midnight sun !
going 0-4 on successful relationships, you decide to blame it on the hero life and swear off dating—but now the bff you haven’t seen in months is hot. oh, lament!
pairing. mark grayson x fem reader
contains. 18+ /nsfw, hero4hero, they’re both embarrassingly thirsty at a pool party, bad dating climate, making out, shower sex, hand jobs, fingering & f receiving oral, boatload of unashamed Eater Moaner Mark propaganda, light angst aww
notes. this is freaky, i did not say it was going to be proofread. title from the zara larsson song <33
You’re in trouble.
The dread had started creeping up when Mark answered the door for you at Rick’s house.
He just smiled, still sweet and dorky as ever, eyes crinkled into crescents as he said a quiet little, “Hey, you look good,” and made your insides dance and flip like it was nothing.
He’d worn that navy sweater—from your senior year of high school, the one he always showed up in because he forgot to do laundry. A little threadbare and worn soft, tighter than you remembered around…everything.
You wish he pulled his sleeves down from his elbows before the door swung open. You wish he hadn’t left his hand on the knob and let his shoulders hog the doorframe’s width.
He had let you brush past him into the house, let you get a glimpse of that travesty of a faint blush on his scraped knuckles, the devastating veins thrumming under the surface of his forearm.
It made your mind go weird, in that oh no way.
Thinking back, the crazy thoughts probably started after your last date asked if you’d ever see you and him lasting. (You did.)
Fuck, he was cute: short dark hair and nerdy, like Mark was, except his eyes were more hazel, and he wasn’t as tall. He had the same terrible humor that still made you giggle madly, and paired with an awkward charm, you were heads over heels.
Until he answered his own question with, “You’re too busy for me, so I don’t,” and shattered your heart all over the dented table of that shitty diner he took you out to.
Shut you down before you could say you’d try to balance your schedule for him. So.
You told yourself that it wouldn’t have worked out anyways. Heroes and civvies end in some tragedy, whether it be death or too many missed dates. Still, you’re fairly down on your luck, and you’re obviously projecting your ex’s desirability onto Mark. Who is clearly taller, and a lot buffer.
You kind of wanted to push Mark against the wall. If it had to do with tension or the rebound demons, you didn’t want to know.
Because Mark Grayson is your friend. “HBFFs,” is what he would call the two of you, framing it between his hands. “Heroes and best friends forever.”
William would kill you both if he heard that. “Okay,” he’d say, clutching his hands together and fluttering his lashes like he has main character syndrome, “I get it. Mark’s so much taller and buffer and cuter than I am. Go and be with the man of your dreams, I guess.”
Mark Grayson is not the man of your dreams. Seriously. Scout’s Honor. You’ll recite the whole oath if you have to.
He’s been there through your growing pains and terrible phases; held onto your hand when he was scared to get lost; and shared a curtain at the GDA hospital after that one fight that left the two of you in physical shambles.
And things changed then, if only a little. Mark was still the guy who put Gundam figurines on his birthday list and binged the entire new season of Séance Dog in six hours (no water, no bathroom break).
He had a terrible migraine after that, calling you at three in the morning with tears streaming down his face and sniffling.
No, the migraine’s fine, he said. The finale was just so good. And then you bribed him with a compendium to take an ibuprofen, drink fluids, and go straight to bed.
He listened. Immediately, actually. You had him tucking in and mumbling good night over the phone in two minutes.
Like he wasn't a half-alien, crazy-ass kid from the North Side, and you weren’t the other crazy-ass with telekinesis. Like you were just two people who grew up with each other.
You’ve accepted it, the fact that your best friend (don’t tell William) is always in space or on the other side of the globe, talking about volcano heads in Shibuya or hostile squids on Mars while you hurl random objects to villains at home with the power of your mind.
The truth is: you missed Mark Grayson.
Seeing him grinning at you on the other side of the doorframe made something in your brain wake up. Like a chemical reaction, except a lot more explosive and unexpected than your high school labs.
You want to go back, before the Teen Team and the Flaxan invasion. Back to when he first got his powers and snuck into your room via window—which was a bad idea, because Mark took a hardcover calculus textbook traveling at Mach ‘Fuck Telekinesis’ to the face.
Things had been simpler then. Just two kids roping each other into playing vigilante and sleeping past their alarms after spending the night kicking ass downtown. You hadn’t used your powers to such an extent until you became a superhero—it made something tickle in your stomach, just on the edge of wild and unrestrained.
It could’ve been adrenaline. It could’ve also been spending time and being more batshit than usual with your best friend.
But back to the topic at hand: missing Mark.
Since Cecil picked the two of you up, you haven’t much time to just relax with each other. Things were just reduced to texts, the occasional call, and maybe a flyby if you were on the same block (which only happened when the stars and planets miraculously aligned).
So, this party at Rick’s is important. As in, you’re taking it more seriously than Cecil’s stupid orders.
You follow Mark through the living room and kitchen to the back door of the house, smiling at him when he slides the screen open for you. The smell of chlorine and barbecue hits you hard. Some diva pop song is blasting on the patio speakers, hard bass and vocal riffs. William is already in the water, along with Eve and Amber. This is awkward—two of Mark’s exes in one pool.
“After you, Your Highness,” Mark croons, bowing with fake reverence. He grins back at you, close-mouthed like he’s trying not to laugh. Knows you’ll take the bait and kick off an entire afternoon of banter. It’s just a matter of time—or, seconds.
“Thank you, Sir Grayson.”
Mark chuckles, stretching up to his full height with an unrestrained smile splitting his mouth open—more confident now that you’ve kicked off. Half-smug and wilder than you remember, but softhearted all the same.
