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It was Johnny’s birthday. Or it was for the next five minutes at least. He was sitting on the edge if the Baxter building roof staring at his phone and eating a pb&j. The phone hadn’t even so much as beeped all day. Not a single crime committed, not a single birthday text, not even a dm from that lousy guy he hooked up with two nights ago. Nothing. It fucking sucked. “Might as well turn in” Johnny mumbled. Not like anything was gonna change in the next, he checked his phone for the time, 3, no, 2 minutes. “God this is pathetic, literally the hottest man alive and I can’t even get laid on my own birthday. And now I’m talking to myself.” He looked at the ground, he was not going to cry. “Fuck” he sniffled. Johnnys eyes began to swim, he crouched down wrapping his arms around his legs. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” He was fine. He took a deep breath. Tomorrow would be better. Sue and Reed would be back from the Negative zone and Ben would be back from vacation. The four of them are going to celebrate then. Johnny forced a smile and pulled out his phone. 1 minute left. The screen dimmed as the name “Webby” popped up. Peter was calling.
“Am I safe?” Peter joked. Johnnys voice cracked a bit as he replied “just barely loser”.
“Are you okay?” Peters concern sounded a bit robotic over the phone, but Johnny knew it was genuine.
“I’m fine, just had a long day, heheh… ahaaa” Johnny sighed. “Thanks for calling webs.”
“Any time flame brain. Happy Birthday.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Maybe on patrol, I have some lab work to finish.”
Johnny rubbed his eyes “you can take a day off. I’d love to pick your brain about my current project here at the Baxter building.”
“You know thermo-physics isn’t really my thing, I can come over but I won’t be much help.”
Johnny smiled “see you in 15 min?”
Johnny could hear Peter stammer in protest on the other side of the phone. But it was too late. “Flame on dork.” Johnny laughed as he took off to harass Peter in person.
Johnny landed a few blocks from Peters apartment building. He didn’t want to draw attention to his friend’s place of residence, and he wanted to show up looking like he had been out and about. He wanted Peter to think he had stuff going on during his birthday. Johnny quickly slipped behind a dumpster to change into more casual cloths, including a skull cap to hide his hair, and sunglasses and a mask to hide his face. The entire outfit was black, though he added a few accessories for the fashion of it all. He stuffed his fireproof suit into his fireproof bag. He had to hand it to Reed, he was one heck of a scientist even if the fabric only came in one color. Then he sauntered up to Peters building. He hit the button next to Peters apartment number and waited. “Seriously! Dude it’s 12:10, you’re 7 minutes early.” Shit, Johnny had thought it would take more time to get here. The door buzzed to let him in. He ran up the stairs two at a time. He was so excited to see Peter, someone other than his sister that cared about him enough to call on his birthday. He could feel his head getting hot with excitement. He knocked. Peter opened the door “That was fast too… damn your smoking.”
“Don’t you know it” Johnny shot him some finger guns.
“No like your literally smoking dude, your shirts on fire.”
“What! Shit. This thing was expensive.” Johnny groaned, Sue was gonna kill him. He had never accidentally caught fire for someone before. At least not in a long time. “That’s, uhh, kinda embarrassing.” Johnny tried to forced a laugh but it got caught in his throat. He coughed, which made him breathe in his own smoke. “Just get in here” Peter sounded annoyed. Johnny rubbed the back of his head “sorry, I uhh, didn’t wanna like put you out or anything, I can go home if that’s easier for you? Like it’s not a big deal man.” Now Johnny’s face was hot for a different reason. “Naw it’s fine just get in here” Peter waived him in, “do you want something to drink?”
“Got vodka?”
“Oof, that bad?”
“Ha ha… what?”
“The last time you asked for vodka was that really bad break up like two years ago. You said you hate the stuff but it gets you drunk fast so you drink it when you don’t wanna feel like shit.”
Peter remembered all of that? Johnny didn’t even remember that he had told Peter that stuff.
“Oh, uh, yeah I guess today kinda sucked. But it’s better now.”
“You mean yesterday.”
“Right, you remind me way to much of Reed some times…”
“Well, we do work together.” Peter reasoned.
