Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Johnny huddled into his seat at his third bar of the night. Just like with his first two choices, this one had proved to be less than adequate in terms of distractions. All he wanted was to forget his crush on Spider-Man, but it seemed that no amount of alcohol could take the other superhero off his mind. Instead, he sat in the corner and, for lack of a better word, wallowed.

As brooding as he was, though, it figured that he wouldn’t remain hidden for the whole night. Three bars could do a lot to someone, and Johnny was noticeably drunk.

She approached from his right, silver dress shimmering as it swished, to take a seat next to Johnny. She smiled at him, friendly and without any apparent flirtatiousness.

Johnny waved to the bartender and then pointed at the woman. “Whatever she wants,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow, her expression obviously amused. “We haven’t even introduced ourselves.”

“Don’t need to,” Johnny grunted. He took another swig of his beer. Perks of being a celebrity: they never really cared that he was only nineteen. “Not like I’ll be going home with you or anything.”

“Is that so?” she rested her chin in her hand, tapping one manicured fingernail on her bottom lip. “A martini,” she told the bartender. “Gin, dry, stirred and straight up. Thanks.”

Johnny drained the last dregs of his own drink. “Water, please. An’ thanks.”

“Anything for the Torch,” the bartender said.

“Like I said,” Johnny mumbled. “Thanks.”

The strange woman smiled again. “So. You’re not going home with me, but could we at least talk about a certain crush you have?”

The bartender briefly interrupted them, placing the woman’s martini, Johnny’s water, and a basket of chips in front of them.

“On the house,” the bartender murmured, looking right at Johnny. “You look like you need them.”

Once the bartender left, the stranger continued. “Please,” she said, waving away Johnny’s startled look. “You look positively lovesick, kid. I’m only here to help.”

“Help how?” Johnny said. He had already been suspicious, but this was getting weird. And no one could help when Spider-Man didn’t like him back.

The woman took a sip of her martini. “Mmm, good choice of bar, kid.”

“Name,” Johnny demanded. “And help how?”

She waved her hand in dismissal. “I don’t have one you can use. Yet. I just need you to do something for me, first.”

“Like what?”

“You’ll see… now, this crush of yours?”

Johnny stared at her. It seemed like no matter what he did, she just wasn’t going to leave until he told her everything. “It’s complicated.”

“Says you,” she said.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“Says you,” she said again.

Johnny rolled his eyes and gulped down some of his water. “Like you know any better. You don’t even know him.”

“No, but I do know you.” She finished off her martini and then stood, wiping her hands on a napkin. “Now… follow me. Leave the drink.”

Johnny didn’t quite understand why he did as she said, but he followed the woman away from the bar. They walked through the crowd, ignoring the stares and whispers.

“That’s the Torch!” they said.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Where’s he going?”

The crowd parted not for the woman, but for Johnny, their stares following the two until they exited both the crowd and the building.

As soon as the doors closed, the woman turned and snapped her fingers at him.

Johnny collapsed to the ground, his eyes already closed.

 Johnny smelled the garbage first. Spoiled milk, at least two dirty diapers, what better have been the remains of a hotdog and not a corndog, and who knew what else. Wait. Johnny froze, his nose twitching. He knew. He could tell. He… Opening his eyes revealed a strange world. Strange as in relatively non-colorful, not strange as in the Negative Zone. At that point, Johnny couldn’t really say which he would prefer.

“Oh, Sue is gonna kill me…” Johnny groaned. Or at least he tried to. “Was that… was that barking? Am I barking? I can’t be that hungover…”

He looked down.

“Oh, shit nuggets.”

“You really shouldn’t swear, hon.” Johnny looked up at the new voice, automatically locking onto the same woman who was at the bar. “No, I can’t understand you, but who could mistake that tone, huh?”

Johnny growled and lunged forward. Or tried to. There seemed to be a lot of that going around lately. Instead his paws (paws?!) caught in the garbage pile he’d been dumped in, sending him face first into the ground.

“Aw, pooch,” the woman said, her heals clacking on concrete as she approached. “It won’t be that bad. I promise it’ll all be over soon… you just have to do something for me first.” Johnny looked up just in time to watch her wink at him, and then… poof. Woman - or maybe witch - gone. Johnny thumped his head down on the edge of the dumpster. Because as if being turned into a dog - yellow lab? - wasn’t enough, the witch had dumped him in a dumpster, too. He thought that was Hawkeye and Daredevil’s job. Johnny wasn’t cut out to be a dumpster bro!

First things first, though… Reed. Aka the best brain he knew. Reed could fix him, which meant he needed to get home. Johnny finally jumped out of the dumpster and futilely licked at his own blonde, short-haired coat. From what he could see, definitely a yellow lab. Scratch that, definitely a dirty yellow lab. What would Spider-Man think?!

Johnny tried to push thoughts of his best friend and most recent crush out of his mind, focusing on finding the Baxter Building. If he remembered the night correctly, he had bar hopped across the city, starting down the block from the Baxter Building. As a rule, he tried to take taxis home in order to not drink-and-fly, if only to make Sue happy, which meant that he was probably as far away from home as he could have possibly gotten.

Sighing, Johnny turned his paws toward where he thought the Baxter Building was. As interested as he was to discover whether or not he should look into renaming himself the Yellow LabraTorch, he figured a dog that could both flame on and fly wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous, and he really didn’t need the extra attention from the media. Paws it was.

Unfortunately for Johnny, it didn’t take him long to realize that as much as he thought home, his paws really weren’t leading him to the Baxter Building, or even anywhere near the Baxter Building. Instead, the structures around him slowly grew smaller and smaller, giving Johnny the impression that he was actually heading in the opposite direction.

Turning a corner, Johnny slumped to the ground as the sign “Empire State University” loomed into view. Oh yeah. He was definitely lost.

Johnny shivered, the cold of the night finally settling in past his fur. October… not the best month to be turned into a dog and left to wander the streets.

“The witches come out on Halloween,” he grumbled. “She’s at least two weeks early!”

Sighing and then panting a little, he licked his lips as the scent of popcorn drifted from an open window. Johnny padded up and peeked inside, watching people move around inside what looked to be a college dorm room. One of them turned and, on seeing their eyes widen, Johnny sprinted away as fast as his dog-legs could take him. He needed to find Reed. He needed to get home.

Home, he pointedly tried to tell his paws not even a full block later, was definitely the other way. As in behind him. As in not this way.

And yet, as Johnny’s nose nudged open an apartment building’s door, and his paws led him inside, he found his tail beginning to wag. For some reason that not even Johnny could explain, his dog-self liked it here. He trooped up four flights of stairs and then, following his own paws, stopped outside one of the doors.

Home, he sighed, smelling spandex and take-away. Johnny finally let his tired legs collapse, dropping to the hardwood floor and pushing his nose against the door, tail gently thumping behind him.

As he fell asleep, Johnny only hoped his dog-self had a good explanation for why it thought some random person’s apartment qualified as home.

 Johnny woke up to clumsy feet, hard shoes, and some kind of freak out happening above his head. He stood and then looked up, only to find that whoever had tripped over him hadn’t quite caught their balance yet. The result was him looking down instead of up.

Brown eyes met his own blue ones, and his tail began to wag in response. Then Johnny actually recognized the man standing in front of him, and his day not only got a lot worse, but he couldn’t understand why his tail didn’t stop wagging. Peter Parker. Not only a nuisance of a photographer, but his arch nemesis in the war for Spider-Man’s heart. The guy had been around since the Stone Ages. Or at least the Stone Ages in terms of Spider-Man. He was always around, using his camera to get Spidey’s attention. Johnny tried to scoff, but all that came out was a bark and another tail wag. Typical.

“And what are you doing?” Peter said, kneeling in front of Johnny. To his own embarrassment, Johnny’s tail wagging doubled its speed and his tongue involuntarily licked at Peter’s face. All the guy did was laugh, though, and Johnny decided that he could be excused on account of his own doggy instincts. It wasn’t his fault happiness seemed to be a permanent dog trait, even around a guy like Peter Parker. “Were you just hanging out all night, huh?”

“Not all night,” Johnny protested, but all that came out was a whine, and Johnny ducked his head in embarrassment (what was up with that lately? Johnny didn’t just go around and get embarrassed).

“N’aaawwww, that’s okay, pup, huh?” Peter was practically cooing at him now, and Johnny made a desperate wish for his masculinity to come back and save him this instant. And he was not a pup! … he was almost full grown, okay? Nineteen in human years had just transferred awkwardly in dog years.

Sighing, Johnny laid down on his tummy, made his eyes as big as possible, and then raised them to look at the other man with the hope that he looked as desperate as he thought he did. He needed to get home and, as his stomach so kindly reminded him, he also needed food. Not to mention that Peter knew other superheroes besides Johnny. If Johnny could make Peter realize that he was actually Johnny Storm, then Peter could contact another superhero and get help.

Peter scratched at the back of his own neck, looked back and forth down the hallway, and then looked back down at Johnny. Absently, the hand scratching his neck moved to scratching Johnny’s head. “Where’re your folks, bud?”

Johnny just kept staring. If Peter didn’t do anything soon, he was gonna have to set off by himself again and just pray that his paws wouldn’t lead him right back here. Not only would it mean that he had gone in circles, but it would mean seeing Peter’s stupid face again. Which he didn’t like. At all. War for Spider-Man’s affections, Johnny, focus!

“Okay, okay…” Peter hesitated, then kept talking. To Johnny’s dog-self’s happiness, his hand kept scratching, too. “Uh, so the thing is, bud, I should be heading to class right now… but I can’t leave you here by yourself, can I?”

Johnny blinked at him.

“… and I’m talking to a dog. Great. Shake your head twice if you can understand me, okay?”

Johnny automatically shook his head, and then shook it again, but Peter must have been talking sarcastically because he was looking back down the hallway, toward the exit. Useless as always, Johnny scowled. He was probably thinking about his class instead of, ya know, trying to figure out how to get the strange dog who could understand him to Reed Richards. Or even Tony Stark. Or Hank Pym. Even Bruce Banner, although Johnny honestly preferred Banner’s alter-ego. As long as Peter got him to a superhero, though, Johnny could work it out from there.

Just not Spider-Man. Johnny didn’t think his ego could take it.

