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From the penthouse suite of the Baxter Building, the Human Torch is a star on a clear, cold winter night, bright and beautiful, too distant to touch but just close enough to wish upon. The city is quiet tonight: Peter’s spider-sense hasn’t gone off once, so he put off going out later and later, until it was two am and he looked up from his desk to find New York dark and glittering and Johnny Storm circling lazily above it all, his own miniature midnight sun. Peter watches for a while, pen listing in his hand, and soon enough all thoughts of displeased board members and falling stocks fade away at the sight of that slim golden silhouette, drifting through the skyscrapers like the firefly Peter is so fond of calling him. That’s how it always is, whenever Peter lays eyes on Johnny: Nothing else ever seems to matter as much.
By two thirty, his paperwork has been thoroughly abandoned and Peter is swinging through the city, letting the crisp air slough the exhaustion off his skin, heading toward Johnny like a moth drawn to, well, a flame. Johnny spots him about ten or twelve blocks out and slows in his path, hovering mid-air until Peter lands on the side of the Bank of America Tower. “Hey, hot stuff,” Peter says, because he’s been an idiot his whole life and he’s certainly not giving it up now. “Come here often?”
The ghost of a grin flickers across Johnny’s mouth, but that wide, easy beam he used to flash around like a sheriff’s badge is nowhere to be seen. Its absence leaves Peter feeling strangely hollow. “What’re you doing out here, Pete?”
Peter raises a brow, then remembers that Johnny can’t see it behind his mask. He gestures at himself instead. “In case you forgot, Torch, I swing around the city at strange hours of the night dressed in Zylon-reinforced spandex punching muggers in the face. It’s kinda my shtick. Why are you out?” He watches the line of tension that rises across Johnny’s shoulders, the way his eyes flick to the side. “Couldn’t sleep again?”
Johnny swallows and doesn’t meet Peter’s gaze. “My new place,” he says, after a long pause. “It’s—quiet. Too quiet.” He rakes a hand through his hair, sending sparks skittering through the air. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just too used to the kids running around outside. Reed making things explode in the lab. Ben yelling about anything and everything, because he wouldn’t know how to lower his voice if his life depended on it.” He snorts and shakes his head, rueful. “Anyway. Thought I might go for a spin around the block. Clear my thoughts.”
Peter thinks about just how many times in the past few weeks he’s looked out his window after a long night of patrol and seen the Human Torch circling around in the sky. “Johnny,” he says. “When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”
Johnny blinks at him. “Honestly?” His voice cracks a little, like a dagger through Peter’s chest. “I don’t know.”
Peter itches to reach out and wrap his fingers around Johnny’s wrist, but he’s well aware that all he’ll get for his troubles is second-degree burns on his hands and that horrified look on Johnny’s face whenever he hurts someone he loves. He straightens instead, resolve settling in his stomach. “Come home with me.”
Johnny blinks at him. “What?”
“C’mon.” Peter shoots a line back in the direction he came. “First to the Baxter Building gets to pick which movie we watch.”
He makes it about three skyscrapers away before he realizes Johnny isn’t coming along. When he turns, Johnny is looking back like he’s so lost he doesn’t even know how to follow anyone home anymore. “Peter, I…” He drifts closer, arms wrapped around himself, uncertainty furrowing his brow. “I don’t know.”
“Johnny.” This time Peter does reach out and curl his fingers around Johnny’s wrist, and Johnny flinches, his entire arm flaming off as he shoots Peter a dirty look. “Come on, Flamebrain. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Johnny tugs his wrist out of Peter’s grasp, but he gives in with a sigh a moment later. “Yeah, alright. Lead the way, Webhead.”
Johnny’s entire expression pinches when they duck through the skylight of the Baxter Building penthouse. Peter has to look away, because he has never been able to stomach the world hurting Johnny Storm. “Come on,” he says, heading toward the master bedroom. “You can borrow some of my sweats.”
Johnny follows him into the room without so much as a jibe about buying him dinner first, which is how Peter knows being back in the Baxter Building is really getting to him. When he turns from rummaging in his dresser, Johnny is shucking off his costume, and the long, lean golden line of him in the pale glow of the moon makes something sharp and visceral twist in Peter’s chest. Peter coughs and throws a pair of pants and an old ESU sweatshirt at Johnny’s head, desperately trying not to remember the time he jumped out of bed to find Johnny stripped bare standing across from him. “You hungry?”
He begins peeling himself out of his own suit, and in between shedding his mask and his shirt, he could swear he sees Johnny’s gaze dropping to take him in. Johnny tugs on the sweats and Peter’s sweatshirt; it’s loose on his narrow frame, the shoulders too broad. “Not really.”
“Well, I’m starving. Pizza sound good?”
The corner of Johnny’s mouth curves up in a smile. Without the hazy heat and flicker of his flames, his curls lie limp against his forehead, and Peter can tell how pale he is, the shadows under his eyes like bruises. “Yeah,” he says. “Pizza sounds good.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re collapsed on Peter’s ridiculously enormous couch in front of his ridiculously enormous television, Coco playing on the plasma LED screen as they wolf down an extra-large pie between them. About ten minutes and two slices in, Peter becomes suddenly aware that Johnny has stopped eating—stopped moving —beside him, and he looks up to find Johnny staring at the movie, jaw clenched tight, eyes glittering suspiciously in the low light of the room. He follows Johnny’s gaze, and it’s then that he remembers, abruptly, what the movie is about. “Shit,” he hisses, diving for the remote. “I’m an idiot, Johnny, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Johnny says, but his voice is thick. “I can handle a kids’ movie , Peter.”
“Sure,” Peter says, easily. He exits out of the movie and sets to finding something else to watch, something dumb and shallow with big flashy explosions that he knows will make Johnny grin. “But you don’t have to. Not with me.”
Peter puts on The Fast and the Furious . When he settles back against the couch, Johnny tilts against him, tucking his head against Peter’s shoulder. “Thanks, Petey,” he says, half-muffled against Peter’s sweatshirt. “Sorry for being dumb.”
Peter resists the urge to do something strange and nonsensical like drop a kiss on Johnny’s perfect curls and instead wraps an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t bother, Torchy,” he says. “You’ve never apologized for being dumb before; why start now?”