Johnny groaned awake. Where was he? Right… Peters apartment. He had selfishly come over late to hang out all night with Peter. “Guhhgh, my fuck’n head…” Johnny felt like his skull was splitting open. The door to the bed room slammed open. “SHIT, bro be a little quieter.” Johnny pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Peter muttered something under his breath. “Huh?” Johnny rose from the bed. “Nothing.You need to go home.” Peter said curtly as Johnny followed out to the living area.
“No, you definitely said something.”
“It was nothing Johnny.” Peter hadn’t been this cold to Johnny is a long while.
“What did I do? Sorry I don’t really remember much from last night.”
Peter glowered. “WHAT I SAID” he shouted as loud as possible “WAS, That…”
Peters face turned red. “Was, um, that’s not what you said last night is all…”
“What wasn’t?”
“To be quieter…” Peters voice was really small. Johnny looked down at the younger man, who was looking at the ground. “Huh?” Johnny was confused. Peter huffed. “You’d think a playboy like you would get a fucking hint every once in a while but I guess not! Go home Johnny. Sue is worried about you.” Shit. He was supposed to help with the data upload from the mission. Johnny scurried around the small space grabbing his stuff. Keys, wallet, underwear, hat, bag. Wait underwear? Johnny realized he was naked. Then Johnny began to understand what happened last night. “P-Peter, I can explain.” Peter shoved Johnny’s clothes into his hands. “No need, just get home and do your job.”
The private chef for the Richard’s agreed to make dinner at the Baxter building for Johnny. It was just the family and Ben and Alicia. It was quiet. Sue was pissed, but Reed had calmed her down. “So how was your day yesterday?” She seemed upset again. “Oh you know. Went out, had some fun. Then I stopped at Peters place cause it was close. I just lost track of time. Sorry.”
“Johnny-“ Sue started. Then she paused as if she was trying to think of the right thing to say. “Look, I am sorry that it all lined up the way it did. I am sorry I forgot to text you, I am not mad at you I am just stressed.”
“Cause your mission was a failure.”
Sue pursed her lips. “Yep.”
Reed put down his fork “Well it wasn’t a total failure, the data we gathered will help us discover and understand more about cosmic radiation and the nature of gravitational waves. Really if you think-“ Ben cut him off “Stretch, this ain’t the time.” The table fell silent again. Val huffed, and got up from the table with a loud screech of wood on wood. Franklin looked at Sue, who sighed “Yes Franklin you can go.”
“Damn grounded again? What did you do this time” Johnny asked. Franklin stuck out his tongue at Johnny, “nothing you haven’t.”
Franklin left and the table settled into a quieter tone. Sue and Alicia started talking about Ben’s recent move. Ben had Reed explain the mission for the fourth time that day. Johnny just kinda listened and nodded along. Suddenly he felt incredibly lonely. He was the only one at the table who wasn’t married. A whole part of life he might never experience. At lease based on his current life trajectory. He sighed into his wine. His sister asked him about his lab work. The night continued.
After dinner the adults all began to congregate in the lounge. It was the one room that Reed had full design control over. He made it so ever single thing in the room was equidistant from everything else. So crazy mathematic bs that Johnny couldn’t wrap his head around. Alicia liked the lounge, so when she was over they tended to end up there. “We have an announcement!” She announced. Johnny glanced a Ben. “Typically that’s what you say before saying you’re pregnant.” His jokes were not on point today. Alicia was generous enough to laugh. “Only kind of. We have decided that we are going to get a puppy!” Ben smiled at his wife. God Johnny was jealous, he wanted to be able to smile like that at someone. An image of Peter popped into his head.
“Uhoh.”
Shit he didn’t mean to say that out loud. “It’s a huge step in a relationship, sounds like y’all are really committed now.” That pulled a gentle laugh out of Sue. “I think what Johnny is saying is congratulations. Let us know if we are taking up too much of your husband’s time.”
After Ben and Alicia left, Johnny found himself in his lab. Val was at one the desks working on his project without his permission. “Have you solved it yet brainiac?” Valaria glanced up. “No, it’s weird. I keep feeling like it should work, but then it doesn’t.”
