𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘮 𝘪 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶?

"Go to sleep," Kit murmured, low and encouraging. Theo was already asleep. He could sense it, could've even without the enhanced everything, knew from just the way his arms had gone lax and heavy around Kit's middle and the regular rhythm his chest rose and fell, bumping against Kit's as his breath tickled the fine hairs on the side of Kit's neck in slow, steady exhalations. Enticing Theo into a restful sleep shouldn't feel like a battle hard won, normally it took nothing more nuanced or complicated than getting him naked, exhausting him physically and coaxing him into a satisfied, pleasure-drunk lull with some aftercare, cuddling and easy conversation that was more about the sound of Kit's voice than the last interesting thing he remembered reading on Reddit. But that night, like every other successive night since The Event had been an exercise in patience for both of them—sorting through Theo's residual feelings of guilt, of anxiety, of fear that the symbiote they'd somehow managed to free him from would come back or even attack someone else had taken over much of their playful nighttime routine and Kit. Just. Wasn't as good at emotional stuff as physical stuff. He was trying, though, for the sake of his boyfriend's tenuous and fragile mental state, interspersing some supportive remarks and mild playful threats to knock that shit off re: his overinflated guilt complex with his usual preferred method of comfort, smoothing his hands up and down Theo's body in an aimless roving caress, petting, soothing, and kissing every bit of him Kit could reach. While actively being clung on to like Theo couldn't bear to let him go.

It made Kit a little nostalgic, a little reminiscent about another point in their personal history months ago when Theo had gone through something traumatizing in a wholly different way, dragged back into the past and stuck there for years apparently until he'd gotten rescued and one of his first priorities upon greeting 2021 again was to throw himself at Kit, nestle, and refuse to be moved. Kit back then hadn't put anything together about the demanding press of Theo's arms around him, the way he seemed to relax in increments of time Kit spent rambling about nothing, touching him—platonically, painfully platonically—promising him 2021 Earth hadn't been taken over by monkey overlords because 1950s Theo had stepped on a really important lizard. Kit back then didn't examine too closely what any of it meant that Theo had turned a little red when Kit hugged him back, let him twine them both together for a span of time long past the limits of friendly brohood.

Dumbass.

Now, at least, Kit could happily invite those needy koala arms around him without any latent broh no feelings of distress rising to the surface because what? If? Theo found out about Kit's gross besotted teenage girl crush on him? Present Kit still had a gross besotted teenage girl crush on Theo, fully realized, fully vocalized as of 2 days ago, and instead of distressed Kit had the luxury to slant into covetous instead, squeezing at the perfect body sprawled on top of him just gently enough not to rouse him from sleep.

It was almost midnight. Kit stole another look at the digital clock on Theo's bedside table, blinked back the overwhelming urge to let his human weighted blanket gently suffocate him into mutual slumber and only really succeeding due of the strength of his own resolve. He couldn't know which day, precisely, he'd lose himself and Theo to Kon-El and Peter Parker, but it had to be coming up soon. It was mid-month. It was Saturday night. He sucked at math, and odds, but they were running out of weeks in July and Kit had to be ready for the switch, when it happened. Because Kit wasn't letting Kon take over this time.

Not, minimally, for the handful of minutes Kit needed to yell at Spider-Man.

12:00 AM. Kit felt that weird tingling sensation—like something waking up and unfurling in the depths of his own brain—right on schedule. Not yet, he insisted, fighting whatever natural transition he and Kon had fallen into, month after month, and sensed the opposing consciousness's ensuing surprise. 10 minutes. Give me 10 minutes.

Before he'd drifted off, Theo could appreciate Kit's effort. It wasn't easy, reassuring your boyfriend when he'd been overtaken by a monster he should've seen coming, when it was all due to his own scientific overconfidence and habitual blind optimism. And Theo, to his own credit, was doing his best to listen to every murmur of reassurance, every physical touch that he knew, instinctively, translated to what Kit was thinking but maybe not so good at forming the words for. That didn't matter so much to Theo. He was a talker — always had been, and always would be, always prone to overthinking and the kind of open terrifying communication that had scared many a fuckboy before Kit. But it hadn't, actually, scared Kit, as far as Theo could tell. In fact it might have done the exact opposite, considering their entire lovely admission in the middle of strife.

It was that warmth that folded around Theo as he let himself sink under. He was tired — had been tired since the event, weary and jumpy and not sleeping well even a little bit. He was plagued by nightmares, woke up a little too often in the night with a sharp breath that the dark in the room was actually the dark of something else. But his spider-sense always made sure to reassure him that there was nothing lurking in the corner waiting to pounce, and Kit's warmth against him and arms around him were an anchor to reality, to comfort, to normalcy. Theo took time off from the lab, and was deeply thankful to have no classes to teach, and tucked and folded himself into Kit and refused to move.

A little part of him had hoped, too, that Peter would arrive soon. He'd clean up the mess, he'd locate the problem — or at the very least he'd give him information for what to do about it next time. Theo had left him three essays of letters in their shared notebook, most of one crossed out due to how panicked he'd been when he'd scribbled it in, the others an attempt at some actual calm facts, whatever he thought could help, and a small, pitiful little apology at the end. Should have done my research better. Won't mess up like that again. As if Peter Parker had never fucked up in his entire superhero career — as if Peter Parker fucking up wasn't the constant of his entire life.

Theo always handed over the reigns easily, but Peter was a little surprised to find how immediate it was this time — like Theo was diving away, shutting down and hiding off, not even a little voice or laughter or something at the back of it all. It didn't seem out of place enough to linger on, not when he shifted and woke a little in the dark of Theo's familiar room and found a familiar body wrapped around him.

There'd never been a week that Kon wasn't there with him. Not since they'd met, really — especially not since they'd been trapped together in the endless time loop that had ended — well. Ended very well indeed. Peter curled into the body he thought was now Kon and nuzzled his nose into the curve of his neck and under his ear, pressed a kiss there and hummed pleasure and sleepy warmth and happiness and a soft, oblivious, "Hey there, handsome."

To the best of his (admittedly dodgy) recollection, Kit had never met Peter Parker. Kit's experience with Peter Parker began and ended with that cute twinky kid from the Marvel movies, vintage Spider-Man cartoon memes, and stirring from sleep on Sunday mornings to find his boyfriend covered in a random assortment of healing injuries, bruises, cuts, and probably only recently stoppered internal bleeding. Peter, in Kit's estimation, kind of sucked. Theo, meanwhile, never seemed to have a bad word to say about him, usually leaping to his defense whenever Kit got cranky about shit that was blatantly his fault, gushing about how grateful he was to have Peter's abilities and—Kit sort of got that, selfishly enjoyed the perks of a very flexible partner with a brilliant mind, strength, agility, accelerated healing, bondage webbing, whatever—but there was just as much baggage that came with the fringe benefits. Sundays after 'Peter' weeks were often a wash, Theo needed time to recover from some fight he couldn't even remember losing, and Kit's anger flaring to life at the sight of him beaten and broken took hours, sometimes all day to taper off and flicker out. Kit held on to Theo—gently—most of those Sundays, letting Theo doze while the spider healing kicked in, spending that time quietly contemplating chucking Peter Parker into the sun.

But as bad as those post-shift transitions could be, Kit was almost used to their routine by now. Hold Theo. Feed Theo. Make Theo nap. Ponder best ways to visit gruesome wrath upon Spider-Man. Without, obviously, harming Spider-Man's really cute meatsuit. Months into this cycle, Kit could sort of understand why so many (stupid) evil dudes were intent on ridding the world of Peter Parker: Actual Menace. His only consolation being that whatever hand me down abuse Theo woke up to, Peter suffered through it first, and Kit fiendishly hoped it hurt. A little. A little.

Up until Thursday, Kit was semi-content to just fantasize about Peter's comeuppance and lean over Theo's shoulder while he was writing in their shared journal, swatting his hands away, snatching his pen up and scribbling 'Peter Sux ♥' in a margin somewhere. Really let that Spider nerd know where he stood, from Kit's point of view. Then Venom happened, or whatever the fuck its name was, the slimy symbiote guy with a boner for Theo in particular because—as much as Theo tried to deny it—he had some innate, inescapable connection to Peter: Venom's actual favorite snack.