Your heart slams into your ribs. You try to ignore the way his sweater leeches to the exact definition of his shoulders.
Fuck. Your face heats. You need to slap on sunscreen and get into the pool, now.
“Aren’t you hot?” you ask, moving to the patio. He dogs behind you, steps almost biting at the heels of your sandals. You wave at William, Amber, Eve, and then at Rick, hiding under the tree shade in the corner of the yard and grilling with his hair still damp.
Mark shrugs, hand cupping his neck. Those damn veins under the thin, soft skin of his inner wrist wink at you, taunting. You want to sink your teeth into the solid slope of his forearm muscle and see if it leaves a trace of your bite.
But that’s freaky, and you have a certified vanilla reputation to maintain.
“I mean—” he hooks his fingers under the hem of his sweater, pulls it up to casually reveal a flash of skin, along with a dusting of light hair under his belly button “—the only other thing I’m wearing are my trunks.”
Is it socially acceptable to pass out from heatstroke at a hangout?
You almost slap your hand to your mouth in comical shock. It’s not like his hero suit leaves much to the imagination, being skintight and all. But fuck, he’s doing too much.
You cough, remembering that you’re also only wearing your swimsuit under your clothes. Stilted, “Right. Same.”
“It’s almost like we’re telepathic.”
“I’m telekinetic, not an ESPer,” you say, tilting your head down to look up at him pointedly.
“It’s gotta count for something, though,” he sings.
Side-smile this time, crooked up at the left, whisker dimple just beginning to indent into the apple of his cheek. He shoots you two enthusiastic finger-guns with an exaggerated wink.
You shake your head, helplessly amused. You pull off your shirt and shorts, standing on the concrete in slippers and a two-piece.
When you sneak a glance back—one of your many spontaneous ideas that never get you anywhere good—Mark's just standing there, equally as undressed as you. Tan skin dipping between muscle, freckles splashed on his shoulders, sweater limp in hand.
He kind of hangs there, not really knowing what to do. Face frozen somewhere between a casual flash of teeth, utter shock, and awe; brows just above their normal position, eyes wide and lowered, attention pinned. Like he’s the deer and you’re the headlights, and not the other way around.
You don’t gulp and stare. You don’t. Seriously. Scout's Honor.
William’s voice breaks into your mini zone-out, startling. “You jumping in or what?”
You scoff, welcome for the distraction, “Dude, I’m not getting sunburned!”
You and Mark throw your clothes onto the patio couch at the same time. Huh, telepathic.
His sweater lands on top of your things—you wonder, briefly, if the scent of his detergent and cologne will stay on the fabric. (Secretly, you hope it does. Please, please, please, just this one time.)
Mark pads over to a pile of bags next to the couch, pulling out an aerosol spray of sunblock from a pink tote. Must be Eve’s—although they ended on good terms, the thought of his ex drives something sharp into you. He shakes it at lightning speed as he comes back.
“You first?”
You don’t think his smile has left since you first saw him. He’s still shaking the can; you hope it doesn’t explode on you.
You shrug, striking a starfish pose, spread-eagle shadow stretching across the wet pavement. You probably look stupid as fuck—mismatched two-piece, sunglasses pushing back your hair.
It still makes Mark’s smile shift to something softer, fonder.
Your breath hitches, just a little. Only noticeable if he was looking closely, which is impossible, because why would Mark be paying attention to your vitals?
“Do your worst, flyboy.”
The aerosol spray is fucking cold. Despite the suffocating press of summer in Chicago, you swear your teeth are going to start chattering like a Victorian child with the immune integrity of a wet straw.
“I take it back, don’t do your worst,” you shiver, stance beginning to waver. William is jeering something from the pool about how you ‘look like a wet cat,’ pulling a mirthful scoff from Mark.
Seriously, who’s side is this guy on?
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, spritzing the mist onto his hand. Gestures to the strap of your top, smile smaller and more serious. You’re kind of endeared by the way he’s treating the task of helping you with sunblock like a mission, one that’s more important than defending the Declaration of Independence or killing kaijus. “You don’t mind, right?”
You slip the right strap to the side, obliging. Mark slides his sunscreen-covered hand over the space, palm burning along your shoulder, melting away the chill. He slides the fabric back into place himself, then moves on to the left, worming his hand under the strap until you’re sure that you’ll pass out from the sudden wave of heat rolling through you.
He skates his hand over the blade of your shoulder, then up to the projection of your acromion process. His thumb brushes against the flutter of your jugular, slides back down until it’s pressed to the sharp edge of your bone again. Cheekily, he snaps the strap against your skin when he pulls away.
Funny, you think about saying. Didn’t know we were giving free massages to our besties.
“Thanks,” you choke out instead, barely meeting his eyes. “Um—want me to do you?”
He turns pink, but it’s only due to the hot, stale breeze picking up. At least, that’s what you think.
“No, it’s…” He hesitates with that stupid lost puppy look on his face. “It’s okay. Half Viltrumite, remember? I’m practically—”
You wish you had that can of aerosol sunblock, if only to spray it in his face. Still, you smile, hopelessly, and shake your head. “I’m gonna stop you there.”
“Come on, just let me say it.” He punctuates that with a pout that makes your lungs want to play ping-pong with your heart.
You should get checked for palpitations, or spiritual possession. Who knows, even if you have zero ESP, you could still be a viable host for some dead, horny schoolgirl.
“I’m,” Mark starts, leaning closer to taunt you, smelling like citrus and woodsy cologne under the blanket of sunscreen spray that must have clung onto him. His mouth exaggerates every syllable, and you watch the plush of his bottom lip as it moves to form: “In-vin-cible.”
