st_hotflashes | Aftermath (Peter)

She pressed her lips together, in part, to keep herself from crying so she could steady herself and she took a deep breath. Her answer came first in a small, subtle nod and then she paused again. It was like she had the words in her head, but getting them passed her lips was hard.

She took another deep breath and pushed the words out that she had been practicing and thinking long and hard about.

"I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing. I shouldn't have put you in danger and I know -" Her voice quivered and she paused. She did not want to cry right now. Her grip on Peter's hand tightened as she tensed to control herself. "You should never have had to been through something like that. Me being stupid almost killed you."

"Liz, it was a mistake," he says. "I really do feel better that you're learning how to protect yourself, but I'm always, always going to want to protect anyone. Not just you."

He thinks Liz needs to hear it and know it. She's seen him in action and she knows what he's done. Even Mr. Stark doesn't know about some of it.

"Being able to protect people... and being able to help them is why I decided to become Spider-Man in the first place."

"It's not that." She knew what he did was dangerous. She knew he would always put his life on the line.

Her hand slipped out of his and went back to her lap. Her two hands curled together, fingers laced, as she squeezed them tightly. Her gaze was still on her hands as if looking down at them helped to center her.

"It's not that you put your life on the line. It's that you had to because of me. If you'd have die because of me, I'd -" Liz paused again, blinking hard. Her lips which had been in a thin, straight line turned downward now as she was losing a little more control.

"I'm just... I'm just pretending." Her voice was quieter, as if being louder was dangerous. "We're supposed to be a team... because we're together." Not because he was a superhero, but because they were dating. Being in a relationship was a two person adventure. "And I'm supposed to be there to protect you like you protect me and I - I can't do that. I can never do that, not really, and I've been lying to myself that I can. That I can be what you need me to be, but..."

Her body started to tremble a little. She was not going to cry. Her body heat suddenly seemed to rise and she felt a brief wave of nausea.

"Liz, we are a team," he insists. "Even if you think you can't actually fight or protect yourself, there's so much you do for me that no one else can."

It's the truth.

"You don't have to protect me in order to be part of my team. You don't have to fight, either. You just need to be you and if you can't believe that, that's okay."

Peter takes a breath.

"But that's really what I think."

There's the briefest of moments where there was a tremor on the bed, subtle, but there, and then Peter started to talk and it subsided. When she speaks again, it's almost a whisper.

"Do you think it will always be enough?" Her head moved a little, almost like she was going to look up, then second-guessed herself and kept her eyes on her hands in her lap.

"Yeah," Peter says, still looking at her. He reaches up and brushes her hair out of her face. "I really think that."

She looked up at him after he touched her. She hadn't cried yet, but it was there in the back of her eyes.

"I was really scared, Peter. I thought we..." She couldn't even use her brain to get out of it like she could the other times.

"I know," Peter says. He does, because he was scared, really scared that Liz was going to die and it was, on some level, going to be his fault.

He doesn't think he could live with that guilt twice.

Peter looks at her hand again. He wants to hold it, but she'd already pulled away, and he didn't want to hold hands if she didn't want to.

Liz was afraid if she touched him again, she'd cry. She wanted to lean in and kiss him. She wanted to hug him. She took a breath and hesitated.

"I really want to kiss you... But I might start to cry." Somehow that seemed important to say.

"I'm okay with that," he tells her. "If you really feel like you need to cry, you should just cry."

Liz mostly didn't want him to feel guilty, but she gave a small nod and leaned forward. Sure enough, when her lips met his and her eyes closed, the pressure pushed out the pent up tears and they escaped down her cheeks. She hadn't really reacted to what happened this morning. Not really. There hadn't been time during the moment or while in the clinic.

Liz pressed against him as she kissed him again. She was warmer than usual, like she had come from being out in the sun for a long time.

Peter kisses back with equal intensity, and when they finally pull away from one another, he brushes her tears away with the back of his hand. He looks at her, trying to take in everything she's feeling so he might have some understanding of what she's going through.

And then, when he feels that he might have some idea, Peter pulls her into his arms and holds her.

Liz practically melted into his arms and she was surprised to hear a small sob escape her lips. She hugged him tightly, burrying her face into the back of his neck that met his shoulder. Breathing him in helped to calm her a little. The idea of never being able to experience this again was overwhelmingly terrible.

There were moments like this where Liz wished she had the ability to share memories and feelings like Max could do with her. She knew that Peter knew she loved him, but she wanted him to feel just how much.

