st_hotflashes | Aftermath (Peter)

"Okay," Peter says, trying to sound more certain than he feels. He really is worried that she's not going to be able to make it to the beach.

"Just... let me know if you need any help."

He's going to trust her on this one. He can't always be worried that Liz isn't going to tell her what she needs. He has to let her do things by herself without him.

And maybe that's why he found it so easy to jump off without her. He did really want her to know that she could do it without him. That she didn't need him, even when she thought she did.

A part of him wondered if he was somehow responsible for some of that.

Liz started to swim to the beach. It was slow going, but Liz was able to swim towards the beach. Thankfully the tide seemed to becoming in so she at least had that going for her. Still, she was noticeably hindered and by the time she made it to the shallow part, she was out of breath and her breathing was laboured.

She stopped on the sand while on all fours and tried to catch her breath while the waves occasionally came in to crash around her.

Peter offers her a hand up, then looks up at the cliff. It really was a long fall and it was probably going to be a long climb back up.

Peter crouches down for Liz to climb on. "Come on," he says. "I'll take you back up."

They'd need the bike to get back to the Inn.

The bike was thankfully further down the cliff but it would still be a hike. Liz looked as if for a moment she was going to decline and try to walk herself, but she was already tired and she knew she wouldn't make it up the cliff.

She slowly got to her feet and climbed on his back. She felt the need to apologise, but thought Peter would get upset if she did, so she bit her lip.

Now... is probably a good time to talk to Liz about everything.

"Do you still want to train with Quill?" Peter asks, shifting Liz on his shoulders. He's able to carry her easily; he just wants to make sure that it's comfortable for the both of them.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as she held onto him. Despite both of them being wet now, he still felt warm. At the question, she went silent as she thought.

"Did he say something?" Did she want to? She wasn't sure. She felt like she was maybe she had to, though.

Peter doesn't want to lie about this. Or lie to Liz ever.

"Yeah, we talked about it," he says. "We kinda had to." They hadn't exactly split on the most amendable of terms and Peter always wanted to talk things as soon as he could after a fight. Quill just happened to be easier to find after a fight than Alec.

She tried to picture what they talked about. She remembered a little bit of what Peter had said to Quill when she was out of the rubble.

"Is he angry?" She paused. "Are you guys okay?" She knew Peter really liked him.

"Yeah," Peter says, reassuringly. "We're okay. He's not angry, either."

It was clear to him that Quill felt pretty bad about it. Even if Peter wanted to be angry at him still, he's not sure he could be.

"He just..."

This was going to be tough.

"...isn't sure that you're ready for combat."

Her arms around him tensed a little while tightening a bit too. She was glad she didn't have to look at Peter at that moment. She knew she had let him down.

"I don't... I don't want to kill anyone." She sounded apologetic as she said it.

"You don't have to kill anyone," he says. Peter doesn't ever want to kill anyone either. And if he can help it, he never will.

"You just need to be yourself."

More than anything, he wishes Liz knew that. Being who she was really was enough.

She thought Peter and Quill had two definitions of training, but didn't say anything. She nodded against the back of his neck, lips pressed against his wet skin. She was quiet for a little bit as Peter climbed while her mind raced and she thought.

"I think... I think I'm better to you as Liz." She pressed the side of her face to him. "You have to hide from people. I don't. So... I can find out things, like what a room looks like or talk to people when you can't without revealing who you are." And she was good at that. She was good at improvising, distracting, and finding out important information.

Peter shifts Liz on his back. "Yeah," he says in agreement. "I think that's important, too."

They'd talked about this before. About Ned wanting to be his backup. About him wanting to be his guy-in-the-chair.

"I didn't really realize that at first," Peter admits. "I just thought it was important for me to do things by myself because that's how it felt everyone did it."

Now, he realized that maybe that wasn't really true.

"No one's stronger by themselves." Her voice was soft. She wanted to ask Peter if he was disappointed, but she was worried he'd be upset if she did.

"Yeah," he agrees. "I don't know, I guess since that first time Ned helped me all that's slowly kinda clicked into place. Everyone here's kind of made me realize that."

They're making nice pace towards the bike. They should be there pretty soon.

"I wish Mr. Stark would have let me talk to the other Avengers," he says. "I really think that things might have been different if I had."

For a brief moment her lips formed a smile against Peter's back. Somehow the idea of knowing he would work with other people made her feel a little less worried about it. She still wished she could be side-by-side with him, but she knew she'd hinder rather than help.

"You should really talk to Thor." She knew how nervous he was about it though. "He's really nice."

The proclamation comes so suddenly that Peter finds himself blindsighted by it.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he's a superhero, right? And he's on your team, eventually. And he fights with other people all the time... he might have good advice." She kissed the side of his neck for re-assurance. "I know it makes you nervous... I just think he might be able to give you some insight no one else here can."

Plus she thought Thor would really like Peter.

"Maybe," Peter says, softly. "I'm just nervous. He's so cool. He was always number 1 or 2 on the Avengers Power Rankings on the Superhero Subreddit."

Peter didn't bother looking further than rank 5. He knew that some people thought Spider-Man was at least involved with the Avengers because he'd been seen around with Iron Man, and he didn't want to risk potentially seeing his name down at the bottom of the list.

It was funny how Peter could have such confidence in her and then doubt herself, but she supposed the same could be said in reverse.

"He has an unfair advantage, not being human." Liz gave him a little squeeze. She wanted Peter to see how wonderful he was, but she wasn't sure how. The only thing she could think of doing was shifting a little on his back - trying not to throw him off too much - and whispered in his ear. "

He's got nothing on Spider-Man." Her voice held the conviction of such a belief, but as if to drive that home, she found herself taking Peter's earlobe into her mouth and gently sucking for just a moment before pulling away.

Peter was right on the cusp of opening his mouth to indicate that maybe Liz has a point, but before he can, her mouth is on his ear and it's everything he can do to not drop her.

"H-hey!" he yelps, his face flushing red with embarrassment.

She giggled softly, flushing a little herself. "Sorry."

But she did love how sensitive his ears were and it would be a lie to say she didn't like how he responded to her touch.

"Maybe I'll talk to him," Peter says, once he's managed to recover. For some reason, he's feeling a little more courageous than usual. Maybe it was jumping off a literal cliff and into the ocean, but Peter really couldn't be sure.

"Is it okay for me to set you down?" he asks, once they come close to the bike.

"Yeah, I'm okay." She readied herself to out pressure on it. Her eyes ran over the toppled-over bike farther down the cliff than they had left it. Maybe there was a storm coming and the wind had picked up.

"Are you tired?"

"No, not really," Peter says. "It takes a lot to exhaust me. Cycling isn't difficult."

His superhuman stamina definitely helped here.

Peter holds the bike upright so Liz can climb on.

"Before I was bitten by the spider, it probably would have been a problem."

It wasn't right now, though.

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