Title: Unwrapped
Fandom: Marvel Comics (West Coast Avengers)
Characters: Gwen Poole, Quentin Quire, Jeff the Land Shark
Length: 751 words
Rating: PG
Content Warnings: none
Summary: Gwen has gotten Quentin a gift to celebrate their six months of dating - or whatever.



"Dammit."

Gwen tore at the tape piecing together the torn and crumpled paper in frustration. Wrapping presents wasn't one of her superpowers, that was for sure. She'd already gone through one roll of wrapping paper and two rolls of tape trying to wrap this one little box.

"Why am I even doing this, Jeff?"

Jeff didn't say anything on account of him being a land shark, of course. Gwen had gotten Quentin the perfect gift for their six month anniversary and she just wanted to give it the perfect presentation, was that too much to ask? Sadly it turned out that she wasn't very good with the whole wrapping gifts thing - so apparently it was too much to ask. Maybe she should skip the pretty paper and just give him the box? It was a nice box.

She held out the little pink and purple striped box to Jeff. "What do you think? Does this need wrapping paper or should we just give Quentin his gift like this?"

Jeff tried to take a bite out of the box but missed as Gwen swiftly moved it out of his reach. "Okay, so no wrapping paper - also no eating this gift. Having a custom bobblehead made of your boyfriend isn't as cheap as you'd think it should be, Jeff." Hopefully, it'd be worth it though. Back in her world, even fictional comic book character Quentin Quire didn't have his own figurine.

Gwen was distracted from her own runaway thoughts by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

“Are you done with whatever you’re doing in here?” Quentin leaned against her doorframe just outside her room.

“Hey, no peeking! I’m wrapping your gift.”

“Gift?”

“Yeah, for our six month anniversary, remember?”

Quentin did not look like he remembered. “We’ve been together six months?”

“Of course we have.” Gwen gave him what she hoped was a very stern look.

“Are you sure?”

“Well as long as you don’t count that time we broke up for a day because you thought Jeff needed more discipline or that time we broke up for an hour because you were being a butthead.”

“I wasn’t being a —“ Quentin shook his head. “Never mind. So - six months? Cool.”

“So, I got you a thing but the wrapping didn’t go so well.” Gwen held out the box to Quentin. “So, here. You get it not wrapped.”

Quentin took the box and shook it.

“Don’t shake it,” Gwen admonished.

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Should I open it now or wait? Just so you know - I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t even know we were doing gifts or whatever.”

“You can open it if you want.” Gwen hadn’t expected him to get her anything or even remember it was their anniversary.

“We could go out to eat or something,” Quentin suggested.

“It’s not a big deal.” Gwen was suddenly second-guessing getting Quentin a gift in the first place. Why was she even making a big deal out of this at all? It was only six months of dating - or whatever the hell they were doing. Sure, it was the longest relationship she’d ever had - in any world, but it wasn’t really that long in the scheme of things.

“I don’t know, six months is kind of a big deal and we’re even living together - “

“We’re not living together,” Gwen insisted.

“We’re living under the same roof.”

“Along with the rest of the team. We have our own bedrooms.” They weren’t living together, were they?

“We share a bed more nights than we don't. I don’t do that with anyone else on the team,” Quentin pointed out.

“That’s not completely true.”

Quentin shook his head. “Jeff doesn’t count.”

“Fine. We’re almost sort of living together, okay?” Gwen’s stomach did a little flip.

“Okay.” Quentin smiled and looked genuinely happy which was disconcerting since Quentin didn’t do happy. Not really.

“Are you going to open your gift?”

Gwen watched as Quentin slowly opened the small box and revealed the little Kid Omega bobblehead inside. The look on his face was worth every penny she spent on the figurine.

“This is awesome!”

“You really like it?” Gwen asked.

“I love it.” Quentin spun her around and kissed her. "You hungry?"

"I could eat."

They ordered two kinds of take-out and shared the leftovers with Jeff and Lucky before settling in for another night in the same bed, even though they were totally not living together. Yet.