//------------------------------//
// Match Making (5) 
// Story: Super Pony Roomies 
// by TheManehattanite 
//------------------------------//


12


“—and then the archbishops says to Princess Celestia, that’s alright, in fact I thought it was the chimp!” Snappy Scoop said and reared back on her haunches with laughter. 

Peter and Rocky didn’t move. Snappy wiped her eyes and took a few deep breaths. 

“First time I’ve heard that version,” Rocky said eventually, carefully. 

“What,” Peter tried not to growl as he gripped the seat to keep from launching himself at her, “did that have to do with anything?”

“Maybe Flash Powder tells it better.” Snappy shrugged. “Oh, whoops, shouldn’t’ve said her name, huh? There’s this guy chasin’ real photojournalists around.”

“Snappy Scoop, journalist,” Peter sneered. “Congrats, you just told a joke that’s actually funny.”

“Knock it off,” Rocky said. It might’ve been better if he’d shouted. Like it’d make Peter feel he was worth getting angry at instead of whatever this was. 

This was him and good old Snappy sat in front of Rocky’s desk going through what happened, a scene that’d played out with different variations across their careers. Rocky had always been patient, but mostly because he didn’t care what either of them did as long as it didn’t come back to the office. Peter suspected the technique was mostly to get the defendant to embarrass themselves to death, which depended on ponies like Snappy having shame. 

She was looking between them awkwardly, though. This felt different to her too. 

“Flash Powder,” Rocky prompted. 

Snappy shrugged. “Sold me some stuff for Quo’s new series.”  

“What kind of stuff?” Rocky almost sounded bored. 

“Magic, long range stuff.” Snappy was pretending to play with her hat brim now. 

“Oh for—!” Peter sprang to all fours, almost toppling his own chair over. “You see what this is, right? She’s flat out spying!” 

“That’s one interpretation.” Impassive canine face. 

“You’re taking her side?!” 

“Didn’t say that,” Rocky said, his calm blasting the satisfaction off Snappy’s face like chalk dust. 

“Rocky, c’mon! The toffs Stats wants to go after? They might pack a bunch’a funny chins, but they’ve also got serious poker faces! The Bugle wants to know what Prince Blueblood’s up to, it’s gonna have to dig through Celestia, probably literally, knows how much security! Through walls, Rocky!” 

“Wait...” Peter squinted, thrown by the rare and elusive passionate Snappy. “What’s Blueblood up to?”

“You don’t work here anymore.” 

It was a perfectly reasonable position. Like a  textbook golf stroke. And Rocky saying it may as well have been a 9-wood upside his head. Peter tried not to squirm in his seat. 

“Yeah, well, some of us’ve still gotta make a living.” Snappy folded her forelegs sullenly. 

“Butting into other ponies’ private lives?” 

“That’s not what The Bugle does,” Rocky rumbled.

C’mon man! Peter was convinced the windows should have blown out from the sound in his head. Yell at me! Bark! Growl! Chew me out! This Mount Lavan routine has to be some kinda Genieghva convention violation! 

“Snappy on the other paw.” Rocky swivelled to her, making her flinch so hard her hat almost fell off. “So, Flash Powder sets you up with some equipment and one of the filthiest jokes I’ve heard in almost three decades on this job. Then what?”

“I kinda. Sorta. Just.” 

Rocky exhaled through his nose to make his granite features soften into something almost like their usual imperturbable lines. Snappy swallowed as the pressure of his gaze lightened just enough for her to pick up the pace. 

“Well. Like. Saw Princess Twilight?”

“Having lunch.” A paw almost the size of Peter’s head went up, a sudden wall in the path of the accelerating soap box derby cart of his anger. It was weird, knowing he was in one piece and yet like fragments of him were scattered all over El Camino Royal. 

“Yep.” Snappy couldn’t break eye contact if she’d tried. 

“Did you notice Trotter was there?”

“Nope.” Snappy shook her head to try and get those brown blackholes out of her soul. Didn’t work. “Not until I developed the shots.”

Peter tried to read what was in the diamond dog’s eyes, but it was like he was a dust particle trying to attract the attention of a planet. Trotter? Rocky only ever used his surname when he was putting professional distance between them to protect him from the Crime King’s goons or something. 

“Let me put it another way. Would you still have taken the shots if you’d known?”

“This is stupid!” 

“Would you?” 

“Yeah, alright?!” Snappy rocked forward, almost sending her seat through the floor. Peter was too stunned to flinch. “A princess! Right there! In a diner! Pure Manehattan!” 

She rounded on Peter, almost decapitating him with her hat brim. He flinched. 

“And y’know what? Even if it ain’t news I’d still’ve done it,  ‘cause I don’t care what you think! One of us is a photographer and it ain’t you!”

It wasn’t the first time she’d used that kind of line but usually it was an insinuation, one more wisecrack in a nonstop stream that made Spider-banter look like amateur hour. Ponies with marks in specific fields could be kinda primal about it. As much as he’d like to believe this was just one more way Snappy was trying to shed responsibility like dead skin… 

“A photographer who could have potentially opened us up to a suit by the crown.” 

“Oh, come on! Luna threatened to launch us into orbit ‘til she saw the copy, you seriously think we wouldn’t know if Twilight was mad?! She’s got a dragon, Rocky!” 