Peter falls asleep halfway into the movie, and walks up an hour later to the credits rolling and a warm, heavy weight against his side. Johnny is fast asleep against him, his long blond lashes casting shadows on his cheekbones, the rise and fall of his chest soft and steady. Peter reaches to turn the TV off, but Johnny starts awake, eyes fluttering rapidly. He looks up at Peter, then jerks away, so suddenly it makes Peter’s stomach drop. “Johnny,” he starts, gentle, “hey—”
“I gotta—” Johnny scrambles to his feet, looking anywhere but at Peter. “I should go. I—thanks for tonight, Peter, I’ll see you—”
“Hey.” This time, when Peter grabs Johnny’s wrist, he doesn’t let go, letting his strength yank Johnny to a stop. “Johnny. Look at me. What’s going on with you?”
Johnny just stares at him, stricken, like Peter’s caught him in the middle of a crime. “I can’t stay here, Pete.”
“Why not? You used to spend the night all the time. You used to live here.”
“I can’t…” Johnny swallows and his voice drops to barely a whisper. “Sometimes I think I’m supposed to be alone.”
Peter’s eyes widen. The next thing he knows, he’s pulled Johnny down into his side and wrapped an arm around him. Johnny buries his head in Peter’s shoulder and just shakes, silent, like he doesn’t even have the energy to cry. “Don’t be an idiot, Johnny Storm,” Peter says, thickly, past the lump in his own throat. “I don’t know anyone who deserves to be loved more than you. Got it?”
Johnny shudders, violently, and burrows even deeper into Peter’s side. Peter squeezes him and sends a challenge out into the world, a warning. Don’t touch Johnny Storm , he thinks, vengeful. Or you’ll have me to deal with.
~*~
“I’m just worried about him, MJ.”
Almost a year after Reed and Sue Richards and their children vanished from the face of the known universe, Peter sits cross-legged on his couch, rapping the back of his hand restlessly against his knee as he stares out the window. Johnny was supposed to meet him at the Baxter Building for Thai takeout and the rest of the Fast and Furious franchise hours ago; when he didn’t show, Peter spent half the night swinging around the city searching for him before tumbling through the penthouse’s living room window and calling for backup.
Said backup is now bustling around in his kitchen, making tea with an electric kettle that Peter could swear he doesn’t remember buying. “I know, Peter,” Mary Jane says, like the patient angel she is, handing him a cup of chamomile and folding herself up next to him. “You worry about everything.” She takes a sip of her tea, that famous red hair curling loosely over her shoulders, and Peter has to take a moment to remember how grateful he is to have her—right up until she says, “You know, it’s kind of incredible for me that this is happening.”
Peter tries the tea, makes a face, and pushes it across the coffee table. “What does that mean?”
“The number of holes I wore in the carpet waiting up to see if you’d come home.” MJ says it almost wistfully. “Hmm. I guess karma has a sense of humor after all.”
Peter glares at her. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a cruel woman, Mary Jane Watson?”
MJ laughs. “He’s the Human Torch, Peter, and a big boy to boot; he can take care of himself. Isn’t he with the Avengers now?’
“Unity Squad,” Peter mutters.
“Yes, them. He was probably just roped into a last-minute mission.” She reaches across the space between them and lays a hand, warm and fond, on Peter’s knee. “He’ll be okay, Peter; and if he isn’t, you’ll be there to help him. You always are.”
Peter exhales. He leans in and presses his lips, quick, to MJ’s forehead. “What would I do without you, Ms. Watson?”
“God only knows, Tiger.” She pats his cheek, fond. “And speak of the devil. I think you’ve got a visitor.”
Peter twists around just in time to catch the tail end of a trail of flame ducking out of sight around his balcony. MJ smiles and rises to her feet. “I’ll talk to you later, Tiger.” She grabs her coat and drops a kiss on his hair. “Have a good night.”
Peter waits until MJ is out the door before hurrying to his balcony. Johnny is hovering just out of reach and looks a bit startled when Peter appears, like he honestly wasn’t expecting to see him. “Hey,” he says, at the same time that Peter blurts, “Torch.”
They stare at each other for a moment. Peter swallows and resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest like a maligned housewife. “Are you okay?”
Johnny’s flames flicker. “Yeah, sorry—some psycho dressed as a giant wombat attacked the Pentagon and the Unity Squad was called in. He went down in, like, half an hour, but we had to help with the cleanup.”
“Ah.” Peter cracks a smile. “I thought unstable people in animal costumes was more my territory.”
“Yeah, well.” Johnny hesitates. His face does something funny behind the heat waves. “Seems like you were busy, so—it’s good that we stepped in.”
Peter cocks his head, frowning. “Wha—oh, MJ? Yeah, she was—” He abruptly cuts himself off. Calming me down because I freaked out when you didn’t show up for our movie date is a sentence that seems like maybe it wouldn’t go over so well out loud. “Just. Um. Hanging out.”
“Right.” Johnny exhales. “Okay, well. It’s late, so I’ll just—”
“Hey, wait—I got those wings you like, from 34th street,” Peter blurts. “You can—stay, if you want.” He makes a futile gesture with his hands that he’s sure makes himself look like as much of an idiot as he feels. “Vin Diesel is at his best at three in the morning, right?”
Johnny’s mouth twitches, a ghost of that old, star-powered smile—but then his gaze flickers over Peter’s shoulder, and his expression drops. “Sorry, Pete,” he says. “I’m kind of wiped. Rain check?”
Peter tries not to pay too much attention to the sudden disappointment in his chest. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, ‘course. You’ll call me?”
Johnny winks at him, but it seems, somehow, like an empty gesture. “I thought that was my line.” He rises away from the balcony. “See you, Webs.”
Peter watches as Johnny shoots off over the rooftops of New York, bright as the trail of a falling star.
~*~
Peter jolts awake at three in the morning and can’t move his arms. He can’t move his arms, and he can’t feel his legs, and suddenly, violently, he is trapped in Otto Octavius’s mind again, a living ghost locked out of his own body, existing only in terrified flashes of stolen consciousness. Please, please, please, like a plea muffled against a hand, the entire momentum of his desperation focused on his right pinky finger. Please move. Please. Just. Move.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the paralysis lifts, and Peter snaps upright with a gasp so loud it echoes in the emptiness of his bedroom. His chest heaves like he’s drowning, and his hands shake so badly that when he reaches for his phone, he throws it halfway across the room first. That forces him to clamp down on himself for a moment, to drag ragged breath after ragged breath in past the tightness in his chest, until he’s steady enough to kick the tangled sheets off his legs, stumble over to his phone, and press trembling fingers to the first contact that breaks through the haze of panic in his mind.