And maybe Theo could be blamed, partially, for inviting that gross little parasite fully into their dimension and, ultimately, making a quick meal of his own body and consciousness by scraping off some of its residual leftover goo and trying to study it. Kit embraced that. Kit understood that. Kit warned Theo about that, jokingly, as he was scraping said goo into a container but Theo had only sort of been listening. However. Peter needed to shoulder some of the onus for Venom running wild in their universe without so much as a primer on horrible shit from his homeworld Theo might come into contact with—and be entirely unprepared for, without so much as a 'this slime dude is nasty, but he's weak to Public Declarations of Love' to guide him through it.

Kit was tense with anticipation as he felt Theo—Peter—wriggling against him, lecture on the tip of his tongue, uncharacteristically thought out and planned and organized and proofread by internet strangers on r/AITA. Who all, overwhelmingly, believed that Peter was the asshole. Vindication tasted so sweet. Vindication—

Shouldn't be nuzzling against his neck and kissing that spot behind his ear like he Knew, like he'd spent the requisite time learning Kit's body, and he did, obviously he did, just with Kon wearing him and adapting his weaknesses but it felt so. Jarring, anyway, knowing Peter wasn't Theo, he just looked like Theo and sounded like Theo and took devious advantage of that spot like Theo and Kit took a deep, shaky breath to shore up his willpower before he did something stupid and horny and let Peter keep going, objections dying a quick death in his throat. "Not him, not Kon, could you stop—doing that, it's really distracting and we need to have A Talk. Peter."

Kon was still there, Kit felt him lurking just beyond the forefront of his mind, spectating, communicating in vague threads of emotion like confusion, amusement, eagerness—to put his (their) hands on Peter, probably—but he wasn't intervening. He was listening to Kit's request, giving him space, and Kit, though grateful, wondered how long that would last.

It was difficult to feel the passage of the indeterminate amount of time between the days that he and Kon saw each other, but every time he woke up and saw the soft glow of the time and knew instinctively that it was a new day some weeks since the last time they'd seen one another it felt like an age. It felt like there was catching up to do, both emotionally and physically, and it didn't get old. Just like how it hadn't when they'd been trapped in that time loop together, day in and day out waking up in the arms of one another, when Peter had pretended to sleep even when he was awake, even long after he'd figured out that Kon could tell thanks to his superhuman abilities, when he'd just pressed his nose into Kon's neck and breathed him in and let the inevitable stresses and anxieties of the day (and inevitable deaths or damage) stay lingering far, far away.

It didn't matter that Theo's body still felt like it was hazy from sleep, and it always took a moment or two to adjust to having total control again, but it didn't stop him from lingering on that favorite spot he'd come to know so well, one that he liked to lavish attention on whenever possible, one that he knew would have Kon gasping just the right way before he did something equally as thrilling like rolling them over or dragging Peter on top and into his lap. Peter had just begun sneaking his hand beneath the covers, already full of plans for what he might do, when Kon spoke and —

Didn't... really sound like Kon.

It was the same voice, obviously, but it was — not right. And then, after the sound of it processed through his brain, came the actual context of the words. Not him. Not Kon. Peter froze, entire body stilling in the middle of what he'd been up to, reacting as it naturally would with pure unadulterated horror — a flood of ice cold through every vein in his body, the tightening up of his chest, the rapid movement of his brain trying to make sense of it all, of what had happened, was Kon okay, where had he gone, had he found a way home and was that it, would they never see each other again, and —

He overdid it in his effort to wrench himself away from Kit, not Kon, who he'd just been kissing and definitely about to feel up and it shouldn't have felt as bizarre and horrible as it did but it absolutely felt bizarre and horrible and half a second later Peter was on the wall. Sticking, appropriately, to the wall above the bed, still with sheets tangled around him, panting from shock and staring down at Kit with wide-eyed panic.

"Um, hi." Peter managed, finally, a little creaking crack in his voice as he pried his fingers away from the plaster and slid down until he'd sunk onto his haunches on Theo's pillow — very carefully gathering the sheets still around his very not clothed body. Which was — ridiculous, he thought. They both knew exactly what the other looked like, but it wasn't ... normal. Anyway.

He stared at Kit. What had he said? A Talk? Ah, shit. Peter had heard that a lot. Not from Kit, obviously, but from various exes and other figures in his life, and he was already bracing for the scolding. "What's... up?"

At first, Peter's (over)reaction to getting cockblocked was funny. Then, satisfying. Then, melodramatic. Then, finally, a little insulting? Kit aimed a skeptical, peevish eyebrow up at the wall, at Peter clinging desperately to the surface, arched and stiff and comical like a startled cat, dignity barely covered by a twisted mess of the entirety of Theo's bed linen. What an idiot, he thought, a little sulkily, but the irritation quickly gave way to a foreign rush of fondness that—absolutely did not belong to him. Keep your lame emotions to yourself, Kon. Kon didn't respond in any appreciable way but the damage was already done, affection commingling with annoyance and as much as Kit wanted to refute his own blatant hypocrisy, that Theo stuck to the ceiling and staring down at Kit in trembling, anxious mortification wouldn't elicit the very same urge to reach up and pry him loose and drag him back down into bed for a supportive kiss that he was presently stubbornly pushing against thanks to Kon—it was too obvious, too unavoidable. Because he was already sitting up, totally naked and not particularly bothered by it, hands twitching out to ply, encourage, catch—

Peter beat him to the punch, thank God. Landing absolutely no where near Kit's open and ready arms, which promptly folded across his chest in a hasty gesture of denial that only kind of spared his self-respect. "Are you done being dramatic?" Kit bit out, though way less harsh than he'd intended, and it had absolutely everything to do with the fact that he was trying to be a tough asshole to—someone wearing his boyfriend's face. His very sweet face. His very earnest very sweet face, peering back at him through a sleep-mussed mess of fringe, trying to look attentive and calm instead of full of dread and falling ridiculously, laughably short. This time it wasn't Kon intervening on Peter's behalf, just Theo. Theo and Kit's pathetic vulnerability for the stupid love of his stupid life looking put out and nervous and Kit had, had to look away to glare at something anything else, like the slowly dying houseplant in the corner Gigi had tentatively (mistakenly) trusted Theo with.

Remember the plan, Kit. Be firm. Be resilient. Be tenacious. Be strong. Be fearsome. Be—none of the things he was capable of being, locking eyes with his hopelessly endearing boyfriend, no matter how recognizably Theo Peter wasn't in the lines of his posture, the inflection of his voice and maybe most conspicuous of all, the polite distance he'd injected between them. Theo Theo would be clambering across the mattress by now, reaching for Kit, touching him in quietly supportive and reassuring way, infinitely patient and willing to wait for whatever Kit needed to say. Peter Theo was clutching at the sheets and lightweight down comforter like they were a form of defense against more than just his nudity, semi on edge, fully prepared to leap out of the line of fire like he was facing down his own execution.

Kit didn't mind that so much. But Peter's face was going to be a problem. Peter needed—to not have Theo's face. "Can you, like, do something about that?" He pointed, unhelpfully, in the general vicinity of Peter's entire existence. "Maybe, put something on? Over—no, I don't care about that, this." Leaning over, closing some of that polite distance, Kit shoved his hand at Peter's—Theo's—Peter's—face, covering as much of it as he could beneath the span of his own fingers. "Sort of better. Almost. But this really limits my ability to angrily gesticulate. You don't have a paper bag handy, do you?"

Angrily gesticulate. Okay, so — maybe it wasn't a Kon problem. Maybe Kon was still there, somewhere, and Peter would get to see him again. But — first and foremost, there was the Kit problem. Not that Kit was a problem — Kit's body housed someone he'd grown to care about very deeply, his boyfriend, and Peter knew that they were just — visitors, sort of. They'd appeared and derailed the lives of Theo and Kit and there was the kind of understanding that came from that, that he needed to be polite, thoughtful, understanding.

