st_hotflashes | Aftermath (Peter)

"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.

"Yeah," he says, smiling. "I would."

Peter supposes that things have changed dramatically since coming here; dating an alien wasn't anything he could imagine until he found out there were aliens here that weren't Chitauri (not anything he was attracted to) or Asgardians (Thor was the only Asgardian he knew of on Earth). But now that he can imagine it, he thinks he'd be OK with it.

Even if Liz had doodly-bobbers.

"What if I had like, six arms. Or four eyes or looked like one of those cats from the musical Cats?" Her eyes seemed to lighten a little as she leaned in. "Or I was obsessed with anchovies."

"Like a furry?" Peter asks to the query about Cats. "I can handle the anchovies." That much he can assure her.

She paused at the question. This was something she had never heard before.

"a furry?"

"Um." Peter has to think about how to describe this. "Someone who likes anthropomorphic animal people." He has to think about this. "Like Bugs Bunny but with more human proportions. Or like the cats in Cats."

Peter can't help but wonder how much exposure to the internet has educated him on things that Liz had no idea existed. Not science stuff or anything, but relatively mundane stuff like furries or Rule 35 or memes.

Liz did not spend the time she was exposed to the internet looking at the stranger side of the web so her exposure there was limited.

"Oh, um. I guess so?" She smiled a little. "Are there a lot of people who are, um, furries?"

She didn't realize furries often liked animals a lot.

"I don't really know," Peter admits. "I mean, there's a bunch of websites dedicated to furries and a lot of artists, too. There's even conventions."

But was that a lot? Peter's not exactly sure.

"The internet has a lot of stuff on it. I think there's something there for everybody."

Liz was always aware of how much more Peter knew that made him more 'worldly' than her. She wondered what she would have been like if she grew up with the internet like he had.

"Well, just for the record, I'd like you too, no matter what. Even if you ended up turning into an actual giant spider." Liz smiled to him.

"I really hope that doesn't happen," Peter says. Becoming a giant spider probably would have a negative impact on his ability to have relationships with others, especially the arachnophobic. "But if it does... it's nice to know someone has my back."

He smiles, then leans in to kiss Liz. It's been tough for the both of them and there's a part of him that's relieved that even though they're both probably still processing everything from the other day, they can still have these little moments of normalcy.

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