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“Are you sure you saw my trunks in there?”
“Yes,” Michelle says, dragging her suitcase behind her as they make their way through the check-in lobby.
The wheels click over the lines in the tile and the loudspeaker makes periodic announcements and Peter hasn’t stopped this train of thought since they got in the cab to come here.
“And we definitely got confirmation on the AirBnB?” Peter asks, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and rooting through it frantically.
“We definitely did,” Michelle replies, putting a hand on his wrist and lowering his hurried ministrations. “And I have the digital copies of our tickets on my phone, so stop freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Peter frowns. “I’m just trying to make sure that we at least get to LA before Parker Luck hits.”
“Stop talking about Parker Luck,” Michelle laughs as they come to a stop at the end of the short line to check their bags for their flight, both a little sleep-rumpled by the early hour and buzzing with the stress of having finished packing earlier this morning.
(Eighteen months to plan themselves a proper vacation and still the packing happens last minute, Michelle thinks. It wouldn’t be Peter though if there wasn’t some sort of last-minute haste to it all.)
“If you keep talking about Parker luck,” she continues pointedly, “you’re just gonna manifest Parker fucking Luck.”
“Parker Luck doesn’t need to be manifested,” Peter points out so seriously that Michelle can’t tell how much sincerity actually lies there below his tired, but somehow still bright, eyes. “Parker Luck just is.”
“Next, please,” the attendant at the desk calls out, cutting into their conversation as Michelle rolls her eyes and takes the necessary steps forward, pulling out her phone and navigating to their tickets. “Hello,” he smiles at them, “Where are we going this morning?”
“We’re on the seven-forty to LAX,” Michelle says as she zooms in on the QR code and holds it over the desk along with her ID, only to look up and see his face.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, you should have gotten an email,” he says, cringing slightly as though expecting them to get angry, when Michelle is already just feeling disappointed more than anything.
It’s the familiar tone of voice that does it really, the your day is about to get worse tone of voice that she hears from Peter every time he has to tug on the suit and hurry out into the city, every time he calls to tell her he’s getting stitches because he got stabbed again, every time they’ve had to move around plans like these because of his job or her job or both.
“Here we go,” Peter mumbles under his breath as he slings an arm around her shoulders, clearly catching on to that tone as quickly as she has.
“Your flight was cancelled due to maintenance issues on the plane,” the attendant explains, slow and apologetic but to-the-point nonetheless.
Michelle really prefers it to the point, though. After all the familiarity and expectation and habit.
“And there it is.”
Michelle shoots Peter a look to her left and he shoots one right back at her.
The irony of the matter is in the fact that they’re both saying I told you so.
“Alright, fuck,” Michelle sighs as she slides her phone back into her pocket and looks back to the attendant. “I know this isn’t your fault, we’ve just been planning this trip for over a year and we’re going to visit our friends for the first time since some major life developments and… Yeah,” she smiles at him self-deprecatingly and watches as some sort of realization she doesn’t understand crosses his face.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, glancing down at her ID still on the desk. “Here, Mister and Missus Jones, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to find the next flight to Los Angeles that has two seats in first class, and we’re going to turn this into an upgrade. Our secret.”
He honest-to-God winks at them then, and Michelle feels Peter’s hand tighten on her shoulder, can feel him about to say something and ruin it--
“Oh, I’m--”
“That sounds lovely,” she cuts Peter off with an arm wrapping around his waist and a nudge of her foot against his to shush him as she smiles sweetly at the attendant. “We’ve just been looking forward to this for so long, you know?”
“So long,” Peter agrees with a touch too much animation to his voice as he tries to hold back laughter. “It’s almost like it’s been so long I feel like it hasn’t even happened yet.”
Michelle pinches his side hard and ignores the amused look he tosses in her direction as she goes through the rest of the process with the attendant, giving their prior ticket information so he can transfer them over to the new flight and checking their bags.
When he takes Peter’s ID and seems to notice the discrepancy in their differing last names, Peter tells him, “Haven’t changed my name yet,” with a shrug and so much confidence that the attendant accepts it at face value and moves on without question.
Michelle feels a little bit giddy with the sense of having gotten away with something, even if it’s largely inconsequential in the long run and even if she knows they could have gotten another flight out sometime today, because she’s tired and hopped-up on caffeine and it’s humid as hell outside.
Because amongst the lie, there’s truth in the fact that they’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, two people who are constantly learning how to take a break without guilt, who are learning that stepping away and taking care of themselves and each other is always an option available to them if only they take it.
But mostly because the sun is rising and they had just successfully told Parker Luck to go fuck itself.
***
“I still can’t believe you lied to that guy,” Peter laughs, practically whispering as though afraid they’ll get found out as newlywed frauds and kicked off the plane, even though the doors are already closing.
He has both of their glasses of complimentary champagne in his hands while Michelle finishes shoving her purse under the seat in front of her and buckles her seat belt.
“You want to complain about it?” she shoots him a smirk as she crosses her legs in the extra room available and takes her glass from him, watching him over the rim of it as she takes a long sip.
It’s bubbly and sweet and just the right kind of sharp as it slips down the back of her throat and into her warm belly. Peter grins at her, leaning in the moment her lips are no longer occupied and resting a hand on her leg, long fingers splayed across her thigh as he kisses her.
Once and then twice in quick succession.
“You’re an evil mastermind,” he teases, one final kiss to her cheek before leaning back to sip at his own bubbly.
“Is that a conflict of interest in your line of work?” she nudges his foot with hers-- less of a reprimand this time, more of an urging to keep it going, keep it moving.
Peter laughs brightly enough that the passing flight attendant, closing the overhead bins above them, grins at the two of them knowingly. The rising sun glints off the tarmac outside of their window, reflecting off of the arced white ceiling of the cabin and back down onto the curling ends of Peter’s hair.
“Who fucking cares,” he leans into her space again. “I’m on vacation.”
***
“I can’t believe you’re really fucking here.”
“Fucking believe it, man,” Peter says, Michelle feeling giddy, buzzed— almost high at how much joy she feels and can hear in Peter’s voice.
Her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard at seeing Ned and Peter embrace for the first time in too long, the only thing stopping her from getting in the middle of it and demanding some love from Ned Leeds being the love she has for Peter and how much she knows he’s missed him.
“It’s so great to see you guys again,” Milo says with a smile, warm and bright and stunningly handsome as he leans in for a hug.
Michelle freely gives him one, Milo’s cologne being that stupid blend of intense without being overwhelming as she says, “I thought it’d never happen.”
“Don’t even try and bring that energy here, MJ,” Ned says, voice slightly muffled because Peter still has him in a death grip. “You’re here. Don’t jinx it.”
“Energy?” Michelle asks with a laugh, Peter finally letting Ned go so Michelle can have a turn. “You’ve been in California too long.”
