Be Careful What You Ask For (Closed to Peter)

[st_hotflashes]

Liz walked numbly through the Inn after having spoken with Emma. It was as if her body were on autopilot as her mind couldn't really focus or process anything directly. What it all meant, how she felt, if she was around to see it happen - these questions were like vague fog in her mind that she couldn't quite grasp.

She thought, ever so briefly, that she might find herself in front of Kitty or Piotr's door, but it was Peter's door she came to a stop at. Liz swayed a little as she stood there, staring blankly at the door. She did that for a good five minutes before she was able to will herself to lift her hand and knock. It was a quiet two rap knock.

When the door opened, when she lay eyes on Peter, the numbness seemed to ebb a little. She stared at him silently, then slowly her face began to twist and contort as anguish spread through her features. She didn't move an inch except for her face. Everything suddenly felt intense and Liz stood there, stiff, and started to cry unabashedly. Cried with every fiber of her being.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"You wanna do something like that this year?" he asks. "We have plenty of time to get stuff together in time for Christmas if the portal opens again."

[st_hotflashes]

"You mean like... dress up like Santa's elves?" That was the firs thing that came to Liz's mind and then suddenly she was picturing Peter dressed like that and she thought he'd be awkward, but adorable and she smiled widely at the thought.

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter says, smiling. "There's probably no one here that still believes in Santa, but it'd make everyone happy, don't you think? And it'd be fun."

[st_hotflashes]

Her first instinct was to say no because it would probably be embarrassing, but Peter had this smile on his face and she thought back to how he had helped organize the beach party and helped to build the microscope - Liz liked doing things like that with him.

She nodded. "Yeah, okay. And, you know, I bet Pike could figure out how to make candy canes and we could hand them out to everyone."

Liz paused, straightened where she sat "You have to promise to wear and outfit though."

[st_arkintern]

"I wouldn't suggest if I wasn't willing. Besides, I said that I liked wearing costumes. If you could see some of the ones I used to wear at Halloween, you would know why I don't have any objections."

Some of the costumes were genuinely awful. He thought they looked amazing at the time, though.

[st_hotflashes]

"I'd wear any sort of costume for you."

The words came out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

It hit her, the words, and she blushed and put her hands to her face in embarrassment and fell to her side on the bed, mumbling against her palms. "That's embarrassing."

[st_arkintern]

Peter's face heats up the second he realizes the connotation.

Liz saw his fantasy. Saw how it involved the waitress uniform, which was as close enough to a costume as anything they had here. And maybe she didn't mean it like that, but he wouldn't mind if she wore it when --

"Uh," Peter says, letting the word hang in between them for a second. "Yeah, we'd make great elves."

[st_hotflashes]

It took her a second to have enough will to pull her hands from her face. She looked at Peter and saw he was blushing. His blushing made her feel butterflies in her chest and she still wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because it meant he felt the same way.

She slowly moved back up to sitting, moving her hair out of her face by running her hand through the top. Liz looked at him unsure of what to say for a moment, but nodded. She liked the idea of trying to brighten people's day. The holidays could be sad when you were away from home and from family.

Liz stared at him for another moment, silent awkwardly hanging in between them. "... can you close your eyes?"

[st_arkintern]

Peter gives her a questioning look, but complies with Liz's request.

[st_hotflashes]

This was so silly. It wasn't even technically done and she didn't have her own with her because she had only started it, but now seemed... it seemed like a good time, right? She knew he wouldn't say he hated it because Peter wasn't like that. Liz was more worried it would freak him out or something.

Liz reached in her pocket and produced something. She reached out and took Peter's hand, wrapping something around his wrist and tying it off.

"...okay."

[st_arkintern]

At first, Peter thinks that Liz is trying to hold his hand, but he realizes quickly that it's not what she's aiming for. He can feel her attaching something to his wrist even before he opens his eyes, and when he does, he looks down to discover a bracelet on her wrist.

It takes a second for it to fully register. Friendship bracelets weren't really a thing outside of elementary school in his time. But Peter's expression of surprise quickly softens, and he starts to look as touched as he actually feels.

Peter runs a finger over it experimentally.

"Thanks, Liz."

He wonders if she made one for herself.

[st_hotflashes]

"I, um. I'm still making mine. It's supposed to match." She hadn't actually planned to give it to him now, but with everything.

Liz panicked, scrunching her nose. "It's lame, isn't it?" She started to feel the embarrassment seep in. "You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. I just thought, I thought that, you know, this is sort of like, promise rings or something without being rings and -" Liz was flustered. She flopped back on his bed, head hitting his pillows and squeezed her eyes shut.

He probably had way cooler things in his time. Plus he was a guy. Did guys even like friendship bracelets? Where was a hole for her to crawl in?

[st_arkintern]

This time it's Peter's hand that finds Liz's.

"No - no, I really like it." And even if she's not looking at him, he's looking at her. "No one's ever made me one before and I'm just glad that if someone ever made me one of these that the someone was you."

