chewing coffee

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/38135608.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Fandom: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Daredevil (Comics),
Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel
Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Relationship: Matt Murdock/Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Matt
Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter
Parker, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page
Character: Matt Murdock, Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson,
Karen Page, Frank Castle, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Clint Barton,
Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Bruce Banner, James "Bucky" Barnes,
Michelle Jones, J. Jonah Jameson, Jessica Jones, Claire Temple,
Johnny Storm
Additional Tags: Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Beta/Omega
Dynamics, Alpha Matt Murdock, Omega Peter Parker, Peter is 24 and
Matt is 31 and at no point do they even know each other when one
party is underage, Complicated Relationships, Getting Together, weird
and messy and clumsy relationships, if you want any kind of traditional
relationship form abo or otherwise probably go elsewhere,
Miscommunication, Past johnny storm/peter parker, Aftermath of friends
with benefits, Aftermath of heats/ruts, awkward times where you fuck a
friend for health purposes and the fallout
Series: Part 2 of jumble sale chic
Stats: Published: 2022-04-03 Updated: 2022-04-08 Chapters: 3/? Words:
21798

chewing coffee
by thevibesaresimplyatrocious

Summary

There are some pieces of himself that Peter has never been very good at keeping.

---------

"MJ and I are back together," says Peter.

Matt sinks the cue ball straight in the fucking corner hole.

Notes

HEY HOWDY HEY READ THIS FIRST

 so i wanna be clear off the bat that this is not gonna be like the first in the series. the first in
the series had a very close and definite ending and all the action centered around getting to
and through single event. this is not gonna be that. it's gonna be different, and i just want
everyone to know that before they decide to press forward and use the mental energy
towards reading this.

the other thing i wanna make clear is that last time i had a close and definitive goal to get to
and way more time on my hands. this will also not be that. im poking at this for fun and i
don't have a lot of time and the last update schedule should not be indicative at all of this
update schedule. it may be a day between chapters, it may be a month, it may be more than
that. i can make absolutely zero promises as to when or even if updates will come, and I
know that that's something that can be hard on people and that's absolutely okay, but i want
to be clear that you probably shouldn't read it if that's the case. i just want everyone to
know that before they commit any mental space to this.

See the end of the work for more notes

 Chapter 1

The Daily Bugle looms above him like a gallows.

Peter stares at it for a damning moment. “Maybe I could walk into traffic.”

MJ doesn’t look up from her Candy Crush streak. “You’d walk out from it again.”

“A semi-truck.” He considers a moment. “Multiple semi-trucks.”

“Only thing that hits you and keeps you down is the Devil’s dick.”

He should not have admitted that he couldn’t walk after.

“MJ.”

She snaps her bubblegum at him, unimpressed.

Peter gives her a look that he hopes appropriately conveys his misery.

“You’re out of the polycule if you can’t make rent.”

“I’ll hawk the key to the city.”

“Absolutely not, you’ll never be able to afford alimony after the divorce. I need something out of
this relationship.”

“I’ll kill us both before I let you take the key to the city.”

“Your entire office does not know that you fucked Daredevil,” says MJ, reassuringly. “You’ve got
too big of an office for that. It would have hit the Internet by now.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I am too,” says MJ, with extreme confidence, and she hoists her bag up higher on her shoulder.
“I’ll pick you up for lunch?”

“So you can mock me?” grouses Peter.

“Yes,” says MJ. Then, she leans over to him and presses her lips to his cheek. “Is it a date?”

Something clicks into place for Peter.

They’re good at waiting, him and MJ. Like tectonic plates eternally grating against one another.
Sometimes they bump, bump, bump, and they shift apart. Then, day comes and they’ve shifted
back together. Settled. Comfortable. Like something feels right, and they have a shot at each other
again.

Matt’s bondmark is fresh against the base of his neck still. Peter has it covered with his shirt collar.
He feels it brush against the fabric when he shifts.

“Yeah,” says Peter, corners of his lips upturning. “Sounds good.”

“I want the grilled cheese truck.”

The grilled cheese truck is the only thing that they lost in the divorce, and oddly enough neither of
them got to keep it.

The grilled cheese truck churned out grilled cheese sandwiches that were greasy as shit. Tasted
like every last ingredient was carved off a massive block of cheese or bread or butter just outta
view, and the block would outlast their grandchildren. It was run by a terrifying Polish woman who
openly hated grilled cheese. Peter has no idea why its her devotion, but it fucking is. Peter wanted
those grilled cheese sandwiches served at his funeral. He wanted those grilled cheese sandwiches
lining his coffin.

Devastatingly, neither of them could go to the grilled cheese truck when they weren’t together. Ms.
Wójick had unilaterally decided that they were both too polite and intelligent and attractive to not
be having regular sex and always tried to fill the gap with random fucking customers who passed
by. She didn’t try to set them up anyone who was less than an eleven out of ten. Ms. Wójick had
extremely high estimations of MJ and Peter’s relative attractiveness and what their sex life should
be. God bless her, Peter’s never been so goddamn uncomfortable in his life than when she’s tried to
wingman for him, except for maybe when Matt announced to all of their friends and colleagues
that he fucked Peter earlier that day. In the shower.

And that Peter was vocal during it, Jesus Christ. He’s walking into traffic. Jameson won’t need
him to take photographs of Spider-Man anymore if he ends it here and now.

“Oh my fucking God, yes, I missed us. Marry me.”

“I knew it,” she says, deadpan. “You were using me for the grilled cheese truck.”

“Yes, babe. I’m glad you understand.”

“It’s fine. I’m just using you for your body.” She gives him a critical look. “Jesus Christ, Devil
really did my job better than I ever could--”

Peter needs the goddamn lovebites to heal. “Relationship over, I cannot thrive.”

“That’s a record for us.” The corners of her lips turn upwards. “See you at lunch, Parker.”

He catches her hand as she leaves, lets her fingers drag through his. “Later, MJ.”

There’s an ache in his chest.

---------

There is a curse that has plagued Peter’s bloodline for generations. There is tale of a damnèd witch
who muttered evil things on a night with no moon, and no Parker has ever been free of it for so
long as the sun has touched their brow.

It’s called being fucking polite, and it's goddamn terminal. Ingrained into their DNA. Fatal fucking
flaw. Someone shouts for Peter to hold the elevator and Peter--you will not believe this part--he
does.

Cathy skids in, panting. “Tha--”

And then fucking freezes like she just remembered she left her keys and wallet and immortal soul
at home.

The doors ding shut.

---------

Third floor.

Peter’s sweating like a goddamn coward already. He thought he would at least have the elevator
ride to brace himself. He could have taken on the fucking world with an elevator ride to prepare
him. Now he’s just some schmuck.

Fifth floor. He thinks he can see Cathy quivering.

It’s fine. This is fine. They both clearly do not want to be doing this right now, and maybe that
means they won’t have to. Maybe there’s that much mercy in the world.

Cathy clears her throat. Goddamn it, girl.

Please be small talk. Please be something he can engage in.

“Crazy weather we had this weekend,” says Cathy, staring resolutely at the door.

Ah, yes, this weekend, where Peter didn’t go outside once. Because he was too busy trying to
swallow Daredevil’s dick.

They both clock the problem with a sudden and brutal immediacy.

It’s okay, girl. They can recover from this. Pretend like you said nothing. Seventh floor. There's a
champ.

“I am so fucking sorry,” says Cathy, still staring at the door.

Recover. Recover.

“The weather was crazy,” says Peter, helpfully. “Really. Crazy.”

“But you didn’t”--she visibly fucking winces--”go outside.”

Girl, recover. He cannot do this by himself.

“I heard it,” says Peter, like it’s not a big deal. “Saw it through a window. Big storm. Crazy stuff.”

It’s the truth. Matt was using him on the couch when the rain started. Peter was laid out against the
cushions and Matt was taking his time with him, working over him with a borderline leisurely air.

He’d get like that, sometimes. Fever would go away, desperation would go away, and all that
would be left was a satisfied control. He wouldn’t let Peter touch him or himself when he got like
that. He would get to touch Peter, would take his time exploring every inch with a thoughtful,
rambling intent, and then Peter would start to run his hands up Matt’s chest or curl his fingers in
his hair or wrap his hand around his own cock, and Matt would just catch him by his wrists and
order him to lay still until Matt was done with him.

Peter pushed his luck, once, twisted his wrist out of Matt’s grip and asked him what he was going
to do about it, and ended up tied to the bed for his trouble with Matt taking no small delight in
keeping him at the brink for as long as he possibly could. He edged Peter on until it became too
much for the rut, until the fever consumed him again and he needed to be inside of Peter, and then
he climbed back up the length of Peter’s body and fucked him hard enough to make him black out.
Peter didn’t come to again until the knot went down, and Matt was so pleased with Peter for the
sounds he had made for him during it all that he wasted no time in stroking Peter until he got hard
and giving him the best blow job of his life. Peter thinks he blacked out again from it, because
there’s a period absent from his memory between when Matt’s lips were around his cock and when
Matt had him in his lap afterwards, tucked securely to his chest while Matt nuzzled against his hair
and told him how good he was.

He let him sleep after that. Peter dozed off in his arms and woke up to find that Matt had tucked
him back under the covers and wrapped himself around Peter’s back. Matt was asleep and Peter
was drowsy and warm with the heat and weight of Matt’s body, and he drifted off until Matt’s
fever spiked again. He woke up to Matt’s tongue in his asshole and Matt’s staunch refusal to help
matters along or to let Peter bring the ordeal to its rightful conclusion, and Peter ended up
promising to make good on his kitchen floor offer if Matt would let him get off.

Peter is going to have to avoid Matt’s kitchen for the foreseeable future. He has done too many
things on too many of its surfaces in order to ever be able to calmly eat toast there without both of
them goddamn thinking about it. And Matt’s bathroom. Jesus, he can’t go near Matt’s bathroom.
And even without Matt’s level of super senses, he’d probably be able to still smell himself in
Matt’s bedroom. For the love of God, neither of them will ever be able to have Peter in his
bedroom without thinking of the intense and acrobatic sex they had in there.

Peter has… had enough sex in his time that he honestly doesn’t need an angry Polish woman trying
to get him laid. He’s had good sex with, in his modest opinion, some extremely attractive people.
Fuck’s sake, he bagged MJ of all people. And like, Johnny, but that was always a health fucking
thing for Peter.

Still, there’s a difference between fucking your average attractive person and fucking Daredevil.

He and Matt were both obscenely fit. They both, individually, outstripped Olympic athletes. They
spent multiple nights a week doing feats of intensive cardio and strength and could contort their
bodies into frankly unrealistic positions. A day or so into the rut, it seemed to cross into Matt’s
extremely addled consciousness that he was unlikely to find a limit of what Peter and he could do
together.

Peter remembers the grin that split Matt’s face when he saw just how far he could bend Peter's
legs.

To be entirely honest, Peter has never done some of the things he just did in Matt’s bedroom, and
he doubts he’ll ever do them again. Not from lack of interest. He just doubts he’ll ever have
another partner in the bedroom with the physical capacity.

He wasn’t pushing his luck when the rain started. He had his hands lax above him and his eyes
shut while Matt prodded his slit with consideration before leaning down to wrap his lips around
Peter’s nipple. It seemed calming for him, almost. Borderline meditative. He never seemed more
relaxed than when he had Peter in front of him, patient and pliant and willing to let him take
control.

Past the one time, Peter never teased Matt when he asked Peter to lie still for him. It was one of the
few times Peter had ever seen him completely relaxed in the entire time he’s known him, and he’s
known him a long fucking time. Peter didn’t mind letting Matt take his time with him.

He guided his tip into Peter and start to fuck him, slow and leisurely, and Peter just bit his lip and
arched his back as Matt buried his face in the side of his neck.

There’s a memory in his mind, sharp and distinct, of watching the roll of Matt’s back over his
shoulder as he thrust into Peter gently, watching the purple light of the billboard cast him in odd,
undulating shadows while he felt Matt rocking in him. The light had warped with the rain
drenching the pane, and Peter saw the flash of lightning mix with the purple of the glow.

He hadn’t even realized that he was drawing circles along Matt’s neck with his fingertips until
Matt leaned back, dragged his thumb along Peter’s cheekbone and told Peter he wasn’t done with
him yet.

He pressed a kiss to Peter’s nose before drawing back and saying, “Are you going to stay still for
me?”

Peter gave it a moment of consideration before replying, “Depends. Are you gonna make it worth
my while?”

Matt had.

Jesus Christ, he needs to stop thinking about all the sex he had with his best friend literally
goddamn two days ago. He still has the man’s teeth marks on his ass.

Cathy looks like she wants to throw herself down the elevator shaft.

“I like the rain,” adds Peter, lamely. “It’s nice. It cleared the air.”

It hopefully obscured anyone’s outside line of sight while Matt held him up to the glass and fucked
him senseless is what it did.

“I need to apologize,” squeaks Cathy. “For some things I said.”

Oh, so they really want to do this. He can oblige.

With a sigh, Peter leans forwards and hits the emergency stop.

Cathy squeaks louder.

“What do you think you know?” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And who knows?”

“I know that you were on the bridge,” she admits, miserably. “When… Daredevil and the Human
Torch got in a, a fight over an omega.”

“Alleged omega,” cuts in Peter.

They work at a newspaper. It’s the principle of the matter.

“I know that you called in with the pictures after. And that… someone else was there.”