“You haven’t been here long enough,” Ned says as they hug, Michelle hearing Peter and Milo laugh as he squeezes her tight.
“We’re only here for six days so we gotta make the most of it,” Peter says as Michelle steps back, Milo looping an arm around Ned’s shoulders as he beams at the two of them.
“How about starting now?” Milo says with a grin, Michelle’s eyes widening as she glances around.
“Is she here?” She whispers belatedly, since they hadn’t thought to be quiet before now— Ned beaming at the two of them as he nods.
“Come on. She’s asleep in her room,” he says with a smile that’s overwhelming, Milo following after him.
Peter takes Michelle’s hand, squeezing it gently as they walk behind them— her heart starting to race with a nervous anticipation that she shouldn’t have.
Eighteen months to prepare for this vacation— only for something fundamentally life altering to happen for Ned and Milo in the meantime.
That life altering change being none other than their four month old daughter Maya Grace Leeds-Sideris.
A hush falls over them as they quietly step in, Michelle taking in the decorated nursery and the crib right at the center.
Milo steps aside so that the two of them can walk forward, Michelle holding Peter’s hand in a vise grip as they both lean over the crib— feeling a rush of love and awe for the tiny little human curled up in the middle of her crib.
“Wow,” Peter whispers, resting his free hand on the crib’s edge. “She’s beautiful.”
“Right? Prettiest baby in LA,” Ned says with clear pride in his voice, Michelle looking over to him and feeling so much love for one of her oldest friends and for the joy that she can see on his face— a joy that’s only magnified from the way Milo smiles as he wraps an arm around Ned’s waist and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“Course she is, with your genes,” Milo says adoringly, Ned looking up at his husband and making Michelle feel warm all over— looking back over to Maya who has started to stir.
“She’s perfect,” Michelle says, using the hand not still intertwined with Peter’s to gently brush a finger against the edge of her blanket— Maya sniffling in her sleep before her little chest continues to move up and down.
“My lola thinks so too,” Ned says, Michelle looking back at him with a smile, “I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
“Me neither, Nedward,” Michelle says, Peter finally leaning back from the crib. She chooses not to tease him for the way his eyes water, not when she feels something annoyingly lodged in her own throat from the reality of seeing Ned’s daughter for the first time after months and months of pictures and stories.
“Is she here?” Peter asks, Ned shaking his head as he gestures out of the room.
“No but she’ll be here this week.”
“Benefit of being close to family is the free babysitting,” Milo says with a wink, Michelle laughing a bit more freely as soon as they’re out of Maya’s room.
“Which gives us more time to hang out,” Ned says as they walk out towards their patio, “like old times.”
Michelle smiles, sharing a look with Peter that he immediately understands— squeezing her hand gently in the recognition that even if they’re all finally back together again, that it won’t ever be like it was before.
“Yeah,” Peter says as they walk hand in hand, “just like old times.”
***
Despite the early start to the day, by the time her and Peter make it back to their AirBnB, Michelle is still buzzing— from the heat, from the margaritas, from the freedom that comes from having checked out of work in body and in spirit.
Even Peter, chronic worrier and with a guilt complex the size of Manhattan, is feeling the summer vibe— nosing across her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.
“I can’t believe Ned’s a fucking dad,” Michelle says as Peter’s hands roam over her, groping at her breast before giving a gentle squeeze— his other hand dipping across the thin fabric of her sundress.
“A fucking dad,” Peter murmurs against her shoulder as she sighs, leaning her head back against his shoulder as he slides a strap down and starts to kiss across the length of her.
“He and Milo look happy,” Michelle says wistfully, partly from the memory of how completely happy he looks but mostly from the intentional way Peter’s mouth is moving— hands wandering with a little more purpose as he shifts her around to face him, sinking down to his knees.
“They do,” he says, breath hot against her thigh as Michelle shivers, “Maya’s pretty fucking perfect.”
“Yeah,” Michelle says before moaning as Peter tongues at her through her underwear— closing her eyes and rifling her hand through his hair as he pulls them down, only to pull him away.
“Come here,” she says, Peter standing and shifting backwards with her to the bed— only to giggle from being drunk or maybe just being in love with her as she switches their positions until he’s laying prone on the bed— his shirt already off and jeans unbuttoned.
“You’re fucking perfect,” Michelle whispers, Peter smiling up at her as she crawls over him— palming at his erection as she moves to unzip his jeans.
“Glad you think so. There’s about a dozen supervillains back home who— oh fuck—“
Peter’s cut off because in the time he’s taken to talk, Michelle’s already worked his underwear off and taken him in her mouth— tongue laving over the tip and keeping eye contact as she bobs her head up and down.
“ Shit. That’s— you’re— fuck — evil,” Peter pants out, Michelle feeling the heat from the summer air and the heat from the space between her legs grow in intensity as she takes him deeper.
She takes her time with it, freeing him more from his clothes and Peter willfully obliging— a punched out gasp that just further turns her on as she flicks her tongue just right, hand gripping at the base and sucking hard on the upstroke just like he likes it.
“Fucking evil. Fucking perfect. Lot of fucking tonight huh?” She says when she finally has mercy on him and replaces her mouth with her fist, jerking him off with more fervor as he pants.
“Still not fucking you,” Peter groans out, before looking up at her with a grin— Michelle smirking before she’s turned over on her back, Peter kissing her soundly and palming at her chest once more.
“You should fix that,” she says against his lips, only to gasp when Peter takes hold of himself and drags his tip along her center— positioning himself before easily sliding into her.
Michelle still has her dress on but neither of them seem to care— their breaths hot and the humidity clouding out everything else but the feel of him inside her, of the sound of him panting out her name and of the way his hands know just to work her over.
He fucks into her hard but pulls out slow, mind-numbing in how good it feels as she reaches a hand down to her clit— opening her eyes and holding his gaze as they move together.
“I love you,” Peter says, seeing something in his eyes that tells her that he understands what she’s feeling— saying without words the thing they haven’t talked about all day.
That Ned and Milo are dads. That they’re not kids anymore on summer break. That they pretended to be newlyweds to get here even if the dozens of times they’ve talked about and planned on getting married haven’t gone anywhere at all.
“I love you,” Michelle pants as Peter’s movements start to get more frantic— accepting that they won’t talk about it, accepting that they’re on vacation in more ways than one— closing her eyes and getting lost to this moment with him.
***
“This feels like asking for trouble.”
“You’re gonna be fine,” Michelle laughs, hands on her hips where she looks down at Peter retying his skates for the third time because if they’re not tight enough they’ll trip me up, Michelle, this is important. “You were-- well not born, but at least genetically enhanced for this.”
Peter shoots her a look from his seat on the bench.
“I might need you to hold my hand,” he says, serious in tone but with a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.
