#but i literally forgot abt it until searching smth on my twt just now

[johnnystorms]

When Peter was seven, Mrs Kanowski wrote in his report card that he always has something to say. Uncle Ben had found it quite funny. Aunt May had elbowed him in the side and murmured something about it not being a compliment, a word Peter didn’t quite grasp until a year later, when Gwen Stacy socked him in the shoulder then said, “I like your socks.” (They were covered in crossed swords and skulls wearing pirate hats, much to Aunt May’s dismay. Harry thought they were cool, though, and so did Peter, kind of, and now so did Gwen. So there.) “Thanks,” Peter had said, and that had been that. Not his first friend, but one of them.

He doesn’t know why he thinks about that now.

They’re on the roof of the Baxter Building. The sun is setting, spilling red and pink and orange all over Johnny, over his golden hair, the planes of his face, the brightness of his grin. The grin in question: the remnants of laughter, left over from Peter telling him about the time Harry keyed his dad’s car in a fit of six-year-old pique and Peter had tried to take the blame, only for Norman to dismiss the attempt with a brisk you’d have chosen more sensible places to do it, which had made Johnny absolutely howl with laughter.

“Really, Pete,” he says, still grinning, “what kind of six year old gets told they’d commit vandalism sensibly?” He snorts, shaking his head, looking out over the city.

Mrs Kanowski was wrong, it seems. Peter is tongue-tied, watching Johnny’s eyes crinkle in the corners, the slope of his nose as he looks out over towards the Chrysler Building. It swells in him, the way Johnny looks right now, the way he feels, loose-limbed and relaxed and happy. Peter likes Johnny a lot of ways, but this is maybe his favourite, when it’s just the two of them, and Johnny has that smile that looks like it put the stars in the sky, instead of the one he flashes at people in corridors, at the press when they get in too close, at ex-girlfriends and maybe-boyfriends – everyone who wants a piece of him.

It’s a nice smile, don’t get him wrong. Peter is mostly immune to Johnny’s charms, but that one still makes his chest feel a little warmer. It’s just got nothing on Johnny when he’s like this, bright and open and beautiful.

“I wonder what you’d have been like if you’d known me back then,” Johnny says, still not looking at Peter. His voice has gone thoughtful, smile fading until all that’s left is a soft tilt to his lips. “What I’d have been like.” He’s quiet for a second, and then: “I’m a little jealous, you know.”

Peter can’t work the words out of his mouth. His tongue feels too thick. Still, there must be something questioning enough in his gaze when Johnny glances back at him that it gets conveyed, because Johnny blinks, then smiles ruefully.

“That they knew you back then – Harry and Gwen and even Mary Jane, though I know she was a little later. They all got to know you so early… It kinda feels like I was missing out.” The way he says kinda is like an inside joke, the type where you’re the only one in on it, where you’re laughing at yourself. Peter’s heart aches.

Johnny’s smile goes crooked as he looks back at Peter again. “You’re my first real friend, Peter. You know that, right?”

And, like, maybe. Maybe Peter knew that, logically, if he ever really thought about it, but he didn’t – he doesn’t – because Johnny is bright and handsome and funny, charming and charismatic and wildly popular even though he has enough personality defects to fill a dictionary. Everyone likes Johnny, even some of his exes, and the ones who don’t usually have a grudge to pick with his brother-in-law, or they think Johnny is just like any vapid, handsome, rich, famous type. And it’s not that he’s not, but he’s also so much more than that. Sometimes Johnny is so much that Peter doesn’t have words to contain it.

But that’s a lonely thing too.

So maybe Peter knew, on some level, that this is what he is to Johnny, this is the space he occupies. But he’s never really thought it consciously, never really framed it that way, and certainly never heard it out loud before.

He swallows. Hard.

Johnny just blinks again, then grins. It’s not that crooked one, small and quiet and delicate enough to make Peter wish he could fit it in his pocket. It’s a sudden blitz against the sky, against Peter’s fucking mental stability, because it is so gorgeous that it is utterly devastating. Peter is devastated and Johnny is beautiful. Status quo.

Mrs Kanowski was definitely wrong, Peter thinks, as he slides a little closer to Johnny, nestles up against him so that their thighs are pressed close and their shoulders are knocking together. Because when Johnny looks at him like that, he can’t think of a single thing to say.

#johnny storm #peter parker #spideytorch #vaguely high school au? written for the prompt ‘firsts’ #not… that i can tell anymore why i wrote this for ‘firsts’ lmao #this isn’t new in that i wrote it for twt 1.5yrs ago #but i literally forgot abt it until searching smth on my twt just now #jane writes sometimes #meet me at the usual place #also sorry for the awol work has been Whew but i will be putting the avengers twilight one on ao3 later