Peter finally sighed and looked back down at Johnny. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Um, I’m gonna take you inside, and you’re not gonna destroy my apartment because I really can’t afford that, and then I’m gonna email my teachers and lie. For you. You got that, dog? I’m gonna lie to my professors just for you. Tell them I have a family emergency or something. Maybe I’m sick. I dunno, I’ll figure it out. But I can’t tell them I’m skipping for a dog. And I’m babbling, so… yeah. And then we’ll go from there. I gotta figure out what to do with you… Oh… and I’m Peter. You should probably know that. Not that you can understand me or anything…”

Johnny tilted his head again. At first he thought it was in acknowledgement of Peter’s words, but then he realized that the shift had moved Peter’s scratching fingers right to that spot by his ear, and… and his dog-self was really selfish, Johnny decided.

Peter stood up, and Johnny followed instinctively, his tail still wagging (and seriously, what was up with that?). Together, human-turned-dog and human-well…-nemesis walked into Peter’s apartment.

Of course the first instinct of Johnny’s dog-self was to turn right back around and bark at the door, ready to be let out. Idiot, he thought. If he kept acting like a dog, kept letting his dog instincts take control, Peter would never believe that he was really human.

Tail wagging a little less now, Johnny forcibly pulled himself away from the door.

“Okay… weird,” Peter said, eyeing him. He shook himself and dumped his backpack on the ground, then took out his laptop and set it up on the kitchen counter. “You’re lucky Harry’s not here, dog… he’s got an early class, or I’d be getting an earful right now. Probably about how we - or, rather, me, because he certainly could - can’t afford you… and he’s right. Crap.”

Johnny barked.

“… and I can’t keep calling you ‘dog’.” Peter took in a deep breath and then let it out.

Johnny sat and swished his tail across the floor, tilting his head in interest.

Peter stared at him. “… Ruff?”

Johnny stared back. Absolutely not.

“Erm… Spidey?”

Nope, Johnny decided. He was not taking the name of another superhero. … not even the name of his crush. Jonathan Lowell Spencer Spider-Man, his mind whispered. Traitor, he whispered back. (Besides, Spider-Man had a secret identity… he didn’t even know what his last name would be.)

Peter leaned back against the counter. “… Sunny?”

Johnny’s first instinct was to back away, and he kind of did, his paws shuffling backward on the floor. Then he remembered Sue telling him once to check his masculinity at the door. Aw, hell. What could it hurt? Besides, it was probably the closest he could get to his superhero name.

He stood and wagged his tail.

Of course, Peter’s response was to just stare and, “Seriously?”

Johnny growled.

“Okay, okay, I just…” More staring… what was it with Peter and the staring? “Alright. Sunny it is… Sunny?”

Johnny barked.

“Okay, awesome… now… classes. Professors who I don’t want to get angry at me… email.” Peter dropped his head into his hands.

 Johnny laid down while Peter sent off his emails, panting with his tongue sticking out. Weird. Stupid dog instincts. As soon as Peter closed his laptop, Johnny tried to stand up again.

“Tried” being the key word.

One minute Johnny was struggling to get vertical, and the next he… well he went down. He huffed, automatically leaning out to lick at the pads of his feet.

“Sunny?” Peter asked, and Johnny barked. He tried to make it as threatening as he could, because he really didn’t need or want Peter butting in when his paws suddenly hurt like this, but Peter ignored him.

Instead, his nemesis reached for Johnny’s paws and looked at each one before looking back up at Johnny, his eyes worried. Well that couldn’t be good.

“How the heck were you still standing?” Peter asked. Johnny barked. “I gotta get you to…” Peter stopped then, and Johnny stared for two point four seconds before it clicked.

“No,” he said, already making a futile attempt to stand up. “No vet.”

“It’ll be a surprise,” Peter tried, forcing a smile, and suddenly Johnny was being bodily lifted into the air, Peter’s arms clutching him to a surprisingly muscular chest.

There was the jangle of keys, a brief moment of panic as Peter tripped - “Don’t you dare drop me, or I’ll get Spidey to drop you!” - and regained his balance, and then they were out the door.

Johnny stared at the receding apartment as they hurried down the corridor.

“Goodbye, Peter Parker’s dump,” he said. “I hope I’ll never see you again.”

 So it turned out that when Peter verbally omitted the word “vet,” he decided to physically omit it, too.

“Sunny,” Peter cooed (and he could really stop doing that, Johnny was not a dog, thank you very much), “This is Claire. She’s gonna take care of your paws, okay?”

Johnny stared up into exasperated eyes and decided that this Claire really hadn’t planned on getting into this. Good for her.

“Peter,” Claire started, even as her hands gently picked up Johnny’s paws to take a look. Johnny laid on her kitchen table, Peter standing above him with one hand stroking his ear. “I’ll have you know that I am a nurse, not a vet.”

“I don’t have money,” Peter said, and was his voice frantic? He couldn’t care that much about Johnny, could he? “You were the first person I thought of.”

“And I appreciate that, but what if I hadn’t been here? Or what if Matt had been here? What then?”

Matt? Who was Matt?

“Dr. Banner?” Peter asked, and wait, what?

Johnny barked. He really needed a better way to communicate, but for now it would have to do. Pulling his paws out of Claire’s hands, he leapt to his feet and barked in Peter’s face. Finally, something he and his dog instincts could agree on!

“Woah, Sunny, she’s just trying to help!” Peter protested, his hands up as if to surrender.

Claire frowned. “You need to hold him down so I can treat his paws. They’re pretty torn up; it looks like he was walking around a lot before you found him, and these streets aren’t exactly good for a dog’s pads.”

“You can fix them, though, right?”

“Who do you take me for, huh, Pete?”

Peter grinned, a bit sheepish looking, and Johnny did his best to raise his dog eyebrows. “Sorry, sorry, I just… I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, ya know? I guess I just don’t want Sunny to be suffering because of me.”

Staring at Peter, Johnny decided that the guy was actually being genuine for once. Slowly, keeping his eyes on Peter, Johnny sank back down and laid on his side, pushing his paws into Claire’s hands.

“Wow,” Claire said, and Johnny almost thought she sounded impressed. “It’s almost like he can understand you.”

Johnny sighed. When would they figure it out? And how did Peter know the Hulk’s alter-ego? How - Fingers scratched along his flank, following the hair from his shoulders to his tail. Johnny let out a low whine and his tail twitched. All other thoughts beyond getting pet slipped from his mind.

 Sometime around getting his paws wrapped, Johnny passed out with his tongue lolling, his tail softly slapping against the table, and Peter’s fingers scratching along the top of his head. Personally, he would love to blame his dog-self for that, but in all honesty it was… well. Johnny would never say that getting pet by Perfect Peter Parker was ever calming, and he’d exercise his right to the fifth amendment to keep it that way.

Johnny woke up with his face shoved into Peter’s lap.

No one would ever be able to say he’d ever moved faster than he did in that moment. Looking around, Johnny could see that he must have been laying next to Peter on the couch. Dog Cops was on the TV, and Johnny resisted the urge to groan. Peter’s sense of humor apparently sucked worse than… than… well anything Johnny could think of right then.

Peter looked at him in amusement, the bastard; if only he knew who he had just been cuddling…

“Aw, Sunny,” Peter said, one hand stretched out. To sniff? As if. “It’s okay.”

Johnny turned his back on Peter, determined to not fall for anything. He needed to stay focused, needed to get back to the Baxter Building. Needed to get back to Sue… back to Spider-Man.

Curling up on the opposite side of the couch than Peter, Johnny buried his nose into his own side and tried not to think about the past 24 hours. Tried not to think about how many locked doors stood between him and his family, the first one not twenty feet away from him. Tried not to think about how maybe he’d made the biggest mistake of his life just by following Peter fucking Parker into his apartment. And he tried not to think about how no one knew that he’d been turned into a dog except for the literal witch who’d done the dirty deed.

Somehow, Johnny managed to fall back asleep to the sound of Peter channel-surfing. All he could hope for was that when he woke back up, everything would be revealed to be a nightmare.

 When Johnny woke back up, it was only to reality.

Surprisingly enough, reality smelled and looked a whole lot more like Peter’s roommate-whose-name-Johnny-could-not-remember and a whole lot less like Peter himself.

His first clue was when the roommate flopped down on the couch, a bowl of microwaved ramen in hand, and greeted him with “hey, dog.”

Johnny stared. As much as he didn’t like Peter (arch-nemesis, his heart promised), Sue had always preached the devil you knew versus the devil you didn’t whenever he tried to leave Aunt Marygay’s house for Sue’s dingy college apartment. Which made Peter the devil he knew (though barely tolerated), and the unnamed-roommate the devil he didn’t.

Roommate shot him a cursory look and chuckled. “Bet you were lookin’ for Pete, huh, dog? No worries, he always disappears around now. Don’t know how he ever gets his homework done. But he’ll come stumbling in around three, four in the morning, you’ll see.”

All Johnny could think of doing was growling, so low in his throat that Roommate couldn’t even hear him. For some reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint yet, Roommate got on his nerves more than Peter did. Considering Peter was enemy number one in the war for Spider-Man’s heart, this definitely concerned Johnny.

“Did Pete give you a name yet? Texted me to say we got a dog, but nothin’ else. Figures though, you know? Barely see him these days, why should I get to hear from him, too?”

Finally electing to ignore Roommate, Johnny closed his eyes again. He didn’t sleep, but at least the guy shut up.

Johnny finally blinked his eyes back open a little after four in the morning. Something creaked from the direction of the bedrooms, but one glance to Roommate (passed out on the couch) told him that suspect number one had an alibi.

It didn’t take him long to decide to at least check out whatever had made the sound. Even if these weren’t his favorite people, and even if he was currently a dog, Johnny was still a superhero.

He slunk down the hallway, carefully placing his paws so his claws didn’t click on the hardwood, and followed the noises to a room on the right. Johnny looked up only to see a closed door. Normally, a dog wouldn’t be able to get in. But Johnny wasn’t a normal dog. Raising himself up on his hind legs, Johnny managed to get a good grip on the door knob in his mouth. Slowly, so it didn’t slip, Johnny twisted the handle.

The door opened, a click resonating from where the door met the wall. Nosing open the door, Johnny stepped inside to see - holy shit.

Peter Parker stood in the room with round eyes locked on the door. Peter Parker. Who also happened to be dressed in the Spider-Man suit. Johnny’s eyes tracked down Peter’s arms to his hand, which clenched the Spider-Man mask in white-knuckled fingers.

Peter Parker in the Spider-Man suit. Peter Parker taking pictures of Spider-Man (only ever Spider-Man, no other superheroes). Peter Parker agreeing to take pictures of Johnny as Johnny but not as the Human Torch. Peter Parker never actually being in the same vicinity as Spider-Man, despite being the one to take his pictures. Peter Parker in the Spider-Man suit.