“Did you ask if you could take those photos?” It wasn’t really a question. 

“No!” Snappy folded her forelegs petulantly. “Didn’t ask to get hunted down for ‘em either.”

Peter began to reach for her. “You—!”

“Sit,” Rocky said so sharply he could practically taste metal in the air as he obeyed. “The Bugle doesn’t invade people’s private lives. But it’s employees have rules to follow.”

“razafraza y’gh w’ll,” Snappy muttered, hat brim conspicuously covering her eyes, “, frikafraka rules.”

“Did you identify yourself to the party in the photos?” 

“No!” Snappy scowled, though it was wobbling. “And I’ve done this enough to know I don’t gotta!” She pulled her brim back down. “Technically.”

“Technically if the lady wants to press charges, she can.” Rocky pointedly pushed a Canterlot cake tier sized manual towards her. But was now looking at Peter. “It’d be as flimsy as someone’s case to chase you through the building, but she’d be within her rights.” 

Maybe I’ll get lucky and Poison Pony’ll break out of the Stockade today, Peter thought. Karma, but with enough head trauma I’ll forget this nightmare. 

“Man,” Snappy tried to rally, “when was the last time Princess Celestia—?”

“1952,” Rocky said as promptly as a bullet to the head. “So, you just saw her, grabbed some shots and trotted off. Without saying anything.” 

“What’s to say?!” Snappy almost whined. 

Peter tried not to suck his lips all the way into his face as Rocky’s glance snapped to him, confirming this was not going to be the universe where he pounced on that opening. 

“Hi folks, I work for The Derby Bugle!” Both ponies almost leapt into each other’s laps at the sudden faux brightness in the editor’s voice. “Mind if I take your picture? It’s for Status Quo, haha, yeah, that Status Quo! Sun upon you all!” 

He sat back, paws spread. “How hard would it really have been, Snappy?”

The paparazzo mumbled something Peter couldn’t quite make out, not that he could blame her. That canine smile was still burned into his brain, welding his own jaw Canterlot vault grade shut. 

“Would it be easier if you had to say it to the whole bullpen?” 

Oh sun and moon, he’d do it. He totally would. 

“They were…y’know.” Snappy was trying to get the brim and a lock of her hair in the way now. “At lunch. Relaxing an‘ stuff. Woulda thrown off the composition.”

All Peter could do was blink. Snappy Scoop wasn’t contrite. Snappy Scoop didn’t try and bury sentimentality in mercenary logic. Stones did not bleed. The moon was not made of cheese. The C-train did not run on time. What was this? 

“But you took it anyway.” 

“Yeah,” Snappy sighed. “But you ran it.” 

“Of course we did, it’s a good picture.” Rocky sat up. “You’re a good photog Snappy, that’s why we ran it. But a good photojournalist would’ve asked. Okay?”

Snappy managed a smile even though she looked like she was half on the verge of tears. “Okay.” 

“Back to work,” Rocky said. 

Snappy glanced at Peter uncertainly, the unspoken apology wavering in the air between before she realised there was no real point, hopping off the chair and trying not to gallop full tilt out of the office. He got it, he didn’t want to be around for this either. 

“We—?” he started and coughed because his voice was raspy from disuse. “Well?”

“Well what?” Rocky asked, gathering up some of the papers he was always carrying around. 

“It’s my turn, right?” Peter blinked, since moistening his eyeballs felt like the only real preparation he could do. “I mean, I chased her through the whole building. Made a lot of threats. I crawled through the vents to get to her, Rocky.”

“Yeah, there might be a bill at some point.” Rocky stood up, strolling to the door as he flipped through his latest papers. He paused at the door, half turned politely to Peter, waiting. 

“That’s it?” Peter snapped incredulously. “You’re not gonna…? Flattop would’ve been lecturing me about back in his day by now!” 

“Ferocious knows you’re in the building,” Rocky said, unsmiling. “The entire building knows you’re in the building. And I don’t doubt he’ll have the usual lectures cued up for Snappy and Status Quo for neglecting to mention Ms. Sparkle didn’t know she’d be on page ten today.”

“But I almost bring the building down on everypony and he lets me just trot off into the sunset?! Are we talking about the same guy?” 

“Yes,” Rocky sighed. “It’s just that you don’t work here anymore.”

He doesn’t think your pettiness is WORTH getting angry about. 

And Rocky guilts Snappy Scoop, SNAPPY SCOOP, into admitting she knows better, but doesn’t have to care if you do or not. Not anymore. 

Without a word, shame weighing each step, Peter clambered off his seat and made for the door. Maybe he’d get lucky and it’d be so heavy he snapped the elevator cable when he got on. 

“Peter,” Rocky said reluctantly, startling him. “Look, whatever this is…I don’t want to hear it, but have you tried talking to Twilight about it? She’s good people. She’ll understand.” 

“Yeah,” Peter managed, sounding as jaunty as someone in the middle of being stabbed. “Maybe. Um. Bye.”

“Take care.” The worst part was even after everything he’d just done the old dog meant it.

Talk to her. Right. He liked talking to Twilight. Loved talking to Twilight. So just talk to her. 


***


Talk to her about how he loved what they had so much he’d hunted down Snappy Scoop for mildly intruding on it. Talk about how this was really just because the intrusion had reminded him how fragile he was making it. Talk about how this was because the more their relationship went on, the more he had to tell her. 