“Yeah, I’m sure, Reflex Boy,” she rolls her eyes, making his face go bright as he returns to the task of tying on his skates.
It’s their first full day of vacation and the Leeds-Sideris contingent had prior obligations to attend to, leaving Michelle and Peter to get their California bearings (and overcome the jet lag of a cross-country journey) alone.
They had a slow-moving morning, making out in bed like horny teenagers, and then making out in the shower like horny young adults, and then making out over a brewing coffee pot like-- whatever it is they are at twenty-eight years old.
Their AirBnB is a cute little place in Venice, close enough to the beach that it only makes sense for them to grab breakfast on the boardwalk and enjoy the early part of the day outside before the sun gets too high in the sky and starts burning the bridge of Peter’s crooked nose.
Like it is now, sitting on a bench along the thoroughfare and tying on rented roller skates while Michelle looks on with amusement.
“Okay,” he huffs a determined breath, hands on his knees. “Okay.”
“Ready, Tiger?” Michelle teases his overwrought apprehension.
The guy dives head first off of skyscrapers every night and this is the thing that makes him apprehensive. God, she loves an idiot.
“Ready,” he says definitively before simply, not moving an inch.
Michelle lifts a brow at him. “Alright,” she says flatly. “So stand up.”
“Alright,” he accepts her challenge with bravado, pushing down on the muscles of his thighs with his hands-- skin to skin with how short his shorts are, a fashion statement that’s abnormal for where they’re from but completely ordinary here on Venice Beach— and jerking up to his feet. “ Oh—“
“—Shit!” Michelle laughs brightly, barely catching Peter by the forearms as he reels forwards and almost topples the both of them over in one fell swoop.
He grips her own forearms back tight, hunched over and eyes big as he stays stock still and looks up at her sheepishly.
“Oops?”
Michelle snorts. “Maybe you do need to hold my hand.”
***
They start slow, because something about Peter’s spider reflexes start to actively work against him when he tries to maintain his balance on wheels. Maybe it’s because he’s not able to stick to the ground, or maybe it’s just because he’s out of practice, but it’s amusing enough either way that Michelle has no qualms with moving slowly and holding his hand as they make their way down the boardwalk and take in the sights.
The salt air of the Pacific is refreshing in ways that lifelong New Yorker Michelle Jones wouldn’t admit, and the equal parts jeers and cheers from passing strangers for Peter’s stuttering skating technique has both of them giggling and acting goofier than they’d ever find themselves on the streets of their own neighborhood.
Michelle holds his hands and pulls him forward as she skates backwards without issue; she gets behind him and bends over to put both hands flat on his ass so she can push him-- a method which forces him to hold his arms out like a tightrope walker and almost ends up with them both on the ground from the force of their laughter alone.
Peter doesn’t seem all that perturbed by his own lacking skill, but they pass by the skate ramps closer to the beach and he audibly groans at the sight of twelve-year-olds doing kickflips and creating a breeze harsh enough to rustle Michelle’s skirt when they zip past.
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” he says, letting go of her hands and windmilling a little bit to catch his balance and his footing.
“Yeah?” Michelle chuckles, watching him gleefully as he very intentionally bends his knees and holds his arms out.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, yeah— Check this out, I’m Spider-Man.”
And before he can explain his plan, before Michelle can talk him and his poor ego down from the ledge, Peter is pushing himself forward down the path, gaining speed, using his arms perhaps too much and forgetting to bend his knees.
He’s actually doing okay for a moment, Michelle letting out a whoop! after him in support as she watches and skates casually after him, a stroll of a thing rather than trying to keep up with him.
He’s actually doing okay for a moment, until he trips over his own feet and forgets how to break and goes careening directly into a palm tree.
“ Fuck— Peter!”
***
“Could’ve been worse,” he says, voice muffled by the wad of paper napkins Michelle is holding to his nose. “Could’ve broken it again.”
“Yes,” Michelle deadpans. “Thank God you only made yourself bleed on the first day of our vacation.”
Peter takes the napkins out of her hands to pull them away, wiping at his upper lip gingerly and then giving her a toothy grin.
“Look, all my teeth,” he points at his mouth, still a little blood clinging to his gums, although not freshly bleeding anymore, “and no more blood!”
Michelle scowls at him, but there’s no heat to it, because the fact of the matter is that he has managed to keep all of his teeth this time and the bleeding has completely stopped with the help of his healing factor, only a few drops making their way onto the crop top he’s wearing and only making him look more ridiculous than he already had.
“I can’t tell if we or Parker Luck won on this one,” she says, grabbing their discarded roller skates from the ground in front of their bench and standing up.
“Oh,” Peter makes a face as though it’s obvious. “Definitely us.”
***
She buys him a little roller skate-shaped keychain from one of the many stands along the boardwalk and he immediately slides it onto his key ring.
Peter in turn buys her what she’s almost certain is a toe ring and slides it onto her pinky finger.
He pulls his camera out of his backpack as they walk, insisting on taking photographs of her every ten feet and Michelle blusters and teases him with every click of the shutter until she’s able to snatch it from around his neck and urge him up onto the gymnast rings on the beach.
Michelle snaps photos, grinning brightly as Peter shows off just enough to get a few people pointing and commenting but not enough to gather a crowd. (If more than one photo gets aimed directly at the strength in his arms or his ass in those stupid little shorts, then that’s nobody’s business but theirs.)
“Do a flip, hot stuff!” she catcalls, earning a smug grin in her direction before he swings himself up into the air, flips, and lands solidly on two feet.
One more click of the shutter to try and capture the look on his face when his gaze lands on her, and then she’s holding the camera out of his reach as he tries to take it back, as he wraps his arms around her waist to keep her from running, as they both laugh over an inconsequential fight over a camera, flirting with a carefree joy they don’t get to lean into very often.
“Stop taking pictures of my ass,” Peter laughs brightly when she finally relents and lets him have his camera back.
Michelle smirks at him.
“Make me.”
***
The beach cools off once the sun sets beyond the horizon, but the bubbling inside of Michelle’s chest doesn’t.
It keeps her warm as they lay out a blanket in the sand and take their places for the outdoor movie screening series they run in the summertime.
It keeps her warm as Roman Holiday begins to play and as Peter, leaning back on his elbows with his ankles crossed in front of him, noses into her arm where she leans back on her palms. A kiss to the inside of her elbow, to her bicep, her shoulder.
“Your Excellency,” Audrey Hepburn says as Michelle cranes her neck to look down at him, half of his face buried against her skin and eyes big and sparkling as they meet her gaze, “I trust you will not find it necessary to use that word again. Were I not completely aware of my duty to my family and my country, I would not have come back tonight— or indeed ever again!”
