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Deep fog in Manhattan was unusual enough that Johnny tried to get out in it at every opportunity. Tonight he almost missed it, texting with Jen, his back to the windows in an upper story of the building.
Bad night for crime fighting, she wrote during a lull when Johnny had switched over to Instagram, mostly just scrolling, unable to concentrate. He turned and peeked over the side of the couch at the floor-to-ceiling windows, expecting something as pedestrian as rain. Instead, the sun had just about set on a fog thick enough to block the familiar view across the way. This high up, near the top of the Baxter Building, that was pretty nifty. He found himself drifting toward the windows, pressing his nose against the glass.
Good night for flying, he replied, and knew she would take that as a sign-off. Not bothering with his phone, he stepped outside, flamed on, and floated out into the dense grey.
If asked, Johnny would say he liked the fog because it was unusual, a change of pace from clear skies, rain, snow, the occasional low-flying cloud. That was true, but the other truth was that it appealed to him sometimes not to be seen. Sure, he loved the fans, the people pointing at him in wonder, the cheers that followed him around in public. He wouldn’t ever give that up. But once in a while, he had energy to burn without a mood to be tracked across the sky by fingers and cameras. A thick fog like this, and Johnny could only really be seen as a hazy glow. Most people would know it was him, but even so, in this kind of mood, being a distant, blurry light was better.
Johnny took it easy at first, enjoying the way his fire ate the wisps of fog closest to him, clearing the air into a sort of bubble with him at the center. As he flew, he left clear streaks behind himself, like airplane trails, that eventually blurred and were finally swallowed by the fog. Tonight was thick enough that he wondered if the X-Men weren’t in town. But it seemed quiet enough to rule out that out. Alone with his thoughts, Johnny found himself weirdly agitated. He flew up higher and took on speed, doing fast but careful laps amid the tops of the skyscrapers. Probably stupid to fly fast at all, but he knew he could be careful enough, and it wasn’t like he’d never crashed headfirst into a building before.
Eventually, he got absent-minded, thinking about things, and found himself slowing down, doing lazy figure-eights while he worked through a familiar problem. Not a problem, really. Just something he always seemed to have to come around to dealing with. Maybe it would always be that way.
A human-like movement off to his right made Johnny pause in mid-air and turn around, curious and grateful for distraction. You didn’t usually see people at this height, amid the rooftops of skyscrapers. When you did, it meant either another super-type or some kind of trouble. Johnny could go for a good fight, now that he thought about it. He still had energy to burn, and flying around in the fog had seemed like the best option. But a superhero throw-down or stopping some bad guy in a cape, yeah, either one would do.
Curious as to which he’d actually find, Johnny flew around where he thought the movement had come from. He turned the corners of a few buildings, scanning up and down, but visibility was still pretty bad. The fog hadn’t faded. All he found were the usual scatterings of pigeon roosts and lit up penthouse windows. Annoyed, he was about to give up and do some big, fast circuits of the island when the wind changed, driving some of the fog away. Johnny was able to spot a figure in the distance, standing on a ledge, dark against the night glow of the upper stories of downtown. Grey and solitary, the figure jumped.
Johnny gasped and started toward the falling figure, even knowing he was too far away. Mid-fall, though, the figure twisted, brought up an arm, and changed directions, describing a V in the dim air. When he reached a certain height, he brought up his arm again and swung downward, like a trapeze artist, soon vanishing behind another skyscraper. It took moments for Johnny to realize he himself had stopped, hanging there like a bug caught in a web, staring.
He exhaled, unable to say why Spider-Man made him feel this way, excited but with his heart all twisted up. His moment of fear that he’d witnessed a jumper too far away to help, and then Peter’s grace as he made his lonely way across town…. Noticing that he was still hovering there and beginning to attract attention from the penthouse dwellers, Johnny flew away in the direction his friend had gone.
As a tracker, Johnny would never be called subtle, especially at night, even one as foggy as this. Fire always caught the eye, drew attention. So Johnny didn’t bother about being seen, knowing he would be. He followed Peter for a few blocks, admiring his agility. He didn’t seem to be in a big hurry, maybe on patrol, maybe just out clearing his head. Maybe, like Johnny, he liked the fog and had energy to burn. Halfway through a broad arc heading westward, Peter zagged east unexpectedly and landed on the side of a building.
Still a few blocks away, Johnny waved, realizing he’d been caught. Peter waved back. They looked at each other for a moment, and Johnny started forward again, fumbling for a quip for when he got close enough. But before he could get too far, a rumbling echoed down between the buildings, followed by the blare of car horns and, faintly but unmistakably, screams.
Peter was already off, Johnny closing in behind him. The fog still made it difficult to see, but it would be better at street level, where the streetlamps and ambient city light made for pretty good visibility. Johnny broke off from Peter’s tail to dive lower and found himself racing toward an intersection, over the heads of about a dozen people running in the opposite direction.
