Kiss the Go-Goat
Peter Parker x Stripper!Reader(she/her)
Peter’s constant downfall of a life takes a pause for a single night filled with sin and debauchery…
The precinct had mostly emptied by the time Spider-Man dropped onto the fire escape outside Jean DeWolff’s office, though the lights inside were still burning.
He tapped twice against the glass, careful not to apply too much pressure and accidentally damage it somehow. DeWolff looked up from the mountain of paperwork on her desk, sighed, and waved him in. There was a headache growing on the left side of her head, which would likely turn into a migraine before the day was truly over.
The window opened with a squeak, and Spider-Man slipped through, landing lightly on the floor.
“Detective,” he greeted with a hidden smile, seeing her being one of the better parts of his day.
“Spider-Man.”
“You sounded urgent in your text.”
“I am,” that got his attention fast.
Jean pushed a folder across her desk, pointing at the empty chair opposite hers. “Ever heard of the Church of Ghost?”
Spider-Man tilted his head, raking his brain for memories, while E.V. was already busy pulling all the information together from the internet. “Sounds familiar.”
“They’ve been in New York for about six months. Maybe a little longer. Church started small, then suddenly they had money,” she sighed with a mix of exhaustion and, dare he say, a bit of envy. “A lot of it.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Enough to buy property in Manhattan. Enough to open businesses in the matter of days. Enough that I’m starting to wonder where the hell it’s all coming from.”
Spider-Man picked up the folder and flipped it open, leafing through the pages with careful precision, allowing just enough time for EV to scan them all. Photographs. Buildings. Business licenses. Financial reports. Newspaper clippings.
There was a church in the smack-dab middle of the busiest parts of the ginormous city. A casino, several night clubs and even some concert halls…
And one particular establishment whose exterior was considerably more glamorous than the others. It looked like a gothic church, with stained glass and polished black stone all throughout its exterior.
He stopped there, taking in all the notes his helpful assistant was popping on his screen. “Is that a strip club?”
The detective nodded, her eyebrows raised high on her head. “Church-owned.”
He slowly looked up, the eyes of his mask expanding and narrowing with his slow blinks. “Church-owned,” he repeated, thinking his heightened hearing had somehow betrayed him.
“Apparently.”
“That’s... progressive.”
“Don’t joke, I’m too tired for it.”
“I wasn’t,” oh he one hundred percent was.
“You absolutely were.”
“Okay, maybe a little.”
DeWolff leaned back in her chair, her hands palms down on the table in front of her, her eyes looking squarely in his. “For almost two years, you’ve helped me put gangs away. Arms dealers. Human traffickers. Organized crime. You name it… Half the psychos in this city who thought wearing a mask meant they were untouchable.”
“Technically, I also wear a mask,” he butted in, also relaxing in his uncomfortable chair.
“You’re not the problem.”
“Aw. That’s almost sweet.”
“Don’t make me regret saying it.”
“What exactly are they doing?” He looked back down at the folder.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know,” the detective pulled another file from beneath the first. “Everything is on paper. Property purchases are legitimate. Businesses are licensed. Taxes are filed. Employees are paid fairly. There are no obvious shell companies, no unexplained transfers, nothing that gives me probable cause to tear the place apart.”
“But?” because there was always a but after long monologues.
“But people are disappearing.”
Spider-Man’s joking demeanor vanished, now turning serious. “How many?”
“We don’t know.”
“That’s not a number,” he complained, though he tried to keep his tone neutral.
“Because we don’t know how many aren’t reporting it.” She tapped the photographs. “People go into these places and spend insane amounts of money. Some drain their savings others stop talking to their families. We’ve had people come out claiming they don’t remember entire nights, and others come out believing they are changed forever and have found their calling.”
Spider-Man frowned, only visible by the narrowing of his white eyes. “And the people who disappear?”
“Some turn up days later, some don’t.”
He closed the folder with finality, pushing the folder closer to her. “So you think it’s a cult.”
“I think something is wrong.”
“That sounds like detective-speak for ‘cult.’”
She gave him a flat look, unimpressed by his need to keep joking in serious situations. “Their entire public image is Satanic. And the last thing this city needs now, with all these enhanced individuals going around, is another wave of Satanic-Panic.”
“Okay, yeah. That’s a pretty solid point in favor of cult.”
“There’s more, because of course there is,” she opened another folder.
“Nobody knows who actually runs the church. They have some anti-pope guy doing all their public appearances, but nobody knows where they came from. They appear in New York, start opening businesses, and somehow every single one becomes wildly successful almost immediately.”
Spider-Man stared at the documents and the news flittering across his built-in screens, scanning through the successes the church had faced.
“And the mayor?”
“Wants answers,” she shrugged, like it was obvious.
“Of course he does.”
“The department wants answers. The IRS is already doing their own investigation. Hell, half the city council wants answers and an opportunity to get in on the action. Taking down Satanics would be good for voters. Even Damage Control has started to look into them, from what I understand. They suspect they could be employing enhanced individuals.”
“So what do you want from me?”
The detective folded her hands, clearing her throat before speaking up. “I want you to look inside.”
A pause lulled in the conversation, him trying to understand exactly what she had just said. Spider-Man glanced at the folder again. “Inside the church?”
“No,” she pointed at the photograph of the fancy looking building. “The strip club.”
His head slowly turned toward her and there was a long silence.
“You want Spider-Man, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, to go inside a strip club?”
DeWolff’s expression didn’t change, if anything, it became even more firm. “Well, you’re a guy under that mask, aren’t you?”
He stared at her, thinking he misheard. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m sure they won’t turn you away.”
“Detective DeWolff.”
“What?” she shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Did you just suggest I go undercover in a strip club because I’m male?”
“I suggested you go undercover because you can walk into places ordinary cops can’t.”
“You specifically said because I’m a man.”
“And?”
“That’s discrimination.”
The detective stared at him, a nerve under her left eye spasming.
“You’re wearing a full-body suit.”
“That’s not relevant.”
“You climb walls.”
“Also not relevant.”
“You’ve fought an alien invasion.”
“Still not relevant,” he was laughing by now, his shoulders and whole body shaking.
“You’ve been stabbed, shot at, thrown through buildings, and dropped off bridges.”
“Okay, now you’re just listing my trauma.”
“And you’re complaining because I want you to go into a strip club? You know how many of my guys — and gals — would jump at the opportunity?” She was smiling too, the expression so motherly it almost made his heart hurt.
He looked down at the photograph again, then back at her.
“...Do I at least get a fake name?”
DeWolff’s mouth twitched in amusement. “You’ve got one already.”
“What’s that?”
“Spider-Man,” she pointed at his mask like it was obvious.
“I’m going to regret this,” he sighed.
“Go to the strip club, Spider-Man.”
“Yes, ma’am,” He groaned, getting up from his seat. He stopped at the window when he heard her clear her throat pointedly.
Jean was already looking back down at her paperwork, but glanced up just to say: “Be careful.”
He gave her a small smile beneath the mask, “always.”
Then he disappeared into the night.
The first thing Peter noticed about the Church of Ghost’s strip club was that it did not look like a place where people were supposed to feel guilty.
That was probably the point, but then again, he never really spent much time around other strip clubs before.
There was no flickering neon sign advertising sin in desperate red letters, no grimy doorway tucked between abandoned storefronts, no air of desperation clinging to the entrance. The building was beautiful, almost offensively so, with black stone, gold lettering and enormous stained-glass windows depicting figures that looked suspiciously like angels if angels had been designed by someone with a fondness for skulls.
Peter stood across the street for several minutes before finally crossing.
