Welcome readers, virtuous valerianfelicis here bringing you another tale of wonder and romance. It's been a while since I last updated this story. I've actually been cycling across Europe for the past couple of months. In total I cycled about 3000 miles (at least that's our estimate) and only had my phone with me (that could have connected to the internet, obviously we had other crap with us too). You may have noticed I began another story yesterday, I wrote that on the notes app on my phone. I couldn't have updated in that time, believe it or not it's hard to find wi-fi when you're in the middle of the French countryside or cycling through the alps. Anyway I began this chapter before I left and finished it when I came back so I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed, I know I had another flashback scene but can't remember it for the life of me so this will have to do, I hope you enjoy.

"Carol, what are you doing here?" Sue asked.

Carol landed beside Susan Storm on the roof of the Baxter building. She barely looked drained despite having spent the last minute avoiding the building's defence mechanisms.

"I was looking for Pete, is he here?" Carol responded.

"Unfortunately not." Susan said. "Reed and Ben took him on a trip to space because Peter seemed very eager to go. Is this urgent?"

"No." Carol sighed. "I guess it isn't."

Carol paused in indecision, wondering whether to ask Sue to just get Peter to call her when he's back or to stay and wait for him. If she stayed she'd have to explain herself to Sue, but maybe that was just what she needed.

"Is it alright if I wait for him and for us two to have a little talk?" She asked.

"Of course." Susan smiled. "Is there anything in particular?"

"Me and Pete started dating." Carol said as they walked inside.

"That's great, you two will make a fantastic couple."

"Thanks." Carol responded with a frown. "But we're not telling people yet, well except for Logan."

"Understandable, given our friends." Sue chuckled.

"Yeah. I'm not sure that's what Pete wants though." Carol sighed.

Sue led her into the kitchen and withdrew a carton of orange juice from the fridge and poured herself a glass. "Would you like a drink?"

"Erm, sure, orange juice is fine."

"Have you talked to Pete about this?"

"Well of course and he's going along with it without complaint but I'm not sure I just… Pete's so nice, I don't think he'd voice any doubts to me. He just says as long as I'm with you the rest doesn't matter."

"And he's so genuine when he says that that you can't force him to truthfully open up."

"Exactly!" Carol steamed.

"Well to be honest I think Pete may be right on this. If you make each other happy that's all that should matter in the early part of a relationship. Table the serious discussions for now and have fun."

"That's why I wanted it kept a secret."

"Because it's fun?"

"Well… yeah."

~Flashback~

Carol's mouth was assaulted as her new boyfriend's tongue danced around it. Pete explored every crevice of her mouth as his hand pulled her head closer while ruffling her hair. His other hand had already found her thigh and was slowly caressing it allowing his fingers to travel up and down lightly.

Carol growled and her hand glowed yellow. Pete pulled back.

"Err, 'Rol, erm. Well, I do love it when you blast my suit off. It's unbelievably… erm… yeah, I love it. But this is kinda the last one I have at the tower." Pete said. "It's actually just my last one, we've been doing this a lot." He added breathily.

"Oh sorry." Carol muttered.

"No, it's fine, I really enjoy it but…"

"I get it." Carol smiled.

Peter smiled back and put his hand at his waist to tug his shirt over his head. Carol placed her hand on top of his though, preventing his from lifting.

"Allow me." Carol said seductively.

Peter shivered as Carol's hands touched his bare skin beneath his shirt. She resumed the kiss as her hands climbed higher, slowly lifting his shirt. Once she had roamed enough she pulled back from the kiss slightly and yanked the annoying article of clothing off of Peter's body. She hummed appreciatively as she looked at Peter's naked torso.

The two lovers resumed the kiss, this time with even greater ferocity. The roaming hands suddenly became more frantic as the couple tried to memorise the other's every skin cell. Carol slipped her arms between her lover's arms and placed her hands on his hips. She leant back from the kiss and merely smiled in response to Peter's confused look. As quick as a flash Carol ducked to the ground, pulling the bottom half of Peter's clothes with her. Carol stood back up and smirked at Pete. He smirked back and kissed her again while stepping out from his trousers, now only wearing his spidey socks and gloves, which needed better names. His hands moved to Carol's uniform, and he gently began to lift.

"You know," Carol began, breaking off their kiss. "I'm much less fussy about my clothes."

Pete's eyes twinkled as though his optic nerves had lit up like Christmas decorations. He flipped backwards away from Carol and threw two arms out forward and covered Carol in web.

