Chapter Text
“Lando?” Oscar called, as he landed on top of Lady Liberty’s torch. He looked around, waiting for an answer, but only silence followed.
“Lando, I know you’re there.” he said, not quite amused.
“Oh for fuck’s- you and your stupid heightened senses” the boy in question complained, coming out of his very obvious hiding spot, crouched down behind the crown.
“Not my fault you breathe loudly.”
“Yeah, yeah, hello to you too, Spiderman! Good to see you too, Spiderman!” Lando’s arms opened in a frustrated gesture, before falling back to his sides, resting his hands on his hips.
Oscar sighed under the mask.
“Hi, Torch.” his tone hiding a subtle fondness under the usual deadpan, “What’s up?”
“Not much, look what I got us this fine evening” he bent down again to retrieve a huge pizza box.
Spiderman’s only reaction came in the form of his big, white eyes squinting at his friend.
“Mate, you set fire to the New York sky, on a freezing Thursday night, in the middle of December, and called me here… because you wanted to eat pizza with me.”
“And we better eat it before it freezes as well.”
The remains of his message were slowly fading in the night sky, the smoke lit up by the bright skyscrapers.
“Spidey, meet me at the usual place” it said.
Oscar was, once again, silent for a beat.
“And we couldn’t do this at your apartment… for what reason exactly?”
“Well, it’s not as scenic innit?” Lando replied, gesturing out to the skyline, the city lights stretching endlessly beyond the river in front of them. Baxter Building could be seen in the distance, its light warm but sleek. On the other side of the city stood the Hamilton Industries headquarters, darker yet somehow imposing. In the midst of it all, was Spiderman’s own house, anonymous, quiet, and perfectly hidden somewhere in Queens.
“Now come sit with me and stop asking dumb questions” he patted the ground next to where he sat, cross legged.
And Oscar, obviously, sat down, swinging his feet off the edge, with his mask rolled up to his nose, and then proceeded to stuff slightly cold pizza in his mouth. It had gotten less and less rare for them to sit like that, seeing each other without a good reason to, and he was still getting used to the easiness of it all. Hanging out without an imminent threat coming, just their usual empty banter and the weight of their identities somehow less heavy on their shoulders. He’d say he was almost comfortable around Lando, now.
Meanwhile, the latter had just recently stopped freaking out every time he saw the lower half of his friend’s face.
The first time it happened, the two of them had just finished a joint mission. They’d come out pretty beat up, tired, restless, and decided to share a hefty serving of waffles to pick themselves back up. And to be fair, Oscar had never warned him before rolling his mask up. Lando had, honest to god, screamed in the middle of the shabby restaurant and stuttered for an hour before forming a coherent sentence again.
So yeah, not the best reaction, but, at least the screaming was a one time thing. The next few times consisted purely of flustered stuttering and a lot of staring.
Sharing meals between them became more and more common, and the whole freaking out thing somewhat stopped, although that doesn’t mean he didn’t stare.
On the contrary, the staring just intensified, leaving Oscar to mentally squirm under his gaze.
“Mate, you do realise my face hasn’t really changed from the last time you stared at it, right?”
“Yes, I know, I’m sorry, it’s just- I know you can’t reveal your identity and all that, but… sometimes it’s weird how much little I know about my best friend” he huffed, toying with a loose thread of his sweatshirt, his voice reduced to the usual flustered rambling for the occasion.
“Aw, Torch. You’re my best friend too.” he said, trying to lift up the mood.
“I’m your only friend, you prat.” Lando giggled under his breath and Oscar almost forgot what they were talking about all together.
“Hey, hey, so… best by default!” he recovered.
Best by default?? what the fuck.
“By default- That makes it worse!” his giggle now a full bodied laugh.
Oscar swears he tried keeping a straight face, but then promptly failed, snorting and tilting his head backwards with laughter. Which, in return, only made Lando laugh harder.
Oscar had to physically make himself look away from him, like blinded by the sight.
That happened sometimes, Oscar could recall a handful of moments when he had to force himself to stop looking at Lando. He told himself it didn’t mean anything, and that his friend was objectively an attractive man. That was a fairly common opinion, all in all. Yet, he couldn’t delude himself enough to pretend his heart didn’t almost leap out of his chest whenever he was close to him.
He couldn’t ignore how his curls fell messily on his forehead after flying, how his right eyebrow twitched when he came up with a quick joke in his head, and how every time he smiled, his eyes almost completely closed, hiding a thousand different colours behind his long lashes.
God, Oscar was fucked.
“It really wasn’t that funny.”
“It definitely wasn’t.” Lando breathed, his body still shaking with small giggles.
They laid on their backs, having finally calmed down, while a comfortable silence settled over them. Lando’s staring contest, Oscar realised, was apparently not over yet, as he turned his head to find the older boy already looking his way.
Suddenly self conscious, he rolled his mask back down on his face.
Lando groaned, “You did that on purpose.”
“Mate.” the deadpan was back.
“It’s just- I know you won’t - or can’t, take your mask off. I just don’t get why? You know I’m a superhero too, or whatever, it’s not like I’ll go tell the whole world who you are” he complained, as he leaned his back on the statue’s head.
