Marvel – I am Spiderman

He almost didn't go.

Not because he forgot. Because he'd been thinking about it all day and thinking about it made it harder to move and at some point during sixth period he'd realized he was afraid. Of what showing up meant. He'd said I'll be here and meant it. She'd said come back tomorrow and meant it. Now he had to figure out what that looked like.

He went.

The fire escape was the same one. Fourth floor, brick wall, the railing that had the paint curling off in long strips. He landed on the railing and she was there. Same spot. Knees up, back against the wall, binoculars in her lap. Different hoodie. Dark green, too big for her, the sleeves hanging past her fingers.

She looked up and her face was different. The swelling around her eyes was gone. She'd washed her face, cleaned up. Her eyes were clear and dry and her jaw was set hard, held tight, costing her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

He sat. Same spot, back against the railing, shoulders close enough to touch. The November air had teeth in it. Across the East River, Ryker's Island sat flat and low, the hospital wing lit from inside.

"The lights moved around six," she said. Conversational. Reporting. "Someone in the hallway for a while. I called the switchboard. They won't tell me anything because I'm not listed."

"You are family."

"Not on paper." She picked at a thread on her sleeve. The thermos between them was full and cold. She wasn't drinking it. "I called the Black Fox. He's got a contact in the admin office. She said stable."

"That's good."

"Stable means they haven't figured it out yet." She put the thermos down. Her knuckles were red from the cold. She looked at him and then at the water and back.

"Thank you," she said. "For last night."

"You don't have to-"

She kissed him.

Both hands on his face. Her palms were freezing against his jaw, her fingers curving around the edges of his mask. She pulled him toward her and her mouth found his and the kiss was slow. Her lips were chapped and cold and tasted like salt and the tea she wasn't drinking. Her thumbs were on his cheekbones and she held his face like she was keeping it still and his hands went to her waist because they had to be somewhere.

She pulled back. Her eyes were wet. Her thumbs were still on his cheekbones.

"I need-"

She stopped. Her mouth was open and the rest of the sentence was in there and it wouldn't come. The muscles around her eyes pulled tight. Her jaw worked.

"I know," he said.

She let go of his face. Stood up. Grabbed the thermos. Looked at the building behind them and then down at him. She was standing differently. The grief was still in it but there was a decision now.

"Come on."

Three blocks. A building with a busted intercom and a window she'd jimmied on the second-floor landing. The hallway carpet smelled like mildew and the overhead light flickered in a rhythm that was almost regular. She walked ahead of him and he followed and she moved through the dark without looking, feet finding the path from memory.

The apartment was through a door with a deadbolt she'd put in herself. She turned the key and the lock was smooth and well-oiled and the door swung open and the space inside was empty the way a place is empty when someone lives there but doesn't own it. A sleeping bag in the corner. A space heater plugged into the only working outlet, orange coils glowing. And on the walls, leaning against the baseboards, paintings. Some small, some wider than his arm span. He recognized the one that was probably a Monet. The others were expensive and stolen and she'd arranged them like they mattered.

"Home sweet home," she said. She put the thermos on the floor near the sleeping bag. "Don't judge the art."

"I'm not judging. That one's upside down."

She looked. It wasn't. She looked at him.

"It's not upside down."

"How do you know? It could be abstract."

"It's a landscape. There's a tree."

"Trees grow in all directions."

The corner of her mouth moved. Gone before she caught it.

She crossed the room to the space heater and stood in front of it with her hands out. The orange light hit her fingers and the underside of her jaw. She stood there for maybe five seconds. Then she turned around and walked back to him and kissed him.

Different from the fire escape. Her hand went to the back of his neck and pulled and her other hand fisted the front of his suit and she kissed him with her mouth open and her tongue against his and her teeth found his lower lip and bit. She stepped into him and her body pressed against his and she was shaking. He could feel it through the suit, through his chest where she was pressed, through the hand gripping his neck. She was shaking and pulling at the fabric of his suit, trying to find the seam at his collar, and her nails raked the back of his neck where the mask ended and the pain was thin and bright and went straight down his spine.

She'd turned the tears into teeth. She was pulling at him hard and the urgency was in every point of contact.

He caught her hands.

Both wrists. Wrapped his fingers around them and held. She stopped. Her breath was coming hard and her mouth was wet from the kiss and her eyes were wide and for a second she looked like she was going to fight him.

"Hey." Quiet. "I'm here. We're not in a hurry."

She stared at him. Her pulse was under his fingers, hammering. Her mouth was open. The aggression in her face cracked. The muscles around her eyes pulled.