He was dressed like an ordinary twenty-something man, nothing that would draw attention, and he had memorized the cover story DeWolff had given him. He was supposed to be a potential customer, someone new to the city who had heard about the place and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Easy, walk in, look around, listen. Find something suspicious, take some notes or pictures on his phone, and then just… leave.
He pushed through the doors, and the music hit him immediately.
Deep bass rolled through the building, vibrating pleasantly through the floor beneath his shoes, while colored lights swept over a crowd that looked nothing like the grimy stereotype he had built in his head and saw in various tv shows and movies.
There were women, yes. Men too. People of every kind, color, age, and other descriptors, dressed in everything from elaborate multi-piece costumes to almost nothing at all, moving between tables and the bar with drinks in their hands.
And everyone was beautiful.
Peter hated that he noticed such an arbitrary detail. He hated it even more because his first thought wasn’t even his own.
This is exactly what Michelle meant.
He could practically hear her voice. She had once gone on a rant about places like this while they were walking past one downtown, talking so passionately that Peter had eventually started laughing.
Not because he disagreed, because she was beautiful when she got angry.
She’d told him that she hated the idea of women having to sell access to their bodies because they had no other options, hated the way some men used money as permission to treat women like objects, hated the entire culture surrounding places like this.
And Peter had listened, and he had wholeheartedly agreed. He still agreed.
So why the hell was he here again?
His stomach tightened. He should leave. He should turn around and walk right out of those golden-framed doors, and never return. He could do surveillance from a nearby rooftop, or just listen from the street, or even plant a device and—
Instead, someone behind the bar smiled at him. “First time?” The bartender was smiling at him as though he’d just walked into an ordinary nightclub rather than the place he’d spent the last ten minutes mentally condemning.
“Uh.” Peter glanced toward the dancers, seeing some tassels that he had never seen before. “Yeah...”
“Welcome drink,” a glass appeared in front of him, filled with a shimmery red liquid that looked like a cross between wine and blood, mixed in with gold glitter.
Peter stared at it for a while, taking a sniff. “What’s in it?”
The bartender shrugged. “Something you’ll like. It’s our house special.”
That should have been enough to make him suspicious, instead, Peter laughed quietly. “That’s reassuring.”
He took a look at the glass again, he hesitated. And then… then he drank. He waited for the burn he had heard so much about, but it never came. Peter blinked, he looked at the glass, then at the bartender.
“Huh.”
“What?” She questioned, her smile only widening.
“Nothing, actually…” he took another sip before he even realized he was doing it. His shoulders loosened, and, for the first time that night, Peter thought something he hadn’t expected to think.
Why have I never done this before?
He ordered another.
Then another.
Every time, he told himself the same thing, he needed to blend in… That was all.
He needed to look like everyone else.
A completely normal, young college guy enjoying a drink in a completely normal establishment while definitely not conducting a perfectly illegitimate investigation.
Except he stopped checking the exits, stopped watching the staff, hell, he even stopped paying attention to who came and went.
The music was loud, the lights were warm as they bathed him in all the colors of the rainbow. A dancer passed his table and smiled at him and Peter smiled back without wincing.
And for a few minutes — a few blissful, bass booming minutes — nobody needed anything from him.
Nobody needed Spider-Man.
Nobody needed Peter Parker… Nobody even knew there was supposed to be a Peter Parker.
His drink disappeared from his glass without his permission, and another appeared. Then another. He stopped counting after six, didn’t even notice that the bartender was giggling at his puppy eyed expression.
Maybe Michelle had been right, maybe this place was awful.
But then again, maybe it wasn’t. Right now, he didn’t really care.
He just wanted the noise, the warmth, he wanted his brain to stop being so damn… loud.
And then the lights changed, the previous song softened until it stopped completely, and a new one began. The crowd turned toward the stage all as one as a rock song rang out through the built in speakers of the stage. The lights dimmed so the whole building was bathed in red, his drink now almost blending into the table.
Peter looked up just as a single spotlight appeared.
And she walked into it. An angel…
For a moment, he genuinely thought the wings were real.
They stretched behind her in an enormous sweep of white, feathered and luminous beneath the stage lights, catching every movement as she stepped forward. A delicate halo rested above her dark hair, and the costume was unmistakably angelic without being innocent, all white fabric and gold accents against the darkness of the stage.
She looked impossible.
Not merely beautiful.
Impossible.
Peter forgot to breathe. The room seemed to disappear around him, the music became distant, the conversations around him blurred, filled with filth that had previously grated his ears.
His enhanced senses should have been screaming at him, searching for threats, tracking every movement in the room. Instead, all he could hear was his own heartbeat hammering away in his chest.
She moved.
The wings followed. Every roll of her hips, every move of her toned stomach, her muscled arms. Muscles flexed on every limb of her body, thought there was also a healthy cover of softness on them, creating a mixture so hypnotizing, even some of the waiters and bartenders stopped what they were doing, just to take all the beauty in.
There was something hypnotic about the performance, something that reached beneath the part of his mind that was still trying to analyze what he was seeing and touched something much more primitive.
Something lonely, hungry. Peter’s fingers tightened around his glass.
He knew, intellectually, that there was something strange about her. He could feel it. A pressure against his senses, a pull he would feel whenever he rocketed toward danger. Something that wanted him to look.
Wanted him to stay, to come closer.
But it wasn’t working… Not really.
Whatever supernatural influence she carried slid harmlessly over him, unable to sink its claws into his mind. Not that Peter realized it in that moment, too lost in the way her stomach moved against the pole, her strides perfectly confident in her too-high heels.
All he knew was that he couldn’t look away.
And for the first time in months, perhaps longer, he wasn’t thinking about the empty apartment waiting for him once he was done with his “investigation.” He wasn’t thinking about May (that would’ve been a major red flag.) He wasn’t thinking about the grave… He wasn’t thinking about Michelle.
He wasn’t thinking about the fact that somewhere out there, behind those large, golden doors, was an entire world full of people who remembered Spider-Man but had never known Peter Parker had existed.
He was just watching an angel dance.
And somewhere beneath the alcohol and the exhaustion and the grief, a tiny part of him whispered the most dangerous thought of all.
Maybe I could stay here for a while.
The angel smiled. Right at him, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the small lift of her lips wasn’t aimed in his direction, and Peter smiled back.
And neither of them yet knew that the other was far more dangerous than they appeared.
When the song ended, the applause came in waves.
She smiled, bowed her head, and stepped toward the edge of the stage, where one of the security guards immediately offered her a hand. She took it without hesitation, hopping down with practiced ease before turning and walking into the crowd as though the entire room belonged to her.
Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn’t.
Men approached her almost immediately.
She entertained them with smiles, leaned close when they whispered, occasionally murmuring something into an ear that left the recipient staring after her with an expression somewhere between devotion and complete mental collapse. She never let them touch her. She barely let them get close enough to try.
She simply moved through them, leaving a trail of dazed smiles behind her.
Peter watched from his table. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was still drunk or whether she really was that captivating… Probably both.
Then she stopped, right in front of him. She had walked passed all those other people, and only stopped for him. She said nothing, simply extended one delicate hand.
Peter stared at it, then at her.
“Me?” He questioned it, not daring to believe she had truly noticed him.
Her smile widened, her hand remained outstretched, and she waited.
He looked around as though perhaps there was another Peter hiding somewhere nearby, but eventually he put his hand in hers, immediately, her fingers closed around his.
Warm, almost too warm, and soft. Reassuring somehow, like within her hold, all his troubles would disappear. At least for a night.
She turned without a word and began walking, and he followed.
The private room was small, quiet and almost startlingly ordinary compared with the rest of the club. A small couch sat against one wall, with a low table and a dim lamp casting a pool of warm golden light across the room.
She stopped beside it and gestured for him to sit. He did so without his usual hesitation, and then she did something he hadn’t expected.