He reached an intersection where people had abandoned their cars right in the middle of the street. Somehow, Peter had beaten him there and was already throwing down with someone Johnny didn’t recognize. No costume, just some white guy in black slacks and a long-sleeved t-shirt, nondescript as they came. Off to the side, the interior of a bank had been exposed by an explosion. The jagged remains of masonry were everywhere, and dust darkened the fog that hung at the edges of the scene. Inside the bank, which fortunately had to have closed hours ago, flames flickered. Johnny told them to go out, almost an afterthought, and they did, darkening the street by a degree.
Normally, Johnny liked to horn in on Spider-Man’s fights. It riled the man. But for now he hung back, not sure why. Something was off here. This guy had blown up a bank in the most public way possible, while people were still out and about on the street outside, in a city where practically every lamppost had its own crimefighter sworn to protect it, and… that was it, Johnny realized as he watched the fight below him; Spider-Man’s punches weren’t landing the way they should, with their usual impact.
Johnny squinted as Peter hit the mystery guy hard in the jaw. Even someone with super-strength usually registered Peter’s hits, but mystery-guy shook it off while Peter staggered and clutched his fist. Then the man sucker-punched Johnny’s friend and sent him sailing across the intersection, where he landed on his back in an awkward skid and didn’t immediately get up.
Johnny’s suspicions about the scenario burned away. He flew fast at the strange man, fists out ahead of him. He didn’t have super-strength, but with enough speed it wouldn’t matter. The guy was confident, though, standing his ground with a sickening grin when he noticed Johnny.
“Torch, no!” Peter yelled, too late. As Johnny came within a few yards of his target, his flames vanished, and he lost control of his dive. He had just enough time to tuck and roll before hitting the ground hard, all that momentum behind him. The impact stunned him as he landed hard on his right shoulder and tumbled over and over across the asphalt. Things got disturbingly silent for a few seconds before he heard the ring of tinnitus in his ears, followed by his own loud gasps as he tried to catch back the breath that had been struck out of him.
Johnny struggled for his bearings. He was on the street, in the city, all scraped up and aching. He could guess the general thrust of what had happened, but the specifics were lost behind a curtain of confusion. Then a gloved hand landed on his back, made him look up into Spider-Man’s familiar mask, and everything came back to him.
“You all right, Johnny?” Muffled by the mask, his voice was terse and low.
“A few degrees cooler than usual.” He held up his right hand, mildly troubled to find his arm stiffening up under the throb, and tried to flame on. “My fire’s not working.”
“Neither are my spider-muscles,” Peter said, grim underneath the glib way of putting it.
A man’s voice cut in. “That’s because I took away your super-powers.”
Johnny looked up to see their opponent walking casually toward them. Patches of flame were bursting up and going out all over his body, singeing the fabric of his clothes. He held up one hand, staring at it in concentration, apparently willing it to light up. Behind him, an abandoned SUV burst into flames.
Peter had stepped between Johnny and the bastard who had stolen their powers. “Yeah, about that,” he said, none of the usual humor in his voice. “How about you give them back now. I’ve gotten used to web-slinging as a mode of transport, and I’m all out of subway tokens.”
The man took a few easy steps closer through wisps of fog, light on his feet the way Peter tended to be. Johnny was going to be pissed at anyone who took away his flame, but this guy had also stolen a piece of Peter. He was going down.
“I’m not giving anything back, Spider-Man! These powers are my way out of everything holding me down. My job, my debt, all my deadlines! I knew that if I blew up the bank, someone would come running, but I never dreamed it would be you and the Human Torch. Now I’m strong and can set things on fire. No one can stop me!” As though to emphasize his point, fire flared up from his shoulders.
“Look,” Peter said, apparently in the belief that reason would work where brute force had failed miserably, “Look, what’s your name anyway? I don’t want to be calling you schmuck-face all night, though I will if you insist.”
“You think you’re funny, Spider-Man? I don’t need a stupid codename. My name is Dave.”
“Well, that’s refreshing, Dave. I wish half my usual sparring partners had your attitude. Especially the Rhino. Did you know his name is Aleksei?”
Dave wasn’t listening, distracted by making his fingers light up like candles. He was learning to control his new powers far too quickly for Johnny’s comfort.
“Look, Dave,” Peter said, clearly having noticed the same thing. “I know the Torch makes pyrokinesis look like a riot, but you wanna be real careful there. It’s all fun and games until someone winds up in the burn uni--yikes!”
Unhappy to be shielded by anyone, much less Peter, Johnny had gotten to his feet and was staggering forward when a stream of flame burst from the guy’s hands. Johnny tackled Peter to the ground and rolled them away from the fire. Peter returned the favor by twisting in his grip and snaking an arm around Johnny’s back to hustle them both farther away.