Oh, that’s the voice of a woman who’s been told that Peter fucked the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
That’s the voice of a woman who knows that Peter spent that phone call under the close
consideration of a clingy and possessive vigilante who’s crippled criminal empires. And then spent
a rut with that same possessive and clingy vigilante.

“And I know I said some, some really inappropriate things after you got back from your last rut,”
says Cathy, with extreme pain and precision. “About Johnny Storm. And. You.”

Mother fucker.

“Allegedly,” stresses Peter. He drags a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ. Who thinks what you
think?”
“Just the people who were in the room, I think,” says Cathy, wincing. “Maybe whoever in HR
changed your leave status. And me. I heard it… around.”

She heard it from fucking Laurie, the traitor, because Laurie has a big fat crush on Cathy and is a
total fucking simp about it.

Cathy chews on her lip like she’s trying to bite it off. “I didn’t mean to… when I was talking, I was
just… I don’t know. Dumb celebrity gossip. Teasing. I didn’t know it was you.”

Peter opens his mouth.

“Allegedly,” adds Cathy, quickly. “I didn’t know it was allegedly you. When I said what I said.”

Peter understands her embarrassment. He, too, would be embarrassed if he speculated about how
many times someone made their partner come or whether that same someone’s dick heated up
when they did the deed to the face of the person who turned out to be that partner. Then again, he
wouldn’t have said it at all, so he feels the embarrassment is warranted.

He eternally regrets going out for drinks with folks from work, actually, a week or so after he got
back from Johnny’s rut when it was still a major part of the public’s consciousness. Everyone got
mouthy and crude four drinks in, and Cathy got the entire fucking table caught on the subject. It
was open season. People he’d known since he was goddamn fifteen were pretty happily
speculating about how good of a fuck he must be and whether he swallows.

Back then, everyone half thought that the news of Storm’s omega was going to drop any day.
There were suspicions that the omega wouldn’t come forward, but they were still pretty muted. He
had already kept quiet about the rut for longer than anyone thought that he would. Most people
thought that he would come forward before the rut, and then when that passed, everyone thought
he was waiting until after to make sure that the Fantastic Four didn’t call it off and replace him.
Then, a few days started passing, and the discussion shifted towards how he must be getting a PR
agent, must be negotiating the cost for talk show appearances…

Peter wasn’t doing any of that, and he knows for a fucking fact that the entire Fantastic Four save
Johnny thought he was. Whatever. He was too busy to care in the days after. A drug ring got bold
in the time without Spider-Man. Peter was busy rounding up dickheads that were giving heroin to
disenfranchised ten year olds and then planning to force them into drug running and crimes and the
goddamn sex trade after they got them hooked.

It pissed him off. Entire world was acting like Johnny’s dick was the most important thing that
ever happened to Peter, and Peter was in the middle of rushing an elementary schooler to the
hospital to try and get her help before the OD killed her.

She lived. Her name was Susie. Iron Fist ended up teaming up with him on the problem, and she
found her hospital bills were paid for complimentary of Rand Industries and long-term care was
arranged for and her foster placement got moved to a good family with a dog in the suburbs.

Danny sends him pictures sometimes, which Susie’s foster parents send to Rand Industries,
ostensibly as a part of the Rand Industries Welfare Initiative.

Her favorite color is red. She keeps her hair in rows and rows of braids and has little red butterfly
clips at the end. She has Spider-Man bedsheets and a t-shirt with his face on it.

When he went out for the drinks, it was two days after he brought Susie to the hospital, and he
didn’t know if she was going to make it. He felt like shit about it. Drug ring was already gone.
Spider-Man came back with a vengeance and a reminder of why he was feared as much as he was
loved. He made an example out of them, because he wasn’t going to have people thinking that they
were safe from him just because he left for a few weeks.

Nothing in the city was moving while Spider-Man was on a warpath. No one would shut the fuck
up about Johnny Storm’s omega. MJ and Ned were worried. He had to talk to another fucking
social worker because post-rut was hard on the body if the alpha wasn’t there to soothe their
omega through it, and Peter needed supplements to be well enough to handle the goddamn drug
ring, and they wanted to know why he didn’t have his alpha taking care of him instead. As if that
was any of their fucking business.

Peter just wanted to get drinks with people who didn’t know about all the shit in Peter’s life.

Then, Cathy gets them all on the topic of Johnny Storm’s omega and no one gets off it again.
Fucking Rob from Accounts, who Peter wouldn’t piss on if he were on fire, started waxing poetic
about how an alpha like Johnny Storm must have had his pick of anyone. About how there must
have been some kind of audition process or screening process. Omegas must have lined up to let
him try them out and the one who was the best fuck must be the one who got to spend the rut with
him.

Johnny Storm’s omega must be willing to do anything in bed, and God, wouldn’t you sell your
fucking soul for half an hour with an omega like that? Lucky sons of bitches like Storm got the best
pieces of ass.

Peter ended up leaving after ten minutes of it. Told them he felt sick and was headed home. A few
of the more sober ones thought he was uncomfortable because he had just taken off work for a rut,
and pulled him aside after a meeting the next day. Apologized for making him uncomfortable, told
him it wasn’t anything about omegas or how they were during ruts or whatever. Rob was drunk
and it made him crude. It didn’t reflect on omegas. They were just poking fun at famous people
they’d never meet. Everyone was just having harmless fun.

It was just stupid celebrity gossip. No one meant anything by it.

He didn’t go home after he left. He put on the suit and went to Hell’s Kitchen. Went after a violent
biker gang that had been making overtures towards Queen’s.

Halfway through the fight, all the lights went out.

When the lights go out in Hell’s Kitchen, the Devil’s arrived.

Matt didn’t say a goddamn word about any of it, about why Peter was obviously fucked up over
something or why he was taking on twenty men alone or why he probably still smelt like booze
and Johnny Storm. Didn’t utter a fucking syllable about how Peter was very obviously the omega
who spent the rut with Johnny.

They went to his place after. Got a bag full of tacos and a box of beer and packed them away on the
floor of Matt’s living room, sitting in front of the coffee table as they ate with their legs crossed
under them like they were kids on a sleepover.

Peter didn’t tell him jack about Johnny, about the rut, about how the bond mark had stayed longer
than he was comfortable with and how it fucked him up for days with worry. About how the
Fantastic Four had showed up the same fight as Spider-Man the other day, and how Johnny tried to
take a hit for him. How he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t proof that anything
changed between them.
Because things had stayed the same for Peter, is the thing. Rut ended and it was like a coat Peter
could shed in time for spring. He didn’t need to simper for Johnny anymore, didn’t need to bare his
neck, didn’t need to get to his knees in the space between Johnny’s legs and hold his mouth open
for Johnny to drive into.

It wasn’t… Peter didn’t feel bad about what they did together. Sex was good and Johnny was a
friend. He was fully comfortable with the decision he made. He just, he didn’t want to make it
again. He only did all of that, the fucking and the moaning and the arching his back, because his
friend needed someone to do it, and there wasn’t anyone else but Peter who would do it right.

Once that need disappeared, Peter didn’t have any reason to keep doing it. He wasn’t going to keep
sucking Johnny off if he didn’t have to in order to keep Johnny safe and healthy. Rut went away,
and Peter went back to being Johnny’s friend instead of his mate. It was easy. He didn’t care.

Everyone else goddamn did, except for Matt. Matt probably knew more than anyone else about
what he and Johnny did on merits of his senses alone, and he didn’t fucking care.

It was normal. It was nice. Peter had been so goddamn grateful for it.

Peter leans against the back of the elevator. “I’m going to speak in hypotheticals,” he says, even
and measured.

Cathy nods with existential misery. “Okay.”

“Hypothetically speaking, sometimes you’re fifteen and half of the family income just ended up in
the ground, and now your only family left alive has no goddamn chance of making rent,” he says,
as flat as a board. “Sometimes, you decide the only thing you can do to make money is to get the
pictures no one else can. Pictures that may be dangerous or difficult to get. Pictures people will pay
for. And sometimes you make a name in that, and you may keep doing it, because the people you
love keep fucking dying and gravestones are expensive.”

Cathy visibly winces. Right. Peter didn’t talk about why he started taking the pictures, not with
anyone.

Jameson knew. Jameson went to May’s funeral. Braced him on the shoulder and squeezed, once,
and didn’t say a word. Peter had nodded once, and he didn’t say anything either. He walked off to
where MJ and Ned and Matt and Foggy and Karen were standing, and Matt had realized then and
there that Peter was going to leave the funeral to throw himself off somewhere high from the shake
of his hands.

He didn’t let him. He didn’t trust Peter to catch himself before the sidewalk rushed up to meet him.
He dragged him back to his apartment and forced him onto his couch until he trusted Peter to not
kill himself, which is the same couch that Peter shoved Matt onto four days ago, had him lay prone
so Peter could straddle him and bite at his lips while he stroked him to full mast beneath him.

It’s the same couch he eased himself down onto Matt’s cock and rode him until they both finished.
Matt had slid his hand up Peter’s chest while he thrust up hard into him and wrapped it around his
throat like a collar. He squeezed around Peter’s throat as he came, not tight enough to choke, and
the pressure was enough to send Peter into his own orgasm. When they were done, Peter collapsed
forward onto Matt’s chest, and Matt guided his head forward until he was tucked into the crook of
Matt’s neck, and they laid there until the knot went down. After, Matt was coherent enough to talk,
and they stayed on the couch with their legs intertwined and whispered back and forth about
whether the other thought the Albanians were making in-roads to Brooklyn, and whether the
Hawkeyes would be calling in favors to handle it, until his concentration started waning in a way
that meant the rut was worsening again.

Peter had kissed the corner of his mouth when he started faltering. Told him it was okay, and that
he had him. Matt Murdock was a man of many words and never faltered with a single one of them.
It messed him up, sometimes, those rare moments in-between, the moments where Matt realized he
was missing something.

Matt had made it no more than half an hour more before he lost his words entirely. He coaxed
three fingers into Peter’s mouth and only seemed satisfied when Peter began to suck, and Peter
licked and suckled and moaned around Matt’s fingers while Matt reached down with his other
hand and played with Peter’s groin.

When he was satisfied, he made Peter kneel with his ass in the hair and his face at Matt’s crotch
level, and Matt fingered him open with his own spit and slick as lube while Peter kept his cock
warm for him.

Matt had pet his hair calmly while Peter choked on his dick. He had kept one hand curled
comfortably in his hair while the other scissored Peter open for him. The entire time, he kept his
dick seated fully in the hot, wet tightness of Peter’s throat, and every breath Peter managed tasted
and smelled like Matt.

Once, he slid back slightly and suddenly, Matt’s gentle fingers twisted in Peter’s hair and jerked
him forward by the roots, forcing himself in as deep as he could manage. He fucked Peter’s throat
for a few hard, rough strokes before pulling out entirely, dragging Peter forward by his hair until
his face was buried in Matt’s groin. He held him there.

Peter figured it out. Make it up to him.

He licked and suckled at Matt’s balls until the harsh tangle in his hair loosened, sucking them into
his mouth entirely and massaging them with his tongue. He kept it up until Matt pet his hair with
his previous softness and gently guided him back to feed his dick back between his lips. He seated
himself back in Peter’s throat with a calm caress down the line of his neck, and then he went back
to fucking Peter open with his fingers and Peter’s spit.

He got actual lube from somewhere after he decided he was ready for Peter. Peter remembers the
pop of the cap from behind him, and the cold chill as Matt slowly sank himself fully inside. Peter
remembers a featherlight kiss pressed to his shoulder blade before Matt pulled himself out and
rammed himself back in, and when Peter’s knees finally gave out under the onslaught, he only took
a moment to shift his grip and change his angle before he fucked him rough into the floorboards.

He had pulled Peter into his lap after it was over. Pressed kisses to his face like he was the most
precious thing in the world. Told him he had been perfect for him. Held him until his chest stopped
heaving and then carried him back to bed to rest.

Peter needs to stop thinking about the rut. He doesn't know why he keeps thinking about it.

“Sometimes, when you’re on the edges of the same community for a decade, you meet people.
You make friends.”

“Friends,” echoes Cathy, slightly tinged with disbelief.

Right. Because any time anyone tries to get Peter to say anything about his picture-taking process,
he threatens to pack up his camera and take his Pulitzer-nominated images to the New York
Times.
He knows people think that he has an in with the super community of New York. He knows people
have suspected for a long time that he had more of a relationship with these people than just their
photographer. People have speculated since he started that Spider-Man, specifically, allowed him
to take the photos that he did. As to the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jones and Cage… it
varies. No one’s sure. Peter doesn’t talk about it, ever.

“Friends,” says Peter, agreeably. “Friends who are good people. Controversial. But good fucking
people. You know that with everything in you. You’d trust them to the end of the world.”

“Right. Friends.”

“And sometimes, friends need help. Unusual help. Help you really wouldn’t be comfortable giving
them if it wasn’t dire. But it is.”

She swallows. “Right.”

“And sometimes that help is personal. Really personal. Private, you might say. Just about the most
private thing you can do with someone. Except, for some reason, every single person in the entire
world has made that help their business. And it may not be, strictly speaking, safe for your friend to
get this help from someone else. Maybe there’s some… unusual personal problems complicating it.
Maybe they’re a bit of a notorious figure, and they can’t afford to have just anyone seeing them in a
vulnerable state. Maybe that may get them fucking murdered, actually.” His jaw tightens. “Or
maybe you just feel bad for your friend. Because they have something really personal and private
happening to them, and instead of the rest of the world respecting that, people went and made a
goddamn SNL sketch about it. Maybe.”

