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“Hey, Pete! Look at what I found!”
Steph pulls her hands out of the box of Halloween decorations that Peter had discovered under the pile of junk that Ted called a storage closet. Her treasure? A collection of decoration spiders.
There were spiders to attach to fake cobwebs, spiders to perch on shelves, and spiders attached to strings to hang from the ceiling. Spiders galore!
“Oh fuck yeah! Would you like to do the honours of choosing where it goes?”
Steph’s already spreading them across Ted’s apartment, taking great care in her placement of each spider even though she’s very clearly buzzing with excitement.
Without even looking at him, she starts rattling off fun facts, “Did you know that spiders are actually nearsighted? And that they have special hairs at the end of their legs and that’s why they don’t get stuck on their own webs?”
Peter just sits back and watches her run around with a fond smile on his face. One thing that he’d learned while dating Steph was that she loved spiders. She talks all the time about getting a pet tarantula and how she’d take such good care of it, always doing research for the conditions that she would keep it in and how to keep it enriched and everything.
It makes sense if you think about it. Steph really does seem like the kind of person to like spiders.
“Peter! Are you even listening to me?”
He looks up to see Steph staring down at him, hands on her hips and a playful smirk on her face. Looking up a little further, Peter sees a spider perched precariously on her head which is really fucking cute.
“Of course I am!” Peter puts his hands up in mock surrender, “I love listening to your cool spider facts!”
“Oh yeah?” Steph’s grin grows a little more devious and nervous butterflies erupt in his stomach, “How about a really cool spider fact?”
She hovers her nails in front of his face, each one painted with a little spider on it in the Halloween spirit.
“Did you know that some spiders actually feed off of laughter?”
Uh oh.
Peter shrinks back a little in his seat, anticipatory giggles already leaking out, “Steheheph! Wait a minute! You don’t have to dohoho this!”
She just places herself on his lap, sliding her arms around his neck and giving him a quick kiss before leaning close to his ear and whispering,
“But how can I resist a cute little fly all caught up in my web?”
The teasing just makes his red face already redder, and Peter immediately bursts into giggles as her nails start scribbling over his neck, spidering down to his shoulder blades and skittering everywhere she can reach on his back.
“Steheheheph! Wahahahait!”
The light tracing has him burying his face in her shoulder, which doesn’t block out the fond laughter that has his blush spreading up to his ears.
“Awwww, don’t worry little fly,” She coos, “I won’t keep you trapped in my web for too long!” Her fingers trail up to his ears, chasing the warmth Peter can already feel, “Just long enough that my little spiders can have their fill.”
Little squeaks start punctuating his laughter, and yet he still doesn’t pull away.
“And honey,” Steph leans closer, breath ghosting over his neck and making him squeal, “I could just eat you up.”
It took a little longer than anticipated to get all the spiders put up. Peter can’t really bring himself to mind all that much.