𝐂𝐈𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐘 ━ peter parker

ⅱ. "strange sex addicts from Gotham"

◦

ㅤㅤㅤHE COULD PRACTICALLY  feel his heart stop. It was like a blackhole, the quiet that followed as Dick's mouth fell open in an attempt to take back the heinous mistake that just slipped from it.

"Wait! No, I mean- that's not..." Dick tried helplessly to correct himself, arms falling to his side miserably as he trailed off. The stranger's face twisted uncomfortably, mouth swinging shut with a clack of his teeth. "I didn't mean to say that."

"Does that mean I don't have to answer?" The other boy questioned, and he sounded just as scared and off-put as Dick felt. He shifted slightly in his seat.

"Not unless the answer's 'I want to'," the Grayson boy grinned before he could stop himself and oh boy. What was wrong with him? He quickly stumbled over himself to back-track as his ears picked up on what he'd just said. "Okay no, that was- I'm so sorry, I promise I'm not a creep I just..."

Brown eyes pooled with confusion as they watched him suffer and Dick had to glance away, feeling oddly spited. Was this what embarrassment felt like? He couldn't see his own face, but if it reflected any of the disgust written on the other boy's Dick just knew it wasn't a good look on him.

"Look," he tried to awkwardly adjust, "it's a long story and this guy – not my dad, I mean he's like my dad but not? Anyway, we're not related – we were... there was this button and – oh god, can I blame this on jet lag please?"

"Jet lag?"

Dick miserably sucked in a breath of air, scratching at his temple. "I flew in from Gotham like three hours ago."

"You're from Gotham," the stranger reiterated, staring at him blankly. Their posture straightened, the knowledge that Dick was a Gothamite even more of a reason to get ready to run. "And you want to have an orgy... with me?"

"What! I just told you I didn't -"

"Not with me, then?" the other teen breathed out, relieved, and Dick watched the terse muscles in his shoulders relax some beneath his nerdy t-shirt. Dick felt the scowl creeping onto his face before he could prevent it, folding his arms across his chest. "With Liz?"

"That's all you got from that whole thing?" He asked, perturbed and only slightly confused. "That I'm some weirdo-freak from Gotham desperate for a quickie with a bunch of strangers?"

The boy stared at him with wide, owlish eyes. "Are you?"

"No!" Dick snapped, dropping his arms to his side as he resisted the urge to throttle the kid.

"Oh," they replied, and Dick was beginning to get some serious dejavu. If the conversation - could it even be called that? - was going to keep going in these circles of confused shame, he didn't think he wanted to stay much longer.

"Right," he parroted the other boy's previous words. "Oh."

Silence over came them for a moment, broken only by the clattering of ceramics that could be heard, dimmed by the swinging doors to the café's kitchen. The other boy - the dude who wasn't a model but totally could be - had fallen to quietly fiddling with the yellow blazer thrown over the arm of the couch beside him. It clashed horribly with the red leather but Dick didn't feel incredibly inclined to point that out, considering how badly every other attempt to open his mouth had gone with this guy around.

In fact, past forgetting the route to wherever the hell Teen Vogue had set up their makeshift studio, Dick didn't even know why he was still stood there. Other people were around, he could probably go back down and ask the receptionist again. It was highly probable that one of the staff on this level would know where he was supposed to go. Dick could just leave, forget all about this encounter and bow his head with shame when Alfred asked why #DickGraysonTheSexAddict was trending.