Tell her. Tell her. 

Just talk to her. She’d understand, right? 

He’d left the costume on that recording studio’s air conditioner, right? Right. 


13


“—and then Princess Celestia s-says…sorry!” Rarity wheezed, lifting the glass to her lips because she was too shaky to trust her telekinesis. “She, oooh, she says oh, that’s quite alright, your grace! In fact, I thought it was the orangutan!” 

Her laughter spiked from the shock of Johnnycake’s head briefly bursting into flame. He waved apologetically at the other diners, breath hitching through the hoof clamped over his mouth. 

“Awwww man! I’m starting to understand why you and Rainbow are friends!” 

“Mmm, doubt it.” Rarity sat back in her seat, frowning slightly. It had felt a little stiff for a moment and the way her chest was still pulsing she could use a little flexibility. “Can’t say Peter’s particular brand of repartee is for me--”

“It’s not for anypony,” Johnny agreed, nodding sombrely. 

“Oh behave! But you two have even more history than we do by the sound of it. Surely you must have more in common then just…ah, what was the term he keeps using?” 

“The business?” 

“That was it.”

“Because after a while it’s more like a job, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t, but I can relate,” Rarity smiled ruefully. “It’s honestly like those nature retreats they used to force us on back in 6th grade. Not that I mind, nothing gets the creativity flowing like a good adventure! It’s just that it was nice to get invited to a national holiday and not wonder if it’s going to bring the sky down on our heads.” 

“We tend to have guys in power armour come through the wall. Breaks up symposiums, though.” He gestured to her plate. “Everything okay?”

“Mmm?” She looked down at her half-eaten meal. “Oh, no, this place is divine, just got side-tracked.” 

“Could reheat that if you like?” 

A flash in her eye he instantly wanted to see more of. “…go on then.” 

Suffusing low level thermal energy into the ceramics of the plate didn’t really have much of a visual effect beyond maybe a slight haze, but what was the point of a life without sometime literal flare? Johnny’s hoof glowed golden as he reached over, gently touching the tip of her plate. Rarity smiled at the smells wafting up into her face. 

Johnny returned to his own meal, smugness shimmering off him in time with slight steam from her plate. “Sorry, where were we?”

“You and Peter.” Rarity enjoyed a nicely warm zucchini. “You must be more than work friends if you’re living together now.” 

“Well, guy did lose his apartment to a giant robot attack.” 

“♪That’s not an answer!♪” One of his kabobs levitated off his plate to hover in front of his face like a wagging finger before Rarity took a bite. 

“Yeah, but is it date talk?” He raised a brow even though he was kinda asking for real. 

“You brought up my friends first.”

“Fair!” He contemplated the ceiling for a bit, pushing through the mental paperwork for why the sky was blue. “Pete’s been round almost since the beginning, I guess. Like, we totally broke and set the mould on day one, but you can’t think Manehattan without your friendly neighbourhood you know who!” 

She raised a brow. “So it’s a territorial thing?” 

“It used to be. Y’know we only met because he tried to get a job?”

“With your…organisation?” Rarity looked a little nonplussed. 

“Family,” Johnny said automatically but not defensively. “And by try, I mean he broke into our penthouse and tried to prove we should hire him by beating us up.” 

“No!” Rarity’s levitated fork jolted in mid-air, accidentally flinging its morsel across the room and out an open window, sending up the screeching of tires and breaking metal. “Are we talking about the same pony?”  

“Yeah, but this is way back when,” Johnny grinned. “You’ve gotta understand, this was all new. Absolutely no rules! Well, apart from don’t break into my house and demand I pay you for it.”

“Well, you’ve met Rainbow Dash but perhaps I should introduce you to Pinkie Pie sometime.” A bit of snake in her smile there. He liked that. “So, then you butted heads in a pointless game of one-upmanship until you realised you actually liked each other, yes?”

“See, I would’ve told you but since you’re all presumptuous right now I think I’ll drag it out until date 100.” 

“Well you’ll have to keep things lively somehow.” Rarity winked. “I do enjoy a good puzzle though. I’m sure Twilight’s worn a groove in the library floor wondering how to ask you two for a friendship study.” 

“A what study?” Johnny said like a cartographer who’s just been told they’ve been drawing mountains back to front for years. 

“It’s her speciality,” Rarity beamed. “Oh, don’t look like that, it’s how she earned her wings! She just looks at how ponies work together and jots it all down. I admit I’ve skimmed but it’s fascinating stuff!” 

“Looks at them doing what?”

“The clue is in the name, darling.” 

“Oh yeah?” Johnny smirked back. “Wonder what River Reeds thinks of your friend’s speciality.” 

“Does it really matter?” Rarity cocked her head sweetly. “He doesn’t have wings.”

“Eh, he could probably grow ‘em.”

“Oh right, he’s the rubber one isn’t he? Sorry, I don’t really keep up with your, uh, business.”

“No that’s healthy, trust me. You should see the kind of people who do!”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Not a fan of your own fanbase then?”

“You’re telling me there aren’t ponies who’re way too into your whole Elements…thing?”

“Um…” Rarity also contemplated the ceiling for a beat. There had been that delicious autograph phase after Discord, and she could still summon the thrill of declining offers of free food and products after the defeat of Nightmare Moon if she really tried. Maybe it was how often their adventures were followed by parties, blurring everything together. “Not that I know of, really.” 

