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By eight seventeen on Tuesday morning, Dominick Carisi Jr. had lost an argument with his alarm clock, spilled coffee down the front of his cleanest shirt, missed one train by the width of its closing doors, and watched the next one expire between stations with a defeated electrical sigh.
By eight forty-three, he was running through Manhattan with his tie hanging loose around his collar and one hand clamped over the lid of a replacement coffee he no longer had time to drink.
His phone vibrated against his palm.
Benson: ETA?
Sonny slowed just enough to type without walking into a lamppost.
Five minutes. Maybe ten. Train got stuck.
He stared at the message for half a second, guilt needling beneath his ribs, then added:
Definitely closer to five.
It was a lie so obvious that Olivia did not dignify it with an answer.
Sonny shoved the phone into his coat pocket and picked up his pace. His shoes slapped unevenly against the pavement. Cold air burned the back of his throat. Somewhere behind him, an impatient driver leaned on the horn as though Sonny had personally designed morning traffic.
He cut down a narrow side street, aiming for an avenue where he might be able to flag a cab. It was the kind of shortcut his mother had spent most of his childhood warning him against: dumpsters, rusted fire escapes, blackened brick, and a suspicious puddle glimmering with colors not ordinarily found in nature.
Sonny was halfway through it when something red dropped into his path.
He stopped so abruptly that coffee surged through the drinking slot and splashed across his knuckles.
Spider-Man hung upside down from a thread of webbing, his masked face level with Sonny’s. His arms were folded loosely over his chest. The white lenses of his mask narrowed with unmistakable amusement.
Sonny’s heart performed one enormous, painful movement.
“Morning, Detective,” Spider-Man greeted him.
Sonny stared.
He had met Spider-Man before. Technically.
There had been the warehouse on Eleventh, where Spider-Man had lowered two missing girls through a skylight before vanishing ahead of the responding officers. There had been the arraignment interrupted by an armed defendant attempting to escape through a third-floor window, only for Spider-Man to return him cocooned in webbing and accompanied by a handwritten note that read, THIS ONE’S YOURS. SORRY ABOUT THE WINDOW.
They had exchanged words. They had even argued once, briefly and at volume, about whether masked vigilantes could contaminate crime scenes.
None of those encounters had prepared Sonny for finding him dangling six inches from his face on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning.
“You’re gonna give somebody a heart attack doing that,” Sonny managed.
Spider-Man’s head tipped thoughtfully to one side. “You look pretty healthy.”
His voice held a dry, low warmth that the recordings never quite caught. Most of New York had decided Spider-Man was a college student with a smart mouth and too much free time. Up close, Sonny could hear something older beneath the humor—weariness carefully tucked away, patience earned through practice.
It was strangely familiar.
Sonny shook away the thought and glanced at his watch. Eight forty-four.
“Oh, hell.”
Spider-Man rotated neatly in the air and landed on his feet. “Bad morning?”
“My train died, Lieutenant Benson’s gonna kill me, and this shirt was clean when I left home.” Sonny lifted the coffee-stained cuff as evidence. “I’ve got a witness coming in at nine. Or eight forty-five. Fin said he could stall her, but there’s only so long you can stall somebody who already doesn’t wanna talk to the cops, and I’m standing in an alley explaining all this to—”
“Breathe, Detective.”
Sonny dragged in a breath.
Spider-Man stepped closer. The mask made him impossible to read, but his attention felt oddly steady. He glanced toward the mouth of the alley, then up at the narrow ribbon of sky between the buildings.
“I could get you there.”
Sonny’s fingers tightened around his coffee. “Get me where?”
“The precinct.”
“How?”
Spider-Man looked pointedly at the web-shooters around his wrists.
Sonny followed his gaze.
Far above them, traffic rumbled over the cross street. A flock of pigeons scattered from the edge of a roof. Sonny imagined the city dropping away beneath him, the street shrinking into a distant gray line, nothing between his body and the pavement except one masked stranger’s arm.
His stomach turned over.
