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]

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.

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"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."

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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?"

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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."

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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.

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

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"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.

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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."

[st_hotflashes]

She blushed hard as she pulled back and bit her lip again. "It's um..." Liz looked down at his hand she was still holding, a little embarrassed. Maybe it was weird. It was certainly new to her - Max was not a science person.

"I just... It's kind of sexy when you're being so smart."

[st_arkintern]

Peter had been joking when he suggested his science nerdery was attractive. He's surprised to discover that his joke ended up being actual fact.

Peter blushes, and looks down at one of his socks.

"Oh," he says. "Most of the time I just got made fun of for it." Especially by Flash. Peter wasn't sure, but he got the feeling that Flash felt like he was in direct competition with him or something.

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She shook her head, not lifting her own gaze because it was hard to be so open about this sort of thing, even with Peter. Maybe just because it were things she never knew she thought she'd be attracted to.

"I like it." She wet her lips. "...and when you speak Italian.. it's kind of hard to focus at all." Liz remembered back to the night he was drunk. "When you spoke to me the first time I almost couldn't stand up."

[st_arkintern]

Peter smiles at that. He's not sure why, but he somehow feels really happy knowing this.

"If you want, I can do it again," he says. "Later, when you're feeling better. The Italian and the science. Whichever you want, you can just tell me."

Peter was proficient in both.

[st_hotflashes]

She ducked her head just a little more, still embarrassed, but glad that he didn't seem weirded out about it. She heard herself admit something she didn't think she would - "I'm not sure I can control myself if you do that."

[st_arkintern]

"So you don't want me to?"

[st_hotflashes]

She looked up at the suddenly, almost panicked. "No!" She paused, then looked embarrassed about the panic.

Liz tried again with more calm, but her gaze dropped again.

"Lately, around you, when we do things... It's like I don't want you to stop. Like I'd do anything you'd ask of me. So... So what I'm saying is, um. That you might have to be the one to stop."

Her face felt like it was on fire. She hoped he wouldn't judge her too much for her words.

[st_arkintern]

Peter presses his lips together nervously.

"Does that mean you're ready to--"

Peter takes a breath. "--have sex?"