Holy shit nuggets.

“Sunny?” Peter (Spider-Man? Peter? Peter Spider-Man? Peter Parker? Johnny Lowell Spencer Parker) whispered. He tossed the mask into his closet and quickly shucked the top half of his uniform.

Somehow, the six-pack of abs on Peter Parker made infinitely more sense than Johnny would have thought they did not even an hour before.

“Hey, Sunny, I just need you to be quiet for me, yeah?” Peter continued, but he really shouldn’t have been concerned because all Johnny could do was stare.

Peter flopped onto the bed and tugged off the bottom spandex. (Spandex, Johnny’s mind reminded him. The place smelled of spandex and take-away.) Thankfully, the briefs stayed on. (Thankfully, there were briefs in the first place.)

“Sunny?” Peter said, and Johnny watched as the rest of the uniform followed the mask into the closet. There was a pause, and Johnny looked up to meet Peter’s eyes with his own. “… how did you get the door open?”

And Johnny flipped out, leaping at Peter, trying to lick at his face, and barking all the while.

“Sunny?” Peter said. “Sunny, stop! Down! Down, boy! Sit!”

Johnny stopped. Not because Peter told him to, oh no. He stopped because he hadn’t actually attempted to flame on yet. There was no point in doing so if all it did was attract unwanted attention. Wanted attention, though… now that Johnny could do.

Settling his weight so it sat evenly on his paws, Johnny stared down at his front paws. “Flame on,” he barked.

His paws lit up, but as Johnny tried to take off, to fly, nothing else happened.

Correction. Nothing else happened except for the carpet catching fire.

Barking some more, Johnny leapt around, still trying to fly. All he did, though, was spread the fire. It followed his paws, lighting the carpet on fire everywhere they landed.

And now, Peter was the one freaking out, yelling as he ran for the bathroom.

All of a sudden, Johnny found himself covered in white foam. Peter stood over him with a fire extinguisher in hand.

“Oh my fuck,” Roommate said from the doorway.

“Harry!” Peter said, his voice frantic, and oh yeah, that was Roommate’s name!

“The fuck happened?”

“There was… um…” Peter stared at Johnny, who did his best to meet the other man’s eyes with the dignity that this moment surely deserved. After all, this was the moment when Peter realized that his dog was actually the Human Torch. “Um… oh shit, your paws! Sunny!”

“So you did name the dog!” Harry said, strangely triumphant.

“What? Yeah…” Peter answered, grabbing one of Johnny’s front paws.

Johnny stared at Peter. At Spider-Man. Who… what? Who somehow… didn’t understand what had just happened? He’d yelled “flame on” and everything, lit the freaking carpet on fire, but Peter… didn’t… get it…?

“Oh, my life sucks,” Johnny sighed.

He finally tuned back in to realize that Peter was still examining his paws, confusion marked all over his face.

“What’s up, Pete?” Harry said.

“His paws…” Peter murmured. “They didn’t get burned?”

“That a question or a statement?”

Peter put Johnny’s paws back down and slowly reached up to scratch behind Johnny’s ear, his expression turning thoughtful. “Both. I saw the fire… Sunny was jumping all over it… So how are his paws not burned?”

“His? You named a male dog Sunny?” Harry said, and Johnny felt the sudden urge to keep calling him Roommate.

“Check your masculinity, dude,” Peter muttered. Then he directed his gaze to Johnny. “How’d this happen?”

And that, Johnny decided, was a question they both wanted answered. Best he could figure, being a dog hadn’t taken away his powers, not when they were as big a part of him as they were, but he had lost control of them. They’d gotten lucky tonight, with Peter being right there with a fire extinguisher. Next time they may not be… so Johnny had to make sure that there wouldn’t be. No more flaming on, he vowed.

Johnny did his best to smile at Peter, to reassure him. No more fire. But Johnny did need to find a way to tell him that he was actually the Human Torch.

Instead, Johnny’s dog instincts made him lick Peter’s face.

Oops.

 Johnny woke up to Peter freaking out over the news. (On Peter’s bed. If he wasn’t a dog, this definitely would’ve been the highlight of his week.)

Then he caught sight of the headline, and well… no one could ever call Johnny Storm undramatic.

JOHNNY STORM MISSING: THE FF HAVE LOST THEIR TORCH FOR JUSTICE

“How long?” Peter said, and Johnny finally realized that beyond having his laptop out with the news playing, Peter was also talking on the phone to… someone. Johnny didn’t know. His hearing had improved, but not that much. “Okay… well, that’s not too bad yet, right?”

Johnny nosed at Peter’s hand and then licked it. Comforting his best friend (who was also his crush) about his best friend being missing (who was actually him, the dog, aka right there and not actually missing) may have been the weirdest thing he’d ever done, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t at least try.

“Okay, Sue, thanks for letting me know…”

Sue? Johnny stopped licking Peter’s hand and stared up at him instead, imploring Peter to say something, or even to put his sister on speaker phone.

“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out, definitely! And you know Johnny, Sue… he’ll turn up eventually. It’s not like he’s dead, right?”

If Johnny had hands, he would have face-palmed.

“Oh, shit,” Peter muttered to himself. “I’m an idiot. Sue, I’m sorry. I… look, he’s not dead, okay? And we’ll find him. I promise… Yeah… Yeah, you, too. I’ll see you.”

Peter finally put the phone down and then looked at his laptop. Johnny whined and nudged at the picture of himself that headlined the Daily Bugle’s site.

“You know him, too, huh?” Peter mumbled, his hand scratching behind Johnny’s ear.

Johnny whined and pushed at it again with his nose.

“Trust me, Peter,” he said, but the words only came out as more whining.

“I just… I need him to be safe, you know?” Peter mumbled. Johnny shoved his face into Peter’s shoulder. “Oh, um, dog food. Yeah. You’ve gotta be hungry, huh? Lemme just… oh, um. And Harry left already. So you don’t have to see him again. At least not today. He said you didn’t seem to like him very much. And I already emailed my professors, said the family emergency is still ongoing and I’ll email them when I’m coming back to class. Not that you care. I’m just rambling to my hungry dog… Damn.”

All Johnny could think to do was lick Peter’s face. Using his bulk, he slowly managed to lever Peter back down so he was laying on his bed again instead of sitting up. Then he curled up half on, half off of Peter’s chest. Nosing at Peter’s chin, Johnny slowly fell asleep. (Again. Was this a dog thing or what?)

 Johnny really had to stop doing this, he reflected as he woke up. (Seriously, he needed to look this up once he was human again: sleeping, how much of it was a dog thing, and how much of it was a I’m-actually-a-human-who-got-turned-into-a-dog thing?)

What Johnny wasn’t counting on was Peter.

“How could you?!” Peter screamed, scrambling out from under Johnny. He almost thought he had somehow turned back to human, but one look confirmed otherwise. “It’s two o’clock! I’ve lost six hours that I could have used to search for my best friend! All because I got caught up with taking care of you!”

Wait… what? Johnny tilted his head as he watched Peter rush around the room and… throw on his Spider-Man uniform? Suddenly part of their earlier conversation clicked. Peter wasn’t skipping class to take care of dog-Johnny. He was skipping to go look for human-Johnny, who he didn’t know was actually a dog in his own bed.

Johnny hated his life.

Lowering his head to the blankets, Johnny lifted his eyes to meet Peter’s and then whined as loud as he could, trying to somehow convey how sorry he was for messing up.

Peter, miraculously, stopped and stared at Johnny. Then he sighed and carefully laid back down on the bed, reaching over to scratch along Johnny’s back.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, his voice low and soft. Genuine. “I’m just worried about him, you know? I…” Peter stared at his hands, and then looked up to meet Johnny’s eyes, his mouth thin with determination. “I love him.”

Something sparked up Johnny’s spine with those words, and even as a dog, he could feel his cheeks heating up. Thank goodness for fur.

“You get that, right?” Peter continued. “I just… I don’t think I can tell him. He doesn’t know my secret identity, and even if he did, why would he ever love me? He’s got… fans. Girl fans. I think I even saw him with an entourage once. And… and why am I telling you? I gotta go, Sunny. C’mon, I need to let you pee, and then I’ll put you back in here with food, okay?”

They almost made it out the door before Peter ground to halt.

“Shit,” Peter said, staring at Johnny. “Shit, I’m dressed as Spider-Man. Lemme just… lemme just throw something on, yeah?”

 Johnny’s plan, in theory, was simple. Key words: “in theory”.

Peter seemed fairly determined to not give Johnny any leeway in the apartment because “Harry’s already upset enough.” (Personally, Johnny thought Peter should have dumped the Harry Roommate. Dumped Harry and married dated Johnny instead.) This meant that instead of giving Johnny free reign of the already small apartment, Peter locked Johnny in his own bedroom with dog food (gross), water (less gross, but Johnny the Human Torch’s personal nemesis now that Peter had turned out to be Johnny’s one true love), and a slightly open window (because Johnny barked every time Peter tried to shut it. perks of being a dog).

The second Johnny was sure that Spider-Man was long gone, he nudged the window all the way open with his nose. He may not have had opposable thumbs anymore, but that didn’t mean he was hopeless.

Step one of Johnny’s plan: Get back to the Baxter Building. Peter was, evidently, even more of a dunce than he’d originally suspected if he still hadn’t figured things out after Johnny literally set the carpet on fire. So yeah… Johnny was going to fix this himself.

Step two: Somehow manage to convince at least one member of his family that Sunny the dog was really Johnny the Human Torch. Hopefully, in their case, lighting himself on fire would do the trick.

Step three: Profusely apologize for all the trouble he caused and win back the public’s favor. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Step four: The end… Psych. Confess his undying love to Peter. Hopefully. As long as he didn’t chicken out first.

As soon as he was back on the ground, Johnny moved toward the corner of the street. Craning his head upwards, he could just make out the street-signs that told him he was at the corner of 6th and W 8th. Greenwich Village, then. And the Baxter Building stood on the corner of Madison and 42nd. At his top flying speed, Johnny could make it between the two locations in about five minutes, probably less if he really pushed it.

Only problem was, he would have to walk it.

Sighing, Johnny turned and started walking up the street. He didn’t even get ten feet before he spotted Peter’s roommate. At first Harry’s gaze just went over him, but then Johnny watched as realization made its way over Harry’s face.

“Sunny?” Harry said, and Johnny darted down the next alleyway. “Sunny?! Hey! Come back!”

No chance, Johnny thought. His whole plan relied on him actually getting to the Baxter Building. If Harry caught him, it’d be game over before it ever really began.

