"Sure thing!"

One more hug. One more moment leaning on Asher. And then Sasha steps away for real this time to get ready for bed. 

(He spends more time than he strictly needs to drafting a text to Lev, decides he needs to stop overthinking it and distract himself, and pulls out his phone and opens Asher's AO3 page.) 

The most recent fic is about Spiderman. It was written after Doc Ock attacked but before they went flying for the first time. They're hanging out and talking. Asher is talking about his feelings about his dad, how he loves his dad a lot and misses him every day and how that's hard to square with the fact that his dad's effect on the world was, overall, evil. Spiderman is sympathetic and talks about his complicated relationship with his parents since he was bitten by a radioactive spider and now he has eight eyes and fur covering his entire body. They hold hands; several paragraphs are devoted to the warmth and softness of Spiderman's fur. It's tagged "#gen #preslash #if you squint."

That's the only fic about Spiderman. About half of the rest is gen. Particularly early on, a lot of the gen is normal scenes from Asher's life: Asher arguing with Pepper, Asher going out for pizza, Asher at a nightclub until he gets a great idea about improving laptop hardware and has to draw schematics in pen on a C-list actress's backside. Later, he gets more creative: Asher in a D/s AU (he's a dom); Asher working at a coffeeshop; Asher as a rock musician. About a quarter of the fic is about Deadpool. Another quarter is about Asher with a fairly random assortment of actors, musicians, and models. Reading between the lines, Sasha can probably guess that those are people he talked to about it who didn't mind fic being written about them.

There is, frankly, an ungodly amount of porn. 

Asher's porn contains a lot of people being sweet and tender and gentle, particularly (for some reason) to Deadpool. He likes handjobs. He likes biting. He likes knives; he likes bruises. He likes it when characters are so horny that they come too fast; he likes how being tied up makes someone helpless; he likes vulnerability; he likes sex in public. There are a lot of fics where a character is sad and Asher comforts them with sex. There are a lot of fics where everyone involved is happy. 

In the morning Asher will have a "you've got kudos" email telling him that an account called lilies_on_water has left kudos on ninety percent of the porn and the later half of the gen; the same account has left a comment on the Spiderman fic that is very excited to inform Asher that tarantulas have toe beans like tiny cats and it's adorable and also the fic is very sweet. 

He's just. Not going to think about Sasha reading his porn. That does not seem conducive to going the next three years without dating Sasha. 

(Two years, he looked it up and it would be legal in two years, if he wanted to be creepy he could--)

tiny cats huh

When Sasha checks his phone in the morning he has a message from fansite guy.

kingpin's trying to clone hitler

god knows why

He also has a notification that Fansite Guy's website has a new page.

tiny cats!!!

what the everloving 

thank you 

What's on the page? 

oh no that's so cute

why are spiders so cute???????

unfortunately kingpin's accounting and travel records don't contain ANY information about WHY HE WOULD CLONE HITLER

The webpage is entitled Evidence That Spiderman and Iron Man Are Dating. It includes a transcript of Asher's interview answer about Spiderman, with helpful comparisons both to Asher's answers about other superheroes and to Asher's previous answers about Spiderman; two blurry photos, one of Asher and Spiderman flying together and one of Spiderman leaving Stark Tower early in the morning; and the observation that there is no evidence of Asher having had any dates, drunken makeouts at parties, one-night stands, etc. since the death of Doc Ock, which is the longest period of time he's gone without evidence of same since he turned 18 (see Table 3 for elaboration).

The author offers the opinion that if Iron Man, savior of New York, thinks Spiderman is not a menace, maybe he's actually not a menace.

…the temptation to send this page to Asher is strong. Sasha does not do that. 

He does send

fucking weird 

okay. I'm working on it. 

to the fansite guy, and 

so does anyone have any idea why kingpin would be trying to clone Hitler???? 

to the superhero group chat. 

kingpin is what

how do you know

secret nazi?

marlo rogers bait?

not a fan of kicking puppies/stealing candy from babies?

also yeah what

come the fuck on

annoying marlo is my job

god, fuck, could be 

you guys know the weirdly accurate fansite? guy has mutant powers and has been using them to give me tipoffs 

I'm as confused as you but he was right about doc ock 

what even is his mutant power

clairvoyance but it only works for stalking supers

something about implications of datasets? 

we were on video chat so there aren't logs I can check 

...if that means what it sounds like it means it is insanely powerful and wHY IS HE WASTING IT ON A FAN SITE

he claims that's all it's useful for; I'm skeptical but he's had a chance to poke it and I haven't 

maybe it has some weird horrible limitations he didn't tell you about?

maybe? 

I can ask hold up 

And then, to the website owner: 

Asher Stark wants to know if your power has weird limitations you haven't mentioned to me 

doesn't break the laws of thermodynamics so I have to eat a ton of food. can't get anything out of a dataset that isn't there to begin with. won't get answers to questions I don't ask. have to specify the dataset in advance + if I do a bad job specifying it I'll get less information.

He copy-pastes that into a text to Asher. 

does fansite guy want like

a job

Instead of answering, he texts 

is it ok if I tell Asher Stark your number, he wants to know if you want a job

to the fansite guy.