He didn't want to be a visitor, as much as he wanted to return to his own life — not now that he'd found Kon, and returning to his universe would mean, well, absolutely fucking with the multiverse in order to find some portal that would take him to the real Titans Tower. And Peter would do it. Had absolutely no concern that he wouldn't, because if there was anything that Peter Parker was, it was stubborn and tenacious and those were traits he felt he shared with Theo, most definitely to a fault.

But now Kit was there looking — angry at first, but it was like the expression couldn't stick no matter how much he tried to sound brusque and annoyed, and Peter knew inherently that he was in trouble for some reason, cast a stiff glance down at Theo's body to check to make sure all of his limbs were intact. They were, and no more than the usual amount of bruising that came with Theo being Theo — one on his knee that Peter was sure came from bonking it against the side of the bed before he'd climbed into it for the night and would be gone in another half an hour. But with no obvious damage to detect, and Theo dead silent in the back of his mind, like he'd hid himself underneath a blanket of denial or something, all Peter could do was level his gaze at Kit, wince empathetically, and carefully lift a hand to cover the top half of his face — as if that would help things.

"You know, I probably do, somewhere." Peter answered with a lighter tone than he'd maybe intended, because — well, Kit was upset. Worried. Or — something, and Peter shouldn't joke, but his defense mechanism was absolutely to say stupid things at inappropriate moments. "Kon made me some really fantastic—" Peter stopped himself and fidgeted his fingertips around his temples. "I mean, I can go looking for it, if you want." He finished with a small clearing of his throat. See? He could be serious. He could take this seriously. "Let me just—" Peter started to tip backwards off of the bed then, carefully sliding down onto the floor, taking the sheet with him and fidgeting about down there for a bit until he popped up again with a pair of boxer briefs on (patterned, with unicorns, because of course they were), and then he settled back on the edge of the bed and used the corner of the sheet to half hide his face.

"Better? No bags down there, but I can find another pair of underpants. They make good balaclavas when you're in a pinch." Peter could feel the bubbling need to ramble starting to rise in him, so he peeked out at Kit — at his face that he longed to touch so much, Kon's face, looking at him like — Peter didn't know. Not like strangers, but like they were — so very, very far apart. It tightened a little something awful in his heart. "Hey." Peter finished finally, voice soft. "Are you okay?"

As much as Kit wanted, desperately, to hold on to their differences—the means to divide them, sharply, distinctly in his own head—[Theo] and [Peter] still shared a small (overflowing) handful of similarities. Beyond the obvious stuff like the intellect, the geekiness, the overwhelming compulsion to do good were more subtle commonalities that Kit had absolutely no hope of covering up with something as handy as one of Theo's pairs of absurdly patterned underpants. Like, Peter was already babbling. Starting, stopping, starting again, and maybe, maybe Kit could throw himself at Theo's dresser, yank open a drawer, tackle Peter backwards onto the mattress and shove a set of boxer briefs covered in tiny bunches of tropical fruit or lightsabers or dancing kittens in his mouth to put them both out of their misery but it was—god, so stupidly charming. Enough that Kit could easily shut his eyes and hear Theo chattering anxiously about disguising himself with underwear just to fill the expanse of empty tense air between them. Enough that he might not be able to distinguish [Theo] from [Peter] from [Petheo] if they suddenly became multiple entities just then, standing next to each other in Theo's bedroom and cheerfully exchanging DIY balaclava crafting tips.

"I realize it's probably a lot for you to handle—maybe impossible—but could you actually not talk?" Big ask, admittedly, but Kit was feeling less and less confident in his own righteous cause by the second, gaze lingering a little too long on those cute little frolicking unicorns—the cute little frolicking unicorns he'd peeled right off of Theo a few hours ago and flung over the side of the bed, greedily running his hands over the exposed skin before gathering his boyfriend up in his arms, flopping backwards and arranging them in a comfortable, leisurely tangle. And maybe it should've been more manageable, that Peter wasn't naked anymore, that he'd gone along (in part) with Kit's request and was courteously holding the sheets over a generous majority of his face, aimless yammering slightly muffled though no less obnoxious, but did he have to be so... cooperative?

Kind?

Are you okay threw him. Kit's eyes snapped back up to Peter's face, abruptly annoyed all over again because Peter had lowered the sheets, was gazing intently at him like Kit was a puzzle he wanted to solve, carefully, gently and that. That just wasn't fair. He wasn't playing fair. Those were Theo's impossibly soulful brown eyes scrutinizing him, contemplative, and that was Theo's low talk to me voice, small little tinge of some unidentifiable emotion coloring his words but it sounded almost wistful. Genuine?

No. He probably didn't actually care about whatever Kit was upset about, he probably just wanted this uncomfortable deviation from his Saturday night routine over and done with so Kon could come out from his hiding place inside Kit's mental skybox and take control and they could do—something that involved skimming those unicorns back off and that perfect electric spot behind Kit's right ear. And Kit could understand that, he did understand that, he and Theo had had discussions about how terribly inconvenient it had to be, only getting to wake up and spend seven consecutive days worth of meaningful time with your partner before being forced back into—something—hibernation?—somewhere—subspace?—and he couldn't not be sympathetic.

But sympathy could come later. There were enough conflicting emotions crowding up Kit's psyche already, some of them his, some of them bleeding in from Kon who'd seemingly begun to take serious notice of whatever Kit's intentions were. Maybe he had access to Kit's internal cue cards, to the jumble of angry words that should've had order and precision but kept vacillating, reorganizing, subtracting, adding, the longer Kit maintained eye contact with Peter Parker. Ugh, fuck you. "No, I'm not okay. Let me ask you a question, just to set the tone: does the word 'venom' mean anything to you?"

These kinds of expressions were familiar enough in that Peter remembered seeing something close to it when he and Kon had been stuck in that time loop together. Frustration, irritation, hurt — the latter of which he'd either not noticed entirely or chosen to ignore, to play oblivious to, because Peter Parker was consistent in his unstoppable ability to throw himself into harm's way no matter how that made the people closest to him feel. And Kon had become that — and he'd realized, in the end, what he was doing to him every time he ended up broken and battered and dead or near death, when it had happened so many times that his regeneration couldn't handle it anymore, when there was that real, actual risk that he'd just be — gone. Now Peter looked back on that time and knew he'd been a selfish asshole. He thought he'd been better, though — that Theo was similar enough to him that he would want him to help, that he wouldn't want him to stay back instead of throwing himself — them both, technically — into danger if it meant they might help just one person.

And he'd taken Kon into consideration, obviously. He tried not to get his ass handed to him, tried not to get to that point again when he'd been so obsessively trying to help that he hadn't seen what was right in front of him (handsome, leather jacketed, exceedingly frustrated with him). But he realized then, as Kit struggled to snap at him, as he watched every flicker and trace of emotion that crossed his face, Peter realized that he'd been the asshole again, and he hadn't taken Kit into consideration, who was just as much apart of this as any of them.

He shut his mouth, for once, even if it was nearly impossible to keep it that way, and he was half a second away from interjecting into the seemingly impregnable silence with a, "I have this joke about a—" that stopped, swallowed back down and dissipated into the abyss because he was staring, expression shifted from concern and worry and self-deprecation to immediate, intense concern.

Venom.

"What?" His tone was sharper than he intended but Peter couldn't take it back. If Venom was here — fuck. There were a variety of different Venoms it could be — the tenuous, strange truce he'd made with Eddie, eventually, took a long time to reach, and it still was never going to be perfect. But by the sound of Kit's voice, it wasn't just that some guy with a symbiote had shown up to shout at Theo. Peter sprung up on the bed again, dropped the sheet, and started roving around the room like he was checking it for bugs. Which — technically, yes — even though he doubted they'd just be lying in bed if the Venom symbiote was hanging out in the corner of Theo's room.