Left, right, another right, Johnny weaved his way through the streets until he could be absolutely certain that he had lost Harry. He ended up closer to New York University than he was to Empire State, but that wouldn’t make any difference in the long run. The two colleges were already fairly close together, and he would have had to go that way in the end anyway. It wasn’t exactly a straight shot from ESU to the Baxter Building. His run from Harry had made that shot even more crooked.

Johnny continued to walk until his paws ached and the sun was so high in the sky even Johnny felt overheated in his fur. He did his best to keep an eye out for street signs, but every now and then he would take a couple wrong turns and start walking back to Peter’s apartment. There was something to be said for dedication, he figured, but he wished his dog-self would reassign the label of “home” to the Baxter Building so he could actually get there. Instead, “home” seemed to be a person rather than a place, and that person was Peter. It certainly made for an interesting walk.

A young kid spotted him and began to totter his way, only to be caught by a woman. She looked at Johnny with fear in her eyes as she carried her kid away. Johnny watched her approach another woman and link hands with her. A small flame of delight curdled in his chest, the same one that he got every time he spotted a queer couple out in public. There was something to be said for representation, even if it was local. He tried not to think about how local it would be for him and Peter to date, and instead focused on the fear that had been in the woman’s eyes.

He was a dog. A dog without a human, leash, or collar, yeah, but still a dog. How dirty or mangy did he have to be to garner a look like that?

It didn’t take him long to figure that out. He took another turn, finally ending up on 34th. Eight more blocks and he would be home (the official home, not the person home).

Then he spotted a dark van creeping up behind him. It crawled to a stop and then two people, one man and one woman, exited the back. Another man stayed behind the wheel, eyes locked on… Johnny looked around. Yep. Definitely him.

Johnny couldn’t think of anything he could do but run.

So he ran.

He took a sharp turn into a small alley and automatically darted into the street beyond. Cars screeched to a halt mere feet from him, but the two people following him didn’t hesitate, either.

Johnny tried to stay in the relative vicinity of where the chase had begun, but it was hard to do mid-chase. He had also run in the opposite direction of the Baxter Building, and his pursuers didn’t make it easy to change directions. Whenever he approached another street corner with the intention of running back to the BB, the van was there. Any attempts to race into another alley were cut off by the people running after him. Somehow, they had made it so that the only direction Johnny could run was back toward Empire State University and Peter’s apartment.

Finally, Johnny just ran as fast as he could on the straightaway of 1st Avenue. At some point he passed the Bellevue Hospital Center, and soon after he crossed the road at 23rd. He slowed to a stop and took a look around. Johnny couldn’t see any of the people who had been chasing him, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. All Johnny could really do was hope he could reach relative safety before they made their next move. Unfortunately for Johnny, that meant that going back to Peter’s was his best bet.

It had taken him several hours just to get up to 34th thanks to his instincts that pulled him back in the direction of Peter’s apartment. It had taken him thirty minutes at best to make it back to 23rd. Even using street signs, it would take him too long to get to the Baxter Building.

Maybe he could just flame on all the way, Johnny thought. Or spell out his kibble to make a message. Anything that would catch Peter’s attention. Because at this point, Peter was Johnny’s only hope.

 Johnny turned the last corner so that he finally stood in view of Peter’s apartment building. The bandages around his feet had fallen off a while ago, although Johnny would be hard-pressed to say exactly when. Now, his paws ached even more than they had before, and he would bet close to five hundred bucks that he had had a stone stuck between his toes since Park and 21st. Every time he looked behind him, he saw a trail of bloody pawprints that he had left behind. He’d been limping since halfway between 16th and 15th.

He was so far past the ready-to-collapse point that he would give anything just for a little rest. But he couldn’t. Not when those people could still be chasing him.

Johnny almost whimpered as he took another step, slowly gaining ground on Peter’s apartment building. Dawn was approaching even faster, the sun beginning to dip its toes into the shadows of New York City. Johnny began his walk past the same alley he had used to escape from Harry earlier.

Home was so close he could literally taste it, spandex and take-out and Peter coating his tongue.

Everything moved so fast it was quite literally a blur. The net, Johnny’s paws swept out from under him, the chloroform shoved against his nose. Johnny only had time for one startled bark before he passed out, the same people who had been chasing him looming over him.

 The first thing Johnny did once he woke up was smell. Instead of opening his eyes and alerting his captors that he was awake, Johnny twitched his nose and did his best to identify every smell that he could.

Dog was the most prominent, although blood was a close second, with human not far behind that. He could smell metal, too, likely steel although he couldn’t be certain of that without opening his eyes first.

The smells suggested that he could be at the pound, maybe a veterinary practice if he was lucky. Instinct told him he wouldn’t be that lucky.

Listening, Johnny almost tried to cover his ears when the true cacophony of the place invaded his ears. That would alert his captors, though, and Johnny still needed to see if anything useful could be gained information-wise by ears instead of smell.

First, he needed to shut out all of the dogs barking. Though a dog himself, Johnny couldn’t understand anything that they were saying. Dog body and instincts, but a human brain? It was certainly possible.

“-wanted a full-grown dog, not this half-grown mess!”

“We never got a good look at him; we did our best, boss.”

“Best would have meant delivering what I asked for. Look at him. He won’t last a full minute in the ring with those paws.”

Johnny’s whole body tensed in an effort to keep his panicked barks from erupting. The ring? Add in the dogs, the blood, the metal (cages?)… they were talking about a dog-fighting ring, right there in the Big Apple.

“He’s totally worthless… do you think people will do anything but bet against him? Not to mention the food to feed him. We can’t do jack shit with him.”

“We could just shoot ‘im, boss.”

Johnny pressed his belly to the floor, panic filling him from nose to tail. He could feel bars beneath him. Definitely a cage. And they wanted to kill him.

“… no. You just spent half a day tracking the dirty mutt all the way across New York City. That’s resources we can’t get back. We should at least get a bit back from him.”

“Yes, sir, boss, sir.”

“Get him ready for the ring. Hose him down, make him somewhat presentable. You mistook him for a full-grown, battle ready dog. Maybe our betters will do the same.”

“Yes, boss.”

Their voices faded out, and Johnny cautiously opened his eyes. Keeping himself pressed to the bottom of his cage, Johnny peered out into the room. It was small, with cracked and broken hardwood floors. Cages lined all four walls, stacked all the way to the ceiling. Doing some quick calculations, Johnny figured that there were at least a hundred dogs in the room, all crammed into cages too small for them. Johnny himself could barely move, just managing to fit his nose into the front right corner so that it didn’t stick out of his cage. He spotted half a dozen other dogs who were too big even for that.

A dog fighting ring. Johnny suddenly found himself wishing that he had just stayed in Peter’s room.

A door on the far right clanged open, and Johnny somehow managed to shrink even further into his own fur. Maybe as the Human Torch he could have handled this. Heck, as the Human Torch, he wouldn’t have hesitated to save all the dogs and then set the whole building on fire, screw anyone who tried to stop him. But he couldn’t do anything as a dog. Not even flame on. Flame on and they may figure out who he was. And then they would never let him leave.

No matter how hard he tried to make himself suddenly get Sue’s powers, though, the intruder walked straight up to Johnny’s cage, a long chain in hand. Johnny recognized the blonde hair, white skin, sharp cheekbones. He was the driver of the van that had chased Johnny away from the Baxter Building.

“Hey, Attilius*,” he said. “Time for a shower.”

As harmless as the words may have first appeared, Johnny shivered. The man’s voice was harsh, cutting through the air as easily as a sword through skin. If there was a voice directly opposite Peter’s cooing one, it had to be this one.

Johnny tried to back into the far side of his bars as the man opened the cage door.

The other blonde scowled. “C’mon, mutt. You already put me through enough today. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”

All Johnny could do was bare his teeth. He doubted he came across as threatening, but he would do anything to stop whatever was about to happen… even try and make a yellow lab appear threatening.

“Alright, then.” Strong hands reached into Johnny’s cage, the chain gripped and ready to… to what?

As soon as the hands were within striking distance, Johnny shot forward and snapped at them. He connected, his teeth sinking in to the bone and drawing blood. Johnny snarled and shook his head back and forth.

If Johnny snarled, the man roared. Not with pain, like Johnny would have hoped, but with anger. The other hand, the one Johnny wasn’t connected to, snatched at Johnny’s scruff and dragged him out of the relative safety of the cage. Johnny hit the floor, thrown there as the man continued to loom over him, and then scrambled to his paws.

He didn’t even make it five feet.

The chain wrapped around Johnny’s throat and hauled him in the opposite direction, Johnny choking as the links bit through his neck fluff and targeted his sensitive skin. The man marched them to a small, rusted door on the other side of the room, dragging Johnny behind him. Johnny could do nothing but let himself be pulled across the dirty floor.

The man flung the door open and Johnny stared inside at what looked like a poor imitation of a shower. And then he got shoved inside. The man slipped back out, and that was when the water started.

It was cold, freezing. Johnny curled himself into a tight ball in the corner, as far away from the stream as he could get, but there was no escaping it. It pounded at his already bruised body, thrumming in a rhythm that Johnny could only call pain.

When the water finally stopped, Johnny stayed in his corner. He was completely soaked through, his fur plastered to his body, and he would bet that it was only thanks to his higher body temp that he wasn’t shivering.

The door opened again to reveal the same man from before, this time with a bandage wrapped around one hand. Johnny would’ve felt a lot more triumphant if he wasn’t curled into a corner with his whole body aching.

“Let’s go,” the man said, his voice still as gruff as before, if not angrier.

Johnny followed without comment, his tail tucked between his legs. He would do anything to avoid the feeling of the chain again. Even if it meant utter obedience.

 They left Johnny locked in his cage for an unknown amount of time. The dogs around him, for once, were utterly silent… perhaps they sensed a fight coming, Johnny thought. It would make sense to put the loudest dogs into the ring, so to avoid fighting… be silent.

Johnny wished his problem could be solved so easily, but he knew that he had already been selected for the next fight. Now he could only hope to survive it.

Not for the first time since the shower, Johnny’s thoughts wandered back to Spider-Man… Peter had said that he loved him, but what would he think about Johnny now? Locked in a cage, able to do nothing but wait for rescue. He couldn’t be the person that Peter had spoken of. There was no way.

 One of the doors opened after Johnny’s fur finished drying. The woman stepped through this time, her eyes cold as she walked in his direction. She held the same chain from before in her hands, the metal clinking together as it swayed.

When she opened the cage door and stepped back, Johnny darted from the cage and shot straight into another corner of the room. He knew what would happen if he stayed in the cage, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stay out in the open, vulnerable on every side. A corner would always make a better defense.

