Chapter Text
The Baxter Building, rising almost at the heart of the city, seemed to possess a supernatural illumination during the night. Not because of the elegant retrofuturism of the sixties that marked its architecture—a relic of science fiction rendered in stone and glass—but because of what breathed inside it. Or rather: because of those who lived there. The home of the incredible Fantastic Four.
Reed Richards and Sue Storm, the couple on the covers of Vogue and Hero Times. The smartest man in the world and the greatest diplomat a perpetually expanding universe had ever known.
Ben Grimm, the stone creature who, despite everything taken from him, remained, stubbornly, human.
And Johnny Storm, the living spark. The Human Torch. The youngest superhero the world had ever seen. The greatest Formula 1 driver in America. The incandescent playboy, the fever dream of men and women across the planet. And who knows who else.
Peter, suspended just above the low clouds grazing the top of the Empire State, watched the tower with restrained wonder. Still, his green eyes sparkled as he stared at that luminous obelisk, a reliquary built to house legends, so close and distant at once.
The clock was nearing midnight.
That night, a particularly violent fight against the Shocker had shaken Peter Parker’s routine, though Spider-Man’s had long since grown accustomed to such things. In the end, Peter had defeated him. He had also recovered the few thousand dollars the mediocre thief had stolen.
Not, however, before Oscorp’s gadgets had left him with various aches and inconvenient scratches on his freshly sewn suit.
Staring at a deep gash that was already beginning to heal, Peter bit into the hot dog some elderly lady had given him as thanks for the day’s heroic act. It tasted like old sausage and expired sauce, but it was better than the particularly bland food he himself made with his culinary skills—those of an arachnid—in his tiny apartment. Or was it his lair? He would find out.
The icy wind of that time of year tore through the landscape like a strafing run, sending shivers even across his hardened skin. The old metal creaked like a cranky old friend he was so fond of. It was almost comfortable, if he didn’t stop to think about how… lonely it was.
He wondered what the four of them might be doing in that tower. Sleeping, he thought aloud, smiling. They’re probably sleeping after a family dinner.
The smile turned murky, nearly a straight line beneath the mask pulled up just above his nose.
It had been a year since… that happened.
Great heights still gave him an alien sensation of vertigo—so strange to his own nature. The dry snaps of air hitting the solid steel beams made him, even unconsciously, remember something breaking in hollow echoes. Of the macabre laughter that still haunted him in his dreams, sounding incessantly through the dark walls of his memories.
Peter shook his head and, stubbornly, cast those thoughts aside, taking another generous bite of his snack, as if the simple act of chewing slowly could anchor him back in the present.
Then a spark appeared in the distance. It was small and trembling on the horizon, like a lonely firefly lost in the dark sea of the city.
Peter frowned beneath the mask, staring at it with silent disbelief, even though those eyes had already witnessed too much to truly doubt the impossible. His mouth remained full of the amorphous mass of bread and sausage, chewed hastily.
The light, however, moved.
It grew.
It wasn’t a bioluminescent insect. Nor a distant star crossing the firmament of the cosmos.
It was flames. A firm, intense orange glow, and it was coming straight for him like a meteor.
The speed was enough to wake his sixth sense like a brutal alarm. Peter’s body reacted before thought: his back arched, muscles tensed, and he was on his feet in one fluid motion. The mask was pulled down in the same movement—everything happening in seconds, with the instinctive precision of something faster than human.
Peter quickly raised his fists, his wrists aligning almost by instinct as he calibrated his web-shooters. He aimed at the thing tearing through the sky toward him, fast as an incendiary projectile.
Then he fired sequential shots.
Peter’s aim was good, he knew that well, but still, no strand of webbing found its target. The thing dodged at the last instant, as if too alive to be caught.
Then closer.
And closer.
Until the heat arrived first.
An abrasive embrace enveloped his body, making the air vibrate against the suit’s fabric. Peter abandoned his aiming attempt and reacted on pure instinct: he leaped high, spinning in the air until he clung to the staff of an American flag planted atop the building.
From there, suspended like an improvised gargoyle against the night sky, he watched with the caution of a vigilante.
The fireball, however, decelerated brutally, hovering in the air. The heat pushed the surrounding atmosphere, the air retreating violently in invisible waves beneath the force of its flight.
And then his sixth sense went quiet.
The urgency disappeared.
The flames dissipated enough to reveal the figure at the center of that small sun.
Johnny Storm hovered just below, suspended in the void as if the sky were his true ground. On his perfect face was a crooked little smile—something between insolence and amusement—as his eyes fixed on the arachnid silhouette.
"Getting toasted, webhead?" he asked, descending to the terrace's concrete with the grace of a fire god, though his face bore the childishness of a trickster god. The fire then dissipated in a small yellowish flash, leaving room only for shadows.
Spider-Man landed right beside him in a surprise move, returning some of the shock by crushing a few loose pebbles on the ground.
"What do you think you're doing, trying to scare me like that?" his voice came out rough, though something betrayed a hint of amusement.
"Aw, come on, it was just a little scare," Storm replied, lightly punching the kid’s shoulder. "Nothing you shouldn't be used to by now."