"Try to remain still." Pete said and yanked his webbing back completely ripping her clothes off in one.

Carol looked down at her naked self. "Nice trick."

As usual Peter had lost the ability to speak. Carol resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the regular occurrence, he really should be over the beautiful naked woman thing by now, however disbelieving his 15 year old self would have been. She walked over to him and resumed the make out session. It wasn't long before Pete regained his confidence and his hand slowly caressed her stomach, hand trailing ever lower until he found her…

Suddenly Peter pulled away. Carol groaned and was about to ask why but the answer beat her to it.

"Carol?" Came Jess's voice from outside.

Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. Creak. Thunk.

Carol barely had time to respond as Spider-man webbed up all of the discarded clothes and exited through the window, though he managed to chuck one half of her torn uniform back at her and Carol quickly managed to morph it into her full uniform. They managed this just as Spider-woman walked in through the door.

"Jess!" Carol shouted. "You can't just walk in unexpectedly like that. What if I hadn't been decent?"

"Why would that matter?" Jess asked as she sauntered into the room.

She looked at Carol and noticed her hair was slightly untamed. Given Jess couldn't remember the last time her friend didn't look perfect it was a bit puzzling.

"What were you doing in here?"

"Oh, erm, you know, just, like, erm, trying out new hairdos."

Jess ignored the blatant lie, it wasn't as though she really cared what Carol got up to and she had her own reasons for entering. Jess shrugged to Carol in a way that seemed to say, 'if you say so', as she surveyed the room.

"Is that spider-man's web on the window?" Jess asked loudly.

Carol's eyes went wide and as Jess walked to the window she racked her brain for an excuse. She was about to just shout stop, not wanting Jess to find a hanging, naked spider-man but was forestalled by a loud crash from outside clearly Spider-man had just crashed through the window below. They both rushed over to the window, but all they saw was a web leading from Carol's window to the smashed one of…

"WEBS WHAT THE-" They heard Logan shout from the floor below. He was cut off and one would assume Spider-man had webbed his mouth shut.

Snikt.

"Apologies, Hong Kong Phooey. Really." They heard Pete say as he bounced around the room below. They heard the two crash into walls and shatter delicate objects. Carol imagined Logan trying to impale a naked spider-man on his claws. "But I really should get going."

Peter had obviously reached the door and swung it open and left. Now swinging around the halls of the Avengers.

"THIS BETTER NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!" Logan shouted after the spider.

"No promises, Dougal." Came the loud but quieting response.

Carol and Jess turned to each other before erupting in giggles.

"That Peter, he really does make things fun around here." Jess spoke between peels of laughter. Carol silently but wholeheartedly agreed with her words.

"So what were you here for?" Carol asked.

"I was actually looking for Pete. Logan pissed me off earlier and he's the only one who might help me get him back. Not to mention he'd be the best at it, he gets under Logan's skin like no one else. But looks like he already took care of it."

"Why were you looking for Pete in here?" Carol asked worriedly.

Jess gave an odd expression at Carol's tone but shrugged it off. "Well it's obviously not the first place I looked. Besides, it was the right place." She said and pointed to the webbing that still hung from Carol's windowsill.

"Well, he just said that he wanted to prank Wolverine and that he was by the window just beneath this room." Carol explained.

"Yeah, I assumed." Jess said as she looked at Carol weirdly again.

Carol tried desperately not to fidget with her hands. If Jess didn't know better she'd say Captain Marvel and Spider-man were hiding something. Suddenly Spider-woman began laughing again.

"What?" Carol asked.

"Nothing, I just… I just had the most ridiculous thought." Jess laughed thinking of Carol and Pete together. "Anyway," she said, calming down, "I'll leave you to it."

"OK." Carol muttered as Jess left. Once Jess closed the door Carol let out a relieved sigh.

Her door opened again and Peter walked in, now clothed in his spidey outfit again but for the mask. His expression was sheepish and he rubbed the back of his head. He locked the door this time, just in case.

"Perhaps we shouldn't do this in the tower." Peter said.

"What?" Carol asked and Peter looked up in shock. "Are you saying this wasn't fun?"

A sexy, feral grin broke out over Pete's face. He leapt towards Carol who squealed delightedly. Neither would do so aloud, but both inwardly thanked Tony profusely for soundproofing every room.

~Flashback End~

"But it's not just because it's fun." Carol continued. "I don't want to tell people in case it doesn't work out. But…"

"But?" Sue pressed.

