FIC: Down Came the Rain, Johnny/Peter, M

[compos_dementis]

Title: Down Came the Rain
Author: Dementis
Fandom: Spider-Man/Fantastic Four
Pairing: Johnny Storm/Peter Parker
Rated: M for sexual content
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel.
Summary: There has always been more that Peter's wanted.

Thanks to the several fics I took ideas from, to Stan Lee for creating the characters in the first place.


i. brightside

The fact of the matter was that Peter Parker had a jealousy problem.

It didn't make itself very known to him until the moment Mary Jane shyly showed him her waitress garb and told him not to tell Harry. He'd been confused, had blinked at her and tilted his head like the RCA dog, and then she'd given him that little smile of hers, the happy little one that wrinkled her nose... and said, "Didn't you know? We're going out."

Oh.

Harry and Peter had been friends since middle school. Harry mentioned to him that he hadn't liked private school very much, and hey, would Peter like to tutor him in chemistry until Harry got his footing? And of course Peter had said yes, because Harry was good protection against the other jerks who would trip him in the hallways or steal his backpack to hang up on the flagpole.

But as close as Peter liked to think they were, he never thought Harry would take advantage of it. He never thought Harry would go after the one girl Peter had had his eye on since Mary Jane moved in next door to him.

"Sorry, Pete," Harry said with his usual shrug. "You just never made a move."

Every time he saw them together, his stomach turned and his throat began to close up with anger, and he had to avert his eyes before he vomited. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. What did Harry have that he didn't? Well, besides money and good looks and that charm that seemed to fail Peter every time he tried to speak to MJ. He hadn't even pegged Mary Jane for liking rich guys anyway. But he supposed that living in the house she did, with that screaming day and night about her being as "stupid as her mother," that maybe the money was a way to escape.

Damn it all. He wished he could just swing down and scoop her up and take her out and tell her everything. Yeah, because that would go well. "Oh, by the way, MJ. I know we've been neighbors for a while, and I'm a total geek that you avoid at every possible turn, but hey, I'm Spider-Man! Isn't that cool? Am I less of a dweeb now?"

With a soft curse, he turned his face from watching Harry and Mary Jane hold hands in the hallway, and shoved his English Lit textbook hard into his locker. Slamming the door, he leaned up against it and cursed himself for being so stupid.

"Sorry, Pete. You just never made a move."

ii. collide

Okay, so maybe kissing upside-down in the rain wasn't the best idea.

He still had his mask on; he supposed that was a small blessing, in the long run of things. Mary Jane's mouth... oh, God, it was even softer than he remembered. She tasted like the lip gloss she wore for work, shiny strawberry flavoring that smeared over his own lips now, sticky and greasy and he couldn't care less. Her hands cupped the sides of his face and he wondered if he felt familiar to her. Had Mary Jane ever touched his face as Peter before? No.

"Hey, your eyes are brown. I never noticed before."

Peter's heart twisted and began to pound hard, with the rain pouring down and up his nose, Mary Jane's mouth keeping him from breathing, and his lungs burned and his eyes burned too, and his body felt like it was aflame, every nerve awake and alive. Yes, that was it; he felt alive. No villain could interrupt this, nothing could be better, nothing could...

Mary Jane's hands were so soft...

Finally he pulled back a bit to breathe, and the taste of dirty New York rain water met his lips. He licked them and tasted strawberries and smiled, dopily. Mary Jane grinned as she helped his mask back on, and pecked his cheek through the mask as sirens split the air.

"Go get 'em," she told him, and he zipped back up, flipping up onto the building as her laughter pealed below; every leap felt like flight, and he couldn't wish for anything better.

iii. goody two shoes

"Hey, Harry, are you going to that party at Eddie's house tomorrow?"

Peter had caught the barest clip of conversation between his two friends and turned to face them. Gwen was smiling, genuinely interested. "There's a party?" Peter asked.

Ignored, Harry replied, "I don't know, maybe. It sounds like fun."

"Guys, there's a party?"

Gwen brightened even further, if possible. "And he's gonna see if he can get into the liquor cabinet. We can see Flash act like a total idiot again. It'll be great! I'm definitely going. I'll just tell my dad I have study hall or something."

Frowning, Peter asked again, "Guys? Guys, I'm right here. Aren't you going to invite me?"

Harry laughed. It wasn't the response he was expecting, that's for sure. "Uh, Pete. You don't go to parties, remember?" Even Gwen laughed at that, and Peter tapped his pencil against the lunch table.