"You-" she started. Didn't finish.

"I'm here." He said it again because it was the only thing that was true. "Slow."

He let go of her wrists. Put his hands on her waist. Moved them up, over the hoodie, slow. His thumbs ran along the line of her ribs through the fabric and she shivered. The room was cold. The space heater was doing what it could and what it could wasn't much.

He pulled the hoodie up. Slow. She raised her arms and he took it off over her head and she was wearing the catsuit underneath, zipped to the throat. She'd come ready or she'd been wearing it under everything because it was the only thing she owned in this apartment besides a sleeping bag and stolen paintings.

He found the zipper at her collar. Small, metal, cold between his fingers. He pulled it down. The teeth parted and the skin underneath was pale, goosebumped, and the zipper went down past her collarbones, the hollow of her chest, the curve between her breasts, and lower, to her navel, and the catsuit opened and she was bare underneath. No bra. Her breasts were pale and her nipples were hard from the cold and she was watching him look at her and her breathing had changed.

She reached for his mask. Her fingers found the edge at his jaw and pulled it up past his mouth. Past his nose. She stopped below his eyes. Left them covered. Her fingers were cold on his jaw and then her mouth was on his and the kiss was slower than the ones before. Her hands found the seam at his shoulders and peeled the suit down his arms and he helped, pulling free, and the suit bunched at his waist. Both of them bare from the waist up. The space heater's orange light turned her skin warm where it touched and the rest of her was cold when she pressed against him.

Her breasts against his chest. Her stomach flat against his. She breathed hard against his mouth and her hands went to his back and her nails dug in.

He walked her backward. Her back hit the wall and she arched away from it because the wall was cold and she pressed into him and her legs came up around his hips. He held her. One arm under her thigh, spider-strength, bearing all of her weight like she weighed nothing. She wrapped tighter and bit his neck.

Hard. He hissed. The pain was sharp and direct and his cock was hard against her and she felt it and ground against him through the remaining layers and the sound she made was low, into his throat, her teeth still in him.

"Ah-"

Short. Aggressive. She bit again and rocked her hips and her hands raked his back and the urgency was in every point of contact, trying to make it faster, harder.

He slowed down.

She pulled her mouth off his neck. "What are you-"

He kissed her throat. Open mouth, slow, his tongue flat against the tendon below her ear. The sound she made was different. Higher. Her fingers on his back stopped digging and opened.

"You don't have to-" she said.

He kissed the hollow below her collarbone. Down. Over the top of her breast, the side, the underside where the skin was softer and warmer and she made a sound that was almost a word and wasn't. Her hips rocked. Her fingers went from his back to his hair and gripped.

He shifted the arm holding her. Got his free hand between them. Worked the catsuit down past her hips, the leather bunching at her thighs. She kicked one leg free. The catsuit hung off the other ankle and she was bare except for that.

His hand found her. Wet. Slick and hot when he pressed between her thighs and her hips jerked forward and her eyes closed and her head went back against the wall.

"Fuck-"

Breathed. Eyes shut. His fingers pressed against her clit and rubbed and the heat of her against his hand was the first real warmth in the room that wasn't the space heater. She was wet enough that his fingers slid and her hips chased his hand and her grip in his hair tightened.

He pushed the suit down past his hips with his other hand while holding her against the wall. His cock was hard and pressed against her inner thigh and she reached between them and wrapped her hand around him and squeezed and his vision went white for a second. Her grip was firm. Her hand was still cold. The temperature difference made him twitch in her fingers.

"Now," she said. Her hand guiding him. "Don't make me wait."

He pushed into her.

The first inch was tight. Her body resisting, the tension still holding her closed, and then she opened around him and he sank in and she went rigid. Her whole body locked. Legs tight around his hips. Fingers knotted in his hair. The sound she made was a single pulled breath through her teeth. He was inside her and the heat was everywhere and she was tight and wet and gripping him and he held still.

Let her adjust. Let her feel it. She shifted her hips, a small testing motion, and the clench of her around him made his hand on the wall curl into a fist.

She moved first. Rocked forward, pulling him deeper, and the sound was low and raw. Her nails were back in his shoulders. She was trying to set the pace again. Fast. Hard. Grief-speed.

He pulled back. Pushed in slow.

"Faster-" she breathed.

He kissed her neck instead. Kept the pace. Slow. Deep. Each stroke rolling his hips so the base of his cock dragged against her clit and the wet sound between them filled the empty apartment. Her pussy was tight around him and every stroke pulled a sound out of her and the sharp aggressive noises from a minute ago were softening. The bite on his shoulder became her mouth open against his skin, just breathing. The nails in his back became her palms flat, fingers spreading. Her legs around his hips loosened and retightened differently. Closer.