She sat beside him.
And something changed, it was so subtle that he almost missed it. A warmth passed through him, quick and strange, like stepping indoors after being out in the cold. His shoulders relaxed before he consciously decided to relax them.
He looked at her and saw that she was studying him. Not appraising him, or judging him for being there. Studying him.
Unbeknownst to him, her supernatural senses had already told her what she needed to know.
She could feel desire more clearly than most people could feel their own heartbeat, and what she found inside this particular man was almost painfully different from what she usually encountered.
He didn’t want her body. Not really. Not like others had always wanted to possess her body and mind.
He wanted warmth. He wanted someone to touch him without asking for anything in return. He wanted to be held. He wanted someone to tell him that, for a few minutes, he didn’t have to carry everything.
And beneath all of that was something even deeper he desired…
Love.
Not necessarily hers. Just love. The knowledge that somewhere, somehow, he still mattered to somebody.
Her expression softened, the gold on her eyelids shimmering with every blink.
“You’re tired,” she murmured.
Peter gave a little laugh, as self-deprecating as such a small sound could be. “Yeah.”
“Very tired.”
“Guess so,” he looked down at his hands.
She reached over and gently brushed her fingers along his cheek, just under a still-healing bruise. He went completely still. Not frightened, no, she didn’t feel dangerous… Just surprised.
She could feel the exact moment his defenses loosened. So she didn’t push. She simply let her hand rest there, choosing to remain soft with him. “You don’t have to talk,” she whispered.
Peter swallowed. “I don’t really know what I’d say. Or wh-what I’m supposed to say…”
“Then don’t say anything.”
For once, someone wasn’t asking him to explain himself. He leaned into her touch almost unconsciously, her thumb moving gently across his cheekbone.
She felt something twist inside her the longer she was touching him, the closer she scooted to his strong body.
This young man was hurting. Badly. And beneath her compassion, another thought surfaced.
He needs us.
The Church had given her a home when she had needed one.
It had given her people who understood what she was, people who had never asked her to pretend to be something smaller or sweeter or more acceptable than she truly was.
Perhaps it could do the same for him.
She could almost imagine it. And what a beautiful image it was. Him standing beneath the stained glass, finding people who would know his loneliness. Him finally belonging somewhere and never feeling such profound loneliness again.
But not tonight.
She knew better than to push when a mind was already so close to breaking.
Whatever had brought him through those doors, he wasn’t ready to hear a sermon. So instead, she shifted closer and let him rest against her shoulder.
Peter closed his eyes, relaxing for the first time in… too long. The music outside was still pounding through the walls, but from inside the little room it sounded distant, softened into something almost comforting, hidden behind the sultrier song playing from their own speakers.
She stroked his hair, her hands easily raking through the strands, long nails scratching him in a way that sent shivers down his spine.
“You’re safe here,” she whispered with such conviction, even he started to believe it. His breathing slowed and she smiled faintly into the darkness.
There was something unusual about him. Something she couldn’t quite identify. His scent, perhaps, so unlike most regular humans she got so close to.
She breathed in almost imperceptibly, committing it to memory.
There was something beneath the alcohol and city air, something distinctly him, and her instincts kept insisting that she remember it.
She didn’t know why. She only knew that she would.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
She seemed perfectly content with that.
Her fingers continued to move slowly through his hair, never quite becoming repetitive, always changing just enough to keep the touch gentle and alive, while her other hand rested loosely against his shoulder. Every so often her thumb traced a small, absent-minded circle against the fabric of his shirt.
She was resting too. That was the strange part.
She had spent the last hour under bright lights, smiling at strangers, letting hundreds of eyes follow every movement of her body, allowing men to imagine whatever they wanted about her without ever giving them enough to actually possess.
She was used to it. She enjoyed it, even, that was why she was such a fan favorite.
But this was different. There was no performance here. No music she had to move to. No audience waiting for her to become something otherworldly.
She could simply sit. And apparently, she liked sitting with him.
“You’re seem very comfortable,” she murmured.
Peter opened one eye. “Do I?”
“Mhm,” She smiled faintly. “So am I.”
That seemed to surprise him. “Really?” He questioned, sounding like a lost follower of a vengeful goddess.
“Really,” to assure him, her fingers combed gently through his hair again. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone beside you who doesn’t want anything.”
Peter was quiet for a moment, then, almost shyly, he said, “I don’t want anything.”
“I know.”
Something about the way she said it made his chest tighten. He looked at her, and found she was watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I don’t understand how you do it.”
“Do what?”
He gestured vaguely toward the door. “All of this.”
“The dancing?” She raised an eyebrow with a wicked smile.
“The... people,” he searched for the right words. “Everyone looking at you.” Her smile softened at his awed tone. “I noticed some of the others were wearing masks.”
“They are,” the dancer nodded easily.
“But you don’t.”
“No.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Why would it?” She tilted her head.
“Because...” Peter glanced toward the door. “They’re all looking at you.”
“Yes.”
“And they know what you look like.”
“That’s… sort of the point, Tesoro.”
He frowned, his eyebrows furrowing and nose scrunching adorably. “I’d hate that.”
She laughed quietly. “I could’ve guessed.”
Peter looked embarrassed, his eyes darting down to stare at his knees. His jeans were starting to look rather ragged. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her hand moved from his hair to his cheek again. “I can tell that you like to hide.”
He stiffened slightly. She didn’t know how accurate that word was. She could never know…
“You don’t have to hide here,” she added. Peter looked away but she continued softly. “I don’t have anything to hide here.” Her gaze drifted toward the closed door. “This is my home as much as anywhere else. I feel safe here. I feel comfortable here.”
She looked back at him. “And I want other people to feel comfortable too.”
“Even the people staring?” Peter studied her.
“Especially them,” she winked. “Everyone comes here carrying something.”
He swallowed, hesitant before the question slipped from his lips. “What do you carry?”
For the first time, her expression became thoughtful, her mouth closing for a solid thirty seconds before she answered. “Enough.” That answer made him smile. She gave his cheek the faintest pinch. “You ask difficult questions for someone who has barely spoken all evening.”
“Sorry,” Peter laughed under his breath.
“You apologize a lot.”
“I’ve been told.”
“I believe it,” she settled back against the couch, her shoulder brushing his. After a moment, she said, “What’s your name?”
Peter froze. It was such a simple question. Yet somehow it felt far more intimate than anything else she had asked him. He looked at her, and she just waited. “Your name, caro” she repeated gently.
Peter’s mouth opened but nothing came out, and she was quick to notice. Immediately, she softened her approach. “You don’t have to tell me.”
He looked down at his hands. “No, it’s not...” He didn’t know how to explain it. His name had once been the easiest thing in the world.
Peter Parker. Everyone knew it. His aunt knew it, his friends, his classmates… MJ knew it. But now… Nobody did.
The woman beside him seemed to understand his hesitation without knowing why. So, she smiled and offered him something first. “My stage name is Sister Vesper.”
Peter blinked. “...Sister Vesper?”
She grinned. “It could’ve been Sister sin, but that wouldn’t have been too subtle.”
“What? Too subtle?” he laughed, it was the first genuinely unguarded laugh she’d heard from him. “I mean... no. That’s definitely not subtle.”
“It means evening prayer, I’d say it’s rather memorable.”
“I’ll give you that.”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “And you don’t need to know my real name.”
Peter looked at her. “Why?”
“Because you just don’t have to. Stripper rules I’m afraid,” she shrugged with a grin. “You can just remember me as Sister Vesper.”
Something about that made the decision easier. A woman he’d met once. A woman who didn’t know him. A woman who would never know that the name Peter Parker had once belonged to someone with an entire life attached to it.
He could give her one tiny piece. Just one.