With a groan, “You suck, Mark.” You hold out your hand, brows raising. “Just give me the can.”
“Alright, alright,” he breathes out, shrugging. “Didn’t know you were into bossy, but…”
“Shut up.”
For a second, you almost think he’s going to retort with ‘make me.’ He looks like he would, skeptical but still mischievous tilt to his mouth and all.
But he just tosses the can over and turns around, holding his arms out to the side in the same spread-eagle pose you struck earlier.
You get a really, really good view of his back. The defined shift of his shoulders, powerful and wide enough to make a swimmer jealous. The way his neck—you swear it got thicker—bunches up, trapezius bulging, how the dips between his muscles just whisper the suggestion of how easily he could put you into a wall or throw you onto a mattress—
(Sorry, that was horny schoolgirl possessing your body.)
And you aren’t…paying attention, but one of your friends did say that Invincible was Chicago’s ass. Maybe she’s right. Then again, you’re trying not to ogle. Is saying that they looked at you first a valid excuse?
You decide that being told to make him shut up is infinitely better than the torture of getting a free pass to stare at his backside.
“Today would be nice,” Mark mutters softly.
Right. He’s your friend, and an objectively bad one, with the way he’s always verbally sniping at you.
“Dude, I need your workout schedule,” you say, pressing down on the nozzle. Sunscreen sprays onto the expanse of his back, and you really regret it, the way it coats his skin in a shiny coat. You feel sticky all over, and kind of wrong for looking at him in this way. The effect of romantic frustration, you suppose. “Is that what the big thing at HQ is for?”
His back flexes with his laugh. “Yeah, Cecil had me benching like, a million pounds.”
You whistle, though it sounds more like a sputter, “Wow. You’re like, really jacked. I might start calling you Superman.”
“I think I’m already a super man, ever thought about that?”
You can hear the stupid smile on his face, probably complete with closed eyes and a lopsided mouth. It's just this side of smug, in the way only Mark Grayson’s humble ass could be.
You let up on the spray. “Only thing I’m thinking about is how unfunny your jokes are.”
Mark scoffs, waddling around to face you. Keeping your eyes pointedly above his shoulders, you continue your mission to spritz sunscreen like it’s the most important thing in the world. Which it is, because you might just explode everything in a ten-mile radius with your powers on accident.
“I’m not unfunny.” He’s so sulky when he says it, thick eyebrows and lips angled down. If pouts could kill, and all. “Just watch, you’ll see me on SNL one day.”
“SNL?” you crow, then sniff for extra measure, “SN-Smell?”
“Thanks for the free joke. I’ll make sure to mention you when I’m on TV,” Mark says, deadpan look cracking under the urge to grin. “Oh wait, I already am—like, every day.”
You scoff, faking offense. “So am I, dumbass.”
“I guess we’re the perfect pair then.”
And it’s so unfair how your brain skips a signal when he beams at you. Which neuron even decided to let your dumb and annoying(ly hot) best friend hijack every impulse in your body?
Your sudden onset of Mark-induced brain fog leaves you frozen for what feels like an hour. Just you and him, shiny with sunblock and cheesing like there’s no tomorrow. There’s a glob of foam on his collarbone, from where the nozzle must have sputtered out.
Without thinking, you reach out and smear it away with your thumb. Good grief, his skin is warm…
“There, you’re done,” you say, stepping back and forcing yourself not to admire your work. “I’m gonna help Rick while it sets.”
He shoves your shoulder, but there’s no mean bite behind it. “Boo, stickler.”
—
Ten minutes later, you’re gnawing on your last straws of sanity.
Really, how dare he lounge around the pool with every limb dwarfing the foam noodles he’s tangled himself in?
“You two always seem to miss each other,” Rick muses, absently poking a Polish sausage with the tongs.
You’re shoving onions around the flat grill with a vengeance, trying to do anything but notice Mark. “What do you mean?”
“Like, you always alternate hangouts. Mark can come but you can’t, and then another time, it’s the opposite.”
“Product of Cecil’s sorry ass Google Calendar,” you grumble, scraping your spatula between the caramelizing onions and scorching metal.
Rick offers, “If it’s any consolation, he always mopes about wanting to see your face again.”
You swear a few nerves wither in your brain. “Huh?”
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging like the fact is so easy to digest. “Hey, I miss hanging out too, but bro isn’t that slick with his crush on you…”
He pauses.
“Oh fuck—forget I said that,” Rick exclaims in a low, furtive voice. “Coaches don’t play, right?”
You take a few moments to blink, catch up, and respond: “I think you’ve deeply misunderstood the phrase, Rick.”
He only squeezes his mouth into a wobbly line, eyes wide like he’s inwardly criticizing himself for having a big mouth.
A wave of water crashes over your feet and sandals, so frigid that it almost begs your skin to shrivel up on the spot.
Whipping around, you glare at Mark; he’s whistling to himself in a manner that’s far too casual to be innocent.
Menace.
“I know it was you, Mark,” you call, setting down your spatula to prepare for kicking off your sandals.
He wades over, still tangled in his pool noodles, dark hair all carelessly spiked and plastered in a way that’s totally unfair. “I don’t know what you mean…”
If you know one thing for sure, it’s that you’ll never match his speed. In a blur, Mark is flying up, wrapping his arms around your bare waist, and hurling himself back into the pool—with you in tow, the asshole!
“Fuckin’ nerve!” you sputter, flailing against the cold water lapping at your back.
Mark laughs, low and warm by your ear, solid chest heaving against your back. Woah. “Fifteen minutes are up, ace. I counted all 900 seconds.”
