st_hotflashes | Late Night Knocking

Peter curls his arm around her. Her breath is hot on his neck and he realizes how much he's missed her being close like this. Sure, they kissed basically all the time, but it was different when you really held someone, like he's holding her now.

He gives her a kiss on the side of her face. "Love you."

She squeezed him a little. "I love you too." Though it was heavily muffled against his skin. Even if Peter wasn't some masked superhero with powers, moments like this made Liz feel like he would never let anything harm her.

Liz stayed like that for a long while. Moments passed and she just let her self be with him. She could practically feel her heartbeat calm.

Finally, she pulled a way just enough to look at him. "I missed you." She didn't know why she needed to say that, but she did. "And.. thank you. For giving me space today, for putting up with whatever Maria said to you, for - everything. For being you."

"Maria was a surprise," he admits. "But I'm kinda used to surprises."

It came with the job.

"You feel any better?" he asks. It's hard for him to tell. He hopes she's feeling better, but he's not sure you can really feel better after something like that. Not in a few hours.

"I don't know." Which she meant. "Some of it hasn't really hit home yet, you know? Like, for me, I haven't seen Alex in a year. He's just 'away' for me. There's been no funeral or anything." And so a part of her mind kept reasoning that maybe he wasn't actually dead.

"And a part of me is angry at Maria and the others for thinking Alex would kill himself, but I know Maria's apologized and it hasn't even happened to me yet." But that no one trusted her still stung.

"And then there's the whole everyone is leaving the planet thing and Tess is going to leave without even answering for Alex's death..."

She shook her head as if to say 'I haven't figured out how to feel about all of this and I've been at it for hours.'

"I don't think that it's something you can figure out right away," Peter says. He takes her hand again and leads her over to the bed. "You have a lot of time to figure that out, so... you should take all the time you need."

He gives her hand a squeeze and sits down on the bed's edge. They have a couch, but somehow, Peter never ends up using it. He just likes the higher height of the bed.

"And you know, I'll be here while you figure it out."

Liz joined Peter on the edge of the bed and wondered, not for the first time today, how lucky she was he was willing to put up with her Roswell crazy. Her gaze went from him to her hands in her lap.

"A part of me doesn't want to figure it out. I want to be selfish and somehow forget it."

And logically she knew that was just because she was upset, but it didn't stop her from feeling that way.

"It's understandable," he says. "It's a lot to have to take in all at once. And you haven't had to deal with any of this in almost a year now."

When would it make a year for Liz? October? November? Peter was having a hard time remembering.

"December." She smiled a little to him. "But I only started to feel at home here in January." He might have had something to do with that though.

Liz paused, looking at him. The pause lingered as it looked like she wanted to tell him something, but there was hesitation.

"Can I tell you something. It might... make you upset."

January. Peter feels his heart warm a little. That was basically when he started feeling a little more at home here, too.

Still, his brows furrow at Liz's disclaimer.

"Yeah," he says tentatively. "Sure."

"Okay, so..." Liz decided just to push out the words, though her gaze went back to her fingers like there was something under one of her nails, though there wasn't. "I know I said that I know we can't go back together... and I do. I know that. But I can't help thinking about how much I don't want to go back to Roswell."

Her let her hands rest on her lap and finally found enough will to look over at him. "It's not just about what I just found out. That just, you know. I made it a lot clearer. So... if Mr. Stark can find a way..." She pressed her lips together. She knew this sort of talk upset Peter, but she wanted to be clear about this to him.

Peter can hardly blame her. He's not sure he'd want to go back to any of that, either.

"If he can find a way," Peter begins. He takes a breath. "...I'd want you there too."

It's true. He'd been pragmatic about it for months -- ever since Quill arrived and dashed any hopes the two of them might have had of returning back to Peter's reality together. But when it came down to it, if he had a choice...

...well, he'd want to be with her.

The surprise registered on her face before she could temper it, but then a smile appeared. She didn't want to ask what might have changed his mind or if he was just saying that, she was just happy to see that Peter didn't look like he was hiding his feelings.

She leaned over and kissed him on his cheek. "I'm still - I'm going to be practical. But no matter how hard I try, I know what I want deep down. I've been sort of lying to myself for a little bit because I thought I was being grown up about it, but... I think it's important to stay true to my feelings."

