For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
The library carrel, with its humming servers and dusty scent of old paper, felt like a pressure cooker. They had the "how"—the quantum signature. They had the "what"—the mobile containment unit. They had the "where"—the Stark Annex. And they had the "when"—two hours. The plan was set.
But as they walked out of the library and into the pale, indifferent light of the late afternoon, the adrenaline of the discovery faded, leaving a cold, hollow vacuum in its place. The exhaustion from the M.O.D.O.K. fight, the emotional wreckage from Peter's confrontation with May, the sheer, bone-deep weariness of their double lives... it all came crashing down.
"I need a minute," Peter said, his voice a low, frayed thing. "I need to... to reboot. Before tonight."
Diana looked at him, her gaze analytical, but softened by a profound, intimate understanding. She saw the tremor in his hands, the deep, bruised-looking shadows under his eyes that spoke of his psychic wounding. He was a warrior on the verge of collapse.
"Agreed," she said, her voice a calm, steady anchor. "A strategic pause is necessary before a final engagement. My quarters. We will rest."
They walked to her dorm in a shared, heavy silence. The room, their sanctuary, felt different. It was no longer just a place for study or passion; it was a safe house, a final bastion of quiet before the coming storm.
Peter sank onto the edge of her bed, his head in his hands, the psychic echo of the battle, a faint, high-pitched ringing, returning to the edges of his hearing. Diana watched him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, she moved to a small, locked footlocker she kept under her bed—a piece of luggage he had always assumed held personal mementos. She produced a key from a chain around her neck and opened it.
He expected to see a weapon. Instead, she pulled out a simple, elegant, dark-green glass bottle filled with an amber liquid.
"On my journeys," she said, her voice a low murmur, "I have learned that some mortal rituals have… merit. This is one of them. A... 'spirit,' I believe it is called. A gift from a dignitary. It is said to quiet the noise of the world."
She procured two small, clean glasses from her desk and poured a small amount into each. It was an expensive-looking whiskey, and the scent of peat, smoke, and honey filled the small room. She handed him a glass.
He looked at the amber liquid, then at her. "Di, I don't really..."
"I know," she said softly. "This is not for intoxication. It is for restoration. A small fire to warm the soul."
He took the glass. He trusted her. He took a sip, and the liquid was a controlled, fiery explosion in his chest, a wave of warmth that momentarily, blessedly, silenced the ringing in his mind. He took another, deeper sip. Diana sat beside him on the bed, her own glass held in her hand, watching him with a gentle, patient gaze.
They drank in a comfortable silence, the tension slowly, finally, beginning to unspool. The alcohol hit Peter's exhausted, frayed system with a surprising speed. It didn't make him drunk; it made him vulnerable. The carefully constructed walls between his two lives, the ones he maintained through sheer force of will, began to feel thin, almost translucent.
"It's just..." he started, his voice a low, introspective mumble, his gaze fixed on the swirling liquid in his glass. "I keep seeing it. The cylinder. The way it... screamed. In my head." He shuddered, a full-body tremor. "I've never felt anything like that. Pure, agonizing rage. It was like... like being born into a world of pure pain."
He looked up at her, his eyes hazy with the whiskey and the trauma. "I don't know how I held it together. If you hadn't... if you hadn't been there..."
Diana's hand, which was about to raise her own glass, froze. Her blood ran cold. She stared at him, her mind racing, connecting a universe of disparate, impossible dots. The bruises. The lies. The way he knew about the A.I.M. components. The way he had just described, with perfect, agonizing accuracy, the exact psychic sensation she had felt from her vantage point in the warehouse.
"What... what did you just say?" she asked, her voice a near-inaudible whisper, the Veil of perception that separated them beginning to tear.
"The... the scream," Peter said, confused by her reaction, his own mind too slow and warm with the alcohol to catch up. "The psychic... you know..."
"You... felt it?" she pressed, her voice trembling for the first time since he'd known her.
"Felt it? It nearly killed me," he let out a short, bitter laugh. "I was on the ground. I couldn't move. If you hadn't... if she... if Wonder Woman hadn't taken the full force of that first blast..."
He stopped. The words hung in the air, a terrible, irrevocable confession. He had not been a civilian watching from afar. He had been on the ground.