Spider-Man waited.
That was what decided him, in the end. There was no taunting, no impatient gesture, no reaching for him without permission. Spider-Man only stood there with his hands resting at his sides, prepared to let Sonny refuse.
Sonny glanced at his watch again.
Eight forty-five.
“If I die,” he warned, placing his coffee carefully on the nearest dumpster, “I’m haunting you.”
Spider-Man’s shoulders moved with a quiet laugh. “You’ll have to catch me first.”
“I’d be a ghost.”
“Still slow.”
Sonny opened his mouth, then closed it when Spider-Man stepped into his space.
Up close, he was broader than he appeared in grainy phone footage. His suit traced solid muscle through his chest and shoulders, but he moved with a gentleness at odds with all that strength. One gloved hand settled at Sonny’s waist. The other reached for Sonny’s wrist and guided his arm around Spider-Man’s neck.
Heat rushed beneath Sonny’s collar.
“Hold on,” Spider-Man instructed him, his voice softer now.
Sonny stared at the place where his own hand rested against the back of Spider-Man’s neck. The suit felt warm beneath his palm. Human.
“That’s your safety briefing?” Sonny asked. “Hold on?”
“I was gonna mention screaming, but you strike me as more of a praying man.”
Spider-Man’s arm tightened around him.
The world vanished beneath Sonny’s feet.
A sound tore out of him—half shout, half strangled plea—as they launched out of the alley. Wind struck his face. His stomach stayed behind somewhere near the second floor while the rest of him rose in a dizzying arc toward the open sky.
Sonny buried his face against Spider-Man’s shoulder.
The city rushed beneath them in fractured glimpses: yellow taxis, silver rooftops, pedestrians no larger than buttons. Spider-Man released one web and fired another with the crisp mechanical snap of the shooter. For one endless second they were suspended in open air, nothing holding them up.
Then the line caught.
Momentum pulled them forward.
Sonny’s grip became desperate. One fist knotted in the material at Spider-Man’s shoulder while his other arm locked around his neck. Spider-Man held him with impossible ease, his palm spread wide and secure against Sonny’s lower back.
“You always hold strangers this tight?” Spider-Man called over the wind.
“You’re carrying me over traffic,” Sonny gasped. “I’m entitled.”
“No complaints here.”
Sonny felt the answer more than he heard it—a vibration through the chest pressed against his, warm and teasing and entirely too pleased.
Another building swept past them. Spider-Man planted both feet against its glass, ran three impossible strides across the vertical surface, then pushed away. Sonny made the profound mistake of looking down.
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“Little higher than he usually works.”
“That’s not funny,” Sonny protested, but a breathless laugh escaped him anyway.
Spider-Man turned his masked face toward him.
Something in his posture changed.
It was small enough that Sonny might have missed it if they hadn’t been wrapped around each other. The arm at his back softened without loosening. The hand gripping the web line flexed. For half a heartbeat, Spider-Man seemed to forget the next smart remark waiting behind his teeth.
Sonny laughed again as they swung around the corner of a high-rise, helpless this time, exhilaration burning through the last of his fear. The city opened around them, silver and bright beneath the morning sun. Wind pulled at his coat and combed cold fingers through his hair. He had spent years walking these streets, riding beneath them, watching them pass through scratched cab windows. He had never seen New York like this—every rooftop close enough to touch, every distant stretch of water throwing light back at the sky.
It was beautiful.
Spider-Man was watching him instead.
Sonny felt it despite the mask. He felt the strange intensity of that hidden gaze and the careful way Spider-Man drew him closer, as though Sonny’s delight was something precious enough to protect.
Their next descent brought them toward a rooftop, not another street. Spider-Man released the web at the height of their swing and landed in a low crouch beside a water tower. He kept both arms around Sonny as he straightened.
The roof shifted beneath Sonny’s feet.
He grabbed Spider-Man’s shoulders.
“Easy,” Spider-Man murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Sonny’s pulse tripped for an entirely different reason.