There are other people on the beach of course, a whole crowd of couples and families and small groups of teenagers paying zero attention to the movie playing in front of them, but Michelle isn’t paying all that close of attention either, as she drops down to her own elbows, leans into Peter’s space and kisses him properly on the lips.
“I know the movie’s not over,” she breathes quietly into his space as she pulls away from the kiss, “but do you wanna get out of here?”
Peter grins, kisses her one more time and then wordlessly rolls off the blanket and starts trying to pull it out from underneath her, only causing her to tumble sideways with a too-loud laugh and making the people around them glare and shush them.
Peter chokes on a snort of laughter, both of them desperately keeping it together as they pack up until they manage to tiptoe their way out of the crowd to where they can burst into laughter.
They keep the sound of it going, leaning into each other as they make their way off the beach.
***
“Em?” Peter calls from inside the house as Michelle dips all the way into the hot tub, right up to her neck. “Where’d you go?”
“Out here!” she replies, stretching her arms out along the rim of the tub and watching as Peter pokes his head out of the open sliding door that leads out onto the patio.
“Are we hot tubbing?” he asks with a chuckle, only for his eyes to fall to the pile of Michelle’s clothes and underwear just outside the tub, eyebrows lifting and a glint shining in his eyes.
“I am,” she smirks. “Care to join?”
She doesn’t even need to ask, Peter already pulling his shirt over his head and dropping his shorts before climbing in on the other side of the tub and pushing himself through the bubbles and jets to find her hips with his hands underwater and crouch down on his knees between her legs as she spreads them for him from her seat on the bench.
“You’re sunburnt,” she says, hands on his cheeks feeling the heat radiating off of his skin and knowing it’s not from the heat of the water.
“It’ll heal by morning,” he says, tipping and ducking to kiss along her jawline.
“You’re supposed to reapply, you know,” she tells him, hands trailing down his chest. “That’s your issue.”
“You just wanna put sunscreen on me,” he chuckles, pads of his fingers massaging over her hipbones. “You just wanna— Oh.”
“How’s that for what I want to do?” she smirks at him as she feels his cock start to harden in her hand.
“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “Yeah, we can make that happen for you.”
He kisses her then, hard on the mouth, and Michelle kisses him back with all the fervor he deserves after prancing around in his stupid hot pants and crop top all day. He deserves her appreciation, here in the hot tub where they get increasingly handsy with each other and she can feel the heat of the water mingling with the heat radiating from her insides out.
It’s good and it feels good, but it also doesn’t take long, with Peter on the bench now and Michelle trying to straddle his hips, to realize that hot tubs were not designed for this much moving around.
As evidenced when Michelle’s knee slips and she tips sideways into the water with a small splash in both of their faces.
“This isn’t quite as sexy as I thought it was going to be,” she laughs, not embarrassed by the fumbling, because they’ve done plenty of the fumbling over the years, plenty of the kind of gross, very funny faux-pas of having sex.
“We can finish inside?” Peter suggests easily.
“That might be a good idea,” she kisses the bridge of his nose where it had graciously not broken earlier in the day. “But I— Shit,” she looks around the hot tub. “I forgot a towel.”
Peter looks around too, the gears turning in his head and on his face as he gently extricates her from his lap and a look of determination overcomes him.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, before practically vaulting out of the hot tub— splashing her in the process— and doing a truly comical waddle-run across the patio to slip in through the back door.
“Peter!” she calls after him in the midst of her cackling at watching his bare ass and erection scurry their way inside and then back out towards her just a handful of seconds later with a big bath towel in hand. “You only brought one,” she gasps through her laughter as he holds it open for her with beaming smile as though he’d just won the lottery.
“If anyone’s looking they already got the full show,” he shrugs, wrapping the towel around her shoulders as she stands and pulling it around her as he drags her, ducked and scurrying back inside.
“You’re ridiculous,” she laughs, drying off somewhat but not trying that hard as he slides the door closed behind them and locks it. “Such a fucking nerd.”
“Sure,” he says, wrapping her up in his embrace again and cornering her into the wall of the small hallway at the back of the house, “but you’re the one that fake married me for airplane perks.”
“Don’t pretend for a second you didn’t buy me a ring today for the express purpose of doing it again,” Michelle teases him knowingly, getting an unashamed eye roll in response.
“Just because the state may not recognize that you’re my life partner doesn’t mean we don’t deserve free stuff,” he says, kissing the resulting laughter right out of her mouth as he presses the full length of his body up against hers with her back against the wall.
Michelle lets the towel that’s still loosely wrapped around her shoulders fall to the ground, and blindly spreads it out with her feet so they can both stand on it and not slip on the tile floor that they’ve been dripping on and effectively turning into an indoor slip-and-slide.
And she kisses him, and she holds his erection in a loose grip to feel him shiver up against her, and when he drops his hands to wrap around her thighs she lets him hoist her up as she locks her legs around his waist.
It’s moments like these that Michelle is grateful for the fact that they’ve already gone through the humiliating experience of figuring out super birth control so they don’t have to leave this spot to go find condoms, grateful to Peter’s super genius scientist friends for their work although she refuses to actually acknowledge their names or faces as she pulls Peter’s fingers away from her clit and deftly directs his cock towards her entrance.
“Yeah,” he gasps into the crook of her neck as he slowly pushes inside, holding her steady and without a single bit of proper effort as the quickly cooling water dripping down her shoulders makes her nipples feel that much more sensitive. “That’s so good— You’re so good.”
“This is better than the hot tub,” she exhales as he slowly pulls out, starts creating a bouncing rhythm with her head falling back to bump against the wall.
“Way better,” Peter agrees before ducking his head to pull one of her cool and perked nipples into his warm mouth, an abrupt change in temperature that draws an appreciative sound straight out of her gut.
“Faster, Pete—Just— Just like that—”
“Touch your clit,” he suggests, “my hands are occupied, but Em—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she agrees, dropping one of her hands from his shoulders and sliding it between them, fingers sliding with ease first around and then directly on top of the very spot in question while Peter’s rapid pace increases, increases, increases-- “God. Fuck, fuck.”
“There you go— there it is—”
“You looked so fucking good today it was— stupid—”
“Em— You’re gorgeous, I love you, you’re—”
Michelle cuts off his string of compliments with an open-mouthed moan and her head tips back to rest against the wall as she clenches around him, the feeling of it tightening and loosening every muscle in her body all at the same time and with such intensity that she doesn’t catch Peter’s warning that he’s about to come until he already is, right there in the back hallway of their little AirBnB.
He buries his face against her sternum, arms tense where they hold her up and hips bucking as he rides it out. The knowledge that he can hear the stutter in her heart, the slamming of it against her rib cage, would have embarrassed her once upon a time, young and learning and still under the impression that aloof should be her general demeanor, that if she never got too close to anyone that then she would never get hurt.