"I could. Maybe I would if I was invited."

Gwen shook his head, turning to Harry. "He wouldn't show up anyway."

"I might!" Peter protested.

With a smirk, Harry nudged Gwen. "Fine. Okay. Hey, Peter. Eddie Brock's having a party tomorrow afternoon. You wanna come?"

There was a pause and Peter thought about it. Gwen and Harry were both smiling and waiting for his response. "...I have to study," he conceded, and the two sighed overdramatically, Harry with a told-you-so look on his face. "W-well. Well, what if I come late? Is that okay?"

"Late?" Gwen shook his head. "Yeah, sure, Peter. If late means... never."

More laughter between his friends, and Peter took up a spoonful of cold lunchroom green beans to eat. "Whatever. It's a dumb party anyway."

"Exactly," Harry offered. "I mean, Peter, you don't drink anyway. Or smoke. Or..." He blinked. "Is there anything you do that's exciting?"

With a small smile, Peter thought of the countless goons he fought in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. He thought of Doc Ock's metallic arms holding him around his middle and shaking him like a misbehaved child, or of the Green Goblin dropping Mary Jane off the bridge and he'd had to save her...

He kept the smile on his face.

"Nope," he said. "Nothing, I guess."

"God, Peter, you're such a nerd," Harry laughed, and Peter just smiled and ate another spoonful of green beans.

iv. nothing

Johnny's skin was warm. It was something he was used to by now, he supposed, just from their shoulders brushing and... but this was different. Johnny's kisses were smooth and professional, but his touches clumsy, unpracticed, and Peter wish he had an instruction manual because as much as this was natural to do with Mary Jane, to do this with another boy seemed much more complicated, even if it felt right, somehow.

"Please relax," Johnny half laughed against him as he feathered kisses down Peter's neck. "Come on, dude, you're making me nervous."

Peter laughed too, breathlessly, arched up when Johnny's hand pressed up between his legs, mouth hanging open. "J-Jesus. For not having done this before, you're--"

"Stop talking," Johnny told him, and kissed him again, kissed him until his lungs ached to breathe and his hands came up to grip into his hair.

The rest of the room was so quiet, and Peter became hyper-aware of everything around them; there was a moth fluttering against the glass of the window, trying to get inside, and though it was dark, the lamplight from outside filtered in through the blinds and made slats of yellow light across the walls. And Johnny's breath was hot against his neck, and then his chest, biting gently over one of his nipples and making him make this little embarrassing noise in the back of his throat.

Another whispered sound came from Johnny that sounded suspiciously like "that was cute" but Peter ignored it; Johnny's palms were running down his thighs now, the outsides, making him shiver, and boy, Johnny could fake confidence better than Peter could, that's for sure.

"Relax," Johnny told him again. "You're acting like you're gonna get up and run, just calm down."

But he couldn't. He couldn't, because then Johnny's hands were on his inner thighs and softly parting them, thumbs running little circles into the downy soft skin, and Peter's breath caught, and-- and--

Oh...

Suddenly there was nothing. Nothing in the room but the two of them, no moth against the glass, no slats of light, just darkness and the two of them, Johnny's mouth hot and sucking around him, the little broken noises from Peter's own lips, this feeling like he was being compressed and... and like he couldn't breathe at all, like Johnny was sucking the air from him, so his breath came in short, heavy bursts, head lolling back into the pillows and--

Oh God, the inside of Johnny's mouth was hot, hot enough that he worried only for a second before it was too good and he felt the burn low in his stomach telling him that he was close. He took hold of Johnny's hair and pulled as a warning, but Johnny didn't move, seemed to suck harder and hotter, and Peter gave a keening noise when he came, pleasure washing through his spine in wave after wave, strangling him.

Finally he could breathe again. Johnny was licking his lips and in the dazed aftermath of what happened, Peter realized what he did and blushed hot under his skin. "G-god... shit, Johnny, I'm sorry..."

Johnny laughed, slid up his tired body and kissed him; it should have been weird to taste himself on Johnny's lips, but it strangely wasn't. Peter kissed him back and looped his arms around his neck, feeling breathless and spent.

"What-- what's so funny?" he asked when Johnny couldn't stop laughing.