“You can still do math?” you bite, the fight leaving as you resign to being dead weight on him.
“Ye of little faith,” he whines, unwinding his arms in dramatic petulance. You use telekinesis to drag the nearest pool float towards you—a donut—because you’re too stunned to trust yourself to tread.
Like any natural sequence of events, Mark makes the wonderful choice to share the floatie. Too many concussions impacting his empathy, it seems—surely, he must sense that you aren’t surviving today, and now he’s expediting your doom.
He throws his arms over the plastic, hands hooked into the hole, and you think to drown him on the spot before Amber paddles over.
“Seeing anyone?” she asks, posture all casual as she clings onto her baby pink noodle (it's probably made by Eve). “I just finished telling Eve about Kyle’s crazy stir-fry.”
Your chuckle wavers at the edges as images of your cursed love life flash through your mind. “Yeah, just…one casual asshole after another.”
Amber lets out that low hum of understanding. “I could set you up, if you want. I know a really sweet guy going to UChicago.”
The donut warps suddenly; Mark’s fingers squeal against the wet plastic. He puts on a basic, polite grin that doesn’t match his stiff body, and chirps, “Y’know, I’m also a sweet guy…I dropped out of Upstate, but still…”
Neither you nor Amber decide to dignify his out-of-pocket interjection with a response.
“Thanks, but I’ll have to say no,” you say to her, sullen. From your peripheral, Mark bats his lashes like info on your love life is his oxygen. “Dating’s left a sour taste.”
He deflates. Probably because he relates, right?
“Yeah,” she sighs, head tilting back to dip her hair into the water. Then she leans in conspiratorially, eyes narrowing. “And let me guess: hookups not doing it either?”
Nodding, you tune out your best friend’s incessant glances and pretend you haven’t been ogling him all afternoon. “Like, I’m repressed but not desperate.”
White lie. You’re repressed, indeed, but you may be more desperate than you think, especially with Mark’s biceps flexing right beside you.
Good fucking lord—you’ll need three melatonin tablets so you don’t DJ it to thoughts of your HBFF before bed.
“Exactly,” she nods.
A rain of droplets rips away your attention—Mark is floating above you, face all scrunched up, water trailing the dips between his abs (sick and twisted).
“Uh, where do you think you’re going?” Amber’s brow arches into a shape that would make Hollywood stars envious.
“Chips,” he mumbles, mouth set in a pout. He starts toward the door, showering pool water all over the steaming concrete. “Soda. Maybe a mirror so I can talk to myself about bad dates and sex, too.”
She rolls her eyes and snarks beneath her breath, “Serial monogamist.”
You scoff, though the insult doesn’t humor you like it should. “I should—get napkins.”
Amber sets her gaze on you, a shadow of seriousness possessing her features. “Don’t tell me you’re going after him.”
“I’m not,” you protest, but you’re already wading towards the steps. “I just hate chip dust in pools.”
“Gross!” Eve hollers, midway through charging up a water gun with William—likely targeting poor Rick as their first victim.
“I mean, yeah, that’s disgusting,” Amber agrees, “but you’re sure it’s not your big crush?”
Heat licks up and down your face, and you throw your towel over your head to hide it. Where did she even get that impression? You haven’t been that obvious with the staring…
“I said I’m not looking for anything!”
“Babe, there’s a difference between romance and sex,” Amber drawls, paddling up to the shaded edge of the pool and resting her arms against the concrete. “Mark’s hot—objectively. Would you commit? Maybe not, but you’d definitely ride along...”
“Didn’t need the image,” you grit as you stomp into the house and slam the back door.
Inside, the AC quickly strips you to the bone, frigid air kissing the exposed skin that isn’t armored by your towel. You find Mark sulking beside the pantry, mouth pinched as he puzzles over Cheetos and BBQ Lays.
Nonchalantly, you peer into the fridge, paying little mind to how the chill caresses your still-damp skin. The thick silence stretches without hurry until Mark coughs a little.
Whirling around, you expect him to at least be facing you and ready for a conversation, but—yeah, he’s still hellbent on studying the chips like the choice will make or break his calculus grade.
(Which he almost failed.)
You shut the fridge. “What’s wrong?”
He sighs, shoulder wiggling with the vigor of his obnoxious chin rubbing. Leave it to Mark to make a whole production out of acting casual.
“Nothing,” he mumbles, unconvincingly.
“If you wanted to talk about relationships and sex—which I don’t know why you’d want to—I’m listening now,” you say, exasperation letting your hands flop to your sides.
“It’s not that,” he all but exclaims, equally exasperated.
“Then what is it?”
And just to check, because he’ll die if he isn’t dramatic about this, he peeks over his shoulder to make sure you’re still paying attention before he answers:
“You just…deserve better than whoever those guys were, okay? It sucks.”
He slouches as if he’s been kicked on your behalf. It lands like a smash hit to the heart. You’re suddenly glad he’s turned around, because you’d probably become one with the kitchen grout if his big, brown eyes were watery and sopping and cute-cow-like and aimed straight at you.
“Mark, you hardly know anything about my dating life.”
He huffs, the bumps of each vertebrae starting to appear with the deepening of his posture. “Well, tell me all about it.”
You blink, not quite expecting it. “I—okay? This guy Robert stood me up on our first exclusive date.”
No response. You scan the tile floor beneath your feet.
“Matthew was a cheater. Scott never initiated and called me desperate. And Seb—” your molars grind as your throat catches “—I don’t know, I really wanted him to last.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he says. You flick your eyes up and startle slightly because he’s right in front of you, but he’s so light on his feet that you didn’t notice him moving.
