For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
The sun was beginning its slow, spectacular descent, painting the city in fiery shades of orange and deep violet, when the real world finally, rudely, reasserted itself. The magic of their private kingdom in the sky was beginning to fade, replaced by the impending, mundane reality of a Wednesday morning lecture.
They lay tangled in the luxurious sheets, their bodies a testament to a day spent in glorious, unrestrained celebration. Every inch of Peter's skin tingled with the memory of her touch, the scent of their lovemaking a rich, heady perfume in the air. He was watching the city lights begin to glitter to life, Diana's head resting on his chest, when a low, insistent buzz came from his discarded jeans.
He groaned, the sound a low rumble of protest. "Don't answer it," he murmured into her hair. "Let's just stay here. We can build a new society. I'll be in charge of acquiring pizza, you can be in charge of… everything else."
Diana chuckled, a soft, warm sound against his skin. She reached over, her movements languid and sated, and retrieved the phone. The screen lit up with a familiar name: Ned Leeds.
"Your ally requires you," she said, her voice laced with a gentle amusement.
Peter let out a long, theatrical sigh and took the phone. "Hey, man, what's up?"
"What's up? Dude, where are you?!" Ned's voice was a frantic, high-pitched squawk. "The biophysics midterm is tomorrow! I've been trying to reach you all day to go over the quantum entanglement section. It's a nightmare! I thought you were dead!"
The words "midterm" and "tomorrow" were like a bucket of ice water. The beautiful, timeless bubble they had built around themselves popped with a deafening finality. He was a student. He had responsibilities. He had a life that existed outside of this perfect, incredible room.
"Crap," Peter breathed. "Crap, crap, crap. I completely forgot."
The journey back to reality was a quiet, melancholy affair. They dressed in a shared, comfortable silence, the playful energy of the day replaced by a gentle, reluctant sense of duty. The subway ride from Midtown back to the campus felt like a descent, pulling them from the heavens back down to earth, the rattling of the train a harsh, grinding return to the real world.
They walked from the station to her dorm, their hands clasped tightly, a silent, mutual pact to hold onto the magic for as long as they could. On the steps of Auerbach Hall, under the dim, buzzing glow of a security light, they stopped. This was the moment their paths diverged again.
"So," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow? For the… execution?"
She smiled, a soft, weary thing. "We will face it together." She reached up, her hand cupping his cheek, and gave him a long, deep kiss. It wasn't a kiss of passion; it was a kiss of reassurance, a kiss that said, This was real. We are real. "Thank you, Peter. For today."
"Happy birthday to me," he whispered against her lips.
He watched her disappear into the dorm, and a profound, aching loneliness settled over him. He turned and began his own journey home, the solitary subway ride to Queens feeling colder and longer than ever before.
He stumbled through the front door of his house close to midnight, his body a pleasant, aching wreck, his mind a beautiful, chaotic collage of Diana. He was exhausted, sated, and happier than he had ever been. He expected the house to be dark, silent, just as he had left it.
It was not. The living room light was on.
A cold, sharp dread, entirely different from the kind he felt as Spider-Man, lanced through him. He saw a suitcase by the stairs.
"Peter Benjamin Parker. Is that you?"
The voice came from the kitchen. It was not angry. It was something far worse. It was quiet, controlled, and laced with a level of disappointment that was a physical blow.
Aunt May appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She was wearing her comfortable robe, but her posture was rigid, her face pale, and her eyes… her eyes were a mixture of raw, terrifying fear and profound, heartbreaking hurt.
"May," he breathed, his heart sinking into his shoes. "You're… you're back early. I thought you weren't coming back 'til Friday."
"My cousin felt better," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "I decided to come home to surprise my nephew. And the surprise, it seems, was on me. To find an empty house. An empty bed. I've been home for six hours, Peter. I have called your phone thirty-seven times. It went straight to voicemail. I called Ned. He hadn't heard from you. I called the university. I even called the police, Peter." Her voice cracked on the last word, and the carefully constructed dam of her composure finally broke.
"Where were you?" she cried, the sound a raw, wounded thing. "I was out of my mind! I was imagining you in a ditch, in a hospital, or worse! Do you have any idea what that feels like? To sit here, alone, in this quiet, empty house, and imagine all the terrible things that could have happened to you?"
"May, I'm so sorry," he stammered, stepping forward, his own exhaustion forgotten in the face of her pain. "I… my phone died. I was with a friend. We were studying for the midterm, and we just… we lost track of time. I fell asleep." The lies felt flimsy and pathetic, a child's excuse against an adult's terror.
"You fell asleep?" she repeated, her voice laced with disbelief. "For twenty-four hours? Peter, don't lie to me. Not now."
She looked at him then, truly looked at him, and her angry, tear-filled eyes narrowed. Her gaze fell to his neck, to the faint, but still visible, love bite from his birthday celebration two days prior, a mark he had completely forgotten about in the bliss of the last day.
Her expression shifted from fear to a new, complicated mixture of dawning comprehension and hurt. "A 'friend'?" she asked, her voice a wounded whisper. "This 'friend' you were studying with… this is the same 'friend' who gave you that… that 'friction burn'?"
He was caught. Completely and utterly trapped. The web of his lies, so carefully constructed, had just been torn to shreds. He stood there, speechless, the hero who had saved the city a dozen times, reduced to a terrified teenager by the heartbroken look in his aunt's eyes. He had protected her from a universe of supervillains, but he had failed, completely and utterly, to protect her from him.
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