“Peter.” She waited, and he swallowed. “Just Peter.”
Her smile returned. “Nice to meet you, Just Peter.” She said it like she liked the sound of it. And something inside him hurt. Because for the first time in a very long time, someone had said his name without knowing it belonged to a ghost.
A quiet knock came at the door.
Peter lifted his head.
The music that had been humming softly through the room faded almost imperceptibly, the last warm notes disappearing until there was only the distant pulse of the club beyond the walls.
Sister Vesper glanced toward the door and knew exactly why that knock started. Their time was up.
Peter knew that. Of course he did.
Still, something inside him sank.
He had only just realized how warm she was against him, how naturally his body had settled beside hers, how much he had stopped thinking about the weight he carried everywhere else. Now that warmth was about to disappear, and the thought left him with a strange, hollow ache.
He sat up a little straighter, and she noticed immediately.
“Don’t look so sad.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Peter gave her a tired little smile. “I guess I got too comfortable.”
“I noticed,” she reached up and smoothed a stray piece of his hair back into place. “You could stay.”
“Stay?” He looked at her.
“Have another drink. Sit at the bar. Listen to the music.” She smiled. “Or come back tomorrow. You can ask for me.” There was something almost playful in her expression now. “I’d remember you.”
He looked down with a frown, the words opening a sore spot. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.” Her fingers lingered against his cheek for one last moment. “There are plenty of things we could talk about.”
She didn’t mention the Church. Not yet. She had already sensed that he wasn’t ready for it, and whatever her intentions might eventually become, she didn’t want to frighten him away.
There would be time. If he came back. And he might.
Her powers hadn’t worked on him, which was fascinating enough on its own, but there was something else about him that she couldn’t shake. His scent had lodged itself in her memory with an intensity that made no sense, something strange and familiar beneath the alcohol, something that made the instinctive part of her want to remember him.
She had no idea why.
She only knew she wanted to.
Peter stood and the alcohol seemed to loosen its hold on him as soon as he did. The room shifted slightly, and he caught himself against the back of the couch.
“Whoa.”
She reached for his arm, helping him with a giggle that made his heart do some acrobatics in his chest. “Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you are,” there was amusement in her voice.
Peter rubbed his face. “I should go,” the words sounded more sober than he felt. She studied him for a moment, then nodded.
“If you say so.”
“Thank you,” he looked at her.
“For what?”
Peter opened his mouth but nothing came. He couldn’t explain it, so he simply smiled. “For... tonight.”
Her expression softened. “You’re welcome, Peter.”
He hesitated at the door. For one absurd second, he almost turned around.
Instead, he left not just the room, but the whole building in a few quick steps.
Outside, the cold air hit him hard enough to make him wince.
Peter pulled his jacket tighter around himself and walked. He told himself he was going home… He didn’t.
A few blocks away, he slipped into an alley, pulled his mask into place and disappeared upward. Minutes later, Spider-Man crouched on the edge of a skyscraper overlooking The Velvet Chapel.
The city stretched beneath him. Cars moved through the streets. People hurried along sidewalks. And below, the club continued to glow well into the night.
People entered, they left. Some laughed, some stumbled, others were patting each other on the back, while some simply left alone and obviously satisfied.
Peter watched it all. He should have been looking for suspicious activity, but instead, his thoughts kept circling back to a small couch in a private room.
Her hand against his cheek. Her fingers in his hair. The way she’d told him he didn’t have to talk. The way she’d said he was safe.
He hadn’t felt that comfortable in years.
Not since the spell. Maybe not even before it.
He had spent so long being Spider-Man that he had almost forgotten what it felt like to simply be Peter.
Just Peter.
He rested his elbows against his knees, his feet dangling over the edge in a way that would make a normal person shiver with fear.
“Peter,” it was like he could still hear the way she’d said it. Like he mattered.
His chest tightened, and below him, another group entered the club. Peter watched them disappear through the doors, strangely angry that they may just catch a glimpse of her.
He should have left. Instead, he stayed.
Just for a little while. Just to watch, nothing more, just to make sure nothing suspicious happened.
That was what he told himself, anyway.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, beneath the grief and exhaustion and the lingering warmth of alcohol, Peter wondered if he would come back tomorrow. He told himself it would be for the investigation.
He wasn’t sure he believed himself.
Peter had been watching the club for perhaps two hours when the back door opened. His attention sharpened immediately.
A security guard stepped outside first, scanning the alley before holding the door open. She followed. Peter sat a little straighter.
For a moment, he didn’t recognize her.
There was no halo, no enormous white wings. No stage lights catching the feathers and making her look like something that had wandered down from heaven simply to cause trouble in Hell.
Her hair was loose now, dark and much flatter than it had been beneath the lights, the teasing and styling from her performance long since brushed out. Her face was completely bare of makeup, and most enticing of all perhaps, she was dressed entirely in black.
The outfit itself wasn’t anything revealing or something to write and think about for hours… A simple black top, black pants, and a pair of black boots that looked like they could crush dreams and aspirations.
Nothing theatrical, nothing provocative.
Nothing that suggested the woman walking down the alley was the same woman who had commanded an entire room only half an hour earlier. She looked...
Soft.
Peter couldn’t explain why that surprised him. Perhaps because everything about this place was supposed to be sinister. The church for an “evil” being, the symbols subtly painted on all the walls and craved into surfaces, the masks he saw the staff and even some of the dancers wear.
The people who came here and apparently forgot how to behave normally afterward.
And yet she walked out of that back door looking like someone who could have been going home after an ordinary shift. The security guard said something to her. She laughed, then she waved him off.
“Goodnight, Ash.”
The guard nodded and disappeared back inside. Peter’s eyes flicked toward the mask he had been wearing. It was silver and rather devilish, the depiction of a handsome face adorned with a pair of horns, smooth and expressionless, with no mouth.
The kind of mask that made him look like something that belonged in a nightmare rather than a nightclub. He vanished through the door, while she started walking.
Peter watched, because she was alone now. He told himself that was why he remained alert. That was what he was doing. Investigating.
Protecting.
Then a man stumbled out of another establishment farther down the street. Peter’s senses immediately caught the smell of alcohol, even from so many floors above them.
The man muttered something. Peter couldn’t make out the first few words, but then his volume picked up, and some of it because audible enough.
“...Fucking freaks...” His head lifted, and his eyes narrowed, focusing back on her, and then the distance that kept shortening between them. “Disgusting…”
The man started walking toward her. Not quickly, not yet… But with purpose.
“Come on,” Peter muttered. “Don’t do this man…”
The man’s voice grew louder. “First aliens, then monsters, now actual demons—” She kept walking. She either hadn’t noticed him or had decided he wasn’t worth acknowledging.
Peter couldn’t tell which.
The man’s hand curled into a fist. “...I will send you back to Hell.”
Peter moved, he dropped from the roof. The man’s arm came up— Peter caught his wrist before the fist could travel another inch.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the man stared at him, blinking his drunken eyes.
“What the—” Peter twisted his arm gently behind his back and webbed his wrist to the nearest lamppost.
“That’s a really aggressive way to say hello.”
The man struggled, continuing his tirade, “You don’t understand! She’s one of them!”
Peter glanced toward the woman, who had stopped in the midst of the beginning chaos. She was staring at him then back at the man with what looked like pity.
“She’s a demon!”
Peter sighed, his good mood now starting to fall into ruin. “Buddy, I’ve met aliens. Trust me. Satan isn’t even in my top five weirdest things I’ve dealt with this month.”
He started to straighten up, intending to phone detective DeWolff of the hinderance to his investigation, but then the world tilted. Peter paused; his hand briefly caught the lamppost to stabilize himself.
...Okay. That was new.