“Into the convenient alley,” Peter murmured, half-dragging Johnny into the alley beside the bank. Poorly-aimed yet deadly fireballs followed them, along with Dave’s laughter. “Dodging those things turns out to be a lot easier with my spidey-sense intact,” Peter said, pushing Johnny behind a dumpster and practically falling in after him. Johnny scrambled to help Peter stay upright.
Their cover was grungy and dark, the open alleyway on one side, the brick wall of the bank on the other. More dumpsters lined the wall behind them, but beyond those the alley let out onto another street, the exit hazily lit by distant street lamps. Of course, if he and Peter escaped out that way, there’d be no one to stop Dave from rampaging all over the city, or whatever else he planned to do. Johnny was pretty sure what he had in mind would involve arson, and he couldn’t let that happen. He stole a glance the way they’d come, but it was too dark to see much.
“Like I was ever really gunning for you,” Johnny muttered. “Don’t you have a flashlight in the shape of your face or something?”
“My spider signal?” Following a small click, their space became more visible, bathed in red light. Another click, and the light turned white, shining out from Peter’s belt that Johnny still had no idea how he hid so well.
But the light showed nothing good. Peter’s mask was torn and rumpled, probably from that last hit. He knew Peter always pulled his punches for people without super-strength, but now Peter was unpowered, and Dave clearly hadn’t shown the same courtesy. Johnny reached out toward Peter’s head, intending to feel for soft spots.
Peter, of course, batted his hand away. “Don’t worry, just a taste of my own medicine. How’s the arm?”
Johnny shrugged with his left shoulder; the other one had gone numb without him noticing. “Don’t suppose you have your cell on you? I sort of left home without mine tonight.”
Peter groaned. “Same. If backup shows, Dave’s just gonna steal their abilities too. If we can’t warn anyone, we have to stop him ourselves, fast.”
“Okay, any ideas?”
Peter was leaning heavily against the dumpster. He turned to peer around the edge, back at the alley entrance. “He’s still there. We need more intel.” Pitching his voice to carry, he called, “Yo, Dave! Torch and I have a bet going on how you managed to nick our powers. He says magical jewelry, I say ingenious technological device. Care to settle things?”
Johnny put his face in his hand. “Is this how you get all the supervillains to spill the beans? You play twenty questions?”
“Johnny,” Peter said seriously, thwacking his good shoulder just hard enough to feel. “Dave is not a supervillain.”
They stared at each other, a stubborn set to Peter’s mask. Finally, Johnny said, “Point taken. Do proceed.”
Peter turned back to the alley and yelled, “Your silence is pretty telling, Dave. I get the feeling you don’t work in a high-tech lab where there’re gadgets to steal, so maybe Torch is right. Do you have a cursed tiara that gifts its wearer with stolen spider-muscles?”
In answer, waves of flame rolled down the alley. They didn’t reach into their hiding space, but the intense heat sent Peter and Johnny crashing toward the wall, and Johnny found Peter shielding him, pressing them both close against the brick. “Get off me, damnit,” he said, ineffectually pulling him with his good arm. “I’m wearing unstable molecules, you idiot.”
“So am I, moron,” Peter rasped in his ear, pressing harder. He might not have his usual strength, but he was still an impossible force, especially with Johnny already banged up. Johnny did his best not to be that guy, the guy who catalogued the feel of his friend’s hard chest and toned arms embracing him in a boneheaded act of selflessness.
Just when Johnny thought they might actually be in trouble, the fire died down. They could hear Dave at the mouth of the alley, trying to catch his breath, and Johnny was suddenly reminded of how much work it had been, in the beginning, to control his flames. Peter just barely loosened his grip on Johnny’s shoulders, not moving away. With reluctance, Johnny squirmed out of his arms and back to the edge of their cover. He looked back at Peter, who sagged back against the dumpster then jumped away from it with a pained hiss. Johnny touched the metal, found it very hot.
“What the hell gives, Dave?” he yelled, letting Peter catch his breath. “You have our powers, what’s the point in cooking us?”
Dave surprised Johnny by responding. “Spider-Man is right, it is magic! And in order to keep my powers, I have to kill whoever had them first. I’ve got nothing against Spider-Man or the Human Torch, but I’m keeping your abilities no matter what!”
Dave’s voice was coming closer. He must have gotten his second wind. Johnny knelt, feeling around left-handed for something they could use as a weapon. All he found was smoking garbage. Meanwhile, Peter felt his way past him and poked his head out around the dumpster.
“Magic, you say,” Peter called. “I hope you didn’t sell your soul or something in exchange. Everyone knows those magic diadems come with a price.”
Silence for a moment, then Dave yelled, “A price for you, maybe!”