With a smile and a soft chuckle, Johnny just whispered, "Nothin', Petey," and kissed him again.

v. evaporate

Peter remembered little things about his father. A smile, mostly, or the sound of his laugh as he and his mom would spin around the kitchen in a fake dance.

But he never would have remembered how he looked, how he spoke, if it wasn't for the box of home videos he found in the basement. It had belonged to his mother, apparently, and now he sat cross-legged in front of the screen, the rest of the room dark but for the flickering of the television, the rest of the room quiet but for the sound of his father explaining a chemical equation to Eddie Brock Sr.

"You two with your work talk," his mother laughed in the video, her voice tinny and thin, and Peter's vision was blurred with tears, leaning forward like a small child to get a better view. "Peter, no, honey-- no, Pete, don't eat that. That's Eddie's plate. Here, this plate is yours."

"Aw, it's okay, Mrs. Parker, he can have it!"

"Peter?"

A soft knock on his bedroom door broke him out of his trance for the time being, and he scrubbed his eyes for a second. "Yeah, Aunt May?"

She was already in the room, he realized, and now staring at the screen as well. "What-- where did you find this?" she asked.

He swallowed, trying to hide his tears. "Basement."

A nod in response and his aunt sat next to him on the floor, her own legs crossed, her Capri's riding up her calves a bit. Then with a small smile, she said, "You were so little back then," and sounded almost sad about it. "...this was the last time we all sat together as a family. Me and Ben and... you and your parents, and the Brocks."

His heart twisted and he felt so small, felt broken, like he wanted to curl up somewhere dark and not come out. "I miss them," he said softly, something he'd never admit to normally, even if it was true. Somewhere in his heart, he remembered the smell of his mother's perfume, of his father's aftershave, remembered the feel of their starchy work clothes or soft Saturday pajamas...

And another part of him said he should have felt indifferent. He never really knew them, did he? Didn't know their middle names or their birthdays. Didn't know their favorite foods, or... anything, really. It shouldn't have broken him as much as it had.

May's arm came around his shoulders, thin but strong. "They would have been so proud of you, Peter," she said, and those words, that small touch, broke him.

Peter leaned against her and began to cry, and for that split second, he was six years old again, told of the news of his parents - "Their plane crashed, Peter. I know it doesn't make sense now, but we're going to have you live with your Uncle Ben until we can figure out a better place for you. I'm so sorry, son, I'm so sorry."

He hadn't understood back then. He understood now, and it hurt more than anything. He'd simply lost too much in his life, too much for a seventeen-year-old boy to lose; his parents, his uncle, his friends... his entire life, after putting on those tights and naming himself responsible for the crime in the city. He'd thrown away his life. He'd thrown it away.

With a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, May kissed the top of his head. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you upstairs and I'll make you some hot chocolate. Your favorite, with the baby marshmallows." He nodded, scrubbed his eyes again and listened to her leave the room.

On the screen, his parents laughed, and a much younger Aunt May tousled Peter's hair.

Maybe he hadn't lost everything after all.

vi. unchained

Matt Murdock was his friend, and Peter liked to tell himself that he was nothing more than that. They knew each other's secret identities, knew each other's weaknesses and girl problems, but they were just good friends. Good enough friends that if Matt needed him to, Peter would wear the Daredevil costume and go into court for him; good enough friends that if Peter needed him to, Matt would defend anything Peter had to say.

But it was nights like this that made Peter question it. When Matt's sensual mouth would kiss along the shell of his ear and there was just something about the way Matt touched him--

It was dark, but Peter's vision adjusted to accommodate it; the light from the street below Matt's apartment was intruding and casting odd shapes on the ceiling, black on grey, darkness on more darkness, until the Spider-Man costume draped over the chair was just another smear of ink like everything else. Or maybe that was Matt's costume he was seeing. Hell, it could've been anybody's. They could have been anybody, here together in the dark. Could have been nobody.

Matt lived like this every day, he realized in the back of his mind. Recreating himself from moment to moment with no visual cue to remind him who he was meant to be.

"Shh," Matt breathed against him, and those smooth fingertips found Peter's brow, his nose, his lips. "You're thinking too loudly again."

With difficult, Peter closed his eyes and let the touches linger. Matt's fingertips were polished smooth from years of reading braille. "I thought you fell asleep," he whispered so softly that he half believed he hadn't said anything at all. "I didn't want to wake you."

"Why? Were you leaving?" But Matt's voice was neutral despite the words, fingers resuming their path over Peter's chin and throat, lingering in the dip of his collarbone. A palm pressed over Peter's chest, his heart, strong and confident...

