Marvel – I am Spiderman

The couch was against the wall and the coffee table was in the kitchen and the rug was rolled up behind the TV stand and Cindy's living room looked like someone had rearranged it for a fistfight, which was basically what they were doing. Her parents worked Saturdays. Her dad had left at seven. Her mom had left at eight. Cindy had texted Peter just after. House is empty. Bring your hands.

He'd taken the Q56 to Woodhaven. Forty minutes of watching Queens go by out the window with his knee bouncing and his palms tingling and the bond humming low in his chest the whole ride, getting louder the closer the bus got.

The garden gnome was still missing its nose. The Honda was gone.

They'd been sparring for twenty minutes. The living room was small for it. Cindy had pushed the furniture back and laid down a yoga mat for the hard floor and they'd started with footwork drills and gotten faster and the footwork had turned into actual sparring about ten minutes ago when she'd feinted left and swept his ankle and he'd caught himself on the wall and left a handprint in the drywall.

"Your parents are going to see that."

"I'll hang a picture over it."

She was faster than last time. Whatever they'd been doing in his backyard was working, because her reaction speed had jumped and her combinations were tighter and she was reading his spider-sense feints better. She came in low, ducked his jab, pivoted. He blocked the follow-up but she'd already shifted her weight and her other hand was inside his guard and her palm hit him square in the chest.

Spider-strength.

He went backward. Not far. Three feet, into the couch that was pushed against the wall, and the couch slid six inches with a screech on the wood floor. Cindy came with him. She was on him before the couch stopped moving, one knee on either side of his hips, her hand flat on his chest where she'd pushed him, her hair swinging forward over her shoulder.

"Pinned," she said. His back against the couch, her on top, her knees bracketing his hips.

Except last time they'd scrambled apart.

She didn't scramble.

"I broke up with Hector."

Her hand was still on his chest. Her palm was warm through his t-shirt and her fingers were spread and the bond was screaming.

"When?"

"Thursday." She'd been carrying it since Thursday. "I told him it wasn't working. He cried. I didn't."

Her eyes were on his. Dark brown, almost black. Her lips were parted and her breathing was fast from the sparring and she was sitting on his lap and the weight of her was real and solid and her thighs were tight against his hips and she'd broken up with her boyfriend and she was telling him about it while sitting on his lap.

"Cindy-"

She kissed him.

Hard. Her hands went to either side of his face and she pulled him in and her mouth hit his and it was desperate, weeks of it. Her lips were dry and then they weren't and her fingers dug into the sides of his jaw and she made a sound against his mouth, short, surprised.

He kissed her back. His hands went to her hair. The ponytail was loose from the sparring and he got his fingers into it at the base of her skull and pulled and her head went back and her throat was in front of him and the sound she made was different from the first one. Longer. Lower.

She came back. Bit his lower lip. Not playful. Her teeth closed on it and pulled and the sting was real because spider-strength teeth on spider-healing lip meant the bite actually registered. He tasted copper for a second.

"Ow."

"Sorry-"

"Don't be sorry."

She bit him again. Same spot. He pulled her closer by the hair and she pressed into him and the kiss was messy, open, too much teeth and not enough rhythm and neither of them cared.

Her hips moved.

One roll. Forward and down. She was in his lap with her knees on the couch on either side of him and she ground down against him and the friction through two layers of denim was blunt and rough and good. His cock was hard. Had been since she'd pinned him, if he was being honest. Probably since the Q56 bus. She felt it. Her hips stuttered and her eyes went wide and she looked down between them like she could see it through the jeans and then she looked at his face.

"Hi," he said. Because he couldn't find a better word.

She laughed. Short, almost a bark. Then she rolled her hips again. Deliberate this time. A slow grind forward that pushed her weight down against him and the seam of her jeans caught along the length of him and her mouth opened and her eyes closed.

"Oh," she said. "That's-"

She did it again. And again. Her hands were on his shoulders and her fingers were digging in and she was grinding against him through their clothes and her breathing was going ragged and his hands were on her hips where they'd been a hundred times during stance corrections except now she was rocking into him and every press dragged denim against denim and the friction was making him stupid.

"You feel-" he started. He didn't know how to finish the sentence. She felt incredible.

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

She ground down harder. Her head dropped forward and her forehead was against his and they were breathing the same air and his hands tightened on her hips and he pulled her into him as she pushed down and the noise she made was muffled against his mouth.

Then her hands left his shoulders.

She pulled back. Looked at her fingers. The flush was still on her cheeks but her eyes went wide. Her mouth pressed shut.

Webbing. Thin white strands of silk leaking from the slits on her index and middle fingers. Not a lot. Wisps, catching the light, trailing from her fingertips like a spider spinning. The webbing was sticking to his shirt where she'd been gripping his shoulders. Two small patches of silk, translucent, already hardening.

"No," she said. "No no no." She pulled her hands away from him and held them in front of her face and the silk was still leaking, thin threads stretching between her fingers when she spread them.

"Are you- is that the webbing?"

"Don't look at it."

"You're webbing."

"I SAID don't look at it."

He looked at it. He looked at her fingers and the silk threads catching the afternoon light coming through the living room window and the patches on his shirt and Cindy's face, which was the color of a tomato and getting darker.

"You web when you're turned on?"

"SHUT UP."

"Cindy."

"I swear to god, Peter, if you say one more-"

"That's the hottest thing I've ever seen."

She stopped. Mouth open. Hands still up, silk trailing from her fingers. She was looking at him like she was waiting for the joke. Like she needed him to say he was kidding so she could go back to being mortified.

"What?"

"I'm serious. Your body makes silk because you're turned on. That's-" He didn't have a word. He put his hands over hers and pressed her palms back down onto his shoulders and the silk stuck to his shirt and her fingers curled into the fabric. "Keep going."

