Spider-Man BND fic: I Remember I Told You ‘I Love You’ (Peter/Felicia) (2/7)

[seriousfic]

Title: I Remember I Told You ‘I Love You’ (but it might’ve just been a dream)
Fandom: Spider-Man BND
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,787
Author’s Note: Betaed by lurkslikefox.
Previous Part: Chapter 1
Next Part: Chapter 3
Characters/Pairings: Peter/Felicia, Heroes for Hire, the Rhino, references to Peter/MJ
Summary: As Peter and Felicia’s relationship deepens, the mysteries of their altered world continue to mount.



Misty, in no-nonsense words devoid of her friendly ebonics, had informed Felicia that she would show up at the office above the Golden Dragon for an SHRA-mandatory fitness exam. Felicia had prudently decided not to make a liar out of her. She instead chose to subtly parody the entire enterprise by dressing in tennis clothes.

"Hey Otis," she said to their indestructible receptionist. She paused long enough for a finger-snapping compliment, but when none came, she continued on her way.

"Whoa, miss, do you have an appointment?"

She looked at him drolly over her shoulder. "Very funny."

"You need to make an appointment before I let you in. And since Heroes for Hire Inc. is undergoing a fitness review as per SHRA provision 245, you might have better luck tomorrow."

"Otis, it's me. Cat. One of your loving employers?" She dug into her purse. "I have my SHRA ID right here." She showed it to him.

"That's a library card."

Rolling her eyes, Felicia pressed her thumb down on her photo. The nanites in the card did a quick biometric scan, then lit up a hologram proclaiming that the bearer was indeed Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat.

"Oh! Sorry, Miss Black Cat! And thank you for choosing to share your secret identity with me… Felicia. It's a real honor…"

"Don't cream your shorts, I just didn't want to get sweat all over my leather. And anyone who's anyone knows." She shoved her way into the back, where all her fellow heroes gave her blank stares.

"Are you lost, ma'am?" Colleen asked.

Felicia swore as she extracted her ID from her wallet again.

***

"So none of you knew who I was?"

"I didn't care," Tarantula amended.

"I was a commentator on Best Week Ever! I hosted Saturday Night Live… well, Mad TV. And do you know how many times I've shown up on Perez Hilton? My crotch has been photographed more than the space shuttle launch!"

The conversation was put on hold as their local SHIELD agent made an appearance. Felicia was shocked by how young he was. SHIELD agents had to have some seniority to work with secret identities, right? He explained the protocol in mind-numbing detail, then took them by crowded flying car to a Heli-Carrier. There they were fitted with body monitors and told to perform a sequence of exercises for set amounts of time.

First up was treadmills. A line of them stretched from wall to wall of the football-field-sized gym. They got onto their regiment next to the X-Men.

"Hey, it's Wolverine," Felicia said. "I had a team-up with him."

"Didn't peg him for your type, girl."

"Not that kind of team-up. His loss." She waved.

Logan grunted and looked away.

"Was it a good team-up?" Shang-Chi asked.

"I have no idea what that constitutes."

"It looks like he doesn't recognize you."

"I was experimenting with a different costume… can't he recognize my scent or something?"

The timer beeped. They went on to bench-pressing. Most of the team were Ones in the strength department, so they went to the green section. The rules said they had to bench two hundred pounds. Humbug had trouble with his, even with Shang-Chi helping him.

"Let your mind and spirit become one with your body to conquer all obstacles."

"I talk to bugs! Why do I need biceps to do that? Does Professor X have to run a marathon before he can work Cerebro?"

"Whine about it a little more, that'll help." Felicia began pumping her barbell with contemptuous ease, turning her head to Misty and Colleen. "So, the Peter situation? Done deal."

Misty's barbell had far more plates on the side her bionic arm was holding. "You sure that's wise? How long ago was his big break-up?"

"Pfft. Months."

"And you're already tapping that?"

"Not yet, but we're in range of tapping."

"It might be wise to let him 'bounce around a little' before you 'catch his rebound'," Colleen said.

"Look, Peter's like a beautiful house with some fire damage. What he really needs is for someone to move in and start fixing up the place so we can have screaming orgasms."