It didn’t matter.

The woman still managed to get the chain around his neck, still dragged him through yet another door and shoved him inside. The chain fell to the ground behind him, loose now that it wasn’t being held. Johnny wasn’t in a room, though. He stood in a short tunnel, light coming from the other end along with screaming people.

“And now!” someone announced, their voice sounding louder than everyone else’s. “The newcomer, just picked up off the streets today! Named for the gladiator! Attilius!”

The floor buzzed hot under his paws, electricity sparking into his pads. Johnny shot forward.

He emerged in an arena with another dog, a German shepherd from the looks of it. Skinny and mangy, but with lean muscle poking out with their ribs, the other dog looked old and mean. Old, mean, and with far more experience than Johnny had at dog fighting.

“Place your bets now!” the announcer was saying, their voice already grating on Johnny’s ears. “Sarge, the experienced, or Attilius, the strong, named for a gladiator that defied these very odds!”

The seconds passed slowly, and Johnny prowled around the ring, matching the other dog step for step. Halfway around the ring, Sarge switched directions, and Johnny switched with him.

“Bets have been placed! Dogs, your places!”

The arena erupted into laughter, as if it was funny that they were forcing animals that shouldn’t understand them to fight.

Johnny stopped his pacing and growled low in his throat, his legs braced. He didn’t want to fight a dog, but if it came down to survival, he knew he wouldn’t have a choice.

The buzzer sounded.

Johnny wasn’t entirely sure what happened next. He was used to fights, he had to be as a superhero, but never fights like this. It all ended up as a blur, of both dogs exchanging blows and bites and snarling at each other with all their teeth. It was all a blur, except for the last few minutes.

Johnny staggered on his paws, his legs barely holding him up now. Blood flattened his fur in clumps from where Sarge’s claws had scored down his side, and several of the scrapes on his paws had broken open again, leaving more bloody pawprints around the arena. Groans echoed from several dozen spectators as they likely realized that Johnny was fighting a fight he couldn’t win.

Sarge knocked him to the ground with one large paw, a snarl pulling at his lips. Johnny couldn’t believe he had ever thought the other dog to be mangy and old. The lean muscle seemingly bulked Sarge up as he towered over Johnny, ready to finish the fight.

Sarge’s jaws came down, teeth sharp.

The buzzer sounded again, even before Sarge made contact with Johnny’s throat.

Johnny flamed on.

Everyone in the arena screamed, the announcer fumbling with his words even as Sarge backed away. The flames that Johnny put off never even touched the other dog, but it looked like fire was an enemy Sarge was well familiar with.

Johnny ran for the edge of the arena, where wooden boards kept the dogs locked inside. It didn’t take long for them to catch fire. It took even less time for the flames to spread, going from board to board to board and then lighting the seats on fire, making the arena look like hell. He watched as Sarge sprinted for the now-open gate that he had come through, making a jump through flames into the other room. The spectators fled.

And Johnny stood, alone, in the center of the arena. In the center of flames. The Ring of Fire,** Johnny supposed.

Of course, now was when Spider-Man decided to show up. Peter, for once, didn’t bother with a showy entrance. Probably because Johnny had already scared all the bad guys away? Whatever the reason, he swooped down and landed in front of Johnny, who had since flamed off.

Peter fell to his knees in front of Johnny, and Johnny didn’t hesitate to run straight into Peter’s arms, tail wagging the whole time. Peter wrapped his arms around him, hands scratching at Johnny’s side, his head, his ears.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter whispered, hugging Johnny. “I should have… when Harry called… I just… Johnny… I’m so sorry, Sunny.”

Chapter Text

Peter carried Johnny home. Well, he carried Johnny to the alleyway behind his apartment, switched clothes so he was Peter Parker instead of Spider-Man, and then carried Johnny the rest of the way home.

Harry wasn’t there, so Peter sat them both on the couch and began to clean out Johnny’s wounds, his expression thoughtful.

Johnny thought Peter was about to put it all together… a dog who got caught in two inexplicable fires in the same number of days, and escaped both fires unharmed? There was really no other explanation than that the dog must be the Human Torch.

At least, that was what Johnny thought before Peter opened his mouth.

“Sunny…” Peter hesitated. “Sunny, you gotta… oh, geez. Um… are you… I can’t believe I’m asking this, I’m gonna sound… well… and you can’t tell anyone this, especially Johnny -” Wait, what? “- he’d make fun of me for days… but… Sunny. Sunny, are you…” Peter took a deep breath, looked at the ceiling, looked out the window, looked toward the kitchen. Looked back at Johnny. “Sunny, can you flame on? Like the Human Torch, right?”

Johnny wished he was human just so he could roast Peter right there, right then. Instead, all he could do was bury his nose under his paws. For all that Peter was a nerd, he really couldn’t put it together? He was willing to believe that there was a dog version of the Human Torch, but not that the Human Torch had been turned into a dog?

Go fucking figure.

“Sunny?” Peter asked, his voice confused, and geez, Peter.

Johnny finally got to his feet, looked as pointedly at Peter as he could while in dog form, and then hopped off the bed and walked toward Peter’s room. If Peter was anything like the college student Johnny hoped he was, his laptop would either be in his backpack or on his desk or bed. Peter didn’t have a desk, though, so bed or backpack it was.

Looking back, Johnny leveled Peter with a stare until his crush got to his feet.

“Lead on, Lassie,” Peter joked.

Johnny snorted and turned back to Peter’s room. No laptop on the bed. Turning his attention to the backpack on the floor, Johnny nosed open the largest section. Lo and behold, the laptop.

“What’s up, Sunny?” Peter asked, scratching his fingers across Johnny’s back. Johnny’s tail wagged at the attention, but he couldn’t afford to lose focus. This was important.

Johnny gently butted his nose against the laptop and then looked up at Peter.

“Okay… weird…” Peter said. “My dog is acting weird. You didn’t get replaced by an alien or anything, did you? I hear the Skrulls are popular these days.”

Johnny barked.

“Alright then. I’m gonna hold you to your word, you hear me?”

Johnny would’ve rolled his eyes if he could. As it was, he made a point of licking Peter’s face right before he closed his mouth.

“Oh, gross…” Peter wiped at his mouth, but Johnny was proud to say it was a bit useless. “Okay, the laptop.”

Peter pulled it out and set it up on the floor, sitting cross-legged with Johnny standing next to him. Glancing at Johnny, Peter typed in the password and then shrugged.

“What next?”

Johnny leaned forward and touched the icon for Microsoft Word.

“Okay, seriously, the Skrulls? Would probably be less creepy than…” Peter trailed off, looking back and forth from Johnny to the laptop and back. “Holy shit nuggets.”

Johnny sat back and lifted his head up in pride. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t preening a little. Peter was just lucky that he’d figured it out before Johnny started typing, or Johnny would never have let him live it down.

“Johnny?” Peter said, his voice cautious.

Johnny barked.

“Johnny if it’s you, wag your tail three times and… and… nod your head and then shake it twice. And then bark four times.”

Johnny did his best, but his tail really had a mind of its own… once he wagged it twice, it didn’t want to stop wagging, so he actually ended up wagging it around six or seven times before he followed the rest of Peter’s instructions.

Peter sat back and regarded Johnny thoughtfully. “You do know that was more tail wags than I asked for? But everything else was perfect…”

Johnny watched as Peter slowly moved the cursor so that it hovered over the Word icon. Then he clicked it and backed away from the laptop.

Finally. Something Johnny could actually work with.

First making sure to turn the caps lock on (because seriously, Peter, it took you this long to figure it out?), Johnny typed out a sentence with one claw.

I AM THE HUMAN TORCH, WEBHEAD

“Holy shit nuggets,” Peter whispered. “Johnny…”

Johnny couldn’t help it, honestly. Dog instincts. Let’s blame the dog instincts. Johnny dove for Peter. He knocked the other man over, licking his face. In his defense, though, Peter definitely overreacted, too, hugging Johnny like he’d been dead or something.

“Holy shit,” Peter said again. “Wait, you know my secret identity now? Or did you already…? You found my apartment, after all… was our rivalry just a joke to you or something?”

Johnny could only look at him.

“Right,” Peter said. “Dog. Um… Reed?”

Johnny nodded.

“Reed it is, then!”

Seemingly not even taking the time to think, Peter grabbed his backpack and emptied it on the floor.

Peter held the bag out toward Johnny. “This won’t fit all of you, but it’s our best bet.”

Johnny looked from the backpack to Peter and then back. “You can’t be serious.”

“C’mon, Johnny,” Peter said. “Fastest way to the Baxter Building is by rooftop, you know that. And I’d rather not be carrying a dog while I do it.”

Johnny looked at him pointedly.

“Look, Johnny, I know I’ve carried other people as Spider-Man, but a dog? Not happening.”

Johnny didn’t budge.

“… you don’t want me to drop you, do you?”

Curse Peter and his strangely on point logic, Johnny grumbled. He sighed and walked over to the window.

Johnny had felt the wind in his face before. While flying, every time he drove with the top down, that one time Spider-Man had to catch him and carry him to safety.

This was a whole new experience.

Most of Johnny’s body didn’t fit in the backpack. As a result, his hindquarters squeezed into the bag while the rest of his body hung over Spider-Man’s shoulders. Johnny purposefully drooled on Peter’s shoulder.

“Oh, this better not make the papers,” Peter muttered.

Johnny could only imagine what the Daily Bugle would probably come up with: SPIDER-MAN TURNS TO DOGNAPPING, ARE OUR CHILDREN NEXT?

It took them about ten minutes to make the trip via web-slinging. Once there, Peter stuck to the outside of the Baxter Building’s windows. Johnny peered over his shoulder. Reed sat at the kitchen table, his laptop open and the tv on. Johnny could just make out the news on the tv, although it definitely stood out since his face was on it. Sue and Ben were nowhere in sight.

Peter knocked. Within seconds they were inside; Reed hadn’t even had to move from his seat.

“Hey, Spider-Man,” Reed said. His eyes didn’t budge from his laptop screen, and now that they were inside, the tv was blaring. Reed absentmindedly turned the volume down. “No leads here, Ben and Sue are still out looking. Stark was -” Reed scowled. “- kind enough to hack into the city’s cameras with facial recognition, but we haven’t gotten anything yet. You?”

“I uh…” Peter carefully put the backpack - and Johnny - on the ground. Johnny automatically raced for Reed, putting his paws in Reed’s lap and going for a good face-licking. His tail, needless to say, was wagging like it’d gotten hit with an adrenaline shot. Stupid dog instincts. There was no need for everyone to know just how much he actually liked them.