Ten minutes later, the window to Peter’s bedroom slides up, and Johnny tumbles through, flaming off just before he hits the carpet. He’s at Peter’s side in an instant, warm arms wrapping around Peter’s bare shoulders. “Pete, hey, hey,” he says, still raspy with sleep, and Peter shudders, turning to bury his face into the exposed skin of Johnny’s neck. “I got you. I got you.” His fingers card through the wild mess of Peter’s hair. “He’s gone, Peter. You’re safe now. You’re gonna be okay.”
They sit there on the floor of Peter’s bedroom, Johnny rubbing fire-warmed circles into Peter’s skin and murmuring nonsense into his hair, long enough that Peter’s legs start to go numb underneath him. At last, when the sky outside has started to lighten, Peter pushes out of Johnny’s embrace and scrubs a hand over his eyes. “Sorry,” he says, voice rough.
Johnny’s brow furrows. It’s almost a pout. “Don’t be stupid, Webhead. I know that’s hard for you, but you can at least make an effort.”
Peter laughs; it comes out so raw that Johnny visibly winces. “I’ll never be free of him, will it? It’ll just be me and Otto, for the rest of my fucking life.”
Johnny just stares at him for a moment, long enough that Peter starts to regret this—calling Johnny, using him as an outlet for all of his pent-up anger and fear, letting Johnny see him like this when he doesn’t let anyone see him like this. Then Johnny grabs him by the back of his neck and drags him forward to plant a fierce kiss on Peter’s forehead, their knees colliding as Peter goes limp with surprise. “Nope,” he says, and there’s a hardness to his voice that Peter doesn’t hear there often, an almost vicious determination. “I’m not gonna let that happen. Otto Octavius never gets to touch you again, ya hear? He’s used up all of his Hurt Peter Parker passes for this lifetime. He’s outta the ballgame, got it?”
“What?” Peter pulls back to squint at Johnny. “What are the words coming out of your mouth?”
“He’s—you know—been red carded,” Johnny continues, valiantly, mouth set in a stubborn line. “Been declared—unfit to compete. Um. Banned from ice-skating for life because his ex-husband tried to break his rival’s knee.”
Peter just blinks at him—and then a laugh bursts out of him, a real one this time, incredulous and delighted and shaky on its feet. “Are you serious? Aren’t you like, a professional athlete?”
Johnny huffs, but the corner of his mouth is curled upwards, like he’s proud of himself. “I’m a racecar driver , Peter. Every other sport is too boring and unglamorous for me to learn their metaphors.”
Peter pulls back and takes Johnny in, in boxer shorts and unkempt curls on the floor of Peter’s bedroom, and feels something bright and hot and huge swell in his chest. The first thought he has is how the pout that’s settled on Johnny’s mouth is so adorable Peter wants to swoop in and kiss it off him. The second thought he has is, Oh, shit.
Johnny sprawls against the foot of Peter’s bed and looks up to meet his gaze. “If he ever tries to touch you again, I’m going to burn all eight of those arms of his down like candlesticks.” His blue eyes glint like chips of ice in the breaking light of dawn. He is the most beautiful thing Peter has ever seen. “Got it, Webwit?”
Peter swallows, hard. He is in so much trouble. “Got it, Sparky.”
~*~
The next morning, a legion of Skrull rip-offs that call themselves the Hluks (“Stop laughing , Peter, they attacked the UN”) shows up in DC, and the Unity Squad is called in to negotiate a peace and keep the army from losing its patience and blowing their guests into dust. After that it’s two weeks in Egypt following up on a rumor that Apocalypse is back (he isn’t), and then Kingpin messes with Doc Connors’ meds and Peter spends a week chasing the good doctor in his more reptilian incarnation around the sewers, and before he knows it, a month has passed since Peter last saw Johnny, and he really doesn’t have an answer when MJ asks him how Johnny’s doing over their weekly coffee date. It definitely doesn’t help that he may or may not have been strategically avoiding his phone since his sleep-deprived revelation that there’s just a chance he might be in love with his best friend of thirteen years.
But then the anniversary of the Richards’ disappearance drops into Peter’s lap, seemingly out of nowhere, and there’s not enough frienemy lizards and CEO duties in the world to make him leave Johnny alone on that day. So he sucks it up, picks up his phone, and considers whether Thai or Indian is the better spicy cuisine to lure Johnny to his apartment. Then the police scanner on Peter’s desk lights up like Christmas in July, and four minutes later he’s crawling out of his window and swinging as fast as he can towards Midtown.
New York’s latest flavor of the week is not Mysterio or Vulture, but Mysterio and Vulture, in a teamup that the city has never seen before and would probably rather not see again. Peter swings into the middle of the two of them destroying a Bank of America Financial Center and webs the Vulture’s mechanical wings together. “Well,” he says. “This is a crossover no one wanted.”
“Spider-Man,” Mysterio booms. “How good it is to see you. And how good it will be to crush your corpse into the pavement until there is nothing left of you but—”
But what exactly Mysterio plans to reduce him to is something Peter fears he will never know, because at that moment, a plume of fire bursts across his field of vision, strikes Mysterio square in his strange green body armor, and sends him flying back through the air. “Jeez, Fishbowl,” a familiar voice says, and Johnny flies into the fray, expression inscrutable through his drapery of flames. “Don’t you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?”
Peter grins underneath his mask and swings up on a piece of rubble tall enough to put him level with Johnny. “Hey, Torchy,” he says. “Fancy seeing you around here.”
Johnny just grunts and lifts a fist, scorch the ground at Vulture’s feet. “Needed a distraction,” he says, short. Peter winces, remembering again what day it is. “This seemed as good as any.”
Peter clears his throat. “Right.” He tries not to think about him falling apart from midnight to the crack of dawn, and Johnny holding him throughout. “Let’s give ‘em the ol’ Torch-Spidey one-two, then.”