“Seriously? They’re sleeping on you girls?” Johnny shook his head. “Man, gratitude in this kingdom, I’m tellin’ ya!” 

“Stop!” Rarity chuckled, waving a dismissive hoof as a reverse Keep Going signal. “You were just telling me disinterest is healthy!” 

“Well yeah, but once you get past me, the rest of the family, who’ve you really got? Arrowhead? Iron Hoof? Pete?” 

No mention of the Elements Rarity noted, despite the previous flattery. 

“Captain Adventure,” she said with the power and precision of a blow dart. 

She tried not to grin like Chrysalis at the Without-a-Parachute expression on Johnny’s face, then remembered who they both were and stopped trying. 

“Well that’s…Cap, she’s…the thing about Cap is…that is to say…” He snatched up his glass for a delaying sip, which was as good a surrender as anything else. She could afford to take a little pity. 

“We’ve both got a lot to be grateful for.” Rarity let more warmth into her softening expression, taking his hoof. 

“We do?” Johnny blinked. He was touching back but she could see it in those rather spiffy blue eyes, an almost Twilightesque blankness. 

“I’d like to think so! Destiny might spring out of the bushes at us a lot, but we’ve both gotten to see generous slices of the world, we know what we’re good at and we have so much more than just the, uh, business!”

Johnny blinked again. It was like that one time during Twilight’s first few weeks, when they’d turned up at the library to invite her along shopping and she’d just stood there for almost five minutes, until a Spike nudge prompted her to ask “So you…don’t want any…books, then?” Like she’d been skipping along until the question created a spontaneous canyon across her personal yellow brick road. 

“Our friends and families?” Rarity prompted, feeling her face redden on his behalf. 

“Right. Right!” Johnny sounded so relieved at the sight of this life raft she felt a bit like he ought to be physically throwing himself across the table towards her. She felt a pulse of warmth in his hoof like a spike in heartbeat. “Family.” 

“And friends,” Rarity tried before she could stop herself. 

“Absolutely!” Johnny said, reminding her of Spike assuring her he was 100% certain he hadn’t mixed Opalescence’s deworming medication into Photo Finish’s tea instead of those marvellous herbal tablets Zecora made. 

“Although I suppose that’s more of a first, second date kind of topic?” She gave his hoof a little squeeze to stop it feeling strange they were still holding each other’s. “That’s way it usually goes, isn’t it? Who’re your friends, how’d you get your cutie mark, where were you the night that one old mares tail turned out to be real?”

“Wakanda, actually,” Johnny smiled, the self-assurance in it making her feel alright letting go of his hoof. “Long story.” 

“For another, perhaps more official time then.” Rarity took a sip of her own drink, grateful that she could now frown because of the distracting niggle in her brain. “Wakanda? The cat place?”

“Panthers,” Johnny corrected distractedly through a mouthful of panzanella-pistou fusion. “We’re friends with their royal family.” 

“The Panther Prince?!” Rarity felt the volume of her voice almost lift her out of her seat, only held in place by that infernal stiffness. She blushed at the diners turning to stare but focused on Johnny’s bemusement. “Sorry! Well, no, you want to talk about a costume? All that black! Elegance and simplicity! Like a tuxedo made flesh!” 

“Flesh. Right,” Johnny smirked. “Could introduce you if you like.” 

“Mmm, Applejack was talking about starting a royalty bucket list.” She’d already taken his hoof hadn’t she, drat it all. “But I think one super pony at a time is a better idea.” 

“Technically he’s not a super pony.” Johnny was smiling but there was a bit of Rainbow Dash when she talked about the Wonderbolts. Now that she (sometimes) went out for drink with them, not the early race play-by-play stuff when she’d been the new girl. Genuine respect. “It’s more a habit than a costume.”

“Darling trust me, if I could pull off that look as well as he does I’d make it a habit too.”

“Nice!” Johnny laughed. 

“Thank you. So! How did you meet the royal family of one of the most mysterious nations on the planet?” To Tartarus with the game. Enjoy a story, enjoy each other. 

“Kind of a…reverse Spidey.” Johnny frowned, the way they all did when having to explain a Pinkie party. Both having to be there and also just now realising how this sounded out loud to normal people. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, he invited us over to his house so he could beat us up.” 

Rarity didn’t blink because it would have been rude but also because her entire body was too nonplussed to move for a few beats. “I see,” she lied. 

Johnny shrugged. Not like he didn’t get this was weird, just like when they gave up trying to explain Harmony to everypony else. Better to just says what you were going to and let the other party walk it off. “It was sort of a vengeance thing.”

“Before you’d met?!” 

“Oh, not against us! He’d gotten his crown, powers, whatever his deal is, like…a couple of months ago? And wanted to see if he really had what it took to keep the homeland safe! The jerk who took down his dad was back and look, I get how this sounds but when you think about it from the point of view of a guy who can enter a coma to talk to the ghosts of his forefathers…”

“No, but it helps that I met most of my friends in some kind of rubble or another.” Rarity smiled fondly. “And at least one near apocalypse!” 

“And we both know you get used to those,” Johnny smiled, but it was a little distant. “Sorry.”

Rarity blinked. “For?” 