“It’s fine,” you blurt, quiet and quick. “I just...well, there’s no incentive to try.”
“Hey.”
You turn to follow his voice, unassuming. It’s second nature, to look when he calls.
A thrill runs up your spine.
Oh. You’re kissing. Mark is dipping his head, feet gently lifting off the ground like he’s about to depart for cloud nine.
It’s short, chaste, like a textbook first kiss on TV—freeze frame, cut to outro. Roll the credits, the whole works. The bassline of one of the songs from William’s playlist picks up, the thrum matching the pounding of your heart.
Everything just...slips your mind. You’re leaning into the kiss, you realize. Feet lifting off the floor to get closer, a string of firecrackers exploding in your chest. It’s so cold in the house, AC icing the water droplets still on your skin, but you can’t help but feel feverish.
You don’t know how you’re supposed to go back to the twelve-inch bare minimum between your mouths after this. You don’t even know how you were able to tolerate being that far from your best friend before.
You only pull away once you process the fact that you’re about to slip your tongue into his mouth.
Holy fuck, what’s wrong with you? Friends don’t do things like—like this! Kissing and standing so close that you can see individual freckles, sliding warm fingers under swimsuit straps and rubbing sun-warmed shoulders together.
“What—” your mouth dries just as your vocabulary spills across the floor, imaginary letters clattering on kitchen tiles “—what'd you do that for?”
Mark has a guilty look on his face, looking everywhere but you. “Sorry,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he means it, “I just thought...you know, what’s better incentive than a kiss?”
He’s kind of right, though you hate to admit it. Your chest feels as if someone’s twined fairy lights around your ribs.
“Huh.” You frown, though it doesn’t have much bite behind it. You restrain the urge to brush your fingers over where Mark’s lips have just been. Would the warmth still be there?
“See?”
You nod in tandem, like you’ve gotten in on a secret joke. He smiles at you, sweet and sincere, and your stomach does a sharp little kick.
You collect your thoughts, careful not to brush his skin when you reach around him for both the Cheetos and BBQ Lays. His sternum hiccups before you hear the hitch in his breathing.
The tip of his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and you have half the mind to lean back in before someone bangs on the back door and starts talking about needing “plates and a soda ASAP!”
“We can…” You swallow and blink like a headlight-guilty deer as you back away. “Talk about it later, okay?”
Mark nods and reaches for both bags at once, an easy grin filling his face. Shyly, “You’re a pretty good kisser, though.”
You’re helpless to the bashful tilt of your mouth, grabbing a fistful of napkins and a two-liter soda you saw in the fridge. “Learned that along the way—”
“—with your four evil exes?” he quips. “Please don’t make me go Scott Pilgrim on them.”
He thinks he’s so endearing (he is).
—
Mark’s arms wrap around your waist, and his shoulders are firm and warm beneath your thighs.
Your stomach stirs at the sight of his shock of dark hair brushing your belly, and that unconsciously makes you shift.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, plush mouth smushed to your skin. “It’s really comfy here.”
He had cracked his head against the edge of the pool, roughhousing with William. Well, they called it ‘chicken’ when it was more like ‘William sits on Rick and Mark floats in the air.’
Eve sent him home, and naturally, you drove him back to make sure he wasn’t more directionally challenged than he usually is. That would be bad.
You had dried off, threw your pile of clothes in the backseat, and plopped your ass onto a towel behind the wheel. And when you got here, you had made all but two steps past the threshold before he tackled you to the couch.
You know it’s hard to concuss a Viltrumite—you’ve only done it when you were on the Teen Team and accidentally dropped a shipping container on his head.
(At least he waited until after lunch to fool around, because you really would have concussed him if you went home hungry.)
You just can’t stop thinking about the kiss, though. Even with him cuddled up against you and pouting about his nonexistent bruise, you’re…nervous.
Like, first crush nervous. The kind of anxious when you have three seconds to react to being asked out and don’t want to make a bad impression.
“We should shower,” you say, hesitantly trailing your fingers along the soft tips of his hair. “Your mom won’t be happy if her couch smells like swimsuits.”
(Thank god for real estate. You inwardly leaped for joy when Mark told you Oliver was so grounded that Debbie took him to a sale so she could keep an eye on him.)
“Okay,” he sighs, a bit nasally because his nose is also bent against your stomach. “Help me up…”
So dramatic.
He guides you up the stairs, knuckles kissing the bare small of your back, then into the bathroom.
“Why are you looking at me like that,” you say, watching him watch you through the mirror.
Mark is rubbing some oil cleanser over his skin, which is supposed to unclog and refresh his invisible pores. At least, that’s the word of mouth from Debbie’s Chicago Ahjumma Facebook group.
Blinking innocuously, he holds out the bottle for you.
“I have one at home.”
“Not this version,” he says, shaking it a little. “You have the anti-inflammatory, this one’s hydrating.”
As if it makes a difference for him. Being Viltrumite and Korean forms an impossible defense against acne.
“Fine.” You take a pump and smear it onto your face, emulsifying the cleanser as you shoulder him to share the mirror.
“We should totally conserve resources,” he remarks offhandedly, breaking the strangely domestic silence.
You massage the sides of your nose. “Hmm?”
He flashes a sheepish grin through the reflection, bumping his side into yours. “Save water?”
Your heart swan dives, plummeting towards the apex of your thighs. You hiss, “That’s totally code for having sex.”
“…Incentive?” His brows tick upward for extra effect, but your gaze is tumbling down, down, down to the peak of his faint happy trail. Your veins feel like they’re full of gasoline, and you rip your gaze away so nothing sparks and sends you to hell.