The jibe falls more than flat, but Johnny barely seems to notice: All of his attention is focused on corralling four of Vulture’s henchmen into a makeshift pen of burning debris. Then he’s off, circling high above the street in a long line of shimmering heat, and Peter sighs, cocking his head at a henchman he strung up to a telephone pole. “He’s hot and he’s cold, am I right?”
The henchman stares at him for a moment. “Carrie Underwood?”
Peter groans as he flings himself back into the fray. “Katy Perry, man, c’mon.”
Together, the two of them squirrel out the rest of Vulture’s crew, Johnny sending them running from their hiding spots with well-placed blasts, Peter plucking them off the street and gathering them together in one big, webby mass of criminals. The last thugs to hold out nearly escape with about fifty pounds of semi-automatics, but Johnny sends their getaway truck skidding onto its side with a dense blast of fire; the smirk on his face is visible even through his flames as Peter pulls the door off the truck and spills half a dozen disoriented lackeys onto the pavement. “Piece of cake,” he declares, hovering over Peter’s shoulder as Peter makes quick work of the criminals’ hands and feet. He turns back toward the wrecked and smoking front of the bank, the initial scene of the attack. “I saw Mysterio and Vulture heading for the vaults; I’ll go cut them off.”
“Torch, wait,” Peter says, scrambling to his feet, “you shouldn’t go in alone—”
But Johnny is already a blur in the near distance, zipping around the debris heaped in front of the bank and disappearing behind the jagged remains of the storefront. Peter hisses and leaps after him, but by the time he makes it inside the unstable building, there’s not another soul in sight. “Torch?” he calls out. He flips up onto the ceiling and crawls forward among the exposed plaster and electrical wiring, toward the vaults in the back of the building. “Johnny?”
The sight that greets him when he rounds the divide makes Peter’s vision flash red. Johnny is hovering in the air, still flaming, but his limbs are lax, his expression blank as his gaze loses itself somewhere in the distance. Mysterio and Vulture stand below him, Mysterio with one hand up, head tilted to the side as his fingers curl slowly before him. “Torch!” Peter snaps, hating the desperate edge in his own voice, but it’s too late—Mysterio makes a triumphant sound and snatches his hand into a fist, and Johnny extinguishes as abruptly as a snuffed candle, plummeting toward the floor.
Peter instantly shoots out double webs, but they miss Johnny by a hair and he goes tumbling to the ground, body bouncing limply over crumbling chunks of cement. Peter leaps for him, but before his feet even touch the ground, Vulture has Johnny hauled into his grip. He curls a metallic talon around Johnny’s exposed neck, the other digging into Johnny’s chest through his suit. “Nuh-uh-uh,” he coos, the cherry red lenses of his goggles glinting in the fluorescents. “I think you’ll stop right there, Spider-Man. Unless you want to see what the inside of your boy toy’s throat looks like splattered on cement?”
Peter pulls up short, his hands clenched so tight he can feel the indents in his palms. “Let him go, Vulture,” he snarls, barely recognizing his own voice. The asinine quips that usually come to him easier than breathing are suddenly nowhere to be found; all he can feel is a dark, tarry rage filling him from the inside out. “Or we’ll see whether birds really do have fragile bones.”
Vulture barks out a laugh, almost delighted. “A threat? From the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?” He jostles Johnny sharply in his arms, and Peter starts forward, teeth bared. “The pretty little thing must mean more to you than I thought.”
Johnny’s head lists to the side, exposing even more of his neck. The blankness in his eyes terrifies Peter in a way he doesn’t really understand. “Torch,” he calls out. “Torch, c’mon. Now isn’t really the time to be napping on the job.”
“He can’t hear you, Spider-Man,” Mysterio says. He lifts a hand and runs a gloved finger idly across Johnny’s cheek. Peter fantasizes about ripping his small intestine out. “You know, I thought I would have to work a bit harder to break Johnny Storm’s mind. He is the Human Torch , after all. But it was easy; oh, quite easy. He was already so close to the edge.” The reflective surface of his helmet tilts toward Peter. “And so torn up about you .”
Peter tenses. “Mysterio, I swear to god—”
“Enough of this,” Vulture suddenly snaps. “I’m getting tired of this little soap opera. I think it’s time my partner and I take what’s ours and be done with it.” He takes a step back, dragging Johnny with him, and Peter’s spider-sense explodes like a bomb in his head. “Goodbye, Spider-Man.” Like pulling a ripcord, Vulture rakes the dagger points of his talons across the pale column of Johnny’s throat.
“No!” Peter shoots before he can think. A layer of webbing covers Johnny’s throat even as Vulture tosses him aside like a rag doll. Johnny crumples, Vulture and Mysterio leg it, and Peter is left scrambling desperately over the debris to get to Johnny’s side, heart jackhammering in his chest.
Johnny is lying face down in a pile of torn insulation. His blood speckles the chunks of plaster around him, a bright arterial spray. Peter pushes him onto his back with shaking hands and feels first utter relief that blood isn’t waterfalling down his front, then vein-freezing fear that a dark red line has already begun seeping through the webs holding Johnny’s throat together. He fumbles for the junction of Johnny’s jaw and neck and wants to cry when he finds a pulse, thready and erratic but present. “Thank god,” he gasps, gathering Johnny’s limp form into his arms. “Thank god .” He wraps one arm around Johnny’s waist and raises the other to shoot a line, trying not to let the way Johnny’s head lolls, unresponsive, against his shoulder break him apart. “Okay, just—hang on, alright, hot stuff? Don’t go anywhere on me. We’re going to get you patched up.” He swings out of the building, praying desperately to whatever’s out there that the world will not let Johnny Storm die in his arms. “You’re going to be okay.”
~*~
To the Midtown Medical Center’s everlasting credit, none of them so much as blink when Peter bursts through the doors of their ER, shouting frantically for someone to help him, please . The attending on duty takes one look at Johnny in Peter’s arms, swears, and asks Peter, “How long does the webbing last?”
“Two—two hours,” Peter stutters. “But I have solvent for it.”
Two orderlies run over with a gurney. One of them tries to take Johnny from Peter, but Peter instantly flinches back, his grip tightening. The attending’s expression softens. “Spider-Man,” she says, gentle. “My name is Doctor Tasuki. We’re going to do everything we can for your friend. But you have to let us.”