It settles her now, hands buried in the curls at the back of his neck as he catches his breath and softens inside of her, creating a mess that they’re going to need to clean up, going to need to shower off along with the chlorine and salt of the day before they go to bed. It settles her to know that she doesn’t have to question where she stands with Peter Parker, not where they are in this life at this moment, anyway.
Not when all of their worries are still on the opposite coast.
“So,” Peter says, pressing a soft, closed-mouthed kiss to her shoulder, “I should wear more crop tops?”
Michelle laughs brightly, pulls his face to hers so she can kiss him on the mouth.
“Yeah,” she grins against his lips, “more crop tops.”
***
“Oh, Peter, what about this one?” Michelle’s eyes go big as she holds up a small plushie crab for him to look at.
“Oh my God,” he makes a pouty face. “Add it to the basket, she’ll love that one.”
Ned groans, an amused Milo watching on with bright amusement as Michelle drops the crab into a basket with a plushie jellyfish and one that’s an octopus.
“I am literally begging you two not to buy a full basket of stuffed animals for my baby,” Ned begs, even as Peter pulls a child-sized t-shirt reading Carp-e Diem with a picture of a smiling fish, making that same pouting face to express just how cute he thinks it is. “Begging,” Ned reiterates.
“Come on,” Peter pleads. “If she doesn’t get to see our faces very often, she should at least get to bankrupt us on stuffed animals and-- fincredible fish pun t-shirts.”
“Yeah,” Michelle agrees, crouching down in front of the baby in question’s stroller. “I bet you’ll love a little jellyfish to cuddle with in your crib, huh, Maya?”
Maya, asleep and unresponsive after a full day of being carried around the aquarium by her Uncle Peter and having her Aunt Michelle teach her fun facts off of all the plaques she was too little to read or even comprehend, doesn’t seem to care either way at the moment, but Michelle knows she’s right.
It’s been one day of knowing this little life in person and Michelle is already prepared to lay her life down on the line for her if necessary, fallen fully in love with her little cheeks and big eyes, the way she babbled at the fish and gripped a fist in Peter’s hair with a hilarious level of curiosity.
“She says yes,” Michelle looks up at the girl’s fathers with a deadpanned look. “Peter, we’re getting the jellyfish for sure.”
“Oh, hell yeah we are,” he agrees immediately. “Fish pun shirt too, right?”
“As if we could reasonably deny her an opportunity to learn how to read,” Michelle says, standing up and accepting the shirt from Peter to drop in her basket.
“Guys, she’s not even big enough to--”
“This isn’t about you, Ned,” Michelle says at the same time that Peter shushes him with a finger to his lips.
Ned looks hopelessly at his husband.
Milo just shrugs.
“I say if they want to spoil our kid, let ‘em,” he says with a fond smile.
A beat long enough for Ned to take a deep breath, and then he relents, “fine,” with a heavy sigh.
“Em!” Peter calls from across the gift shop. “They have night lights!”
Michelle beams, looking at Ned over her shoulder on her direct path towards Peter so she can tell him—
“Yeah. We’re gonna need another minute.”
***
When they get back to Ned and Milo’s place, baby down for her nap and a plastic bag full of various sea-themed toys on top of her dresser, the adults gather around the grill outside and watch Milo make dinner.
“Don’t let him get too close to that thing,” Michelle says over the top of her beer as Peter studies the grill intently over Milo’s shoulder. “There’s a fifty-fifty shot he’ll either burn our food or blow us all up.”
“Those are— the only options?” Milo asks with a choked-off laugh.
“I could be a griller if I wanted to,” Peter frowns. “I have a lot of skills.”
“You sure do, Tiger—”
“Gross,” Ned gags from where he sits beside her.
“—but food preparation isn’t one of them,” Michelle finishes with a chuckle.
“You’re so beautiful and so mean,” Peter shakes his head at her, grinning all the while. “It’s very hot.”
Milo snorts out a genuine laugh, covering his mouth as though embarrassed by his own reaction as Ned rolls his eyes.
“Don’t be afraid to make fun of them, babe,” he says. “They’re unbearable.”
“We’re a joy—”
“We’re delightful thank you very—”
***
By day four of their vacation, Michelle can see that they have a problem.
Parker luck, despite their fears, hadn’t quite manifested in the way they thought. She kept looking out for it, watching it, fearful of it if she was honest with herself.
She kept expecting the penny in the air to drop, for Peter to get a phone call that he can’t miss, for some sign or problem that shows that their freedom is and always will be short-lived and that they could fly across the country but still never be able to run away from their burdens and responsibilities.
None of it has come to pass, walking hand in hand with Peter as they walk through an outdoor mall— Milo and Ned walking in tandem with them and Maya getting some lola time— and realizing that of all the problems that she’d been anticipating, she’d forgotten the most important.
The problem being Ned, who has been looking at her like that for most of the day and with an expression that tells her that she should expect a famous Ned Leeds intervention sometime sooner rather than later.
It’s a problem that’s not a problem, she misses Ned Leeds like she would miss a limb despite how long he’s lived over here. She knows the sunshine is good for him and knows that the chance to live closer to his family after they moved out of New York was something he wanted. She knows that being out here is better for his job and for Milo’s work as an actor for a sitcom that he’s the best part of.
She knows all these things and yet she still misses him— even if the downside of that is being on the other side of a conversation that she’s tacitly avoiding, a man coming up to them with a bouquet of flowers.
“For the lovers?” He asks, Peter laughing as he nods suggestively to Michelle and winks.
“What do you think, wife?” Peter asks with glee, the man’s eyes widening as Ned’s narrows. “You want a flower?”
“Honeymooners?” The man exclaims with a laugh, a bright smile and their silent acknowledgement being enough for him to press a rose into her hand. “Here, take it. You must.”
“How much?” Michelle asks because taking advantage of a multi-billion dollar corporation and a guy just trying to make a living were entirely different things.
“Nothing, for young love,” he says with a wink, Michelle going to argue only for him to nod towards the stand that he came from. “It's an advertisement for a new show anyway.”
“For a show huh?” Peter asks, looking at Milo so obviously that it makes Michelle laugh. “Milo, you know of it?”
Milo sheepishly smiles, Ned laughing as he says, “It doesn’t work like that, Pete.”
“It might!” Peter bounces back, the guy with flowers looking lost and almost a little mortified at the thought that Milo was a star that he didn’t recognize.
Michelle saves him, taking the flower and saying, “Thank you. I— it’s very nice of you.”
The man recovers, turning back on the charm and all the PR that some publicity company is probably paying him peanuts for as he says, “Of course! For young love! To the honeymooners!”
“To us!” Peter says cheerfully. Milo laughs and so does Michelle, only to catch Ned’s knowing stare— choosing once again to ignore it as the guy moves on and they walk forward.