He reached Theo's desk with the notebook filled with their shared messages to one another, hand drifting over it, and he flashed a concerned frown over his shoulder at Kit again. "Okay. Yeah. It rings a bell. What happened?" He bit back the urge to ask are you okay again, because Kit was — not. Clearly not. No wonder Theo was dead silent inside him. Something really fucking heinous had happened.

Fresh hostility prickled in his blood. It was easier, oddly, to redirect himself fully back into indignation and anger the more serious Peter became, the more he began to listen and leave his quips and awkwardness and rambling tangents about underwear behind. The more he wasn't asking Kit if he was Okay and visiting the comprehensive weight of those worried eyebrows and their implications upon Kit's irritatingly faltering willpower and looking like he was seconds away from offering him a very Theo-like hug. Kit might've, might've crumbled into not-so-metaphorical dust if Peter had actually managed to put his arms around him, soothe his hands across his back like he was an overwrought little kid one dropped ice cream cone away from bursting into hysterical tears—but fortunately for Kit and his plans and cue cards and front page AITA post, Peter probably possessed enough scraped together bits of foraged common sense to guess that Kit would've (possibly) swung at him, full force, if he tried. Or he wasn't as committed as his alter consciousness to ruling out the Power of Friendship as a viable de-escalation strategy. Enough to risk getting punched, at least.

Kit's stare followed Peter as he paced around the room, wary, weary, oscillating from one to the other every time he got too close to a window. He didn't have his web shooters on him, Theo hadn't worn them to bed like he wore them literally everywhere else but Theo's bedroom wasn't exactly an unsurvivable distance from the ground. If Peter wanted to tuck and roll his way out of an uncomfortable conversation, jumping out a window wasn't the worst idea. Kit would do it. Kit had done it. Kit had barely survived doing it, once, because in his haste to escape a drunk tinder hook-up slurring their way through that terrifying 'I think I might actually like you for more than your penis' speech he'd neglected to remember their apartment was a third floor walk-up. An awning, and plot armor, were probably the only two things that spared him from snapping his cowardly fuckboy spine in half.

But to his credit, Peter wasn't chickening out. Not yet. Not even when Kit icily uttered the word 'venom' and Peter's mood abruptly shifted from conciliatory and placating to oh, fuck Petey boy's in big trouble now in the span of one single pointed what?

"He's—it's?—your handsy mass of evil black goo, what do you think happened, genius?" Peter looked worried again. Not for himself, not even as Kit seethed at him with barely leashed aggression, sitting cross-legged on a rumpled bed in a way that should've conveyed cool and casual but for the ramrod straight angle of his spine and his fingers digging tight and bloodless into the bedding now covering his lap like he was physically restraining himself from pushing up off that mattress and throwing Peter bodily out that window instead. No, Peter still looked persistently concerned for Kit, for Theo, for whatever had gone down between them and Venom that he seemed to have no knowledge of, even with the victim lurking somewhere in his brain and the pages and pages Theo had written out, brokenly, in their shared notebook before surrendering his exhausted consciousness to the void.

Kit narrowed his eyes, dropped his gaze slightly to somewhere just over Peter's left shoulder. Totally unwilling to chance Peter's earnestness derailing him again, not with the white hot fury starting to reignite and flare out in his chest. "Theo wasn't ready. He wasn't prepared. He had no fucking idea what he was in for, to have his mind taken over and control of his own body wrestled from him. He almost hurt so many people—he almost hurt me—can you even begin to understand what that did to him? How ruined he'd be if I was just some weak wimpy fucking nobody and he'd creamed me into a wet gory puddle when I tried to stop him?"

The urge to flee this kind of confrontation had blipped in and out of his brain, just for a second — that it was an option, that he could escape whatever uncomfortableness was about to settle between them with one quick flip out the window and down the fire escape. But while Peter was often avoidant when it came to personal problems, he'd never been very good at running from them — and especially not this kind of problem, where the responsibility for somebody else fell solely on him. Even if that person was, sort of, him as well — it was a thing that still took time to wrap his head around, the situation he and Theo had found themselves in, a shared entity but not quite, still two complete unique individuals despite sharing a lot of similarities and a mutual affection for dark-haired superhuman bad boys.

It was still difficult to look Kit directly in the eyes — not when every time Peter glanced at him from his position across the room he wanted so desperately for Kon to be there again instead. And that felt — cruel, to want something like that, when they were all sharing, weren't they? But it was almost impossible to separate the two of them when they looked so similar, when it made his heart ache in the worst way to see that flinty glare aimed his way. Both because it was Kon's eyes, and Kit — because Kit was angry with him, and that in itself was scary because that face with anger in it wasn't something Pete was used to seeing, nor did he like it, not when it was aimed at him. But if it had just been that — if it had only been hostility and nothing more, it would've been a whole lot easier to snap back with some sassy remark, maybe start a fight, maybe get a little punched — and then Kit would feel bad about that, wouldn't he? Punching Theo in the same action as punching Peter — but it wasn't just anger, there, and even when Peter visibly bristled at genius and clenched his fists at his side and turned with every intention of opening his mouth to say, yeah, actually, real genius, what does that make you? he couldn't bring himself to do it, because Kit's voice had a whole something else in there, something raw and desperate and worried.

And the facts, too, they had a way of slapping Peter so hard in the face it was almost as if Kit had punched him.

His immediate reactive tension stuttered away and Peter sank back against Theo's desk, one hand over his mouth. Venom, here, and Theo, used by Venom to attempt to hurt people, to attempt to hurt Kit, and Pete felt sick to his stomach.

"Actually, yeah, I can understand what that would do to him—" It came out with more of a snap than Peter intended, and he recoiled from his own tone and winced and muttered a short, "Sorry." Pete knew very well what it was like to bring irreversible, devastating harm to someone he loved — and Kit was right, he should've warned Theo. He slid his fingers through his hair and looked away.

"In my world, that's — long done. Venom. He's someone else, now. Sometimes we're even allies. I didn't think to say, I didn't think things could — would — happen that way." Peter worried at the corner of his bottom lip and finally turned his gaze back to Kit, aching regret written in every feature. "I'm sorry. That must've been terrifying."

Beneath all the anger—and it felt endless, somehow, infinite, old grievances and supposedly forgotten hurts rising to the surface one right after the other, fueling Kit's temper like a drunk guy with a lighter and a 5 gallon can of gasoline in place of any discernible survival instinct—Kit had to concede he wasn't being fair to Peter. Not even when their confrontations were limited to the margins of Theo's notebook, to cartoonish depictions of red and blue stick figures getting blown out of a cannon into a pool of piranha or boiling alive in a giant witch's cauldron or being squashed into spider jelly by that one spiky room from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Because ok, Peter still kind of sucked, and had an alarming lack of concern for what happened to his body—his shared body, even if the primary owner was also kind of a lovably stupid martyr—but Kit wasn't around to witness the circumstances leading up to Peter swinging eagerly right into some huge monster's slavering maw. A majority of his intel was secondhand, gleaned from Theo's (intentionally?) brief summaries of Peter's notes and Kon's less than helpful cartoonish depictions of red and blue stick figures hanging out of some huge monster's slavering maw. And though the only information that seemed to matter in the moment was sourced from a painstaking cataloguing of Theo's sunday morning injuries—counting bruised and scabbed over teeth impressions across his torso from that huge monster's slavering maw—Kit's reactions, and his grudges, were entirely based in reflexive, knee-jerk emotions.

But maybe Kit was facing down the harrowing realization that some of Spider-Man's girlfriends had come to discover at whatever point in their relationships, probably shortly before dumping him: that dating a self-sacrificing idiot hero meant having to bear one seriously annoying burden—caring about his well-being enough for both of them, and potentially at least one stress-related illness. Kirsten Dunst's character was probably secretly going bald in her universe.

