promisebreaker | Who's there to save the hero?

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Who's there to save the hero?

Peter was determined to educate Bethel in all things Christmas since she’d had a very British view of it thus far. This education had started with Black Friday, a tradition he was, by and large, entirely unimpressed with, but it was very American so they’d woken up at the crack of dawn, fought crowds, shopped and then gone back home to sleep the largest part of the day. After that had been the tree lighting at Rockerfeller Center. Today, that education was going to continue with ice skating at Rockerfeller Center.

At this precise moment, Peter was waiting for Bethel. He was on Christmas break and doing a number of freelance photography jobs, but he was still working a great deal less than Bethel who was trying to prepare the flower shop to function without her when she went to work for her father after Christmas. It was a spot he still felt somewhat guilty about, because he was fairly certain if they hadn’t gotten engaged she would still be working for the shop rather than planning to finally take up the family business. However, he couldn’t bring himself to feel too guilty as they were engaged.

Anyway, Peter was waiting for Bethel on one of the benches outside the skating rink. He had two pairs of skates with him and several text messages from her that assured him she was on her way. She’d be there any minute. Really. He wasn’t that fussed about it. He had no where to go and Rockerfeller Center was a good place to watch people. It was beautiful and the cold was quite manageable at the moment. He had a hat pulled down around his ears, a pea coat and a Gryffendor scarf wrapped around his neck that Bethel had given him because, of course, he would be a Gryffendor. Duh. He also had on fingerless gloves. He grinned and chuckled a little at her latest text message:

Is Christmas always this bloody murderous? Be there in a mo’

A little boy in tears waylaid the message he was poised to send back to her. Peter stood up, walked over and crouched down in front of the boy.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“’m not s’posed to talk to strangers,” the little boy sniffled.

Peter glanced around the area, unbuttoned his coat and tugged the coat and shirt underneath down enough that the little boy could see the Spiderman suit he always wore underneath his clothes. He then held a finger up to his lips in the universal shh sign. The little boy’s eyes went impossibly wide and his tears dried up immediately in the wake of his awe.

“Spiderman goes ice skatin’?”

Peter laughed and nodded. “Sometimes.”

“I’m Noah. Why aren’t you wearin’ your mask?”

“Because then everyone would know who I am.”

“So you’re in secret disguise?”

Peter nodded. “That’s why you can’t tell anyone. Because then everyone would know my disguise.” The mask was shoved into Peter’s inside coat pocket just in case he needed it.

Noah considered this for a moment then nodded. “’Kay. My Mom got lost.”

“Sometimes moms do that, but I bet she’s looking for you.”

“Prolly. I’m pretty ‘portant to her.”

Peter couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, I think that’s a mom thing too. Wanna sit down and wait for her to find you?” He gestured toward the bench he’d been sitting on. The little boy nodded and climbed up to sit down.

“So what if you need to save somebody?”

“That’s why I have the suit on under my clothes.”

The little boy nodded as if that made all the sense in the world. “Can I have some hot chocolate?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Peter said. “Stay here.” He got up, went to buy two cups of hot chocolate and brought them back, sitting down on the bench with Noah. He’d had the attendant put a couple of ice cubes in one of the cups of hot chocolate so it’d be cool enough to drink. He passed that cup off to Noah. “Careful. It might be kind of warm.”

“’Cause it’s hot chocolate.” It was said in that ‘duh’ tone of voice that only a four year old could adopt.

They were sitting side by side talking about what Noah wanted for Christmas when a slightly hysterical woman showed up, gratitude sweeping over her features when she saw Noah, quickly followed by fear.

“Noah! You shouldn’t talk to strangers!”

“It’s okay, Mom. He’s Spiderman.”

So much for not blowing his disguise.

The mother sighed. “Noah…” She looked apologetically to Peter. “He’s a bit obsessed with Spiderman right now. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Peter grinned and shook his head. “It’s fine. I was the same way at his age. It was Captain America for me.”

“Thank you. Come on. Your father is waiting for us at the restaurant,” the mother said as she turned her attention to Noah, scooped him up in her arms and started off out of the skating area. Noah waved at him behind his mom’s back and Peter winked at him, secret identity safe for the moment. No one would ever believe a four year old.

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Bethel really was there in a moment, her text sent as she was squeezing between little girls in skating dresses getting their skates laced by their fathers and romantic couples using ice skating as an excuse to hold hands. Silly -- there was no excuse to hold hands except wanting to hold hands. She was almost to Peter when he got up from his bench and started talking to the little boy and Bethel had to stop, crouching down like she was tying the laces on her boots even though she was wearing a pair of red wellies which had no laces. She spied, blatantly, from her little spot until Peter got up and she continued over to the other side of the bench, leaning against a lamp pole while Peter chatted it up with a toddler.