For several seconds neither of them moved. Sonny stood with his hands braced against Spider-Man’s shoulders, while Spider-Man held him by the waist. Behind them, the city continued without noticing: horns calling from the avenues, machinery humming on neighboring rooftops, millions of lives moving toward the rest of their day.
The white lenses of Spider-Man’s mask faced him steadily.
Sonny became acutely aware of how close they were.
“You do that with everybody?” he asked, still breathless.
Spider-Man’s thumb moved once against his side. The gesture was barely there, almost hidden by the heavy wool of Sonny’s coat.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“So’s avoiding them.”
That pulled a smile from Sonny before he could stop it. “You sound like somebody I work with.”
Spider-Man went very still.
Sonny studied him, curiosity stirring through the fading rush in his blood. The voice was altered somehow—not electronically, perhaps, but roughened into a register that was difficult to place. The cadence tugged at him. So did the particular tilt of Spider-Man’s head, equal parts irritation and affection.
Then Spider-Man lifted one hand toward Sonny’s throat, and every thought in Sonny’s mind scattered.
His gloved fingers caught the narrow end of Sonny’s tie.
“This is bothering me,” Spider-Man muttered.
Sonny looked down. The tie hung crooked and unfinished beneath his coat. “I dressed in the dark.”
“I can tell.”
Spider-Man loosened the knot and began again.
His hands moved with practiced certainty. He drew the fabric through, tightened it carefully, then folded Sonny’s collar into place. There was something almost domestic in the attention he gave it. Something impossibly tender in the light brush of his knuckles along Sonny’s throat.
Sonny stopped breathing.
Spider-Man shaped a neat dimple beneath the knot and smoothed the tie flat against Sonny’s chest. His palm lingered there for a moment, directly over Sonny’s racing heart.
“There,” he said quietly.
Sonny looked at the blank red mask and wondered how a man with no visible expression could appear so startled by what his own hand had done.
“My mother’s gonna love you,” Sonny told him.
Spider-Man’s fingers curled slightly against his chest.
“That sounds serious.”
“She’s been fixing my ties since Catholic school. She’d appreciate knowing somebody’s keeping up the tradition.”
The mask tipped downward, focusing on the tie rather than Sonny’s face. “Somebody should.”
The humor remained, but something fragile moved beneath it.
Sonny’s smile faded into a softer shape. He did not understand why those two words sounded so much like a promise Spider-Man hadn’t meant to make. He only knew that the hand over his heart had become careful, almost reluctant.
Then his phone vibrated again.
The moment broke.
Sonny fumbled it out of his pocket. Two messages waited on the screen.
Fin: She’s here.
And, directly beneath it:
Fin: You owe me.
“I really gotta—”
“I know.”
Spider-Man stepped back before Sonny could finish.
Cold air slipped into the space where his body had been. Sonny hated the absence immediately, which seemed unreasonable considering he had known this man for approximately twelve minutes and had spent the first four convinced he was about to plummet to his death.
Spider-Man held out his arm.
Sonny tucked his phone away and moved into him without quite meaning to. This time, his body knew where to fit. One arm circled Spider-Man’s neck. One hand settled against his shoulder. Spider-Man gathered him close, secure and warm, and shot a web toward the next building.
The second half of the journey passed too quickly.
Sonny no longer shut his eyes. He watched Manhattan unfurl beneath them while Spider-Man carried him through the clear morning. They skimmed over traffic and between buildings, close enough to a glass office tower that Sonny glimpsed their reflection moving across it: a streak of red and blue, a dark wool coat streaming behind it, two bodies held together as though the city had no gravity at all.
Each drop still stole Sonny’s breath. Each climb returned it as laughter.
Spider-Man grew quieter.
He kept Sonny close, occasionally adjusting his hold with a pressure at the waist or a subtle shift beneath his thighs. Sonny sensed that he was being memorized. The thought should have felt presumptuous. Instead it settled somewhere warm behind his ribs.
The precinct appeared ahead of them.
