MARLENE MCKINNON + PETER B. PARKER
Attempting a hookup and failing miserably.
PG-13 | COMPLETE
If Marlene had any regrets later, she wouldn’t be able to pin them on liquor. There’d been a few pints involved but not even enough to warm her blood. She could feel all too well how cold her hands still were from the walk over as she pushed Peter backwards into his bedroom. He could probably feel the chill too, where her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Hopefully the heat of her mouth made up the difference. Or would, given half a chance.
She reeled him back in for another kiss, kicking the door shut behind her. Taking off her coat required letting the lad breathe for a moment, so she went ahead and kicked off her boots while she was at it. Her wand thunked against the floorboards with her coat, tucked away in the inside pocket.
“I hope this is the right room and you’re not just too distracted to notice,” Marlene grinned, reaching up to thread her fingers into the back of his hair and tug him back into her space. “That would be bloody embarrassing.”
It was probably going to be embarrassing anyway. At the very least, it was definitely stupid. On her part - she could do a lot better than sad sack Peter B. Parker. But that hadn’t slowed him down, even if it should’ve. He couldn’t blame alcohol, or anything other than just a lingering sadness and empty feeling that he’d do anything to fill.
Meeting an incredibly hot woman halfway into a kiss was probably not the best way to go about it. Or was it.
“Uhhh we’re good. Yep. Definitely--” He gave the room a cursory glance, and desperately wished he’d had the foresight to pick up his sweatpants or that empty pizza box on the table and make the bed. “Actually can I take that back, this room is way too messy to be mine-” He cut off as his foot tangled in his own pants, and Marlene managed to get caught up in it too, sending them both to the ground at a rapid rate. Spider-senses kicked in mid-way, and somehow he managed to make them both gracefully land on the bed, Peter’s back landing there with a thud.
Marlene laughed as she looked around, and harder still as they tripped over the mess at their feet. The sound choked off in surprise when he managed a smooth recovery of their fall. “Don’t take this the wrong way but sometimes I forget who you are. But then you do something like that…” She adjusted her perch, straddling his hips and stroking her hands up over his chest. “…And I think, oh that’s right.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t know this was probably a bad idea. But he was funny and charming in a self-deprecating mess kind of a way and they were only having a bit of fun. And okay maybe she had a problem when it came to emotionally unavailable men. Maybe. But that really wasn’t the point. She stripped her shirt up and off, tossing it behind her. Thank Merlin she’d remembered to put on her purple ‘might get shagged tonight’ bra.
“Would you feel better about being a slob if we turned off the lights?” she teased with a grin.
It wasn’t often he could hit a cocky grin these days, but the corner of his mouth curved up to one as they landed smoothly, and he even went as far as quirking an eyebrow up, looking smug. It made his chest swell a little like his younger days again, and that was when Peter’s hands settled on her hips with confidence.
That confidence waned slightly when he realized that even as he’d been working out, his stomach still- well, his body was nowhere near as confident as it’d been in previous years. And with that came reminder that he hadn’t done this with anyone but MJ in a while. Crap. Suddenly turning off the lights seemed like a really good idea.
“Well, if you think that’s impressive-” Following that up with a thwip, thwip as he spider-shot the bedroom light off, and simultaneously turned on the lamp sitting on his desk… was probably not as suave as making a comment about his stamina. How did people do this, anyway??
“Impressive! Lazy...,” Marlene grinned, stealing a quick smirking kiss. “But impressive.” She waited a second for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer lighting. She’d mostly been giving him a hard time, but this was actually better. More flattering. She tugged at the fabric of his shirt, anyway, feeling weirdly exposed being the only one who’d taken any clothes off so far.
“Can you get out of your clothes that easily? Follow-up question: Are you wearing your Spider-Man outfit under this so taking your clothes off will be double the work?” Leaning over him, she tucked her fingers under the collar of his shirt and tried to peek inside. “I just want to be prepared.”
“Lazy yet impressive are the two things I strive to be,” Peter quipped back, and then gave her an awkward chuckle, starting to tug his buttoned shirt just over his head. It snagged a little, but he managed without clocking her in the face. Flopping back onto the pillows barechested, he grinned like he was showing off.
“Very, very funny, but no. See? I am totally an adult capable of not wearing my suit under all of my clothes.” And then in a highly stealthy move (it was not stealthy at all), attempted to slip his spider-suit containing wristband off of his arm without her noticing.
“Oi, it’s been bloody cold here. I wouldn’t have given you too much shite for wearing your long john costume under your clothes,” Marlene chuckled. Feeling generous, she didn’t even comment on his not-so-stealthy wristband removal. She just reached out to help him get it off and carefully set it on the nightstand.
Once that was done, she used a little wandless magic to warm up her hands, clapping them together and murmuring a quiet word. A glow flourished between her palms then faded away. She’d worked on that one since coming to this blizzard-heavy place. “Maybe I can help there, eh?” She smiled and brushed her now warm hands up over his skin, leaning down on the way to another kiss.
“Oh- oh wow.” Peter didn’t exactly run cold, but he still appreciated the warmth as it radiated magically between the two of them. It gave him a second reprieve from his brain as his eyes drifted closed into the kiss.