"Not that I begrudge any woman a little breaking-down-the-walls-of-Jericho, but if you gon have a real relationship, you have to let that broken heart mend before you start putting weight on it."

"I'm tired of waiting. I want sex… and to put little love-notes in his lunch and the occasional cuddling and a big white wedding!" Felicia put up her barbell. "You know, some friends my age have been married five times!"

"Hey, maybe we could go on a double-date," Tarantula said to Shang-Chi.

Humbug cut in, "Peter is like a caterpillar who has to undergo a metamorphosis into a beautiful butterfly."

"Thank you, Humbug," Felicia said. It sounded weird.

"And to do that, he needs to cocoon himself in Black Cat's chrysalis… oh, I just realized how that sounded. But thank heaven you aren't consorting with that Spider-Man anymore. He once threatened innocent insects to compel my surrender."

***

That night, all the web-swinging in the world couldn't clear Peter's head. He hadn't been this confused since his first girlfriend. But then, he was out of practice. He hadn't been in a real relationship since Mary-Jane.

It wasn't fair. He'd have thought being together would've lent him some clarity. It just made things more unclear. But a sexy kind of unclear.

A thrown car arced through the air. Peter lunged, latched on to it, and shot out weblines to either side to hold the car in place. Ha! Let's see one of those Initiative noobs pull that off!

He hung off the rear bumper to see the Rhino was making mincemeat out of an Inititeen, who was decked out in not-at-all generic skintight black leather. Spider-Man sighed and hit the horn on the suspended car.

The street was fairly gentrified, so Peter leapt and landed behind an awning while Rhino turned to ponder the car's predicament. While he was distracted, Peter swung down and snatched up the Inititeen. " Whaddaya know, somebody left a perfectly good superhero lying around!"

Rhino spun, having finally figured out the webbing. "Spider-Man!"

"So formal! We've known each other so long, why stand on ceremony? You can call me Spidey, I'll call you Fran…"

Rhino huffed and puffed as he looked for something heavy to throw. Peter looked the Inititeen over. No bleeding, maybe a few broken bones. "You went toe to toe with the Rhino. That's Hulk territory. And Hulk not smartest one there is."

"Government… gave me experimental power-boosters," the Inititeen gasped. It was obvious the most pain he'd ever been in before that night was maybe a stubbed toe.

"See, that's a very nice way to say they strapped some alien tech to your hiney and told you to do some good. Bet they didn't tell you how many of your fellow do-gooders have gone 'off-target'. No, keep still, your spine could be fractured or compressed or something. Wait for the ambulance, I'll handle the pachyderm."

"Why are you helping me?" the Inititeen asked, and Peter realized it wasn't the Rhino he was afraid of. "You're a villain."

"Yeah, I moonlight." A trash can bombed the rooftop to their left. Rhino. Peter broke off the Inititeen's spiky epaulets and carried them to the edge of the roof. Rhino had another trash can cocked like a quarterback about to launch a pass. Peter staked the epaulets on the parapet. "What's the matter, hornhead? Guy in red and blue doesn't make a good enough target?"

"Dieee!" the Rhino roared as he threw.

Peter ducked to the side and snagged the trash can with a webline. It went taut, slowly stretched. "Noooo," he replied in the same drawn-out drawl as the Rhino. The trash can rebounded. It ended up skewered on Rhino's horn, having knocked him back a few feet… right under the webbed-up car. Peter kicked the epaulets into the web anchors, dropping the car onto Rhino.

The Black Cat followed it from out of nowhere, ending up with a neatly Zen cross-legged stance atop the sunroof. "So you've spoken truth to the power, made a few jokes, caused some property damage… is that it, or is this going to drag on much longer? I mean, it's just the Rhino."

Said supervillain roared as he stood up with a shish-kebob of trash can and auto on his horn. He vainly groped up for the Cat. "I'm the best! The best!"

Peter leapt down and started his Muhammad Ali impression on Rhino's broad midsection. "Notice he didn't say the best at what," Peter quipped, flipping back when Rhino swatted at him. "Cat, what're you doing here?"