“This is turning into kind of a work thing. It’s sort of my policy to wait a lot longer than this before, y’know, talking about how I had to look up Galactaurus’ nose before I went to college.”

“No, no, it’s quite alright,” Rarity said a little too quickly, feeling like she was sliding off a rolling log even though the infernal chair was still so stiff! “It’s a big part of your life! I…that is…well, I’m sort of in the same line myself. I know what it’s like to have to, you know, adapt.”

“Adapt?” Johnny repeated. 

Not angrily, which she was grateful for, patronising him was the last thing she’d want to do. But he genuinely didn’t know what she meant. Which was a problem. 

“Uh, you need me to…?” He was gesturing at her plate again. 

Rarity look down at her still unfinished (though scrummy!) ratatouille and risotto. Decimated food. How this was going. Shame this wasn’t a book and that Twilight had gone home, they could’ve kvetched over the cliché together. 

“Once was fine, thank you. It’s fine.” 

“So.” Johnny searched her eyes, trying to buy time. She knew that trick a little too well. “How about them Wonderbolts, huh?”

Okay, that wasn’t bad.

“Oh who knows, it’s like are you a rescue force or a sports team?” Rarity made a show of rolling her eyes, both to break eye contact and to show them off. “Although that’s unfair, Rainbow has explained how that works quite succinctly.”

“She’ll probably skin me for this but what the hay, there’s a long line.” 

Johnny leaned in, grinning again. Rarity enjoyed the little thrill of the closeness and the still warmth of the bite she’d taken. 

“History was her best subject.”

“In flight school?” Rarity swallowed perfectly but felt oddly like she’d been punched in the ear. “Hmm. That...I will admit, that does make a certain amount of sense, yes. She knows a fair bit about military history, actually.”

“I mean, her papers were never great but if you need to know which ‘Bolt had to go to the Hauge for Totally Awesome weather war crimes…” Johnny shrugged fondly. “She just soaks that stuff up, but if you put a textbook in front of her she’d start to get this look on her face. Like somepony told her breezies caused the Hindenburg.” 

Rarity clamped her pony-pedi over her lips to stop spraying the table with half chewed salad. “Ahem! Are you interested in flying at all? I know that sounds silly but your, uh, gifts…?”

“I believe the expression is It’s the Coolest.” Genuine grin and a warmth to it she felt more than his actual flames. “Maybe it was just being that young but that first lift off… Didn’t even matter when I crash landed! Still never gets old. Even having to renew my licence every couple of years is great. You know that feeling you get, when you know you shouldn’t be doing something?”

“Maybe,” Rarity smiled. 

“Imagine being able to carry that in your pocket.”  Flashing in those blue eyes. Not aimed at her but also fully addressing her. “All the time.” 

“I know there’s other people in your pretentious quote business pretentious unquote who can do it without wings…actually, you know, Twilight was talking about amplifying levitation magic just before…Anyway, do you talk to anypony about it? Flying.” She let a bit of her mother into her smirk. “Because it’s adorable how into it you are!”

“Sometimes!” Johnny nodded, smiling but looking contemplatively at his own meal. “Man, lemme think. There’s the old gang at flight school, obviously. Does, ah, does Dash ever talk about them?”

“She doesn’t tend to.” Rarity waved her fork in a demonstrative circle. “About flight school in general, I mean. You know, dropping out and all.”

“She did?” Johnny blinked. He looked like the floor under him and the rest all the way to the subway had vanished and left a polite note to just hang there until they got back. “That year? Like, I heard she’d left but I thought… Really? She never said anything!” 

“Why would she?” Rarity shrugged and took a sip of cucumber water. “But you were saying?”

“Huh? Oh!” Johnny shook his head as if trying to shake off a slap. Rarity could swear sparks came out his ears. “Ah, yeah, it’s neat to talk about flying with them, other folks in the business. The Falcon’s got some amazing tips! Always been really together, for a stallion sharing his brain with a bird.” 

“I won’t ask,” Rarity smiled. “I refuse to.”

“Spoilsport. Oh! And then there’s my old college roomie.” He held her gaze for just the right amount of time to make her wonder if it had been a causal thing before playing his card. “Soarin’.”

“No!” Rarity’s fork missed her plate and almost slashed open the tablecloth. “You’re not going to tell me he tried to beat you up first too, are you?”

“Nah, we had to get to know each other.” Johnny leaned back casually but fondly. Rarity envied how much more co-operative his chair seemed. “Lotta good times! Dash and I had some adventures, but even back then Soarin’ was good enough to tag along with us on stuff.”

“Oh?”

“He needed the money for school, you see.”

“Ah.”

“And the on the job danger probably didn’t hurt his résumé for the ‘Bolts either. It’s weird, we don’t run into each other as often as we should. His boss doesn’t like us, guys like Pete even less, but the last time I saw him was a few weeks ago, when we were talking about how to take down a fake Asgardian death-robot, and he spent most of the time unconscious.” 

He took a bite of a panzanella stuffed bread roll, as if he considered his oldest friend’s possible concussion the same thing as an irritating whistling habit. Rarity got the feeling he probably did. 

“So outside of other people in the business…”

“Pretentious unquote.” Johnny dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, throwing her off her game a little with the grace. 

“Ah-ha, yes, quite, outside of the business is there…anypony…?” Rarity hesitated, unsure if she should even ask. Partly because she had an unsettling feeling she knew what the answer was. 