Peter ignored the bluster. “Who gave you your little trinket anyway? Demon out of Limbo? One of Doc Strange’s sparring partners? He has so many and I can never pronounce their names, so you’ll forgive me if I don‘t try to guess which one. Tell me you didn’t give them something in exchange, though.”
This was familiar goading talk. Peter was tensing up, clearly waiting for his moment, but his moment to what? Johnny crouched behind him, ready to back him up.
Suddenly, fire blazed, blinding him. Johnny’s eyes cleared fast, just in time to see Peter swing a metal pipe at the fully flamed-on figure standing at the entrance of their cover, fog swirling and steaming at his feet. Dave went down with an angry sort of groan, but he was still aflame. From the ground, he pointed his finger at Peter and Johnny, more flames gathering about his hand.
“No way, Dave,” Johnny growled, and he stomped on Dave’s arm. He did it fast, but the fire was searing even so. And he had forgotten about Dave’s strength. One harsh swipe sent Johnny flying and then falling, landing painfully on his bad arm. He struggled to get up, not wanting to leave Peter on his own, only to see Peter swing the pipe again, hitting Dave’s arm. It connected with an unpleasant crack that Johnny associated with broken bone. Then Peter did the stupidest thing Johnny had ever seen him do, out of a very long list. He leaped on top of the flaming man.
“No!” Johnny yelled. The play of light, shadow, and fog kept him from making out more than just Dave’s flailing, but when Johnny rushed over he found Peter pinning Dave with a knee to the solar plexus and pressing the metal bar to his neck, ignoring the fire. Dave’s flames were sputtering as he lost oxygen, but not nearly quick enough. When Johnny kicked him in the temple, that did it. The man went slack and the flames went out. Peter shoved off him, skittering backwards and gasping.
Johnny’s relief was only matched by his fury. He once again felt the familiar contradiction of wanting to see if Peter was okay and of wanting to punch him in the face. He couldn’t do either for the moment, so he settled for verbal violence. “I don’t even have words for how stupid that was,” he bit out. With no gentleness, he began to search Dave. “You do realize you’re wearing spandex, not firefighting gear, right? Unstable molecules or no.”
“Eh, just find me a vat of aloe, I’ll be okay,” Peter muttered, half-heartedly and still crouching on the ground. “Had to try to choke him out, get him unconscious.”
“Just shut up,” Johnny rejoined. He reached into Dave’s pants pocket and closed his fingers around a smooth object. As soon as he touched it, the world went still and silent, a sourceless white light illuminating every surface of the alley. Johnny sighed. “Bingo, I guess.”
He pulled the object out and found it to be a polished white stone set in a gold frame. Add a pin to the back and it would be a brooch. A garish brooch.
“Guess I really did win our stupid, made-up bet,” he told Peter, turning to him. “Pete?”
The fog that had survived all the fire had frozen, no longer drifting but hanging in midair, wisps locked in place. And Peter was frozen too, crouched, not-so-subtly pressing an arm to his ribs, still as a statue.
“Dave wanted super-powers,” came a voice behind him, accompanied by the tap-tap of footsteps. “What do you want?”
Johnny spun and saw a man with goat-like horns curled on either side of his head. He was wearing red-brown robes and had a hood hanging down from his shoulders. With his long experience, Johnny detected an air of other-dimensionality coming off him. That, combined with the insincerity in the man’s attempt at a compassionate facial expression, put Johnny on guard far more than the horns and the satanic robes.
“Who are you, the brooch-demon? What did you do to my friend?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry. There is nothing I can do to harm you on this plane.” His voice had a melodic quality, as though trying to calm Johnny. Johnny hated it when people tried to calm him down. “You’re holding the stone is all; you get to hear my offer here, outside of time. When we’re done, you can go back as though nothing happened.”
Johnny stepped directly between Peter and the brooch-demon.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“My name is unimportant,” he said in the same hypnotic way. “I want to do for you what I tried to do for Dave, help you fulfill a dream. Dave clearly couldn’t hack it, but I suspect you can.”
Johnny scoffed. “Dude, I’m rich and famous. I can fly and take vacations in other dimensions. I’m surrounded by family I love and my day job is saving the world. What could you possibly offer me?
The brooch-demon cocked his head, unimpressed, and pointed at Peter. “How about him?”
“Spider-Man? You want to give me Spider-Man? What even?”
Gazing into the air as though watching a film on the ceiling, the brooch-demon said, “You met Spider-Man when he impetuously broke into your home. He was fast and brave and unexpectedly compelling, but you never told anyone you felt that way. You didn’t have the words for it yet. Instead, you covered your feelings.”
“What the hell--” Johnny started. Nobody knew how Peter had introduced himself but Peter and the team. That story wasn’t for public consumption. The rest… Johnny had never told anyone.
“Every encounter with Spider-Man only made you want to know him better. You developed a way of talking to him--arguments, insults, competition--to conceal your deepening admiration and want.”
“Shut up! None of that is true!”