Peter smiled in the darkness. "You're cheating," he said. "You're using your powers."

Still, Peter's body tightened and pressed up into the contact, into those impossibly sensitive fingers spread over his skin.

"I can't help it. It's natural." Matt moved over him and pressed his mouth into Peter's shoulder, not so much smothering a smile as communicating it through touch. Just like everything else they did. "Besides, you didn't think it was cheating when you left footprints on my wall."

"How did you...?" Lawyers, Peter figured, but his words were silenced as Matt kissed him.

Peter tried to say something else, but by the time Matt pulled away, he was already talking. "Peter," he whispered. "You smell like ashes. Did you come from the Baxter building?"

Blushing fiercely now, Peter closed his eyes against the darkness again. "You're ridiculous," he replied. "Yes. Yes, but you're ridiculous."

Matt let a chuckle out into his skin. "If you want to be there," he said, "why aren't you there?"

It was a question he wasn't sure how to answer. "I don't know." The words were soft, and Matt kissed him again. "I don't know."

"Go on." Matt's hand left his skin, and suddenly he felt cold. "Go."

Peter did.

vii. one

Peter knew that Johnny didn't need more things to occupy his time. The painstaking reconstruction of the Baxter building was still underway after the attack from a few months ago - the majority of the work was complete, Peter had been by to see it himself not a week ago, with hallways and most of the decorative functions reestablished, but the progress was slow and troublesome even for Reed.

So with that building still being pieced back together, he never expected Johnny to have time to visit him here.

The hospital was pristine, sanitized to the point that the smell would burn his nose and make him want to retch. The sheets against his skin were starchy and scratchy, and he continued to hurt himself simply because the anesthesia kept him from feeling what he was doing; he was reminded of a time when he was much younger and Uncle Ben had taken him to the dentist to get his wisdom teeth removed, and he'd been so out of it that he'd bitten through part of his own lip.

As he watched Johnny try to talk his way past the women at the desk who were giving him the "family only" speech, Peter continued to tick off a list of the duties Johnny must have been neglecting to come here. The Baxter building. Design and construction of a computer network that would serve the needs of the Fantastic Four as well as keep in contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Peter himself. Assembling a better medical ward in their facility. Stopping whatever end-of-the-world shit was going to happen today.

And by the look on his face, no doubt throttling Peter himself was on that list as well.

"You're a fucking idiot, Peter, you know that?"

Even with the resources of the hospital at his disposal, too many of his injuries from the recent battle had been left to heal on their own. He had no doubt in his mind that most of it would scar over. Before Tony had dragged him here, he'd been struggling to stay ahead of the blood loss and infections, and of course the inevitable secondary injuries from favoring tender joints and weakened limbs.

Peter acknowledged Johnny's presence with a small nod and an attempt at a smile, even if it hurt his face to do so. He didn't have the healing ability that a lot of his coworkers did.

"Are you being deliberately difficult this time?" Johnny asked him in a biting tone, one Peter wasn't quite used to. "Or are you just giving in to that basic urge to be a pain in my ass?" There was something behind his words, but he barreled on before Peter could pinpoint what it was. Johnny was always talking, he remembered, and must have had difficulty stopping. "You know, Sue was wondering if one day you'd manage to just fall off the face of the planet. You seem to be giving it your best effort."

Peter tried to shrug, but the sudden firing of his nerves made him wince and stop. "It's not like I did it on purpose," he tried to defend himself. "I don't make a habit of jumping in front of bullets, you know."

His words made Johnny wince now. He'd never seen Johnny so shaken up, and part of him wanted to get up and hold him. Which was kind of ridiculous, considering that Peter was the one who had been shot.

"You're such a--" Somehow his statement failed and left Johnny standing there half-gasping like a drowned fish. "You know, for a genius, you're a real idiot, Pete."

"You've said."

"This isn't funny!" And now the shouting had started. Peter flinched slightly but didn't move as Johnny slammed his hand against the wall in anger. "Fuck, Peter, this isn't-- this isn't like when you mouth off to your Power Ranger knockoffs, this isn't your stupid quips and witty comebacks...! You're--" He choked up again and Peter almost stood up, eyebrows raising in worry. "This is real! This is real life!"

