#marvel's champions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burnyouwithacigarettelighter · 1 year

Text

(3) TENDER LIKE A BRUISE ─── ethan landry 𖦹

ೃ⁀➷ “Let me hold your tenderness for a moment, Forgetting all pains that the tenderness has caused….” — Luffina Lourduraj

pairing. spiderman!ethan landry x reader

warnings. heavy swearing, mention of blood+death, alcohol

summary. ethan calls during a patrol, frantic, and you have no choice but to find and save him. (1) (2) (3) (4)

a/n. another bit of the spiderman!ethan landry universe. i'm being pretty carefree about the timeline atm, so basically you and ethan have been fake-dating for a few months already. also, do tell if the relationship progression is too fast or too slow!

iii.

Your fake-dating label has stuck, following you everywhere.

From having an awkward dinner with Ethan’s parents (which would have been one with his entire family, but Quinn could not keep a straight face and had to leave), having double-dates with Annika and Mindy, Ethan having to ward off weirdos hitting on you at parties (which, was actually rather welcome), and the like.

Sometimes, entirely to keep your cover straight, you and Ethan have to engage in some… physical contact. Mostly, it’s hand holding, or wiping something off his cheek, him tucking your hair back behind your ear, fixing his shirt collar, him tying your shoes — all the little intimate things that make your fake relationship seem so much more real.

It’s kind of sweet, actually, how in-tune you guys are becoming with each other. Like, Ethan knows how you like your coffee, and you know what shirts he likes to keep at your place more than the others. You can trust the boy to pick an amazing place to order food from, and he can trust you to wash his Spidersuit like no-one else. (Seriously, he is shocked at how you can clean it in forty minutes and he can spend four hours in his sink without doing much at all.)

However, once, you and Ethan had to kiss. Well, “kiss”. It was drunk couple stuff, trying to fly under everyone's radar.

Your friends were beginning to think it was a little odd you had never done anything while drunk together, because everyone did. Sure, you two could be very private considering PDA, but everyone saw how sweet you were in front of others, so it was getting suspicious.

To void these pesky suspicions, during a low-key drunk night between friends at Chad and Ethans place, you downed a full shot of gin, let it burn in your throat, and pulled yourself onto the equally drunk Ethan.

You had climbed atop his lap, his fatigued head thrown back against the leather couch. Your hands graced the sides of his face, and through your alcohol stained lips you whispered close in Ethan’s ear.

“I’m going to kiss you, Ethan. Fake, though,” You said simply, your mind addled with that familiar alcohol fog.

You waited for his familiar hum of acknowledgment, the one he voiced when he was brushing his teeth, or drinking something, all his little sounds you’d grown to know.

When he did, you leaned your head at just the right angle that to everyone, it looked like you were going to town on Ethan, when in reality you were pecking the side of his lip.

Your hands had carded through Ethan’s soft, curly locks, tugging slightly and repositioning yourself on his lap, his own hands settling nervously on your waist. You moved onto hovering around his neck, sending shivers down his spine with your hot breath on his skin.

Ethan could taste the citrus stains you left on the side of his mouth, and he was beginning to feel feverish. His entire body was incredibly warm, either from the alcohol, or how close you were to him now.

He gulped, watching you on his lap, pretending to do everything he had exactly zero experience in. You - this, made him so incredibly nervous, he was losing his mind over your touch.

And as soon as it started, it was over, and you pulled yourself off the flustered boy. Chad whistled at the intensity of the action, a “proud dad” moment of sorts.

Ignoring it, your hands itched towards another shot of alcohol. Through the corner of your eye, you saw Ethan, breathing heavily, eyes coursing over you.

His gaze, low and deep, made your heart skip a tender beat, beginning to thump louder in your ears—

You downed another shot, and let it wash those thoughts away. Perhaps it is denial, or perhaps you don’t want to lose him.

(Somewhere deep in you, you’re terrified of losing him. Literally and figuratively, you could lose Ethan in so many ways it's beginning to hurt.

One of those ways comes far too soon for your comfort.)

It’s Halloween.

You’re stuck in someone's house, and a drunk girl you don’t know the name of is regaling you on her outfit choices for the night.

Quinn and Mindy are fighting over who's the better superhero, Spiderman or Iron-Man (and when Quinn heatedly declares Spiderman is some friendless, familyless freak, you snort), Tara and Chad are… doing whatever their newly blossomed situationship requires to make even more tense, and Annika is passed out on Mindy’s shoulder.