“I could offer to make him love you,” the brooch-demon began, and continued over Johnny’s wordless exclamation, “but he already does. You have but to tell him what you want. That information is my gift to you.”
Johnny reeled. The idea was that shocking, that he could come clean to Peter in the first place, and then that Peter would… welcome it. In his head, he could never quite imagine it like that; he always had to find some way to put his feelings to rest, over and over again through the years. Johnny had accepted that that was how it would be for the rest of his life. He glanced over his shoulder at Peter, wondering if this guy standing here reading his soul could truly read Peter’s as well, or if it were all a trick.
The brooch-demon hadn’t stopped talking, though. “No, what I’m offering is better than love. Because with love comes fear. Fear of being alone, of waking up in a world without him. To counter that, I can give Spider-Man immortality. He would heal from any wound, no matter how serious. He would never get sick, never grow old. You could go to bed each night knowing for certain he is safe.”
Shaken, Johnny remembered earlier tonight, the dark figure leaping off the ledge, too far away to reach. He looked at Peter now, his costume ripped and bloody, the pained way he held himself. Tonight was hardly the first time Johnny had seen him in this state.
“What would you want in return?” Johnny asked.
“Normally, a murder.”
Johnny laughed.
“But for you, I realize that’s a non-starter. Instead, a harmless theft. You steal one thing for me, no one gets hurt, and Spider-Man never dies. You can pine and insult each other for the rest of your life.”
Johnny tossed the brooch up and caught it in the same hand. “What about my teammates?”
“Sorry, I can only give this gift to one person,” the brooch-demon said, smiling superciliously. “You understand.”
“Yeah, I understand you’re trying to trick me into growing old while my best friend stays young forever. That’s very romantic, isn’t it.” Johnny held the brooch up.
The brooch-demon froze, uncertainty crossing his face for the first time. “Johnny Storm, think about what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, I read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ in middle school. Thanks but no thanks.” He hurled the brooch at the ground and brought his heel down, hard, shattering the white stone. Around him, the unnatural white light faded into the foggy dimness of the alley, and the sounds of leftover flames and distant traffic returned. The brooch-demon howled as he vanished along with his timeless dimension.
Grateful he hadn’t been stuck there too, Johnny turned back to Peter, dropped to his knees beside him. “Did you hear any of that?”
“Any of what?” Peter asked, struggling to stand. “You’re mad at me, I get it. You know I always tune you out.” He got a grip on Johnny’s good shoulder and tried to pull himself up, but Johnny pushed him down, gently.
Johnny was still mad at him, but also worried, and the brooch-demon’s creepily accurate storytelling had him rattled. He wanted to go work off what he’d heard, fly real fast for a long time, try not to consider that Peter could love him. Of course he couldn’t do that now even if he did have his powers. Peter needed him, and Johnny knew that if he played it wrong, the idiot was going to try to go home and lick his wounds alone, like always.
“You know if Sue and Reed get here and find out I let you go with those burns, they’re gonna revoke both of our clearances to the building. And guess whose apartment I’m gonna crash at if I can’t go home.”
Peter hung his head. He sighed dramatically but said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Johnny asked, surprised it had been that easy.
“Yeah, okay,” Peter repeated. “We should probably stick together until our powers come back anyway. Did you find Dave’s mystical nosering?”
“Uh, yeah, about that.” Johnny told him about the white light and the brooch-demon, substituting the real offer it had made with some bullshit one, and leaving out the trip down memory lane. When he got to the part where he destroyed the brooch, Peter squawked.
“You did what?”
“I stomped on it. That’s why I’m not still over there. I’m pretty sure the brooch was some kind of interdimensional bridge technology.” Eat your heart out, Reed, he thought. You didn’t get to the big leagues by not paying a little attention.
“But what if we need it to get re-powered?”
Johnny opened his mouth, then shut it. They stared at each other.
The hum of the Fantasticar interrupted whatever either of them would have said. They looked down toward the alley entrance and saw people standing warily in the fog, a few of them cops, others apparently curious civilians. Those dispersed as two more figures appeared, clothed in blue and hurrying.
“Sue! Reed!” Johnny yelled, getting up and helping Peter too, since Peter would try to do it himself anyway. “Don’t get closer, we beat this dude, but he might still be able to steal your powers.”
Johnny and Peter limped over to meet them. By the alarm on their faces, he and Peter had to look as bad as they felt. Johnny ducked away from Sue’s attentions and gave a brief explanation, with Peter chiming in and quipping and transparently trying to hold himself upright as though he wasn’t, for now, a normal guy who’d traded blows with Spider-Man and wrestled the Human Torch.
“Anyway,” Johnny said, cutting to the chase so they could all be on their way to the medlab at home, “Spider-Man and I decided to stick together until we get our powers back.”