Felicia was spread-eagled atop the car, holding onto the antenna and hood ornament. "Couldn't sleep either. Thinking about our relationship."

"We have a relationship?" Peter cursed himself for saying that out loud. It was a wonder MJ had put up with him for as long as she had. He channelled his frustration into a baseball slide that knocked Rhino to one knee. "I mean, of course we have a relationship! Wish I could be more specific than that…" Are we about to have a relationship? Are we having a relationship? Or is this actually—

Black Cat lit a flare and scrambled to the car's fuel tank flap. With the flare clutched in her teeth, and all the time staying atop the car like it was a bucking bronco, she unscrewed the cap and tossed the flare in. "Fire in the hole!" she yelled as she jumped clear.

Peter grabbed an alley cat that'd been watching the fight and leapt as well. He passed Black Cat in the air, but grabbed her by the fur lining of her costume and yanked her further out of the blast radius. The car went up with an explosion that, at that close a range, was the Rhino's equivalent of getting a bell clap. When the smoke cleared, he looked like a cartoon character that'd just smoked an exploding cigar, with a car engine and peeled trash can sticking out of his head. He raised a finger.

"We know, we know, we're despicable," Peter said as the Rhino collapsed.

Black Cat crawled out from under him. "Peter, you saved the cat! Guess that means you get to be on top for the casual sex…?" Her lisp at the end turned it into a much larger question.

"Can we have this talk in private? And in normal clothes? And maybe over breakfast, I skipped dinner and I'm starving."

"Say, IHOP in one hour?"

"Said."

***

Peter showered and shaved as soon as he got home, then changed into the business casual ensemble MJ had designed for him to wear to Bugle formal affairs. The thought made him pause in the middle of puzzling out his tie. Mary-Jane Watson. It would not be fair to Felicia to start something if he wasn't getting over MJ. Yet how was he supposed to get over her if he didn't move on?

He thought about it as he scarfed down a stimulant bar to tide him over. He knew he wasn't going to get back together with MJ; that ship had sailed. It was time to live in the now, seize the day, get busy living or get busy dying, and whatever the moral of Good Will Hunting had been. He straightened his tie and looked at himself in the mirror. Peter Parker: Single and dangerous.

***

Felicia tried on the forty thousandth ensemble in her wardrobe. She just couldn't seem to put together an outfit that didn't seem slutty. Usually, that wasn't a problem, slutty being her niche and all, but she wanted to be more than Peter Parker's fuckbuddy. Okay, not much more, just the girl he took to the movies and Thanksgiving dinner and big world-shaking crises. She wanted him to call her his girl. She wanted him to say her name that way. Hold her that way. Like he had Mary-Jane. Red's loss was the Black Cat's gain. And Peter's. She just had to make him see that.

Sighing, she dug up a V-neck sweater and a long red skirt that left most of her silken legs to the imagination. She didn't even wear her spider-lingerie, though her underthings did end up being red. A girl had to have some standards.

***

Peter arrived at the diner a prudent five minutes early. Felicia arrived a fashionable five minutes early. They stared at each other.

"I didn't know you wanted the clothes to be casual," Peter said.

"I didn't know you looked so good in a suit." She fanned herself teasingly. "Me-yow."

Peter kissed her lightly on the lips and it wasn't awkward at all. It was liberating. She caught him by the waist before he could pull all the way back. Peter smiled brightly before kissing her again, all relief and comfort.

"And for a moment there I thought you wouldn't come."

"Where else would I go?" he asked, batting a wisp of hair from her face. "Wanna split a grand slam?"

"Take me now, sweet-talker."

There was sex that hadn't felt as good for Felicia as holding his hand on the way to their booth.

"Promise me something," she said as she slid in across from him. "If you're here to let me down easy, just hit me. I can take it."

Peter took her hand. "I'm not here to let you down."

Felicia sagged backward, like she was deflating tension. She slipped her foot out of its sandal and began to tease her way up his pantleg. "So how's this going to work, then? I'm registered. You're not."