“Anypony who…?” Johnny prompted with a politeness that was worse. It was like ‘Adapt?’ but strapped to a precarious bolder. 

Suddenly his 4 crest flashed staccato blue with almost visible radio signals, like an action figure toppling off a bedside table and onto that one button.  They both flinched, Rarity turning to glare at her chair as she felt the start of a stabbing crick in her neck.

“Sorry!” Johnny called, slapping a hoof over the thing to muffle the light and sound, his voice addressing her but raised for the whole room. “That’ll be my sister. She has this weird thing about taking time out of active war zones to see if I’m looking both ways before I cross the street.”

“Can you blame her?” Rarity flashed a smile to let him know it was alright. “No, go on, maybe fetch me a refill while you’re up?”

“No problem,” Johnny agreed, sliding out of his chair. She tried leaning back a little to get a look at his…tail. 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she practically spat. Who’d carved this torture device, Tirek?! She gave it a slap just for something to do. 

Johnny froze at the click and spun to lock eyes with her. She could feel momentum creeping up through the chair legs and burying itself in the hairs at the back of her neck. 

“Oh dear,” Rarity said simply as a seatbelt snapped into existence around her waist. 

And then her chair was suddenly so flexible it flipped halfway upside down as it sprang autonomously across the room, crashing through a kitchen door and--


***


Down, air, darkness, flashing lights of a shining surface, a metal tunnel? So fast the air forced the scream back down her throat. 

The judder of the legs against the sides, a needle of horror of what the wind would be doing to her mane stabbing her brain over and over until the sudden stop half flung her out into open air. 

The seat belt un-clicked itself, allowing her to finally squeal, hooves pedalling at nothing as she toppled onto an actually quite effective padded surface. A mite sticky for her taste, but at least she only felt a sort of all over ripple as opposed to the bone jarring she realised she should have expected. 

Underground. Again. Joy. 

Rarity glanced around, trying to get her vision back so she could assess more than just that distinct tunnel quality to the air. The important thing she’d learned was not to try not to panic, that was like trying not to think about a pink elephant. No, what you did was you sort of panicked in showers, little tweaks of your internal faucet to let it disperse itself instead of building up and bursting. 

“Hello?” she tried, mostly to see if her vocal cords still worked. “♪Excuuuse me?♪” 

She remembered she was a Unicorn and illuminated her horn. Some kind of space a bit like a sewer chamber, although magnificently clean! Very neat in an industrial sort of way. 

A hoof on chalkboard noise that made her jump! “Y’re n’t tugh H’r’soo T’ch!”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity asked, too stunned to be scared. 

“Y’re n’t…!” Some kind of sound system of course, but the voice had a metallic, warped quality like those action movies Applejack and Rainbow insisted on dragging everypony to when it was their turn, those ones with the mystery callers. This effect muffled more than intimidated. 

“No, sorry, didn’t catch a word of that!” 

“…ph’rry!”

A pause. 

A series of submarine hatch squeaking noises. 

“I’ph th’ph b’tt’ugh?”

“Sorry?”

More hatch squeaks then a metallic BWUNG that made her shut one eye, wincing. 

“The hay with it, is that better?”

“Oh much, thank you! Now if you would be so kind—” Rarity tilted her head back. “What the hay is going on?!”

“You’re not the Horseshoe Torch is what’s going on!” The voice had the effrontery to sound…affronted. 

“No, I should think not,” Rarity sighed. “This is a business thing, is it?”

“Yes!” An incongruous note of cheerful inquisition. “You’re in the business, are you? I mean, I sort of saw you were together on the periscope…?”

“Oh no!” Rarity blinked, horn light flickering. “Ah, that is, no I’m not in the business, a bit adjacent you might say? And it’s more of a work lunch than a date?”

“Oh.” Another pause. She listened and…yes, dripping pipe water somewhere. But did that mean a utility tunnel back to safety or deeper into whatever this was? Also, ugh, rats! “But Storm’ll come for you, right?”

“Johnnycake? I’d dashed well hope so! He promised to split the check, and I’ll wear socks with sandals before I let him use this to slide his way out of paying next time!”

“He would too!” the kidnapper said bitterly. “But when the Torch comes for you, he shall find you in…”

Rarity’s eyes froze mid roll as the tunnels before her began to rumble.

“THE TRAPSTER’S TUNNELS!” 

A minicanal laugh that was a little too weedy to work and lost over the sounds of an industrial strength buzzsaw anyway.

“Oh dear,” Rarity said again as ominous light began to creep up her legs to fall over her face. 


14


And then: 

“Just talk to her,” Spider-Pony growled to himself. “That’s what everypony’ll say, right?”

“You talkin’ to me?!” Thunderhead demanded, rearing his forehooves back to bring them slamming down on…nothing. 

“No.” 

The centaur gangster looked up, snarling at the sight of the Web-Slinger suspended in the air for a beat before he fired two web-lines, reeling both his hindlegs into his opponent’s gut with the speed of a bean bag round. The guards and goons, tied up with cords and webbed to the walls respectively, winced. 

“You lil’—!” Thunderhead wheezed, swiping for the blur so savagely he almost ripped the sleeves of his blue suit jacket. His ball bearing eyes flashed like a spontaneous grease fire at the feeling of weight shooting up his spine. The bug had had the nerve to use his back as a pommel horse!