“Of course,” Reed said. “That’s good thinking. I’ll have the police deliver Dave to us so we can keep him under observation as well. Sue and I will stay well away from him, though.”
Sue was eyeing him with her laser eyes; Johnny knew he was in for it. “Johnny, what happened to your arm?”
Johnny managed a species of shrug by dipping his good left shoulder. “Uh, just landed on it funny.” He resisted a wince, remembering twisting in the air to avoid landing on his head, then hitting the ground with stunning force. Now that the danger was past, he could feel a lot of scrapes from tumbling and rolling after impact. Maybe a dull headache.
Sue raised her eyebrows, but only took out her phone to call the medlab staff and have them bring in an orthopedist. Johnny caught Peter watching him, quiet for once, his expression under the mask unusually hard to guess. Johnny stared at him for a second, then volunteered to Sue, “Spider-Man has burns,” because it was true, and because Johnny was still angry at him, and because he suspected Peter didn’t get nearly enough mothering when he was injured.
“I don’t have burns,” Peter groaned as Sue and Reed, both visibly concerned, got him in their sights. “I’m wearing unstable molecules, remember?”
“Those protect clothing, and skin only minimally,” Reed said, “and I know you know that.”
Peter hung his head. “Fine, I might be a little charred.”
So Sue got back on the phone and ordered a burn specialist too. They walked out past the police barricade to the Fantasticar. Outside the alley, there was the usual police activity, a cordon to keep people away, and a crew already cleaning up some of the debris. It would take a while to get the bank restored. Johnny supposed someone from his social circle would keep an eye on it to prevent robbery before all the money inside was transferred somewhere else. That certainly wasn’t anything he wanted to deal with now.
As though reading his mind, Peter said, “I’ll have to give Cindy a call. She doesn’t live too far from here.”
Johnny nodded absently. He’d started off the night chewing on a problem, trying to get it to rest again like always. Now he knew it never would. The brooch-demon must have been reading his mind to know all those things. But had he read Peter’s mind too?
With Reed driving, the Fantasticar rose into the air and headed off toward the Baxter Building. Riding in it instead of flying alongside was not that unusual, but it reminded him again of Peter’s question. What if they needed the brooch to get their powers back? He looked over at Peter, sitting in obvious yet silent pain next to him, and tried not to feel guilty. If he’d done away with only his own powers, he would have never forgiven himself. But to take Spider-Man away from Peter…. It didn’t bear thinking of.
Remembering Peter’s elegant acrobatics amid the fog only an hour earlier kept Johnny occupied for the next few minutes. It made his stomach twist.
“You all right, Johnny?” Peter asked, a note of concern in his voice.
Someone offered to make sure you always heal, and I said no, Johnny thought. Then I probably made sure neither of us gets to go flying through any kind of fog anymore. He must have taken too long to answer, because Peter reached over and companionably squeezed the back of his neck.
“Don’t worry yet about our powers, Johnny. I’ve been thinking about it, and Dave said if he didn’t kill us, he couldn’t keep them, remember? It would make a certain amount of sense if they reverted back to us. I give it twenty-four hours at most.”
Johnny shrugged, igniting some pain in his shoulder but ignoring it. He couldn’t get his hopes up this early, especially if they had a whole day of waiting ahead of them. Instead of answering, he slouched back in his seat, knocking knee and elbow against Peter’s side. Peter settled in and didn’t complain.
At the Baxter Building, Johnny and Peter limped down to the medlab with only minimal henpecking from Sue and Reed. Johnny allowed his shirt to be cut off and submitted to alcohol swabs and bandages for his scrapes and cuts, all the while keeping an eye on Peter across the room. Peter had pulled his mask halfway up so the doctor could get a look at the bruising and pronounce him in need of an ice pack. To Johnny’s eye, that didn’t seem adequate; Peter’s face was a mess.
At that point, the orthopedist arrived, and Johnny went into a side room to get poked and scanned by strange medical machines Reed had invented. The prognosis was better than he’d hoped--he’d been worried his arm was fully dislocated while it was only partially dislodged from the socket. The doctor was a pro and got it back in its proper place himself. Sue held his hand during the short, sharp process, and even though he laughed beforehand and told her he was fine, he was glad she was there. She had a look in her eye like she intended to talk to him later, though. It probably meant he was wearing his feelings on his sleeve again. Considering how angry and confused he was, he doubted it was a good look.
However much he trusted Peter to be right about this sort of thing, he was still a little worried about whether their powers would come back. It just didn’t seem likely that Johnny could miss an opportunity to screw things up that badly. In which case Johnny saw himself hijacking one of Reed’s labs so he could try to irradiate another spider, and then inventing an elaborate plan to get Peter to let it bite him. He wasn’t sure whether that would be easier or harder than commandeering one of their own ships to go hunting for cosmic rays, but he knew the spider part was the important one.
