hands over her ears. “So, Jim has a few too many…”
Peter shot Johnny an alarmed look, mouthing ‘save me.’ Johnny waved and answered ‘no way’, meandering over to where the rest of his family was sitting with Jen at a recently righted table.
He draped himself over Ben, snagging the champagne bottle he was passing to Jen.
“Shove over,” he said.
“No room,” Ben said. “Sorry.”
Johnny groaned dramatically and leaned his full weight against Ben, not that it made any difference. There was a familiar invisible tug at the bottle. He let go and watched Sue float it over to herself while Reed discreetly snagged glasses from the back of the tent.
“Might want to keep an eye on Bentley,” Johnny said, catching sight of the kids a little ways down the lawn. “He said something earlier about ruining the wedding, and I’m really not in the mood for round two with a robot or whatever.”
“Dragon Man and I handled it earlier,” Reed said, pouring everyone glasses.
Jen grabbed Johnny’s wrist, turning his hand over.
“Oh my God, it’s true,” she said, squinting at his ring. “I thought there was some kind of photoshop conspiracy against you.”
“You don’t like it?” Johnny teased, wiggling his fingers in her grasp.
“He gave this to you? Really?” At his nod, she snorted. “I changed my mind about handling divorce cases.”
“I don’t have to take that from a woman who looks like a slice of watermelon,” Johnny said. Jen made a face, tugging on the strap of her pink dress. “Anyway, you’re all just jealous.”
“Of your plastic jewelry? Sure,” Jen said. “Oh, there’s the criminal now.”
Peter’s arms snaked around Johnny from behind.
“I can’t believe you left me there,” he said, chin digging into Johnny’s shoulder. “Scott Lang just spent five minutes telling me about the time some guy tried to kill him with a butter knife. Hi, Jennifer.”
“Pete,” Jen said, raising her glass his way. “Don’t knock the butter knife story. I mean, it’s no “when I was prison” but it’s still good. Ugh - I think the moloids found a dropped wallet. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it.”
She handed her glass off to Johnny and got up, headed over towards the kids. Ben and Sue followed after her.
“Some wedding, huh?” Peter said. “Don’t look now but I think the bride’s upset.”
Darla was coming their way, worrying on a thumbnail.
“What’s wrong?” Johnny asked.
“My photographer’s missing,” Darla said. She’d managed to keep most of her dress pristine despite the firefight, which Johnny credited half to her willpower and half to Jan’s experience clothing superheroes. “Either he’s up in a tree, or Bentley’s got him hogtied by the lake, but either way I can’t find him, so I need your husband.”
“Need me for what?” Peter asked, leaning around Johnny.
“I’m not going to let only record of my wedding be StarkPhone snaps,” Darla said. “You’re a photographer. Among other things.”
“Oh, yeah,” Johnny said, tugging at Peter’s collar. “By the way. Darla knows.”
“Knows what?” Peter asked, momentarily distracted watching Jen lift five different kids into the air.
“About you,” Johnny said. “Y’know.”
“Thwip,” Darla added helpfully, holding out her hands webslinging style.
Peter turned to look at him incredulously. “Please, please tell me you’re kidding right now.”
“She figured it out!” Johnny said. “Peter Parker disappears, Ider-man-spay appears -”
“Don’t do that,” Peter said. “Pig Latin’s not code, everybody knows what you’re saying when you do that.”
Johnny ignored him. “Also, I was sort of…”
“Making that face,” Darla filled in.
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “I was looking at you the way I look at… you.”
“That made no sense,” Peter said, leaning forward. He hooked his ankle around Johnny’s. “Looking at me how again?”
“Like I’m wearing a ring you bought for $12.50,” Johnny said.
Peter caught his left hand, thumb pressed to the stacked rings on his finger.
“Oh, that face,” he said. “Yeah, you have got to work on that.”
“You’re both really adorable, but my bouquet is gone, I still don’t have a photographer, and People magazine is going to want a nice shot for the cover,” Darla pointed out. “We have to get this show on the road.”
Peter looked at Johnny, like Johnny had any control over the situation at all. He shrugged.
“I, uh, don’t have my camera?” Peter said, blinking at Darla.
“We still have the photographer’s,” Darla said.
“I,” Peter said, still blinking in bewilderment. “Guess that works?”
“Great!” Darla beamed and hooked her hand through Peter’s elbow, yanking him forward.
Peter shot a look at Johnny. Johnny shrugged.
“Can you introduce me to Mary Jane Watson?” Darla asked, pulling Peter along by the hand. “I’m a huge Secret Hospital fan.”
Ben hefted Darla high up on his shoulder, the both of them laughing while Peter called directions. Johnny had been watching the wedding photos for half an hour now, starting with the traditional shots of Darla, Scott and the wedding party, then Cassie holding her father and Darla in her giant cupped palms, and now the Thing x 2 shoot.
Johnny was pretty sure Peter was going to keep taking photos for as long as Darla kept coming up with ideas. He was laughing along with them, the smile on his face carefree. Johnny leaned back on his heels and smiled, too.