Peter gets it.

"I just... I knew how bad things were back in Roswell, but... Maria coming here, saying everything she did..."

Well, that really just hit things home for him.

"And here I thought I knew everything I was going to go back to." She tried to make a joke, but it fell a little flat.

She looked at him. "I'm sorry about Maria. I mean, if she came off strong or said something weird or whatever."

"No," Peter says quickly. "I mean, she did come off strong, but you don't have to apologize for it."

She really doesn't. But Peter does have one question about Maria that only Liz can answer.

"Why didn't you tell me she was here?"

"She showed up yesterday and we spent all night talking -" And crying "- and I thought I'd introduce you at lunch so it wouldn't be awkward because there'd be food." Food you could hide behind. Liz was pretty sure that was why people had first dates with food, too.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep her a secret or anything. There was just, um... a lot for her to catch up on." Though clearly Maria hadn't shared everything about back home in return until today. "She, um. -" And suddenly Liz looked a little sheepish. "- She read my journal."

Peter tenses.

"She read the journal?" he repeats, slowly, uncomprehendingly.

And then the reality of his situation sinks in and his face flushes red. He really wants to crawl under a blanket right now, but they're both sitting on top of his comforter right now and the last thing he wants right now is for Liz to feel bad about that on top of everything else.

But still, his embarrassment is immediately apparent.

Her eyes widen a little as she felt panic rush into her.

"I, um. I didn't have her read another about you being Spider-Man -" her face matched Peter's "- there was just so much to tell her and I didn't know how to explain everything."

She paused. "I'm sorry." She frowned. "I thought... We talked about what we'd be okay with us sharing with Ned or Maria and I thought..."

"It's fine," Peter says quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong. We did talk about it. Just... knowing she knew all of that about me before I even met her..."

Peter feels his face grow hotter. He dampens his lips and looks down.

"...I don't know. It probably explains some things, though." He wonders if there were some things that Maria had read in Liz's journal that he didn't know about yet.

"I already told her I'm Spider-Man, by the way," he continues. "So it's okay for you to mention it to her."

Her brow furrowed a little. "Explain what things?" She peered at Peter, the panic she felt in her chest shifting a little, but not receding entirely. "What did she say when she went to see you?" Liz reached out to touch his thigh.

Peter isn't exactly sure of how much he can say.

"She was just really protective of you," he says. That seems safe, somehow. It's not likely going to cause problems, anyway.

She looked at him for a moment and then her hand moved from his thigh to his arm. "She likes you." At Liz was pretty sure of that. Maria was usually easy to read for her. "Besides... I like you and my opinions the only one that really matters for that."

She offered him a small smile and then kissed him lightly on the lips.

"Yeah, I mean... I think so, too." It's sometimes hard for Peter to know how others feel about him unless they made it really obvious, the way Flash did, but...

He got that feeling, too.

"Maria being here, though... she doesn't change your mind about wanting to go home?" It's not the question Peter quite wants to ask, but he can't bring himself to ask the one he really wants the answer to.

"I thought it might too." She looked out at his room. "The night she came, she slept over and it felt really nice, you know? Like we were back home and everything was just normal again. I mean like, normal-normal. Like before all the stuff in our lives started to happen." Liz and Maria had always been inseparable.

"But... even then, while I lay there. I realized - I don't know. I guess I realized that when I thought about going home I get this... tight feeling in my chest." She brought her hand up to her chest as if to demonstrate. "Like I can't breathe and if I go back I'm going to be trapped and not in control of anything anymore. And the more I thought about it, the more that feeling grew until I realized I was crying." Liz was pretty sure when you wanted to go back somewhere, you didn't feel like that.

Peter listens. He gets it. He can't imagine he would have been overeager to return home to all that, either -- even before Maria showed up and told Liz about Tess and Alex. Still, there's a part of him -- the part of him who would knows with absolute certainty that he'd miss May and Mr. Stark and Ned and so many other people -- who can't help but wonder if she might regret it. Peter knows it's not his choice to make.

"Having Maria here... it doesn't make you realize you'd miss Maria if you came home with me?"

For a second, he stops there, as if that's all he really has to say.

"When Mr. Stark showed up... I really remembered how much I'd miss him if I never got to go back home."

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