Ethan is on patrol tonight, after he left you alone in the middle of the party. Apparently, it had something to do with candy and costumes making criminals more “devious” (whatever that meant).

Sometimes, you really wish trick-or-treating wasn’t just for kids.

You slip away from the drunk girl, whose friend group has since found her, and sneak into the very same bathroom Ethan had jumped out of earlier. In the mirror, you finnicked with the costume you were wearing.

“I couldn’t exactly find anything similar, so I made it myself.” Ethan had said a few hours ago, holding up the costume. It was an odd black-and-white version of his Spidersuit, with a white hood and pink underarms.

“It’s made of a mix of spandex and a flexible carbon-fiber I stole from the evidence locker at the NYPD - the same stuff as my suit. And, I know, not morally great, but whatever, I’ll make up for it by catching the criminals who owned that stuff.” Ethan continued, stretching the fabric.

You raised a brow, taking the slim piece of fabric off his hands. “And why exactly do I have to be some Spiderman dupe tonight?”

Ethan scratched his cheek, gaze veering from yours. “If I’m wearing this, you’ve gotta wear that. To keep the cover, obviously.”

You two were sitting on your bed, Ethan already decked out in his own well made Spiderman “costume”. Everyone else was dressed, too, just waiting for you to finish.

“So,” You leaned in closer to Ethan, “this is just a matching couple costume… for the cover.”

Ethan nodded rapidly, still avoiding your eyes.

You surveyed him for a moment: his brown eyes were coursing across the whole room, on anything except you, lips bitten between his teeth, hair askew, slight blush blazing across his face.

Something about that look of his just got to you, and the sound of the blood rushing to your face was positively deafening.

You pulled back, trying to ease your stuttering heart. “Isn’t this a bad idea? Wearing the suit and all, aren’t you scared of someone finding out?”

“I think it’s ironic.” Ethan said under his breath, a small smile gracing his face. “And it’s the opposite. If I pretend to be some superfan, people won’t think I’m him.”

You puffed up your cheeks, blowing the air out. “Okay, fine. I’ll wear your couples costume. Just don’t, and I mean it, Ethan, do not leave me alone at the party to go on patrol.”

“[Name]. You know I can’t promise you anything, I mean, what if there's a dog or something getting stolen out of an apartment—“

Without thinking, you stopped his rambling by pulling him close to you, hands gripping lightly at his arms. The two of you held still for a moment, staring deep into eachothers eyes.

You would have been ready to say anything, but the heartfelt words you had thought of, the feelings you knew were burning in your heart, about to burst at any moment, died in the sudden hesitance you felt from Ethan.

Unknowingly, your face contorted into one of hurt. “I know. I know, I’m sorry, I - I know that's selfish of me to ask, I just…” You let go of him, “there will never be enough time in the world for you to be both Ethan and Spiderman. Which one - which life, relationships - do you value more?” you turned away, whispering under your breath.

And if Ethan had heard you, he didn’t say anything. Tension settled in the room, with a terribly miserable air of regret.

Suddenly, Mindy had called out from the living room that you’d all be late to the party if you didn’t hurry up. Ethan exited your room quietly, and you didn’t see him look back at your door with so much guilt it was choking him.

Remembering that bitter start to the night, you sighed, patting down your spandex suit.

Then, someone on the other side of the bathroom door started banging it, but you couldn’t make out what they were saying under the blaring music reverberating throughout the entire house.

“Wait a minute!” You shouted, straining your throat. You began to continue in the loud tone, but the familiar buzz of your phone interrupted you.

Quickly, you fished out the device from a sleek thigh pocket you were thoroughly impressed with Ethan for designing, and clicked it on.

“Speak of the devil,” You mumbled to yourself, seeing the ever-present contact name of ETHAN LANDRY buzzing atop your phone screen.

You answered, pressed the phone to your ear. However, before you could get a word out, Ethan began frantically shouting into the phone.

“[Name]! Goddam—it, okay, I need you to - to - I left my backpack at your place, and I can’t do this without—“

“Ethan! Ethan, Eth— slow down, I can’t—“

“Get my bag, please, and don’t find me, just— leave it at Blackmore, near the fountain, I’ll swing by— and— oh, for fuc—“

And then he hung up. Or, more precisely, probably broke his phone swinging away from whatever was causing him to act like that.

You felt your heart drop, finally registering the intensity of Ethan’s voice. The boy was often lighthearted and dorky, extremely endearing in his polite awkwardness, so hearing how alarmed he was now was sending you for a loop.