“I thought we’d talk about…that later,” you manage over the thunder of your heart, gauging his reaction through the elegant silver arch of the faucet.
He shifts on his feet, inching closer in the silence as he mulls over his next excuse. “Now is later.”
Good grief, you have a solid idea now of where this is going, but you only hum out a vague mhm because you need him to get over himself and say it first.
“I have a trade offer,” Mark starts, busying himself with re-aligning a perfectly placed towel. “I…”
He purses his lips—just slightly, in that way he does when he wants to appear nonchalant. The strong line of his shoulders draws tight with hesitance before he turns and pecks you on the lips.
You blink again, and he’s inches away with his gaze darting all over your face, mouth pressed into a nervous squiggle.
You murmur, “Y’know, you’re supposed to do that with people you like.”
Bigmouth strikes again.
The thing is, Mark definitely doesn’t like you. And you surely don’t like him. You can’t, with the whole works of being a savior. It just never works out.
If love between supers and civvies ends badly, then even a spark between two supers would require a Shakespeare-level tragedy, outfitted with tears, and gruesome death, so on and so forth.
You’ll just end up hurt, fingers pressed to breath-fogged windows as you watch each other fly off into battle. Never sure if the other would come back, and always fractured by the easy way you both interacted with fans.
“But,” Mark says, holding his eyes to yours with a raw kind of softness that makes your heart squeeze, “I do like you.”
Time stops, or at least passes in a dizzyingly slow manner. You half expect a bunch of random people to burst out from behind a cabinet or the bathroom door with cameras and confetti cannons and screaming ‘gotcha!’
“You’re my best friend,” he adds quickly, like some sick, damage-control cherry on top. “HBFFs, remember?”
Gotcha!
“Yeah, obviously,” you say, heart squeezing. “Not like we can commit to a relationship anyway.”
Because truly, you can’t. You can’t do feelings, not when villain attacks keep getting worse. Not when the guillotine of intergalactic war hangs over Earth’s head.
Not when you finally have one good thing—one small, flickering light that you have to squash before you lose it too.
Mark’s face falls, eyes downturned at the outer corners and mouth flattening. He sinks for a moment—a long moment, one that almost makes you regret choosing yourself over his feelings—before bouncing back like he always does.
Like a true hero. Like Invincible, who never gives up.
His mouth widens and curls up. “Sure. Hero life, am I right?”
He understands. Of course he does.
“Yeah,” you say, vocal cords thick. “Hero life.”
“So, because we’re—you know—and very stressed, we could—yeah—so we don’t have to with, uh,” he stammers very astutely; the short circuit in vocabulary wins over the part of you that’s always loved his earnest, awkward charm. “You get the idea, right?”
You can have this. You can, and you don’t have to give anything in return because Mark isn’t asking.
He’s just…offering. Holding out an olive branch so you won’t feel so morose about all the bad fish in the sea, because you’ll have him.
Your hero best friend forever—plus a little extra.
Because you’re easier than Sunday morning, you flick your fingers; the shower knob squeaks till the glass fogs, and Mark’s chest seems to triple in size as his grin swells, revealing the whisker dimple that lands like a personal tragedy.
Case in point: your stomach immediately flails in your ass as you accept that you want and need him. Carnally and heart-stopping hormonally.
“Is that a yes?” he wonders out loud, as if you springing to nudge him towards the water isn’t affirmation enough. For a quick moment, he lets the spray pound at his face so you won’t taste oil cleanser if you kiss him again.
Which you will, obviously. You seriously need to take advantage of free stuff more often.
“Yes, Mark,” you sigh as he makes room for you. “As William would put it, we’re now friends with a side of dessert.”
Snorting, he trails his fingers down the stretch of spine between your two-piece, waiting till you scrub your face clean before he turns you around by the shoulders and corrals you against the frigid shower tile.
Mark’s grin has dropped from one of unbridled excitement to one of fondness, brown eyes soft and faintly glimmering as he smooths his hands—soft at the fingertips, callused at the base of his thumb—back and forth over your waist. And he just looks at you, really looks at you in earnest, like you’ll be gone for a while and he needs to memorize the slope of your browbone.
A pang of need tears into you, sharp and urgent and warm between your legs, but it’s nothing compared to the dull, yet widespread and deep, clench of your heart.
A quiet puff leaves your mouth, barely audible over the water splattering your calves. “What?” you mumble, suddenly conscious of how you must look so strange, still wearing swimsuits in the shower, or about how you might have racoon impressions on your cheeks, even though you weren’t wearing goggles at all.
“You’re really cute,” he says, all low and sheepish like he’s confessing an embarrassing secret. Hands stilling, his eyes search the shy twitch of your mouth before wetting his lips and asking, “Can I kiss you for real?”
You chuckle, bashfulness flooding your system. “I mean, you kinda did. Twice.”
“Yeah, but those were pecks,” he quietly retorts. "I wanna do it properly this time.”
“’Kay.” You squeeze your eyes shut and plant your hands against his firm chest; his skin is so flushed that you fear being scathed. “C’mon, Prince Charming.”
You swear he stuffs down a groan of playful exasperation, but he follows suit with your orders, placing his careful (slightly chapped, but that’s a given when you’re flying across the world to stop supervillains every day) lips over yours.
Colors bloom in your imagination. Your heart slows and quickens all at once; you have too much and too little air in your chest.
Mark gently grasps your elbows, then drags his hands along your upper arms to palm over your shoulder blades and dip back down to just below their previous place on your waist—this time teasing the elastic of your bottoms.
He slips one finger, just a sliver of his pinky, below the band and keeps it there. His pulse thrums beneath your touch, fast and just this side of alien with how it seems to hum through the underside of his skin.
