"Felicia? Are you here?" a voice called out, making Felicia smile as she wrapped the towel around her body. Despite his rather well earned reputation for being late, Peter did strive to be on time when possible which made it convenient for Felicia to arrange situations like this.
She quickly glanced at herself in the mirror, checking there was no food in her teeth and brushing her wet hair to the side, the ivory colour a contrast to her dark skin, before opening the bathroom door and calling out. "Do close the door, don't want a draft getting in."
"Felicia, I thought you would be ready by now." Peter replied, though as she walked through the hallway she heard him shut the door to her balcony. "You told me you were serious about this, that you were going to help me patrol. If we want this, us, to work I need to know..."
Felicia put on her most dangerous smile as she turned a corner, Peter trailing off when he saw her approach and his posture stiffening slightly in awkwardness. Even with the mask on she saw how he looked up and down her body, notable pausing at how she had wrapped the towel a tiny bit lower than she would normally would. Not outrageously low or revealing, but enough for Peter to be aware that it would take only a slight pull to reveal more. She walked up to him, the red and blue costumed crime fighter not moving a muscle or saying a word until she was standing right in front of him.
"I...I, um..." he spluttered slightly while looking around awkwardly. "You said you would be ready by this time."
"Did I?" she asked while gently touching his chest and moving her hand upwards.
"You did. But it's fine, you just need to to..."
He trailed off when her fingers slipped underneath his mask, moving it until the lower half of his face was revealed before continuing to talk in her sweetest and most obviously insincere voice. "I'm so sorry Spider. You know us ladies, always losing track of the time and taking forever to get ready."
"Felicia, what -"
"Cat, please."
"...Cat, what are you doing?"
"Oh, I just thought I would make up for my thoughtlessness Spider."
Within a second she had used her other hand to slip the towel off, the eyes of Peter's mask going wide as he looked at her naked body, while with one fluid motion she flipped the towel around his neck. She slowly, but firmly, used the towel to pull his face closer to her own while her smile grew even wider.
"Don't you think I should show how sorry I am Spider?"
"I..." Peter stopped, swallowing slightly as his hands slowly moved to rest on her hips. "We were supposed to go and patrol, but...I suppose-"
"Oh the patrol!" Felicia gasped, raising a hand to cover her mouth in a fake gasp to hide her smile while slipping out of Peter's grip. "Of course, how could I be so selfish!"
"What?" Peter said dumbly, the towel still around his neck as he watched with his mouth open slightly.
"Thinking of myself, wanting to show how sorry I am. If I was really sorry I would get ready and join you on the patrol. You're totally right."
"I am?"
"Yes, you are. I should go and get ready." Felicia told him before turning around, swaying her hips in an exaggerated manner before gesturing down the hallway she just came from. "If you feel the need for a cold shower, the bathroom is down there."
It took all of Felicia's strength to not burst out in laugher the second she turned the corner and was out of the Spider's line of sight, hell it took all of her strength to keep a straight face during that little performance. Honestly she had nothing against men, but they made it so easy to fool them it was embarrassing. Though even though she had left with clear intent to get dressed, she did slow down somewhat to give the crime fighter a chance to chase after her. She had been honest when she agreed to do this mad idea of his and was sincere in giving it a fair go, but still she would much rather stay in with him all night. She could definitely convince him to, it wasn't often as easy as that but it helped that it had been awhile since they last spent intimate time together because of his sense of responsibility, but if she was completely honest she was getting tired of the whole "sexual and tempting femme fatal" role in their relationship. It was a role she definitely enjoyed, she didn't wear tight black leather because it was comfortable, but still she would rather Peter stopped acting all reluctant and that he was being tempted into this relationship. He asked her to give this a try and she was, the least he could do was stop acting like it was a stain on his great morality to admit he desired her and start initiating things between them.
Sadly tonight was not the night that happened as he didn't follow her, leaving her to instead reach her bedroom to get ready. Leaving her towel behind had been an effective power move, but she was still damp from the shower. However after a quick search she found a spare beach towel she kept in the cupboard and used it to dry herself some more before grabbing what she needed from her clothes drawer, before moving some of the clothes in her cupboard and pressing the hidden button near the back. There was a click and the back of the wardrobe slid open, and like always she smiled slightly as she pulled out her costume and bag of equipment. In a few moments she was zipping up her suit and slipping on her domino mask, checking herself in the mirror for a moment to admire her appearance because she never claimed to be humble, before leaving the bedroom.