"Oh god-" Quiet. Into his shoulder. Her face was in his neck and her breathing was going uneven. "That's- oh-"

He found the angle. She gasped. He held it.

Slow. Grinding against her clit on each push. The wet sound was loud and neither of them cared. He held her against the wall with one arm and fucked her slow and she was coming apart against him. The aggression gone. The teeth gone. Just her body wrapped around his and her face in his neck and her breathing coming undone.

Her hands in his hair. Holding on. Holding his face against her shoulder. Her hips had stopped trying to speed him up and were just moving with him. Rolling. Meeting him at the bottom of each stroke where he was deepest and grinding there.

The sweat was forming where their chests pressed. His skin was hot where it touched hers and the air on his back was cold and the difference ran through him every time he moved. She was wetter now. The friction had changed, slicker, easier, and each push was deeper because her body had stopped fighting and started pulling. Wet and rhythmic and neither of them was trying to be quiet.

He was getting close. She was getting closer.

The tightening around his cock. The tremor in her thighs. Her hands gripping his hair. Her breathing went ragged, then shallow. Then stopped.

She held her breath. Her whole body tensed.

She came in silence.

Nothing. Her mouth open against his shoulder, her body shaking, clenching around him in pulses, her fingers locked in his hair, her legs rigid around his hips. She didn't make a sound. She didn't breathe. Her body convulsed and she held on.

Cindy was loud. Cindy came like the world was ending and she wanted it to hear. Felicia came like she was keeping a secret from her own body.

He held her through it. Inside her, pressed against her, his arm burning with the effort of holding them both up. She shook and he held still and the waves moved through her and he felt every one of them around his cock.

She exhaled. Long. Ragged. Her whole body went boneless against him and her face was still in his neck and her breathing was rough.

He started moving again. She was swollen and sensitive and the tightness had changed and each thrust made her twitch. She made a sound, small, almost pained, and then her hand found the back of his neck and her mouth was on his ear and she breathed "Don't stop, don't-"

He pressed her harder against the wall and moved faster and her legs wrapped tighter and his hips lost the careful rhythm and he was just pushing into her, deep, the wet heat, the tightness, the way she clenched every time he bottomed out, and she was whispering "go, just go, just-" and his hand on the wall crushed the plaster, fingers cracking through the surface, and he came inside her.

Hard. Graceless. His hips stuttered and he groaned into her neck and the sound was louder than anything she'd made and she held him while he shook. Her arms around his head. Her legs around his hips. Holding him inside her while his body did what it was going to do.

He stood there. His arm was shaking. She was shaking. He eased her down, slow, and her feet touched the floor and her legs didn't hold and they slid down the wall together. The floor was cold through his bare skin. She ended up in his lap, her back against the wall, her head against his chest. The catsuit was still around one ankle. His suit was bunched at his thighs. Plaster dust was in his hair from the wall.

She was trembling. Small tremors that ran through her body. He put his arms around her and she curled into him and the tremors slowed and didn't stop.

"I cracked your wall," he said.

"I don't own the wall."

He kissed the top of her head. It happened before the thought formed. She went still. Then she pressed closer.

The space heater hummed. The apartment was cold everywhere the heater's light didn't reach. Her skin was warm where it pressed against his and cold everywhere else. He stretched for the sleeping bag, reaching without moving her from his lap, and pulled it over her shoulders. She took it. Wrapped it tighter. Pressed her face into his chest.

She was quiet for a long time. Her breathing was evening out. He could feel her heartbeat against his ribs, slowing.

"I called three times," she said. Into his chest. "Before I called you. Three other numbers. Nobody picked up."

He didn't say anything.

"You picked up on the second ring."

He'd been listening to a man say "supposably." He'd been eating a stale granola bar on a rooftop in Hell's Kitchen. The phone had buzzed and he'd recognized the number from a sticky note pressed into his glove on a water tower two weeks ago and he'd answered because the number was hers and she'd never used it.

"Yeah," he said.

She breathed against his chest. The heater's coils caught the frame of the Monet and made the water lilies look warm. Outside, November pushed against the window. The building didn't care. The floor was cold and his back was against a wall he'd cracked and his legs were going numb and she was in his lap with a sleeping bag around her shoulders and the trembling had finally stopped.

She didn't say thank you again. She shifted in his lap and found a position and stayed there.

He held on.