Reed, on the other hand, looked shocked. His hand came up to scratch the back of Johnny’s neck, but his face screamed confusion.

“So… yeah,” Peter said. “I got a big lead. Erm…” Johnny and Peter stared at each other.

Johnny barked. “Just tell him!”

Peter pointed. “That’s Johnny.”

“This is a dog, Spider-Man,” Reed said, his voice somehow oozing both patience and frustration.

“No,” Peter said. “That’s Johnny. Who’s been turned into a dog.”

“Spider-Man…”

“I’m serious, Reed! That dog is Johnny! I don’t know how it happened yet, but if you just give him your laptop and open Word, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to type the same message… or well… most of the same message… that he typed for me. I promise you, this is no joke.” Peter’s voice quieted and he rubbed at his wrists. “I wouldn’t do that to you guys.”

Johnny sat back and looked at Reed. Reed looked back. Johnny stuck his tongue out.

Reed groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Yep. That’s Johnny alright.”

It took Reed about ten minutes to convince Ben and Sue that no, he wasn’t joking about Johnny being back. It took them three to return to the Baxter Building.

It took roughly zero point two seconds for both to stop, mid-step, coming out of the elevator as soon as they caught sight of Johnny.

Of course, at that point, Johnny was already barreling into Sue and not giving them much time to doubt that yeah, this was definitely their Johnny Storm.

“The Yellow LabraTorch?” Ben joked once things had settled down and they were all grouped in the living room.

Johnny barked.

Peter looked amused. “Either he likes it or he’s offended, I honestly can’t tell which.”

“Screw you, Peter,” Johnny grumbled. “And Ben. I used it first, I should get copyright!”

“Is there any way for us to know what he’s saying?” Sue asked.

But Reed shook his head. “Not unless one of us can secretly speak dog…”

They all sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking.

Then Peter spoke. “Wait… what if we don’t have to? What if we know someone who does?”

“Do we?” Johnny said, doubtful.

“Even I know what he just said,” Ben laughed.

Johnny may not have been able to see under Peter’s mask, but he would bet everything he owned that he had just rolled his eyes.

“We do,” Peter insisted. “Thor! He’s got that magical all-speak thing going, right?”

Reed sat back to eye Peter. “You think he’ll help us?”

Peter shrugged. “I know he hates magic being used irresponsibly. Something to do with his brother?”

“Loki,” Reed, Ben, and Sue all agreed. Johnny barked.

“So let’s give it a try,” Peter said.

“You call him. Or the Avengers. Whoever we need to get in contact with to make this happen.” Reed stood, his whole posture shifting from defeated to determined. “Johnny, you come with me. We need to figure out if this really was magic.”

“You think it wasn’t?” Ben said.

Reed shrugged. “I think we can’t rule anything out. And you know me… I’m more ready to believe that science just made a huge breakthrough than believe that magic is real.”

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Johnny to convince Reed that his worst nightmare had come true: magic was, in fact, real. He just barked every time Reed said “magic”, and stayed silent when he said “science”. Everything else sort of fell into place.

Somehow, it also didn’t take long for Thor to show up. Something about him already being on-world and wanting to help out “the friends of the Avengers”.

Everyone else, including Johnny and Peter, exchanged simultaneous looks and agreed to not contradict or correct Thor on that assumption.

Thor got down on one knee and peered at Johnny. He gently took a hold of Johnny’s jaw and turned it from side to side, examining him.

“You are certain that this is magic?” Thor said.

Reed sighed. “According to Johnny, yeah.”

“You can speak to him? I thought you had need of my all-speak?”

“We do,” Sue interjected. “Johnny just barked every time Reed said the word ‘magic’. But we need your help to translate everything else.”

Thor turned back to Johnny, his expression thoughtful. “The Human Torch,” he mused. “I have heard many tales of your great deeds. For one so young, your exploits have captured the attention of many other warriors on Asgard.”

“No need to inflate his ego,” Ben rumbled. “Not like it’s big enough already or anything.”

“My apologies,” Thor said. “But what I say is true. If I can, indeed, help Johnny Storm, then I will be honored to do so.”

Johnny sat back on his haunches and wagged his tail as smugly as he could manage.

Finally turning his full attention to Johnny, Thor spoke. “You say that magic caused your transformation. Do you know who performed the spell or potion?”

Johnny nodded. “I met her at a bar and we talked a bit. Or a lot. Depends on your definition of either, I guess. I must’ve passed out, though, because I woke up in the dumpster.” He wrinkled his nose. “She was still there… said I had to do something for her?”

Thor looked at Reed. “He met the witch at a bar, passed out, and woke up in a dumpster. He must do something for her, but seems unsure as to what that is.”

“Would you recognize her if you saw her again?” Reed asked.

Johnny nodded again. “Oh, yeah. She wasn’t really the type to blend in…”

“Any idea of what she may want?” Sue said.

Shaking his head, Johnny said, “Not a clue. We were talking relationship advice of all things, what could she have gotten from that?”

“They were speaking of relationships,” Thor translated. “Johnny does not know how that may have led to his transformation.”

“So we’ve got zip on leads, then?” Ben said. “Of course. The kid always finds the biggest messes, don’t he?”

“You wanna talk shit, Ben, wait till I’m human!” Johnny growled.

“Johnny says -” Thor began, only to be interrupted.

“We don’t need ta know what the Matchstick just said,” Ben grinned. “Guaranteed it’s nothin’ good.”

“Oh, you - !” Johnny leapt at Ben, his jaws snapping at Ben’s rocky skin. There was, of course, the added bonus that he couldn’t actually hurt Ben. It didn’t decrease the satisfaction of the attack.

“Hey!” Sue said, her voice sharp. On Johnny’s second leap, he connected with one of his sister’s force fields and fell to the ground, rubbing a paw over his muzzle. “Johnny, we need to figure out how to get you back to your normal self. Ben…” Sue stared him down. “You’re not being helpful right now.”

Everyone was silent for a few minutes, just looking at each other. Even Thor, who Johnny had heard had a hard time staying quiet, didn’t speak.

Until Peter did.

“So… um. Find the witch? That’s… erm. That’s the plan, right?”

Sue sat back, her force field going down. “It’s our best bet, isn’t it?”

“It appears that way, yes,” Thor agreed. “Meanwhile… I had meant to meet up with Jane before leaving for Asgard tonight. Do you still have need of me?”

“No, Thor,” Reed said. “Thank you.”

“It was my honor,” Thor said again, and then turned to Johnny. “May you be human again. I wish you all luck.”

Johnny nodded.

“So,” Reed said after the demigod left. “Think you can get us to that bar, Johnny? That’s probably our best place to start and look for clues.”

Even without Thor to translate, it didn’t take Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four that long to find the bar where Johnny met the mysterious witch.

A few people sat at the surrounding tables or the actual bar for dinner, but it wasn’t late enough yet for the dancers or drinkers. The bartender, the same person from the other night, spotted them as soon as they entered.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” the bartender said. “But no dogs inside unless they’re a service animal. There’s a sign on the door, and I’m sure that applies to superheroes, too.”

“Oh,” Sue said, and they all looked at Johnny. “Um… Spider-Man, how about you take… him outside and wait?”

“Uh…” Peter fiddled with his web-shooters and then nodded. “Sure. Erm… C’mon, Sunny.”

Peter grabbed at Johnny’s scruff and then lead him back outside, where they sat on the curb to wait. Spider-Man waved awkwardly at passer-by as they walked by and gawked.

“So…” Peter said. He made a move to scratch Johnny’s head only to abort it at the last second. After a couple more seconds, Johnny hesitantly head-butted Peter’s hand. Soon enough, Peter was scratching behind Johnny’s ear. “Um… nice bar?”

Johnny did his best to shrug, and Peter shrugged back.

“… Cool.”

At that moment, the other three members of the Fantastic Four came out, and Peter quickly pulled his hand away from Johnny.

“How’d it go?” Peter asked, standing up. Johnny followed, walking with them all to where they had parked the Fantasticar.

“Pretty good, actually,” Reed said. “The bartender remembered Johnny and even the woman. Said they left together pretty dramatically but no one followed, which is probably why no one came forward with information before now. The bar has cameras, too, so they’re going to send the video feed over in the hopes that it can help.”

“Is there anything else we can do?”

Reed shook his head. “No… for now, all we can really do is wait.”

They tracked the witch to an apartment in downtown Manhattan. Surprisingly enough, she answered the door when they rang the doorbell.

“Ah…” she said, smiling at them. “You’re a little later than I imagined you would be, but you’re here… I suppose that’s what matters.”

“May we come in?” Reed said.

She smiled again and stepped back, waving a hand into her hall entryway. “You may. Come, sit down. Drinks?”

“Answers,” Sue said, scowling.

They followed the woman into her living room and then, at her encouragement, awkwardly sat. Sue and Reed took the couch, Ben the leather chair in the corner. The witch sat in the only remaining chair, directly across from Sue. Peter sat on the floor with his legs crossed, and Johnny took the opportunity to lay his head on Peter’s foot.

Finally, the witch spoke again. “I imagine you do have questions… where would you like to start?”

“Why did you turn Johnny into a dog?” Peter said, and then shrank back as everyone turned to look at him. “Um… I mean…”

“No, Spider-Man's right,” Reed said, leaning forward and fixing the witch with his gaze. “Why did you turn Johnny into a dog? What could you possibly have to gain with his transformation? Amusement?”

“Oh, dear me, no,” she answered, alarm in her voice. Obvious yet startled… surprisingly genuine? “I did this for Johnny. He needed a little push in regards to something he’s been struggling with, so I thought I would help him out. He saved my daughter a few months ago, I only saw it fit to repay him.”

“By turnin’ him into a dog?” Ben said, doubtful.

“It certainly wasn’t my first choice, but when I looked at the facts of the problem alongside any possible circumstances, it was certainly the best action available.”

“You got him dognapped by a dog fighting ring,” Peter scowled.

“He got what?!” Sue said, her gaze shooting to Johnny. He blinked back at her and then stood up and walked over. He carefully licked her hand, trying to tell her that he was okay.

“Oh, um,” Peter said, watching Johnny. “I think it may be best for Johnny to tell the story?”

“Oh, sure, thanks, Peter,” Johnny sighed. Sue would never let him the Baxter Building ever again.

Meanwhile, the witch spoke again. “It was never my intention for harm to befall Johnny.  As I said, I meant to help him.”

