Two weeks of this—casted wrists, one snapped clean through like cheap plastic, the other a swollen purple mess of strained tendons—and the slowness had crawled inside him, burrowing deep.

Peter shifted on the narrow bed, the springs groaning under him like they were personally offended. You were fussing again, folding a fresh towel over the arm of the beat-up couch you'd dragged in here so you could "keep an eye on him" without hovering too obviously. He watched the careful way your fingers smoothed the fabric, the small crease between your brows that always appeared when you were trying not to look worried.

He loved that crease. Had loved it since you were kids trading mixtapes and sneaking into arcades after curfew. Loved how you never treated him like he was fragile, even now when he very much was.

His good hand (the left one, fingers barely able to curl without sending fresh sparks up his forearm) flexed uselessly against the blanket. The ache lower down was worse. Not just the wrists. The other ache. The one that had started as background noise and grown into a throbbing insistence, two weeks of nothing but frustration and the occasional humiliating grind against the mattress when the house was quiet. He was nineteen, mutant metabolism running hotter and faster than most, and his body had decided this was the perfect time to remind him how very human those needs still were.

He swallowed. The words had been building all afternoon, piling up like cars in rush-hour traffic while the rest of him idled. Now they sat heavy in his throat.

You turned, catching his stare. "What? You look like you're about to vibrate out of your skin. More than usual."

Peter huffed a laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yeah, well. Being stuck in slo-mo will do that to a guy." He dragged his tongue over dry lips. "Sit down for a sec? Like... actually sit. Not hover."

You did, perching on the edge of the mattress. The mattress dipped; his pulse kicked up like someone had hit fast-forward on his heart.

He stared at the ceiling cracks for a beat, counting them the way he used to count seconds when the world crawled. One. Two. Three. Then the dam broke.

"Yeah... uh. Got a favor. A big favor to ask ya." His voice cracked on the last word, too quick even for him. He winced. "I know this is a lot..."

You waited. No judgment in your eyes, just that steady thing you'd always given him, like you were the only fixed point when everything else blurred.

He rushed on anyway, words tumbling out in that familiar machine-gun cadence he couldn't turn off even when he wanted to. "And also that you did say you don't believe in blue balls that one time—like, back in '23 when we were arguing about dumb bro-science—and whatnot, but I haven't been able to 𝓳𝓮𝓻𝓴 𝓸𝓯𝓯 in a whole two weeks and I'm seriously dying. My d𝓲𝓬k friggin' hurts, dude. Like I might be developing a medical condition over here and I don't know what options I have left between humping the mattress like some desperate animal and making a mess I can't clean up or just asking you and praying you don't think I'm some perverted sicko, because I swear I'm not. I really swear. Would pinky promise if I could. I'm just... just desperate. Humiliatingly desperate."

Peter's face burned. He could feel the flush crawling down his neck, hot and stupid. He risked a glance. Your expression hadn't changed much but something flickered behind your eyes. Surprise, maybe. Then something warmer. Something that made the air between you feel thinner, charged.

He kept talking because stopping felt worse. "Look, I get it if this is a hard no. Like, nuclear-level no. I'll survive. Probably. Might just explode into a million frustrated pieces, but hey, mutant perk—maybe I'll regenerate or some shit." A weak grin tried to surface. "Kidding. Mostly."