Peter swallows. He feels suddenly like a little kid again, small and lost and so, so scared. “Right. Right.” He steps forward and unloads Johnny as gently as he can onto the gurney. The sight of him, still and pale with that insidious red line growing across his neck, makes Peter’s throat close up so tight he can barely speak. “I—his neck, doc, you gotta—”
“We will,” Tasuki says. “But I’m going to need your help with the webbing. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah,” Peter croaks out. “Yeah, I can do that.”
One of the orderlies glances up from his pager. “OR 3 is ready for you, doc.”
Tasuki gives a sharp nod, and they take off down the hall, a doctor, two orderlies, and Spider-Man, with the Human Torch between them. The next six hours pass in a blur. Peter spends the first three talking Tasuki and her team through using the solvent to remove the webbing incrementally enough that Johnny doesn’t bleed out while they make repairs; the next three, once the doctors have the hang of it, is devoted to pacing back and forth in the waiting room, ignoring the constant staring and whispering that surrounds him. He feels like he’s going to throw up the entire time, and the only thing he can think, past the fear that grips him so tight it physically hurts, is not him. Please, god, not him.
Finally, finally , Tasuki emerges from the OR, looking weary but satisfied. She gives Peter an encouraging smile when he practically pounces on her. “Your friend was lucky,” she says. “He took some damage to his esophagus, but the talon only nicked his artery; we managed to repair both. He’ll need to be careful with his movements for a while, and definitely no superheroing until the wound stands up to stress tests, but—he should make a full recovery.”
All of the tension leaves Peter’s body at once. He feels suddenly faint. “Okay,” he says, weak. “Okay. That’s—good. Really good. Can I talk to him?”
“He’s hasn’t come out from the anesthesia yet, but you’re welcome to see him. Is there a way I can get in contact with…” Tasuki trails off, eyes widening with realization. “I mean.” She sighs. “Is there anyone i should be getting in contact with, besides you?”
Peter’s stomach drops. Of course. Everyone in New York knows the Fantastic Four is no longer in residence at the Baxter Building. He closes his eyes and allows himself a moment to remember, again, what day it is. Then he turns his attention to the question. There’s Ben, of course—but god only knows where Ben is, on some distant planet in space with Kitty Pryde and the rest of his new crew. There’s Medusa—but she and Johnny broke up weeks ago, and judging from the fragile way Johnny’s held himself ever since, it didn’t end well. Maybe Alicia? But Alicia—the real Alicia—was always Ben’s, not Johnny’s. And the fact that the Unity Squad let Johnny fly off alone in search of trouble on the anniversary of his family’s disappearance only cements Peter’s suspicions that Johnny’s new team isn’t looking out for him the way he deserves.
And then there’s Peter. Peter, who loves Johnny more than the sun itself; Peter, who’s always coming up short when it comes to saving him.
“No,” Peter says, the word heavy in his mouth. “No, it’s just me.”
Johnny looks almost unbearably fragile in the hospital bed, curls limp against the pillow, golden skin pale and bruised against the stiff white sheets. Without the pleasing lines of his black and orange suit to highlight the frame of his body, he looks thin, too thin, even more so than when he had come back from the Negative Zone barely more than skin and bones. Peter knows that he’s been dropping weight recently, spending too much time flamed on and not eating enough. There’s just—no point, Johnny told him during one of their movie nights, picking at the drunken noodles that he would’ve scarfed down a year ago, gaze listless. Eating alone sucks. Peter looks at the sterile gauze packed around Johnny’s slender neck and thinks about how, if it was his throat the Vulture tried to slit, the wound would be gone by Tuesday.
And then, abruptly, he thinks about another neck that broke in his arms. Another beautiful face with blue eyes and perfect blond hair.
Peter’s legs give out under him. He collapses into the chair next to Johnny’s bed while Tasuki checks his heart monitor. “Shouldn’t—” The words catch, thick, in his mouth. He clears his throat. “Shouldn’t he be awake by now?”
“Some people metabolize the anesthesia slower than others,” Tasuki says, but there’s a hint of a frown on her face. She glances over at him. “If you want to go home and leave me a way to reach you, I can call you when—”
“No.” Peter’s hand clenches around the arm of his chair; the cheap metal groans accordingly. “I’m not leaving him.”
Tasuki sighs, but she doesn’t seem surprised. She leaves the room for a moment, then returns to give him a thick, soft blanket that is definitely not hospital standard-issue. “Hit the call button when he wakes up; I’ll be in every hour to check on him until then.” She gives him a gentle smile and flicks off the overhead lights, leaving only the lamp on Johnny’s bedside table to fill the room with its gentle yellow glow. “Get some rest, Spider-Man.”
Peter stares at Johnny’s silhouette on the bed, the slight tilt of his head, the shadows his long eyelashes cast on his cheeks. Then he closes his eyes and dreams.
~*~
Peter comes to to the lights flickering on and Tasuki’s troubled expression as she checks Johnny’s vitals on the monitor. Peter bolts upright, but there’s nothing to see: Johnny is lying in exactly the same position he was in when Peter drifted off, the rise and fall of his chest shallow but steady. Peter sags in his chair and shucks up the bottom of his mask so he can rub at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “What’s going on, doc?”
Tasuki pulls a penlight from the pocket of her coat and checks Johnny’s pupils. Something cold and heavy condenses in Peter’s chest as he watches her frown deepen. “Doc?”
“I had figured, with his powers, he’d burn through the drugs more quickly than most, but—” Tasuki pulls a tablet out of her pocket and flips through a file on the screen. The silence that follows makes Peter’s heart rachet up into his throat.
“Doc.” He doesn’t even realize he’s on his feet until Tasuki looks up at him, startled. “What’s—is something wrong? You gotta tell me, please, I don’t think I can handle it if—”
“Spider-Man.” Tasuki lays a steadying hand on his arm. “It’s nothing specific, it’s just—I had expected him to be awake by now.” She shoves the tablet back into her pocket. “But it’s alright; I’ll order an MRI, just to be safe, and we can take a look at his brain and make sure everything looks the way it should, alright?”
But three hours later, the MRI comes back clean and Johnny hasn’t so much as stirred. The look on Tasuki’s face as the orderlies wheel Johnny back into the room tells Peter everything he needs to know. “Doctor Tasuki,” he starts, helplessly. Not him. Please, not him.