Utter silence.

“Of course, this is all hypothetical,” he says, breezily. “But hypothetically speaking, you may care
a lot about these people. You may think that they’re the best people you know, and that they’ve
sacrificed a lot of themselves for a city you both love, and that it isn’t fair that saving so many
people means that this already stressful thing is so much worse. You may want them to be okay,
mentally and physically and emotionally. You may be scared that you’re going to have to buy
another goddamn gravestone. You may think it would actually, truly kill you to lose one more
person you loved. So you may offer to do something for them that you probably wouldn’t have
otherwise. Something private and intimate and something that’s no one’s business but your own.
And you may do it on the grounds that you both shut the fuck up about it after and forget it ever
happened.”

Cathy plucks at her bag strap. She doesn’t say anything.

“And, hypothetically, it may ruin your entire life if it came out that you did this favor for your
friends. It may be that a lot of people have opinions as to whether you should keep doing it for one
of your friends, for some fucking reason. Or it may be that you’re not exactly exclusively into
alphas, and the actual relationships you’re in may make someone, oh, hate crime your partner,
because you’ve got their ideal alpha interested in you, and you’re in love with another omega. Or it
may be that your friends have made a habit of pissing off some very powerful and morally corrupt
people who may, hypothetically speaking, be coming back from oh, Barbados soon. And maybe,
hypothetically, you’ve got an entire life for yourself that you worked hard to build outside of any
favors you may or may not have done. And you don’t appreciate everyone else coming in and
casting judgment on that life simply on the basis of shit you did when you were terrified your
friends were going to die.”

The tension in the elevator ratchets up a few notches.

“We work for a newspaper,” says Peter, tightly. “That doesn’t mean I think everything should be
news.”

“I am sorry, Peter,” says Cathy, sniffling slightly.

“I know,” says Peter, sighing. “I appreciate your apology, Cathy. Really. I do.”

“I didn’t… it was just stupid celebrity gossip. I didn’t think.”

He mops a hand across his jaw. “I know. It’s… it’s easy, to forget how stuff can affect people
when you never meet them or know them and they shouldn’t ever be able to hear you. But,
hypothetically speaking, I probably wouldn’t have made any offers to any friends at all if it weren’t
for the stupid celebrity gossip meaning it would be plastered all over the front page if I hadn’t.”

She nods, visibly miserable.

“I do appreciate your apology,” says Peter, after a beat. “It’s more than most people would have
given me.”

He turns off the emergency stop.

The elevator starts to move again.

Before it reaches their floor, Peter says, “Cathy?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to not spread this around. Tell me you can do that.”

She nods, after a beat. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Ding.

---------

From across the table, Jameson chews furiously on his cigar and folds his hands across the desk.

Peter stares expectantly back.

Jameson clears his throat.

Peter raises an eyebrow.

Jameson clears his throat louder.

Peter smiles brightly.

Yeah, boss man. He’s not starting this meeting. He’s not helping it on at all.

“Did you get anything from the bank robbery on 13th?” he says, eventually.

“Nope,” says Peter, leaning back. “Still on my vacation.”

Actually, he was in red and blue tights and punching a dickhead whose disguise was an honest to
God tube sock. But the one value of Matt starting his rut a day early meant that it ended a day
earlier than planned. He could get back on the street way sooner than anyone who shared a rut
should have been able to. And Peter has suddenly found alibis to be a thing he needs way more of.
Matt agreed to stay in from Daredevil for as long as everyone projected his rut to last, plus a day or
so to muddy the waters. Spider-Man needed to be active when the Devil was supposed to be
rutting. He couldn’t have anyone connecting the two.

“Damnit, Parker,” barks Jameson. “The Tribune’s already printed images.”

“The Tribune printed a blurry cell phone shot of Spider-Man halfway over a skyscraper. On page
nine. I promise you that we’re still on top, boss man.”

“The Tribune’s readership is up.”

“Ain’t from their Spider-Man shots,” mutters Peter.

Ah, stifling awkwardness, his old friend.

If the Tribune’s readership is up, it’s because they’ve spent the past week printing on their front
page photoshopped images and headlines promising breaking news about the Human Torch’s and
Daredevil’s shared omega. MJ is making a collage for their coffee table scrapbook. Peter is
plagued in his life.

Jameson could really increase readership with a single article. And that fact has been haunting
Peter.

“Parker I”--he more hacks out a lung than clears his throat--“I’d like to speak to you on some
pressing matters.”

Peter stares at him.

Jameson stares back.

Peter stares at him for even longer.

Jameson starts to twitch.

“Fire away,” says Peter.

“Now, Parker, I’ve known you since you were a boy.”

Oh God, this again.

“Yes sir.”

“And it’s more than that. I’ve known your family. I’ve had dinner with your guardians. I was at
your aunt’s wedding. I’d like to think that we were friends.”

Oh God, don’t bring up the time Aunt May almost married Doc Ock. Do not fucking bring that up.
So many boundaries were crossed that day. Peter still feels violated.

“And I won’t pretend that our relationship is, well, more than it is. I won’t pretend to be some kind
of authority in your personal life. But now that your guardians are gone, I, well… I feel there’s a
measure of responsibility in it, watching a boy grow up in front of you.”

Touching, Jameson. Truly, Peter would feel blessed to have this conversation in any other scenario
that doesn’t involve who Peter fucked. Please do not feel responsible for Peter’s sex life.
“I’ve had some concerns,” says Jameson, like he’s trying to eject the words from his mouth. “The
past… week. Things I wished I handled better in the moment. And I feel that if we aired them now
we, well, the matter would be done and we wouldn’t have to discuss it. Ever again.”

God, please.

“Sure,” says Peter, with a little nod. “Let’s do it.”

Jameson waffles for a moment. He mumbles into his mustache.

Yes, Peter, too, has struggled with the unending weight of these conversations.

“Damn it all,” sighs Jameson, flopping back in his chair. “Parker, no one’s a hero every moment of
their life.”

This took a weird turn. “I suppose.”

“And people they, they get emboldened when they have the will of the people behind them. They
think they can get away with more things. That’s the importance of the press. We show the truth of
the matter. Show it how it truly is. Combat the mob’s approval with the cold reality.”

Why does this feel like another anti-Spider-Man lecture? This is how anti-Spider-Man lectures
start.

“The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has held the public’s approval for years,” says Jameson, taking the
cigar from his mouth and tossing it on the table. “The people trust him. But that trust shouldn’t be
blind. My trust isn’t blind. Fundamentally he’s a man, and a man of great means. The public trusts
him not to abuse those means, but it shouldn’t be given out of hand.

“Parker… nothing you say will leave this room. A yes or no answer will suffice. You’re a very
capable man, Parker. You always get your shot. But the Devil’s capable too, and you’ve been
crossing his path for years.” He sighs. “If everything that… happened… on your vacation was
consensual, then I want to hear no more about it. But if there was say, some, some coercion by a
man of means… I’m not without resources, Parker. Say the word, and we can discuss options.
You’ll be protected.”

The entire line of questioning stuns Peter enough that he has to sit back.

It takes him a moment. From the perspective of someone who knows Matt, the entire thing iea is
absurd. Hard to even follow the reasoning, actually, it’s that ridiculous.

From someone who only knows the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?

Young, unbonded, moderately attractive omega with no family and few resources keeps ending up
in the path of a violent, territorial, and possessive alpha who has brought criminal empires to their
knees. Hypothetically speaking, it’s not impossible to say that the Devil wouldn’t be attracted to a
random someone crossing his path.

It’s plausible, actually, but Jameson doesn't know that. Peter knows that. Matt’s sort of a huge slut.
It's incredibly embarrassing for vigilantes as a profession.

So. Hypothetically speaking, there’s a violent and possessive alpha now into Peter, and he’s got an
ear so close to the ground that people legitimately think invoking his name summons him. And
this violent and possessive alpha has a rut coming around.
Way back when, in the not-so-distant past where everything was even more rapey and everyone
just pretends it was okay because it was a different time, it would be a given that an alpha with a
territory as big as the Devil’s would think that they had the pick of any unbonded omega who
crossed their borders. Peter had followed him around in his territory. He had taken pictures of him.
He had done so while being unmated. Some alphas might have thought that Peter was their right.

And, granted, the actual Matt would be disgusted at the very thought. But this is a hypothetical
Devil. A Devil formed only from conflicting headlines and word of mouth.

Daredevil has the people’s tentative trust. But that doesn’t change the fact that to most people, he’s
more mythos than man. Peter knows Matthew Murdock. That doesn’t mean everyone else does.

A Devil without the morals of Matthew Murdock would, hypothetically speaking, decide that he
wanted to spend his rut with the omega of his choosing. In this case, a version of Peter who
couldn’t kick his fucking ass.

If he approached Peter, and told him as much, one hypothetical Peter agrees, and there isn’t,
strictly speaking, a problem. Wouldn’t ever be anything he would actually do, but this is a
hypothetical Peter with different, also hypothetical, interests. This Peter is one million percent
more in awe of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, has no superpowers, somehow still makes worse life
choices, and has never seen Matt drunk and crying because Foggy kissed him on the tip of his nose
and that caused a singular emotion within him, which was one too many. This Peter is willing to
fuck Daredevil in the mask. This Peter consented, so it doesn’t matter.

A different hypothetical Peter would tell the Devil to get fucked. He wasn’t going to spend a rut
with him just because he was Daredevil. He wasn’t interested, and he wasn’t consenting.

A different hypothetical Peter doesn’t have superpowers, doesn’t have the actual Peter’s combat
skills, doesn’t have resources, doesn’t have all those things that Peter never told Jameson about,
and therefore doesn’t have any way of stopping the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

The police couldn’t stop Daredevil. The FBI couldn’t. The CIA couldn’t. Fisk couldn’t. Frank
Castle couldn’t.

Daredevil could easily find out where he lived. Where Ned and MJ lived. Where he worked, who
he was, how to find him. There’s nowhere Peter could run that the Devil wouldn’t track him. He’d
have no way to overpower the Devil on his own, and no one he could turn to protect him.

And if that hypothetical Peter was approached by that hypothetical Devil one night, he’d probably
come to the same conclusion that Jameson probably did while he spent the past week chewing on
cigars and his own thoughts.

That it’d be safer to just give in.

This Devil isn’t taking no for an answer. This Devil knows where he lives and where his family
lives. This Devil could have him as his willing, beloved, and cherished mate, or he could have him
as a mate he’d have to fuck his claim into.

It’d be safer to agree to it.

It would hurt less.

Peter agreed, out of the blue, to a rut four fucking days before it happened, with an alpha whose
blood ran very hot on the best of days. That’s insane. That’s risking the most embarrassing
hospitalization ever, had Peter not had super everything. That’s not the sort of decision people
make out of hand.

Peter could have had his own reasons. Or, he could have been a week out from a rut that was
looking to be very rough and decide to cut his losses to make it as easy on himself as possible.

If the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen were not a good man, then there’s little that a normal, averagely fit
twenty-four-year-old guy could do to stop him from taking what he wanted. If he wanted Peter…

Peter looks like he’s in an active fucking state of crisis at any given moment. He always appears
stressed enough to be in a violent and dangerous stalking scenario. He’s been recommended for
domestic abuse counseling on twelve separate occasions. Who would have noticed him looking
more paranoid in the days leading up to it? That’s just his face.

Hypothetical Peter would have known that he couldn’t, physically, stop the Devil. He’d probably
never make it out of the city if he tried to run--enough criminals have failed. He wouldn’t be able
to go to the police. Anyone he told would think he’s a nutcase, and even if they believed him, they
wouldn’t be able to save him.

He wouldn’t have any options. He’d be spending the rut with the Devil whether he liked it or not.

So maybe that Peter agrees, in the eleventh hour. Maybe that Peter promises to be the Devil’s
omega, agrees to wear clothes with his scent and let him brand his neck with his teeth and do God
knows what else that led to Peter’s appearance in Jameson’s office that first day.

Fisk fled the fucking country, and a lot of men were in comas. Getting on his knees for the Devil
then and soothing him before the rut hit would have been an act of self-preservation.

Peter’s a good fucking actor, and he’s got a self-sacrificing streak a mile wide. Entire office found
that out the one time an armed mob decided to take exception to what they were printing. Peter
kept them talking long enough for Johnny Storm to arrive, suddenly and unexpectedly and not at all
summoned by a text from Peter’s phone. He would have kept acting normally and wouldn’t have
put an extremely possessive Devil’s sights on anyone.

And if Daredevil had him? He likely wouldn’t have interfered with anything Peter did in those final
days. Once Peter came to heel and agreed to be his for the rut, he would have given him enough
leash to arrange matters, as long as Peter remained his. Peter would have had the freedom to walk
into his office and call out for a rut. Why wouldn’t he? He had his mate’s teeth marks on the crook
of his jaw. He wasn’t running anymore.

Only thing the Devil would have cared about was Peter’s old alpha coming calling, and honestly…
it’s anyone’s guess as to whether Peter would have actually gone to the Fantastic Four for help. He
had his own very visible issues around Johnny and the Four following his rut with Johnny. Dove-
in-bushes-to-avoid-Reed-Richards-in-front-of-his-boss visible. It’s a coin toss as to whether he
would have turned to them, or if it would have changed things in the end. Devil kicked the shit out
of Storm easily enough when the time came.