***
“So,” Ned says later, Milo attending to Maya inside and Peter unsuccessfully trying to teach himself how to surf in front of them. “Are we going to talk about it?”
“How terrible of a surfer Peter is? I don’t know, Nedward,” Michelle says with a laugh, putting her hand up over her eyes to get a better picture of Peter as he flops into the water once again. “I don’t think radioactivity helped him out with water sports.”
Ned doesn’t respond, Michelle bringing a hand down and looking back over to him and seeing the knowing expression on his face-- sighing as she closes the book she has in her hands.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you really don’t want to but… MJ. Come on,” Ned pleads, Michelle chewing the inside of her cheek as she looks back over to Peter.
“What exactly is there to talk about?” She asks, deflecting— not a no but not a yes to the very obvious question that Ned is asking and that both she and Peter have been avoiding. “We’re on vacation. We’re having fun.”
“Yeah, pretending to be honeymooners,” Ned says directly, Michelle scrunching her nose up and kicking herself for ever thinking that Ned Leeds would let something like this go now that he has her right in front of him.
“You’re mad that we’re getting free stuff? It’s not like you and Milo have been married that long,” she teases only for Ned’s expression to turn from exasperated to sympathy when he sighs.
“And you guys haven’t gotten married at all.”
And there it is, Michelle clamping her lips shut and looking back over to Peter who resembles something of a drowned rat as he flip flops in the water.
Because that’s the thing they’ve been avoiding— for the past few days, for the past few months— the vacation they’re on that was never just supposed to be a vacation.
Eighteen months ago, when they first started planning this trip— there had been an unofficial official plan. Neither of them could afford a real honeymoon and neither of them thought it could really happen and both of them missed Ned-- the opportunity to have some fun on the other side of the country and getting to hang out with their best friend and his husband being an increasingly attractive option.
An option as a celebration for something that never came, less because of any one great tragedy or any one problem but rather the biggest one-- the thing that neither of them wanted to acknowledge from the moment that it all started to get very, very real.
“Look,” Ned says, Michelle staring out at Peter and to the horizon, “you know a piece of paper doesn’t mean shit. If that isn’t what you guys want or if you’ve changed your minds, that’s— that’s fine. It’s— it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Don’t tell Milo that,” Michelle jokes only for the joke to fall flat from the waver in her voice, glancing at Ned who just looks at her with an expression she knows all too well.
“MJ…”
“We just never… got around to it,” Michelle says, a truth and a lie all at the same time.
Because they had tried. Michelle booking the date for city hall. Peter picking up the wedding license. Michelle debating what dress to wear or if she wanted to wear a dress at all. Peter mentioning that he needed to get Ben’s cufflinks and find his kippah before the big day.
But the day, whatever day, would come and go. The wedding license would expire. The date for city hall easily missed.
It would be easy, so easy, to lie to Ned and say that it was because of schedule issues, or the weather, because of his job with Otto, because of her job with the studio.
When the answer is and always would be that it was because of the other member of their relationship, one that neither of them had wanted to bring into their vacation since the minute they boarded the plane.
“You know I’d believe that, if you did,” Ned says with that kind of straight to the point bluntness that Michelle can’t even be mad at him for, knowing her and knowing them too damn well to even believe her bullshit as she tries to say it. “We get news out here too. I know there’s been a lot of shit lately…”
“It’s not that,” Michelle says tiredly, exhausted from the sun and from the weight of things that she had hoped to stay buried while she was on vacation— even if Ned bringing it up isn’t a burden so much as it’s unloading. “It’s— it’s not about that.”
Ned seems to chew on that for a moment before saying, “But it’s part of it right?”
Michelle feels something in her throat then, a tickle in the back of it that’s not from a lack of water or the heat and more from seeing Peter pop his head back up from the water— smiling and full of life and carefree in a way that she so rarely, rarely gets to see.
Because yeah, it’s part of it— it’s the whole damn thing— that there’s gonna come a day that Spider-Man is going to take Peter Parker away from her. That the image of him in front of her, laughing and smiling and more like the boy she fell in love with than the man that he is, would someday— almost certainly— be just a memory.
“I never thought we’d make it this far,” Michelle says, her voice wobbly and with a little too much emotion for two in the afternoon.
Ned says nothing but just extends his hand out, one that Michelle takes without taking her eyes off of Peter.
“Me neither,” he replies and that’s what kills her, what makes a tear finally escape as she closes her eyes and lets the sound of waves crash over her.
Because if there was anyone on the planet who would understand what it was like to love Peter Parker so much, to know that it wasn’t a matter of if but when they would lose him, it would be Ned Leeds.
“But it’s-- it’s worth it, you know?” He says, Michelle snapping her eyes open and looking over to Ned and seeing the tears glistening in his eyes.
“Oh God, yeah, I’m— we’re not breaking up. We’re not doing that again,” Michelle says with a laugh, Ned smiling and squeezing her hand gently.
“I know but… you want that, MJ. I know you do. I know he does,” Ned says, finally pulling away to look at his best friend of nearly fifteen years. “He wants to marry you.”
“I know,” she says softly, squeezing Ned’s hand again and saying, “it’s— I don’t not want to marry him.”
Ned looks back at her, searching her face for a moment before she quietly, painfully admits, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do if we… if we finally, finally get married and then he—”
She cuts herself off, Ned’s thumb running over her hand.
“Won’t that hurt more?” He asks softly.
Michelle sighs, exhaling some of the weight of their conversation and the anticipatory grief that she’s not sure will ever go away-- letting it get lost out to the summer air as she looks back over to the ocean.
Peter finally looks up and over to them, waving and smiling as he starts to paddle back over to them— fighting against the current and making Michelle’s heart clench from the damn metaphor of it all.
“Not as much as being a widow,” she says softly, Ned’s grip in her hand tightening as they watch Peter make his way back to shore.
***
Michelle doesn’t necessarily go back to ignoring it, but she’s also determined to allow herself a vacation the way she had intended all along, and Ned seems willing to go along with it now that it’s at least been spoken of in some capacity.
The elephant in the room, the whale on the beach, it’s present because it always is, and Peter may notice something off about her for the first twenty minutes but she flirts with him and comments on how he looks in a wetsuit and gets enough of her groove back that they’re able to fall back into it with relative ease.
Milo meets up with the three of them for dinner, and they tell him all about their various high school nonsenses over the years, and then the college nonsenses that came after those. They laugh loud and hard; they revert a little bit to being teenagers with both too much understanding of the tragedies of the world and not quite enough; they eat off of each other’s plates like they’re back in a high school cafeteria eating cardboard fries and drinking half-frozen milk out of cartons.
When Peter tries to take a picture of the other three, Michelle extricates his camera from him and gets up to ask their waitress to take one of all of them. And if she realizes along the way that she keeps doing it to make sure he’s in as many of these tangible memories as possible, it doesn’t show in the way she grins and kisses him on the cheek.
