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Waking up in the wee hours of the morning is never fun. But waking up to alarms blaring? Yeah, that’s even worse.
“Morning sunshine,” Sam mutters in his ear. He’s trying to sound chipper, but Peter can tell Sam’s just as tired as he feels. “Ready to kick some butt?”
“Nggg, I would be if I could hit snooze like… sixty more times,” he says, checking the clock. 3:37am. Fantastic.
“Kaiju don’t have alarms, they are alarms, so if you wanna hit something get your ass out of bed,” Sam says, his lips pressing against Peter’s earlobe seconds before he’s crawling over him and squishing a few of Pete’s very important internal organs on his way.
Peter groans and rolls out of bed, shaking his head as though he could dislodge the screech of the sirens from his ears. He really needs to have a word with whoever made those because their frequency is juuuuust right to make his tinnitus 100x worse, and if they’re loud for him he can’t even imagine how loud they must be for everyone else. But then again, he half suspects that might kind of be the point.
“You look awful,” Ava tells him when they find her in the hallway, all three of them running now towards LOCCENT in tandem. She doesn’t look much better with her hair in a very very messy bun and dark circles under her eyes, but neither one of them are going to mention that to her face.
“Doesn’t he always?” Sam asks cheerfully, and ugh Peter hates how easily Sam manages to wake up in the morning.
“Feeling the love guys. Feeling the love,” he says, speeding up just a little so that he’s running ahead of Sam. Of course the little shit speeds up, trying to prove a point, but Peter isn’t worried. He has longer legs. “Where’s MJ?”
“She didn’t come to bed last night,” Ava says, her expression is tight and her lips draw up into a tight displeased line.
“Trouble in paradise?” Sam asks as they reach their destination, and Peter elbows him in the ribs. “Ow!”
“You two okay to do this?” Peter asks instead, knowing that Ava deals better with battle plans than emotions sometimes. “We can take someone else out if it’s gonna affect your drift.”
“We’ll work it out. The giant lizard is the biggest concern right now,” she replies, speaking out loud but signing along now that they have slowed to a walk, and there’s hint of gratefulness in her tone and her expression.
“Besides the more pissed they are the harder they’ll hit,” Sam laughs, and then has to duck behind Peter for safety as she takes a swing at him.
“You should probably listen to your own advice,” Peter tells him sagely as Ava glares at him over Peter’s shoulder.
“Got a good one for you today team,” Fury’s voice rings out as they finally fall into line beside everyone else. Being the last to arrive sucks most days, but it seems like today the crisis outweighs Fury’s urge to yell at them. “A category four, just off the coast. We’re calling this one Morbius. Big Iron, Red Tiger and Nebula Weaver will engage-” Fury’s voice drones on and on as Peter shifts from leg to leg, eager to suit up. The lineup isn’t a surprise, not for a category four. Luke and Danny are a powerhouse, more than capable of causing huge damage to anything a kaiju can throw at them, and Ava and MJ both have tempers, but their combined determination, speed, strategy and intuition make them a formidable force. And he and Sam? Well… they are rockstars. With three confirmed kills in two years and one of the strongest Neural Handshakes around (not that they hadn’t had to work on that. A lot) they’re two of the best, and handsomest pilots around if Pete does say so himself. Humble too.
Still, Shadow Slicer’s pilots both sigh at the news of who’s being sent out, and he feels a stab of guilt. They’re newbies, never even been in one a real battle, and he knows they’re itching for some action, but it’s better to start them out against a category one or two than to throw them to the wolves. Or… giant lizards as it were.
No one else seems upset at least, the four other pilots happy to rest at this time of morning. As much as he was tired a minute ago, Peter can already feel his adrenaline pumping as he heads to the Drivesuit room, and he knows he’d feel the same as Tandy and Tyrone if Fury had told him to sit this one out.
He looks over at Sam as the techs clip his spinal clamp in place, and finds a grin on his boyfriend’s face. There’s an energy that comes over them both when they are this close to the neural handshake, an anticipatory tingle that builds up in his bones, and he knows Sam is feeling it too. He gives him a thumbs up and Sam rolls his eyes, sticking his tongue out at him and not caring who’s watching.
“We fixed up the problems with the HUD so there should be no more issues with visi- you aren’t even listening to me are you? Seriously it’s like talking to a brick wall,” Harry Osborn shakes his head, flicking Peter in the ear.
“Huh? What? Yeah yeah, you fixed some stuff and we can see things without it bugging out, gotcha gotcha. I’m a little preoccupied Har, you know with the upcoming battle and all… but I’m totally listening.”
It’s possible that the fact that he wasn’t watching Harry’s mouth move is a bit of a giveaway that he wasn’t listening that well at all, but Harry just raises an eyebrow at him. He’s also smiling though, so Pete figures he isn’t too upset with him even as he let’s out a skeptical “Uh huh” and shakes his head.
“Besides, why are you even here, aren’t you a big shot? Shouldn’t you be letting your grunts do all the hard work while you sit up in LOCCENT and chit chat in our ears?” Peter jokes, shifting a little in his harness to test his range of movement.
Harry rolls his eyes.
“You’d just turn your hearing aid off to avoid me,” he huffs. “Did you ever think that maybe I wanted to wish my best friend luck? But if you’re gonna complain maybe I won’t bother next time,” he adds, the affection evident in his tone.
“Aw c'mon you know you love me,” Pete protests, feeling a little bit like a jerk. “Thanks Harry. I’ll give it an extra wallop for you promise,” Peter replies, his voice just as fond.