As ridiculous as it sounded, he knew what Johnny meant. "Johnny, it's--"

"This isn't school!" Johnny continued. "This... you're--"

"--an idiot, I know--"

"You're scaring me."

Suddenly there was a ringing silence, penetrated only by the sound of Johnny's heavy breathing. It was funny, almost funny, because Peter looked up and Johnny was crying. As in, with legitimate tears. It had been too long since he'd seen Johnny cry; just those few nights about once a year on a date that held more meaning for Johnny than Peter when Johnny would choke on words and babble about numbers and zeroes, but... that was nothing like this.

Peter tried to speak, but his mouth felt thick, and words stuck in his throat.

He's also never seen Johnny speechless. Peter wished that Johnny would show a bit of this sort of restraint in the field.

"I'm just..." Finally Johnny seemed to have found his voice, which is more than Peter could say for himself. "You just scare me so bad sometimes, Pete, and I can't..." Another choked noise, and this time Peter painfully lifted his arms, beckoning him closer.

Johnny's arms around him were firm and warm as he remembered. Peter tried to breathe in the ash-and-smoke scent of Johnny's shirt and skin and hair, but it hurt his chest to inhale. (The bullet had torn through something important, something that helped him breathe, though he couldn't remember it now. He just knew it hurt.)

"It'll be okay," Peter told him softly.

"Don't you ever fucking do that again," Johnny choked, and Peter felt Johnny shaking against him, his grip tightening, hurting Peter's chest, but he just grunted and said nothing.

viii. breathe

"Peter..."

They were older than the last time they'd done this. Much older, Peter thought with a twist in his heart. Peter had turned thirty-four just a week ago, and Johnny was still thirty-three, though that year of different didn't seem to matter as much now as it had when they were teenagers.

Johnny shivered when Peter hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats and slid them around, feeling that tease of soft hidden skin. He rubbed his face against Johnny's belly, not so much kissing but brushing his mouth over the skin and feeling the fine, colorless hairs tickle against his lips. Johnny's hands fell to cup his shoulders and gripped him tight, and Peter half wondered if it was really Johnny who had fucked Peter into the tiles of the kitchen floor only moments before.

The thought was unbearably hot, and his hands began to shake, so he pressed them to Johnny's hips and held them tight. This should have been simpler now, and it wasn't like Johnny was a stranger to this. Peter took a breath and eased Johnny's sweats down over his erection and then further, halfway down his thighs and out of the way.

"What do you want me to do to you?" was Peter's question, though it had no meaning outside of the soft shared memory for the two of them. When Johnny had first had Peter splayed under him and shivering, and had choked out the question in all teenage nervousness, legs tangled and breath too heavy for it to be truly audible.

So Johnny's laugh was natural to hear, and he said, "What do you have in mind?"

Peter thought, Pure Johnny, and smiled and nuzzled back into his belly. He licked, tasted, breathed the warm salt-and-ash musk of Johnny's arousal. It was new and dizzy and intense no matter how many times they'd done it in the past. So Peter licked once, and then twice, broad strokes of his tongue before he slipped down over the tip--

Johnny made a sound like he was in pain, "oh, God," but his hips stuttered forward once and Peter held him tighter around the hips...

It was thick, it was thick in his mouth, slick and oddly sweet, and Peter groaned as he slid down, losing himself in the taste and the scent, the aching pleasure of being able to give this to Johnny; clumsy and graceless, too long, too long, but Johnny didn't mind, breathing hard, making small noises of pleasure and distress. Fingers reached down and Peter felt them card through his hair--

Johnny's legs trembled now, and he cupped Peter's face in one broad hand. "P-Pete--"

His name repeated, again and again, and Peter ate it up like candy, loved the sound, loved...

"Peter!"

With a sharp jolt, Peter woke from his dream with a sheen of sweat over his forehead and trembling limbs. Mary Jane furrowed her eyebrows at him, her crayola red hair falling about her face like a curtain.

"Jesus, Peter, is-- you were having a nightmare or something. You kept shaking. Are you okay?" Her hands - so soft - gently brushed the hair from his face, and he was sure it was soaked with sweat.

Numbly, he nodded, mouth dry and wordless. He forced the words anyway. "Y-yeah. Yes. I'm fine, shit, sorry, I'm... sorry." The cool band of her wedding ring brushed his forehead and his heartbeat, once hammering, now slowed in his chest until it was a mere dull thud against his ribs.