"But we're moving so fast, it already feels really serious, especially as we've been seeing each other every day. I need your help. You know how to make a superhero couple work, I mean really work."

"Of course I'll help. You really care about him don't you?"

"Yes and I really want this to work." Carol said almost desperately.

"Well when doing what we do emotions can run high. I'd say try not to let these emotions get the better of you and affect your behaviour. Have you slept together yet?"

The way Carol's cheeks turned pink was answer enough. "You don't understand. Did you know he visits terminal children in the hospital every other day?"

"Aww that's so Pete." Sue exclaimed.

"Isn't it?" Carol smiled. "And when the plans for our first date fell through he took me to visit them. The children love him, you know. And what's a girl supposed to do? Not invite him into her apartment? That's ridiculous, Sue!"

Susan chuckled at the helpless look adorning her friend's face. "I see Pete's been rubbing off on you."

"I'm being serious. I had no control over my actions." Carol fumed.

"Be that as it may," Sue said jokingly, "maybe you could ask him to take things slower from now on?"

Carol thought about this suggestion.

"If you think you can control yourself." Sue added with a snicker.

~Flashback~

Carol groggily woke up to see Peter putting on his spider-man outfit. She sat up not noticing, or caring, that the duvet fell from her body revealing her exposed chest, causing Peter to give a double take.

"Sorry, sunshine." Carol smiled at the nickname. "Didn't mean to wake you." Pete said as he leant down and kissed her forehead sending tingles throughout Carol's body.

This was the third night in a row that Peter had stayed over, the first being on their first date. The thought was enough to make Carol bury her face in her hands. It was just that the first night had been so good she didn't want to go to bed without Peter.

"That's OK, I should be up now anyway." Carol said.

"Well I'm glad you're awake because I wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead." She said as she rubbed the tiredness from her eyes.

"Well these last few nights have been just… well there aren't words."

"That's a first for you isn't it?"

"Which just tells you how good it's been." Peter replied. "But I was hoping that tonight we could maybe have a proper date again."

"Of course, anything in mind?" Carol asked.

"Well I'm kinda not sure how we're going to do this yet, with my secret identity and everything. So I was hoping you wouldn't mind me cooking dinner for you in my apartment?"

"That sounds lovely."

"Great. Hey, you like sci-fi movies right?" Peter asked seemingly out of the blue.

"I like Star Wars." Carol said with trepidation.

"Well I was thinking, I have this projector and a final cut of Blade Runner and I thought you might want to watch it with me? It also has Harrison Ford in it."

"Is that your typical date-night movie?" Carol asked with a smile.

"Well no, but you're not a typical date."

Carol couldn't refute that. "Do you have to leave now?" She asked disappointedly, guessing at the answer.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry. Promised Mr. Modell I'd be in to peer-assess Grady's work. I mean it's not like Manhattan will be destroyed if I don't turn up, but I do love this job." Peter said.

"Don't worry about it. As long as we're on for later."

"Of course." Peter said as he pulled down his mask and made his way over to the window.

"Peter." Carol said with warning.

Peter turned round in confusion before realising. "Oh right." He smacked his forehead, made his way back to his lover and removed his mask before planting a pleasant kiss on her lips. He stood up with a goofy looking smile on his face before shaking himself down, putting the mask back on and jumping out the window. Carol watched him swing away in the distance with a smile.

Carol was shaken from her reverie by a loud knocking at the door. She put on her dressing gown hastily and opened the door to her apartment. The knocker had been her upstairs neighbour Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen was short and chubby so the immediate view Carol was given was of his large, round baldhead glistening in the morning sun. He was 48 and lived alone above Carol and would, seemingly without shame, take out his frustrations with the world on everyone around him.

"I'm really sorry to bring this up, Carol." Mr. Cohen began not sounding sorry at all. "I know you're young and what it's like to be young believe it or not. Regardless you need to have greater care for your neighbours. For the past three nights I have been kept up by you and what I assume is a new boyfriend."

Carol realised what Mr. Cohen was talking about and blushed in embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realise we were making so much noise." Carol stammered.

"Yes." Mr. Cohen was stumped for a moment at the apology, he was so used to confrontation and apologies were rare in his life. His ex-wife had said it was because he was so abrasive that his complaints were never delivered politely. Cohen maintained it was because all other people were awful. "Well it has been very, very loud. If I didn't know better I'd say you'd been doing it on the ceiling."