You shook your head, storing such feelings away for later. You made a mental note of Ethan’s requests: bag at your apartment, leave at Blackmore fountain.

Nervously, you cranked open the window in the bathroom, eyeing the slingers attached to your wrists. You’d found out entirely by accident after sticking to a beer bottle that Ethan hadn’t merely created a fake pair of web slingers for the costume — he’d supplied you with a functional pair of his own.

Ethan had done a full run-down of his suit once, entirely fascinated with the thing. He was so proud of his own creation, rambling about how the web-fluid took ages to perfect, and about the one time his father got in trouble for “forgetting” to keep track of evidence from the NYPD locker.

This identity was entirely Ethan’s own, and he was so incredibly happy with it. You realized then how selfish your comment had been, how it must have stung him so.

You bit your lip, and pushed yourself back on track, slipping on the matching mask the costume had. Surprisingly, the vision in it wasn’t terrible, and it was merely a little foggy.

Then, at the window, you decided you needed to use the web slingers. You knew this could go extremely wrong, seeing as you obviously hadn’t been bit by a radioactive spider, so your agility, physical build, and pain tolerance were at an all time low in comparison to Ethans, but you remembered how frenzied the boy-hero was— and swung out the window. Time was of essence.

You finnicked with the webs, feeling the cool night chill bite your face, and tried desperately to replicate how Ethan so easily thwipped building to building. You just barely made it into an alley a few blocks away from the party-house, and almost hit your head on a lamp post on the way there, so you knew after this incident you’d never even approach the web-slinger cuffs.

You ran the rest of the way to your apartment, climbed up your fire escape, and shimmied the small gap for Ethan in the glass window open with your foot. After a moment of scanning, you nicked Ethan’s characteristic green canvas bag, and braced yourself to swing once more.

Your web made a slippery connection with the building in front of you - Danny’s apartment - and you swore you saw your life flash before your eyes when you almost fell.

After several moments of climbing down the wall with webs, a situation which closely resembled rock climbing with a rope, you broke into another run, heading to Blackmore University.

You would have felt dead tired by now if not for the adrenaline pumping through you, your anxiety for Ethan up to your ears. That, and maybe the amateur web-slinging that almost killed you, were the only things keeping you upright as you ran around New York.

However, as you made quick shortcuts through other alleys, you heard a familiar cry come out from an approaching block.

“Fucking—“ You heard the boy cry out, heaving, alongside the sounds of an intense scuffle.

Without any acknowledgment of doing so, your body pulled itself to the dimly lit backstreet lane, and you found yourself watching Ethan, partially unmasked, fighting a group of several masked people, weapons and duffle bags of money thrown on the ground. In the distance, you could vaguely hear an alarm — perhaps a banks — beeping on and off.

“E—“ You stopped yourself mid sentence, breath catching in your throat, and when one of the men threatened to grab the pistol lying haphazardly to Ethan’s side, you shot a web at the gun, bringing it to you.

Quickly, you slid the offending weapon away, and did as much as you could to help the still-fighting Ethan. From throwing measly punches of your own, tossing weapons away, or pinning the burglars to the wall with webs, you did it all, until it was just you and Ethan, sitting on the cobblestone, breathing heavily.

He slipped his mask fully back on, and turned to say something to you, obviously seeing your own mask on, as well as your use of his web slingers.

But, then replacing the bank's alarm in your ears, several police sirens could be heard making their way down to the backstreet lane you were occupying.

“We have to go. Can you swing?” you said to Ethan between gasping for air.

“I’m out of web fluid. It - it’ll take too long to refill,” he pointed lazily to the long-forgotten backpack.

“I’ll do it, then,” You said, trying not to show your hesitancy. Before Ethan could voice his own surprise and fear, you wrapped an arm (and several webs, as you knew you could not fully support his built body) around him and shot a thick string of webs at the closest tall building.

“You’re—“ Ethan’s eyes were wide open, “doing it wrong! We’ll— fall!”

“Just—“ you swung to the next building, completely unaware of how terrifying your technique was to an expert, “bare with it! I promise not to - kill us!”

“I’m unsure how - trustworthy - your - words are!”

“Stop - distracting me!” You said, making a close call on a parked garbage truck, before making your last swing to the fire escape window at your apartment.

Thank god the bank was not all the way across the world to your apartment, for you didn’t know how long your poor swinging skills and decent luck would last.