It was mindbogglingly adorable and Bethel couldn't handle it. She almost went to interceded when the little boys mum came over but apparently blowing Peter's cover was comforting enough to the lady.

After another moment by herself -- she was fighting off the urge to elope rightfreakingnow -- she walked over to Peter and wrapped her arms around him from behind. "Another person on Team Peter? What does that make, four now? Wow. Spiderman is branching out, isn't he?"

She was joking of course -- she knew why she and Mae and Harry knew -- but she always thought it was sweet when Peter let a little kid in on the secret. Actually, she thought anything he did with little kids was sweet, having Spiderman pull an appearance at Comic Con for the little girl in the Spiderman suit had almost killed her.

"Mr Fantastic, all the way," she added. Putting in her two cents for her childhood hero.

He wasn't surprised by Bethel's attack, only because he'd smelled her perfume just before she'd hugged him from behind. He chuckled and shrugged. "It seemed like the easiest way to get him to trust me and it's five. There's a little boy named Jack I saved a few years ago during the whole lizard destroys New York thing. The only way to get him out of the burning car was to let him wear my mask." He grabbed one of her hands and kissed it. "Besides. He doesn't know I'm Peter and he's four. No one is ever going to believe him when he says I'm Spiderman, if he remembers what I look like."

Little kids needed someone to believe in, someone that told them the world was just as wonderful as they thought it was, sometimes even better. If Spiderman could do that, Peter wasn't about to take it away from them. It was one of the better parts of the 'job'.

"Brainy and skinny has always sort of been your type, hasn't it?" he teased her.

Peter was perfect. She edged around the bench, keeping her arms around his neck until she perched on his lap. "That is my kryptonite, I hope you recognize that. You and kids, it makes me all fluttery and happy. Which is weird, 'cause I don't like kids. But..." she trailed off. She didn't like kids, she'd never done any babysitting or volunteering as a camp counselor when she was a teenager, but she was starting to enjoy the idea of kids when they were specifically her and Peter's future kids. In the future. Far from now. "Kryptonite."

She slipped off his lap and on to the bench, stealing his hot chocolate to take a sip of it. Hot chocolate, Bethel decided, was the best part of winter. "I do love my nerds," she agreed.

He wrapped one arm around her waist when she sat down in his lap. Peter, on the other hand, had always kind of loved kids. They were cute and innocent and they didn't care if you were a skinny science geek with a camera. He'd always sort of pulled for the under dog and in an adult world, little kids ended up being the underdog. However, recently, Peter had developed a fondness for the idea of he and Bethel's future kids. Sometimes he even thought about them in the not so distant future, even though he knew they were going to wait until at least he'd gotten his doctorate.

"Secretly, you want to have my babies," he teased her, leaning in to kiss her cheek. He relinquished his hot chocolate easy enough, aware that it was one of her favorite things.

"So what does this kryptonite and love of nerds get me?"

"Yup," she agreed simply, smiling at the kiss. It wasn't much of a secret really. Sure, the idea was personally terrifying to her, but that didn't mean she wanted it less, it just meant she was glad for the years in between to get used to it. Even if seeing Peter with a kid made her want her own future children immediately.

She took another happy sip of the cocoa, shrugging a bit. "We'll I've already agreed to marry you, Peter Parker, what else do you want from me, hmm?"

"I like that about you," he responded. Waiting was better. He even wanted to wait most days. He wanted a chance to figure his life out, to figure out how Spiderman was going to function when he was a dad, and he wanted Bethel and Peter to have a chance to be married. He and Bethel had fun together and he knew that they would still have fun when they had kids, but how they had fun would change.

He pursed his lips and considered that a moment. "The next fifty or sixty years is sort of implied there, right?"

"Maybe seventy, even," she agreed absently, handing his cocoa back and leaning down to scoop up the small pair of ice skates near Peter's feet, unlacing them in her lap and tugging her Wellies off. She was still in her work clothes, so she had a black dress and tights on under her black pea coat but she planned ahead and had a pair of socks in her pocket, putting them on before shoving her feet in the skates and lacing them up tightly. With her white knit hat and white scarf and white gloves, and dark hair a mess of curls, she looked downright adorable.

She actually really liked the skating part of winter. Actually, she liked anything that had to do with snow. Skating, snowball fights, building snowmen, drinking hot cocoa by the fire. That was what she loved about winter. She tied a bow on her skates and put her feet down. "Anything else besides being happily married that you would like?"

Peter winced a little. "Now see, I don't know if I can do seventy. I was just signing up for fifty or sixty. Seventy might be a deal breaker," he teased her. She really did look adorable, but then in his opinion, she always looked adorable.