Reed shook his head. “Johnny said you wanted him to do something for you. What is that?”

Now amusement made its way back onto her face. “Well… Johnny and one other person, yes. Once this action has been done, then Johnny will return to his human self.”

“What action? Why two people?”

“I can’t tell you that, it’s for them to figure out. That’s part of the whole process. And they have to mean it.”

“Can you give us any hints?” Sue said. Her fingers carded through the fur on Johnny’s head, reminiscent of their childhood. Johnny would always run to Sue after a nightmare. It seemed like this time, though, Johnny had run to someone else. Peter.

The witch sat back and tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. “Hmmm… perhaps… yes. One half of the spell-reversal has already been completed. Only Johnny can reverse it now.”

“So… whoever this other person was, they’ve already finished their part of the spell?”

“Yes. Now, I do believe that you should all leave. The spell won’t reverse with you all staying here.”

They trooped from the apartment building with more information than they had entered with, but Johnny didn’t know if it would be enough.

“How are we supposed to figure out what Johnny needs to do?” Peter said.

Reed shook his head. “I’d say figure out what other people have done since Johnny got turned into a dog, but that would take too long.”

“Maybe just let Johnny go about his life?” Sue suggested. She shrugged when they all turned to look at her. “The other person, whoever they are, completed their task with no prompting. Maybe Johnny can, too.”

Once they got back to the Baxter Building, everyone scattered. Ben headed to the couch and turned on the tv. He must have figured out that there was nothing he could do but wait. Johnny didn’t see where Sue and Reed went, but he figured it would involve Reed attempting to distract Sue from the situation at hand. And Johnny brought Peter back to his room.

They sat on the floor rather than the bed, mostly because Johnny wanted at least one place to be removed from this nightmare. It may as well have been his bed. As soon as Johnny plopped down on the floor, Peter reversed directions and sat next to him.

“Do you…” Peter hesitated. “Do you mind if I pet you? You can say no, I just… dogs, you know?”

Johnny nodded. He really didn’t mind.

“You do mind?” Peter said. Disappointed.

Johnny shook his head.

“Ok, just… bite me or something if you want me to stop, ok? Or… don’t bite me, that would hurt, but do something to tell me to stop.”

Johnny nodded again. And Peter’s hand touched the scruff at his neck.

It was strange, Johnny decided. He had always wanted some sort of intimacy with Peter. Something that went beyond catching each other every time they fell, or writing messages across the sky. Something beyond meeting at the Statue of Liberty with hot dogs, soda, and enough problems to lighten their burdens by putting them on each others’ shoulders.

But this was the first time their intimacy was quiet.

Suddenly, Johnny hated it. Not that Peter was petting him, but that this quiet intimacy was happening while Johnny was a dog.

Johnny pulled away from Peter’s hand. Peter immediately took his hand back, and Johnny scooted across the floor to a point where he could relax.

“I’m sorry,” Peter offered.

There was nothing Peter should be sorry for. There was everything he should be sorry for. The lies, the secret identity that he let Johnny hate even while he loved the superhero alter-ego. Inadvertently being Johnny’s home, being more than any physical home Johnny had ever had.

For making Johnny fall in love with him.

They sat in silence for about ten minutes before Johnny realized that it wasn’t awkward silence at all. It wasn’t awkward, and Peter may not have been touching Johnny but they were still in the same room, it was still intimate to a degree that Johnny didn’t want to feel while he was still a freaking dog.

Somehow, Johnny convinced Peter to turn on the tv. Dog Cops was on, and part of Johnny wanted to tell Peter to go screw himself for even thinking about watching it now (he saw how Peter hesitated, don’t think that he didn’t). The other part of Johnny just wanted to be normal right then.

When Peter went to change the channel, Johnny stepped on Peter’s hand.

“You’re weird,” Peter said, poking at Johnny’s side.

“Pot, meet kettle,” Johnny said. Or tried to say. Oh how he hated barking. The inability to communicate had probably been the worst part about all of this, honestly.

“You really want to watch this?” Peter said.

Johnny nodded.

“Ok then… Dog Cops it is.”

They watched ten episodes before Peter finally closed his eyes and slept. At some point, Johnny had ended up with his head resting on Peter’s stomach, paws just touching Peter’s side.

He quietly yawned and watched as the credits for this episode rolled across the screen. Then he turned his attention to Peter.

Peter, mask still on and technically Spider-Man. But Johnny could remember his face. Johnny had hated that face. The face of Peter Parker, his arch-nemesis in the war for Spider-Man’s heart. Oh how he wished he hadn’t complained about Peter to Spider-Man now… Peter would never let him live it down.

But Peter’s face… the cheekbones, high but disguised by his strong chin. Brown, curly hair, to offset Johnny’s own blonde. Brown eyes. And… and… it all fit Peter perfectly. Perfect Peter Parker… who didn’t know that he owned Johnny’s heart.

Johnny sighed and snuggled a little close to Peter.

“I love you,” he said, and then closed his eyes as a spark ran up his back.

Johnny woke up to Peter screaming. Or yelling. Or both.

“What the heck, Peter?” Johnny said, opening his eyes. All of a sudden his head hit the floor, banging down where Peter’s chest used to be.

“Holy shit, Johnny, put some pants on!” Peter yelled.

“What?” Johnny said, and looked down. Okay then. Pants were definitely needed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how this could have - !”

Johnny froze halfway to his feet. I love you, he had told Peter. I love him, Peter had told him. And now he had woken up human again. Back to normal… relatively speaking.

“Oh, shit,” Johnny said.

“Oh, shit is right!” Peter yelled, and finally it connected with Johnny that his crush was holding his hands over his eyes, blocking his view of… well… Johnny. “Johnny, put some freaking pants on!”

“Give me a few minutes,” Johnny complained. “I need… I need underwear.”

He took a step and then collapsed, his feet screaming at him.

“Fuck,” he said, staring at his feet. They were so dirty he couldn’t even see much, but what he could see didn’t look good. His transformation must have reopened some cuts, because they were bleeding again, and with the amount of grime covering them he could only hope that his fire would stave off any potential infection.

“Do you have pants on?” Peter asked.

Johnny shook his head. “No… no, I… shit, Spidey, I can’t even stand. My feet are wrecked.”

“Shit… um… Anything I can do?”

“Grab me a pair of underwear? And get Reed, I guess.”

Johnny watched as Peter rifled through his drawers.

“The top drawer… any pair works, I guess.”

“No underwear on the floor?” Peter joked. “I’m impressed.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “I’m a teenager, not a sewer monster.”

Peter finally handed one pair back to Johnny, keeping his eyes closed with one hand outstretched. Johnny tried to grab them only to drop them as soon as Peter let go.

“Fuck,” he said, staring at his hands. Like his feet, the pain hadn’t registered until he actually tried to use them. Also like his feet, they were covered in grime, scratched, and bruised. His excessive walking over the past couple days had done more damage than just waste his time away.

“What’s wrong?” Peter said.

“My hands are wrecked, too.”

Peter opened his mouth, closed it, tilted his head, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Finally he spoke. “Huh.”

“Tell me what to do, Pete,” Johnny said.

“They’re your feet. And hands. Your feet and your hands. You do something.”

“You’re useless,” Johnny insisted.

“And you’re incorrigible.”

“Ooh, big word.” Johnny picked his underwear back up by slipping the backs of his hands into the elastic waist, stretching it in order to keep holding the underwear. He yanked them on with even more difficulty. He couldn’t stand, so he pulled them over his feet, minding the blood, and then lifted them over his butt as he jump-hopped on the floor.

“You decent yet?” Peter asked after the sounds of Johnny’s struggle stopped.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Relatively. No thanks to you, and I’m not even gonna try for pants right now.”

Peter uncovered his eyes finger by finger until he was staring at Johnny. “Shit,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”

“I know that, webhead.” Johnny rolled his eyes.

“No, your chest. From the dog fight I guess? I cleaned them up before but turning human again must’ve ripped them open.”

Johnny looked down and… yeah, he was bleeding from those scratches, too. Gouges more like, but it wasn’t like Johnny would be the one to admit that.

“Ok, definitely go get Reed. And Sue. She’ll want to be here. And Ben, so I can finally throw a fireball in his face. I called copyright of the Yellow LabraTorch way before he did.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Peter said on his way out.

“I am not!” Johnny yelled after.

To be fair, it didn’t take the other members of the Fantastic Four that long to rush into his room. To be unfair, Sue yelled at him as soon as he threw a fireball at Ben’s face.

“I’ve been waiting for that,” Johnny said.

Ben only laughed at him. “You’re a shithead, Matchstick.”

“You know you love it, Rocky,” Johnny shot back.

“Aw, I missed ya, Flame-brain.”

Reed shook his head as he looked at Johnny’s chest, feet, and hands. “I should get a proper doctor to come check you out… you probably need stitches for your chest, and your feet and hands need some serious cleaning. Not to mention the antibiotics, and a tetanus shot is probably necessary, too.”

“Whatever you say, doc,” Johnny said. “But shouldn’t my fire eliminate any chances of infection?”

Reed shook his head again. “It should, but we don’t have enough evidence to suggest otherwise yet. Better to be safe than sorry, right?”

“Sure,” Johnny said. He flashed a smile at Peter. “Hey, Spidey, hold my hand?”

Peter scowled at him. “Screw you, Johnny.”

“If I could, I would,” Johnny winked.

“Should we leave you two alone?” Sue asked, amused.

“Actually…” Johnny hesitated, looking from Peter to the others and back. “Yeah. We gotta talk.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up except for Peter’s, but then, with the mask on, who was to say they didn’t go up?

“Okay, then,” Reed said slowly. “Uh, Spider-Man, just keep an eye on him, okay? And be ready to surrender him as soon as the doctor gets here.”

“You got it, Mr. Fantastic,” Peter said, giving him a thumbs up.

Once everyone else had left, Peter took his mask off and then turned to Johnny.

“You want help getting onto your bed?”

“You sure you’re strong enough?” Johnny teased.

“I’d say you may be surprised, but I know you too well,” Peter said. “C’mon.”

Johnny lifted his arms and wrapped them around Peter’s neck as the other teenager knelt beside him.

“You ready?” Peter asked, wrapping his own arms around Johnny’s waist and legs.

“Go for it.”

Peter lifted Johnny easily, his spider-strength helping him get Johnny to the bed with no trouble.

“You know, you had a harder time carrying me as a dog…”

“Well, this time I didn’t trip.”

“Just put me down,” Johnny said.