He blinked twice, hard enough to make his eyes squeak. The street settled again. Mostly.
He looked back at the man, “Anyway,” he tugged the webbing tighter. “You’re going to stay right there and rethink your life choices.”
The man continued shouting.
Peter remained crouched beside him for another moment, watching until the drunken muttering had settled into irritated grumbling, then he finally looked back toward her.
She was still standing there, closer now. But her expression had changed. There was concern in it. Not fear. Concern. Peter straightened again, or at least he tried to. The moment he got fully upright, the world tipped sideways once more.
He caught himself against the lamppost again, suddenly really thankful for their existence. “Whoa.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he pushed himself away from the post. “I’m good.”
He took one step. The pavement seemed to move away beneath him.
She came closer when he stumbled, her hands braced on his shoulder and one on his waist. “I can help you.” Peter immediately shook his head, to which she gave him a hard look. “You can barely stand.”
“I can stand.” He demonstrated by standing perfectly still for approximately two seconds before his balance betrayed him again.
Her hand caught his forearm, and Peter couldn’t help but stare at it for a solid twenty seconds before he spoke again, eyes still glued to her skin on his suit. “I said I’m fine.”
“And I heard you,” yet she didn’t let go.
Peter hesitated. There was something strange about having her touch him again.
Even through the suit, he could feel the warmth of her hand.
His head was still aching, the headache he’d been nursing all evening pulsing unpleasantly behind his eyes, and suddenly the idea of someone else taking some of his weight didn’t seem quite as terrible as it should have.
She smiled faintly. “I can’t just let the hero of the city keel over on my watch.”
Peter looked away, embarrassed beyond measure. “I’m not going to keel over.”
“Then let me walk you home or at least somewhere safe.”
“I can get home myself.”
“Well, I don’t really trust that,” her fingers tightened gently around his arm. “You’re coming with me.”
Peter stared at her, his feet following despite having not agreed to her demands. “You’re very stubborn.”
“So I’ve been told,” she turned around to wink at him, driving him absolutely mad.
He should have refused. He knew that. Instead, his mind supplied the most convenient excuse available.
She’s connected to the Church.
He was investigating the Church.
Going with her would give him information. That was all. Purely professional. Completely reasonable. Absolutely not because she was warm and familiar and he wanted to be near her again.
“Fine.”
Her smile widened, “Good.”
Peter glanced upward, already starting to map his webbing pattern between the various high-rise buildings surrounding them. “I can just swing us over.”
“No.”
“What?”
She pointed toward the street, where a few parking spaces away sat an impossibly sleek black car. It looked expensive enough to buy the building he was currently living in. Peter stared, trying to somehow come up with an idea how a woman approximately his age could afford something like that.
“That’s yours?”
“Mm-hm.”
“That’s...” he searched for the right word. “Very black.”
“It gets me home,” she laughed.
The driver was already waiting in the driver’s seat when they arrived at the car, Peter climbing in after the dancer opened the door. A silver mask covered his face, smooth and expressionless except for the strange contours around the eyes.
“Good evening, Nocturn. Home, please,” Sister Vesper requested, and the masked man gave one small nod, starting the purring engine.
And suddenly Peter found himself sitting in the back of a luxurious car with a woman he had met less than three hours ago, being driven somewhere he had never been, while wearing his Spider-Man suit and still feeling the alcohol swimming through his bloodstream.
This was either the best investigation he’d ever conducted or the worst decision he’d made all week.
Probably both.
The city moved past the windows, Peter watched it without really seeing it. At some point, he felt her shoulder brush against his.
He didn’t move away.
——
He barely remembered getting out of the car.
One moment he was sitting beside her, the next, he was walking through a door. And then he stopped, his mouth falling open.
The apartment was enormous.
Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across an entire wall, revealing New York glittering beneath the night sky. Thousands of lights shimmered between the buildings, the city looking almost peaceful from this high above it. The walls were black. Deep red furniture stood against them, plush and luxurious, surrounded by gothic decorations, old paintings, strange sculptures and objects that looked like they belonged in a cathedral built by someone with a very particular sense of humor.
Peter slowly turned his body around in a circle, taking it all in.
“Wow.” That was all he managed. Very eloquent of him, yes.
She stepped inside behind him, and the door clicked shut, the lock slamming into place with a satisfying sound.
He was supposed to be investigating, he tried to remind himself as she circled around him to stand right in front of him. He was supposed to be paying attention.
Instead, everything else disappeared.
The city, the windows, the apartment, the Church, the investigation.
Even the headache seemed to fade into the background.
There was only her.
Just Sister Vesper standing a few feet away, dressed entirely in black, looking at him with those same soft eyes she’d given him in the private room. In the dim lighting of her apartment, her eyes seemed to reflect in the color of her furniture... almost as though they were glowing a deep, blood red.
Peter swallowed.
For one suspended moment, he forgot that he was Spider-Man. He forgot that he was investigating her. He forgot that he should probably be terrified of where he had just walked into.
He only remembered how safe he’d felt beside her. And, somehow, that was far more frightening than anything else in the room.
Vesper watched him through his inner battle, not saying a word even as his body continued to fight an invisible war right in front of her very eyes.
He was still staring at her, that much she could tell with how his head refused to move, the while cuts of his eyes continuously remaining wide open.
There was something different in his posture now.
His shoulders had tightened beneath the suit, his head slightly lowered, his attention narrowed until it seemed almost impossible for him to look anywhere else.
She could feel it.
That strange resistance again.
Her power had brushed against him the moment she’d encountered him on the street, a gentle invitation rather than anything forceful, the familiar supernatural pull that usually made people soften around her without even realizing why.
With him, it simply... stopped.
It was like reaching toward a locked door, nothing.
Vesper frowned faintly, but not being one to give up so easily, she tried again.
A little more deliberately this time. Strong enough for the sensation to hit him. Affecting him enough that his breath caught. Something inside him reacted.
Not his mind.
Something deeper.
His pulse jumped. His senses sharpened.
The apartment suddenly seemed too bright, too loud, too full of smells and tiny sounds he normally filtered out without thinking. He could hear the hum of the refrigerator from another room. The distant traffic below. The faint click of the masked driver’s footsteps somewhere beyond the apartment.
And her. All of her…
He could hear her breathing, her heart beating faster and faster as the moments went by.
His eyes narrowed and Vesper noticed.
There.
That was new.
She stepped closer, and Spider-man didn’t move.
She reached up and touched the spider emblem on his chest. Her fingers traced the raised edges of it through the fabric.
“You really do hide behind this, don’t you, bello?”
Peter’s jaw tightened, and when he spoke, his voice was deeper than before. “Maybe.”
She looked up at him, biting her lower lip seductively enough to almost send him spirling. “Why?”
“Because it’s easier.”
“For you?”
“For everyone.”
She hummed softly, her hand moved from the emblem to his shoulder. Peter should have stepped back. Instead, he remained perfectly still. Something inside him wanted her closer.
Not the supernatural pull. That wasn’t working.
This was something else.
Something instinctive, something almost embarrassingly simple.
Vesper’s fingers brushed the side of his mask, her words lower, dripping in want and comfort. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not.”
“I know, caro,” she smiled. “That’s why I’m not afraid of you either.”
Peter’s breath left him slowly. She moved closer until there was barely any space between them. Her hand settled against his chest right over his heart, feeling the organ beat rapidly against her seeking fingers. “You’re wound very tightly,” she murmured.
Peter gave a shaky laugh, the sound ringing familiar in her mind. “Yeah.”
“Then loosen.”
“I don’t really know how.”
“I can show you,” ger voice remained gentle. Seductive, yet not commanding for the sake of power. Simply certain in her meaning. “Look at me.” He did without hesitation. “Good.”