With her in his lap, he couldn't really put on his skates, but he'd worry about those when she did get up. He could always catch up to her. "An indoor skate park? Nah, I'm good with happily married."

"What about sixty nine years and three hundred sixty four days? Good deal?" She smiled at her own cleverness and leaned over, giving him a quick, smiley kiss before scooting off his lap and on to the bench, taking the cocoa back from him like she was being helpful and freeing his hands instead of just stealing the drink.

"You know we could do a skate park. But if happily married is all you want, I will endeavor to to try to make it as happy as possible."

"Now see, that I can deal with. That's a good deal." He liked her when she was clever and teasing him. She was also the most helpful fiancee in New York City.

"I'll settle for just visiting the skate park every now and then." He was still getting accustomed to the idea of Bethel having so much money. He never expected her to agree with ridiculous requests like an indoor skate park. "Happily married is all I really want and I don't think you're going to have to try hard. Just stick around and act like you like me sometimes."

He put his skates on and stood up, holding a hand out for hers.

"Your call." She only would have agreed to the skate park on the condition that it be open to the public and free, or else the paid admission that went to charity. She wasn't against using her money for something superfluous, as long as she could milk a secondary cause out of it so it would still be useful if Peter ever got tired of it.

She finished the last of the hot chocolate and put the cup on the bench near their shoes to throw away later, grabbing his hand. "I thought marriages were supposed to take work and effort, you're making it awful easy on me."

She stopped a bit when they got to the ice. "I haven't done this in a while, if you laugh at me our engagement is over, okay?" He had his super reflexes and balance, Bethel was only human. She might fall.

Peter would have actually liked that idea. However, he probably still would have felt like a jerk for asking such a thing of her. The idea of building a skate park that challenged him was appealing though. He wouldn't ask in any case.

"I think some of my hobbies make things hard enough for you. The rest of my time should make things easier." He was talking about Spiderman, of course. Being married to him was going to be just as difficult and being engaged to him was. She'd worry and she'd be a target and she'd get angry over the things the news said. That wasn't going to end because underneath his gloves, Spiderman wore a wedding ring.

"I promise I won't laugh," he grinned as the stepped on the ice. He slid his hand up her forearm to her elbow so that he had a better grip on her should she start to fall. "In fact, I'm going to try and make sure you don't fall."

Participating in physical activities really wasn't fair if Peter was in the mix. He knew that.

"Pity," Bethel murmured softly, almost a whisper because there were people around. "I quite like it when things are hard."

He was right on most counts though. She did worry, she did get angry, but somehow, even after Frost kidnapping her, she almost never worried about herself. She had faith in Peter. He might not always save her, but he would always try.

She grinned at him, slowly stepping on to the ice and gliding forward a bit. Well, she wasn't falling yet. She moved forward a bit more, getting a feel for being in ice skates again.

He turned a bit red and her innuendo and laughed. He didn't ever really get used to that and he never failed to walk right into that sort of joke. It was fun. "In that case...yeah, I still don't think you're going to have to really try much. You're just sexy."

He kept hold of her elbow lightly as he glided along beside her.

After a couple of minutes, Bethel got her sea legs -- was there a specific word for the ability to walk on ice? -- and felt more confident on her skates, gently dislodging her elbow from Peter's grasp so she could hold his hand. This was rather relaxing, now that she was sure she wouldn't fall. It was quite nice.

She glanced over at Peter, tearing her eyes from the ice, she was sure he wouldn't let them run into anyone or any walls, and smiled softly. "This was a nice idea."

Sea legs worked for the situation anyway. He tangled his fingers with hers and watched her with a smile. It wasn't as if Peter would let her fall anyway, even if he had to execute some sort of inhuman, acrobatic ability to keep her from falling.

"Aunt Mae and Uncle Ben used to bring me here when I was little at least once while the tree was up. I'm pretty sure she's got video somewhere."

"Oh." And didn't that make it infinitely more sweet, that he was sharing with her a tradition of his family. Which made sense, they were engaged now, but it was still so sweet. A glimpse to a Peter she sort of wished there was a TARDIS around for her to zoom back and meet.

"I'm glad we came."

Peter wanted Bethel to be a part of his family and more than anything he regretted that she'd never met Ben. Because of that, he wanted to try and induct her into every tradition possible. He wanted to try include her in the memories he had. This was one of the important ones.

He also wanted them to perpetuate the traditions he'd had with Ben and Mae. He wanted those to continue with he and Bethel and any kids they might have. Making new traditions was an excellent thing, but only if the old ones that were good weren't thrown by the wayside. Peter thought this was a good one.

"Yeah?" He smiled at her, joy in his expression. He was afraid she wouldn't like this. "Me too."

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