The Fantastic Four were mainstream. Spotlight folks. Devil lived in the shadows and regularly
used skills none of the Four had.

And Peter is self-sacrificing. Fifty-fifty shot as to whether he would have risked it.

In the moment of the phone call, Peter wonders what Jameson thought. They had just put together
the pieces that the omega was Peter. They knew he was with Daredevil when the call happened.
Not much more.
They didn’t get much of Daredevil from the phone call. At best, a few snatched words arguing
about Peter needing to rest. Not the sort of concern you’d expect from an alpha who was forcing
his mate to spend it with him. But, then again, not exactly mutually exclusive either. The Devil
could have still cherished him as a precious object without caring for whether or not he actually
wanted it.

Did Jameson fully suspect then? Or did he suspect after Peter hung up a phone that didn’t belong to
him, surrendered it back to the Devil, and dropped off the face of the Earth for a week?

“I’m okay, Mr. Jameson,” says Peter, gently. “I promise. He didn’t hurt me.”

“Yes or no, Parker.” He swipes furiously at his shirt. “I’d rather not, uh, know about certain
aspects of employees’ lives. But damn it, I won’t be seeing any of our employees be harmed in the
line of duty. This business is dangerous enough without having the support of the paper. If you
were forced into something by someone of power, then the Bugle will support you.”

“I consented. The entire time. I wasn’t coerced at any point. He didn’t even ask me. I… offered. He
needed someone. So I offered. He took good care of me. I wasn’t hurt.”

JJJ looks deeply uncomfortable in the way that only a man who just learned that the boy he’s
known since he was goddamn fifteen offers to have acrobatic and intensive sex with masked
crusaders of the night for week long stretches can. He coughs.

“Right. Welcome back, Parker. Go… anywhere else.”

“I could go get more pictures of Spider-Man?” offers Peter. “To defeat the Tribune?”

“I don’t care. Just don’t be in my office.”

That’s fair.

---------

The fun thing about getting paid for pictures of himself is that, in a way, the Daily Bugle is the
sole beneficiary of Spider-Man. He’s basically been ordered to go fight crime on company time, if
you think about it.

He stops a mugging and a car chase before it comes time to meet MJ for lunch.

They walk up to the grilled cheese truck hand-in-hand, which Peter doesn’t actually read as a sign
that they’re together-together again. They haven’t had the Talk yet. No, this is a defense
mechanism. This is to save them from abject humiliation.

Ms. Wójick glares furiously at their combined hands when they walk up. She menaces the grill top
with her spatula.

“Hi, Ms. Wójick,” says Peter. He beams like the goddamn dream child he is. “How are you
doing?”

She shoves her glasses up the bridge of her nose with suspicion. Peter starts sweating.

“It has been some time since you have been to my truck,” she says, laboriously.

“It’s been really busy.”

“You fools broke up again,” she accuses. Right on the head, Ms. Wójick. “It is only then that you
do not come and stuff your face.”

Ouch.

“Hahaha,” says Peter. “Can we get seven sandwiches?”

“You are back together?”

“I would love a drink too,” says MJ, also laughing nervously.

“You were still having sex, no?”

“Do you have the glass bottle cokes?” begs Peter.

MJ squeezes his hand with strength and determination. They could survive this. They had survived
the wrath of the Kingpin. They could survive a sandwich truck. “Or a cream soda.”

She folds her unusually muscular arms across her chest. “In my day, I did not have enough sex.
Now, I am old.”

“God help us,” says MJ, out loud, to her face.

Ms. Wójick does not care. Ms. Wójick wields her spatula at them. “You have youth and beauty.”

“And no fucking grilled cheeses,” laments MJ.

“This shit.” She raps her spatula on the grill top. “I hate this shit. I spit on this shit.”

“I really, really hope you don’t,” Peter tells her, with all the hope of the world within him.

Ms. Wójick had no idea how advertising worked, or how safe business practices worked, or how
boundaries worked, or how to talk to human people. What she did have was a fucking deal with
Satan himself on how to make the most singularly mind-blowing grilled cheeses known to man.
Peter doesn’t know why they’re so addictive. They were the most fucking basic, stock grilled
cheeses ever, and they could drive you off-the-walls insane with cravings. Peter once met a kind
and bewildered Japanese gentleman who bought a plane ticket and flew back to New York after
having one of her sandwiches on vacation, just so he could eat six grilled cheeses in a row on the
park bench outside her truck. She had nine thousand reviews on Yelp and counting, and all were
profoundly confused. Peter adored this woman in all the times when he didn’t hate her.

“There is nothing you can find in this truck that does not pale in comparison to a good bedfellow.”

Peter doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

“Have you had your grilled cheeses?” he tries.

“They are shit. I spit on them.”

He has never met a woman who hated her job as much as Ms. Wójick. He has also never met a
woman who was as good as her job as Ms. Wójick. She owns this business. It is completely
voluntary. She laments it like she is suffering in the pits of hell. He doesn’t understand her, is the
thing.

“See, you keep saying those words, and you haven’t answered whether they’re a metaphor or not.”

“I will make you your shit sandwiches,” she says, and still doesn’t fucking answer. “And you will
not waste the gifts given to you by God.”

Which would be their bangin’ bods.

“Peter just spent a rut with an alpha with the best ass you’ve ever seen,” says MJ, earnestly and,
God help them both, honestly. “He’s just had so much sex. Literally so much sex. Please give me a
fucking cream soda.”

Peter mugs at her.

Ms. Wójick considers them with suspicion.

“That will be $11.97,” she says.

Ah, the other reason they kept subjecting themselves to Ms. Wójick. She charged like she thought
it was still the Great Depression. Ain’t another place in New York like it, and there’s a lot of
fucking places in New York.

She passes Peter his coke. MJ her cream soda. Slams the window shut, because her black magic
was never done where others could see. Horrible noises sound from within.

MJ pops the bottle cap on the side of the truck. She doesn’t make eye contact.

Peter folds his arms and stares.

“I did what I had to do to fucking survive,” says MJ, shamelessly. “You would have thrown me
under the exact same bus.”

“I wouldn’t.”

MJ stares at him.

“I wouldn’t have included the bit about his ass,” amends Peter. “That was unnecessary.”

She takes a long, slow swig of her drink. “Was his ass as good as everyone thinks it is? I mean,
I’ve seen it up close and clothed, and it’s a fucking masterpiece. You, however, got hands-on
experience.”

“Nope,” says Peter, covering his ears with his hands. His coke bottle feels cold against the side of
his face. “Fucking never. Never, MJ.”

“You never kiss and tell.” She smiles around the mouth of the bottle. “It’s a good thing. I like it
about you.”

“Yeah? You like other things about me too?”

“I have a list.” She takes his hand in hers and swings it. “Wanna eat someplace with a view?”

Peter grins.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Summary

“I don’t regret Matt. I want to be clear about that.”

She nudges him. “Didn’t think you would.”

MJ went to those funerals too.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Peter tells her, firmly, because he needs that to be absolutely
fucking clear. He won’t have anyone thinking Matt did. Matt’s too good of a man and
too good of a friend for people to think that. He went to way too far of extents during
this trying not to hurt Peter for anyone to think that. “He took care of me. It was never
bad for me. Not once. I walked out of that in the best state possible.”

“Possible,” echoes MJ.

And there’s the rub. “Yeah. Possible.”

“We don’t have to get back together,” MJ tells him. The wind ruffles her hair as she speaks. She’s
got her legs crossed beneath her and her coat tight over her chest. The ground is so far below, the
people look like ants. “Not now.”

“I knew it,” says Peter, around his bite of grilled cheese. “You were using me as a shield for grilled
cheese.”

“Yes,” says MJ, deadpan, then takes a bite of her own. “I want to get back together. We don’t have
to now. We can wait.”

“Maybe I want to get back together. Or don’t, but I get to decide it. Did you consider that?”

“I have. That’s why we’re having the Talk instead of me deciding to wait on my own.” She picks
at the wax paper with a frown. “We really don’t have to, Pete.”

The Talk was the only prerequisite for them seesawing back into a relationship, and it was to set
the expectation and terms of the current mental state of both parties with respect to Them. It was
brutally honest by requirement, and probably one of the only reasons why they managed to keep
themselves friends over the years.

There were a lot of fuck ups in Peter’s life. MJ would never be one of them.

Peter takes a swig of coke. “Is this because of Matt?”

“Yes.” She shrugs, calmly. “Not in a bad kind of way. I’m not jealous or mad or whatever. But
your emotions are naturally gonna be a little fucked from this. It’s biological. Lots of mood-
changing hormone shit with sex, and it’s way worse with mating cycles. If you need time, we’ll
wait.”

Peter looks down at her lap. “About that. I’m gonna drop soon. And I’m… I’m just gonna drop. No
supplements. I’ve already decided.”

MJ visibly takes this in.

“I know I’ve been joking a lot,” she says, “but I need to ask a few things, and I’m not casting
judgment or making assumptions about anyone as I do it. I just need to ask. I need us both to be
dead serious and just do it, and then we never have to fucking talk about it again, okay?”

“Fire away.”

“Did Matt do aftercare with you? I’m not talking about after the rut. I’m talking about during.”

Aftercare’s important. With all sex, but especially with mating cycles. Lots of hormones raging,
lots of emotional highs and lows. After it’s done, you got the sudden loss of all the oxytocin and
adrenaline that just surged while you fucked, and it risks sending you into an emotional spiral. You
need the come down with your partner or you’ll just drop.

Doesn’t matter if you’re married, dating, having a one night stand, fucking a friend for health
purposes. In a mating cycle or out of it. After the sex bit, the intense bit, kinky or vanilla, you need
to have the affirming and the check in and the cuddling and pillow talk, or whatever it is that works
best for the couple other than that. You’ll take care of each other or get fucked in the head.

It’s a very serious problem, alphas who think that sort of shit is beneath them. Especially during
ruts.

If you’re an omega during a rut, you fuck your alpha and you make love to your alpha and, a lot of
the time, you get used by your alpha. You don’t need the sex the way your alpha needs the sex.
And they have a lot of hormones fucking with how they think your dynamic should be. They’re not
in their right mind, and the most descriptive terms they can manage thinking about you can
sometimes only be as a hole to push into. To an extent, you have to let your partner use you purely
as a way to get off. A sex toy. And sometimes you’re into that, or don’t mind that, or think of that
as role play or whatever. All sex is gonna affect you, on some kind of level. Especially sex like
that.

Ideally, you have the in-betweens. The moments after the knot goes down, where the fever has
receded, where the alpha is calmer and buzzed on endorphins. The moments where they hold their
omega close and nose the side of their neck and tell them they were good, so good, so very good.
Moments where you just get to lay together and be close. Where you take care of each other after
the sex, because it’s really fucking hard on all parties, alpha and omega, if you don’t get that time
to come down together.

It’s hard as hell on the omega to have someone just… use them for a week, no matter the kink or
relationship dynamics involved. You need to have it, that time where your partner is taking care of
you and you’re taking care of your partner. You’ll walk out of the rut fucked in the head, even if it
had just been casual.

“Yes.” Peter nods, firm as he can. He doesn't make eye contact. “Every single time we did it.
Especially when the fever went down. He was good to me.”

He was. He honestly, truly was. Even when he got intense, would need to go multiple times in a
row or be rough with Peter, he’d always take the time to take care of him after they were done.
He’d be borderline obsessive about making sure that Peter was doing okay after it.

Sometimes, Peter would crash from it. It was inevitable. Having that much sex for that long
without being the one in cycle always causes it, even if you are together-together. You get high on
adrenaline and oxytocin over and over and over again, and then when your body comes down, it
comes down hard. It happened with Johnny too. Fuck, it’s happened with MJ, those times they
were together and she went into heat.

He’d just… collapse. Wouldn’t even be caused physically. Physically, he had held up fucking
buildings, and if something was going to kill him, it wasn’t going to be Matt’s dick.

He’d crash. Matt would be rough or Matt would be really, laboriously gentle with him, would fuck
him like he was precious, and something about it would tip Peter over the edge. All of a sudden,
he’d be overwhelmed and his emotional state would spiral hard, and he wouldn’t be able to fucking
take keeping all of it up, in that moment. Matt’d pull out and go to kiss Peter, and Peter would just
turn over and bury his face in the mattress and go totally limp. Tremble. Cried, sometimes, which
is mildly embarrassing even though it shouldn’t be.

Matt would be especially careful about taking care of him then. Hold Peter while he cried, or
wouldn’t touch him if Peter wanted to just not be touched for a second. Sit next to him instead. Let
Peter ramble about how he was okay, it was nothing Matt did to him, it was sudden and no one’s
fault and Peter was fine.

He’d clean Peter up. Make him sip water and take in some food. Talk him through it, if Matt was
aware enough to talk. Peter would calm down.

He was good to him during it. He really was.

“Good,” says MJ, just as firm. “That’s good. I thought so, but I had to ask.”

It’s fair enough. You can know someone and never really, truly know who they are in the
bedroom, unless you are the person they actually fucked.

Peter ran into this rut blind. They didn’t talk about it the way Peter had with Johnny, because it
was too close and there wouldn’t have been a point. Matt wasn’t in any state to spend time figuring
out how they best worked as sexual partners. It was so far progressed that he’d only be trapped in
instinct, and Peter would just have to build the plane as it flew. It turned out a lot better than Peter
could have ever hoped, if he’s being honest.

“You didn’t do any after it was over.”

It isn’t a question.