"The Avengers turn a blind eye to me all the time. You can do the same. So long as we can the PDA…"

"Awww…"

"So no one realizes that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are both dating the Black Cat…"

"Or we could just say I've been watching a lot of Big Love." Felicia ticked the zipper of his fly with her toenail. "Actually, that's something I wanted to talk to you about. I went to my workplace."

Peter snorted. "With your fellow employees, the superheroes… you make it sound so normal."

She shrugged. "It's normal for me. But here's the thing. You know how I got arrested and everyone knows who I am?"

"Yeah." He caught her foot – "Sucks." – and began to massage it. "It's like you're a political candidate who posed nude for Playboy in college."

"No. It doesn't suck. Because no one knows who I am anymore. I mean, it's on my registration card, but that's classified. I'm not on Wikipedia, I'm nowhere. Just like you."

"Wow. Maybe the stars really are aligned for us."

"I'm serious, Peter. If you're mixed up in something…"

Peter stopped rubbing her foot. "I already said I wasn't, didn't I?"

Felicia folded her hands together. "Remember the time you took my powers away?"

"Yeah. It was stupid of me, I wasn't thinking, and I never thought you'd get hurt…"

"I know, I know, we'll chalk it up to us being stupid kids… but we need to be honest with each other. Do you know anything that could just erase us from people's minds? Because that kind of power scares me."

Peter rubbed his eyes. "I'll talk to Reed about it. Maybe Tony, if he'll see me."

"Wow. Reed Richards and Tony Stark…" Felicia smiled, mollified. "You make it sound so normal."

"It isn't. I'm always expecting to wake up and find out that you were just a very pleasant dream."

"And I'll admit it is nice to know I can have you both in costume and out. Although I don't know how long people aren't going to make the connection between a white-haired babe and a white-haired babe in a leather catsuit—"

"Maybe you could wear a wig."

"You like my hair just the way it is. Well, you will once my appointment at the salon is done."

"I like your hair now."

"It's not that kind of salon." Felicia smiled. Peter cocked his head, confused. "It's more of a… Brazilian one."

"Oh. Oh! Then you want to…"

"Well, not right here on the table, but I would like to find out about any tricks you've picked up since we parted ways. Why, are you having second thoughts?"

"No, well… a few."

"Mary-Jane?"

"I warned you."

"She'll find someone new. She'll get over you."

"Like you did?"

"I did get over you. Now I'm getting back under you." Felicia reminded him of her foot by running it along his inseam. "And having so much fun in the process…"

"Would it be alright if we take things slow? Because… I want us to work."

"We can take things as slow as you like," Felicia said, taking his hand. And rubbing it with her thumb.

 

***

Felicia had once thought that Peter sustained only artful injuries, like cuts to stitch which became scars to lick in some of her weirder fantasies. But in reality, Peter got hurt in all sorts of ways. Peeling skin from pumpkin bombs next to electrical burns from Electro over bruises from the Shocker. He had an arsenal of medicines in the cabinet behind his bathroom mirror. She threw a robe on over her lingerie (she’d been waiting for him in it, a fact which now made her feel ludicrous and weirdly immature), scooped up everything on his shopping list, and brought them back to the living room.

Peter was crashed on the ottoman they’d picked up on a refurbishing jag. She found him painstakingly removing the bloody top half of his uniform. Through his shattered eye lenses, she could see his face was a canvas of bruises. Maybe that’s why he left his mask on.

“What the hell happened?”

Peter was still winded. He panted between sentences. “Norman. He has the Thunderbolts on my ass every chance he gets.”

“Bastard. Who is he?”

Peter took a tube of burn cream from her and began gingerly rubbing it over his reddened skin. “I never told you about Norman Osborn?”

Felicia shook her head.

“Oh, right. He was still dead when we met.”

“Is this gonna be one of those totem conversations?” she asked.

“I’ll skip the parts with cults.” He spun it out quick. Telling it all hurt almost as much as the wounds. But he told it anyway, mainly to distract himself from the pain of the first-aid… but partly because of how Felicia had found the one unbruised portion of his torso and would massage it reassuringly as Peter recited Norman’s laundry list of atrocities. He knew them by heart.