You two entered your room, and you immediately ripped off the white hooded mask you were wearing, taking in fresh bouts of air like a fish entering water. You felt extremely relieved that you two had made it back safe, alive — but Ethan clearly felt differently.

He tore his mask off, rapidly turning to face you. “I thought I told you to leave the bag at Blackmore!” Ethan’s finger was pointed accusingly, “I told you not to find me, for fucks sakes, [Name]!”

“Excuse me?” You said, in shock. “If I hadn’t found you — and I was going to Blackmore, I was taking fucking shortcuts, Landry — if I hadn’t found you, alright, you could be dead right now. You said it yourself, you were out of web-fluid!”

“Not then! I would’ve made it out fine!”

“Is this fine to you?” You gestured to his bloodied state, beaten up and bruised. “What? Were you gonna drag your broken bones up my fire escape, ask me to fix you up again?”

Ethan’s eyebrows creased. He had no answer for your words. “Just— I fucking told you not to fucking find me!”

“Jesus christ, Landry, you are fucking stubborn. I did find you, okay, but not on purpose— I fucking stumbled upon you. So don’t get all up on me for something you did.”

“You didn’t have to help either,” he said viciously, “I have escaped worse situations without your help. I have done this for years without you, okay?”

You let out an incredulous laugh. “Oh my god, are you serious right now? I wouldn’t have to help you if you didn’t call me, if you didn’t forget your web fluid, and if you just fucking listened to me and didn’t go on patrol tonight.”

Ethan went silent, digesting your words.

“You know this is your fucking fault, right?”

And as soon as the words left your mouth, you regretted them. You wanted to catch the air and stuff it right back down your throat, undo your harshness, realize how increasingly broken Ethan’s tone was.

Realize how he stared at your cuts and limp, realize how guilty he looked as he asked why you went to find him.

Why you put yourself in danger.

Ethan’s mouth opened and closed, unsure of how to tread further, his anger falling off him in waves, revealing the pain he held underneath.

“Fuck, Ethan, I’m sorry, I—“ you started, but stopped when Ethan looked you in the eye.

“You could’ve died,” he whispered, “and you were - you were swinging and fighting armed men, [Name], I—“

“Ethan, I wanted to. I wanted to help you, it was my own goddamn choice. My own stupid choice.”

“No - no, you were right. I should’ve never called you, I have done this all before, in worse moments, all by myself—“

“That does not mean you should, Ethan. Being alone in this kind of danger is not smart.”

“I’d rather be alone than endanger you.”

“Ethan, I’d rather be endangered than have to lose you.”

You stared deep into eachothers eyes, not unlike the way you did at the beginning of the night. Except this time something had changed, perhaps the way you unearthed your hearts to one another now made it so much easier to breathe, to feel, to do.

But there was still hesitation there. Untread territory and past regrets making things - this - so much harder to make real.

You and Ethan wanted to do so much more, to do all the things you pretended to do, but instead, you wrapped your arms around his broad back and hugged him like there was no tomorrow, like you were the last people on earth before a meteor struck. His arms snaked around your waist similarly, longingly, and terribly grievous.

It felt like connecting broken pieces of a heart together, and though you did not kiss, you felt so equally joined to him like you had. The hug was long and intimate, so close you could smell the dull impression of his cheap cologne from earlier, the lonely heat of your bodies joining to warm you both so completely.

You felt so at home in his touch. You could only wish he felt the same.

(And Ethan did. He melted into you, the only thoughts in his mind being that this felt right.

Somewhere, deep in his mind, where he kept his guilt hidden, he felt he was just going to lose another thing he loved. That this love was futile, fading, the loss inevitable.

But today Ethan wanted to be selfish, breathe you in, and be at peace, even for a second.)

a/n2: no kiss, and not quite to the official relationship yet, folks! but we’re getting there, slowly but surely. have these lovely crumbs for now. though, big milestone: the acknowledgment of mutual love!

taglist: @iloveneilperry @backtotheshitshow @hazehepburn @powowowy @ifilwtmfc @oscarisdaddy69 @al1v3cvp1d2 @bloodyeverything @diamondci1ty @l5bryinth @gojosbucket @volturi-girl-imagines @sflame15-blog @thatoneembarrasingmoment @bajadotcom @cerealzzz @elynka @theapulidooo @solaceinwriting-blog1

(strikethrough: wouldn’t allow me to tag!)

#ethan landry x reader #jack champion #ethan landry #spiderman!ethan landry #jack champion x reader #spiderman x reader #scream 6 #scream vi #marvel #spiderman

1K notes · View notes