Luckily, he wasn't actually dating Spider-Man. Luckily, Theo mostly suffered the consequences of Peter's actions instead of his own, so Kit didn't really have to sigh at him and give him any number of hypocritical speeches about doing... anything responsibly, because Kit wouldn't make it through 10 words without bursting into hysterical (terrified) laughter that he was turning into his own father. Poor Kon got the honor of bugging out over his boyfriend's casual disregard of his own body integrity whenever he webbed his way into a fight that was easily, obviously, way beyond his capability to survive much less win. And—

None of that felt like Kit. Kit was still angry. Kit wasn't willing to dig any deeper with his handy emotional gardening trowel past that huge vein of frustration and resentment to approach anything resembling reconciliation or, god, fuck, self-reflection? Hell no. All Kit wanted just then was to bury his fingers in whatever visceral spiritual wound had prompted that brief flicker of answering indignation to flash across Peter's face before it vanished again, smothered beneath another apology.

Which puzzled him. Which—shouldn't have puzzled him. Kit embraced that he was not-so-secretly a shitty person, only quasi redeemable enough that he could sleep at night because largely, his shittiness was the result of a mean overprotective streak that encompassed maybe a collective five people but most of it, predictably, centered around Theo. And if Kit had to pop off at Peter about what considerations he wasn't making, every time he put Theo's body into mortal peril, about how obviously he hadn't learned his lesson from—whatever he was holding back, something terrible, had to be, even if it ended in the two of them naked or near-naked brawling on Theo's bedroom floor, if it saved Theo from the pain or discomfort of just one sluggishly healing concussion or bruised kidney or broken bone, Kit wouldn't hesitate. Not for an instant—

"Dude." Oh, right. Kon. "Dial it the fuck back or I'm taking over by force." Suddenly those weird feelings and concessions made sense. Kon's fingers were poking heedlessly into the contents of his—their—his brain, uninvited, trying to force a little sensibility right into the middle of Kit's rage spiral and wasn't that just super un-fucking-fair that Kit couldn't even be irrational and pissed off without someone tugging at the reins from inside his own head? "Fine. Yeah, it was terrifying. Yeah, you're sorry. You know better now, don't you? Whatever's happening in your universe, it doesn't mean shit because it's different here—"

Kit flinched, abruptly, into silence, reaching up to rub viciously at the sharp, throbbing pain behind his eyes with the heels of his palms, pain he hadn't felt since maybe his first shift when he and Kon were two head empty stubborn assholes fighting for control of his body. Kon, evidently, was Done with Kit infringing on his timeshare week with Kit's body, or maybe just really, really irritated that he was using those few borrowed minutes to snipe bitchily at his boyfriend—"Bingo."—who was already looking miserable and contrite enough that it should've mollified him into showing Peter a crumb of mercy. Fuck, ow. "Just. Don't let it happen again, okay? Tell him everything. Warn him about everything. Give him the tools to fight back if some stupid villain crawls out of your dimension and into ours and its weakness is something lame and obscure and you almost had to die to figure it out because—because Theo, he's..." Jesus, take a breath. Kit's voice was beginning to shake. "New. To all of this. He doesn't have your experience. If he goes up against something you barely survived, he probably... won't."

Peter couldn't believe he hadn't thought about it that way before. It felt horribly inadequate to realize now that what Kit was saying was absolutely unequivocally the truth, that the facts were the facts — that Peter Parker had been doing this since he was a teenager, and Theo only since some time late last year. But for some reason, Peter had arrived and it had felt like — he didn't know, really, just like Theo was a like-minded individually, that they were both so similar that it worked, that Theo reacted to the change by embracing it wholeheartedly, diving head first into it the same way Peter would have, had, a long time ago when he'd first been bitten by that spider. How easy it had been to start sharing notes, to sense the excitement vibrating off of Theo's scrawled letters, all of his millions of questions — how do I make my own web-shooters, how do I make my own suit, what other abilities will I get, how do I train, who should I tell — how easy it felt to simply see Theo as another protégé, another spider-kid filled with moxie and determination and indominatible will.

And he supposed Theo still was that — none of them had gotten through their first few years as heroes without some huge devastating mistakes and dangerous run-ins with villains. Peter had needed to learn to accept that he couldn't be there for each and every one of them all the time, that eventually they'd have to learn how to solve the problem on their own, that he could offer his help and expertise when he wasn't knee-deep in his own shit.

But that was the issue, wasn't it? Theo wasn't knee-deep in Theo-specific shit, this was all because of Peter — and if he'd just thought ahead long enough to predict it, maybe Kit's voice wouldn't be cracking in the most heartbreaking way as he tried to convey his deep anguish underneath all that anger at him. Maybe Theo wouldn't be an empty shadow of a presence inside him, completely unlike the usual bundle of energy he could sense in the back of his mind at all times, and maybe it wouldn't have hit just so hard that Kit was totally, completely right — that if Peter thought back to some of his hardest won fights, always just carried off by the slimmest chance, then — no, he couldn't completely accept it, couldn't think that Theo wouldn't somehow come out alive, too, but still.

It wasn't a risk worth taking.

Running the risk of getting punched was definitely something worth taking, though, because Peter pushed away from Theo's desk and crossed the room to reach a hand down for Kit's shoulder, to sink down in front of him against the bed. "Yeah. It's not gonna happen again." Peter said, voice firm, a significant look aimed at Kit's face if he could manage to catch his eyes and if, possibly, he could fit the reassurance in before Kit came swinging at him or tackled him or bit him or laser eyed him or used Kon's ttk for something decidedly not fun or whatever.

"I'll make sure he's got the information he needs. And if something ever shows up that I never ran into, that I don't... know about — you know he's tough. He's smart. He'll figure it out. He won't let that happen." Peter wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say, but it was the truth that he knew, anyway. "And he's got you." Just like Pete had Kon — the guy who'd dragged him away from certain death for the millionth time instead of giving up on him like so many others had in the past.

No one—except his mom, obviously his mom, moms were always the exception—had more faith in Theo than Kit. Which wasn't as hopelessly romantic as it probably sounded, because Kit was actually very realistic with his expectations, but for the most part Theo made it easy to believe in him. He was every bit the brave anime protagonist, plucky and strong and capable of amassing loyal companions willing to throw themselves into the thick of danger on his behalf after barely more than an awkward tinder date or chance meeting in his band's mosh pit or casual conversation about video games or kittens or whatever book he was reading because he was just that accidentally, endearingly, charismatic.

Kit had been one of those random meet cutes, nothing particularly glamorous or portentous about getting a surfboard to the face during a pissing contest over the best, choicest waves and as smoking hot as Theo was, as much as Kit had been this close to drooling over him like that requisite ecchi anime character, once they'd parted ways after having drinks at that beach bar Theo should've been relatively easy to forget.

But here he was, three years later, five months into the healthiest and longest-lasting relationship he'd ever been in, yelling at fucking Spider-Man like he was a misbehaving child because some negligible mistake on his part had put Theo in a ridiculous amount of danger. Danger Kit might've had that boundless faith in him to handle, like he'd handled other things, like he'd handled Kit—effortlessly, rationally, patiently—when he'd nearly blown Theo's head off after discovering his heat vision in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time, and Kit had straight up lost it like a panicky baby for as long as it took Theo to calm his ass down (less than five minutes.) I got you, Theo had said, perfect, confident, agonizingly sure despite barely overcoming some really grisly odds and if Kit had to pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was desperately in love with Theo Tate, it would've been then. Barely one month into their relationship. At the time it'd been terrifying, he'd still been clinging to the vestiges of his fuckboy identity and neck deep in denial, but in retrospect Kit should've known he'd been doomed back in 2018 because Theo was an impossible, irresistible force of nature.

But dealing with Venom had been different. Theo hadn't been Theo, he wasn't given a fair chance to stare down the problem and flex his genius brain and can do attitude or even extend an olive branch of Friendship to the symbiote before it'd taken him over, body and mind, and if Kit hadn't—if Kit had just kept trying to cluelessly punch it, let it knock him unconscious and flee the scene instead of shocking Theo back to the surface, back in control... Kit couldn't think about it without getting even more heinously, embarrassingly emotional. And Peter Parker was already back to being frustratingly sympathetic, drawing close, touching his shoulder, crouching in front of him and saying shit like and he's got you, just as calm and reassuring and upbeat as his host.