“Yup!” Johnny chirped, “but watch this.” He used his finger to heat the liquid instead of the Bunsen burner. The liquid immediately crystallized. “What? How are your flames different from that of the stoves?” Val looked perplexed for the first time in a long time. Johnny smiled “that-“ he paused to grab a fidget toy “is what I am trying to figure out.”
“Have you asked Uncle Doom?”
“Even if I wanted to, I would feel bad about going behind your dad’s back like that.”
“I don’t know if dad would mind!” Valaria lied, “and I can always ask him next time I visit him if you’d like?” Johnny turned off his flame and the crystals turned back into a liquid. “Thanks kiddo…” Johnny looked at the empty space where his sister was standing. “You know it’s rude to sneak up on people” Sue sighed dropping out of invisibility. “Johnny please stop encouraging my daughter to meet with Dr. Doom. Reed is already annoyed that she does it without our endorsement, she doesn’t need the encouragement.”
“Okay, okay” Johnny raised his hands as a symbol of submission. “You heard your mom no more midnight snacks if you run off to see him got it?”
“Your the one that’s been giving her those Cheez It’s? You are such a bad influence.” Sue smiled.
“Learned it from you.” Johnny quipped back.
“Oh, hello Peter. What are you doing here?” Sue glanced into Johnny’s lab. “Having lunch.” Peter said. His face was buried in Johnny’s atomic microscope. Sue shot a confused look at Johnny, who was leaning against the center lab table. He waived his PB sandwich. “Okaaaay? Um, usually we don’t let people use our tech without signing a bunch of NDAs and stuff. It’s all proprietary.” Discomfort was scrawled across Sue’s face. Johnny couldn’t help but laugh.
“He just needed an atomic microscope, nothing proprietary don’t worry.” He took a bite of his sandwich, “Plus Reed would never let me near any of the actual fancy shit.” It came out all garbled from the peanut butter. Both Peter and Sue’s faces snapped up at him “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Peter glanced at Sue. They both chuckled. Johnny glared a Peter. “I liked you better before I fucked the shit out of you.” Peters face flared red.
Sue gasped.
Johnny smirked.
Peter looked like he might cry.
“Fuck,” Johnny sounded frantic, “sorry man, like uh, she’s like my sister so it’s not a big deal she won’t tell anyone.”
Peter stood up and cleared his throat. “I’m gonna…” his voice trailed off. “I going to go eat lunch in the kitchen.” He sounded a bit defeated and he brushed past Sue headed towards the Baxter building kitchen. Sue’s eyes followed Peter till he was out of sight. She turned to face Johnny.
“We should talk.”
Johnny sat opposite Sue. She had left a note to Peter telling him to stay as long as he wanted, and then brought Johnny to her lab. “Johnny… I-“ Johnny cut Sue off “Do you think he hates me? Like I didn’t know he wanted to keep it a secret. Fuck fuck fuck, do you think he’s gonna stop like talking to me? Or maybe he will just pretend like he doesn’t care while he just kinda bottles up the anger. Oh my fuck do you think I could apologize?”
“Johnny!”
“What?”
“I have a bunch of questions.”
There was a heavy pause before Johnny said “give em to me rapid fire.” Sue’s face fell into a deadpan glower. “Eh heh? Get it? Cause I can light on fire…” Johnny trailed off. Sue sighed.
“Are you dating Peter?”
“Fuck, I wish. God he’s so cute.”
Sue grimaced “Are you gay?”
“Would there be an issue if I was?”
“No, but would could use that as a marketing point for our pride stuff. It would stop feeling so Rainbow Capitalism and slightly more authentic.”
“Really, I thought I was the one who controlled the heat, but damn that’s cold sis.”
“Just answer the question.” Sue seemed irked.
“No, I am not like LGBT or, any of the other letters. At least I don’t think so” his tone went from final to sorta confused.
“So it’s just Peter.”
“Kinda, I’ve had sex with other guys, but this… this feels different,” Johnny looked down at the table suddenly feeling a bit shy.