(What you’d give to crawl into him, to make your bed in his viscera and let that hymn lull you to sleep.)
You break for a half-gasp, then slot your mouth over his again. Fingers map a path to his hair, which is plastered to his forehead, and you tangle yourself in the strands and hope you never have to leave.
He whines. A soft, feeble sound that leaps into your mouth and you swear you’ve never been wetter.
Just to be vindicated for how he’s stealing your breath and sanity, you drag one hand down, grazing through the soft prickle of his happy trail and over the heat beginning to bulge in his trunks.
“Fuck.” Mark is barely a breath away before he laps lazily at your bottom lip. “I wanna do this forever.”
For a long, honey-slow handful of moments, he steals another kiss and seems to savor it, tongue exploring your mouth with the intent to make your hands tighten on his hair and tent.
It’s intoxicating, how he slips into the right rhythm, pinpointing the right pressure and angle against your tongue to make you spiral.
You sigh into him, head swimming and sternum rattling with the force of your blood pressure. There’s a growing fire in your gut that you can’t ignore, and Mark’s soft breaths billowing against your cheek are coming faster.
“Can we…?” he rasps, now wiggling the pinky hooked into your waistband.
You feel like a bobblehead with how eagerly you pant a shallow, “Yeah, yeah,” and nearly stumble on the wet tile as you drag off your two-piece.
Once your top smacks into the corner of the stall, Mark is leaping onto you, not even sparing the time for you to be embarrassed about how your skin is sort of dry and how you’re a few days away from neatly trimmed.
“God,” he whimpers, cracked in the middle as he kicks his trunks to the same corner. He hadn’t been standing so close, you realize, because now he’s flush to you and claiming your mouth again while his (aroused, maybe seven inches and dusky pink at the tip and curved a little to the right) cock tries to kiss your navel. “You’re so, so pretty.”
It has to be a mindless, heat of the moment thing. But that justification doesn’t stop something from loosening within you.
You push down a sudden anticipation to wrap this all up so you can giggle and kiss and wash his hair like real lovers would.
Mark twines his fingers around yours, faintly tugging on your wrist so you can guide him. And you do—you pull his hand down to the crux of your thighs, where the need pools in you, searing and insistent.
Show me where you want me, you swear he murmurs, but that secret is lost to the steam clinging on the glass.
You spread your folds—he exhales in a sharp shudder—and place his middle and ring finger on your clit, all pert and begging for friction. He circles his fingers once, catching the bundle between them, and the head rush you get is so overwhelming that you can’t silence your whimper.
Mark works you up on his fingertips, gradually dipping them further back until your slick coats his first knuckle. By then, you’re dripping, arms looped around his neck and tongue swiping across his bottom lip, helpless to the soft, nakedly sweet sounds he’s making.
You reach your right hand down blindly and manage to grasp his shaft; molten heat and the faint impression of veins meet your palm. He’s hefty and fucking sensitive, because Mark tilts his head back to loose a groan in the air, and his fingers tremble where they’re lining up at your seam.
He gasps when your cunt opens for him so readily; you pant against each other’s necks at the first thrust, frisson running down spines, free hands trying to map and memorize every mole and freckle.
Mark rewards you with a whimper at the second thrust, when you thumb at his slit, then twist your hand over the flushed, smooth skin of the head just to see if he jerks.
He does. Almost, but not quite, violently.
That taste of pleasure lands. God, it lands.
You aren’t sure who’s pinning or pulling, but like two people possessed, you’re pressing flush to each other. Mark brushes the hot, spongy spot that makes your eyes roll back and he zeroes in, bullying his fingers deeper into your warm, wet cunt until you can hear the lewd squelch over your pitched sounds and the shower.
He’s so close and desperate and needy that his tip nudges your tummy with every other rock of his hips, leaving a little sticky string that doesn’t get washed away by the spray. You try to stroke his shaft—the angle is a little awkward with your positioning, but you’ll risk the carpal tunnel to drink in the way he sweetly and sincerely urges you with breathy moans.
“Mm, that’s good—’s perfect,” he manages between strained gasps. With a heady groan, he presses your foreheads together; his brow is wrinkled with effort, and his cheeks are glowing with a deep pink, which makes the sparse spatter of freckles beneath his eyes pop out.
Growing more desperate by the moment, he drives into your hand thoughtlessly and without much rhythm, babbling: “You’re so perfect, baby, my perfect, pretty girl—” a pitched keen breaks him midway, and he doesn’t thrust his fingers back into your cunt "—shit, stop, it’s too much, I can’t.”
You release him immediately and tuck your hands behind your back, heart bruising your ribs as guilt begins to bleed into you. But Mark dives to nip at your pulse, assuaging your worries with his gentle lips that walk a path up to your face.
“’M so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispers, placing a sweet, earnest kiss on the apple of your cheek. His lashes flutter on your skin as he searches your expression with blown-out, wanting eyes. “Don’t feel bad, just wanted to hold out a little longer.”
You nod, relief swelling in your throat. “Okay.”
“Make it up to you, okay?”
Your brain is foggier than the glass, still reeling from losing your build-up toward orgasm. You scrape out a hushed, “Yeah,” and Mark immediately drops onto his knees, bracketing your hips with his hands and eagerly sucking your swollen clit between his hot, plush lips.
A labored pant leaves you, perspiration pooling at your nape. He licks you open with undisguised joy lighting his hazy eyes, rolling the blunt tip of his tongue between your lips. You don’t feel so steady—another push of his face, and you might just make a puddle on Debbie’s floor.