Peter gives her a wan smile. “No. No, we didn’t.”

They hung out. Grabbed food and joked around like nothing had changed, and Peter was so fucking
grateful for it. When he healed up enough to stand under his own strength, Peter grabbed a shower,
then passed out again in Matt’s bed without planning to. Matt didn’t wake him. Let him stay the
night. Didn’t spend the night with Peter, at least not in bed. He slept on the couch, and that was
that.

Peter woke up in the middle of the night, took another shower, covered up the visible signs of a rut,
then caught a bank robber and started getting his life back together.

They didn’t talk about it after. It was done. They didn’t cuddle or shower together or scent each
other. It was unspoken that they’d be handling post-rut alone. It was past the point of medical
necessity for Matt, and he would have never pushed any more intimacy on Peter after all the things
Peter just did for him.
Ball was in Peter’s court, and Peter firmly kept it there.

It was going to have problems for post-rut. He was already feeling the symptoms coming on.

Omegas’ bodies gets fucked up if it thinks they’ve been dumped on the streets sloppy and used
immediately after they just spent a week being bedded by their alpha. Alphas’ bodies get fucked
up if they think they just spent a week bedding their mate and then suddenly got left in the lurch.

Most people don’t even get out of bed for the first two days after a mating cycle. They stay in bed
and cuddle and have lots of skin-to-skin contact and have each other’s scent glands nearby. Even
after those first few days, it’s highly recommended that alphas and omegas be disgustingly clingy
and close after they spend a cycle together. If they stay close, their bodies produce these nice,
relaxing hormones that leave them in a lovely zen state. It’s supposed to be extremely pleasant. A
wonderful feeling.

If they stay apart, their body flips the fuck out and you spend three fucking weeks in fight or flight
mode.

Omega drop. Also alpha drop, and they’re the same fucking thing, but everyone feels the need to
add a gender specification. A dumbass medical condition that pops up if you don’t do everything
right after a mating cycle, like a UTI if you don’t pee after sex.

It’s a ginormous waste of Peter’s time, if he’s being perfectly honest.

There’s medication. Supplements. Shit that artificially gives you the hormones your body would
have otherwise produced on its own. Meant to help an alpha or an omega who couldn’t keep close
to their mate after a rut. Lets you get on with your fucking life.

They’re prescription.

You need to ask a doctor for them.

If you’re an alpha, you go into the nearest clinic and you say, “I need supplements for drop,” and
they say, “Here you go,” and write you a little script that you then hand to a pharmacist who says,
“Here you go,” and then you go home.

If you’re an omega, you go to the nearest clinic and you say, “I need supplements for a drop,” and
they say, “Is your alpha here?” and you say, “No, I need supplements for a drop,” and they say,
“Where is your alpha?” and you say, “Not here, I need the supplements for a drop,” and they say,
“Is your alpha on a business trip? Is that why they can’t soothe with you? Can you call them?
We’d like to speak to them first,” and you say, “I am a grown adult, I don’t need someone else’s
permission, give me the goddamn supplements,” and they say, “Sweetie, have you talked this over
with your alpha? Post-cycle is very important for them too. Maybe have a discussion first and
come back with them,” and you say, “I don’t have an alpha, I just need supplements for a drop,”
and they say, “I’ll go get an omega nurse, okay?” and you say, “No, no, get back here, I need
supplements for a drop.”

And then the omega nurse comes back and sometimes they’re like, “Bullshit, right? Confirm for
me that you’re not in any active danger. Okay, cool. Want to play Candy Crush on my phone while
we spend enough time in here to pretend like we’re sobbing together over fucking whatever, and
then I’ll go back out there and tell the doctor that it’s tragic but for the best.”

And then you fist bump.

Other times the omega nurse is more traditional, and they say, “Baby, where’s your alpha? You
shouldn’t be out without them when you’re in drop,” and you say, “Jesus Christ above, someone
just give me the goddamn prescription so I can end this conversation,” out loud, to their face. And
they say, “Did someone hurt you?” And you sigh and say, “No, no, no one hurt me, I just need
supplements for a drop.” And they say, “Why isn’t your alpha soothing you through this?” And
you say, “Am I talking to fuckin’ air here? I don’t have an alpha. I need supplements for a drop.”

And that goes on for an extraordinarily long period of time.

And then they say, “Hon, we got someone from social services here to talk to you,” and you say
“No, no, not fucking Deborah, not again.”

But it is Deborah. And she is not happy to see you either.

And that goes on for an extraordinarily long period of time.

And then, after a prolonged discussion about how yes, you spent a rut with an alpha, yes, Deborah,
yes, no, no you will not disclose who it is, no, they’re not in the picture, oh, you want to know
why? Get fucked. Then, only then do you get the prescription, and a recommendation for domestic
violence counseling.

And then you go to the pharmacist with your hard-won prescription, and they look at it for a long
moment, and then they look at you for a long moment, and then they say, “Is your alpha here?”
And you say, “Jesus, Jesus, it’s me, you can just take me now, send the fucking lightning,” but no
lightning comes. You do not blaspheme enough in your day to day. And the pharmacist says, “Do
you need a safe place to talk?” and you say, “Give me the fucking meds before I file a
discrimination lawsuit against this shitstain of a business.”

And then you go home.

It is a normal Tuesday.

There is nothing considered unusual about any of this.

“Ned could try the bit again,” says MJ, eventually. “He got a new blazer.”

The bit was where Ned pretended to be their neglectful and high-flying alpha who was the CEO of
a tech start-up that probably wouldn’t last, and he’d go and sit with them in appointments with a
Bluetooth headphone connected to nothing in one ear and tell them that his omega had his
permission to do whatever. Then, whenever the doctor asks Ned a question instead of whichever
one of them has the appointment, he taps his Bluetooth headphone and tells them, “I have to take
this,” and walks out of the room loudly saying things like “Stock is up three points,” and “Did the
au pair finish polishing my gold coins?” and “I told you that we wouldn’t negotiate on the ice
sculptures. This is the banquet for the visiting prince. You’re fucking fired, Rodney.”

And then they’d walk out with whatever they wanted and a pamphlet for domestic violence
counseling instead of a social work visit.

It had no right being as successful as it was.

Peter shakes his head, smiling bitterly. “Nah. He can’t take another police interview.”

Because the last time they tried the bit, they thought he was MJ’s pimp and called the cops, and he
got fucking interrogated. MJ had to call Peter from the bathroom of the police station while her
social worker thought she was crying in the stall, and Peter had to call Matt to get them out of it. It
was embarrassing.
“He’d risk it for you.”

“It won’t matter,” says Peter, with exacting pain. “My fucking social work file’s gotten too thick. I
heard them talking about it on the phone after Johnny. They’re gonna recommend me for a full
evaluation if I get flagged for anything else.”

MJ crumples her wax paper in her fist. She’s furious, but not with him. Peter can tell by the line of
her back. “Fuck.”

Peter’s inability to seek any and all medical attention was the cause for Breakups #2-5, and it took
a long fucking time for MJ and Ned to get it. It was the source of the biggest fights they’d ever
had, and Peter hopes they never get as close to breaking up the family forever as they did with
that.

Because for a very long time, MJ and Ned thought that Peter had made the choice to force them to
watch him die.

He’d get fucked up. Really, really fucked up. Impaled-by-the-Goblin’s-glider fucked up. Web-
snapped-and-he-hit-the-ground fucked up. Punctured-lungs-and-blood-transfusion fucked up. And
they’d say, “That’s it, this one, this is the one that we seek medical attention for, we’ll say
whatever fucking lie we have to, but we can’t watch you die on the bathroom floor.”

And Peter would say, “No.”

They thought, for a long time, that Peter had taken his stoic fucking hero gig too seriously, and that
he was going to make them figure out what to do with his corpse because he would rather keep
doing the shit that landed them all there than take an actionable solution. And they would keep
thinking it, because Peter would never correct them.

It came to a head, one day, in the worst fight they ever had. Everyone cried.

MJ and Ned confessed that they had a savings account set aside to buy his fucking gravestone,
because that shit got expensive and he was headed straight for the ground, and they weren’t going
to let their dickhead of a best friend go without a marker to commemorate his dumb fucking ass.
Ned confessed he still had nightmares about being fifteen and sitting in the principal’s office with
the news open on his phone trying to find out if Spider-Man survived the plane crash, and then
cried. MJ confessed that she would check his breathing every time she woke up in the night, and
wouldn’t be able to sleep when she realized he was out Spider-Manning, and then she cried.

Peter broke down sobbing and confessed that he was scared out of his mind most days, everyday,
all the fucking time, and that he wished he could go to the hospital too, but when he was fourteen
and figuring this superpowers shit out alone he hacked the local hospital to find their internal
policy around discovering and managing patients with superpowers, and, well. He found a detailed
memo to all practitioners about the identification and reporting of suspected enhancements. The
thing they look out for?

Low resting heart rate.

Once that’s spotted, they have other things to check. Pupil dilation, reflexes, listening to breathing
and body fat percentage and all the other shit that suggests that they’re enhanced beyond the
normal capacity. There’s other things to look out for, but that’s what suggests that they’re
physically enhanced. That’s the government’s number one reporting priority.

If they tick enough boxes, you tell them that you’re running a few routine tests, nothing serious but
also it may be cancer so keep complying, take their blood and send them for an MRI and a CT scan
and all the other shit that may reveal something deeper. Then you send off an email and ask the
suspected mutate to please wait for the test results, would you like some water?

Except you already have the test results.

Except you’re buying time.

Then, a government agent shows up and asks a lot of personal quetiions, and if they’re lucky they
get away being put on a registry and released like a tagged fucking animal.

Peter’s never been lucky. And his enhancement is so advanced that he’d be clocked in an instant.
He barely skids by with tiny clinics with highly specialized focuses that aren’t big enough to think
of screening for enhancements.

He told them about it then.

The unstable omega bonding law.

They both already knew about it. MJ had raged about it enough when they were kids. But Peter
had never talked about it.

It was the first time Peter admitted to anyone how scared he was that one day someone would look
at the best pieces of him and decide that he needed a big, strong alpha to fuck them away.

Everyone cried. Messy, ugly cried. Heaving, sobbing, ugly cried. They were all fucking eighteen
years old and trying their best, living together in a shitstain apartment because MJ needed to get
away from domestic abuse and Peter needed to not kill his only living relative with worry and Ned
needed to keep their dumb asses alive. Peter didn’t have any real connections in the superhero
community, not back then. He had a few people he’d occasionally meet up with to bust big jobs,
and Barton on his goddamn case about Stark. No one else to help him when his ass was in the fire,
bar MJ and Ned. They were in a constant state of spiraling panic and an inch from death at any
given moment.

A family. Who loved each other with their entire fucking hearts and souls. The last time Peter had
ever loved anyone as recklessly as he loved MJ and Ned, Ben’s blood was wet on his hands and a
spider was in his mind’s eye. It was the sort of love that shaped you. The sort of love that forged
you.

He would kill and die and burn for them, but he would not go to the hospital. Not ever.

It was decided then. Finally understood. As terrible as it was, Peter couldn’t afford to be identified.
The risk wasn’t one he could ever take. There would be no medical examinations.

A full evaluation for an at-risk omega involves an in-depth medical examination.

Peter can’t risk it.

MJ eyes him. “What about Matt?”

Yeah. That.

He lies down so he doesn’t have to look at her during this. “What about him?”

“You could soothe with him, dickwad. He’d do it for you in a fucking instant. The entire legal
crew is grateful to you for this. He wouldn’t say a fucking word about it all.”

Peter knows all of that. Matt had told him as much already about any future heats Peter had, and he
knows the rest of them were grateful. Foggy and Karen sent him a fruit basket as thanks for saving
them the expense of a gravestone.

Frank signed the card. Peter doesn’t know what they are.

“No. Because of a different thing.”

MJ lies down next to him. “A different thing. What different thing?”

“The thing where I’ve decided this is my last time doing something like this.”

MJ rolls over to face him. He doesn’t roll over to face her.

“Oh?” she prods.

“We both know that it’s a fucking lie if I say I won’t do it in an emergency,” says Peter, sighing.
“If it’s as bad as it was for Matt, and someone’s gonna die, we know I’m gonna do it again.”

Setting himself up for failure to pretend otherwise. Hell, he’d even fuck Johnny again if Johnny
was going to die otherwise and had absolutely zero other options, and he is extremely anti fucking
Johnny here, in this moment.

If it comes down to it, Peter will never pick to bury anyone else. It would kill him more than
fucking himself up with sex ever could. Even if he didn’t want to have sex with the person, he’d
probably do it. It’s not healthy, but it’s true.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but you really would be setting yourself up for failure if you
thought otherwise.”

MJ gets him.

“Matt was going to die, probably.” He mops a hand down his face. “Johnny wasn’t.”

Johnny was never going to ride that rut out alone, is the thing. It was never even on the table. The
Fantastic Four was in the process of setting up goddamn interviews with people when Peter
offered.

Johnny was going to spend the rut with someone, and he was going to do it with a stranger who
would more likely than not immediately stab him in the back after. He was going to do it on
videotape, with twenty medical professionals watching live, in a room with thirty automated fire
retardants focused on him at all moments.

And then that entire terrible experience would be laboriously recounted in a tell-all book, and a talk
show circuit, and it would be printed on the front page. And goddamn Ellen would one day ask
Johnny about the experience live on air.

It was shit. It was something he could survive. He could live with it. It’d be horrible and soul-
crushing, but it wouldn’t have killed him.