"So!" she yelled as she returned to the living room, watching Peter stand up from the couch suddenly with his mask down again. "Where should we start? I'm ready to atone."
"Ok just stop Felicia, I get it." Peter told her with annoyance as she opened the door to her balcony, his tone making her frown slightly. "Jokes gone on long enough."
"Oh come on, lighten up. I was just having a little fun." Felicia told him and she watched him sigh from the balcony, briefly looking up at the almost cloudless and pretty night sky as he walked closer to her.
"Yeah well I didn't think it was very...What are you doing?" Peter asked in confusion as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close.
"I thought you could carry me for a bit as we patrol. Save time on me tiring myself leaping from rooftop to rooftop." she said in a sweet voice, leaning against his body gently. "I'm sorry for my little joke Spider. You know I was just trying to have some fun."
Peter looked at her for a moment before sighing and wrapping one arm around her waist. "I know. I just want to be sure, that you're serious about this."
"Of course I'm serious. But if you expect me not to find some ways to have fun then you don't know me at all." she told him with a smile, which grew wider when she herd Peter's soft chuckle.
He held her tight before leaping off the balcony, Felicia laughing as the wind blew past them before he shot out a webline to start swinging. She kept her limbs wrapped tight around his body, not a completely uncomfortable or unfamiliar experience, as he swung them across the city as part of their patrol. Felicia's wrist bracelets had vibranium grabbling hooks which make it possible for her to get around and her own abilities made things a little easier, but Felicia wasn't lying about this being easier. Plus it was fun, her grabbling hooks didn't allow her to swing like this.
Felicia will be honest, she wasn't sure how patrolling was supposed to work when she agreed to this. Surely even in a city like New York, random crimes didn't just happen conveniently. So she was pretty surprised when, after just a few swings through some streets, Peter noticed a mugging at the corner of his eyes and soon they were beating up a couple of thugs. Felicia wasn't a fighter, she can if she needed to but only as a last resort since the best thieves are unnoticeable, however she did enjoy the looks of admiration from the couple they saved and smacking around the thugs.
For the next hour or so, Felicia got a first hand look at just how exhausting crime fighting was and how dedicated Peter was to being aa superhero. They stopped two other muggings, which honestly made Felicia wonder why anyone lived in this city, and a car chase which was more fun than she would expected. At one point a woman they saved had hugged her tightly and thanked her several times, an experience that had been painfully awkward yet not completely unpleasant. At some other points the hero would stop her from hitting a thug too hard or his body would scream disappointment when she did something that bothered him, something she ignored the best she could. And in between all of this and throwing flirty comments in Peter's direction which, despite his earlier annoyance, he quickly warmed up to and returned, Felicia thought about her relationship with this man and what she was doing.
She remembers when she first the wall crawler, four years ago when he was eighteen and she was twenty-three, before they knew who each other was. He had been a bit more righteous then and even easier to embarrass, always thrown off guard by her flirty comments. She hadn't meant anything serious with it, she never did as it was just part of her identity, but it had been fun and she had enjoyed the thrill of the chase as he tried to capture her. That had all their dynamic had been at first, their few encounters over the next year being fun misadventures in her eyes and, while he wouldn't admit it, she knew he enjoyed their little back and forth. And of course during that time they temporarily agreed to a few temporary alliances, often when she made the mistake of working with people more psychotic than they look. And yes she did give some of the money she stole, which almost always was taken by awful people, to good causes, she wasn't a monster and she wouldn't say she was greedy either so if she had money left over why not give it away? Her father had been the same, telling her that it was always important to remember that the things she stole weren't special and were rarely unique, so she shouldn't give such significance to them or try to hoard it like the people he stole from.
So somewhere along the way, Peter got it into his head that he could "reform" her which is an idea she found laughable. She didn't need to be reformed, she lived a great life and didn't hurt anyone. Well, nobody innocent at least. Why should she regret stealing from the rich and corrupt, enjoying life with the odd parties and hook-ups, and being one of the best, and most stylish in her opinion, thief in the world? She still believed that and made it very clear to Peter that if he expected her to to completely change her mind about everything she's ever done that he would be waiting for a very long time. But she supposed that part of her did wonder if there was more that she could be doing, which is why Peter's speeches eventually wore her down. She knew for certain it was because of how their relationship changed over the last two years.
