Work Text:
“So, how do you say I love you in Spanish?”
Lifting an eyebrow and sensing something was cooking up despite the lack of proper spider senses, Miguel eyed Peter. As he expected, the man was looking straight at him, an elbow on the table and chin propped in his hand. A cocky smile was on his lips.
“You already know it,” Miguel answered hurriedly, a small puff of air escaping his lips as he looked back at his laptop. It was an early morning and, of course, he already had his hands full with work. If only he hadn’t slept with Peter that night, maybe he could have pulled an all-nighter and got the work done.
“No, I don’t.”
Instead, work had only piled up. Remembering how Peter had charmed him yet again, Miguel’s eyebrows met angrily at the center of his forehead.
“Then look it up. You know how Google works, right?”
Peter sprawled on the wood’s surface and his hands reached Miguel’s arm from across the table.
“You’re no fun.”
“I can be fun, ” he muttered back while typing a perfectly crafted business email and ignoring the man’s puffed cheeks — he was such a baby, “I just don’t want to.”
Strangely enough, those words were enough to grant Miguel fifty-seven seconds worth of blissful silence. Since it was almost a minute, he called it a victory, though he was unsure on its kind: a victory over Peter or over himself, who managed not to look in Peter’s direction for almost a minute?
That was much to consider. For another day.
“Oh, come on!” the man grumbled, pushing on the back of Miguel’s laptop’s screen to try and close it, “What if the translator gets it wrong and I end up telling you that I’d, I dunno, love to eat your face?”
To Miguel’s utter dismay, his own lips lifted ever so slightly. In retaliation to that, he shooed away Peter’s hand and resumed his writing. However, Peter had a different plan in mind, and said hand quickly tugged at the sleeve of the pink and soft nightgown Miguel was wearing. It was Peter’s, of course.
“All you normally say is nonsense, it’s not going to be Google Translate’s fault” was the answer Miguel settled with.
“That’s harsh,” Peter commented, lifting his free hand so that it could wrap around Miguel’s fingers, which twitched a little, “and also a lie, I know you enjoy it very much when I tell you how much of a good spiderman you are.”
“…That’s beside the point.”
“Nah, I don’t think so.”
Peter’s fingers caressed Miguel’s hand, effectively stopping it from his aggressive typing. Lifting his gaze up to the man’s face, Miguel was met by a smug yet tender smile.
“I have work to do,” he tried weakly.
“You tell me how to say I love you in Spanish and you won’t even notice I’m here.”
Miguel’s jaw clenched and his eyes drifted down to where their hands and fingers were now intertwined. Peter's hands were smaller than his but so much warmer.
“You can ask any machine translator.”
“It’ll screw it up.”
Miguel sighed and resigned himself to a few minutes of break from work. Still, he didn’t surrender just yet to Peter’s antics and, instead, quietly observed Peter’s fingers as they slowly moved up his wrist, slipping under the long sleeve. The rough pads of his fingertips brushed against the veins there, circling his spinneret.
A shiver ran down his spine.
“It won’t.”
“There’s a possibility it will,” Peter promptly countered, unimpressed by Miguel’s talons, which started to come out due to the physical stimuli, “Besides, what about the pronunciation, the intonation —”
“You can use a vocal synthesizer and you know it,” he gritted out, voice suddenly strained. He hated how quickly Peter could work him up.
“A human voice is better though,” Peter’s nails grazed against that spot and Miguel’s hand jerked, clasping around Peter’s while his talons caught on white skin, “more accurate.”
Miguel wanted to smack him in the face but resisted the urge.
“Really,” he said flatly, glaring in his direction.
Peter, however, conscious of what he was awakening in him — which was a dangerous cauldron of boiling anger, arousal, and affection — pressed on:
“Pretty please?” he blinked his brown and big eyes at him, trying to coax him into agreeing with whatever was happening, and it worked wonderfully, “How do you say I love you in Spanish?”
The way he marked those words was incredibly annoying and yet Miguel’s heart missed a beat. The tips of his fangs bit down on his bottom lip.
He sighed, shoulders slumped down in defeat.
He withdrew his hands from the other’s touch and secured them over his chest, arms crossed in his usual defensive stance. He knew Peter was up to something, that knowledge had stayed in the back of his mind the whole time, but its voice was so thin and far away that he couldn’t hear it anymore. And so, work forgotten and common sense out of the window, Miguel’s lips parted.
He breathed in, chest heaving.
“Te quiero ,” he exhaled, looking everywhere but at Peter, “You can say te quiero . But also…” his voice dropped in a hoarse whisper, “ Te amo.”
Silence. Silence which stretched for endless seconds.
Miguel’s head snapped towards Peter.
“Are you satisfie—”
And his words got stuck in his throat along with his heart.
What appeared in front of him was Peter’s brightest smile. His whole face lifted with the curve of his lips, teeth showing and wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.
“You’ve said it,” he murmured, incredulous, “Oh my God, I can’t believe it.”
He giggled, brushing his messy hair back and then massaging his stubble while still smiling, shiny eyes locked on Miguel.
And then it hit him. Miguel realized Peter’s foolish plan. It was the easiest, the most obvious thing in the world and yet he didn’t catch it earlier; he fell right into his web and— confessed. For the first time.
“Me too.”
It was too late now.
His scorching cheeks were already cupped by Peter’s hands and the man, who basically stepped on the table to fully reach him, kissed him sweetly.
“I love you too.”
~
It took Miguel an hour and seven minutes, but after his brain recovered from the short circuit it experienced, he gave Peter a thorough lesson in Spanish swear words.