Peter looked at the touched shoulder, where a tear in the uniform revealed a small gash from the energy blast he’d taken for breakfast, then looked back at Johnny, his lenses narrowing as he stared.
Johnny tensed but refused to back down.
"Sorry…" his rough, soft voice said, deceptive as he tilted his head, moving a little too close. "That was the Shocker, right? Saw the news. You kicked his ass big time."
His finger brushed the tear in the suit before Peter could react.
"If you want… I could suture it for you."
"I think you've been watching too many movies," the arachnid replied too quickly, retreating half a step.
Johnny’s hand, still warm, hovered in the air as he let out a smile, his eyes closed.
"What happened to your sense of humor, Spider?"
"Let's just say when you get a scare thinking a fireball wants to kill you, it kinda messes with your mood," he replied, his voice sharp.
Peter didn’t know where that came from, but it seemed as involuntary as his spider-sense, though it left a bitter taste on the tip of his tongue.
"You're all smart," Johnny said, pointing at him with a waving hand, "I thought you'd figure out it was me bugging you."
Then it came. A smile. As involuntary as the escape and the spider-sense. As involuntary as his own pounding heart. Was it the scare? Peter was confused, but he was glad the mask hid some of his indecipherable expression.
Until he noticed those deep blue eyes staring at him, a half-smile forming on those rosy lips, adorned by the small but sinuous blonde hairs sprouting around his mouth and chiseled jaw.
Peter shook his head again. Where was he these days? The one who usually went to space was Johnny's family.
"Alright, sparky, now tell me why you wanted to give me a heart attack?" he asked, feigning nonchalance in his voice.
Johnny smiled and shrugged.
"Can't I miss my friendly neighborhood spider?"
"Pfft," Peter scoffed beneath the mask. "Cut it out."
Johnny frowned, and God, that face. Peter didn’t know if it was anger he felt burning from his feet to his head.
"That hurts my feelings, Spidey."
Peter shook his head in a resigned gesture. Because of the nickname. Because of the tone of voice saying it. Because of the way Johnny, as if nothing in the world could truly concern him, leaned against the edge of the terrace's parapet and stretched, making his form-fitting uniform strain and shamelessly reveal every detail of that structure sculpted by nature’s chisel.
"Does Reed want to talk to me about something?" he asked, more to escape his own thoughts than out of genuine curiosity.
He knew that if Mister Fantastic wanted to contact him, he would have done so without needing a flaming carrier pigeon. Johnny, who had never been a particularly obedient messenger. He remembered the first time they worked together—a small Skrull invasion in a Brooklyn bar—and how the Torch simply ignored all of Reed's instructions just to fly toward him and yell, "Hey, Spider, are you as flexible as they say?" before throwing a fireball that whizzed past his ear. Peter almost fell off a building that day. From fright. Just from fright.
Then came other missions. Some planned, others chance encounters amidst chaos. Johnny always showed up with that smile, always had a provocative comment, always left before Peter could really understand what the hell had just happened. Like a comet. Unpredictable, incandescent, impossible to ignore.
They weren’t friends. Not exactly. But there was something there. A familiarity built amidst explosions of fire and strands of webbing. Which made Peter even more curious about the unnerving presence of the youngest Fantastic.
"Reed…" Johnny muttered, sticking out his tongue, followed immediately by a pout. "I think you two have more in common, don't you?"
Peter furrowed his brow, making his lenses follow the gesture, which made Johnny let out a short laugh.
"That's what I thought…" He stared at Peter, then at the Baxter Building, then back at Spider. "So, do you like spying on us or what…?"
Peter stepped back, loosening his shoulders without realizing it.
"Not my fault you guys have a giant altar in the middle of the city," his voice came out thinner than expected, wandering between the deep tone he forced when he wanted to hide Parker’s voice and his usual higher pitch.
Johnny approached slowly, almost ceremonially, and staring at the tower, replied:
"Looking at it like that, it really does seem so… egotistical."
Peter could feel the residual heat from the kid’s uniform almost pressing against his own. It was a constant, living heat, as if Johnny Storm’s body still held embers beneath his skin.
He raised his face, following with his eyes the distracted path of Johnny’s gaze, until he stared at the profile of that living sculpture lit only by the night.
Then something subtle pulled him from his own train of thought.
Those blue eyes, lost in the vastness of the sky above them, reflected the city like a crystalline sea too deep to be safe, though it sounded so inviting. The well-defined jaw, the skin still faintly glowing as if the light insisted on staying there, even surrounded by darkness.
Damn!
Peter held his breath for a second too short to seem intentional.
He needed to get out of there. And it wasn’t his spider-sense talking anymore, but his common sense.
"That’s not what I meant, Johnny…"
The boy turned his face in a slow gesture, landing those blue eyes on his lenses as if he could guess where his eyes were beneath the mask. Peter retreated a few almost imperceptible inches when he noticed the softness of the act from a being who, until that moment, had been only fire.
"I’ve always wanted to know one thing," Johnny said, crossing his arms, studying the faceless scope of the mask, just the silhouette of Peter’s fine features.
"No," he replied immediately.
"I haven’t even asked yet."