It doesn’t show in the way she scoops whipped cream off of their dessert and swipes it over his nose, it doesn’t show in the stories she tells their friends about his more embarrassing exploits in recent months.
It doesn’t show because she’s not thinking about it, but it’s still there.
It’s always there.
***
“Do you think Spider-Man should get one?” Peter asks, toothbrush in his mouth and leaning against the sink while Michelle takes her mandatory post-sex piss.
“Spider-Man’s not an actor,” she points out.
“Lotsa non-actors have stars,” Peter frowns. “Right?”
“I mean, they’re all Hollywood people I’m pretty sure,” Michelle finishes up and flushes, nudging him out from in front of the sink so she can wash her hands.
“So what you’re saying is I should be in a movie,” he grins all toothpastey, Michelle frowning at him as she dries her hands and moves so he can spit.
“We’ve been in LA too long,” she deadpans, grabbing his face in both hands when he’s done and scrutinizing it closely with narrowed eyes. “Are you going full Hollywood, Pete? Do we need to operate? Get a proper bagel in you?”
Peter laughs and kisses the palm of one of her hands before walking back into their bedroom to finish getting dressed.
“Don’t you worry,” he tosses over his shoulder in a heavy Queens accent, “I’m still as New York as I’ve ever been.”
“Alright,” she chuckles, dealing with her hair in the mirror while the sight of him changing lives in her peripheral vision.
“I’m just saying,” Peter continues. “A red and blue star? Spider webs to commemorate one of our nation’s greatest heroes?”
Michelle looks at him, deadpanned and amused while he smirks and pulls on a tank top.
“You’re such a fucking dork,” she says, watching him step forward to cross his arms and lean in the doorway.
“You really think?” he asks faux-hopefully, reaching out to hook a finger in the waistband of her underwear.
“Yeah,” she lets him pull her close to him, cups a hand around the back of his neck. “Cute though.”
“Oh, well in that case…” he trails off directly into a kiss, long and slow, like a continuation of what they’d just finished but also different.
In the way it doesn’t lead anywhere and in the way he looks at her when he pulls back, studying her face with curiosity.
“What?” she asks, knowing there’s something on his mind, knowing what the something is that’s on his mind, and not wanting to have it hanging over them all day.
“You got your annual Ned Leeds Reality Check while I was in the water, huh?”
He’s blunt about it because he knows better by now than to skirt around things with her, a woman who appreciates the opportunity to deal with it all head-on.
“Sure did,” she smiles at him a little ruefully. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to go off with Milo at some point to give you two the same chance.”
Peter grimaces.
“He’s so all-knowing it’s terrifying,” he says with a faint chuckle.
“Really?” Michelle lifts an eyebrow. “When I’m all-knowing you think it’s hot.”
A nudge of his nose up against hers as he pushes in for another kiss, a full embrace, a promise of everything’s okay, we’re okay, we’re here.
“I think everything you do is hot.”
If they leave a bit later than they had originally planned, that’s nobody’s business.
***
They take a hike down the Hollywood walk of fame, and there may not be a star with Spider-Man’s name on it, but there is a busker dressed up in a knock-off costume, taking pictures with tourists.
Peter’s delighted by it, making Michelle take a picture with the guy alone before he joins in with a truly suspicious level of enthusiasm.
But he chooses to get in the picture with her this time, so she doesn’t complain too much.
She just smiles and laughs, teases him about it for the rest of the day.
And when he almost leaves his credit card behind at a tourist shop, almost gets Parker Luck raining down on their heads again, she smiles and laughs through that too.
Because she loves him and if she doesn’t appreciate this vacation for the gift that it is, she’ll never forgive herself.
***
On the last day of their vacation-that’s-not-a-honeymoon-Ned-please-drop-it, the sky opens up.
Rain— large, thunderous rain clouds that crack lightning across the sky so bright and loudly that Ned makes a joke about Thor that falls flat with how loudly Maya is crying in the background— absolutely consuming any chance they had of having their day at the beach.
“Parker luck?” Peter says helplessly into the phone as Michelle stands on the opposite side of him, watching the palm trees swing and sway back and forth.
“Something like that,” Ned says with a laugh, “Though not in the way you’re thinking. I mean, sucks for our plans but we needed this.”
He says it in a way that strikes at something funny in Michelle’s chest, something that Peter seems to catch onto before she can as he says, “You’re a real Californian now, huh?”
He looks over to her, Michelle smiling at him as Ned laughs again-- only to hear hushed whispers on the other end and Maya still crying in the background.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m uh, I think I gotta go. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t worry about it, Nedward,” Michelle interjects before Ned can try and feel bad about something that he shouldn’t. “Rain or shine, we’ll see you tonight okay?”
“Yeah, yeah okay,” Ned says, nearly sounding like the boy she knew back when they were friends— knowing that he isn’t that person just as they aren’t. “I’ll— yeah, I’ll see you tonight. No matter what.”
They say their goodbyes as more thunder rolls in, Peter swiping through a few more notifications before turning back to her.
“So,” he says with a smirk, one that just makes her smile and feel giddy despite the ruined plans of it all. “What now?”
***
They giggle like teenagers, though they never would’ve done this when they were teenagers— running from the Uber they took to some movie theater down the street from their AirBnB— laughing and giggling underneath an umbrella with all the giddiness and closeness that comes from having loved each other for so long.
She steals a kiss as he buys their tickets and his hand grazes over her ass as she grabs the popcorn, the smell of artificial butter and the feel of sticky floors against her shoes reminding her of a time in their life they never had.
When they were actually teenagers, all their problems had felt so big— so monumentally larger than life— that things like awkward movie dates in awkward hot theaters with a thunderstorm that could rival a monsoon was going on outside, weren’t the kind of things they did at all.
Now, twenty-eight and not married even if they both want to be, they sit in the back row of some movie neither of them really wanted to see— eating bad popcorn and giggling in the mostly empty movie theater because they planned to go somewhere on their last day of vacation even if the furthest place they got was down the street.
They didn’t have to go anywhere and Michelle thinks that as soon as the movie’s over, they’ll still have enough time to kill that they’ll just head right back to the AirBnB and finish what they’re starting— Peter’s hands moving perilously close up her thigh and Michelle grinning when Peter’s breath catches as kisses him and does the same.
But it feels important, to leave-- to do something, to try— because this is what their life is. What their life will always be.
Parker luck will always try to fuck with them.
And they’ll continue to choose, everyday, to say “fuck you” to Parker luck right back.
***
“Do you want to talk about it?” Peter asks when they’re out of the theater and waiting for the Uber, the rain miraculously having left just as quickly as it came.
The sun is shining brightly, optimistically, sun rays glistening over the asphalt as she looks over at him— his warm hand intertwined with hers.