She held onto him tightly, silently, for a while, and her breathing slowed and her temperature seemed to cool down too. Liz's head shifted a little so her head was on his shoulder and not entirely pressed into his neck.

"Are you okay...?"

Peter's not entirely sure what to say. Not because he doesn't know the yes or no answer, but because he doesn't know the more messy and complicated the answer. The answer that required him to explain everything. There's so much that he feels right now that it's hard to be able to sift them out and list them out one-by-one. Even if he tried, he wasn't entirely sure he could do it.

Instead, he just gives her the answer he knows he can give and enjoys the weight of her chin on his shoulder.

"Right now?" he asks. "Mostly, yeah."

Her fingers on his back curled in, bunching some of the fabric of his shirt and tightening the shirt around him. One day she'd figure out how to take any worry away from him. She wondered if he was telling the truth, but decided of course he was.

She was silent for a few more moments as she hugged him. The embrace was nice and reassuring. She closed her eyes for a moment to soak it in.

Liz pulled back just a little to look him in the eyes. "Are we... Okay?"

"Yeah," Peter says, nodding. "Yeah, we're fine."

A beat.

"Are we fine?" He thinks they are, anyway.

She gave a small nod, looking down at his chest. She let one of her hands smooth over his shoulder and rested her palm over his heart.

"I thought about it, you know." She watched as her hand subtly raised and fell as Peter breathed. "I thought... Maybe you'd have to put yourself in danger less if I broke up with you." It was something she had done back home, not wanting to get in the way of Max's destiny, despite how she had felt about him.

"But... " She watched as she spread out her fingers lightly against his chest. "I don't think I could bare to lie to you like that... Or to see you every day and pretend not to have feelings."

"Even if we weren't dating, I'd still do whatever it took to protect you. Or anyone else."

He briefly presses his lips together.

"You remember everything with the airplane? How it crashed on the beach?"

There's a brief pause there while he waits for Liz to answer.

Liz nodded, bringing her gaze back up to him. She could still remember how it felt to be stuck on the side of a plane - a feeling she was sure only a select few ever really knew.

She pressed her lips together, listening as she let her hand lower to his lap, reaching for his hand again.

Peter winds his fingers with hers.

"The Vulture kept fighting with me even when I literally was having a hard time even getting up. Finally he just dropped me and went to get whatever he could from the plane. But then, his wings started malfunctioning and he was hurt and trapped behind all this fire, and even despite everything, I still went through it and dragged him out."

He looks at Liz intensely.

"I couldn't let him die. Us dating doesn't change anything about what I would or wouldn't do for you if you were in danger. I'd rescue you no matter what."

Of course he would save someone willing to kill him. She couldn't imagine it any other way - Peter was probably the most selfless person she knew. She had seen how the Vulture had attacked him relentlessly. His story only managed to further endear him to her. She squeezed his hand.

"I know." Not about the Vulture, but about what he'd do for her. "But I thought it might stop me from trying to keep up with you." Liz was aware the problem was with her, not with him. She was the dangerous variable. She had been making stupid decisions.

"Remember I told you what Kitty said to me, when we first started to date? That I needed to make sure I didn't put myself in situations that made you take unnecessary risks? Somehow... I lost track of that. I shouldn't have been in that cave. When he asked me to take the gun and shoot and I wasn't comfortable, I should have just stopped there, but I pushed myself because I wanted to be something more."

"It's okay to want to be something more," he says. "I want to be something more and --"

How does he say this?

"-- I've got actual powers. I can do more than so many people. I know I should be satisfied with that, but I'm not."

He gives her hand a squeeze.

"You're going to make mistakes, and that's okay as long as you learn from them. Sometimes that's just how people learn."

It was definitely how Peter learned.

His reassuring words brought a smile to her lips. Small as it was, it was genuine. He could be so understanding sometimes, even if he ran headlong into some situations

"That's why I'm wearing this..." She might as well admit it. Otherwise it would just be weird. "It's a good reminder of who I am you know? Liz Parker. Good at school, can mix a milkshake in one minute flat, and occasionally can see things when she kisses her boyfriend." The last part was both true and a little joke that she smiled at.

That was her though.

Peter smiles at that.

"And I like Liz Parker," he says. "No matter what she can do or can't do."

There was a small smile at first and then a pause before her smile seemed to morph into something more playful. It waa subtle, the underlying emotions from moments ago still lingering under the surface, but she was making an attempt.

"Would you still like me even if I permanently had these coming out of my head?" She reached for her headband and put it on, the two little balls at the top moving back and forth from the jostling.

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