desiderium | m. o'hara

twenty-seven*

  I hang my head back and groan. "Fine." I bring my knee from the chair, slide my hands from his, and lean against the lab bench with my arms crossed. "Let's go to work and be boring, I guess."

  Miguel slips on his shirt with a small smirk. I watch forlornly as his beautiful skin is hidden from view. He peeks up at me, the red of his eyes spliced through black lashes, and settles the hem of his shirt over his hips with deft flicks of his hands.

  "You're adorable when you're needy, hermosa," he drawls. I roll my eyes.

The Spider-HQ is quiet today. There's no new anomalies detected so most Spideys remain in their own realities to deal with their own normal-world villains. Even Jess and Peter haven't come in.

I spin myself in circles on my desk chair, bored out of my mind. I have writer's block on my current project and nothing seems to be clicking in my brain, so no juices are flowing, so no ideas have sprung. Miguel plays sentry on his tall platform and curbs his fidgeting by squeezing a hand grip.

  It's a stupid report to get stuck on, too. The subject is Spider-Man, it should be easy. I'm just having trouble not making it too intimate. It's hard to pretend not to know someone - and it's even harder when said someone is the father of my daughter and wakes beside me every morning.

  My socks stop my spinning and my hands fly across my laptop's keyboard. The clacks fill the silence, covers the low drone of machinery.

  Tall, dark and handsome. Annoying. Egotistical. I squint my eyes and tap my nail on the mousepad. Fantastic in bed.

  My index holds backspace. The incriminating words are erased.

  "Miguito." I hang my head back with a groan. "What do you do for writer's block?"

  Miguel keeps squeezing his hand grip and watching his realities. "I'm not a writer."

  "Hypothetically."

  "Hypothetically, I don't know."

  "That's a first," I grumble under my breath. Miguel shoots me a narrow-eyed look from above and I return it with an innocent smile.

  I struggle silently for another twenty minutes before admitting defeat. I shut my laptop lid with a groan and drop my head onto it for good measure, too. Then I groan again, because I really am fucked if I can't get this piece done.

  The quiet sound of Miguel's feet hitting the floor makes me turn onto my cheek and watch his approach. My hair is a mess. I feel a mess.

  Miguel rests a fist on my desk and tucks my hair from my face with gentle amusement. "¿Está bien, amor?"

  "No estoy bien," I grumble pitifully. Miguel smiles sympathetically and strokes my hair, and it feels nice but I'm still deep in the pits. "I've forgotten how to write." I turn my face back into my laptop and whine. "Why was I ever hired?"

  "Oh, cariño, you're being silly," Miguel says soothingly. My disagreement is muffled by plastic. "You are. I think it's you who needs a break, now."

  He scoops my frowning face from the laptop lid and pulls me back into my seat. My head lulls into his stomach with a whinge.

  "Do you want to go to the cafeteria?" he suggests as he strokes my cheeks with his thumbs. At my disinterested harrumph, he tries again. "You could always shove a mask on and I can take you someplace new?"

  My eyes slowly open with intrigue. "... what kind of place?"

  Miguel grins down at me, triumphant in my turn of attitude. "Somewhere that I know you'll love. Y/n showed it to me."