Surprise - Peter and Liz

[st_hotflashes]

Liz wasn't sure if Peter was going to actually like the surprise she had in mind for him, but she had finished it a few days ago and she was proud of it. Liz was pretty sure he'd like it, but there was always a chance. She hoped now, after a couple of weeks the awkwardness that had been the 'therapy session' with Annie and Mr. Stark, Peter might be in the right sort of mood for it.

She sat on her bed, going over some chemistry homework idly as she waited for Peter to show up.

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[st_hotflashes]

"Yeah. I mean.." Well, Maria would sound better, that was certain. Still, she stopped herself and slipped off the bed to retrieve the homemade guitar Miguel made for her. She sat back down and angled herself with on bent leg on the bed, facing Peter. Despite having practice, she was still nervous and her face felt hot.

Liz started to play. Her voice was still rather average and the transitions between frets weren't always smooth, but it was probably clear Liz had practiced a lot

[st_arkintern]

Peter's face grows warm at the sound of it. It's not the first time that Liz has played or sang for him before, but it doesn't do much to temper any of the emotions swelling up inside of him.

He waits for Liz to finish playing, and then he leans forward, heart racing and presses his lips lightly against hers.

"Thank you," he says.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz smiled sheepishly as she finished, though the kiss emboldened her. She at least believed that he was being sincere. As she put the guitar down so it was leaning against the bed, she shifted back to look at him. Liz wanted to tell him a bunch of things, but nothing seemed to be forthcoming from her lips. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed him. "I just, really love you." She murmured it against his lips and then kissed him again.

[st_arkintern]

"Me too," Peter says when their lips briefly part again. He presses them back together, his arms circling around her.

[st_hotflashes]

Whenever they kissed, Liz always felt a rush of warmth envelop her and now was no different. She leaned into him, deepening the kiss because it always seemed hard to detach from Peter when they got this close - this was Liz's favourite place to be.

But then suddenly she was on a ferry and so was Spider-Man. Things went horribly wrong and the ferry was split in two. Liz could feel Peter's desperation and his earnest desire to safe, protect, and fix.

The scene changed to some rooftop. Peter's feelings changed, too, and Liz felt the storm of emotions inside Peter and he and Mr. Stark argued. When Mr. Stark took the suit away, Liz felt it.

A tear fell down her cheek as she pulled herself away from him, trying to suss out the images in her mind.

[st_arkintern]

The change in Liz's mood is so abrupt that for a moment, Peter is completely caught off-guard. It takes a moment before he puts two and two together:

"Did you have a flash?" he asks, thumbing away her tears.

[st_hotflashes]

She pressed her lips together and steady herself as the feelings she felt went away. Liz nodded. "Um, yeah." She resisted the urge to hug him at that moment because she knew she had felt old emotions and not the ones Peter currently had. "I saw you at a ferry? And then Mr. Stark, um -" She glanced away - somehow seeing him being 'disciplined' seemed more intrusive than some of the other things she's seen before.

[st_arkintern]

"Oh," Peter says softly, embarrassed. "Yeah. Um."

Peter presses his lips together.

"Things have kind of changed since then. I mean, they've gotten better. They weren't really good at the time, though." He and Tony always seemed to be butting heads back then. They still butted heads now, but a lot less than they used to.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz reached out to touch his hand.

"You really love being Spider-Man." She paused just slightly. "I mean, I already knew that, but I didn't really actually realize how much." Not until she felt his feelings when he thought he couldn't do it anymore.

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, I really do," he says, clasping her hand. "It's one of the most important things in the world to me, you know?"

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded. While she had known before, now Liz really understood.

"I promise... I'll always help you so you can keep doing it." She wasn't exactly sure what that would entail, but she'd do it.

[st_arkintern]

"Thank you," Peter says. It's always really awkward after the flashes and even after the dozen or so times it's happened, Peter's not exactly sure how to make it not be.

He's probably gotten out of practice; it'd been a few months and many makeout sessions since the last time this happened.

Peter dampens his lips. "Everything okay now?"

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded a few times. "Yeah... I just." She paused to think about it. The emotions were gone now, though she could remember the feelings to some degree. "I wish I could let you see flashes too sometimes, you know?"

[st_arkintern]

"What? Like of your life?"

Peter actually wouldn't mind that. He'd probably feel bad about intruding on memories Liz wouldn't want to share with him yet, but being able to experience those flashes...

...it might give him a better idea of who Liz was.

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded. "Maybe someone at the inn could help." Her mind was already trying to solve the riddle. How and who were the two major questions. "Maybe Loki could help... Or maybe he'd know someone who could?"

[st_arkintern]

"We could ask at least," Peter says. He doesn't know much about Loki's particular skill set, but Liz seems to be good enough friends with him. If she thinks he can help, well, maybe he could.

[st_hotflashes]

While she might have been worried about something like that in the past, she found that letting Peter in on her life, no matter what part now, would be fine.

And now she was determined to see if Loki could really help with that. Or, someone, at least.

She paused as she thought, trying to figure out how that might look. "If you could only pick one thing to see, what would you pick?"

[st_arkintern]

"If I could just see one thing it'd be a normal school day."

It probably sounds pretty lame and Peter knows it, but it's true. He wants to see what normal life is like for Liz because it's not something he gets to hear about because there's probably not much to talk about. He wants to see what her school is like, what her classmates are like, what her classes are like.

He wants to know what a normal day was like for Liz Parker before she wound up here.

[st_hotflashes]

Somehow, that admission causes Liz to blush. She definitely didn't think an average day of Liz Parker was interesting in the least, but the fact that was what Peter wanted to see, seemed to speak volumes to her.

"You'd probably find a lot of it really weird. I mean, just because you probably don't do that sort of thing anymore. Like... I noticed when we were in Europe that Yahoo wasn't really a big thing anymore?" She had discovered something called Google had taken over. "But like, it was a big thing back home."

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, but that's why I want to see it," Peter says. "It's probably going to be different in little ways neither one of us would bother asking about because our normal is so normal to us that we can't imagine it being different."

Like Yahoo! and Google.

[st_hotflashes]

She drew her feet up onto the bed, smiling. She still had no way of explaining how she thought that sounded really sweet of him, but she did.

"Do you know what I'd pick if I could actually choose what to see of you?" Her smile widened and turned sheepish, but it was too late now. She was committed to this line of thinking. "You as a little kid... I think you'd be very cute."

[st_arkintern]

"You did get to see me that one time," he says. As brief as it was. "Maybe you'll get to see more of me as a kid eventually." It seemed likely; if they stuck together, there'd be plenty more flashes.

[st_hotflashes]

"I guess I could always as your Aunt May for some naked baby photos if I don't want to wait, huh?" She sent him a playful, teasing smile that held laughter in her eyes. Something about the idea of little Peter's naked butt seemed entirely adorable.

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, I guess so," he says, smiling lightly. "She kept almost everything after my parents died." Not the furniture, but all the important things.

[st_hotflashes]

"You wouldn't be embarrassed?" She thought about the photo album she knew her parents had back home and there were definitely some embarrassing photos in there.