“Okay… Well let’s move on. Do you wanna talk about how you handled that back there?”
“Like a mission debrief? Sure…” Johnny felt a bit hesitant.
“What ever you need to make you listen to me.” Sue paused to take a breath before jumping back in “Your 28 so I think you are old enough to understand that what you did was fucked up Johnny.”
“Yeah,” Johnny mumbled in reply.
“I don’t think Peter hates you, he is probably just hurt that his friend, who is older than him, blurted something really personal in front of another person. Yes I know Peter, but we are not as good friends as you two. You already apologized, and Peter is too smart to bottle this up. He probably wants to talk about it in private.”
Johnny felt some of the stress ease out of his back, “but what do I say? We haven’t brought it up since we, uh, did it.”
“Sex, what you did was sex”
“Yeah that’s the one” Johnny smirked a bit.
“Okay” Sue took a breath, “so this is a recent development then, that makes this simpler!“ Johnny quickly replied, “No. this happened on my Birthday. Remember how I was late? It was because I had gotten super drunk a Peter’s apartment and he didn’t wake me up.”
“Johnny! That was a month and a half ago! What the fuck. You had sex with your BEST FRIEND and didn’t talk about it with ANYONE for a MONTH AND A HALF? Is that why skipped going to Peter’s BIRTHDAY?”
“Uh, yup that’s the one; pretty much sums that up”
Sue put her face her hands. “Oh my god Johnny. Did you even once think that maybe Peter would want to talk about it?”
“Why would he, we just hooked up, it’s like it’s a big deal” Johnny felt a bit confused and upset. What had he missed.
“Johnny, you have hook ups all the time, Peter doesn’t. For all you know that could have been his first time with a guy, or even at all.” Sue spoke softly as the door to her lab slammed open. Reed and Peter walked in. “We heard shouting?” Reed said quizzically. “Did y’all strike the shouting match?” Peter smirked at the shitty pun. Johnny snorted. “Ugh-“ Sue put on her best ew face, “you two deserve each other. Reed, we need to give them space, they have something important to talk about.”
“Right now!?!” Johnny panicked. “No time like the present,” Sue’s smile felt a bit mean. Johnny glanced at Peter. Peter crossed his arms, “let’s go back to your lab, it’s quieter there.”
They ended up going for a walk instead. Johnny had to put on his anti-paparazzi skull cap and mask, but he felt like it would be worth it to get out of the lab during the talk. They walked for a good five blocks before Johnny could get the courage to break the silence. Johnny took a deep breath in, he fought cosmic terrors regularly, but this was definitely the scariest thing he had done. Peter got to it first “I guess I want to know if you actually wanted to have sex with me, or if you were just drunk and horny.” Johnny’s hands caught fire. “Shit!” He quickly doused the flames as fast as he could. “Well” Johnny sucked in the humid summer air, “to be honest… this is really stressful isn’t it” he smiled at Peter, then remembered that he was wearing a mask. He pulled Peter in an ally way so he could take off the mask.
“I-I’ve had like this weird feeling, like right here” he pointed to a point just below his chest, but not quite his stomach, “whenever I’m around you. It’s not like painful or anything, just kinda fuzzy? Like I like it. I want to be around you, I want to make you feel good… so I guess the former? I wanted to have sex with you in particular.”
Johnny leaned back against the wall, the stone helped cool down his body which was close to combusting whether or not he wanted it to.
Peter’s eyes were trained on the ally way entrance, “if it makes you feed better, I did enjoy it… I wish you were a bit gentler, but I-I uh, I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”
“Well you just let me know, I’ll be over whenever you need it.” Johnny felt happier than he could ever remember. What the hell was this feeling, and why did it keep getting stronger. Peter laughed “sure thing hot stuff, but I don’t want to do it every time I’m horny like you.”
Johnny paused as the exchange hung in the air. “Was that all we needed to do, just like figure out what the other wanted?”
“Yup, I think so.”
“Uhh, cool, do you want me to walk you home?”
“No, but let’s make the code word for you ‘helping’ me” Peter put air quotes around the word helping, “something like ‘I’m burning up’” Johnny laughed “only if I can say that I need a good webbing every now and again.”