At least they had some time before he had to think about it for real. Time with Peter right here in his home. If they got repowered in a day and Peter swung off on his own again, who knew when Johnny would see him next, short of writing a message across the sky or teaming up again? Who knew when Johnny might have the chance to make a move? The brooch-demon’s claim that Peter would actually be receptive--creepy source and manipulative delivery aside--had turned Johnny’s world upside-down. If there was a chance, he had to take it.
When he left the side room, he found Peter watching his door from his bed, shoulders up high as though on alert. All the medical personnel had left the medlab and Peter had taken his mask and the rest of his costume off. He was sitting on a gurney, wearing light blue scrubs. One eye was swollen shut, and a scattering of sky-blue butterfly bandages held together the split skin on his cheekbone. Johnny had to wince, but then Peter only looked more worried, so Johnny threw him a thumbs up, pleased when Peter’s shoulders slowly wound back downward.
“What’s the word, Matchstick?” he called.
Johnny dredged up his sense of humor and waved his hand over his sling like Vanna White. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost Sue and Reed. Maybe they’d said something before leaving, but he couldn’t quite remember, all his focus on Peter, whose cot he approached. “The burn doc been here yet?”
“The burn doc. Sounds like next week’s villain. Yeah, she came over and made me take a bath in this freezing antibiotic solution. There was aloe in it too, so I did actually get my giant vat, thank you.”
Peter wasn’t gesturing like he usually did whenever his mouth was open. Johnny looked down at his hands. “What’s this?” he asked, frowning.
Peter looked at his hands too, like he’d never seen the bandages wrapped around them before. “Ah, that. From holding the pipe against Dave for so long. The metal heated up. Got one on my knee too.”
From grinding it down between Dave’s ribs… while Dave was on fire. The image of that might never leave him alone, Peter kneeling atop a living pyre.
Cold washed over him, raising goosebumps. He’d been right; it didn’t matter that they were safe and able to joke around like normal. Normal was frankly torturous, a constant cycle of wanting and self-denial, all because he’d never known for sure. And even knowing for sure--or at least believing--there was still so much to overcome. That guy from the other dimension was right; love and fear were basically the same thing.
Johnny looked up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Peter had a maddening shrug in his voice. “Personally, I blame Dave. I didn’t see another way to end it. Hey, what’s eating you, Torch? You’ve been--Johnny?”
Johnny found himself at the edge of Peter’s gurney, his thighs flush with Peter’s calves hanging off the side, their faces maybe a foot apart, maybe less. “Look, I don’t like burns.”
Instead of making a joke, Peter said nothing, his head cocked attentively. Neither of them looked away from each other. “Yeah,” Peter said. “I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?”
Johnny shook his head. “You’re your own boss, I know that. It’s just--”
“No, it’s important to you. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try, okay?”
Johnny nodded, surprised. For a guy who had everything he wanted, people gave things to Johnny all the time, most of it unneeded and undeserved. Very few people ever gave Johnny what Peter just had.
“Okay,” he said finally, and leaned the rest of the way forward, like jumping into an abyss. Peter gave a tiny gasp, his lips just millimeters from Johnny’s.
He didn’t know what he would do if Peter laughed this off, but Peter wouldn’t laugh this off. He wouldn’t do that to Johnny. If Peter made it awkward with a compassionate apology, Johnny might just kill him, but he was pretty sure Peter wouldn’t do that either. If Peter didn’t want this, somehow he would bring all his brainpower and personality to bear on the problem, and it would be all right between them. Eventually, it might even be all right with Johnny, maybe, someday.
The thing was, Johnny didn’t think there would be a problem. A goat-horned brooch-demon had let him know it was a sure thing.
And the bastard hadn’t lied after all. Peter’s lips touched Johnny’s. Johnny realized he’d closed his eyes and hadn’t seen Peter moving forward. But their lips were pressed together in the most chaste kiss imaginable and now that this was actually happening Johnny realized it was sure to blow up in his face any second. With that certainty in mind, the only thing to do was to make the most of it while it lasted. Johnny opened his mouth slightly and felt the wonder of Peter’s tongue slipping inside with no shyness at all.
Making the most of kissing Peter, he decided five minutes later, would take a lifetime. Peter had focus and drive and the superhuman ability to light up something inside Johnny that wanted plainly and without limit. He’d have liked to have climbed up onto the cot and taken things from there, but his bad arm prevented it. When their angle got awkward, Peter had stood up and held Johnny’s face in his bandaged hands and leaned in, walking Johnny backward to get his back up against the wall without breaking their kiss.
A lifetime. Maybe two.
The thought reminded Johnny of how he had gotten here. Reluctantly, he pushed Peter a few inches away, finding it hard to separate them more than that short distance. Peter broke their kiss, laughing. He didn’t laugh enough as Peter Parker, and when he smiled as Spider-Man Johnny never got to see it, though he could usually imagine it. His favorite game in the world was to try and make Spider-Man laugh or smile without seeming to try. If he had known this would do the trick, he would have kissed him years ago.