And that was bad enough that Peter didn’t want someone he considered one of his best fucking
friends to go through. Starting a friends with benefits situation with an expiration date was small
potatoes compared to what Johnny would have gone through in the other scenario.
Legitimately, Johnny was one of his best friends. It was MJ and Ned, Matt, and then Johnny. He
didn’t even consider Foggy and Karen as good of friends. Back then, he couldn’t imagine anything
that could result that would mean he would regret giving Johnny a hand for it.

Back then, he couldn’t imagine anything that would ruin the two of them.

“Oh,” says MJ.

Yeah. Oh.

It’s fucking him up again. All the shit that people said about him after Johnny is back, and it’s
worse than ever, because now he’s the guy who put out for Daredevil too. Fucking the amazing
flaming celebrity was edgy enough, but you want to really be known in the public as a freak? Try
fucking the masked crusader of the night who brutally beats bad people while wearing red leather
fetish gear with a fucking Christendom theme. Matt’s got nine different complexes flying free for
everyone to see with that decision, Jesus Christ.

It’s worse, now, because he’s not just the slut who will suck the dick of any crimefighter on the
East Coast.

He isn’t Johnny’s friend anymore. And that fucking hurts.

“I think it messed me up,” he admits, a bit quieter, and being able to do so represents the product of
oh, about ten years of intensive self-examination and improvement. There are versions of Peter
who could have never admitted it to himself, let alone MJ. “Fucking Johnny, and then hearing
everyone talk about how I fucked Johnny, and then having Johnny treat me weird after, and then…
Then losing him. And… fucking Matt while it was happening. I think that messed me up too.”

He sighs. “I don’t regret Matt. I want to be clear about that.”

She nudges him. “Didn’t think you would.”

MJ went to those funerals too.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Peter tells her, firmly, because he needs that to be absolutely fucking clear.
He won’t have anyone thinking Matt did. Matt’s too good of a man and too good of a friend for
people to think that. He went to way too far of extents during this trying not to hurt Peter for
anyone to think that. “He took care of me. It was never bad for me. Not once. I walked out of that
in the best state possible.”

“Possible,” echoes MJ.

And there’s the rub. “Yeah. Possible.”

It’s messy.

It’s shit.

Peter doesn’t even know.

“I’m okay,” he settles on. “And I’m going to be better. But I think I’ve decided that I’m not doing
this again. I’m not sharing anymore heats or ruts or soothing unless I legitimately want to be with
that person. Or if it’s medically necessary. Unless we get another Goblin situation or someone I
really, really care about needs it to live… I’m done. I can’t do this again.”
He’s been thinking about it. Ever since Matt’s rut ended, and Matt made his offer to spend a heat
with him if Peter needed it. For a while, he even considered it. Strongly considered it.

It would be easy, falling back into bed with Matt. Matt was solid and warm and Peter trusted him
with his fucking life. The sex itself was fantastic. They’d already fucked enough times that they
wouldn’t have to spend any time getting over their inhibitions.

Matt was an alpha, one who could keep his body calm through it, one who got it, one who
respected him, one who would never, ever look down on him for the things Peter needed to get
through a heat. He could take care of him, and they’d be fine after. Peter trusts him with that.

Even now, after the decision Peter settled on, he would trust Matt with his heat if he had to. He
would be the first person Peter called.

But he did decide. And he isn’t revisiting it anytime soon.

He left that rut, and he was a headline again. Another goddamn laughing stock. The cape-chasing
whore who must be a fucking freak in bed, because he kept bagging the most insane and volatile
and attractive asses in town.

After handling the bank robbery, he sat on the edge of a building to catch his breath, and there was
a split second where he thought about just shoving himself off the edge without a web to catch
him.

He isn’t suicidal. He’s been suicidal. He’s struggled with being suicidal. Crippling anxiety,
debilitating depression, and wanting to fucking kill himself. He’s done it all before. He’s hit
fucking lows that most people can’t imagine.

He isn’t suicidal now. He isn’t close. A single intrusive thought doesn’t make him suicidal.

But he’s broken himself enough times to recognize his breaking point. For once, he’s going to heed
it. He’s dug himself into holes that are very deep by ignoring these signs before.

He can’t do it anymore. Not right now. He’s sacrificed too many pieces of himself too recently. No
matter how much he trusts Matt, he’s not looking for forced intimacy right now.

He wants autonomy. He wants to only fuck the people he wants to fuck. He wants to only be close
to the people he’s ass-over-teakettle in love with. He wants everyone else to goddamn butt out of
the decision-making process of his sex life, and that includes his fucking hormones. It’s not Matt’s
fault. It’s not from lack of trusting Matt. He just… needs to take care of himself for once. Even if
that means being a little sick for a bit.

He’s got weird enough emotions about Matt without spending the night at his place for the next
three weeks anyway.

So. Peter is tabling it, for now. Post-rut drop isn’t gonna kill him. He’s gonna feel like he’s got the
flu for a few weeks, and then his body will get the fuck over it. He had to get the supplements after
Johnny, but that was because he had a drug ring to take care of. He doesn’t have that problem now,
and he can handle Spider-Man in drop as long as he’s not going to fucking war over something.

He’ll be fine.

“I get it,” says MJ. “I do. Really. I respect it. I’ll help you through.”

She couldn’t do anything to abate the symptoms. Only Matt can do that.
“It’s okay, MJ. I’ll be fine.”

“I”m helping you as your fucking friend, Parker. It’s… look, I’ve done ruts with people, okay?
There’s a lot of shit alphas never have to think about that we do. I’ll do it with you. Bring you
soup, whatever. Doesn’t have to be big stuff.”

“I have to go to the drug store after work today,” admits Peter. “It’s… shit, I hate this part. Will
you come with me?”

She gets it in an instant. “Yeah.”

“Thanks.” He turns to face her fully. “So. Us.”

She rolls back over to face him. “Us.”

“You wanna have the Talk?”

“Depends.” She fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket. “Did I make the wrong call bringing it up so
soon after Matt’s rut?”

Peter snorts. “I would have been so fucking pissed at you if you decided you wanted to be back
together and took my part of the decision from me because you thought I was too fragile for it.
You made the right call.”

Everyone else is goddamn deciding his relationships for him. He wouldn’t be able to take it if MJ
did it too.

“Thought so.”

“You wanna get back together?”

“I’ve been considering it for a while.” She sounds nonchalant, but Peter recognizes her fidgeting.
Jesus, he loves her. “I miss us. I want to try again, but I want to be clear, it doesn’t have to be now.
I can wait.”

They do that, sometimes. One is in a good headspace for them, and the other is fucked in the head
and doesn’t have the mental stability to be together. They have the Talk, decide to wait, and then
the impetus is on the one who said no to give the green light as to when they’re open to Them, if
the other person still wants it. It isn’t a big deal. They’ve done it before.

Peter’s missed her too.

“Depends on what you want,” he decides, eventually. “What are you imagining?”

It’s never been as easy as boyfriend-girlfriend with them.

“I’ve been thinking about it.” Her mouth pinches. “You know how I get… panicked? In
relationships.”

“I’m aware.”

As yes, MJ, the only person who was worse at commitment than Matt Murdock himself. Peter gets
it. Peter had a front row seat to why it was.

It’s messy and the product of deep fucking trauma, and Peter would never fucking hold it against
her. Ever. God knows he has enough shit on his end that MJ has to be gracious about.
MJ’s parents were the traditional alpha and omega mated pair. It didn’t go well.

Her mom was seventeen when her dad mated her. Her dad was thirty-two and climbing. It was
arranged by MJ’s mom’s parents, who thought she was too rowdy of an omega and needed a bond
and a knot to calm her down.

Her mom wasn’t even rowdy or rebellious. She just asserted herself one too many times. Wore
clothes that her parents thought were too short. Went to a school dance and came back with a
hickey on the corner of her jaw. In contrast, when MJ was her age, she was committing violent
felonies with her unbonded omega boyfriend and unbonded alpha best friend.

Her parents set it up. Found MJ’s dad and arranged the entire matter. MJ’s mom never even got to
graduate high school, because her alpha wouldn’t allow it.

And it was one of those things where her mom was very open about the fact that she thinks sex is
something that happens to you rather than something you do and enjoy. She saw mating MJ’s dad
as a box to check, something you do to be married, not a major fucking deal that affected her on a
profound psychological level.

Her mom counted their mating as consensual. MJ didn’t. MJ thought that it was the product of a lot
of fucked up ideals poured into a young kid’s head. It didn’t end there.

MJ’s dad was abusive. Physically, verbally, emotionally, financially. To everyone in the house.
Sexually, to her mom.

Her mom was abusive too. To MJ. Her firstborn omega daughter, who was her only child, because
MJ had a complicated birth that her mom would blame her for. Couldn’t have anymore babies,
couldn’t have an alpha, and what good was an omega without that.

MJ used to cry about it. With him. When they were fourteen and felt miserable and helpless. Her
face would be splotch with tears and they’d be somewhere high, and MJ would tell him that she
was fucking glad for it. She wished her mom had her insides ripped out before she ever fucking
had Michelle. She wished she fucking died in birth so her mom couldn’t even claim one healthy
child.

And Peter would hold her as she sobbed in her chest, and sometimes he thinks neither of them will
ever be anyone other than who they were in those moments. Sometimes he thinks he’ll always be
that fucking helpless kid.

MJ’d still be on the offstep from her dad, and her mom would swoop in and tear her to shreds in
any way she could. No one made MJ cry harder than her mom.

They’d brutalize each other. Her mom and her dad, constantly. Dig their fingers into any spot they
could and hurt each other. They wanted to kill each other slowly because they never could bring
themselves to take the fast option.

But they never left each other.

No, you couldn’t leave your mate.

Peter lost track of how many nights he would sit on the rooftop of MJ’s building, waiting to see if
she needed an out. She nixed having Spider-Man go after her parents after the first time they tried
it. Her parents were stupid and petty enough to keep going even after Spider-Man slammed them to
the wall and told them that he’d better never fucking find them hurting their family again.
Foster system was really fucking bad for omegas, and she knew that as long as she was with her
parents, she could stay near Peter and Ned.

It was messed up. All of it. As in, MJ changed her legal name from Michelle to MJ, put a bunch of
last names into a random selection generator, and nodded once when Watson popped out. Spent a
half an hour Google searching how to legally change your name, printed out the forms, and then
went to the nearest courthouse on her eighteenth birthday to file them. Paid the filing fee with
money scraped together from what she could squirrel away from her job, the little that she could
hide from her dad, generously supplemented by Peter’s photography money and Ned’s moderately
illegal internet jobs.

She wanted to tell her parents to get fucked, but she couldn’t do it. She was too goddamn afraid.
She filled a single bag full of things she couldn’t bear to leave behind, kept the door locked while
her father hammered on it, and shoved herself out the window without checking to see if Spider-
Man was there to catch her.

She bounced between the floor of Ned and Peter’s bedrooms until May caught them, at which point
Peter got beat around the head for lack of hospitality, and she was graciously moved to the fold-out
bed they bought with money that would have gone to running the heating instead. They were all
very cold for a month, and MJ cried seventeen times, which is less than she cried when May died.

May was everything for both of them.

She couldn’t do it. The one-and-only, forever relationship thing. No matter how much love and
trust there was between them. It reminded her too much of her parents, of how much hate and pain
that forever could turn into. There was a lot of trauma buried deep, and Peter would wait until the
heat death of the universe for her and be happy about it. He never minded, the breaks they needed.
They benefited him just as much as her.

“I don’t like it,” she says, still fiddling with his jacket. “The… relationships. The philosophy
behind them. I don’t think I ever will. They make me itchy.”

“How so?”

“The idea of just… being kept?” She shrugs. “I don’t… I want to be with you, you know. ‘Til
death do us fucking part, and I don’t mean just romantically. I want to stay with you. But I don’t
want to be kept by you.”

Lots of old traditional ideals about property that neither of them ever truly got over. Peter gets that.

“The structure to it makes me feel uncomfortable,” she settles on. “The ceremony. The, the
expectations. I don’t… I’ve been trying to move past it, get over it, but I’m starting to think that
maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should just accept it, and change the shape of my relationships to make
me comfortable with them rather than changing myself to make me comfortable with traditional
relationships.”

He waits expectantly.

“Have you ever thought about being in an open relationship?” MJ asks him.

Huh.

“Like, see other people while we see each other? Or just have sex with other people while we see
each other? Or see the same other people while we see each other?”
“Any. All of the above.”

Peter shrugs. “Haven’t thought about it, to be honest.”

“We don’t have to,” says MJ. “It’s just a thought. And we don’t even have to be together now.
But… I don’t know, I don’t even want to be with anyone else right now, you know? It’s just you
for me right now. But I’ve never been able to get past the feeling that we’ve called dibs on each
other or, or laid a property right or some shit. Even though I know you’d never trap me in anything,
I still feel it.”

Get rid of a cage by opening the door. It makes sense.

“I’m not opposed,” Peter settles on. “We’d have to talk about it so we’re on the same page during
it. Make sure we’re both comfortable and communicating. But I’ve never cared who you fuck, MJ.
Or have feelings for. I don’t see that changing suddenly when we’re together.”

The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it’s something that may work for them. Neither of
them have ever given too much of a fuck about who the other was seeing or in what way. Not that
they’ve ever seen anyone at the same time as each other. They’ve never cheated. But it wouldn’t be
cheating if they set the standards beforehand, and Peter finds himself pretty unopposed to the
thought of MJ kissing someone else at the same time she’s kissing Peter.