One of the squad-room windows stood open several inches to release the overworked radiator’s heat. Spider-Man changed direction with a pull of his arm.
Sonny looked from the window to him.
“You’re not serious.”
Spider-Man fired another web. “You’re late.”
“That window doesn’t open all the way.”
“It will.”
The final swing carried them directly toward it.
Sonny’s alarm returned at full force. “Wait, wait—”
Spider-Man twisted in midair, planted both feet against the brick beside the window, and reached out with his free hand. He shoved the sash upward as they passed, folded his body around Sonny’s, and slipped through the opening with inches to spare.
They landed in the middle of the squad room.
The room went silent.
Spider-Man set Sonny on his feet with infuriating grace. Sonny’s knees buckled on contact with the floor, but the arm around his waist caught him before anyone else could notice.
Everyone noticed.
Amanda sat behind her desk with one hand covering her mouth. Her eyes were enormous, though not nearly as surprised as they should have been. Fin stood beside the coffee machine, holding a paper cup halfway to his lips. Olivia had emerged from her office with a case file tucked beneath one arm, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and the anticipation of a truly exhausting incident report.
Rafael Barba stared over the rim of his glasses.
Spider-Man steadied Sonny, keeping him tucked against his side until the room stopped tilting.
“There,” he announced. “Safe and almost on time.”
Fin lowered his coffee. “Did you just deliver Carisi through a window?”
Spider-Man glanced at him. “Traffic’s terrible.”
Sonny could not form a useful sentence. The flight had left his blood sparkling beneath his skin. He could still feel every place Spider-Man had touched him: the palm at his waist, the arm beneath his legs, the fingers brushing his throat.
Spider-Man turned back to him.
The joking ease left his posture again.
He straightened Sonny’s coat lapels. One hand moved to his shoulder, brushing away a trace of rooftop grit. Then his fingers rose to Sonny’s hair, smoothing a windblown lock back from his forehead with such gentle concentration that the squad room seemed to recede around them.
Sonny’s heart climbed painfully into his throat.
Spider-Man’s fingertips followed the curve of his temple.
For one suspended second, Sonny thought he might lift the mask.
Instead, Spider-Man leaned in.
The kiss landed high on Sonny’s cheek, close enough to the corner of his mouth that warmth seemed to spill across both.
It was soft.
That was what undid him—not the kiss itself, not the audience, not even the impossible man standing in front of him. It was the care Spider-Man took with it. The slight pause before contact, offering Sonny time to move. The warmth lingering through the fabric. The way Spider-Man’s hand cupped the other side of his face as if Sonny were something he had wanted to hold for longer than either of them could explain.
Sonny forgot the train. He forgot his witness. He forgot every law he had ever studied.
Spider-Man drew back.
The white lenses widened almost imperceptibly, as though he had surprised himself too.
Then a web snapped against the building across the street.
Spider-Man stepped onto the windowsill.
“Try not to miss me too much, Detective Carisi.”
Before Sonny recovered enough to answer, Spider-Man dropped backward out of sight.
Several people shouted at once.
A moment later, he swung past the window in a flash of red, one arm raised in farewell. Then he vanished between the buildings.
Sonny remained motionless in the center of the squad room.
His cheek burned.
Amanda made a small, strangled sound behind her hand.
Olivia drew a slow breath. “Carisi.”
Sonny touched two fingers to the place Spider-Man had kissed. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” Rafael asked dryly.
Sonny considered it.
“No.”
Fin nodded toward the hallway. “Your witness is in two.”
Reality returned all at once.
Sonny grabbed the file from his desk and hurried away with his coat still buttoned. He made it three steps before Olivia called after him.
“The window, Carisi.”
He turned.
Olivia pointed toward the open sash. “Close it.”
Sonny doubled back, cheeks hot beneath the squad’s collective attention. Amanda had lowered her hand, but the expression on her face remained peculiar. She looked less shocked than delighted—and far too close to laughing.
Sonny pushed the window down.
He caught himself looking for a red-and-blue figure among the rooftops before the glass cut off the cold.