When he finished, the pain had faded to a dull ache. He slumped down, exhausted, to stare at the ceiling. Felicia hung her head over him, silver hair brushing across his lips.

“That’s so… insane. I know Norman, I’ve met him at parties, he’s always seemed so… charismatic.”

“Please tell me you’ve never slept with him.”

“Are you kidding? Have you seen the man’s hair?”

“Have my babies.”

“And put stretch-marks all over this bod? Not on your life.” She bent to kiss him. “Unless you can make it worth my while…”

Peter turned his head, letting her taste cheek. “Sorry, Cat. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is crap.”

“Last time I let you go on patrol without me.” Felicia pulled the ottoman next to the couch and rolled him onto it. When he landed on his belly, she saw there was blood trickling down his back. “Hell. You’re bleeding.”

“All yours, princess.”

“Honey, you shouldn’t have.”

Without the storytelling to distract him, the stitches seemed a lot more painful. Or maybe it was that Felicia was doing them. Mary-Jane had always been so careful, like she hadn’t even been touching him at all…

“Aah! Be gentle, it’s my first time.”

“Almost done, Spider-Baby.” She tightened the sutures. “I don’t have the experience you do with life-threatening injuries. That’s because I don’t go picking fights with supervillains.”

“Meh. It’s a living.”

“No. It’s not.” Felicia washed her hands off with Wet Naps. Peter’s request: He’d planned ahead. “Have you considered retiring? You could go back to teaching, you love teaching…”

Peter got up, ignoring Felicia’s concern, and went to the fridge. He got a beer, one of the six-pack he’d been occasionally dismantling since 2008. “Did I ever tell you why I started doing this?”

“For fun?” Felicia asked guilelessly.

“No. For money.”

“If you do it right, same difference.”

“That’s what I thought.” Peter took a long pull from the beer and then set it aside to where it was instantly forgotten. “I justified it as getting money for my family, but I just wanted people to… ‘marvel at the awesome might of Spider-Man’.” He reached for the beer, then decided against it. “I wanted to give the world the finger for not revolving around me. Typical teenage BS… there was this wrestling promotion.”

“Wrestling’s fake, Peter.”

“This one wasn’t strictly legal. One of the audience even robbed the manager. I could’ve stopped it, but I didn’t because—“

“You were like me,” Felicia said, getting the gist.

“You at least had a heart. You would’ve spoiled a robbery to save a damn cat. All I had to do was trip the guy. Wouldn’t have cost me anything, wouldn’t have… he shot my uncle. Later that night. Home invasion.” Peter nodded to himself. “Million to one chance…”

Felicia tried to go to him, but Peter motioned for her to stay back. That was the worst. When he thought he didn’t deserve sympathy, or even pity. It worried her, what he was capable of when he got like that. “You couldn’t have known,” she said, instead of putting her arms around him.

“And it would’ve been so much better if it were someone else’s uncle, or someone’s wife, or someone’s daughter.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, didn’t notice Felicia coming until she was embracing him. Not even the sudden shock of that comfort could prompt tears. He was stone. “If I try to save someone and fail… I can live with that. I can. But white picket fence, family dog, 4th of July barbecue; so long as people are dying, that’s hell to me. If people get hurt because of me... I couldn’t live with that. The Initiative’s cutting down on crime, fine, dandy. But the Thunderbolts are eating my friends on live TV. Sooner or later the hammer has to come down, and I need to help swing it.”

Felicia buried her face in his neck. “I’ll help.”

Next Part: Chapter 3

Comments

[hyperactivator.livejournal.com]

Your continueing! Great chapter. Nice fight scenes and I like the innuendo.

[hamartian.livejournal.com]

I loved the "But you're a villain!" line.

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

Nice continuation. I like how slowly you are taking this -- he definitely needs to heal first. :)

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always debated how long it would take for them to really, fully commit to each other, and I hope I struck a good balance between plot and shippiness. But I think scenes with Felicia dispelling some of her fantasies about life with Spider-Man and Peter coming to rely on her really help sell their relationship as one that's just as valid as Peter/MJ.