Carol blushed even further; she doubted she'd ever been more embarrassed.

"Carol!"

Both Carol and Mr. Cohen turned to see Carol's next-door neighbour Ms. Winters. At 67 and living alone one would expect her to be as down as Mr. Cohen. But instead the opposite was true, her personality truly captured youth and vigour. She was bubblier than Squirrel Girl and more active than Captain America.

"Hello, Margaret." Mr. Cohen said curtly. "We were just talking about all the noise Carol has been making at night."

"Great because that's exactly what I wanted to talk to Carol about." Carol buried her face in her hands.

"Yes, this is great, I hope it will really sink in with two complaints." Mr. Cohen said.

"Complaint?" Margaret asked derisively. "No. I want to congratulate her. He sounds like a great find." The 67 year old winked at Carol. "I remember this one guy, Hector, who did the same things to me. This was in the 60's of course and I only saw him briefly but I still remember him, he was dynamite and I can't believe I let him go. You hold on to this one Carol, from what it sounds like I think you've found your Hector."

While Mr. Cohen looked at Ms. Winters in shock Carol tried to find out if her powers would allow her to collapse in on herself and blink out of existence.

~Flashback End~

"Hmm, yes maybe we should take this slower, but I don't want to take a step back and stop… you know." Carol said.

Sue hummed in understanding. "Of course I was just offering a possible solution."

"Yes and it's a good idea but… well… Pete explains it by saying that the way he can stick to walls is by manipulating electrons or something, and he can do this better with his hands and feet of course but can actually use any part of his body."

"Oh." Susan elicited at a complete loss. She looked to Carol who was maintaining eye contact and her head was tilted to the side and gesturing downwards. "Ohhhh." Susan finally sounded in full understanding. "Yes, well," Sue said now quite flustered, "superpowers are always beneficial for partners."

Carol thought about Reed Richard's powers and thought Sue would definitely understand. Both super heroines seemed to lose themselves as they reminisced about their partners.

"Carol?"

The voice of Peter Parker shocked Carol and Sue into jumping out of their seats and they wheeled to face the intruder.

"Peter! How long have you been there?" Carol asked.

"We just got back." Peter said with his hands raised. "What were you talking about?"

"Girl stuff." Sue said and with those simple words Pete's eyes seemed to glaze over as though in a hypnotic trance.

Reed and Ben were now walking into the room as well.

"I thought you'd be gone much longer." Sue said to them. "What brought you back so early?"

"Oh we got an alert that the security systems around the tower had been breached so we hurried back."

"Yeah, I'd like to talk to you about that actually." Carol said feigning rage. "15 minutes I spent battling your defences."

"Oh. W…well I'm sorry." Reed stuttered but then noticed the smirking face of his wife. "Oh you're not actually angry are you?"

"Not really." Carol said with a shrug causing Ben to laugh.

"So what are you doing here?" Ben asked Carol.

"Well I'm here for Spider-man, Tony said he needed him urgently. I'm sure he's exaggerating but I didn't think it was worth risking."

"Did he say what for?" Pete asked.

"Something to do with a hyper gizmo doodat."

"Is that a no?" Pete asked with a smirk.

"No, it's a 'I apologise for not understanding the alien language you guys speak in.'" Sue and Ben both laughed at this.

"Well I better go see him then." Spider-man said. "I'll see you guys later."

"See ya." "Bye, Pete." "See you tomorrow, Spider-man."

"I'll give you a lift." Carol offered. "Just in case it is really urgent."

"Gotcha." Spiderman said and launched himself at Carol and webbing himself to her so that he was standing on her back, parallel to the floor, it was an odd looking sight, made even odder when Pete put on his mask.

Carol flew away expertly manoeuvring herself around the Baxter building, Spider-man chose to change his position so that he was clinging to her back to make it easier for Carol to fly, and out of the roof, once she was out Peter made himself comfortable by sitting cross-legged on her back.

"Tony didn't actually need me did he?"

"Of course not, we're gonna go watch Star Wars on your projector."

"Perfect."

Thanks to JohnTitor for allaying to me concerns about the clarity of the flashback scenes so I've indicated precisely when they are, I don't think it's a perfect solution (it's a pet peeve of mine to read the word flashback in a story) but it's better than no one being able to understand the story. Perhaps it's justifiable in a short one-shot but even so I'm hoping I'll think of a way to weave this chapter together better and this will only be temporary.