Tasuki waits until the orderlies have filed out of the room before turning to Peter. “This is a good thing, Spider-Man,” she says, voice gentle. “Nothing on the MRI means there’s no physical damage preventing Johnny from waking up. It may just be a matter of waiting it out.” She hesitates. “You mentioned that Mysterio was involved in the attack?”
Peter tears his gaze away from Johnny’s still features. “Yeah, he—Johnny was flamed on, so they couldn’t touch him until—”
Abruptly, Mysterio’s taunts come flooding back to him, the ugly sneer in his voice as he stroked Johnny’s cheek— He was already so close to the edge.
And so torn up about you.
“Mysterio did something to Johnny’s mind.” Peter’s fists clench. “He was completely out of it, like he’d been drugged. Even before Vulture cut his throat. It was like—it was like he was in shock.”
Tasuki’s lips thin. “I was afraid of something like that.” She sighs. “I’ve seen this before. It’s rare, but—when they’ve suffered serious psychological trauma before their injury, some patients just…” She hesitates, like she’s reluctant to break the news. “Don’t want to wake up.”
Peter feels like the floor is falling out from under him. “Doc…”
Tasuki guides Peter into the chair by Johnny’s bed. “Talk to him,” she suggests, soft. “Give him a reason to come back.”
~*~
The last time Peter and MJ ended things hit Peter harder than any of the half-dozen other break-ups he’d endured in his short and illustrious lifetime. He was convinced that that was it for him—the end of any hopes there were for him to share his life with someone. “That’s it for me, Torch,” he told Johnny, hunched into himself on top of the Statue of Liberty. “I can’t be with anyone without hurting them. Which means I can’t be with anyone. Period.”
He was allowed all of thirty seconds to brood before Johnny bowled into his side, as warm and radiant as a star. “God you’re stupid, Peter,” he said, even as he threw an arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter remembers elbowing him back, scowling. “Really—if you can’t see that you and MJ are meant to be, then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”
“This is serious, Johnny, she almost died because of me—”
“But she didn’t.” Johnny’s expression softened. “Because you were there for her, Peter. Like you always are. Like you always will be. Because you save the people you care about.”
“Johnny—”
“Just—listen to me, Webhead, because I sure as hell am not going to say this twice.” Johnny took a breath. “You’re the best person I know, Pete. And I know even less about love than you, but I know you deserve to be happy. And MJ”—Johnny hesitated, barely a second—“MJ makes you happy. So you’ll be together. Maybe not now, but—one day, when the timing is right. I don’t know much, but I know that.”
Peter remembers looking at him in the lights reflecting off the bay, soft windblown blond hair and eyes so blue they looked almost artificial in the dark of night, and thinking, She’s not the only one who makes me happy. But the words caught and tangled in his mouth, as they always did, and all he ended up saying was, “For a hothead whose greatest accomplishment is being named People’s Sexiest Man two years in a row, you’re surprisingly philosophical, aren’t you, Johnny Storm?”
Johnny laughed then, the line of his neck long and slender in the moonlight, and Peter remembers balling up all the mixed-up emotions in his chest and stuffing them down as deep as they would go. “Hey,” Johnny protested, letting his arm drop from Peter’s shoulders. The absence of the negligible weight seemed unfathomably immense to Peter as he watched Johnny climb to his feet. “I was named People’s Sexiest Man three years in a row, thank you very much.”
Now, Peter sits on the edge of his chair and curls gloved fingers around Johnny’s, careful to avoid jostling the IV taped to the back of his hand. He tilts his head down and presses his masked mouth, briefly, to the slope of Johnny’s knuckles, then closes his eyes and just breathes, holding Johnny’s hand against his forehead. “If you can hear me, Flamebrain, I need you to wake up,” he says, as soft as he dares. The things he feels for Johnny have always felt unbearably dangerous to him, liable to explode in his face if he ever lets them see the light of day. To actually give voice to them, in a public place, with the stakes being nothing less than making sure Johnny Storm stays among the living—Peter has faced down rampaging psychopaths in animal suits that have scared him less. “I can’t do this without you, Johnny. I don’t want to. You’re…you’re everything to me, okay? My best friend. So I need you to wake up.” His voice breaks. “I need you to open those eyes, beautiful.”
The silence that follows seems to stretch on for what feels like a torturous eternity, broken only by the slow, steady beep of Johnny’s heart monitor. And then, impossibly, miraculously, the hand in Peter’s grip twitches, just a bit, fingers curling in Peter’s palm.
Peter’s heart leaps into his throat. He scrambles to half-standing and leans over the bed, pressing his forehead to Johnny’s. “Johnny,” he says, hoarse, desperate with hope. “Wake up. Come on, come on. Wake up. ”
Eyes as blue as New York City at night blink slowly open beneath him. Peter grins so wide he feels his heart crack open with it.
~*~
A little over twenty-six hours after Spider-Man burst through the doors of the Midtown Medical Center ER with the Human Torch in his arms, Doctor Tasuki discharges Johnny with a barrage of instructions for taking care of the “incision” on his neck and her personal cell number, in case there’s any issues. Johnny is unsteady on his feet, and every time he so much as turns his head his face pinches in pain from the pull on his neck, so Peter swallows his dignity and hails them a sixty-dollar cab to the Baxter Building. To the city of New York’s everlasting credit, the cabbie only stares at the Human Torch and Spider-Man in the back of his taxi for a handful of seconds before shrugging, flicking on the meter, and asking, “Where ya headed?”
It’s a testament to how tired Johnny must be that he allows Peter to practically hold him upright in the elevator ride up to the penthouse, then carry him with an arm around Johnny’s shoulders to the guest bedroom. He draws the line at Peter’s attempts to help him into bed, shoving at Peter’s side with about as much effectiveness as a kitten. “If you’re trying to tuck me into bed, Parker, you can forget about it,” he warns, sounding as stern as he can while still painfully hoarse.
Peter holds up his hands and backs away, recognizing a lost cause when he sees one. He watches as Johnny climbs gingerly on top of the duvet. “You need anything else? More painkillers for your neck? Maybe some ginger ale, or a teddy bear?”