Something about that word went straight through him. His shoulders dropped a fraction, something that didn’t go unnoticed by her. How could it, if they were so close he could see every single eyelash around her eyes, or the slight smudges of her makeup still left behind.
“There you are, tesorino.”
Peter swallowed at the nickname; his mouth achingly dry. She kept her hand against his chest stubbornly, nails biting fruitlessly into the fabric of his suit.
“You’ve been holding yourself together for a very long time, tesoro.” He didn’t answer, the words weren’t coming out of his mouth. “You don’t have to do it every second.”
His fingers curled slightly, forming a fist he then quickly shook out. The animal instinct beneath his skin stirred again. An overwhelming awareness of her presence. Her warmth. Her scent.
The sound of her voice sending shivers down his spine.
His body wanted to move closer before his mind had decided whether it was safe.
And Vesper, perceptive as she was, didn’t retreat.
She simply placed her other hand against his shoulder and gave him a little more room to breathe. “Easy, bambino.” Peter’s breathing slowed, his body now under her control. “That’s it.”
He hated how easily she could calm him. But he loved it too.
That realization frightened him more than anything.
“You’re doing something,” he whispered.
Her eyebrows lifted, a cheeky smile lighting up her eyes. “Am I?”
“I can feel it.”
She considered him for a moment, her beautiful features completely focused on him. “Perhaps.” Her thumb brushed slowly over his shoulder. “But whatever you’re feeling is yours. You know, you don’t need to fight yourself every time something feels good.”
His head tilted. Something almost animalistic flickered behind his eyes.
“You’re safe,” she whispered into the darkness, taking steps backward he was subconsciously following, leading him right where she wanted him to be.
Peter’s eyes closed, for once, he didn’t argue, he simply followed her step for step, and let someone else hold the reins for a moment.
And Vesper smiled faintly, because now she understood something important.
This wasn’t a man who needed someone to control him, he needed someone he could stop controlling himself around.
Vesper watched him for another moment before reaching toward his mask, her back bumping into her own bedroom doorframe. Peter tensed the moment her fingertips connected, though they stopped just short of it.
“The mask can stay.”
He looked at her, his eyes blown wide, pupils almost swallowing the entirety of his irises. “It can?”
“If you want it to,” she shrugged, her hand lowering again. “I don’t need to see your face, caro. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
Peter swallowed, because nobody had said that to him in a very long time.
Whatever makes you comfortable.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
He was standing in a stranger’s apartment, dressed as Spider-Man, after drinking far more than he should have, while a supernatural woman who worked for a satanic church stood in front of him and somehow made him feel safer than his own apartment had in years.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
She stepped closer.
“Then we keep the mask.” Peter nodded, and she placed her hand against his chest again. “Tonight, you don’t have to decide everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t have to think.”
His eyebrows pulled together, “I think that’s kind of my thing.”
“I noticed,” there was a little smile in her voice. “So let me do it for you. Let me help you…”
“I-I want you to.”
Something in his chest tightened as she stroked her thumb over the emblem on his suit.
“Then listen to me.” Peter nodded quickly, standing so close to her now, that their hips pressed together. “Good.”
She smiled.
“Bravo, tesoro.”
His head tilted slightly just now noticing all the wonderful little nicknames she had gifted him with. They rang familiar in his ears, warming something terribly cold in his heart. “Tesoro?”
She paused, brows furrowing. “You don’t enjoy that?”
“I do, I uh...” Her eyebrow rose, questioning. “I speak some Italian...”
“Ah,” something softened in Vesper’s expression, and it almost looked like she was blushing. “Then you know what I’m saying.”
“Mostly.”
“Good,” she leaned closer whispering about a centimeter away from where his ear actually was. “Then you know when I call you tesoro, I mean it.”
Peter’s breathing hitched, his shivers not just doubling but tripling, his entire body now coiled and ready to pounce.
She continued, almost conversationally, with an innocent shrug to her shoulders. “You’re going to let yourself be here tonight. No thinking about tomorrow. No thinking about the city. No thinking about who you are supposed to be.”
Peter took a moment to consider her words, lolling them around in his head, as though he was tasting something completely new on his tongue. His voice was barely audible once he spoke.
“Okay.”
Vesper smiled, “Bravissimo.”
Holding his hand once more, she finally led the two of them completely into her bedroom, stopping at the foot of her large bed. Once there, she easily lifted her shirt above her head, dropping it on the floor carelessly, allowing him a glimpse at her bare chest before she spoke again.
“You can stop me whenever you want.”
Peter couldn’t speak, his mind completely having been wiped clean the moment the fabric left her skin. His eyes kept roving over and over all the skin she had revealed, drinking in the muscles he had seen wrapped around or grinding against a pole just hours before, the perfect curves that had been hidden away behind a flimsy piece of lingerie now revealed so carelessly just for him.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t know what you want?”
“I...” He struggled with the answer, not wanting to disappoint her for some strange reason. She waited patiently for him, and only smiled when finally he admitted: “I don’t think I know.”
“Then I’ll help you.”
Peter breathed out shakily, his erection painfully throbbing against the tight hold of his suit. “You always this bossy?”
“Only when someone needs it,” she shrugged, her curves moving with it. That made him smile… and also drool. But just a little.
“And you think I need it?” He tried to swallow, the motion turning into an audible gulp that made him want to shrink in on himself.
“I think you’ve spent too long taking care of everyone else,” she stepped closer to him, whispering against where his lips were still hidden away, her hand settled over his heart once more. “Tonight, you don’t have to.”
Peter closed his eyes, his hands blindly reaching for the release mechanism of his suit, leaving him in nothing but his underwear and mask. She stepped back to allow the fabric to fall completely to the floor, her eyes quick to take in all which he revealed.
The moment they settled on healing bruises, cuts, and various old scars, a hiss left her lips involuntarily, fingers coming to rest gently over them, causing more shivers to break out over his skin. She couldn’t help but allow her hands to wander, to take in his strength, his defined muscles, smiling whenever he breathed shakier or she found a ticklish spot.
“I guess the suit really doesn’t hide anything,” she muttered, counting his abs with careful precision, ignoring the way his body jumped as she tapped the last two.
Those were the closest to the spot he longed for her to touch, after all, where his cock was throbbing and pulsing against his underwear, leaving a stain that would’ve made him embarrassed was his mind not complete mush.
“You like this, don’t you, bello? This is what you wanted, what you needed,” she continued, walking around him in a circle as she spoke, her hand trailing over the jumping muscles on his back, touching his well-formed glutes mischievously. “For someone to touch you.”
Not knowing if the question was serious or rhetorical, he remained silent in her teasing, his eyes following all of her movements as she circled him like a vulture about to bag its prey.
“C’mon, open those lips for me, Tesoro, let me know how I make you feel.”
“P-please…”
Without a word, she took his hands and began guiding them all across her own bare skin, encouraging him to touch, to explore, to take in all that she had so willingly borne just for him. All the while he was marveling at the soft, yet firm strength to her body, she untied the fastenings of her pants and allowed them to fall to the floor, toeing off her socks in the same movement.
She had gone without underwear, Peter was quick to realize, once she guided his hands to touch her below the waist. She was all softness and hidden strength, while he was pure muscle and hardness.
Their bodies complimented one another beautifully, and Peter barely realized when she had nudged him to take a seat at the head of her bed. He had barely swung his legs up and stretched them out on the mattress before she was climbing over him, her hands settling on his shoulders to brace her weight, while his settled possessively over her hips, glueing them together.
With the lack of lips revealed to her, she was forced to connect her own to his neck instead, his head falling back with a groan to allow her free range. She kissed, she bit, and she licked the pain away before it could even begin to bother him, drinking in his sighs and moans of pleasure like they were the finest drink ever created.