The realization that you can’t trust your geriatric and always-injured knees to stay stable with his tongue working you like that finally registers.
“Shit, no, Mark—” he moves his open mouth around your clit like he’s trying to make out with the poor girl, and you can’t fortify yourself in time for the harsh gasp that cuts you off “—wait, I’m gonna slip and crack my head on the tile.”
“No, you won’t.” He frowns, maw still breathing in every twitch of your sex.
“Yes, I will,” you nearly laugh, delirious from the sight of him on his knees and peering up at you with hungry, dilated eyes. You knock your head back against the wall, mulling over your impending doom.
“I’ll crush your skull under me and Debbie will be horrified and Oliver will tell the coroner to chalk it up to ‘death by horniness.’ How’s Cecil gonna explain that to the media?”
Mark chuckles, the slope of his eyes softening and the corner of his mouth tilting up with lazy ease. Your self-control slips for a millisecond as you debate just going through with it and pushing your cunt back onto him.
Like he's just read your mind, he hoists your thighs over his shoulders and effortlessly pins you against the wall, murmuring some sweet nothing into your soaked seam about Cecil “not knowing anything” and “I’m fine with dying happy right here.”
Screw him, seriously.
After all, he knows you can’t stay mad at him for long if he talks sweet and adheres himself to your inner thighs like the secrets of the universe will be revealed by the arousal glistening between your folds.
Softhanded and leisurely, he returns to your cunt with his fingers securely sinking into your thighs. Lips tacky with slick, he uses the flat of his tongue to lick a long stripe, all the way up to your twitching clit.
You whimper. Actually. In an embarrassingly vulnerable, bury-me-with-your-bones way. “Mark.”
He responds with a stifled groan of his own; the vibrations shoot right through your now-tremoring legs and into your stomach, where you can feel yourself winding toward coming. “Please, please, say it like that again.”
Mark punctuates the request with a slow, hard suck—like a dam has cracked, you moan his name again, and he tightens his grip to pull you closer, burying himself deeper with his tongue fervently plunging into your heat.
You’re so stupidly, hopelessly endeared by him that you scrounge up the will to ride his nose, whimpering as that sensitive, throbbing bundle of nerves catches on the bridge while you hurtle toward ecstasy.
He swirls his tongue around the clenching muscle of your cunt. Downright filthy, he thrusts back in with a moan of his own. Rinse and repeat as your fingers scrabble for grip on his wet hair, as you spill, “So close, Mark—mm, like that, just like that, oh god—”
You come with a strangled cry of his name, thighs squeezing around his ears, chest heaving as pleasure unspools from your stomach and shoots to every recess of your body.
Time passes, but you’re too muddled to know how long. You only know the sensation of Mark’s mouth bringing you down, slow yet eager to please, and the sound of the shower still running, though the water must’ve gone tepid.
You think you’ve calmed down enough when your eyes crack open on their own volition. When your vision refocuses, you find him watching you from below, pinpointing your gaze from the valley of your breasts with his ears feverishly flushed scarlet.
“Can you even breathe?” you murmur; concern is a dull thought to you right now, with your limbs all heavy and loose like this. He hums a negative before shifting your legs off his shoulders.
Mark guides you back to the ground, and when your feet touch the tile again, you tug the curve of his hip to pull him into a deep, appreciative kiss. He tastes like you; knowing that is indescribable. It’s here, sharing orbit, between each tender, content slide of your lips that you take his still-hard cock in your hand again.
Boneless feeling aside, you’ll be damned if you don’t make him come too.
He’s leaking like crazy, enough to lubricate as you caress him. You twist when you get to the glans in the way you’ve learned drives him insane and grind the pad of your thumb into his slit, where the precum has given up on pearling and has opted to dribble down the underside.
Your fist makes its way down again. The warmth of his hand closes around yours, and you work his cock together, panting into each other’s open mouths, tongues exchanging this language of light-headed pleasure and soft, sweet sounds as he tumbles toward oblivion.
And when Mark comes, it’s with the stuttering of your splintered name and a half-moan. He spills in your hand, the subtle lines of his lean abdomen tensing, scorching ropes squeezing out between both of your fingers. Yours are still buzzing with the devastating force of your orgasm, and his are twitching with the recency of his.
A last shudder runs through him like livewire. It dies out, replaced only by the sound of your shallow huffs and the water splashing on the tile, along with the realization that you’ve really done it.
“This is a total HR violation,” you mumble, miserably trying to fill the silence.
Mark snorts. Attempts to stifle his humor, but then his eyes meet yours, and you’re both bursting into full-blown laughs, because of course knowing each other carnally can’t stop a lifetime of shits and giggles.
“You’re the worst,” he complains, but the wide smile on his face dials your mood up to a hundred and twenty percent.
You grin until your cheeks ache, rinsing off his cum so you can pump out a dollop of Debbie’s shampoo (Mark hates clutter in the shopping cart, and he gets soft, vanilla-scented hair out of it) and slap it onto his head. “Hey!”
“C’mon, lean over, you’ve got chlorine in there.”
He obliges, but not without a playful groan and a quick, chaste peck to your still-swollen lips. Which shouldn’t complicate things, but your heart still pangs.
“’Kay, make it quick. I wanna watch the new Seance Dog episode.”
You shove down the ache and lather the soap into his strands, ridiculously glad that he can’t see your eyes softening in longing or the slight wilt of your smile. You tease, “What if I told you I saw it already?”
“Well, don’t spoil it, obviously!”
notes. water waste aside, i love the idea of running thru sm casual guys that u just become the uncommitted final boss LMAO. please consider reblogging or sharing ur thoughts if u enjoyed 🥳💗💗