Peter's own blood turned to ice, the whiskey's warmth vanishing in a single, horrifying second of cold, sober clarity. He stared at her, his eyes wide with a dawning, catastrophic terror. "I... I mean, I read the reports... the... the damage..."
"Stop," Diana said. She stood up from the bed, the glass falling from her hand, its contents spilling onto the rug, the scent of peat and smoke a sudden, sharp accusation in the room. She was looking at him, really looking at him, as if for the first time. The brave, chaotic, brilliant partner who had moved like a shadow, who had built the web, who had been the scalpel to her thunder.
"The rift," she whispered, her voice shaking. "The bus on the bridge. The... the scars. The 'clumsy' injuries." She took a staggering step back. "Your mind... it's a library. Your speed. Your strength. The way you... know things."
"Diana, please," he begged, scrambling off the bed, his heart a frantic bird in his chest. "I don't know what you're talking about..."
"YES, YOU DO!" she roared, the sound not of a student, but of a commander, a goddess, a sound that shook the very walls of the room. The last, fragile remnants of the Veil between them shattered into a million pieces. "You were in the tunnel. You in the warehouse. You were there." She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide with a terrible, magnificent, and heartbroken realization. "You are the Spider-Man."
The secret was out. A raw, gaping wound in the center of their sanctuary. Peter stood, frozen, his world collapsing. He had no lies left. He could only nod, a single, jerky, terrified motion.
A long, agonizing silence filled the room. Diana just stared at him, her expression a storm of disbelief, of wonder, of a profound, shattering understanding. And then... she began to laugh. It was not a sound of humor. It was a raw, broken, borderline hysterical sound of pure, cosmic irony.
"Of course," she breathed, a tear tracing a path down her cheek. "Of course it was you. The brave, foolish, brilliant, and impossibly good man who kept throwing himself into the fire."
Peter stared at her, his own mind trying to catch up. "But... you," he stammerd. "You knew what M.O.D.O.K. was. You knew what the Q.E.C. was for. You... you were there too. On the bridge. In the tunnel. In the warehouse." He looked at her, at the impossible, divine strength he had always rationalized away, at the ancient wisdom in her eyes, at the regal, commanding presence she held even in a simple sweater. The two images—his lover, his partner—slammed together in his mind with the force of a nuclear detonation.
"My god," he breathed, sinking back onto the bed, his legs unable to hold him. "You're... you're her. You're Wonder Woman."
They just stared at each other, two complete strangers who knew every inch of each other's bodies, every secret of each other's hearts. They were the two heroes who had admired each other from afar, and the two lovers who had found sanctuary in each other's arms. They were one.
The revelation was not a relief. It was a cataclysm. A fusion. A terrifying, beautiful, and desperate thing.
Peter was the first to move. He didn't speak. He crossed the room in two strides and crashed into her, his mouth finding hers not in a kiss, but in a desperate, frantic act of possession. This was not a tender exploration. This was a raw, primal, and almost violent need to erase the last, final lie between them.
He tore at her clothes, his hands shaking, and she ripped at his, their movements a frantic, desperate scramble. There was no foreplay, no gentle words. There were only ragged, sobbing breaths and the sound of skin against skin. He lifted her, his hands gripping her ass, and slammed her back against the wall, her legs instantly wrapping around his waist.
He looked into her eyes, and for the first time, he was not seeing Diana Prince, the student, or Wonder Woman, the hero. He was seeing Diana, his shield-mate, his partner, his equal, and she was all his.
"This is real," he gasped, his voice a broken thing. "Tell me this is real."
"It is the only real thing," she cried, pulling his face back to hers.
He entered her with a single, deep, desperate thrust. There was no lube, no preparation, only the slick, wet heat of their mutual, overwhelming need. It was a collision, a perfect, agonizing friction. He groaned, a raw, animal sound, and she bit his shoulder to keep from screaming, the sharp, exquisite pain a grounding anchor in the storm.
He began to move, a deep, frantic, punishing rhythm, and she met him, her body as strong, as desperate as his. This was not sex. This was a claiming. This was the sealing of a bond, a desperate, frantic act of two souls, finally, completely, and terrifyingly seen, trying to merge into one. The sounds that filled the room were of harsh, gasping breaths, the wet slap of their bodies, and the quiet, broken sobs of two heroes who had just realized they were, and had always been, utterly, completely, and finally... home.