st_hotflashes | Aftermath (Peter)

"She's not really a fan of any bugs. Or dirt. Or dissecting things." She smiled. "She signed up for biology so we could be in the same class. She opted out next year." Liz didn't blame her. She loved Maria, but Maria was not a science person.

"Um. Max." It felt weird to say his name suddenly. Like a distant ghost she had left behind. "That was a year before I was shot and things, you know, happened."

Her grip around him tightened a little. This would be the second time she almost died.

Peter can feel Liz's grip tighten on him and he wishes he could do something to comfort her back, but there's nothing he can really do when he's pedaling.

"Did he seem pretty normal to you then?" he asks, an attempt to divert the topic away from the sensitive subject of Liz almost dying.

"I... didn't even really think about him too much. I was dating Kyle. I mean, he'd come into the diner sometimes and Maria would tell me he was staring, but she has a really active imagination, so -"

She didn't want to hinder his ability to pedal, but for a brief moment she leaned in, just to take Peter in. She pressed her cheek to his back, closed her eyes, and took a breath, before sitting back up.

"...It feels almost the same, you know." She hadn't told Peter yet because it was something she had to do to get better, but now she thought she could tell him. "When Kashaw heals me."

Peter's not entirely sure what to think at Liz's admission. And he's not sure what to say or what to ask, either, but his mind manages to pull them together and push them out anyway.

"How does it make you feel?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"When I first got here, I accidentally came across a man trying to open a portal or something in the pool. He startled me and I twisted my ankle. He healed me and... I ran off into the desert at night, crying. Kitty came and found me."

She wasn't sure if that really answered Peter's question, but it was probably a start.

"At first I thought it was because I missed Max, but I don't think it is. I think - I think it reminds me how I don't have control over things. And that I'm weak..." The last sentence came out very quiet as if a shameful admission.

"I don't think anyone really has control of anything," Peter says, still pedaling along. "We just all like to think that we do because it's easier than thinking we don't." A beat. "The only thing we can really try to do is control the way we react to things."

And even that was tough.

His comment pulled a little smile. It might not change the complicated feelings that she felt and there might have been feelings she didn't understand either. But still, she smiled.

"You're really wise, you know that?"

Peter makes a little skeptical noise at the compliment. He thinks about what Kitty talked to him about months and months ago when she asked if he was seeing a therapist.

"You haven't been able to talk to anybody about it until you go here," he says. "Because of the whole secrecy thing."

Kinda like him not being able to talk to anyone because he was Spider-Man.

"It didn't bother me back home..." She paused, thinking. "I was never healed a second time, though. After the one time... he only used his powers on me one other time. To um... show me about what he was and their history." It had been really intense.

She looked at the back of Peter's head. She thought it was silly, but she liked the way his hair gathered in the back, even when it was damp. "I kind of wish I could do that with you. Show you things and have you feel them..."

"But it bothers you here," Peter says. That much was pretty obvious.

When Liz finally continues, Peter doesn't say anything for a minute. But then he say something that's been on his mind for awhile.

"I wish so, too," he says. "And I really wish that I could see your life, too."

Maybe that's why he wasn't really bothered by her seeing parts of his life. Even if they were embarrassing.

"You know what I'd show you?" She sounded a little thoughtful. "My grandmother... you'd have liked her." Liz missed her grandmother a lot, but she smiled remembering her.

There were more things, really. She could show him Maria. She could show him Alex. She could even show him things that happened with Max. Maybe if she shared what happened the day she got shot, he'd be able to understand.

Instead of saying anything of that, though, Liz felt herself worried all this talk was too heavy. It wasn't that she didn't think they could talk about it - they had talked about more serious things - but for some reason, as her leg slightly ached by her side, she felt herself say - "Or maybe... maybe I'd show you me slowly getting out of my uniform and taking a shower."

Peter feels his face flush red. He's not sure what makes him blush more -- the tail end of Liz's declaration, or the fact that it came right after the mention of her grandmother.

"Um," he says, because he's not sure what else to say. "You could already do that now."

It doesn't occur to him until after he says it that maybe it might come off as a proposition.