Felicia hadn't known it at the time, but during the few months between their meetings Peter's first real love had died. So Felicia had been rather confused when he didn't respond with his usual banter, didn't make his usual quips and firmly dismissed her playful advances. She will admit to herself that she had felt rather rejected, which had stung enough for her to cause some trouble over the next few nights. It took her awhile to get the attention of the wall crawler, having to deal with Daredevil and Hellcat though admittedly both had been pretty fun in a different way to Pete, but eventually she found him. It had taken awhile for him to even start opening up, but he told her a little about what happened to Gwen and how it felt like his life was falling apart. Looking back that was definitely when things fully started to change between them, beyond the masks and costumes they wear as she listened to him confess his pain and did her best to comfort him. She wasn't sure why she did, under normal circumstances she would have tried to leave but for some reason she stayed.
After that it became less about the chase, their little odd dance where she stole something and he tried to catch her. Instead it became about casual meetups on rooftops where slowly they let their guard down around each other, finding deeper similarities they hadn't expected despite their differences. It wasn't the smoothest of friendships, sometimes he would get angry when he found she was coming to see him before or after pulling a job and that time he was wearing that black suit definitely made things even more difficult no matter how good he looked wearing it. But for the most part they had settled into a pretty good dynamic that worked for them, until the night they fell into bed with each other. After that things became much more complicated, especially for Peter who believed he had committed some vile sin which made her react pretty angrily in response. Though despite that it would be the only time they slept together and before long any private lives quickly fell apart as Felicia slowly learned about the man underneath the mask. Peter Parker, the hardworking college student and part time photographer who made money taking pictures of himself, a scam arguably more impressive than most of the jobs Felica has pulled off. The man blaming himself for something Felicia didn't believe was his fault at all and tried so hard to make up for it that he helped everyone he could. A man of admirable character and heroism, who only ever expected the same of other people as if it was easy to do that.
Not the sort of man she should be seeing, because she knew they had too many differences for this to work.
"Cat?" Peter's voice interrupted her train of thought, and she looked around to see cops arresting some thugs, a few who knew her history observing her with confusion, while the spider themed hero watched her with what she knew was concern underneath his mask. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, I'm good Spider." she replied with false confidence.
Peter looked at her for a brief moment before speaking. "You know, we've been out for awhile. We can head back to your place if you want?"
Felicia nodded after thinking about it briefly and then wrapping her arms around his neck, noticing him stiffen slightly and glance around before firing a web line and pulling them into the air. He soon seemed to relax but his awkwardness was a firm reminder of the insanity of what she was doing and she couldn't bring herself to flirt or joke like she had done at the start of this night. As her apartment balcony came into view all she really wanted to do was get away from Peter, not because she hated him or anything. But just so she could end this ridiculous idea before things went too far and they ended up regretting this far more than they should have to. When Peter landed on the balcony she, rather notably much to her annoyance after the fact, quickly separated from Peter whose body language showed his confusion.
"Well, that was...something." Felicia said awkwardly, cringing internally at failing to come up with anything better. "I should get to bed. Goodnight."
She turned to leave only for Peter to grab her by the arm, gently and in a way that let her know he wouldn't force her to stay, before speaking. "Felica, what's wrong? I thought...I thought it went well."
"It did. Really. It's just..." Felicia trailed off, before automatically resorting to to a mask of indifference. "Look, it's just not for me. It's fun but all of that, but fighting crooks and stopping car chases isn't my kind of fun."
She had assumed that would be enough, because that used to be all she needed to say to set him off on a righteous tirade about responsibility and how she's wasting her gifts on frivolous things. She was prepared for it but instead Peter just grew silent for a moment, and then much to her surprise let go of her arm and removed his mask to look at her. The confusion was evident on his face as his eyes searched her own, as if trying to decipher her feelings without words.
"Please, tell me what's wrong. I know that's not the reason, I saw you enjoying yourself and you liked it when that woman thanked you for saving her."
Maybe it was simply because, unlike many times before, he hadn't insisted she was somehow better than being a thief or that he knew who she truly was. Or maybe, an insidious voice at the back of her mind, she had let him get too close and now she couldn't bring her guard back up around him. Regardless, despite her reluctance, she soon answered him.
"Spider...Peter, we have fun. And it's nice and I like it, even if it doesn't make sense and we're so different from each other. But it's not going to work." she explained, hoping that he would understand and not force her to say it. But of course, as usual, she wasn't blessed with such good luck.
"Why not?"
"Because I can't be your project! I can't be the evil temptress thief for you to save, I don't need it!" she finally shouted, full of anger and spite that quickly died when she saw the look of surprise on his face. "Peter, I don't know what this is between us. I just know that it's fun and I like it, that I like you and that's why I did this. And yeah I did enjoy it, but all it really showed me was how different we are. You hold yourself to this high standard and you hate that I'm not like you."