“Fuck off,” Johnny grumbles, but the corner of his lips twitch, which Peter counts as a victory. Johnny settles back against the bed with a sigh. “Thanks for this, Peter. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
Peter frowns, almost offended, but Johnny has already turned onto his side, head buried into the pillow. Peter looks at the too-narrow hunch of Johnny’s shoulders and tries to remember a time when Johnny was so confident and obnoxious and devastatingly gorgeous that it drove Peter up the wall. Then he turns away and flicks the light off, leaving Johnny to his rest.
Peter sleeps in his own bed and dreams about being back in his old attic bedroom at Aunt May’s house, suit on but mask off. Johnny is there, which is how Peter knows it’s not real, because Johnny didn’t know who he was yet when he was still living with May. Johnny stands at the window in his old blue uniform, the sun in his hair; and when he turns to smile at Peter, he is radiant, so radiant. The light in the room shifts, and Johnny is on Peter’s bed beneath him, grinning up at him; Peter presses Johnny’s wrists into the mattress and leans down to meet his mouth—
Peter twitches awake to an empty bed and an empty room, dawn just breaking over the horizon outside his window. He groans and rolls over to check the time: 5:47 am. Shit. He was supposed to wake Johnny up to change his dressings an hour ago.
Only when he sticks his head into the guest bedroom, the bed is empty, the window is open, and Johnny is gone.
~*~
The tote bag containing the antibiotic ointments, packs of sterile gauze, and bottle of oxycodone from the hospital is gone, too, which is the only reason Peter doesn’t immediately go on a rampage through the city. Instead, he sucks in a breath to quell the anger in his chest, grabs his suit out of his bedroom, and goes out the same window Johnny did.
Rogue sounds suspicious when she answers Peter’s call, as if Peter hasn’t known Johnny for almost thirteen years. “You lost him?” she demands, incredulous. “How do you lose a man who lights on fire?”
“He can fly when he lights on fire, in case you’ve forgotten,” Peter shoots back, perhaps a bit snippily for someone asking a favor. He takes a deep breath and leans back against the side of the Chrysler Building. “Rogue. Please. He’s my best friend, and I—I’m worried about him.”
“He’s your best friend, but you don’t know where he’s living?”
Peter winces. “I, uh. I’ve had a lot. Going on—”
“Save it.” Rogue sighs. “Last I heard, he was living in some hole in the wall on 154th street. I don’t remember the exact address, but it’s above a Greek bakery.”
Peter breathes out. “Thank you, Rogue.”
“Spider-Man?”
“Yeah?”
“...Look out for him, alright?”
Peter swallows. “I will.”
It takes a bit of swinging, but eventually Peter finds the right apartment by following the aroma of spanakopita and singling out the window boosted open in thirty-degree weather. He climbs through and finds himself in a bare-bones bedroom, a bed with unmade sheets pushed up against one wall, a chipped, rickety nightstand beside it. The nightstand is littered with empty glasses and the bottle of oxycodone from the hospital, tipped onto its side, pills scattered on the ground.
A cascade of clattering noises echo from the bathroom. Peter doesn’t think, just rushes across the room, throwing open the door. Johnny is curled over the sink, one hand clapped over his throat, the other groping blindly for a pack of gauze on the counter. A metal tray lies overturned on the floor, surrounded by scattered antiseptic wipes and a jar of antibiotic cream with half its contents splattered on the tile.
Johnny flinches as his gaze swings to the door. “Peter?”
“Jesus, Johnny.” Peter yanks off his mask and tosses it aside before hurrying to grab a fresh gauze pad. Johnny stares at him as he lets Peter coax his fingers away from his neck and press the pad to the spot of bright red welling along his incision. “Fuck. I think you burst one of your stitches.”
“What’re you doing here?” Johnny croaks, eyes wide.
“What do you think?” Peter snaps. He webs up more bandages and the medical tape from the floor and bats Johnny’s fingers away when he tries to do it himself. “You can’t just disappear like that, Johnny, especially after you just got out of surgery —of all the stupid, irresponsible things to do—”
Johnny jerks away from him, eyes hard. He smooths his fingers over his freshly bandaged throat, then brushes past Peter as he leaves the bathroom. “Thanks for your help. You can go now.”
The growl of frustration rips out of Peter’s chest before he can think to stop it. He stomps—actually stomps , like he hasn’t since he was six—after Johnny and grabs him by the arm, whirling him around. “Johnny! What is going on with you?
Johnny’s eyes do blaze, then, sparks leaping off him and winking out on the fabric of Peter’s suit. “Let go of me, Peter!”
For a split second, Peter thinks about how easy it would be to wrestle Johnny to the bed and hold him there, to grab onto him and never let go—then he snatches his hand away, as if he really was burned. “Johnny.” He watches, helpless, as Johnny whirls away from him and stalks across the room. “For god’s sake. Please . Talk to me.”
There’s a moment of tense, excruciating silence—then Johnny whirls around, and Peter stares in horror at the wetness in his eyes. “You’re really going to make me say it?”
“What?” Peter takes an aborted step forward. “Johnny, what—”
“I’m nothing without them, Peter!” The words come out jagged, as if they were torn from deep within Johnny’s chest. “Without Sue and Reed and the kids, without Ben—I’m just a jumped-up flamethrower that’s convenient to aim and fire.”
“Johnny—”
“I have no one. My family was what made me special. And then—” His voice breaks. Something in Peter’s chest breaks, too. “They left me. And I just…I miss them so fucking much, Peter.”
For a moment, Peter just stares at him, speechless—then the next thing he knows, he has Johnny in his arms, squeezing him as tight as he dares. Johnny lets out a single sob, then falls silent, trembling in Peter’s arms. “Shut up , Storm,” Peter says, almost too distraught to be embarrassed by the thickness of his voice. “You’re such an idiot, you know that? You’re— everything . The best, kindest, bravest, funniest person I know. You love like a sun , Johnny, and we’re all so lucky to be in your orbit. Sue and Reed and the kids—it tears me up every day that they’re gone, Johnny, but I know we’re never going to stop looking for them, and I know they’re not what make you a hero. And I’m not going to let you go until you look me in the eye and tell me you know that, okay?”
Johnny pulls back and looks up at him, something strange and sharp in his expression—and then his mouth is pressed against Peter’s, hot and sweet, all of Johnny’s blistering heat focused into a single point against Peter’s lips.