And that was the trouble, wasn’t it. He smiled shakily at Peter, thinking this had been the roughest night in a long time.
“I was never sure which of us would do that first,” Peter said, flushed. “I was afraid we’d be old men. What made tonight so special?”
Johnny shrugged. One of Peter’s hands was at his nape, distracting even all wrapped up like a mummy. The thing was, he was bad at secrets, and Peter deserved to know the whole story, even if it reflected badly on Johnny. But Peter was still talking, trying to answer his own question, maybe a little anxious himself.
“...fought Dave, but we fight D-listers all the time. Beat him using nothing but our wiles and brute force. Then you went into the Tiffany’s dimension and--” Johnny saw the penny drop--“came back asking if I’d heard you talking. That’s it, isn’t it? What did that guy say to you?”
Why did intelligence have to be such a turn-on?
“Well, let’s just say he didn’t actually offer to make me win all my races.”
Peter opened his mouth, clearly about to take a sarcastic dig at his racing sideline, but shut it instead. When Johnny didn’t go on, Peter said, “So what did he offer you? I mean, I know whatever it was you turned it down. Maybe it was something, something you wanted?”
Johnny had been staring at the floor, but at that, his eyes flicked up and met Peter’s. “How do you know me like this?” he asked without thinking. “This is the second time tonight you….” He trailed off, unable to complete the thought aloud.
Peter leaned in and kissed him sweetly on the lips. “I’m not sure you’ve noticed, Johnny, but I’m kind of crazy about you. Always have been. You can’t blame me for knowing who you are.”
Johnny’s heart sank. “All I’m gonna do is disappoint you, Peter. You may know me, but I had no idea, okay? That stupid demon guy told me you’d be receptive; it was the only reason I did it.”
He let that sink in, steeling himself for Peter’s disappointment. In fact a number of expressions crossed Peter’s face. He seemed to be thinking, working through a problem. Johnny spared a moment to wish the mask didn’t have to so often cover the way Peter looked when he was solving a problem; it was incredibly appealing. Finally, instead of speaking, Peter lifted his right hand up to his mouth and worked the end of the gauze loose with his teeth, unravelling it from his fingers.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Come here.”
With nothing to lose and a little curious, Johnny stepped closer into Peter’s space. Peter promptly used his freed thumb and forefinger to flick Johnny in the forehead. “Ow!”
Peter flicked him again. “Are you telling me you’re annoyed because someone told you that I’m into you, and they were right?”
“I wanted it to be my own idea!”
“And when were you planning to get around to that, genius? Next century?”
Mentioning his prior strategy of pining indefinitely wouldn’t help him win this argument. “I didn’t see you putting the moves on either, and how many years has it been?”
“Exactly! I didn’t want to screw things up between us. Clearly something had to be done, and you were the braver soul, tip-off or no.” Peter frowned down at his fingers. “These actually hurt more without the bandage. Could you…?”
Huffing, Johnny took Peter’s hand and carefully began winding the gauze around his fingers, careful not to pull it too tight or look too closely at the burned skin. And Peter thought Johnny was an idiot. His hand was warm, though, and Johnny really wanted it on him again, gauze and all. “You make a fair point,” he said, focusing on what he was doing. “But you’re gonna have to live with me being mad over this for a while.”
Peter shrugged. “I like you mad. But I might send that demon yenta some flowers.” He inspected Johnny’s work on his hand with an air of approval.
“Do you think we can get back to the kissing now?”
Peter laughed, startled and pleased. “But does it really count if it isn’t our own idea?”
“Shut up. I hate you so much.”
Peter got a hand up behind Johnny’s neck again and pulled him closer, until their noses were just about touching. “Johnny.”
“Mmm?” Johnny poked his tongue out, gave the tiniest lick at Peter’s lips. Peter shivered and closed the distance between their mouths, and in the minutes that followed, Johnny lost track of whatever they’d been discussing.
They both had pretty high stamina even without powers, but they had also taken a beating. That, combined with the awkwardness of the gauze and the sling and not really being able to follow through the way they both clearly wanted to, made kissing way more frustrating than Johnny had ever imagined it could be for them. Finally, they broke off, gasping.
“Wanna go up to my bed and pass out?” Johnny asked.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
As they headed for the elevator, Johnny’s left hand low on Peter’s back, Peter’s shoulder snug against his, Johnny asked, “Before the explosion, I saw you out swinging. What were you up to?”
“Hmm? Oh, we had all that fog tonight.” He gave Johnny a self-deprecating sort of look. “It’s kind of fun to be out in. What about you?”
Johnny shrugged. He had so much to tell him. “Out looking for you, of course.”
End.