“Because that’s so easy,” Spider-Pony was muttering as the furious crime boss spun round, just standing there in front of the open vault. “Biggest conversation of my life!” 

“I got the biggest thing in what’s left ‘a your life right here!” Thunderhead bellowed, not even bothering to paw the ground for a windup. He was too steamed, that mild lightning effect sparking around his horns. Bellowing, he lowered his oversized, slab like forehead and charged! 

Again, at nothing. His eyes bulged as, his face angled at the floor the way it was, he managed to see Spidey sliding front first under him. The twin surprises of this and the slap of that freakin’ webbing against his fetlocks made him lose control of his momentum, meaning instead of ramming the wall, which wouldn’t have even tickled, he tripped and slammed it into the vault floor, which did. 

To add insult to injury he realised the booming he’d heard hadn’t just been the fall but that the Spider had webbed his legs to the vault door, making him drag it shut on himself! 

“Biggest conversation of my life,” Spidey muttered, galloping out the door and vaulting over the startled M.E.U.P officers. “, for the best thing in my life! That fits, right?”

And then: 


***


“Hey!” Spellectro’s face bellowed from multiple neon signs. “Are you paying attention?!” 

“Only then she won’t want to be part of my life anymore,” Spider-Pony muttered under his breath, dodging yellow and green lightning as he hopped from perch point to perch point across Times Square. “That fits! Who’d blame her?”

“Awright, that’s it!” The signs that weren’t webbed over spat green and gold sparks, coalescing into a Hulk sized electric abstract of the villain hovering over the statue of the two sisters in the centre of the square. “I don’t even care if ya figured out my plan…and apparently neither do you! Prepare to feel the power of advertisin’!” 

“What’s to figure out?” Spidey spat, ricocheting off a marquee. The king-sized tunnel of green and yellow thunderbolts didn’t even singe his tail. 

The rapidly shrinking Spellectro abstract’s expression flickered into panic as he realised he’d just discharged most of the power he’d spent the last few hours building up into empty air, and the not even winded Web-Slinger wasn’t about to crash down on him, but…

“Oh right!” Peter snarled as if he’d barley noticed his shoulder’s collision with the maintenance hatch, furiously bouncing off the floor of the jumbotron’s underground junction tunnel. “How to talk to her!” 

“Um…” Spellectro grinned feebly, trying to untangle himself from the cables suctioned all over his body. “W-wouldja like a moment to think it over? Because I could no, don’t touch those!” 

“The sad thing?” Spidey sighed as he whipped two important but oppositely charged cables into each other’s ports. “This’d be so much easier if it was just a case of crossed wires.”

He didn’t even look at his handiwork, turning away obliviously from the blinding eruption of Spellectro’s spasming body. The villain let out a juddering whoop, the greens and yellows of his mutated coat rapidly switching places until his star mask burst into sparks, leaving his grinning, smoking remains to slump almost serenely, half suspended off the floor by the cables. 

“But this isn’t a bug.” Spidey walked down the tunnel, green and gold smoke washing over him. “It should be a feature.” 

And then:

“What are you babbling about?!” the Wingless Warlock roared. Or tried to. As much of a gifted orator as the once renowned (within city limits) inventor was, he’d just never really had the voice for the furious arch villain. Certainly braying but too Drones Club. 

“Trying to work something out,” Spidey sighed despondently, weaving a web cushion just in time to save an Elephant customer from slamming into the restaurant wall. 

“How to defeat me?!” the Warlock sneered, using his gravity gauntlets to launch one of the façade’s trees at his target roots first like a snatching claw! “Me, the stallion who mastered gravity itself?!”

“Nope.” Spidey twisted almost bonelessly in mid-air, surfing down the trunk and giving it a powerful kick in the middle so it spun, stopping more helpless customers from being sent into orbit with its foliage. 

“Yes…” the Warlock blinked, hovering over the seething pockets of anti-gravity he’d scattered across the floor. “Well. Not that you could hope to! I am glad we see eye to on that!”

“That’s kinda the problem.” Why did the blasted B-rater sound so…so…not here?! “I can see how it’s gonna go.” 

“As can I!” The Warlock twisted his glowing gauntlets in a spiral pattern, distorting the web-lines racing towards them so they looped back on the arachnid. “In fact, perhaps it’s fitting you intruded upon my valuable time like this! Your juvenile concoction makes you a fitting substitute for that benighted Trapster!”

“Nice try, Wings,” Spidey chuckled dryly, using a floating chair to block the webs. “But even being considered for one of your Frightful Bores couldn’t make me feel any worse!” 

“Don’t flatter yourself, you pusillanimous parvenu! The Wingless Warlock only works with the very best!” 

“Like the Trapster?” Spidey asked snidely, hopping onto a floating table. And off again as levitated cutlery embedded itself where he’d been standing. 

“I was referring to my intention to practice his punishment upon you!” the Warlock snarled, magnifying the weight of individual crystals in the chandelier so they launched themselves after the bounding Web-Slinger like bullets with the density of canon balls. “Give me directions to the wrong restaurant indeed!” 

“Yeah, we’ve all got problems.” Spidey ducked the last crystal, bounding onto the web-net he’d been weaving above the physicless floor the entire fight. “Yours is vanity. Smile!” 