“Ew that sounds gross.”
“It’s no worse the I’m burning up”
Peter smiled, “sure, well see you later” he waived. Johnny grabbed his hand on impulse. “Wait don’t you wanna do it now?” Oh my god he did not just say that. Peter took a beat to reply. He walked up to the taller man and rose on his toes to kiss him. He set his heels back on the ground. “See you later Hottest Man Alive.” Johnny stammered out some sort of goodbye as Peter left the ally way. Then he combusted. He wished he was wearing his fire proof suit. He grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone and crouched behind a dumpster until he cooled off enough to make a call to his sister. She was going to hold this over him until the day they died.
Johnny came out as pan for pride month the next year.
It was good for the ff brand and it let Peter know that Johnny was interested in an actual relationship. Something more than just weekly hook ups.
“This is, um, this is MJ. She’s my girlfriend.” Peter wouldn’t meet Johnny’s eyes. “So you’re the reason Peter hasn’t been available!” They all laughed. Johnny looked at the ground, it was Peter’s birthday party so who couldn’t exactly make a scene. He just had to smile through the pain. Not the pain from his sprained ankle, though that did hurt, but a weird pain that welled up from the back of his throat. The worst part was that MJ was nice. Like she seemed to genuinely care about Peter. And Peter was straight. Johnny had asked him at one point to see if Peter was interested in a relationship with Johnny.
Later in the party MJ came up to Johnny. “How do you know the birthday boy.” She smiled, damn she was beautiful. Johnny smiled back. “He works with my brother in law from time to time, we hit it off and stay in contact even when he isn’t working with Reed.”
“So your work place buddies?”
Johnny swallowed his drink a bit too hard, “yeah, I guess so.” That’s all they were now.
“Speaking of Reed, he actually needs me back to help with an experiment, he has 100 Bunsen burners but he likes using me.” He chuckled barely holding back tears.
“So you’re gonna go? I wish you’d stay, I’d love to hear your stories about Peter. He talks about you a lot.”
“Yeah, sorry, I really shouldn’t have come anyway.”
“Okay, well at least let me walk you out?”
“Sure” Johnny put on the skull cap and mask as she walked him to the door. Johnny had a lot to ask, but suppressed the urge.
“Well, here we are Mr. Storm.” MJ was clearly forcing the smile.
“Yup, sorry to leave kinda unannounced like this” Johnny rubbed the back of his head and saw Peter making a B-line for them. Johnny quickly exited. He could not face Peter.
He was at the door when Peter caught him. “Wait the fuck up you fucking… ugh, this not how I wanted to do this.”
Johnny glanced back, fuck why did Peter have to look so cute. Oh god Johnny was going to cry.
He turned back to the door. “It’s fine Peter, as I said I want you to be happy okay? I don’t care who that is with.”
“Look Johnny, I’m sorry I can’t reciprocate, I like you, just I don’t think it would- can you at least look at me?” Peter’s voice went from soft to harsh in a fraction of a second. Johnny turned around.
“Oh damn, I’m sorry Firefly. If I’d know that I’d make you cry like this wouldn’t have invited you.” Peter went in for a hug. Johnny pulled away. “Let’s not do that anymore, okay. Just-just give me some time, I'll be back to normal before you can say Flame On.” The joke was half hearted at best. “Okay” Peter surrendered the door handle to Johnny.
Johnny walked all the way back to the Baxter building from Peters apartment, it was a hour and fifteen minute walk. He cried the whole way. Sue met him at the door. She gave him a hug “Peter texted me… are you okay?”
“Just some time off would be nice” Johnny’s voice was rough like a mix of sand paper and gravel.
“I think I’m gonna go to the Bahamas or something. I need to clear my mind.” He crouched in the center of the lobby, resting his arms on his knees. “If I’d known that love would hurt like this I would never gone to Peters apartment last year.” He started gently crying again. Sue pulled him up by the shirt, “okay you get two weeks off, but you gotta be back before the end of the month. We have that mission planned and I don’t want you to miss it.”
Johnny nodded at the given time frame “thanks sis.”