Peter adjusted his grip and arched his back up, flipping the two of them so she was below, and pulling the pair a little closer. For a long moment, his head dropped down to her neck, eyes closing. He lost himself in it, and something about her perfume just triggered a memory that set his brain on auto-pilot. “MJ-” As soon as the name was breathed out, his hands froze in place and eyes clamped shut. After a second, he was off of Marlene and both hands covered his face. “Fuck,” he mumbled. “I don’t- I can’t- I’m sorry.”
Well. That was a splash of ice water to the face. And right after having her blood temperature fired up with that flip too. Marlene blinked up at the ceiling in surprise for a moment before pushing herself up to sit next to him. She was tempted to go searching for her shirt, but it seemed like a lesser concern at the moment.
“Hey, easy does it,” she soothed, pressing a gentle hand to the back of his neck. “I’ll admit…I probably should’ve thought this one through a bit more.”
Peter huffed out a humorless laugh and the hands trailed down from his face. Marlene was being way nicer than she had any right to be, all things considered. She should’ve stormed out and left him to his eight levels of misery.
He shook his head quickly, and waved a hand in an attempt to cut her off. “No this- this is one-hundred-percent a case of it’s on me, not you. You- you’re great.” Shut up, Peter. She knows that. “I just- I’m a mess. I thought I could-” Peter’s hands splayed out on his lap, helplessly. “Forget? Force myself to move on? That’s-” Dumb. “Not fair. To you.”
“Don’t be daft.” Marlene rolled her eyes and let go of his neck after a gentle squeeze with her magic-warmed hand. “I’m an adult and I knew you were…emotionally unavailable.” She’d counted on it, really. Dating was something she’d never allowed herself to get better at, not when there was always a war on it seemed. Maybe that’s where the constant attraction to people who should be entirely off-limits came from.
“I just thought…maybe a bit of no-strings fun would be good for you. For me too.” She sighed and pushed her hair back with both hands, sending an apologetic smile his way. “That was dumb. Probably a little short-sighted? I suppose we’ll see if you perma-turtle and never speak to me again.”
Peter pressed the heel of his palm to his eye the moment he felt a tear prick, and blew out a breath trying to get control of himself. A fully grown man crying in his bedroom over his ex-wife while his friend and failure of a fling was sitting next to him and being so nice was-- well, not a great example to set.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaybe let’s agree to not argue over who’s fault it is and I promise I won’t perma-turtle?” He shouldn’t have made that promise, but now he was up and moving away from the bed, before he started thinking about MJ again, and offered her the shirt she’d tossed away while he grabbed his own. “We should definitely uh- not ever mention this again because wearing the mask gets… humid, but I’d still like to show my face around without being laughed at, so…”
Marlene really wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure that would go over very well. Telling him it was okay to cry it out didn’t seem like it would work either. She tugged her shirt back on and climbed to her knees to scoot towards the end of the bed where he was standing, instead.
“Peter, you have my solemn promise to never say anything about this ever again.” In a lighter moment, she’d have held up her hand like she was testifying in court. In this moment, she just climbed to her feet next to him and squeezed his bicep before moving to collect her boots. “It’s okay to not be in any rush to move on, even for something like...this,” she gestured at herself with a crooked smile. “We win this thing, maybe you go home and fix things, yeah?”
“That’s the plan,” Peter replied weakly, wry smile in place to try and mask the unsure tone of his voice. One war after another, one fight after another. When the stuff with Miles and the Spider-Crew was done, he said that was it.
And ended up here.
He raked a hand through his hair again, and back over his face just so he could breathe out a sigh. “Maybe I’ll tell Daredevil to start pulling his weight a little more so I can take a vacation or something.” Peter never did well with silence, it got awkward, so he just kept rambling as he stretched out his arm to the rest of the room. “Hey! Now that you’re here, I can give you a tour. That’s uh-- the bed. And there’s the TV. Sofa. Dirty laundry. Last night’s pizza box… Bathroom--”
She slid on her boots as he talked, eyebrows raised appraisingly. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him that he could actually retire, but once the rambling started, she snorted and chose a different tactic. Rushing forward, Marlene wrapped him up in a hug, arms around his waist and ear pressed to his chest.
“Please shut up,” she ordered affectionately. “Also please don’t take this the wrong way but I’m going to go. Unless you have liquor and-or ice cream and you want to watch rubbish telly for a bit.”
Peter clamped his mouth shut and let his hands fall to pat her on the back softly. She couldn’t see when he nodded unhelpfully, agreeing. They had ice cream, definitely, given the two teenagers (and Peter), but his brain wanted to do nothing but collapse on the bed and wallow in self-pity of still being super into a woman that wasn’t here when he’d missed his shot at the one that was.
“Yeah- okay. I’ll uhhh- see you tomorrow?” It was rhetorical, more to throw out that he wouldn't turtle too much.
Just drown himself in pizza.
Marlene pulled away with an understanding nod and a gentle smile. She didn’t love the idea of leaving him to wallow but she was pretty sure the awkward limit had been reached anyway. She pointed at him as she turned to leave. “I’ll hold you to that, lad.”