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay, cool. That’s one thing handled. Where are you at? This
doesn’t have to be now.”

That’s a great question. Where is Peter at?

He’s fucked up, without question. As a general rule, relationships are probably something he
should steer clear of right now. It’s a bad idea with everything else.

But he doesn’t want to base this on the consequences of the mess. Even if it’s a bad decision, he
doesn’t want a goddamn headline or its effects on him deciding this.

“Mentally, I’m not good right now,” he says, after a beat of consideration. “Not the lowest you’ve
seen me. But not the highest either. You should know that before anything.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Can we go slow?” Fuck, that feels weird to say. He’s had sex with this woman. He lives with her.
He’s dated and broken up with her so many times that a telenovela would find them unrealistic. It’s
a really weird time to go slow. “I don’t… I know I want to be with you. Now. Right now. I know
that. And it’s probably a bad fucking idea, and I still want it. But I don’t know, mentally, what I’m
gonna be comfortable with going forward. Can we take it slow?”

She eases her head on his shoulder. “Slow enough for you, tiger?”

Peter scowls. “I thought we retired that nickname.”

“Never, babe. Literally fucking never. I’m putting it on your gravestone.”

“God help me.”

She tangles their fingers together. “Okay?”

Peter squeezes her hand once. “Okay.”

“It’s probably a good idea we’re going slow, because I think it’s medically inadvisable for you to
have sex right now.”

Peter groans in eternal fucking agony. “MJ.”

“Am I wrong? Am I?”

“No,” he admits, in extreme pain. “MJ, you’re gorgeous and beautiful and I love you with my
whole fucking heart, and I want you to know that our sex life will be in a fucking drought for, bare
minimum, at least two weeks. Barren like the desert. Probably longer. The bottom half of my body
may never work again, actually.”

MJ howls with laughter.

 Chapter 3
Chapter Summary

“I’ll do it,” says Ned, accepting the cup and his burden with a lofty air. “We all know
that I will be raising this child.”

Peter is having no children.

MJ flips her hair. “I want to be the wine aunt.”

Peter is having no children.

“You will be the child’s sibling because both of you are fucking children who I am
trapped raising.”

“Please read the fucking thing,” blurts Peter, in extreme pain. “Just read it so we can
go on with the rest of our lives.”

The thing about post-mating cycles is that they’re really fucking embarrassing. Especially for
omegas. Mostly for omegas. Probably. Peter’s never been an alpha in post-cycle. He doesn’t
know.

There’s the on the face shit. The fact that your body spent, at bare minimum, a week getting really
dependent on someone else’s pheremones, and now it’s in fucking panic mode because there’s no
sign that there’s a big, strong alpha hanging around to raise all those kids he hopefully impregnated
you with.

And then there’s that bit. The bit where mating cycles were a biological process explicitly to
encourage pregnancy. That bit.

It’s next to impossible to not get knocked up during a heat or a rut just from like, fucking statistics.
Heightened fertility during mating cycles, a lot of trying, all of it unprotected… you get pregnant.
Unless you take a highly aggressive before pill. And an after pill. Both of which Peter did.

They never used a condom. They couldn’t. Matt legitimately didn’t have the presence of mind to
remember it, and he wouldn’t have been able to understand using contraceptives when his monkey
brain was pretty hell bent on knocking Peter up. That’s why you always take the cycle pill before it
hits and make sure you’re covered for the extent.

Pills can fail.

Always have to check.

Peter, MJ, and Ned sit at the dining room table like a war council with the stack of pregnancy tests
before them. The bill sits face down next to the stack. Peter really doesn’t want to look at the bill.

“You should make him pay for it,” says MJ, in the silence. “The tests. Send Matt the bill.”

“No,” says Peter, cringing. “I can afford my pride, even if it’s… really expensive.”
Hey Matt, how are you? Hahaha, Peter is good, thanks for asking. Anyway, remember how you
had prolonged sexual contact with me for a week straight? Just? Just a few days ago? Yeah, good
times. Anyway, Peter has to make sure that he isn’t knocked up with Matt’s baby, yeah, they would
make terrible parents. Hahaha, yep, yep, no. No, Peter wouldn’t keep it. No, yeah, no, Peter has
crime to fight and no fucking money. He is a deeply unstable person. And the spandex leaves
nothing to the imagination. Pregnancy wouldn’t be a good look for him. Yeah, yeah, no. No, under
no circumstances should they be parents, glad you agree.

Anyway, here’s the bill.

Matt would be good about it. Matt would probably pay it and not ask for the results. Peter just
really doesn’t want fucking anyone who is not MJ or Ned to think about him having gotten
knocked up from this.

“Is this because of Johnny?” asks Ned, wincing. “Because I get it if it is, bro, but I don’t think
that’s going to happen again. Matt’s chill. And seemed… enthusiastic? About the concept of
paying for the cost.”

Ned, bro, don’t bring any of that fucking up.

The Fantastic Four had been fairly aggressive about the possibility that Peter was carrying baby
Storm. And the fact that they didn’t want him to be carrying baby Storm.

Objectively, he got it? They thought he was booking a Late Show appearance. They thought he was
about to make Johnny a laughstocking, and screw over their baby brother, who had spent the entire
time with total fucking faith that Peter would not be sharing the details of the rut they spent
together with a single living soul. They didn’t want Johnny to get backstabbed and for him to find
out via trashy headline that Peter was having his baby too.

They didn’t trust him to have taken birth control beforehand.

That.

Peter refused to do anything about the entire process under monitoring. He had gone to a bodega on
his way home from work, bought the pill, set his jaw while the cashier leered at him, and took it in
his home bathroom before meeting Johnny for the rut. Wouldn’t even text Reed a picture of the
receipt, because it was none of their goddamn business.

And he was firm about it. Wouldn’t budge. Johnny backed him up, to his credit. He wasn’t going
to be taking the pill under supervision. He wasn’t going to be undergoing a blood test to make sure
he was under contraceptives. He wasn’t going to be processed ahead of time before being passed
off to Johnny as something safe to use.

He gets it. They didn’t trust him. He understands it, except for all the ways he doesn’t understand it
and is unspeakably bitter about it, actually.

Peter was letting their baby brother be inside of him. He did some really fucking intimate things
with Johnny that he does not do unless he trusts the person he’s doing it with. It’s a lot of stuff that
is inherently emotional and hard on the body and absolute hell on your hormones. He’s not going to
set the fucking stage with so little trust that they need four separate doctors confirming that he’s not
trying to end up barefoot and pregnant in the Baxter Building kitchen.

So yeah. He told them to get fucked, truly, from the bottom of his heart, and then he went and
fucked Johnny. Did the deed and got on with his life. Did them all a huge fucking favor, actually,
because he singlehandedly solved every single problem they had just spent months banging their
heads against. Worried about Johnny setting someone on fire with his dick? Peter kept him calm
and made sure he was having sex with someone he trusted, and no fire happened. Worried about
the PR scandal his mate was going to cause? Peter solved it by keeping his goddamn mouth shut.

You’re welcome, and it only cost Peter his physical and mental health.

He just doesn’t think a little dignity in the process was too much to ask, is all.

Because getting ambushed by Reed Richards and the Thing at a time where he super couldn’t be
seen as a recently-mated omega near members of the Fantastic Four? Not one of his favorite
moments. He went with them just to get them to stop fucking talking, and ended up having to piss
on the damn pregnancy test with people watching to keep them from a repeat performance the next
day at his job.

Johnny exploded. Literally.

There was a fire.

They had to compromise, in the end, to keep the Four far fucking away from Peter. Peter spent a
few weeks showing up to periodically piss on a stick in front of Johnny, and people would watch
them enter the bathroom together, because Johnny was a good guy who was remarkably stupid
when a pretty face was involved, and everyone thought Peter had just been another in a long line of
bad ideas.

Spend fucking months stressing the importance of a low profile rut, and baby brother goes and
fucks the superhero cameraman for a major news publication that hates superheroes. Might as well
have been asking for a bad headline. Heard he helps bad mouth that nice Spider-Man fellow too.

It was bad. Peter is bitter. He wasn’t pregnant, didn’t go on any talk shows, and never got a
fucking apology from the Fantastic Four bar Johnny himself.

Didn’t have to pay for his damn pregnancy tests, at least. He did have to pay for his drop
supplements. He sucked it up and asked Richards for them to avoid another mark in his social work
file, and instead got snidely asked if he was trying to illegally obtain prescription medication.

He’s bitter.

It’s whatever.

Peter doesn’t want anyone looking at him this time around.

“I just don’t want to advertise this. Is it…” He cringes. “Too early after the rut? It’s pretty close
after the rut.”

MJ picks up one of the boxes and reads it. “This test says it’s recommended to start testing a week
and a half after the first knot.” She winces, visibly. “When did Matt first knot you? Was it the, the
rut or also for soothing?”

God, the eternal fucking pain of his girlfriend asking if he and their mutual friend were traditional
about when they fucked.

Peter pinches the bridge of his nose and picks up two boxes. “Rut. But it started early. We should
probably start now to be safe.”
Most people were only this aggressive about pregnancy testing after the fact if they desperately
wanted to get pregnant from it. Peter, meanwhile, had a trash can fire of a life, and he needed to
know at the first possible moment so he could do what he needed to do before anything else
happened.

So. Matt fucked him for a week. A lot of times. Sperm can survive in the human body for five
days, meaning that some of Matt’s sperm is still alive and well inside of Peter’s body.

Staggered pregnancy tests over a few weeks, just to maximize chances of catching anything. Two
at a time in case one is faulty. Most people just waited until a few weeks passed and took one test
to save on costs. Peter couldn’t afford not to catch anything early. He’s ended up in space or in an
alternate dimension or trapped in an underground lab one too many times for that.

He goes into the bathroom, does his business, and sets the tests in a red solo cup to wait. Ned sets
their valiant egg timer. It is the household child and shaped like a noble little owl.

They wait in damning silence.

“Ned, do we still have the coupon?” Peter asks.

“Bro, you know we fucking do. I am prepared for any eventuality. I added a folder to my coupon
book just for you.”

At least one of their household is functional.

Ding.

No one moves.

“I’ll do it,” says Ned, accepting the cup and his burden with a lofty air. “We all know that I will be
raising this child.”

Peter is having no children.

MJ flips her hair. “I want to be the wine aunt.”

Peter is having no children.

“You will be the child’s sibling because both of you are fucking children who I am trapped
raising.”

“Please read the fucking thing,” blurts Peter, in extreme pain. “Just read it so we can go on with the
rest of our lives.”

Ned winces. “Sorry, bro.”

He pulls out the tests.

An eternity passes.

“You’re not pregnant,” he announces, looking up from the tests. “It’s all good.”

Peter slumps with relief. “Okay. Cool. Now we just have to do that five more times.”

“You took both pills, yeah? I bought both pills.”

“I took both.”

“Then it’s gonna be fucking fine.”

Jesus, Peter hopes so.

---------

He wakes up in the middle of the night, on edge and feeling like shit, which is honestly fairly
normal for him. He’s spent entire periods of time in states of soul crushing anxiety and paranoia.
Re: that time he took on the fucking Kingpin at age seventeen.

He’s not gonna be able to sleep like this.

Getting out of bed hurts. His head is pounding like a brass drum. The skin by his bondmark feels
hot and irritated.

He winces as he flips the bathroom light on, then runs the tap cold. Washing his face makes him
feel better, at least.

He checks his watch. 4:13 in the morning. Oh, well, he didn’t need sleep.

Drop fucking sucks.

He feels cold, mostly, and oddly exposed. A little sick to his stomach. Headache and eye
sensitivity. A pervasive sense of having lost something.

Mostly, he just wants Matt. Really, really badly. He wants to talk to him, be with him. He wants
Matt to come and pick him up and carry him to bed, which is really fucking stupid.

It’s weird. He doesn’t remember feeling like this after Johnny’s, but, then again, he had a lot more
to worry about after Johnny’s, and he caved and got the drop meds fairly quickly.

With Johnny, he had like, a day and a half where he wanted to crawl back into bed with the Human
Torch and take a nap in his arms. Peter was weirdly fixated on how nice and warm Johnny always
was, at the time. Like a heating pack.

With Matt, he wants that. All of that. In a horrible, embarrassing, primitive way. Matt’s bigger and
broader than Johnny ever was. Granted, Peter could fucking bench press either of the two. Break
‘em in half like they were a twig. Wouldn’t even be hard.

Johnny was about Peter’s size. Matt’s got a good few inches on him, and probably thirty to forty
pounds of solid muscle. He could cover Peter with his whole body without much trouble at all.
Always made him feel safe, weirdly. Shielded.

He wants that now. For Matt to do that for him. Desperately. It’s a fucking betrayal of his body, is
what it is.

It’s dumb though, because it’s not just physical contact he craves.

He misses Matt. Matt has a way of always making him feel better, no matter how bad things get.
Could never hang out with each other without ending up laughing.

Matt was always the person he could share the parts of himself with that he couldn’t share with
anyone else. MJ and Ned tried--by God did they try--but they always struggled with it. Spider-
Man, and why it had to be Peter. Why Peter could never, ever stop, even when he ended up
coughing up blood on his bedroom floor, ribs broken in God knows how many places and at least
one lung pierced.