She stared at him for another two seconds. Then she kissed him and her hips started moving again and this time she didn't stop.

It got worse. Better. Both.

She was grinding in his lap and his hands were under her shirt. He'd asked. "Can I-" and she'd grabbed his wrist and put his hand on her stomach herself and his palm was flat against her skin and her abs tensed under his fingers and her skin was hot. She was hotter than normal body temperature. Spider metabolism. Both of them ran warm but she was almost feverish and his hands tracked up from her stomach to her ribs and his thumbs found the bottom edge of her sports bra and her breathing hitched.

"Keep going," she said. His line, thrown back at him.

He pushed the sports bra up. She helped, lifting her arms, and it came off over her head and she was in a t-shirt and nothing under it and her nipples showed through the cotton, hard, and her chest was small and tight and she crossed her arms for a beat and then uncrossed them.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what."

"Like that."

He kissed her neck. The spot below her ear where the jaw met the throat and her skin tasted like salt and her shampoo was in his face and she gripped the back of his head and her fingers were in his hair and the silk was there too, threads of it webbing through his hair, sticking to his scalp, and she made a sound that was louder than any sound she'd made so far.

"'Nn- ah-'"

Her grinding was different now. Wetter. The contact point between them was warm and damp and the sound it made when she rocked forward was audible. A soft, slick noise that cut through the room.

She heard it. Her hips froze.

"That's- people can't- nobody can hear that."

"Your parents aren't home."

"I know but it's so LOUD."

It was barely audible. But spider hearing made barely audible into a roar and they could both hear it and her cheeks were burning and she was trying not to move because moving made the sound worse but stopping was killing her.

"Don't stop," he said.

"I can't- it's-"

"I don't care about the sound."

She made a noise in her throat that wasn't English. Two syllables. Korean. Her eyes went wide and her hand clamped over her own mouth.

"Was that Korean?"

"No."

"That was Korean."

"It was nothing. It was a sound."

"What did you say?"

"I'm not telling you." She was crimson. Webbing on his shoulders, his shirt, his hair. The wet sound between them. Korean she hadn't meant to speak. She was still in his lap and still wet and the bond was still roaring and she looked like she wanted to die and also like she'd kill him if he stopped touching her.

He put his mouth back on her neck. She shuddered. His hands went up under her shirt, palms flat on her ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. She gripped his hair. Spider-strength. It hurt. His scalp burned where her fingers pulled and the pain mixed with her hips starting to move again and the wet grind through denim and the silk threading through his hair and her voice getting away from her.

"'There- right- ah- joh-a, joh-'" She cut herself off. Bit her lip.

He was close. She was closer. Her grinding had gotten faster and shorter and her thighs were shaking against his hips and she was pressing down so hard the couch creaked and her forehead was against his neck and her breath was hot and fast on his skin and his hands were on her ribs and his thumbs were on her nipples through the t-shirt and she was making sounds into his neck that were half-English and half-Korean and her fingers were in his hair pulling and webbing everything they touched and he couldn't hear anything over the bond.

A car door slammed.

Honda. The Honda that wasn't supposed to be in the driveway until six.

Cindy went rigid. Her head came up. Eyes wide, unfocused.

"That's my mom."

He went from about to cum to terrified in about half a second. He looked at Cindy. She looked at him. They were on the couch and she was in his lap and his hands were under her shirt and there was webbing on his shoulders and his hair and the couch and the wall behind them and a damp spot on the front of her jeans and the living room furniture was pushed against the walls and her sports bra was on the floor.

"Window," Cindy said.

"Which one."

"Kitchen. Go. GO."

They moved. Spider-speed, which meant the scramble happened in about four seconds and each one of those seconds contained a disaster. Cindy grabbed her sports bra off the floor. Peter tried to stand and his foot caught a web strand that connected the couch to the coffee table in the kitchen and the coffee table screeched three inches across the tile. Cindy hissed at him. He pulled the web loose. It stuck to his hand. He shook his hand and it stuck to the other hand.

"Solvent," Cindy said. She was already at the kitchen counter pulling a spray bottle from under the sink. She'd mixed it after the third morning of cutting webbing off her walls. She sprayed his hands. The silk dissolved. She sprayed the couch. The wall. His shirt.

A key turned in the front door lock.

Peter went through the kitchen window. It was a tight fit. His shoulder clipped the frame. Cindy sprayed the last patch of webbing off the couch and shoved the cushion over the damp spot and kicked the yoga mat flat and was standing in the middle of the living room when the door opened.

Peter was on the side of the house, pressed flat against the blue siding, two feet from the kitchen window. He could hear everything.

"Cindy? Why is the furniture moved?"

"I was stretching. Yoga."

"With the couch against the wall?"

"Big stretches, Mom."

A pause. Then: "There's a handprint in the drywall."

Peter closed his eyes.

"I'll hang a picture over it."

He dropped from the siding into the backyard. The noseless gnome was still by the front steps. He went around the side gate and was walking down Carlin Street when his phone buzzed.

Your shirt still has web on the back. You look insane.

He reached behind him. A patch of silk, thin, about the size of his palm, stuck to his shoulder blade. He peeled it off. It stretched before snapping. White, translucent, catching the sun.

He put it in his pocket.

His phone buzzed again.

Tonight. Your window.

He stood on the sidewalk in Woodhaven with silk in his pocket and a heart rate that hadn't come down yet and he looked at the text.

He typed: What time

The response was immediate. Don't fall asleep.

The Q56 came. He got on. Sat in the back. The bus smelled like vinyl and diesel and his shirt smelled like her shampoo and the silk in his pocket was dissolving into nothing by the time the bus hit Forest Hills.

His hands were shaking.