Mary Jane frowned at him. "It's fine." The concern in her voice faded. "Just relax, tiger. I'll protect you, okay?" She smiled, and it was very bright in the dark room, and it tugged his own mouth up into a smile too.

"Okay," he whispered, and let her kiss him, even if his heart was still so clearly with someone else.

ix. webbed

The air here was sweet and heavy, Johnny noted. Some small town in Florida that drove him crazy with humidity, here with the other Three on some sort of mission with the Avengers, and he could just think that Peter had closer connections to Tony Stark than any of the four of them. The heat drugged his senses with the scent of foliage abundantly growing about his feet on either side of the walkway of one of Tony Stark's vacation homes, though no doubt a secret government base or some shit like that. Something crazy that only Tony Stark would think of.

His breathing was becoming heavier as they practically swam in this godforsaken Florida weather, catching in his throat and over his parted lips. Johnny blamed the light-headedness on the humidity, even if he had never been one for self-delusion.

Johnny had seen a lot. Done a lot. Travelled from one end of the galaxy to the other, seen things that most people on earth would never dream of seeing. Yet what frightened him, what dizzied him, was nothing alien, nothing even weather-based... not the heat, and not perfume, and certainly not alcohol. He was captured by the sight now in front of him in the walkway, with the others all inside, turning his complicated world upside-down.

Peter.

Peter was familiar, and yet it tore his breath from his throat and set his heart hammering. So very familiar, wasn't he? And yet different, too. Peter of the chemistry fanaticism and PhD. Peter of the terrible summertime allergies, the less than perfect eyesight, the caffeine addiction. Peter of the generally sweet but more than occasionally snarky nature, all wide eyes and boundless enthusiasm.

Never saw this one coming, did you, Johnny? Never threat-assessed the shit out of Peter, did you? Others, yeah, of course. He'd eye them down and take their measure and take his chances. He'd been proved right too, on more than once occasion. Hell, he even threat-assessed Sue at times. Measured her up, got in her face, seen the piss and vinegar in her as she'd given as good as she'd got. And he'd seen her vulnerability too, seen her weaknesses as well as her strengths. He was learning, slowly, to be a leader - not that he would ever need it. Reed didn't trust him enough.

Johnny knew this team, this family, better than he knew himself. He weighed them up and didn't find them wanting. Worked around the weaknesses, hers, his, theirs, strengthened them, made a damn fine team out of them all. They worked well together. They knew each other's moves and compensated for them where they failed.

He rubbed his forehead in irritation, an ache starting there from the heat; usually he didn't mind the heat, but this was ridiculous. Heat was part of him, sure, but not to swim in it, never this wet, never... Jesus. He welcomed the headache at this point.

Peter.

Headache. That was it. Nothing to see here. Just your normal, common pyrokinetic wondering why in the world his best friend was here. Peter had taken off his shirt and Johnny wondered why for a moment. Sure, it was hot, okay, yeah, but--

Peter was hot. The thought rose in spite of his attempts to quiet it. Jesus, Peter was hot. His body was small and slender but not as skinny as Johnny liked to tease at. No, Peter was also very much muscled, his stomach taut from hours spent swinging through the city, arms and legs toned, if not Johnny's idea of "buff."

Peter, Peter, Peter.

His mouth was dry and his heart was thundering. It was the headache. You know, with migraines, he heard that you saw flashing lights in front of your eyes. Sue used to get them sometimes, especially at that time of month, but he didn't see flashing lights. He just saw Peter standing there shirtless and looking curiously at him.

Johnny narrowed his eyes further and blamed the afternoon light, blamed the humidity and the scent for the throbbing in his head; but his whole body was throbbing. He felt it in his bones and blood, shaking him apart.

The sunlight had caught Peter's skin and turned it almost bronze and gold. It gilded his hair from brown to nearly blond, and glistened in the beads of sweat on his face and chest. Fogged up his glasses.

Johnny loved those glasses.

It was funny, when he thought about it. Figuratively, he supposed that he was caught in Peter's web like so many of the women Peter dated. He half wondered if Peter knew how predatory he could be. Mary Jane, Gwen, Felicia... he could name a million more girls that had fallen into this trap where they'd fall for those innocent eyes and the kindness in Peter's heart. The naivete, he supposed.

He was falling for it too.

x. rain

In his dreams, Peter was always running.