"Let me be clear, Peter." Kit dropped his hands from his face to meet Peter's (Theo's) big wide-eyed trust me, I'm the anime protagonist stare, settled them instead on Peter's bare shoulders only to dig his fingers in, a little viciously, and yank him close enough to almost kiss. He didn't almost kiss him. He didn't almost punch him, though given Kit's tone and the stern, hard way his eyes had narrowed again it was an easy assumption to make that Peter was in some form of physical danger. But all Kit really did was lift his hands to press at either side of Peter's face, and keep pressing, and squeezing, until that maddeningly earnest expression was cartoonishly smushed. "I'm not taking your solemn vows seriously unless you return this perfect, insane body to me next week in mint, or near mint condition. If you don't, there's gonna be consequences. Don't underestimate my wily wiles, because I will think of a way to punish you that isn't physical, get me?"

Oh, sitting closer was so much worse than Peter had expected. Because when he'd brought himself there, risking all manner of bodily injury, it was all based entirely on instinct, on the desire to right a wrong that he'd caused — to take responsibility, naturally, given that was his repeated tagline. And maybe, even if Theo was quieter than usual and a little shadow inside him, maybe there was some of those threads from him that didn't like to see Kit fighting with being so distraught, and in the same line of thinking Peter didn't like to see Kon looking so distraught. It made him think back to how far Kon had been pushed the first time, when they'd kissed, when the reality sank in that Peter was traumatizing somebody he cared about just by existing in the manner he usually existed in.

But now, up close, it was even harder to tell the difference between Kit and Kon. Much harder when Kit's hands found his shoulders, and then the sides of his face, and Peter blinked in some little panicked flutter as he was drawn closer, an instinctive little jolt taking him half an inch backwards because it wasn't Kon but it also, kind of, sort of, was, and it was all very confusing and strange and the strongest thing Peter felt on top of it all was that Kon was there somewhere just below the surface and he missed him deeply. And he could picture it, too — what he would have felt like waking up on a Sunday morning to find Kon's body all bruised and battered and terrible from something he couldn't even remember let alone hadn't had a choice in participating in. And even though Peter knew wholeheartedly that Theo would do the same thing he did — jump headfirst into dangerous situations to save whoever and whatever was in trouble — it didn't mean he could just do it. Without thinking. Like he always had.

The closeness issue was helped — a little — when Kit squashed his face up and Peter wrinkled his nose and tried to continue to look genuine even with the imposing threat of Kit's icy glare cutting through him like a knife. He winced, cleared his throat, tried a little to free himself of the grip and found that he couldn't, and settled in with an exasperated glance shot Kit's way that melted back to something closer to sincere.

Near mint condition could be a challenge, but Peter would do it. It wasn't the threat of punishment that got to him — even though he really didn't want to imagine what Kit had up his sleeve for him — but the very clear reality that it would probably break Kit's heart, and Peter didn't want to arrive in this body to find a little faint exhausted shadow Theo in his consciousness again. So he moved his hand up from Kit's shoulder to match their position — hands on the sides of his jaw, just not squishing, just holding reassuringly. "I get you." He managed, barely, though smushed cheeks. "Mint condition. Scout's honor. Can you let my face go now? I'm worried the wind'll change and it'll get stuck this way."

"Thank you," and it was grudging, so childishly reluctant but it was also the closest Kit could get to being appropriately gracious when he still, maybe, kind of, wanted to yeet Peter into space. Even if Peter was currently being just the smallest bit endearing in his own right, bravely though unwillingly tolerating having his face squished like Kit was less his momentary pigtail-pulling bully and more the great aunt from out of state he rarely saw whose presence filled him with dread because he knew his cheeks were about to be thoroughly assaulted and there was nothing he could, politely, do about it. The Kryptonian strength helped some, Kit didn't much have to try to hold Peter in place, and he'd felt that brief little yank of resistance—a second time, the first he'd ignored, assumed it was a small panicky response to Kit seemingly trying to kiss him—idiot—and it'd filled him with a sublime rush of satisfaction that Kon's abilities gave him power enough to keep him still. Compliant.

"We appreciate your cooperation," Kit continued, some handful of seconds later and a few degrees closer to pleasant than he'd been at any point in their brief conversation. Possibly because Peter had earned the smallest amount of his approval, possibly because he was luxuriating in Peter's visible struggle to communicate through his stupid smashed face, most likely a neutral muddling of the two with the asshole option slightly outweighing the wholesome one. He barrelled on, cheerfully fiendish, Peter's cheeks still squashed aggressively between his hands even as Peter innocently mimicked the gesture in a show of heartfelt kindness, "I think Theo left enough details for you in your notebook about Venom, he's hoping you'll find it and do—whatever with it, make it go away, save him from a repeat performance. And you'll do that, won't you? Peter? Or your very best, because you're such a good hard-working dude with a conscience?"

Peter was nodding at all the right spots. He knew the right spots because Kit was physically moving his head up and down, marginally gentle because—Kon probably wouldn't allow otherwise, one, and two, Kit couldn't actually get rough with Theo's body, particularly his face, unless something kinky like a spanky paddle was also somehow involved. Or his teeth. Or a collar. Or climbing rope. Or— "Great, thanks again, don't forget our agreement when it's convenient, ok? Willing to bet the next monster that shows up in the city would get gangbanged by any number of other heroes, but if you have to be there, do something almost risk free and like. Web civilians to safety or something. You've got this. See you—hopefully no time soon?"

There wasn't any dramatic change in Kit's body when he finally relinquished control. He didn't shudder or seize up or look around suddenly like an amateur acting workshop's approximation of a coma patient stirring back into consciousness, but Kit's grip on Peter's cheeks did abruptly slacken, and what modest stretch of distance separating their faces was hastily closed as Kon planted an eager, somewhat chaste—for Peter's sake—kiss on his partially open mouth. Probably interrupting him, mid-bullshit tangent, but Kon was breezily unconcerned. "You didn't do too badly with that, all things considered. I admire you for showing restraint. Could've sworn I was gonna have to stop him from pushing you out that window... more than once."

While Kit's — Kon's — body didn't seize up, Peter did, a little jolt and sharp tension the moment they cleared the distance between them and landed a kiss right on his mouth. Because, still, as far as Peter knew in that split second, it was still Kit, and his brain did a haywire little leap of wait, what— before registering the change of tension in Kit's hands and the way the kiss had a completely different flavor to the kind of tone Kit had been using on him and much, much more familiar. That jerk and freeze of his body relaxed and smoothed the moment Kon started talking, back to the way the voice of this body sounded like his boyfriend and not said body's very annoyed owner.

He had been interrupted, too, but in saying what Peter had no idea now — his mind had short-circuited a little with that kiss and he was still playing catch up, the cogs in his head spinning wildly until Peter finally let out a breath and slid his hands up from Kon's jaw to his cheeks to hold him there, relief palpable in his expression. No matter how obvious it had become that Kit was just — pushing his way in charge to make sure he had a chance to talk to Peter, there'd still been that terrified little ebb at the back of Peter's mind that Kon wouldn't be able to show up after that, that he'd be alone here without him for a week — or, not alone, but probably trying to navigate around Kit, and Peter wasn't sure how happy either of them would have been with that.

But Kon was there, talking like nothing all that weird had happened, and Peter let out a scoff and a laugh and pulled a face at him. "Thanks. I don't think Theo's neighbors would've taken kindly to watching me — him — get thrown out of his own window in these underpants." And Peter would have loved to start rambling, but — first thing first, he threw himself against Kon, wrapped his arms around his neck to bodily slam them both back into the bed, sprawled out on top of him, this time so he could kiss him properly — nothing chaste about it, just pure unadulterated happy smooching.

When he pulled back it was only when it became obvious that he probably needed to breathe, a little, and Peter smiled a little sadly down at him, the relief gone to be replaced by — unsurprisingly — heavy guilt. "I fucked up, Kon."