"That's not -"
"Yes it is." she interrupted, not giving him a chance to speak. "Even after all this time you're always awkward around me and act ashamed of our, I don't know, whatever you want to call it. You keep coming to see me and I know you like me, but every time you act like you're doing the worst thing ever and I have to convince you that it's fine. Sure I like the temptress roll, it's fun, but that's not all I am and having you act like it's some moral failure to be attracted to me is worst than just not caring about me."
She wasn't used to this, Felicia wasn't the sort to just expose herself like this. "And you flinching and acting awkward around the cops just makes that even more clear that you're ashamed of me. I tried to ignore it but that just made it impossible. I'm tired of pretending that this is a good idea, so we should just -"
"Felicia!" Peter suddenly said, Felicia being surprised into a silence when he carefully grabbed her arms and took a step closer to her. For a few second there was nothing but the sound of the city as they stared at each other. "I'm sorry."
Felicia frowned, about to speak when he continued. "I didn't mean to make you feel this way, I'm sorry you were thinking any of that. You're right, I have acted weird whenever we're together but it's not because I'm ashamed of us. That will never be true. It's because...Well, it's because I've never been with a woman like you before."
Felicia snorted in disbelief at that, ready to launch into a rant about him using the worst break up line in history, but he marched forward with his own speech.
"I'm serious. You're different from Gwen," he explained, Felicia noting how it seemed difficult for him to say the name, "and you're different from anyone I used to like. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or say sometimes when I'm with you, our entire relationship is so different from anything I've experienced before. I guess I just overthink things and then you make me feel more comfortable, especially when we're in the suits because I don't expect you to act that way with me when I'm Spider-Man. For a long time my personal life was always separate from my superhero life, and now you're the first person to be part of both. But please believe me, I don't act like that because I'm ashamed of us."
Part of Felicia wanted to ignore this as a lie outright, she would have done it with anyone else, but as he spoke she saw how it made sense. She never really asked about his previous relationship, it wasn't something anyone talked about, but he had always seemed more reserved than most people she had been with. Not necessarily because that's what he preferred, just a general lack of experience due to the stresses of his double life. So him other thinking things with her made a lot of sense with how she's seen him act.
"And I don't think you need to be saved."
"Really?" Felicia replied doubtfully and at that Peter did look down with a hint of shame.
"Alright, maybe at one point I did in some weird way. I still think you can do so much good with your powers, but that's it. I'm not trying to save you and you're not my project." Peter explained before suddenly growing quiet, almost whispering the next part. "If anything, you saved me."
Felicia told herself she must have misheard him or maybe even imagined it, and it took her a second to gather her thought. "I...What? What do you mean? How...How did I save you?"
"It's just, after what happened with Gwen, everything just seemed to go wrong. Everyone was gone because none of us knew how to deal with her being dead, and all I could think about was that it was my fault. I got her killed because I failed, just like with Ben. And then there was you." Peter told her, his voice shaking slightly. "When it felt like the entire world was off it's axis and nothing was going right, you were just so cheerful and full of life. And then you listened to me, consoled me and tried to help me, and you made mee feel better about myself."
"And then it became even more amazing, because then we argued. We argued about ethics, the best way to use our powers, whether secret identities are good or not. We disagreed on a lot of stuff, most of it being stupid stuff that don't really matter but what told me more about who you are. And somehow all of that, both the good and bad, you helped me regain some control of my life." he continued. "I don't know where this relationship is going, but no matter what happens I will always be grateful for what you've done for me. So thank you. Thank you for being there when I needed you."
What he had just said was of the corniest rom-com speeches she had ever heard and Felicia will deny to her dying breath that it had made her want to cry. So instead she just leaned in and kissed him, which he returned gently in that sweet way she had grown to like. Felicia didn't know what this relationship was, if she was honest with herself she didn't see it lasting, but if in this moment she honestly couldn't care and just enjoyed the moment.
So in Earth-6028, Peter dates Felicia between Gwen and MJ unlike in the comics it's after breaking up with MJ, mainly because I like the idea of Felicia helping him move on from Gwen's death even if the two don't work out in the long run. Please let me know what you think, I wanted to sort of discuss Felicia's typical femme fatale role and how while she does enjoy it a little, it's also kind of exhausting playing that role all the time and not fun when in a relationship with someone. So I would appreciate hearing if you think I did a good job with that here.