More than once, Peter’s tried to explain it to them. Ben, and the blood on his hands. The paradigm
shift.

Ben wasn’t just a loss. He wasn’t just a death. It was the end of one world and the beginning of a
new one. Full fucking reset. Peter could not live in a world that killed Ben Parker, so he would
have to make it anew.

There was a point of no return, and Peter thinks he crossed it the moment Ben stopped struggling to
breathe and just… watched Peter. Eyes glassy, dimming. Traced his face like Ben was trying to
memorize Peter, in the end.

He knew he was dying. He accepted it, in the end. If there was ever a man to make friends with
death, it would be Ben Parker.

Peter didn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept it. There is no version of Peter Parker who could accept
the death of Ben as something alright in the world. He couldn’t grieve, keep going, move on, live
his life as he lived before. A world that could kill Ben Parker was not a world that Peter could exist
within.

He’d fix it. Brick by fucking brick.

MJ and Ned didn’t get it. Couldn’t get it. Peter thinks there’s something wrong with him in the
head. There’d have to be for him to be like this, wouldn’t there?

But Matt, Peter never had to explain it to Matt.

Matt knew before he ever met Peter.

There’d be bad times in his life. Times where the goddamn sky was falling down. Where he’d be
at the brink of everything, where he’d shatter his own life into a million fucking pieces just so he
could use the shards as a knife.

And he’d have to, in a way. He’d have to go to extremes to win. To beat the Lizard, or the Green
Goblin, or the goddamn Kingpin. It’d be the only way.

Of course, he didn’t have to do any of it. He chose to do it. Voluntarily. He never had to be Spider-
Man.

No one got it but Matt. The rightness of the extreme lengths they went to. How it was the only
thing that made sense, even if it was certifiably insane. It takes a special sort of crazy to dress up in
red and fight crime in the night.

Matt makes him feel sane.

He wants to talk to him. Be with him. Get the bag of tacos and beer and sit on his living room floor
and pretend like it’s not all falling apart, for five fucking minutes. Laugh and joke around and be
total fucking assholes together. Theorize about the best way to keep the city falling apart.

He misses Matt, which is fucking ridiculous, because he saw Matt a few days ago. Because Matt
fucked him a few days ago.

They had both been too tired at that point to do anything more than the basics, in the end. A few
days ago, Matt had climbed between Peter’s legs and hiked Peter’s legs up around his waist. Let
his forehead rest against the side of Peter’s head as he moved inside of him, and collapsed with his
full weight on Peter when the knot caught.

He told Peter he loved him against the skin of his neck, then moved onto his mouth and slipped his
tongue past Peter’s lips before Peter could say it back.

Peter needs to stop thinking about the rut.

He’s all twisted up over one of his best friends of years. It’s stupid. He can’t wait until his body
gets back with the fucking program.

With a sigh, he shuts the light off, then shuffles off to the kitchen. He pours milk in a mug and
sticks it in the microwave, then takes it out when it starts to bubble over and stirs in cocoa powder.
Then, he sits at the table and places his head face down on the surface.

Fucking ruts.

Weirdly, he blames the Fantastic Four more than he blames Matt, which may be a sign of how
deep-seated his issues with the Fantastic Four have become. He may have profound resentment,
actually.

He knows Reed could have gotten the drop supplements, no questions asked. He wishes that they
had done him that one single kindness after everything else they had done.

Now, he’s fucked. Can’t go back to any clinic. He can’t go asking for drop supplements so soon
after last time. They’ll ask questions Peter really doesn’t want to answer, and he cannot go on
official record as to having shared another rut when Daredevil was rutting right after he did so
during Johnny’s rut.

Once is just a coincidence. Hundreds of people were in rut at the same time as Johnny Storm.
Twice… he doesn’t know if anyone’s gonna see a pattern, but he can’t risk it.

Besides, two ruts so close together, both with alphas that seemingly didn’t stick around to soothe
after? That’s a whole different red flag that Peter refuses to deal with.

Ned’s besocked feet slowly enter his field of vision. “You okay, bro?”

“Fine,” says Peter, into the table. “Want cocoa?”

Shaking his head, Ned sits next to him. “Drop, huh?”

With a sigh, he sits up. “Just hit me. It’ll probably leave when his bond mark heals. Maybe. Few
weeks max. What are you doing up?”

“Coding.” He shrugs. “Lost track of time. Haven’t gone to bed yet. Working from home this week,
so it’s not a big deal. You gonna go back to sleep?”

“Nah. Won’t be able to. Just gonna hang out until morning.”

Ned chews on his lip. “I’d do the bit for you again, bro.”

Wouldn’t work. Peter gives him a small smile anyway. “Thanks, dude, but it’s not gonna help. Too
many strikes in my record. They think I’m in crisis.”

“You? Really?”
He doesn’t have to sound so sarcastic.

“This’ll just confirm it for them, alpha with me or no.”

“Wouldn’t have to do a businessman con.” Ned frowns thoughtfully. “I could act devastated that
I’m leaving you alone so soon after a rut. Say I had a family emergency back home and had to get
on a flight immediately.”

“You’re from fucking Queens.”

“I am brown. They will pick a country and it will be wrong.”

Peter snorts, fiddling with the edge of his mug. He doesn’t look at Ned. “I think they think I sold
my last rut. Did I ever tell you that?”

To his credit, Ned only hesitates a beat. “No.”

“They asked some weird questions. ‘bout my income, lack of family, asked me if I had debt. I got
the vibe.” He gives Ned a weak smile. “They’re really gonna think I’m selling ruts if I show up
again so soon after the last one. I don’t want to get you in trouble again.”

Ned had been a terrible accused pimp. He cried in the interrogation room, and potentially
confessed, but no one was certain, least of all Ned. He was crying too hard for anyone to tell. Matt
had looked extremely long suffering when he passed MJ and Ned off in the lobby to a very
embarrassed Peter.

The desk sergeant had given them all a weird fucking look, which is fair, really. Peter called
legitimately the best trial attorney in the country to get his friends out of a situation that would have
resulted in probably zero charges.

Matt and Foggy had sort of a ludicrous professional reputation. They represented over half the
superhero community. They were total sharks who took down the Kingpin. Their client base
represented everywhere from little old ladies to Jessica fucking Jones. They had a tendency to tell
some very big name people looking to hire them to get fucked. They pulled more pro bono hours
than most big firms. The only case they had ever lost was because their client decided he wanted to
be in prison so he could murder people, and now they make all their clients sign agreements that
they’ll ask the judge for the public defender if they make the same decision. Rumor had it that
fucking Stark Industries had hired them as expert consultants once. Matt had been the goddamn
mayor for a minute and a half.

No one knew what they were doing, least of all them.

Peter gets these little benefits, having one of the most sought-after attorneys in the city at his beck
and call, on account of the small fact that Peter has to backflip over a fucking ninja sword every
three months or so because of Matt. And also he health fucked Matt. So the man now owes him
representation in legal matters until they're both cold in the ground.

But he also really doesn’t want to call Matt about getting brought in for suspected sex work after
the person he fucked was Matt.

It’s… lucrative, admittedly, especially if you work in the sort of high-end escort business. Omegas
selling themselves for heats or ruts. Alphas too, but it’s less common.

Lots of alphas who are unbonded and heading into rut. There’s legal ways to take care of it,
granted. Heat and rut help centers, all of which require a pretty extensive screening process for
STDs and health risks and criminal history and to make sure you are, in fact, in a cycle. And you
aren’t picking your partner with a help center. It’s all anonymous, nominally.

People buy them. An omega companion for a rut. Or an omega auctions off an upcoming heat to
an alpha who is into that sort of thing. Sex work. Nothing wrong with it, as long as all parties are
actually consenting.

Illegal in the state of New York. Any heat or rut help needs to come from an official center, and
everyone involved in providing services needs to be licensed. Friends can still fuck each other, of
course. Strangers could. You can make any bad decisions you want on your own. You just couldn’t
get paid for it.

“Did I ever tell you where I went for Johnny’s rut?”

Peter looks up from his mug. He hasn’t so much as sipped his cocoa yet. It’s getting cold. He can’t
bring himself to care. He’s so goddamn tired.

Ned shakes his head, but Peter can see by the pinch of his eyes that he’s worried. Peter should care
about that, he really should. “I thought you’d just go to the Baxter Building.”

“And have Richards film the fucking thing? Nah. Johnny setup something at a hotel. Told me he’d
take care of it whenever I asked.” Peter lets his head loll back. He snorts. “It was the Baccarat.”

Ned’s brow furrows. “That ridiculous luxury place?”

“Yep.”

“No offense, bro, but how were you even allowed through the front doors?”

“That’s what I said,” says Peter, laughing. “I told Johnny that there was no fucking way they’d let
me inside. That they’d think I was a delivery boy or something. Told him he should have just taken
my advice and gotten us a shitty motel room like it was prom.”

“Guess they let you in, huh?”

“Course they did. I was with Johnny Storm.”

Ned nudges him with his foot. “How’d you get in without getting spotted? Everyone was on the
lookout for Johnny back then.”

“Oh, the Baccarat took care of it. They’ve got a suite set aside for high-profile cycles. Private
entrance. Lots of big names use it if they need to cycle but can’t at home for some reason.
Expensive as fuck.” He shakes his head. “Honestly, I think multimillionaires use it to fuck their
mistresses. I really do.”

Ned doesn’t say anything.

“You know what’s stupid?” Peter looks up from his mug. “You know what’s really fucking
stupid?”

“What?”

“They floated the idea of hiring someone for Johnny’s rut.”

“Oh.”
“Yeah. And it’s… I don’t give a shit, you know. I didn’t when Johnny was telling me about it. God
fucking knows that I ignore all the laws I think are stupid. But they’re the Fantastic Four. All high
and mighty.” He mops a hand down his face. “I asked them for drop supplements.”

That throws Ned for a loop. “Now? After Matt?”

“No. When they were making me take pregnancy tests in front of them. I asked then.”

He frowns. “You went to a clinic for your supplements.”

“Yeah. Because they got all offended at the idea that they’d break the law to help me get
prescription meds.” He’s angry. He’s still so angry. “If they had illegally gotten an actual sex
worker, they would have given the meds no question. I fuck Johnny for free, and suddenly they
can’t conceptualize ever breaking the law. How many people think I got paid for it, do you think?
Storm or the Devil. Must be a lot, huh?”

“Peter, bro, are you okay?” Ned leans forward, his face pinched in concern. “You really don’t
sound okay?”

God, he probably sounds insane. He tangles his fist in his hair and pulls at the roots. Shuts his eyes
and sucks in a breath. “Sorry. My emotions are fucked. Drop’s blowing everything out of
proportion. I’m just… you ever feel like the fucking world is ending?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

Right. When Peter does dumb shit and may be dead.

Ned takes the cocoa and sets it further in the table, carefully moving it where it may not be
knocked over. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah. It’s just”--he sighs--“everything, I guess. Everyone’s got an opinion. I’m on edge.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think.” He searches Peter’s face. “Fuck ‘em, right? We live how we
want.”

Peter smiles humorlessly. “Right. We’ve always done that. You, me, and MJ. ‘Til the end of the
fucking world. I just… Jesus, I wish the world wasn’t always ending.”

“Peter… I can call Matt. He’d come and help you through this. You know he would.”

“Nah.” Peter shakes his head. It feels too heavy, and it rocks from side to side. “I’m at my limit,
you know? I don’t want to do that sort of thing out of necessity right now.”

Ned mops a hand along his jaw. “Not even in a platonic bro kind of way?”

“Ned, I dunno what kind of contact you think Matt and I were having, but it sure as shit wasn’t
brotherly.”

Ned groans in open agony.

“It was sexual, Ned.”

Ned buries his face in his hands.

“We explored each other’s bodies, Ned.”

 “You’re trying to kill me,” accuses Ned. “You are an awful friend who wants to strike me dead
with horrible mental images.”

Peter snorts, and drags a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I tease. We’re not gonna be able to be close
platonically right now, dude. At bare minimum, we’re gonna be… into it. Our bodies are way too
in tune to each other’s right now to not be affected.”

“I’m in hell,” laments Neds. “How can I be expected to look either of you in the eye?”

“Matt will not know or care if you look elsewhere,” says Peter, reassuringly.

Ned swats at him.

“What I meant,” he says, when they’re done giggling, “was that your body’s freaking out because
it thinks it lost its alpha, right?”

“Yes. It thinks it needs a big, strong alpha to help it raise children. I keep trying to tell it that we’re
a girlboss, but it has devastatingly not accepted any of my arguments.”

“It’s not gonna stop freaking out until you soothe with Matt.”

“Or starve it out. I can be stubborn longer than my body can be a dick about it.”

“But,” says Ned, “it may… help? For it to know that it has an alpha sticking around. In, you know,
a bro sort of way.”

“Ned,” says Peter, clasping one hand over his heart, “are you making… intimations towards me?”

“Shut the fuck up,” moans Ned. “I fucking hate you both. I should have left you years ago.”

“But you didn’t, and it’s too late for you to make other friends. Get fucked.”

“Bro, in the most brotherly way possible, do you want to get in my little twin bed and sleep
together in a completely non-sexual manner?”

“Ned, I would be honored.” He laughs tiredly. “I do appreciate everything you did for me during
this.”

“We’re a family, dude. Three of us. To the end of the fucking world.” He stands. “But I am fucking
begging you to never talk about my ass in front of Matt again.”

End Notes

this is honestly just me chucking paint at a wall

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