“Wow Just what I always wanted,” he deadpans back, patting him on the arm. “Just take care out there Pete. Take this thing down, and, I know it’s hard for you, but don’t do anything stupid or impulsive,” Harry nods and gives him a final wave, taking his leave before Fury starts yelling.
“When have I ever been known to do something stupid or impulsive?” Peter calls after him, laughing when both Harry and Sam yell out “always” in tandem.
Once they are suited up it takes only a few minutes to get into the Conn-Pod of Nebula Weaver and hook themselves in, but it feels like it’s taken ages to get there. It might be weird, but Peter finds that he’s always more nervous surrounded by techs while he’s getting suited up than he is when he’s alone in the Jaeger with Sam. Being together without anyone around now it feels like he can finally breathe, and he’s more excited to go kick some Kaiju ass than anything else in this moment.
“You ready, nerd?” Sam asks as soon as they get settled. His ecstatic smile absolutely contagious, and Peter feels himself grinning brightly in return.
“To be connected to you? Never. But I’ll deal.”
Sam snorts as the countdown to the handshake starts.
Peter watches him, waiting for it and…. there. Sam signs I love you to him right before their minds join as one.
The world goes blue, memories flicker by, fast now, familiar. Lifting a little girl over his head, Aunt May making cookies, a sign that says Carefree and being lifted up in the air between his aunt and uncle, laughing brightly. After doing this so many times he’s braced for the wave of anguish too, a man’s voice: “Tell your mom I’m sorry I couldn’t make it this time.” The ringing ringing ringing and he can’t hear his own voice screaming, blonde hair stained with blood, a Kaiju destroying everything with a casual flick of it’s tail.
He snaps back to the present a lot easier now than he used to, and is greeted by Sam’s face when he opens his eyes.
“You good?”
“Always,” Peter nods, feeling the excitement build back up. It’s getting easier to recover every time, easier to push the intense flood of memories back, and focus on the good. Like memories of Sam stuffing his face with Chinese food, rolling his eyes as Peter uses the chopsticks as walrus teeth. Or memories of amusement parks, sunny days, happy times had both before and after the Kaiju became a regular part of their lives.
He grins at Sam and feels his mind tugging him back to a memory of the night before, wrapped around each other in bed with their foreheads touching as they had soaked up each other’s warmth.
He can feel Sam’s affection for him, feel the way Peter’s face has grown on him, how it makes Sam’s knees go weak when Peter looks at him and he can just tell he’s thinking about how much he loves him. If he probes he can sense all the annoyance, and even better, the way that it’s clothed in deep appreciation, in a love that makes Peter’s heart beat harder just thinking about it, let alone being able to feel it in Sam’s mind.
God this is what Peter loves most about being connected and having all the walls between them crumble.
He loves feeling what Sam really thinks under the snarky comments and the exaggerated eye rolls. Because the way Sam feels for him is so similar to what he feels for Sam, yet so different because it’s outside of Peter, it comes solely from his boyfriend. It’s not Peter’s love it’s Sam’s, and getting to feel that and to experience it the way that Sam does is the best thing in the world.
And then he can feel Sam feeling his affection, feeling how much he loves him and how his heart flutters just from the thought of laying together with their limbs entwined. He feels Sam’s slight embarrassment, the need to deflect, but along with it comes the glow that comes from being cherished, from being together in every possible way in this moment, and he knows beyond a doubt that Sam wouldn’t sever this connection for the world.
A hand brushes against his, and the warm feeling that accompanies that small gesture is amplified and fed back to him through Sam, until they are both smiling like dorks at each other, barely paying attention to the voice that tells them the drop is in one minute.
“You’re such a sappy loser, you know that right Parker?” Sam laughs teasingly.
“Nah, I’m pretty sure all this sap is coming from your brain.”
Peter is struck by a thought suddenly, one so sappy that he just knows Sam is going to make fun of him for it.
“Really?” Sam asks, looking over and biting his lip. “Your defense against being sappy is to think about marrying me?” he asks incredulously.
It is. Because Sam is annoying but he’s also the only person Peter feels this way about, the only person he’s trusted so deeply in a very very long time. And if there’s one thing drifting tells him, it’s that Sam feels the same.
“Yeah well, it’ll deepen our bond right? Improve our drift. Rangers getting married is good for everyone,” he says, making his voice sound as casual and uninterested as possible as he watches Sam out of the corner of his eye.
Then he’s smiling, because he knows the answer before Sam speaks a word. He can feel it in his chest, hear it clear as day in his mind.
“Yeah alright, why not.”
The words don’t really mean much, not compared to the feeling of it, and for this moment Peter wishes the drift would never end, that he could always feel the meaning behind Sam’s flippant words, and Sam could feel his.
“Don’t be stupid, that’d be terrible,” Sam laughs. “Talk about TMI. Plus we’d get sick of each other, and you do not want to know the things I think about you when you piss me off.”
“I know the things you think about me. They’re rude and uncalled for. Get out of my brain loser,” Peter says back as Harry’s voice tells them to stop flirt-bickering and prepare for the drop.
“That’d defeat the purpose a little bit jerkface.”
And then they’re falling, bracing for impact with the waves before rising to stand tall in front of the open jaws of the Kaiju. The teeth on it are needle-sharp and deadly, dripping florescent blue as it let’s out an inhuman roar of rage and starts to move towards them.
Peter grins, knowing that the excitement he feels is coming from the both of them at once.
“Let’s kick some ass.”