"You were going to ask who I am."
"Maybe. We are… coworkers, aren’t we? Why can’t you just—" he made a gesture with his hand indicating lifting something off his face—"you know? I’m not a gossip."
Peter took a few seconds to respond, analyzing that childlike and painfully—well, he knew it would sound repetitive, but he replied, with solemn calm:
"The people you love most in the world have incredible abilities, forgive the pun. They can defend themselves. I don’t have that, Johnny. This mask isn’t just individual protection."
Something in his chest broke, but naming it would only add a more painful meaning to it. He just looked away to observe the landscape and sighed without even realizing it.
Johnny remained silent, but Peter could feel that excitement even beneath the surface of understanding.
Before the kid could speak, he continued:
"I have a responsibility," he concluded, his voice rough, almost a whisper to the winds.
A sepulchral silence spread, but Peter didn’t feel uncomfortable. On the contrary, he liked that, for once, he could have someone to listen to him—even if it was that kid. It was comforting not to be so…
"You know, Spider," Johnny broke the silence, his voice deeper, escaping like a secret, "it might not seem like it, but I have a mask too."
He looked at Peter, though his expression remained lost on the city.
"When you have to be what you’re supposed to be all the time, with no room for other versions of yourself, what’s left?" He let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Just Johnny. Not Storm. Not the driver. Hell, they don’t even call me the Human Torch. Sometimes I envy being able to have… privacy. To be something else."
The boy ran his hand through his blonde locks, messing them into wavy, golden curls across his forehead in an almost irritated gesture.
Peter didn’t retreat this time, just remained still. Without realizing it, he stared at the kid with an almost voracious intensity—so much so that perhaps even the thick fabric of the mask let his astonishment show.
What was that?
And why did hearing that feel, at the same time, good… and terribly uncomfortable?
There were no easy answers to such questions. Both seemed to subtly agitate his spider-sense. Peter didn’t exactly understand why. There was no danger there, no urgency, but still the tingle continued, even if subtle.
But in that moment, that seemed to matter very little.
The silence that followed stretched for a few too-long seconds, both remaining contemplating the landscape for a while.
Johnny finally turned his face to him when a flicker of something appeared on his flawless face.
And then the corner of his mouth curved.
"I mean…" he said, taking a step closer, tilting his head like someone analyzing a work of art, "maybe I’m just jealous because you get to be all mysterious with that mask."
He pointed at Peter’s covered face.
"That’s a genius strategy, by the way. Half the city finds you annoying… but the other half probably keeps wondering if you’re cute underneath all that."
Peter remained silent, motionless.
Johnny narrowed his eyes, as if, in another attempt, he could see through the fabric. Then he completed, all too casually:
"If, by some chance, you want to prove me wrong… I’d accept a dramatic reveal any one of these nights."
For a second, Peter tried to maintain the composure he had built there, but failed terribly when a short laugh escaped from inside the mask before he could stop it.
He shook his head, retreating a step.
"You’re impossible."
Johnny shrugged, looking satisfied with himself.
"I prefer 'irresistible,' but impossible works too."
Peter was already shooting a web toward the edge of the neighboring building when he clicked his tongue. Before leaping, however, he hesitated for an instant and stared at him.
"Good night, Storm."
Spider-Man’s body disappeared in the next leap, dissolving among the buildings and city lights.
Johnny remained standing on the terrace for a few seconds, watching the strand of webbing disappear into the darkness with a melancholy expression Peter couldn’t see.
Only then did he murmur to himself, almost amused:
"Good night, Spidey."
But as the flames slowly returned to envelop his body, a question persisted in the silence left behind.
And, curiously, it wasn’t only Peter who carried it with him that night.
Why, after all, had Johnny Storm come looking for him?
After a few web-swings and almost instinctive aerial acrobatics through the maze of buildings to Queens, Peter slipped stealthily through the window of his eighth-floor apartment. The silence of the place welcomed him as always: modest, cramped, familiar.
He removed his uniform with some difficulty—the clinging fabric protesting every pull—and headed straight for the bathroom. Under the shower, he let the icy water fall over his skin, marked by small cuts and recent bruises. The sensation was brutal but necessary; a harsh baptism after another night of being the neighborhood’s friendly friend.
When he got out, his hair still dripping, he put on only the first pair of boxers he found abandoned on the desk, then threw himself onto the hard yet extremely comfortable mattress with a tired sigh.
It was then that he noticed.
Right in front of his window, illuminated by the city’s night lights, a huge billboard dominated the side of the neighboring building. Warm colors calling his attention like a lighthouse.
A Calvin Klein advertisement.
And the model, in practically divine size, was Johnny Storm.
Peter stared at it for a few seconds too long.
The jaw. The smile. That irritating confidence plastered across twenty meters of advertising fabric. Though none of that photo captured what Johnny Storm was like in person.
A cosmic irony, he thought.
He fell back onto the mattress and wrestled with the pillow, muttering a few muffled curses, without any restraint.
"Sure. Great. Perfect."
After a few moments of futile struggle against his own bad luck—mind and body—he sighed defeated, got up from the bed, walked to the window, and with an irritated tug, closed the curtain.