He gives her hand a little squeeze.

"And," he adds softly. "I'm glad you feel that way. About the whole promise ring thing." Just so she knows he wasn't talking about her feeling lame about it.

[st_hotflashes]

She responded after a short moment. Her eyes opened and she looked over at him, chin tucked in where she laid. He didn't look like he was just patronizing her. She knew Peter probably wouldn't do that to her.

"...really?" A smile crept in on the corner of her lips at the thought, but it was as if she were unsure to fully commit to that feeling just yet.

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter says, giving her hand a squeeze. "Really."

[st_hotflashes]

She used his hand to pull herself back up and smiled, feeling a little less awkward about the whole thing. And as she looked at him with it on... she thought it suit him.

Maybe Jackson had been right about the whole 'get him a ring' thing. Only instead of a ring it was a bracelet.

Liz gave his hand a squeeze herself. "I'm really lucky, you know that? That you were here when I got here. That you even like me." She realized she was gushing a little and pressed her lips together. She calmed herself a little and decided to focus on something else.

Since she kept eyeing his wrist, Liz remembered what she and Maria did when they first exchanged bracelets. She took his hand in both of hers and gently turned it palm up.

"You know... Maria's really into all these like, homeopathic things. She also was really into palm reading for a while, even though she wasn't very good." She started to tracing her fingertips over Peter's palm. "Sometimes she'd get the two messed up and she'd try to cover herself up like she totally meant to talk about the future of your pancreas or something."

Liz laughed softly.

Her fingers roamed for a moment on his palm before she took his index finger and lightly massaged it upwards, her fingers wrapped around just one if his and when she came to the tip of his finger she paused, squeezed, then lightly moved it around in a clockwise circle. "I remember the tips of fingers are supposed to be for your brain. Maria would ask me to do this before every big unit test she had at school."

[st_arkintern]

I'm really lucky. All the thoughts that Liz is spilling out before him directly mirror his own. All of it. How lucky he felt, how surprised he was to discover she returned her feelings to begin with. Peter Parker wasn't the sort of guy who got the girl; he was the sort of guy who was called Penis Parker at house parties.

But Liz... Liz Parker was beautiful and brilliant and strong and all sorts of things that he wasn't sure she knew, but he knew really well. And he doesn't think she should feel lucky at all, even if she says she is.

Liz's fingers trace across the palm of his hand and Peter feels his heart race a little beneath her touch. Liz has a way of touching him that no one else really does. Her fingers shift from his palm to his index finger, and Peter continues to listen to her explanation.

"Do you think it actually worked?"

[st_hotflashes]

Liz thought Maria cramming hastily off of her study notes might have helped more, but who really new? Stranger things had literally happened to Liz in her life.

She looked up with a playful sort of smile that was, perhaps, a little bit sultry too though she wasn't aware she was projecting that. She moved from his index finger to his middle finger, doing the same action of massaging up the finger then pressing against the tip where Maria said was the actual pressure point.

"I don't know...Do you feel any smarter?"

[st_arkintern]

Peter's not sure what to make of Liz's smile, but this whole finger massage thing feels... strangely erotic.

"I won't know for sure until I'm tested," Peter said. "But I do feel smarter."

[st_hotflashes]

She laughed softly that was more like a giggle.

"Okay. Um. Name three of the noble gases." She kept her finger lightly circling the pressure point slowly.

[st_arkintern]

"Helium, neon, and argon," Peter answers smoothly. "That was a an Academic Decathlon question. You'll have to try something harder."

[st_hotflashes]

"Okay." She bit her lip as she thought, moving on to Peter's ring finger and doing the same motions.

"What's the atomic structure of each of those?"

[st_arkintern]

"Two, Ten, and Eighteen respectively. There's been controversy over the placement of hydrogen and helium on the periodic table, though. When the noble gases were discovered back around 1900, they were known as group 0, because the elements were believed to have no chemical reactivity. Unlike most of the other noble glasses, helium has only two electrons in its closed electron shell's outermost electron orbital. The rest of the noble gases have eight. Some assign helium directly above neon in group 18 instead."

Peter takes a breath, then looks back at Liz.

[st_hotflashes]

Her fingers stopped moving as he went on passed the numbers and she stared at him. Liz forgot how to breathe. She stared at him until he finished, completely still listening to him. The more he talked, the more she felt something rise within her.

The moment he stopped talking she finally inhaled and blinked and then she leaned forward, hand still holding his, and kissed him with a sudden, heated intensity like she needed to kiss him or she was going to die.

[st_arkintern]

Liz's reaction is so completely unexpected that Peter is completely and totally caught off-guard. As soon as his mind finally registers what's going on, his mouth naturally responds; a single arm curls around Liz's back, holding her.

And then he remembers that he shouldn't mess around with Liz while she's emotionally vulnerable. He breaks it off before it can become more than that, then squeezes her hand.

"That excited about science, huh."