Peter dropped him on the bed. “So…” Peter sat on the bed next to him, fiddling with his web-shooters. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Us,” Johnny said. “Peter…”

“Speaking of which,” Peter said, and then stopped. “Sorry, I… keep going.”

Johnny shook his head. “I didn’t know your secret identity before. I just wanted to go home, and I kept telling myself that, and somehow I ended up at your door.”

“So… I’m your home?” Peter somehow sounded both amused and scared.

Johnny scoffed. “Of course not. The BB is my home, but my dog senses must have lead me in the wrong direction. Turning up at your place was purely a coincidence.”

Peter grinned. “Of course.”

“But…” Johnny took a deep breath. “We should talk about what you said to me. To Sunny, actually, since you didn’t know it was me…”

Peter’s smile disappeared and he looked down at his hands, picking at his webshooters again. “What about it?”

“Peter…” Johnny said.

Peter looked up at him, his lips just barely twisting up in a small smile. “Yeah?”

“I know how the spell broke.”

“How?”

Johnny reached out and, carefully watching Peter for any negative reactions, put the back of his hand in Peter’s palm. Peter’s face contorted, but his fingers tightened around Johnny’s, mindful of his injuries.

“How?” Peter said again.

“My crush and I had to confess our love to each other.”

Peter shook his head and pulled his hand away. “Don’t mess around, Johnny. If you still want to be friends, just say so, but being friends means you don’t jerk my feelings around.”

Johnny shook his head, but he brought his hand back so that it wouldn’t accidentally touch Peter. “I mean it. You told me that you love me. Indirectly, sure… but you did. And I…” Johnny shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I told you that I loved you last night, before we went to sleep.”

“You’re joking,” Peter said, his voice small.

“I’m not,” Johnny insisted. “Look, obviously you deserve way better than me, but I know that you like me. And I… I love you. So if you’ll have me…”

Peter opened his mouth, but at that moment the bedroom door opened again. Outside stood Reed, Sue, and a woman wearing a doctor’s coat.

Johnny and Peter leapt apart, scooting to opposite ends of the bed, and Peter raised both arms to cover his face.

Reed raised an eyebrow in amusement, but Sue didn’t seem to notice, waving the doctor into the room.

“… mask, please?” Peter said, his voice muffled. “It’s on the floor.”

At that, Sue looked up. “Johnny knows your secret identity?”

“It was an accident-”

“Not on purpose-”

Both Johnny and Peter stuttered and then ground into an awkward silence.

Reed handed Peter his mask and the latter quickly pulled it over his head with one hand, using the other to continue shielding his face.

“Are we going to get any elaboration?” Reed said.

“Where’s Ben?” Johnny said instead.

Sue scoffed. “If you think I’d let you two in the same room together after what just happened…”

“Right…” Johnny said, and then turned to the doctor. “Johnny Storm,” he said, holding out one hand to shake only to abort the motion. “I’d shake your hand but that’s probably a bad idea right now.”

She nodded, getting down to business right away. “Dr. Hopkins. Now, I apparently don’t have the privilege to know what happened, Mr. Storm, but is there any chance I at least get to know what caused your injuries?”

“Dog claws,” Johnny said, and motioned at his chest. Then he pointed at his feet. “Walking barefoot all night and then all day.” He paused, looking at his hands, and then waved them. “Same as my feet.”

“… you were walking on your hands?”

Johnny shrugged. “Something like that.”

Dr. Hopkins picked up one of his feet and then glanced up at the others. “You all don’t have to be here. From the looks of him, Johnny can handle one doctor’s check-up by himself.”

“Right,” Peter said, stumbling off the bed. “I’ll just… I’ll just go, then.”

“Spidey,” Johnny tried. He stretched out one hand toward his friend/crush/who even knew at this point, and Peter caught it instinctively, not minding the blood with his suit.

They both looked at their joined hands, fingers twined together, Johnny’s hot and Peter’s cool. Johnny’s hand ached with pain, but he held on.

Then Peter let go. “I gotta go,” he said, “My a- uh, my family, you know. They’re probably worrying.”

Johnny nodded, his hand falling back into his lap. “Sure. Yeah. I’ll catch you later, then…”

“Yeah…”

Johnny watched as Peter fled the room, and then turned his attention to his hands, wishing he could pick at his cuticles as a distraction, but knowing the movement would be too painful.

“We’ll see you after,” Reed said, his voice a promise.

Johnny nodded, still focused on his hands. “Sure. See ya.”

“Johnny,” Sue tried, but Reed caught her by the wrist.

“Not now, Sue,” he whispered, obviously not meaning for Johnny to overhear. “Later. Let’s let the doctor do her work in peace.”

“… alright,” Sue said, and then raised her voice. “You come get us as soon as you’re done, Johnny, you got that?”

“Got it,” Johnny said.

Dr. Hopkins finished in record time, stitching up his chest, cleaning his hands and feet, and wrapping everything. Like Reed had thought, she finished with a tetanus shot. Johnny didn’t bother with arguing, instead running his conversation with Peter over and over in his mind. Where had he gone wrong? He told Peter that he loved him but Peter didn’t reciprocate his words, even when he had already confessed them to Sunny.

Maybe that was the problem? Peter told Sunny when he didn’t know that Sunny was really Johnny. So… what, did he think that Johnny was playing with him? He had told Johnny to stop messing with his feelings.

Did he really hold Johnny in such low esteem, though, that he thought his best friend would play with his feelings like that? And in that matter, were Johnny and Peter even best friends? Peter had his stupid roommate, after all, Harry Whoever, and Johnny had complained to Spider-Man about Stupidly Perfect Peter Parker so many times he had lost count. Maybe Peter thought those feelings had transferred to Spider-Man?

Peter, after all, didn’t know that Johnny had hated Peter Parker because he thought the other teen was also in love with Spider-Man. As soon as Johnny realized that the two were, in fact, the same person (stupid secret identities), Johnny’s feelings on Spider-Man had transferred to Peter Parker, not the other way around.

Oh, now Johnny felt stupid. No wonder Peter had been so awkward (okay, more awkward than usual) and upset.

“- Storm?” someone said, and Johnny slowly tuned back in to direct his attention to Dr. Hopkins, who was staring at him worriedly. “Mr. Storm?”

“Yeah?” Johnny said.

Dr. Hopkins frowned, her worry fading away as fast as it had come. “Should I be checking you for a concussion, too?”

“No,” Johnny said. “No, I need to go.”

“Mr. Storm -” she tried.

“I said I need to go.” Johnny forced himself to his feet, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. He hobbled to his closet and snagged the handle with the tip of one finger. He pulled it open, automatically grabbing one of his Fantastic Four suits. He needed to flame on for what he wanted to do.

“Mr. Storm, I cannot express exactly how bad of an idea this is,” Dr. Hopkins said, her voice turning sharp. “Should I go get Dr. Richards?”

“Reed?” Johnny said as he sat on the floor and repeated the process he had done with his underwear, just with his suit. “No, I don’t need him.” He paused after he got the bottom half on, staring at the top. Reed had designed the suit a lot like a diver’s suit, basically a one-piece with a quarter zip in the back. It was also extremely tight, though, and despite it being equally flexible, there was no way Johnny could tug it on with his hands the way they were, let alone zip it.

He would just have to go without, he decided, and did his best to tie the long sleeves around his waist. The top half hung awkwardly around his hips, but Johnny’s main goal had been the bottom half anyway. Shirtless he could do, but the press would have a field day if he went out in just his underwear.

“I’m getting Dr. Richards,” Dr. Hopkins said.

Johnny shrugged and walked over to the window. “You do that,” he said, and then stared at the latch for about two seconds before he figured out that he could flip it by using the back of his hand. Latch unlocked, he pushed the window outward with one shoulder, so it was almost horizontal with the street far below.

He cocked a two finger salute at the doctor and then fell out the window.

Johnny flamed on almost instantly and the streets below erupted into screams of his name. He waved a hand but didn’t dare fly too low. He was fine being shirtless, but if he could avoid revealing that little tidbit of information, he would. Sue was already going to kill him for ditching his doctor, no need to add more incentive.

He flew upward and sketched a message across the sky in flames: SPIDEY MEET AT USUAL PLACE.

It didn’t take him long to fly to the Statue of Liberty, listening to the shouts of people below him. He knew they were welcoming him back, joyous in his return to New York City, but he couldn’t bother to greet them when he was only interested in the feelings of the one person who refused to look at him.

Johnny settled into a perch on Liberty’s torch. It had originally been chosen for a laugh, but it gradually became their typical meeting place. Somewhere the two superheroes could meet and not worry about their public, or familial in Johnny’s case, images.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Spider-Man swung up several feet away from him, sinking into his own perch. After a moment, he hunched his shoulders and removed his mask with one hand, ducking his head toward his feet.

“I already know who you are,” Johnny murmured.

“Not my choice,” Peter said, and finally raised his head. His cheeks were flushed, most likely with anger.

“I know… I’m sorry.”

Peter stood tall for the first time since he reached the torch - both Liberty’s and Johnny. “You told me that you hate me… multiple times in fact. I used to laugh it off because our alter-egos were best friends and I knew that you didn’t have the whole story, but why did you stay when I opened the door?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Johnny admitted. “My dog instincts… I already told you how they lead me to you. I did my best to overrule a lot of my instincts but they didn’t always work.”

“So you wanted to leave.”

“… only at first.”

Peter just looked at him. His face looked stony, resentment clear. “… so why did you stay?”

Johnny shrugged miserably. “You pet me? You were the only person I knew who could actually get me to a superhero? I had walked who knows how many miles that night and I just… I wanted to rest? Pick one of those, pick all of them for all I care, I honestly don’t know which one is more true than the others. But what I do know for sure, Peter, is that saying we love each other is what broke the spell.” Johnny looked out at New York, staring at the skyline, and then looked back at Peter. “Because I love you. There, I said it! If you still hate me, fine. No one could ever say you’re not justified in that. But I do love you. And I don’t want you to hate me for telling the truth.”

Peter scrubbed a hand over his hair, sending clumps of spandex-hair everywhere. “You really love me?”

Johnny nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay then.”

Peter surged forward, both hands reaching for Johnny, and Johnny fell into the other man’s embrace. Johnny wrapped both arms around Peter and hugged him as tightly as he could manage without using his hands. Fingers gripped at Johnny’s own hair while Peter’s other hand cupped Johnny’s cheek.

At first they just stood there, staring at each other, but then Peter cleared his throat, his voice rough. “I love you, too.”

And then Peter’s lips were on Johnny’s, Johnny’s were on Peter’s, and wow… did that feel like coming home.