To some degree, Kon had known what was coming. He did rummage around through Kit's mental cue cards, almost immediately after Kit's plaintive request for just a few minutes of control over their shared body, partly because he'd sensed some of that anger simmering beneath the cover of desperation and partly because he was a nosy fuck. His insider access to Kit's memories clued him in to both content and context, he saw 'himself' typing up that reddit post and felt 'himself' get more and more smug as each validating reply poured in—and it would've been easy for Kon to roll his eyes, call his host an asshole and just impose his will back into control before Peter had even the vaguest inkling of the miniature disaster he was innocently, blindly waking up and kissing his way into... if that'd been the extent of everything he'd seen and everything he'd felt. Unfortunately, shit was more complicated than that.

Kit's memories weren't linear. His thought processes weren't organized or rational, everything seemed intermixed and prioritized based on a changeable hierarchy that shifted with his mood and Kon appreciated that maybe their dumbass chaotic monkey brains were something they had in common, something more meaningful cosmically than how deeply they both loved leather jackets. But Kon didn't have to poke too deeply or dodge his way through awkward childhood memories or cringe worthy breakups or confront any more facets that bound him and Kit together—like how sloppy they both got over older domineering women—everything related to Venom was splashed across Kit's mental 'Pepe Silvia' conspiracy board and even if Kit wasn't ranting manically about it inside his own head to Kon, he could parse his way through what'd happened anyway.

Because what hit him most in the face was the giant tsunami wave of pure, consumptive fear. Fear for Theo, fear of losing him, fear of missing out on a desultory mishmash of future cheesy romantic milestones and seriously kinky sex acts, and maybe to a slightly lesser degree, fear of his own inadequacy and inability to stop something like Venom from happening again. Kit couldn't fight Venom himself. He couldn't track it down and wrestle it into submission and throw it into the sun and solemnly promise Theo he'd never have to worry about evil symbiotes [cut to tender emotive closeup] as long as he was around. His alternative, Kon surmised, with insight he'd never possess into his own head empty actions, was to yell at Peter and vent those feelings of frustration and helplessness through—being a giant dick about it.

Which was way Kon had given him some leeway. A little. Up to a point. Because Peter's Sad Guilty Face ruined him emotionally as much as Theo's probably ruined Kit—because they were the same stupidly perfect frowny eyebrows and huge glossy brown eyes and small yet devastatingly sincere moue—and the second Kon reached his Peter's Sad Guilty Face threshold, he was blasting that Oscars speech play-off music in their head to warn Kit his special moment was coming to an end, whether he liked it or not. Luckily, Kit had finished and dove readily out of Kon's way without putting up more than a token fight.

Leaving Kon fully in control to stare down (up?) the consequences of trying to be an understanding and courteous guest in someone else's body: his boyfriend, looking More Tormented Than Usual. Oh boy. At least he'd gotten a nice buffer of Peter's enthusiastic arms around him and Peter's enthusiastic body knocking him backwards onto the bed and Peter's enthusiastic mouth landing on his and hardly letting up until one or both of them needed to come up for air. And some of that patented Spider brand remorse, obviously. "Okay," he replied, peering back up at him with his eyebrows ticked up, expectant, knowing full well that arguing with Peter about his Responsibility was a pointless, impossible battle as much as he still might've wanted to. But in the interest of saving some time... "So, what're you gonna do about it?" His words probably would've sounded harsh in a vacuum but Kon's tone was nothing but encouraging, and his hands (and Spirit Hands™) roved slow and soothing up and down his back. Mollifying.

Peter couldn't stop thinking about how this was the thing that always happened. That, eventually, the people around him couldn't handle it anymore — his serious lack of self-preservation, his determined, unrelenting desire to take care of everything and everyone around him even if it meant going up against an alien god ten times more powerful than he was. Even if he would barely turn the tide based only on pure ingenuity and never physical brute strength, even if he'd only ever escape with his limbs barely hanging on by a thread. And Peter knew it, knew that — of course people would get tired of it. It frightened and worried him to think about Kon getting his ass handed to him, too, even though Peter had long ago set up the very thick and stupid partition in his brain that separated himself from everybody else. The split meant that Peter had convinced himself that it was fine to get his ass perpetually handed to himself, but if anybody else happened to be in danger? Absolutely not.

And he couldn't blame Kit one bit — least of all because Kit wasn't dating him and didn't have to put up with his shit, just Theo's, which was shit probably a little similar but not nearly as bad. Kon had already slapped him in the head with it, way back when, they'd already managed to fit into their groove of — Peter will do stupid, reckless, heroic thing, Kon will probably have to pull his ass out of the fire. But since then Peter really was trying, really was attempting not to get himself absolutely obliterated every single time some insanely overpowered asshole showed up, still had the worst fucking luck in goddamn musical land where pointy knives tried to find their way into his kidneys. But he tried.

And he supposed he'd just have to try much, much harder. Peter never wanted to see that look on Kit's — or Kon's — face ever again.

He sighed into the ministrations of Kon's hands (and not hands) smoothing down his back, head tucking down a little so he could press their cheeks together, trying to refocus himself from shock to guilt to relief and all the way back to guilt. He appreciated Kon's bluntness more often than not, and right now it helped ground him — kept him from wallowing in his Responsibility and how he'd royally fucked it up.

"I'm gonna try to do what he asked." He answered finally, voice muffled into the side of Kon's neck, and then he pulled his face away so he could look at him again — adjusted his position so he wasn't completely draped entirely on top of him, just hitched across his body, elbow propped into the bed. "I'll try not to throw myself headfirst into — every single dangerous situation that arises." Peter pressed the tip of his tongue into the inside of his cheek, brow furrowed. "And I'll leave a few essays of information for Theo to go through. So he's prepared for anything." Peter frowned at Kon's chest, then back up to his face, the little crease between his brows easing. "I still — I can't just ... not help, if something happens. But I'll try to keep from dying."

He'd try to keep from dying. God, what kind of an emotional disaster had Kon willingly hitched his wagon to? Too bad he couldn't claim he'd gone into this blind, just met some cute nerd on superhero grindr and asked him out on a date stopping some bank robberies, saving cats from trees, punching out some purse snatchers, thwarting Generic Big Bad #? from Generic Big Bad plot #? and sharing a kiss in the smoldering ruins of his Generic Big Bad headquarters. Because then? Kon had some plausible deniability. Kon could wrap himself up in a giant warm snuggly blanket of plausible deniability, some months down the line after Peter nearly failed one too many times to narrowly avoid death, look himself in the mirror or any other mildly reflective surface, shrug winsomely and go man, if only I'd known? Conveniently, just the right amount of too many months down the line to dump Peter Parker—known giant martyr—because he'd already gotten stupidly, hopelessly attached.

If only.

Reality, as usual, was way less flattering. The evidence against Peter being a less than moderately well-adjusted dating prospect had gone up in literal flames somewhere around his dozenth gruesome time loop death—seconds after Kon had graciously shouted something at him like you know, people survive burning buildings more often than they used to followed by they'll be alive again tomorrow you dumbass, Peter had promptly flung himself through a 10th story glass window and immediately exploded. Kon hadn't so much been planning their wedding at that point, but waking up naked spooning the same dude twelveish sundays in a row had planted a number of zestier thoughts in his brain and Kon was thinking maybe, eventually, they could both stop pretending to be shamefully inconvenienced by the awkward position their host bodies had landed them in.

And Peter kept dying. Repeatedly, moronically, no matter what Kon yelled at him, Peter courteously treated him to a primer on Spider-Man's Many and Sundry Issues 101 by stubbornly refusing to risk a single temporary civilian death even if he was the one getting crushed by falling pianos or struck by meteors or attacked by mobs of wild dogs or tossed into active volcanoes. A dazzling display that might as well have been a powerpoint presentation on 'why to not get involved with idiots and their complexes' and Kon had just—tackled him to the floor, scolded him again, and undermined himself and his grasping attempts at moral superiority completely by sticking his tongue down Peter's throat.