Running from the Goblin, running from weapons fire, running to Uncle Ben, running for shelter from the debris of a plane crash he hadn't even witnessed himself. He didn't know why he was running this time, but he could see a building before him, the sun shining and glinting off of the shiny windows and breaking through the shadows. He called out and somewhere far behind him, Mary Jane answered. Tony was before him, running to the building with the metal of his suit practically glowing in the light.

He kept running.

Somewhere around him, he can hear his own voice from those goddamn recordings he'd found a while back, childish and ethereal now. Singing. "The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout..." Peter knew the song. He knew the hand motions. Thumb to finger, finger to thumb. A crude imitation of a spider climbing a web.

The light was becoming blinding, and in a moment of panic, he could no longer see; he scrambled for something to climb, something to hold onto, but then the light pierced through the lenses of his suit and left him on his knees, holding his head and screaming, and next when he opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling. His own ceiling.

"Down came the rain..."

No, it's not himself anymore. It's someone familiar, though, familiar to babysit when the entirety of the Four needed a cheap sitter; a little boy, certainly, but not himself. Little Franklin. Same blond curls, same blue jacket and white T-shirt beneath. Same jeans. Same mischievous smile on his face that held too many secrets. He performed the rhyme's movements as he sang; thumb to finger, finger to thumb, thumb to finger. Crude and childish.

"And washed the spider out."

Franklin was too young here. Maybe five or six, not old enough to be the Franklin he knew now. Peter sat up and Franklin was sitting at the edge of his bed, and Peter found his voice, finally. "What are you doing here, Frankie?"

"That's rude," Franklin tells him. "You should say 'hello' when you have company. It's polite."

"But..." Peter shook his head. "You're not company. You're a dream."

Franklin snorted a laugh and hopped off the bed to run down the hall. His voice echoed as he sang, and Peter's heart was suddenly strangling him, because he heard a voice tell him not to run, and it wasn't a voice he should have been hearing.

No Franklin. No singing and no laughter. Peter swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood, but his body was too heavy, and the weight made his head swim and stomach lurch. He was wearing his pajamas. He was at home. Not the Baxter building. Home.

He took a few steps toward the door, and when he felt more balanced and his equilibrium had settled, he increased his pace in a momentum that took him down the hallway.

Singing met his ears again, but it wasn't Franklin now. Someone older. He walked into the kitchen and found a too-familiar man, fully dressed in his Fantastic Four uniform, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the counter top.

Peter's mouth went dry and he swallowed air, grabbed the wall to cling to and steady himself. "Johnny?" His voice cracked when he spoke.

"Hey, Petey." Johnny turned around and took a bite of his sandwich.

"You're not here," Peter said. "This isn't you."

Johnny just shrugged. "Whatever you say, man."

"You're dead."

"Death isn't what it used to be. I mean, take Jean Grey for instance. You should hear Bobby joke about how many times she's been back from the dead."

"No... you were fighting that horde of aliens. In the Negative Zone. You're dead."

Johnny put the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate that looked previously used. Peter didn't clean up enough and he knew it. He can hear Franklin singing again, and the room seemed darker somehow. "Out came the sun and dried up all the rain..."

His breath came shallow and his head spun, so he leaned heavily against the wall and felt himself sliding down, down until he touched the floor. Johnny sat beside him, wearing civilian clothes now. Jeans and a faded band T-shirt and a sports coat.

"What's going on, Pete?" he asks.

"I don't feel good."

"Well, you don't look good. When was the last time you took a vacation, webhead?"

But no. Peter didn't take vacations. Never sick, though often tardy for classes in high school. He took bed rest only when he'd been shot or otherwise mortally wounded. He remembered a ceremony somewhere in the back of his mind and his stomach turned again.

"I'm getting married," Peter whispered. "Remarried. I'm getting remarried. To Mary Jane."

"I know."

Peter was shaking and he shook his head. Franklin was playing with building blocks somewhere in the living room and Peter began to choke up again. "You were going to be the best man."

Johnny laughed. "Well, shit. Guess that's not happening now, is it?"

There was a deafening silence and Peter just hissed out, "This isn't funny," similar to when Johnny had said that exact thing to him. But there was no hospital bed now, no bullet wound, nothing. Just Johnny frowning at him and leaving that sandwich half-eaten on his counter.

"Pete." Peter looked up, and they weren't in Peter's house anymore. The hospital again. "Get dressed. I'm taking you home."

Franklin just giggled somewhere in the background. Singing.

"..and the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the spout again."