Gentle laughter broke him out of his reverie.
Sue and Reed had pulled their chairs over and they were looking at Johnny with their creepy identical married couple smiles.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing,” Sue said. “You look happy. We’re happy you’re happy.”
Johnny made a disgusted noise. “Stop smiling at me.”
Predictably, they didn’t stop smiling at him. He was tempted to give them one giant flaming finger when Valeria tugged at his pants leg.
“I can’t see,” she said imperiously. He heaved a dramatic sigh and then scooped her up. “Better.”
“Val,” Reed said.
Valeria huffed a little, gazing at Johnny as if he understood her six-year-old pain. He did, sort of. “Thank you, Uncle Johnny.”
“No problem, princess,” he said. When he looked back over at Peter, Peter was looking back. He winked and then turned to say something to Darla as Ben set her back down on her feet. Darla gave him the thumbs up and Peter grinned.
“Okay,” he said, turning the camera on them. “Fantastic Family shot! Everyone together.”
“Are you serious?” Johnny said even as Val reached up to fix her own hair, then his. He gave her a look.
“The right side’s your better one,” she said.
“Don’t make me drop you,” he said.
“Come on, people, bring it together!” Peter said. Sue fell into place at Johnny’s side, lifting Valeria from his arms. Reed held Franklin and Ben came up behind them.
“Crowd in closer,” Peter said, gesturing emphatically. He scowled when Johnny leaned away. Sue hooked her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him back in. The camera went off and Peter stared down at it, brows furrowed. “Eh. We can do better than that.”
“Get in the photo!” Johnny shouted at him. Peter narrowed his eyes at him.
“What, it’s going to take itself?” he said.
“It’s a family shot, right?” Johnny said. “So get in the photo, Pete.”
“Johnny, I swear I’m going to -” Peter started, but whatever he was about to threaten was cut off when Darla snatched the camera out of his hands.
“Get in the photo,” she said. Peter gave her a long suffering look.
“The bride’s not supposed to photograph her own guests,” he said.
“The bride’s also not supposed to break anyone’s nose,” Darla countered cheerfully. “So get in the photo.”
Peter shot her one last scathing look before he obeyed, jogging up. Johnny caught him by the elbow, reeling him in and pressing a kiss to his cheek as Darla took the photo. Sue cheered, Reed laughed and Franklin and Ben made identical gagging noises.
It was far from the worst wedding Johnny had ever been to.
“Hey,” Peter said when he found Johnny sitting out on the lawn, staring up at the stars.
“Hey,” Johnny said. He slung his arm over Peter’s shoulders, humming. “Our wedding was better.”
“Well, nobody got shot, and Bentley didn’t steal the moloids’ cake and throw up in the bushes,” Peter said. “So by default, yeah, I think we probably take the crown. What are you doing out here?”
“Don’t know,” Johnny said. “Thinking.”
“Yeah? Does it hurt?” Peter asked. Johnny scowled at him until he started laughing, and that made Johnny start laughing too. He fell backwards onto the grass, arms pillowed on his head. Peter leaned over him, ducking his head for one quick kiss. When he pulled back he had an odd look on his face.
“What?” Johnny asked him.
“Thinking,” Peter shot back, flicking a blade of grass at Johnny. “This is more your scene, huh? The Hamptons, big ballroom, all the drama a showbiz rival hiring gunmen provides…”
Johnny snorted. “What’s your point?”
“Just that, if we had done everything the normal way, I could see you here,” Peter said, gesturing.
“I am here,” Johnny said, raising his eyebrows.
“You know what I mean,” Peter said. “Getting married here - that kind of see you here.”
“Oh,” Johnny said, very quietly. He sat up and looked around, really taking in the grounds. Peter wasn’t wrong - this was the kind of place he’d always liked, big and luxurious and just obnoxious enough. But the picture wasn’t right. “But you don’t go in for stuff like this.”
“Uh, no,” Peter said, snorting. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Johnny said. “This isn’t you, so - nah.”
“Nah, what?” Peter repeated.
“Nah,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. “We don’t end up here, Pete. Even if we - if I went about it differently. We don’t do normal. We just… do us, I guess.”
A fake marriage turned real and a plastic ring on Johnny’s finger and Peter stumbling in at 5AM that one time, holding a fish and looking just as confused as Johnny. He couldn’t think of anything better.
Peter was watching him in the dark, eyes flickering over Johnny’s face like he was trying to put together a puzzle. Johnny waited him out. “We don’t do normal, huh?”
“We were friends - you were my best friend for years, Pete, before I knew your face. We never had a chance for normal,” he said. “I like it better like this.”
When Peter smiled he ducked his head, laughing a little under his breath.
“Me too, Johnny,” he said before he climbed to his feet, brushing grass from his knees. He held out his hand for Johnny and pulled him to his feet, running his thumb over both the rings on Johnny’s finger. “Come on. I came out to get you because there’s little chocolate records going around, so let’s go back.”
“Sounds good,” Johnny said, and let Peter lead him inside.