He didn’t know, of course, that they were in fact feeding her ever-hungry stomach, leaving her already satisfied before they even got to the actual main course of the evening.
Breathing in that strange scent, she realized why it had been so familiar before. Why his laugh, his tone, and even the way he, this… Spider-man, carried himself around was itching at something in her brain. But she didn’t want to shock him out of this wonderful mindset just yet.
Oh no, she could tell he had finally given himself over to pleasure, the moment his hips lifted off the bed and ground up into hers, a moan breaking out of both of them at the rough contact. The fabric of his boxers created a friction she wasn’t the biggest fan of, so she was quick to scoot down lower on his body, giggling at the pained whine he let out.
“No, please come back,” he begged readily, his voice bordering on a sob.
“I will in a moment, Cucciolo,” she soothed his ache, ripping his underwear off of him with a strength that — would he have been in his right mind — would’ve surprised him. “There we go, now we are both nice and naked, isn’t this wonderful?”
His blush traveled from the middle of his chest all the way up, blending in and disappearing under the bright red mask he still wore. The while eye lenses were half closed now, and she was unsure if it meant he was still watching her, or if he had completely given himself over and closed his eyes completely.
Not wanting to waste more time, she crawled back over him, and this time when she sat down, her drenched pussy was perfectly aligned with his erection, both of them moaning loudly at the wonderfully pleasurable feeling filling them both.
She rocked against him slowly at first, taking hold of his hands to once again guide them along a path on her body, showing him exactly where she liked to be held the most, which spots got her to drip even more for him, and what spots she didn’t like to be touched by anyone.
He was an eager student, memorizing everything on the first go, his hips working effortlessly to keep in tandem with hers, like two well practiced musicians performing a wonderful symphony together.
Their sighs and moans soon filled the silence of the apartment, Peter’s senses focused on nothing but her. Her sweet scent, her hair brushing his bare skin whenever she leaned down, her lips tickling him wherever they could reach, her nails digging into him almost painfully, and her warmth.
Her heartbeat against his whenever their chests connected.
That alone was almost enough to send him over the edge.
But he stubbornly held on, his fingers and toes curling almost painfully the moment she finally, finally completely sank down on him.
Immediately after, he tried his best to apologize. He already knew he had likely bruised her hips with his hold, his spider-strength getting the best of him in that one, singular, vulnerable moment, but she had overpowered his apologies with a loud keen, beginning to rock against him.
She had taken him completely, the first person to ever did — though he didn’t tell her that, lest that somehow scare her away — rubbing her aching clit against the hairs on his pubic bone.
“S-so good, caro, such a good, handsome man, just for me,” she cooed down at him, straightening up to give him a wonderful view.
And what a view it was.
Suddenly, Peter was hit by a thought. He was now the pole she was dancing on, and being considered an object had never felt quite as good before. Her body rolled and rocked on top of him, her breasts bouncing, her own abs showing and disappearing with every breath that was savagely stolen from her lungs whenever the head of his cock bumped against that wonderful spot hidden inside her.
She made sure to keep the angle the same, though she adjusted so she wasn’t leaning her weight on her knees anymore, rather, she brought them forward and placed her feet squarely on the mattress next to his hips, beginning to bounce at a steadier rhythm while one of her hands massaged her throbbing clit.
“Are you watching, Spider-man?” she called out to him, his hands helping her bounce, her free hand now traveling over her body to guide where his eyes should follow. “I hope you are.”
“I am, I am, fuck, I swear I am…” he assured brokenly, though in all fairness it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open.
He was so close now, his body wound so tight he thought he would explode—
“Of course you are, my perfect tesoro, so good for me,” and with those words, Peter Parker’s senses turned into a pure white cloud of pleasure.
There were no sounds, no feelings but the wonderful, toe-curling pleasure wrapped around his weeping cock. His body spasmed in time with it, as it filled hers to the brim, gasps and moans punched out of him so violently he feared his vocal cord would be damaged in the loosing battle. But there was nothing he could do, there seemed to be almost no stopping for the feeling.
And truly, it lasted a couple more seconds before colors once again started to swim across his vision, Vesper’s satisfied smile being the first thing he saw.
Without another word, she gently allowed him to slip out of her body and reached over to her nightstand for a box of tissues, carefully cleaning both of them up before oversensitivity could kick in.
Peter felt like an asshole, just laying there and watching as she effortlessly took care of both of them, but his body simply refused to heed his own commands. Even though his hands ached to touch her again, his arms simply lay uselessly stretched out to the side, his sweaty back sticking to her — what he now noticed to be — black silk sheets.
Once both of them were… acceptably clean, she helped him slip beneath the cool covers, nestling up close to his chest, right under his arm and over his heart, taking deep breaths to cool herself down.
“C-can I stay?” Peter breathed into the darkness of the night, his eyes looking at the intricate patterns on her ceiling.
“Of course you can, caro, I wasn’t planning on letting you slip away tonight.”
His eyes closed. For one night.
That was all.
One night where he didn’t have to be Spider-Man, but one night where he didn’t have to be Peter Parker either. One night where he was in the presence of another person that wasn’t a criminal or a victim — well, at least he hoped she wasn’t — where he wouldn’t spend a night alone, again.
Someone who wasn’t asking him to explain where he’d been, why he’d disappeared, why he looked tired, why he never called, why nobody could find him.
Someone who simply allowed him to stay.
———
The next morning, Peter woke slowly.
The first thing he noticed was the sheets. Black silk slid beneath him so smoothly that when he tried to sit up, he nearly slipped straight back onto the mattress. He caught himself with a startled grunt, wondering why something so expensive and wonderful was so annoying at the same time.
His head immediately punished him for the sudden movement, however, pain exploding behind his eyes. “Oh, God.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed a hand against his forehead, trying to breathe through what was surely an elephant stomping on his brain.
His mouth tasted awful, his entire body felt heavy, and yet, strangely, he wasn’t cold.
The sheets were warm, despite their slipperiness, and the mattress was softer than anything he could remember ever sleeping on. He breathed slowly until the headache settled into something he could tolerate. Then he remembered something else.
His mask!
Peter’s hand immediately went to his face, and the moment he touched the intricate fabric, relief flooded him faster than any painkiller could. He hadn’t taken it off.
He looked around in his momentary confusion, trying to remember exactly what had led him to silk sheets and mattresses straight from heaven.
The other side of the bed was empty, and for several seconds, he simply stared at it. Then his gaze dropped down to his body, which felt sticky and itchy in some places only to see he wasn’t wearing the suit.
He wasn’t wearing anything.
Peter froze, his stomach dropping so violently it almost him instantly nauseous.
“No.”
Memories came back in fragments, assaulting him with painful flashes of light and sound. The club. The drinks. Her. The apartment. Her voice.
You don’t have to think.
His face burned beneath the mask, a blush so strong it quickly bled down to his chest and stomach.
“Oh, no.”
He stumbled out of bed, his thoughts already spiraling far beyond his meager control.
MJ.
The love of his life, the person he’d lost. The person who didn’t even remember him anymore.
He had—
Peter stopped himself, frowning in disgust. He couldn’t even finish the thought. And yet, still, he forced himself to face what he had done… He had betrayed her.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t remember him. It didn’t matter that they weren’t together anymore. It didn’t matter that she didn’t even know he existed.
She had been his person. She had been his first kiss, his first love, and yet, she wouldn’t be his first—
“Shit.”
He grabbed his underwear from where it was laying at the foot of the bed, quickly pulling it up on his legs just as he finally registered the only other sound in the room besides his obvious panicking.
A quiet murmur from across the room.
Peter looked up and what he saw only sent him spiraling further down a rabbit hole even he couldn’t climb out of.