She didn't see his blush, but she ducked her head as she continued to do so herself. It did, in fact, sound like a proposition. Maybe even more so because the promise of a distraction was hastily welcomed over thoughts of mortality.

"Okay, then I'll do it." She still vividly remembered Peter's fantasy. "Or I could just keep some of uniform on while we, um..."

God what was she doing? She didn't normally say this sort of thing out loud. She definitely thought about it. A lot. But rarely did she talk about it.

"Yeah," Peter says, trying hard not to think about it. He's pretty sure riding a bike with an erection would be weird and painful. And that's why...

"Can we talk about something else?" he asks, hoping that she doesn't take it the wrong way. He'd admit it if he had to, but if he could avoid it...

"Yes... sorry." She probably sounded embarrassed. "Sorry. I don't really know why I said that. I just.. it seemed easier than, um. what we were talking about. Maybe - maybe we should just stop talking altogether." Before she said something more stupid.

"No," Peter says quickly. "It's a long ride back. I think it'd be nice to talk until we get back."

It was definitely better than the silence.

"Okay." But now she wasn't sure what to talk about.

"Do you think the inn is near a black hole." Liz went to the one topic she thought would be safe. Science. "If we're near a black hole then it could suggest why it's a one way travel and explain why time is different since it's theorized time slows down the closer you are to one."

"I never thought about it, but that makes sense," Peter says, mulling it over in his head. Quantum Physics had been one of his favorite courses -- and his favorite subjects to read about. "How'd it come up?"

She wondered how she should answer that. "Kitty mentioned string theory and I started thinking about other possibilities. Everyone seems to agree on the idea of an alternate world or something, but I thought if maybe there's a different way... I don't know." She shrugged. She thought maybe there'd be an easier way to leave him him.

"A different way were here?" he asks, unsure of what she means. A part of him wonders if she means a different way home, but he can't bring himself to ask it directly.

This was turning out not to be a safe subject at all. Maybe she should have just started talking about mitochondrial DNA or something.

"Just that... maybe the rules change, if the black hole theory is right." She focused on the way his hair back ended at the back of his hair met at his neck.

She watched him pedal, his body slightly going up and down as he worked moved them along. She had asked him to bring her and he had done it without any real fight, all for some stupid idea in her mind. He had ended up over her, crushed under rubble, because of another stupid idea that she could somehow be his equal if she just worked hard enough.

He didn't want her to rely on him, one of the reasons he made her jump alone. It was, she thought, maybe the perfect analogy - they would never be able to jump together. Everyone at the inn kept telling her to stop hoping for something to happen that wasn't going to happen, but when she did, she could feel an emptiness start forming inside of her. She didn't need Peter - people didn't seem to get that. Liz knew she didn't 'need' anyone. But she knew how she felt around him and she knew she'd never feel that again. Maybe she'd feel something similar, but it would always be second best. She'd be settling and she knew it.

When she had been under the rubble and saw him trying to keep it together for her, she realized how selfish she was being. She realized they could have died and he would probably feel like it was all his fault.

"Can we stop?" her voice came out a little hoarse, like she hadn't had water in a while or something.

Liz's request seems to come out of nowhere, and even though his spidey sense doesn't actually go off, Peter knows instantly that something's wrong.

"Yeah, sure," Peter says, slowing his pedaling to a point where he can easily slow the bike. Once he has the bike stopped and steadied beneath him, he looks behind him at her.

"What's wrong?"

She looked at him for a long moment in silence, lips pressed together, but hinting at a frown.

Liz reached out and wrapped her arms around his torso, hugging his back. And then she started to cry - a cry that she hadn't yet had over what had happened to both of them.

"Hey," Peter says, suddenly, not sure what to do. He doesn't want to pull away, but at the same time, he still wants to hold her.

And that's not something he can do easily from this position.

So instead, he lets her hold him and he folds his arms over her own, his hands set firmly over hers. He doesn't know what to say and he doesn't know why she's crying, but he can do this.

Liz wasn't sure how long she cried against Peter. Her grip tightened around him and she just let herself cry. She didn't hold back this time and she didn't try to stop herself. Several minutes passed before she seemed to run out of tears and Liz was left with gaspy breaths and shuddered exhales.

Aftermath (Peter)

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