Kon had no one to blame but himself—and maybe all that insidious naked spooning—for his current situation. That is, patiently trying to talk his Spider-martyr through how best to try more to not die. As if that were actually possible, as much as Peter wanted it to be, because avoiding the odd fight when a person, puppy, or even his worst enemy was vaguely in danger? He just didn't have it in him. Kon knew that, learned that the worst possible way, was still occasionally dealing with residual trauma from learning that the worst possible way. "It's totally the least you can do," he agreed, aiming for light and grateful that he mostly, believably succeeded, one corner of his mouth crooking up. "Not dying is very important, great goal to have, I think all—four of us? Would be stoked if you didn't die." His hands paused at Peter's waist, squeezing, even as his tk continued, boring a little deeper into the meat of his shoulders and back in an intuitive kind of rolling massage. Indulging Kon's sudden, inexplicable touch starvation as much as the need to back Peter off the edge of willfully drowning himself in his own guilt. "Keep Theo's body in one piece, write him a bunch of stuff about the worst of your rogues gallery, caution him against those spider pheromones and how much that web of something something fate makes no sense, try to track down the slime guy and I think everything will be copacetic again."

If Kon wasn't careful, he'd have a very fast asleep Peter on top of him in a few moments, because the pressure of his tk against Peter's back was lulling him to relax, finally. He'd been tense from the moment he'd awoken and realized that the body next to him wasn't the body he could kiss and hold and drape himself over like he was at that moment. The tension eased away in the hard muscles of his back and shoulders and Peter let out a long, exhausted sigh — exhausted not because he was really genuinely tired but it was more at the mere thought of what Theo would have to possibly face because of him. Peter hadn't really registered it all before that night — that his rogues gallery might have the same hankering to kill and maim and obsessively stalk Theo just as much as they did him, with Venom being one of the worst, if not the worst to become first acquainted with before, say, Kangaroo.

And who knew if here, in this universe, they'd be — somehow more powerful, or capable of different things, or have alternate tricks up their sleeves, or be in the bodies of people that Theo already trusted. He clung a little tighter to Kon at that thought, pushed it and squashed it down as something not worth worrying about just yet — just something to add to his litany of warnings that Theo would have to comb through once he was back in control of his own body. He closed his eyes and pressed his face back into Kon's neck, let himself hang there for a moment or two longer to focus on Kon's hands at his waist and his words — casual, light, reassuring, as warm as ever.

"Yeah, copacetic." Peter agreed quietly, hand sliding up so he could trace his fingertips lightly against Kon's jaw, his head pulling back enough so he could see him properly again. "Thanks." He understood in that moment what it might have been like to have to put up with him — and wouldn't have blamed Kon for turning around to scold him just as much as Kit had. But he wasn't, he wasn't throwing an ultimatum in Peter's face, and with another sigh Peter settled a little more on his side, leg hitched up over Kon, tangled up pleasantly in him.

"You know I don't want to die, right? I'm not like — I'm not going out there in the hopes I'll go out in a ball of flames. I'd love to ... grow old, and have a family one day, and die in my sleep at the ripe old age of one hundred and eight." Peter ran his thumb along Kon's chin. "Especially not now. Now I've got you."

Getting old, growing old with someone else was a nice thought, Kon supposed. Especially because he'd spent a substantial part of his weird not-youth youth convinced he wasn't aging a day over his factory default oopsie sixteen. And as totally rad as that'd seemed at first when he was sort of alone and didn't have any real connections to anybody outside of the lab and gaggle of politely disinterested scientists that'd spawned him, it got significantly less rad when he made some friends, even got a girlfriend who—was understandably uncomfortable with the idea of dating a sixteen year old forever. But after that problem with his DNA was solved with... something, whatever, more science, a raygun? and aging with the rest of his friends became possible, well, didn't most metas have a guaranteed expiration date anyway? More akin to a carton of milk than a box of twinkies? No matter how squishy or invulnerable, something would always come along like fucking Doomsday or Superboy-Prime or Thanos and splatter even the toughest supers into a fine paste. And he'd died before, and come back before, but how many times could one reasonably expect to be resurrected slowly over the course of 1000 years via Kryptonian healing chrysalis and revive a millennium later thanks to a futuristic society of super pals who needed a really big favor?

Point being: Kon wasn't really bothered by the idea of dying (again), and by extension, aging, or lack of aging, or getting splattered into a fine paste at any nonspecific point in the future before he could age, even if he could now verifiably age, had aged, definitely wasn't sixteen anymore—lucky for Peter and all the laws against that kind of thing—but aging, specifically, thinking about aging in a meaningful way beyond 'can't wait to see how my powers continue to develop' or 'can't wait to not see how much I'll resemble either one of my ~~gay dads~~ genetic templates' and more like 'I wonder if he'll maintain all that sprightly flexibility at age 108?' wasn't exactly something Kon had chosen to linger on. Before. For reasons.

Okay, so all superheroes fell somewhere on the Great Cosmic Scale of Martyrdom. Had to be at least a little self-sacrificing in order to constantly risk that death via 'splattered into a fine paste' thing whenever taking on any enemy desperate enough to kill just to protect total strangers or vague concepts of Truth and Justice. Kon, generally, risked being mildly wounded. Destroying property with his own body and getting sued by local governments and dishonoring the family Crest. Peter? Peter risked death every single time he faced down some dude with a gun, technically, even if he was flippy and agile and had that swell spider precognition and could punch really hard. But Peter was also the one who'd perished horribly via projectile grand piano to save people who'd reset in a matter of hours anyway, dead or alive.

Of course Peter didn't want to die. He just seemed—to value his life way less than most people, even most metas. Kon had to work on being more... accepting of that, somehow, because it already seemed encoded in Peter's radioactive spider DNA and people yelling at him or threatening him would just make him feel like warm shit more than effectuate any real, viable change. Probably. "With me as your handy meatshield, you might actually be a little more likely to make it to one hundred and eight. Better start taking good care of your colon, I heard that's important in old age." He dipped his head a little, moved forward just enough to skim his lips against Peter's thumb in an easy kiss. "We'll discuss the family thing later ok? Because not to brag, but like, I've accidentally parented 2 babies already and I don't totally suck at it. Anymore. Steep learning curve, though."

The image in his head of Kon parenting babies sent a little unexpected but not unwelcome thrill through Peter that had him, naturally, immediately laughing and closing the distance between them for a kiss. Because — yeah. That would be fun to talk about, he thought, at some point — with no rush, no expectation, no nothing when the first step was, uh, actively not dying. Which Peter would do. Peter, as the temporary custodian of Theo's body every month, would take excellent care of it. Wouldn't treat it as if it were his own, ready to throw into the way of an insurmountable amount of dangers and challenges and things that might rip him limb from limb. He'd do his very best, anyway, just like he'd promised Kit — he'd take an extra second to calculate the risks, to think about an alternative option, to probably web himself to Kon so he could get flown out of danger by the skin of his teeth.

He'd do it for Theo, for Kit, for Kon — and, in a way, he needed to do it for himself. It had always been hard, understanding that he was — valuable, to people. That the damage he'd leave behind if he were to actually, well and truly die and disappear from this realm would be irreparable and horrible and completely and utterly unfair. And Peter had always struggled with his worth when weighed up to the worth of a stranger who needed rescuing, or the entirety of New York City, or the whole planet Earth, or the universe, or — hell, usually just a little suburban block in Queens. He couldn't rely on the thought that if I'm dead, who'll save everybody? — it wasn't enough, in the end, when the saving of everybody came with the very serious risk of death.

He'd be smarter, and even though it had taken him months to make his suit — well, maybe it was time to start looking for some immediate upgrades.

Until then, though, Peter was more than happy to wiggle himself impossibly closer to Kon, to wrap his arms around him, to anchor himself to him, to let his heart settle from the earlier shock at not having Kon there, waking up beside him like he'd become so extremely used to. Peter carded his fingers through Kon's hair, tilted his head and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, the nose, the chin, pressed their foreheads together so he could sigh contentedly and enjoy the feel of being there, together, alive and warm and awake. Together. It was a nice thought.

"Really trying so hard not to make a help me inspect my colon joke, but..." Moment ruined, naturally, but Peter was grinning and wiggling his eyebrows comically and dipping in close with his hand cupping Kon's jaw. "Kiss me already, why don'tcha?"