Vesper was kneeling before an altar. She was dressed in nothing but a silken deep red robe, her hair loose around her shoulders, hands clasped before her. Candles burned around the strange collection of religious objects scattered over the altar, a black rosary clutched in her interwoven hands.
Peter stared, gaping at the image she painted, wondering how in the hell she hadn’t turned around yet.
She murmured something under her breath in what sounded like a different language, then another phrase this time in English, something about some unholy dad.
Peter’s stomach twisted, the alcohol he had consumed the night before now threatening to make a reappearance.
She turned her head just as the thought passed through his mind, her eyes reflecting the rising sun now, glowing bright orange in its light.
“Buongiorno, tesoro.” She cooed sweetly, smiling at him with an innocence she shouldn’t have possessed.
Peter recoiled, holding a hand out in her direction as he backed uselessly into the foot of her bed. “Don’t.”
Her expression changed, brows furrowing in confusion at his sudden mood. “Caro—”
“Don’t call me that, please.”
“What happened?” She slowly rose.
“What happened?” His laugh came out bitter. ”I slept with you.”
“Yes,” she blinked, still not understanding the issue he was having.
“Jesus Christ.”
Her eyebrows drew higher on her forehead, and her eyes rolled with exasperation. ”Is that supposed to offend me?”
“I didn’t mean—” He dragged a hand down his mask, wanting nothing more than to reach up and tear all of his hair out in his frustration. “I shouldn’t have done this.”
She took a step toward him, her hands out as though she was calming a raging monster. “You’re upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are clearly not fine.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Tesoro—”
“I said I’m leaving.” She stopped advancing on him, watching as Peter grabbed his suit from the floor, pulling it on so rapidly, it tore in some places from his sheer strength. “You shouldn’t have let me stay.”
Her expression hardened slightly, indignation settling in. “You asked to stay,” the dancer hissed, spitting the words like a snake would spit its venom.
“I was drunk.”
“I know.”
“Then you shouldn’t have—” He stopped.
She waited for some sort of accusation, an attack… anything. But Peter’s jaw only clenched. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words forming in his head.
“You came with me,” Vesper’s voice became quieter.
“I know.”
“You wanted comfort.”
“I know that.”
“And now you’re angry because you received it?” She could barely believe the words she was saying.
Peter looked at her, his eyes were burning under their white shields. “I’m angry because I shouldn’t have wanted it,” he almost screamed the words at her, hands flying to hold his aching head as emotions attacked him from all directions.
Something flickered across her face. Pain, he would realize when he thought back on that day. But she hid it quickly.
“That is not my fault.”
“I know.”
“Then stop making it mine.”
“I just...” Peter looked away as his voice cracked, the reveal still painful even after years of her not being his anymore. “I loved someone.” Vesper said nothing, and perhaps it was better that way. “And I still do.”
The words came faster now. Like if he could just tell her everything, it wouldn’t hurt him as much anymore. She was the first listening ear he could find, and he wanted to tell her everything.
“She’s gone. She doesn’t remember me. Nobody remembers me. And I—” He swallowed. “I don’t get to replace her.”
Vesper’s expression softened despite her obvious offence. “I never asked you to.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you speaking to me as though I did?”
Peter didn’t answer, because he knew. He knew exactly why… He was ashamed. And shame was easier when he could put it somewhere else.
His gaze flicked toward the altar, looking for any excuse possible to get out of there and never return. “And then I wake up here and you’re praying to some...”
He stopped when Vesper’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Some what?”
Peter knew he should stop. He knew he was walking on dangerous territory and that he still didn’t know enough about her to prove she wasn’t a threat to him, or anyone else.
He didn’t.
“Some dark god.”
“The Unholy Father,” she corrected him automatically, clutching the rosary tighter in her hand.
“Yeah. That.”
She stared at him, and tried to wipe the anger from her face. It didn’t work. “You are frightened.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You are.”
“I just don’t understand how anyone can—” He gestured toward the altar. “This whole thing.” Her expression had gone completely still, but Peter continued anyway. “And this place. The club. The Church. All of it.”
“I see,” she whispered quietly, turning away from him as she blinked emotions out of her eyes, stepping to the altar to carefully place her beads down.
“I mean, what did you expect?”
Her voice was dangerously calm, like the quiet day before a raging storm. “I expected nothing from you.”
“I don’t know why I let myself get involved with someone like you,” the words fell from his lips without prompting, his eyes widening the moment he realized he actually said them.
“Someone like me?” She hissed, and this time, he was becoming surer that her eyes had bled into a deep red.
“No, that’s not—” Peter immediately realized how it sounded, his now covered hands copying the pose she had abandoned not so long ago.
“You mean a woman who works in a strip club?”
“No.”
“A woman who follows a religion you find disturbing?”
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t have to,” she folded her arms. “I heard you nice and clear.”
Peter’s headache pulsed harder. He was making this worse. He knew it. But he just… He couldn’t stop.
“I just think you should be more careful.”
Her eyebrow rose, a disbelieving laugh falling from pretty lips. “Careful?”
“With people.”
“I am very careful with people.”
“You’re putting yourself in danger.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then something almost amused crossed her face. “You think I need you to protect me?”
“No, I—”
“I can take care of myself,” she thundered, crossing her arms tightly over the silk of her robe.
“I know,” he tried to appease.
“Do you?”
Peter sighed, holding the bridge of his nose through the mask. “I’m just saying—”
“You are saying a great many things.” He looked at the floor, ashamed and wanting nothing more than for it to open up and swallow him whole. Alas, she continued. “And most of them are insulting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you truly are, then stop.”
Silence followed her words closely, the two of them simply staring at one another for some time. Finally, Peter pulled the suit zipper closed with finality, adjusting it to make sure everything was in order
“I should go.”
“I think that is obvious,” she nodded, turning her head away again so she didn’t have to look at him anymore.
He looked at her anyway, seeing the frown firmly sat on her beautiful face, the set of her shoulders, the crossing of her arms. She was angry now. She wasn’t shouting, or crying… Just angry.
And somehow that was worse.
Peter moved toward the balcony and Vesper watched him closely, not making any attempt to get closer to him again. Then, just as he reached the door, she spoke to him one last time, her words permanently etching themselves in his already damaged mind.
“Goodbye, Peter.”
He couldn’t bare to say goodbye, that was what he had done right before the spell, and since then, the words simply refused to fall from his lips, no matter how hard he tried, or how small the task was in all reality.
Even now, he simply nodded his agreement and goodbye to her before vaulting over the railing of her balcony, falling and disappearing into the morning air, swinging away on his webs so rapidly she couldn’t follow any of his movements. Not that she was looking, he was sure that she wasn’t.
Vesper simply stood alone in the apartment, its silence returning and suffocating her, staring at where he had jumped and disappeared from. Her eyes remained there for a few minutes, perhaps making sure he was truly gone, perhaps waiting for him to reappear and beg for her mercy on his knees.
When the latter didn’t happen — though she never held high hopes for it, not after he admitted to still missing someone he had loved — she turned back toward the altar, her rosary beckoning her silently.
“Idiot,” who she was referring to, even she wasn’t sure.
But beneath the irritation was something else.
She had been so silly to think she could’ve recruited him into the church. Or that someone as sweet and genuine would’ve been content to lay with a hungry monster like her for more than a single night. She was nothing more than a regret for him now, perhaps something crossed off a bucket list.
But… a different part of her mind, the one filled with the hope the others from the Church tried to instill in her. Oh, that part of her mind was busy whispering sweet things into her ear.
She remembered the way he’d acted the night before. The way he’d relaxed when she touched him. The way he’d whispered that he didn’t want to be alone. She remembered his scent. His voice. His desperation.
His name.
Peter.