“Only if you do,” she says, knowing he’s not talking about the truly terrible sequel of some equally terrible movie that they hadn’t seen. He’s talking about the Ned of it all and the honeymoon of it all and the very thing they took a vacation from and for all at the same time.
Michelle doesn’t want to talk about it because she doesn’t want to transition back to their real life just yet, not when they still have about eighteen hours before they have to go back.
Peter seems to be on the same wavelength, thumb brushing over her hand as the Uber drives up to them.
“When we get home,” he replies meaningfully, connecting that he means home as in their home across the country, in the city they fell in love in, and not the AirBnB.
She can see it just as clearly as she can feel it— that wavelength of recognition that this is something they both do and don’t want to talk about, but will. Because they do want this-- they want each other. And they’ve learned from over a decade of break ups and makeups and miscommunication and mixed up messages and too close to call shots, that there’s some things they can’t continue to put off.
“Okay,” Michelle says as she squeezes his hand, Peter leaning in to kiss her as the Uber makes its way to the curb.
***
The rain has let up and they’ve made plans to meet Ned and Milo for dinner but they still have a few hours free.
A few hours that they take full advantage of.
It’s not so much frantic as it’s fulfilling, as if it really was the honeymoon they never had after the wedding they never went through with.
“Fuck,” Michelle exclaims as Peter pistons into her, hard and fast and bringing her closer with each thrust— fucking up into her as she grabs at the wall, the headboard, him— anything to stable herself as she writhes on top of him.
“Em—”
“Don’t stop— fuck. Just—” Michelle whines as Peter starts to groan, knowing he’s close but desperately wanting to come again, to come with him— sensitive and her thighs burning from the effort.
“Go for it,” Peter moans, Michelle throwing her head back as Peter grabs tight of her hips— helping her out as she grinds into him. “I got you. I got—”
He moans as Michelle moves to grab onto his shoulders—forcing him to hit at just the right spot, mouth open and Michelle’s eyes closing as she moves closer and closer and closer until—
Michelle comes feeling as if there’s a thunderstorm cracking across her spine and lightning behind her eyes-- having a near out of body experience as she rides out the aftershocks of her orgasm, rippling around him before falling down on top of him till they’re chest to chest.
She’s barely aware of her own body as Peter holds her tight, arms wrapped around her and chasing his own release— only tangentially aware of when he moans out Em and finishes inside of her, arms still wrapped around her and anchoring her close to him.
They move together still, less to chase after another orgasm and more because of the rhythm they’ve found until it finally stops— chests still heaving and bodies slick with sweat.
Michelle barely has the energy to glance up but she does, mouth open as her lungs work hard to bring her oxygen and their bodies still connected as Peter starts to grow soft— blearily blinking his eyes open.
“Wow, that— that was a good one. Great work.”
Michelle laughs before she kisses him— once, then twice before moving so that he can pull out, flopping down beside him.
“Really outdid yourself there, Parker,” she replies with a laugh before moving her hand haphazardly to intertwine with his, fingers finding each other as they both stare up at the ceiling.
The only sound in the room is their breathing but Michelle can feel it, the whispers and the thoughts of a conversation that’s coming for them— the rain today and the sunshine now slowly fading away both a harbinger and a metaphor.
That they can plan for things for the rest of their lives only for it to go belly up. That they could have found themselves, found each other, found out how they could find themselves with each other and still avoid conversations they shouldn’t. That they could have some really fucking great vacation sex for six days straight, and know it could be just as good as frantic morning sex before work or lazy and tired sex at night after a long day.
That this could be their life— a life that neither of them wanted to ever fully admit yet all knew to be true that they never believed they’d even have for as long as they did.
There had been a day when Michelle hadn’t believed that Peter would even make it to eighteen, then to twenty and then twenty-five.
Now, two years away from thirty and it’s still there— the fear, the grief, the terror of what her life will be like if— when— she loses him.
Michelle takes a deep breath then exhales slowly— a calm settling over her that’s due to more than just post-orgasm endorphins flowing through her system.
She can’t anticipate the rest of their lives anymore than she can anticipate the weather.
What Michelle can do— what she makes a promise to herself to do— turning over to face Peter and seeing the tired smile on his face, is love him for as long as she can.
“I love you,” she says quietly as she leans in.
“I love you too,” Peter whispers back, pulling her close— kissing her fully, slowly.
Completely.
***
Saying goodbye to Ned is hard, because it’s always been hard and because it never really gets easier to step away when they aren’t sure when they’ll be able to see each other again. Uncertainty, after all, is a difficult thing to get properly accustomed to, even in Peter’s line of work.
Ned suggests New Years, that Maya will be old enough to make the trip cross-country by then and he can introduce Milo to a proper holiday season in New York City, and Michelle and Peter agree readily, tearily, because anything shorter than another eighteen months sounds good to them.
There are hugs all around, reminders to call, reminders to send pictures of the baby and updates on Spider-Man, one more round of hugs, and then a short night’s sleep later Peter and Michelle are back at LAX with a healing sunburn and a too-full carry-on respectively.
They don’t get special privileges on this flight, don’t even try to get an upgrade, because there’s a conversation to be had when they get home and Michelle can tell it’s taking up too much space in both of their minds to want to make light of it.
Because it’s not light, despite all the inherent joy in finding someone to love as much as Michelle loves Peter and Peter loves Michelle. It’s good, of course, but it’s not light, not with the weight every new fight, every new near-tragedy puts on their relationship.
They have responsibilities, both of them do, to the things that they do and the people that they love, to each other too, ultimately, and as Michelle breathes into her small seat at the back of the plane, watches Los Angeles growing smaller below them, she realizes that maybe they have responsibilities to themselves as well.
To let themselves enjoy the time that they have, no matter how short it is, no matter if it’s ten years or five or six days on the beach, because the longevity of something doesn’t determine it’s worth.
Not to people like them, anyway, with a ticking clock and a setting sun.
Peter leans into her side, peeking out the window over her shoulder before resting his head there.
“Good trip?” he asks quietly, just over the hum of filtered air and rumbling engines.
Michelle smiles to herself, turns her face and kisses the top of his head, smiles into his hair.
“Really good trip,” she agrees, taking his hand where it rests on his thigh. “I really love you, Peter Parker.”
He kisses her shoulder, nuzzles in closer, presumably so he can fall asleep against her, and it’s good.
Michelle can’t know for sure what the future has in store for them, can’t even be sure what their conversation will entail when they get home (although she knows what she wants, knows what she expects him to want too), but she knows there’s love here.
“I really love you too, Em,” he says, and Michelle knows that.
She waits until he falls asleep and then pulls out her phone to take a picture of his slack face, tucked into her neck.
High in the sky, the sunrise falls behind them.
And Michelle is happy.