Nick arrived twenty-two minutes later.
His hair was damp at the temples. His tie sat slightly crooked beneath his jacket, and he carried two coffees despite the fact that one of them had gone cold during an unscheduled stop on a rooftop three blocks away.
Amanda watched him cross the squad room.
Nick avoided her eyes with the rigid concentration of a man attempting not to incriminate himself. He shrugged off his coat, dropped into his chair, and woke his computer with an expression of studied irritation.
She rolled her chair into the side of his desk.
“Traffic?” she asked.
Nick took a measured sip of coffee. “Terrible.”
Amanda’s gaze fell to the faint smear of rooftop dirt on his cuff. “You missed something.”
He wiped it away beneath the desk.
“I hate you,” Nick muttered.
Her smile widened. “You kissed him.”
Nick looked toward the interview rooms.
Through the glass, Sonny sat beside Fin and spoke gently to their witness. He had removed his coat. His tie remained perfectly knotted, the dimple beneath it still intact.
Every few minutes, without seeming aware of it, Sonny touched his cheek.
Something helpless softened Nick’s face.
Amanda saw that too.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Nick’s expression shuttered. “Don’t.”
She rolled back to her desk without another word.
It was nearly an hour before Sonny returned. The interview had gone well; relief brightened his face as he crossed the squad room. His hair remained wind-tossed, refusing to settle no matter how often he ran a hand through it.
Nick forced his eyes toward the report on his screen.
“Amaro,” Sonny called.
He looked up with what he hoped was ordinary disinterest. “Carisi.”
Sonny stopped beside his desk. Excitement seemed to radiate from him, warm as sunlight through glass.
“You missed it.”
“So I heard.”
“He flew me to work.”
Nick leaned back in his chair. “Flew you.”
“Well, swung me. Mostly.” Sonny’s hands began to move as he spoke, shaping the arc of the journey in the air. “We went over Seventh, around this office building—I thought I was gonna throw up at first, but after a minute…” He trailed off, searching for words that had apparently abandoned him somewhere above the city.
Nick knew the feeling.
Sonny smiled. “You should’ve seen it.”
Nick had.
He had seen Sonny’s eyes open above the rooftops. He had felt the moment terror became wonder, heard laughter break free against his shoulder. He had known the exact instant Sonny trusted him enough to loosen his desperate grip and look down.
Nick lowered his gaze before any of that reached his face.
“Sounds reckless,” he said.
“Course you’d say that.” Sonny rested one hip against the corner of Nick’s desk. “He was careful.”
The certainty in his voice made Nick look up again.
Sonny was no longer smiling quite so broadly. His expression had gone soft, private. His fingertips brushed his cheek.
“He kissed me,” Sonny added.
Across the aisle, Amanda bent over her paperwork until her hair concealed her face.
Nick tightened his grip on his coffee. “Everybody’s talking about it.”
“Right here.” Sonny leaned closer and turned his face, presenting the exact place Spider-Man’s covered mouth had touched him. His cheek was smooth and faintly pink. “Can you tell?”
Nick’s pulse stumbled.
Sonny was near enough that Nick could smell his aftershave beneath the cold air still clinging to him. Near enough that one small movement would let Nick repeat the kiss without a mask between them.
He imagined it with dangerous clarity: his bare mouth against Sonny’s warmth, Sonny turning at the last moment, the kiss slipping closer to the corner of his lips—
Nick made himself look at the computer.
“I can imagine.”
Sonny remained where he was.
“He likes me,” he murmured, sounding almost disbelieving.
Nick looked back at him.
For once, there was no audience waiting for Spider-Man’s clever answer. No mask to hide the truth of Nick’s face or disguise the fear threaded through the wanting. Only Sonny, watching him with bright eyes and wind-reddened cheeks, still carrying the morning’s impossible happiness like light beneath his skin.
Nick let himself smile.
It was small enough to be safe.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I think he does.”
Sonny’s answering smile was brighter than the whole city had been from above.