Oscar took a big breath, “Of course I know, Lando. But- I already told you, bad things happen to people who know.”
“Yeah, regular people. I’m the Human Torch, Spidey. You’d think I can defend myself.”
“I’m not saying you can’t.” he sighed, then sat up as well.
“But I won’t argue again with you on this. I just have my reasons, Lan.”
The other huffed, and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Fine. I’ll stop bothering you… maybe. For tonight, at least.”
And Spiderman couldn’t help but softly smile at that.
Then, Lando changed the subject with his usual nonsense rambling, and just like that, they were back to their usual selves.
They talked, and talked, then talked some more, while the city lights slowly turned off for the night.
Oscar swung midair through the New York buildings, his suit doing stupidly little to protect him from the biting cold. His thoughts swam messily, not focusing on anything in particular except the strain in his arms from the repetitive movement. He could almost feel his nose begin to freeze and fall off his face, when he finally reached the fire escape of his building and crawled through the open window. The living room was dark in a still silence when he finally took of his mask, and began making his way to his room. It wasn’t unusual for him to come back, late at night, to a quiet apartment and walk straight into bed.
And it wasn’t unusual either for a dim figure to be moving around the unlit place.
“Hey Oscar.”
“Jesus- fuck! Every fucking time, Mark!” Oscar whipped his head around, startled, spotting the man in question leaning on the counter of the open kitchen, with a steaming mug in his right hand.
The older man just stood there, face unimpressed (for as much as Oscar could see, again, without a single light turned on.)
Sometimes he wondered if this whole thing was just a big prank, if Mark actually used the lights and then turned them all off when he thought Oscar was about to come back.
Although that sounded quite ridiculous. He probably had to get used to moving around in the shadows, with the whole secret soviet assassin-weapon-soldier thing.
But then again, who knows.
He had half the mind to turn the overhead light on.
“How was Lando?” Mark asked.
“How did you know I was- you know what, I don’t care. He was good, thank you.” he sighed, pulling a chair out and flopping onto it. The exhaustion of a full day out in the city was making itself known, now.
“How was Seb?” he smirked.
Mark mumbled something resembling a “good”, and took a drink from his mug, then opened the beeping dishwasher and took his vibranium arm out, popping it back in its place.
“Did you tell him yet?” he said, rolling his shoulder.
“Tell him what?” Oscar replied, his voice muffled from where his head had come down to lay on his arms.
“If he wants to come to Disneyland with us, obviously.” He voiced out sarcastically. “I meant have you told him your identity yet?”
“Just because you’re like, my father figure or whatever, doesn’t mean you have to interrogate me every time I see him like we were on a date, you know.” he raised his head to look the older man in the eyes.
“Is that a yes?”
“No. Of course I haven’t, ‘m not stupid.” he mumbled.
And he hadn’t. Because he had a good reason not to. Except, when he erased Oscar Piastri from everyone’s memory, he never would have imagined that he would fall in love with an idiot, who just also happened to be a super hero. And a boy. But that’s not the point.
The point is, it had been hard.
Meeting Mark was probably the only thing that helped him, throughout this whole mess.
Somehow, the spell hadn’t worked on him, something to do with his time in Wakanda, and all that. He never understood the specifics of that.
But anyways, Mark had been kind enough to come find him, once he’d realised that he was, for some reason, the only one who remembered the huge scandal of Spiderman’s identity. And he had taken him in, into his own home.
It came as a real surprise, that. They never had much of a relationship, outside of a few interactions on the job. Plus, Mark wasn’t known for being the most sociable guy.
But still, they made it work, and in little time he’d become a sort of father to Oscar.
Which is why, when he started hanging out with Lando, he’d had to endure some very stern looks from the man.
But really, he was right. Oscar had suffered a lot because of his choice. He’d lost his best friend and girlfriend at the time, Lily, who had been by his side since they were little kids. He’d sworn he would come find her and make her remember, except every time he’d tried, he chickened out at the last minute and ran home.
Still, in honour of what he’d lost, he couldn’t let his identity be known again.
Therefore, no risks whatsoever.
No matter how nice said risk’s smile was, or how mesmerising his eyes could be, or how his wide hands would occasionally grip his shoulders in a friendly gesture and make his poor heart skip a few beats.
And, to be fair, Lando was almost right. Him and the other Fantastic Four were actual superheroes, which meant the risk of them ever finding out his identity was balanced out by all the things they helped him with on the job. He could afford to consider them “friends”.
He did blur the line a little bit, when he decided he would let Charles’s little brother and his friend take pictures of him for their newspaper. But, as Mark never failed to remind him, he was lonely. And maybe he could afford to have some friends that weren’t super humans. Arthur and Logan were nice to him, funny in the way his old high school friends used to be, yet always respectful of his job.
So yes, Oscar decided to have friends again. Even if that meant they were friends with Spiderman, not with him.
“You do you, kid. Just be careful.” Mark said, placing his now empty mug in the sink.
He stopped to ruffle Oscar’s hair where it was still squished from the mask,
“Goodnight, lover boy”
“Night, Mark.” he said, rolling his eyes.
He managed to carry himself all the way to his room and change out of his suit, before collapsing into bed.