For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
Peter surfaced from sleep slowly, drawn up from the deep, dreamless well of exhaustion by a single, persistent ray of morning sun warming his face. For a moment, he was adrift, untethered from time and place. Then, a soft sigh beside him grounded him instantly. He turned his head, the movement a slow, deliberate act against the protest of sore muscles.
Diana was still asleep, her back to him, her body curled into a gentle crescent. Her dark hair was a wild, silken spill across the white pillowcase. He could see the elegant, powerful line of her spine, the faint tracing of muscle across her shoulders. He remembered the feel of that back pressed against his chest in the shower, the way her muscles had coiled with pleasure under his touch. He also remembered watching those same muscles bunch as she single-handedly held back a collapsing subway ceiling. The duality of her—the fierce, divine warrior and the soft, sleeping woman in his bed—was a paradox so beautiful it made his chest ache.
The events of the previous day felt like a fever dream. The roaring violet rift, the golden light, the raw, cleansing passion that had followed. It was too much for one lifetime, let alone one Sunday. His body was a testament to the toll it had taken. A deep, profound ache had settled into his bones, a weariness that went far beyond simple fatigue. He knew, without looking, that a constellation of new, ugly bruises was probably blooming across his ribs from where he'd hit the side of the train.
Gently, not wanting to wake her, he slid out of bed. He moved with a stiff, careful grace, hissing softly as his feet hit the cool wood floor. He found his discarded clothes from the day before and pulled on his jeans, wincing as the rough denim scraped against his tender skin.
He was in her small kitchen area, attempting to decipher the workings of her surprisingly high-tech coffee maker, when he felt her presence behind him. He didn't hear her; he just felt the shift in the air, the subtle warmth of her proximity.
"You move like a man who has been in a fight," she said, her voice a low, sleep-husky murmur.
He turned. She was leaning against the doorframe, wrapped in one of her bedsheets, the white cotton a stark contrast to her tanned skin and dark, sleep-tousled hair. She looked like a Roman goddess who had just woken from a thousand-year slumber. Her eyes, however, were sharp and analytical, scanning his body, lingering on the way he was favoring his left side.
"Long day yesterday," he said, the understatement a cavernous thing between them. "I, uh, helped my aunt move some furniture. She's redecorating. Lots of heavy lifting." The lie was for a script they no longer needed, a formality from a previous stage of their relationship, but he said it anyway.
"Of course," she said, her gaze unwavering. She knew he was lying. He knew she knew. And she knew that he knew. It was a strange, silent language of shared secrets they were becoming fluent in. "You should be more careful. Your aunt would be distressed if you were to injure yourself."
You would be distressed, was what she didn't say. But he heard it anyway.
She pushed off the doorframe and came to him, her bare feet silent on the floor. She took the coffee scoop from his hand and began to expertly prepare the machine, her movements economical and precise. He just watched, mesmerized by the simple, domestic act.
"You look tired," he said, his voice soft. And she did. There were faint, bruised-looking shadows under her eyes, and a certain weariness to her posture that hadn't been there before. Expending the power of a star to seal a wound in reality, he surmised, took a lot out of a girl.
"The archival request for the historical society was more… demanding than I anticipated," she replied, mirroring his own flimsy excuse. "It required a great deal of energy."
They stood in a comfortable silence as the coffee brewed, the rich, dark aroma filling the small room. This was a new kind of intimacy, one forged not in the heat of passion, but in the quiet, shared exhaustion of the morning after. It was the intimacy of soldiers in a trench, of partners who had survived something impossible together.
He went to take a shower while she poured the coffee, and when he came out, a towel slung around his waist, a steaming mug was waiting for him on her desk. She was dressed now, in a soft, comfortable-looking sweater and jeans, her hair combed into a semblance of order. She didn't avert her eyes as he walked, naked and dripping, to his own clothes. There was no shyness between them anymore, no artifice. Just a profound, easy acceptance.
"I have a theory," he said as he pulled on his shirt, wincing as the fabric pulled at a particularly nasty bruise on his ribs.
"I am always interested in your theories, Peter," she said, looking up from the book she had opened.
"I think your coffee might have actual restorative properties," he said, taking a deep, grateful sip from the mug. "This is a level of caffeine that borders on a superpower."
Her lips quirked into a genuine, beautiful smile. "I believe in using the proper tools for the task at hand. And today, the task is surviving a Monday."
They walked to their first class together, the campus a bustling, noisy world that felt distant and slightly unreal. The whispers and stares that had once been the focus of his anxiety now seemed like the buzzing of harmless insects. They were background noise. He and Diana were the signal, and today, their signal was a quiet, private frequency, understood only by them.
He felt the familiar aches in his body not as a weakness, but as a shared secret. He knew she felt them too. As they found their seats in the lecture hall, he saw her subtly stretch her shoulders, a movement so slight no one else would notice, but he saw the faint grimace of pain she couldn't quite hide.
Without thinking, he reached over, his hand settling on the tense muscle of her shoulder, and began to gently knead it, his thumb pressing into the knots of exhaustion. She leaned into his touch, a soft, almost inaudible sigh escaping her lips as some of the tension eased. Her own hand came to rest on his knee, her fingers giving a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
It was a simple, public act of care, an unspoken acknowledgment of the battle they had fought and the price they had paid. They were two heroes, hiding in plain sight, tending to each other's secret wounds. And in that quiet, shared touch, amidst the drone of a lecture they weren't listening to, Peter felt a sense of peace so profound it almost brought him to tears. He was in love, yes, but he was also something more. He was a partner. And he was not alone.
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