Peter’s brain shuts down right then and there, and he’s left to stand and gape like the absolute moron he is when Johnny abruptly breaks the kiss, pushing out of Peter’s arms in the same breath.
“Fuck.” Johnny sucks in an unsteady breath and pushes a hand viciously through his hair. “ Fuck. Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Johnny.” Peter catches Johnny by the elbows, just in case Johnny tries to run. “Wait. Will you just—walk me through your thought process for a second, hot stuff?”
Johnny glares at him. “I wasn’t exactly using sign language, Peter.”
“I.” Peter’s jaw works. He takes in Johnny’s beautiful, furious face and feels something jolt into place. “You kissed me.”
Johnny huffs, perfect cheekbones tinging pink. “So you noticed.”
A grin the size of New Attilan threatens to break through Peter’s expression, but he tamps it down for a moment because this is not a misunderstanding he can afford to have. “You—you feel that way about me?”
Johnny’s face darkens. He does shrug out of Peter’s hold then, taking a step back to wrap his arms around himself. “You don’t have to say it like that. I just—slipped, okay? Don’t worry, I know it’s never going to happen.”
“What? Why wouldn’t it?”
Johnny gives him an incredulous look, but Peter has known him too long to miss the anger that’s there, too. “Are you serious? Does the name ‘Mary Jane Watson’ not ring a bell?”
Peter blinks at him. “MJ and I have been broken up for ages, Johnny.”
Johnny scoffs. “Like that means anything. She’s your soulmate, Peter. You told me that. You also told me, once, that she’s one of the only things you’ve got worth fighting for. You grew up together, have been through hell together; you’re meant to be.” He turns away, but Peter thinks he catches Johnny’s expression crumpling. “How can I compete with that?”
“Johnny.” Peter wants to laugh, but Johnny looks like he’s one stiff breeze away from falling apart, so Peter refrains and reaches for him instead. “ We grew up together. We’ve been through hell together. There were times when the only thing that got me through the day was you and your family. And I think—I’m not sure about this, but I think I’ve been in love with you for years.”
Johnny stares at him, eyes round and stunned—and then he practically leaps back into Peter’s arms, and Peter, laughing, catches him and kisses him as hard as he can.
They stumble back and collapse onto Johnny’s bed, limbs tangled together. Peter holds himself over Johnny and dips down to sample the corner of his mouth, his jaw, the jut of his collarbone. Johnny shivers and sighs underneath him, eyes mirthful slivers of blue, and tilts his head back as far as the wound on his throat will allow him to give Peter access to his neck. The sight of Johnny beneath him, yielding to him so readily, does things to the pit of Peter’s stomach that make him groan and press his face into the junction between Johnny’s neck and shoulder. “Christ. How are you real?”
Johnny sits up just long enough to shuck off his shirt and shorts, and then Peter’s mouth is drier than the Sahara because Johnny Storm is lying underneath him, every inch of his glowing golden skin on display, looking up at him with half-lidded eyes. “C’mon, Pete,” he rasps; Peter’s fingers spasm in the sheets next to Johnny’s head. “Show me why you’ve always got those hot women chasing after you.”
Peter growls and swoops down to steal Johnny’s mouth, channeling all of the hot, possessive feelings that well up in his chest every time a two-bit villain rakes their beady eyes down Johnny’s silhouette into the slick press of their tongues. The noises that Johnny makes go straight to Peter’s gut, and before he knows it, he’s sliding his fingers up Johnny’s arms and pushing them above his head before before pressing down, hard, into the mattress.
Johnny breaks their kiss with a moan and arches against Peter. Peter’s brows shoot up to meet his hairline. “You like that?”
Johnny flushes, but the curl of his grin is sly. “What can I say? I like a bit of manhandling.”
Peter groans. “Fuck, Torchy,” he says, and then he’s swallowing Johnny’s laugh with a kiss, so fucking grateful for everything that happened in his life for him to be able to have this.
They don’t come apart again until who knows how many hours later, Peter pulling out of Johnny as Johnny gasps and twitches underneath him. Peter rolls onto his back, throws his arm over his eyes, and pulls in a deep breath. “Wow. Okay. Wow.”
Johnny laughs, a little unsteady. “You’re not gonna tuck tail and run on me now, are you, Spidey?”
Peter frowns and props himself up on one elbow. Johnny is a mess underneath him, golden curls splayed haphazardly across his pillow, golden skin marked with a litter of bites and bruises. “‘Course I’m not,” he says. “Why would you say that?”
Johnny quiets, his gaze going distant. Peter frowns and leans down to kiss the corner of his mouth, his nose. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t go where I can’t follow.”
“Sorry.” Johnny rolls over, into Peter’s side. “It’s just that…a lot of people leave, you know? Me, at least.”
Peter hauls Johnny into his arms; even without his strength, it’s too easy, Johnny too light. Johnny yelps, but settles against Peter’s chest as soon as he realizes what Peter’s doing. “Not me, Torchy,” Peter murmurs into the mop of Johnny’s hair, fierce. “Not this time. I’ve stuck around you for a decade. Let’s make it a few more, hm?”
Johnny presses his face into Peter’s bare chest and is silent for a moment. Then— “I’m in love with you, you know that, Webhead?”
There’s a sudden lump in Peter’s throat. He thinks about regular Thursday coffee dates at their spot, weeks of patient instruction as they built the Spider-Mobile together, Johnny leaving Peter his family so that Peter would feel loved, even while Johnny was dead. He holds Johnny tighter. “I know.”
Johnny swallows. Then, almost too quiet for Peter to hear: “I don’t know what I have to offer you, Peter. I’m not MJ, or Gwen or Felicia. Right now, I just—I don’t have anything—”
Peter cuts him off with a hard kiss, almost bruising. When he breaks it, he pulls back just enough to take in Johnny in his arms in the syrupy golden light of the setting sun, so bright and beautiful and generous, always giving his family and the world and Peter everything inside him until there was nothing left. “You don’t have to offer me anything, Torch,” Peter says. “You’ve given me plenty.”
A smile cracks Johnny’s expression, small and fragile but real. “What am I going to do, Peter? How am I going to get them back?”
“I don’t know, J.” Peter presses his mouth to Johnny’s hairline. “But we’re going to do it together.”
It’s a promise Peter intends to keep.