Maybe it was how busy Damage Control had kept him, maybe it was just nostalgia, maybe he’d forgotten about it until now, but he still hadn’t gotten around to removing the customised camera kept in the suit belt. 

The press of a button, and then: 

The Warlock let out a still way too posh howl at the sudden light, throwing up his gauntlets to protect his eyes! And accidentally pulling every object he’d been levitating towards himself. His armour, designed to stand up to punches from the Thing, protected him from the worst of it but a stray chair took his helmet off, setting him up to take a serving tray right to the face. 

Patrons, furniture and concussed villain toppled into Spidey’s pre-prepared net as gravity flicked itself back on. The Warlock’s admittedly pretty clever shitchk was using customised tech disks to channel his other big claim to fame, a spell to alter localised gravity beyond mere Unicorn levitation. Without his consciousness to keep it flowing the disks scattered all over the walls and floor were now so much loose change. 

“Is..is it over?” a waiter gasped. 

“Probably.” Spider-Pony looked up from weaving a cocoon around the groaning Warlock to check everyone was okay, then bounded across a few strands, using the last one to launch himself straight through the kitchen and ricochet out into the alley. 

And then: 


***


“I mean, who’s gonna blame her?” he asked the city as he webbed himself higher, faster. “Because I have to tell her, right? I have to ruin everything!” 

His eyes felt hot under the lenses, but then his whole face was suddenly furiously hot. The ledge of one building cracked slightly as he launched off it. 

“But everything’s fine, right?” Spidey snapped as he swung towards the Chrysler building. “That’s what she said!” 

Office workers blinked as he swung and scampered higher and higher up the tower. “Yeah, everything’s going so fine I have to ruin it forever!” 

He looped angrily around one of the gargoyles, letting go of the line to swing all the way up to the tip of the tower, hooves shrieking metallically as he gripped it. 

“Everything’s! Just! FINE!” 

Fine! the city bellowed back. Fine! Fine! Fine!

That shocked him into silence, flash cooling the rage and leaving only the bubbling dread that had been there since…since he’d realised he had to tell Twilight. Had to. How could he love her and not? 

And after he did, how could she possibly love him? How would the sight of him not make her sick? 

Ears dropping, Peter slid down the spire, seemingly oblivious to his hooves juddering over the rest of the architecture until he came loose. A web-line lashed out from his tail to snag the gargoyle he’d used for the launch, curling him around it until he finally slowed to a stop. He crawled over the beak and onto the top like a shipwreck survivor making it to shore and flopped onto his back. 

“She’s gonna hate me,” he whispered. The sky was incongruously beautiful for the worst day of his life. He could hardly hear himself over the wind and traffic. 

“What am I gonna do?” he asked nobody. 

“Wow,” the sky said perkily, “that’s a loaded question, but--”

Spider-Pony yelped, bolting upright and sliding halfway off the polished surface. A second of open air and waiting sidewalks beneath him and then:

Pale pink forelegs snatching his tail between a pinch that just had to be Canterlot horseshoes. 

“Whoa, colt! I mean, I get this is a conversation you don’t want to have but it can happen at ground level if you want! Just, y’know, maybe pace ourselves!” 

“Cadence?!” Spidey tried to curl himself around for a better upside down look at her, wings flapping steadily to keep them both aloft as he dangled from his tail in her grip. “I mean, Princess?! I mean…” 

“Oh, I think I can guess what you mean.” She smiled at him like he was the adult embodiment of an Ursa Minor guiltily standing next to something that only looked like a meteorite. She’d used that smile on him and Twilight a lot before they’d made things official. “It’s probably for the best if I hold onto you like this, really. I’ve been trying to catch up to you all day. You’re a quick little bouncing bundle of nerves!” 

Spidey blinked as the rooftops gradually past the upper rooftops. “You’ve been looking for me?” 

“Yep. Though I might have come anyway, the state you’re in!” Cadence’s smile became slightly slyer, made worse by still being upside down. “I mean, I’m no Princess Celestia but each troubled heart has its own distinctive beat. Sometimes you just can’t help hearing it.”

Spidey was too busy trying to get over the shock and hoping she didn’t recognise his voice through the mask to say anything for a bit. 

“Just looking for a place to land,” Cadence said distractedly as she looked down at him again. “Sorry, was that too mystic? Princess lines like that, sometimes they just sort of slip out and they make you look all mysterious and obtuse. I really am here for both of you, promise!” 

“Both of who?” Spidey asked, trying to twist right side up. 

“You and your special somepony, obviously!” She dangled him over a streetlight it took him a few seconds to realise she meant as a perch. “Which brings me back to what I was saying before. It’s not all about you.” 

“I…what?” Peter got a steady grip to stare up at her still flapping in mid-air, feeling a little like he should be backing away. 

“The answer to your question. Well, most questions of the heart. It’s not all about you!” Cadence readjusted her tiara as pedestrians either stared at them or trotted on ‘cause what were they, tourists? “Sorry, you’d think I’d be better at saving ponies from sudden falls and talking about love at the same time, it happens often enough. Anyway, the other answer to this question is pizza, I’ll explain how as we go. You feel like pizza? I feel like pizza.”

All enveloping pink glow from her horn. A feeling in his chest like a big sister he’d never had putting an affectionate but restraining arm around his shoulders. 

And then: 


To be Continued