SpideyTorch Oneshot Collection

Lost and Found

Summary: Peter's spider-sense starts acting up on a Future Foundation field trip. He and Johnny, recently returned from the Negative Zone, have to pretend to be married. These two things are related.
Word Count: 8154
by @Traincat on archive of our own

"A field trip?" Peter said.

"Just a little family outing," Sue said, passing him a knife. He took it and obediently started helping her cut the crusts off a small mountain of sandwiches. "We thought you might like to join us."

"I mean, it sounds great," Peter said. "But work is a little swamped and somehow whenever I take off with you guys I always manage to go missing for two months. My landlady does not love it."

"We really could use the extra set of hands. Also," Sue said, "someone needs to keep an eye on Johnny."

Peter groaned.

"Fine. But there had better be extra turkey, no mayo in there for me."

*************************

Calypso III had two suns and reminded Peter a lot of California, though that might have been Johnny's expensive sunglasses talking. He didn't match the rest of the family, all dressed in their white and black uniforms. Instead he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that had both obviously come pre-torn. Peter didn't even want to think about how much he'd paid for them, let alone linger on how good Johnny looked.

His face had lit up when Peter had joined the family in the hangar, but then they'd both immediately been beset by children. Franklin and Leech had latched onto Johnny, and the Moloids had decided Peter made the world's best climbing gym, and they'd rolled their eyes at each other as they'd boarded the ship.

It was fine. They'd have time later. Johnny was back from the Negative Zone and they were going to space together for the second time in a month and so, for the moment, all felt right with the world.

Life with the Fantastic Four in a nutshell.

They were perusing an open air mall that reminded Peter a little of Union Square's holiday market. He was leaning over Valeria, listening as she explained the planet's history to him, when his spider-sense buzzed, quick and insistent. He looked around, pulling Val back against him a little bit – she didn't so much as blink, either too engrossed in her history lesson or too used to him being weird. But there was no danger as far as he could tell; just shoppers, going about their day.

Then Johnny yelped. The buzzing in Peter's head doubled; he swung Val behind him, turning towards Johnny.

Johnny had been browsing a stall filled with, go figure, shiny things across the way. Now he was pinned against it by a large grayish purple alien with long white hair and a pair of intimidating-looking tusks. The alien was almost as large as Ben, and Johnny looked small in his shadow.

The alien's hand was sliding up the back of Johnny's thigh, possessive.

Peter moved without thinking. Before he knew it, he had crossed the way, grabbed that huge wrist and wrenched the alien's arm back, away from Johnny. Maybe he'd used a little more force than strictly necessary, but Peter had never liked guys who took liberties and the startled noise Johnny had made was echoing around in his head, blocking out all other thoughts. His long fingers couldn't close around the thick wrist, but it didn't stop him from squeezing hard enough to hear a crack.