The Other Woman —Peter Parker
Summary: Falling in love with your neighbour, Peter Parker, was easy. Accepting him as Spiderman? Still easy. Dealing with his change into arachnid Spiderman? Still easy. But dealing with the fact that he still loves MJ, that she still comes first? Not so easy. When he saves her over you, can you ever forgive him? (8.8k)
Pairing: BND!Peter Parker x fem!reader
TW: 18+ MDNI, NSFW; Sex scenes containing p-in-v, mentions of oral, the bed breaks;Angst; Some liberties taken with the Jean Grey possession thing; Peter has a choice between saving MJ and saving Reader and chooses MJ; Peter has to win the Reader back over; Covers their meeting, relationship and then the heartbreak just so it hurts more; dual POV; when Peter is arachnid Peter, the only one who breaks through is the Reader kind of like Natasha and the Hulk (or Cardan and Jude when he's the snake); Bruce Banner is a prof at NYU rather than Empire State for the sake of my narrative.
Credit: GIF made by @manny-jacinto
The building is strangely quiet, that’s the first thing you notice as you climb up the stairs, a stack of two cardboard boxes in your arms, chin resting on the very top of one, just enough that you can see the next stair. Because of course the elevator wasn’t working on the day that you need to move in. Because life is just like that.
“Woah, hey!” a voice calls out from behind you, deep and light in the same instance, the sound a shock from the previous silence, your body seizing, shaking, a slight jump, the top box sliding off your arms and falling, hitting the stair ahead of you with that peculiar thump of cardboard against, well, anything.
“Shit!” you hiss, looking down at the box on the step, at the one in your arms before glancing over your shoulder, looking for the owner of the voice, the one who startled you.
“Let me help,” the voice says again, this time from beside you and you turn, startling again, breath hitching but not just from fear because there beside you is one of the single-handedly most attractive men you’ve ever seen with dark curly hair, curls falling onto his forehead, partially obscuring the dark brown colour of his irises, the corner of his lips curled up into a half-smile. A kind of crooked grin that sets your heart alight.
He bends down, lifting the box from the stair in front of you, your breaths ragged for a moment more before you blink, shaking off the daze and forcing yourself to smile, the kind of practiced smile that you learned long ago for school pictures and talks with older people who always want to tell you how to live your life.
“Thanks,” you tell him and he smiles at you, a full smile, one that sets your heart alight as the two of you climb the stairs, a comfortable silence descending. He seems like the type of guy who would never push for conversation, who is okay with silence, familiar with it.
“What floor?” he asks you as the two of step onto the fifth floor landing.
“This one,” you tell him, stepping forwards, your back against the heavy metal door, pushing against it, pushing it back, swinging it open and holding it while he steps through. You step away from the door and out into the floor, stepping around him, shifting the box to one arm, reaching for your keychain in your pocket, pulling the bright, bedazzled SOURcharm from your hoodie, flipping it to grasp the key, stepping forwards and slipping it into the lock of 502.
“We’re neighbours,” he says from behind you and you turn towards him, pushing your door open, keys slid back into your hoodie pocket.
“Are you new here?” you ask him, one eyebrow arching as you step backwards into your new apartment, him following you with the last of your boxes.
“To the building?” he asks you, his voice confused, eyebrows knitting together, nose crinkling and you can’t help but roll your eyes as you step into your kitchen, setting the box down on the counter by the sink.
“No,” you call out as he follows you, setting the second box beside the first, “to New York. Because if so, you’re neighbours with the right person.”
“Why?” he asks, his voice growing suspicious. Like he suspects that you’re hitting on him, which objectively he’s attractive enough to be hit on, you are just not the kind of person to do said hitting on. “Because you’ll show me around?”
“No,” you reply, drawing out the word, making it as long and dramatic as possible, your eyes drifting around your crappy apartment, a true New York experience. “Because I’m new and haven’t you always wanted a buddy to explore a new city with? You know, experience everything with someone who also has no experience with said things? Because, honestly, it’s scientific at its base. You experience one thing and the other experiences something else and you’ll get the clearest picture of New York by comparing the two new experiences.” Your voice has risen and sped up in the way it does when you get excited, your hands moving with your words, gestures always arising when you’re interested in a topic, an experiment.
But this guy…he doesn’t look annoyed by it, rather the way his lips are curved into a smile that seems soft if a smile can be such a thing, suggests that he…he might like it.
“Yeah,” he whispers, one hand reaching up to brush his curls back from his forehead, showing eyes the colour of melted chocolate glimmering in the dim lighting of your apartment, “I’m new.”
“So,” you say, both eyebrows arching as you peer at him, “buddies?” His smile widens, dimples showing in a way that makes your breath hitch, but you ignore it, simply reaching your hand forward for his. You’re good at ignoring things especially when they’re related to your feelings.
“Buddies,” he agrees, taking your hand in his, the callouses on his skin rubbing against yours in a way that is strange, but not unpleasant. His grip is firm, his hand is warm and the smile he gives you bright. He’s like sunshine in a person.
“Well,” you tell him, letting go of his hand and walking towards your door, putting it between your body and him, using it as a shield against emotions you’re going to need to tamp down, ignore, shove past and aside. “Thanks for your help.” He nods, stepping out of your apartment and turning, eyes narrowing as you begin to close the door.
“Peter!” he calls out, the words loud and echoing in the hallway, his face flushing a deep red, face shifting into embarrassment as he continues, his voice barely audible, barely a whisper as he says, “my name…it’s…it’s Peter.” He sounds so nervous as he says it that a small smile blooms across your face as you look at him, at the way he’s glancing down and away from you, cheeks flushed bright red.
“My name’s Y/n,” you tell him and he looks up, the motion abrupt and rapid, so fast you worry that he’s going to get whiplash.
“Nice name,” he whispers, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he waves, watching as you close the door, the sound of the latch clicking ominous and final. Not really, because no sooner have you closed it than have you wrenched it open again, seeing him still standing there, looking slightly frozen.
“You want to find a place to get hot dogs?” you ask him and he startles, like you did on the stairs, nodding and you nod once, back at him, ducking back to your kitchen, pulling your wallet from your bag and tucking it into your pocket before slipping out and closing your door, locking it behind. “Let’s go, buddy!”
“Sooo,” you say, your legs hooked over the fire escape ledge, your hot dog in one hand, the other pressed against the metal grate beneath you.
“Sooo what?” Peter asks, his mouth slightly full, the sounds of the words off and you glance over at him, a smile threatening to form on your face at the way mustard is smeared on his cheek.
“Um…you have a little something,” you say, taking the napkin from your lap and leaning forwards, wiping it away, his eyes locked on you, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, hard. “Anyways,” you continue, looking away from him, back to the New York City skyline, the napkin set to the side, “I was going to ask what you do.”
“I, um, I’m going to NYU,” he says and you look back at him, a smile blossoming on your face, the kind of smile you have when you’re genuinely excited, when something has genuinely made you happy. A smile you’ve kept smiling at Peter.
“Me too,” you tell him, your voice light in a way that it rarely is, in a way it hasn’t really since you packed up all your stuff to move alone to the city of your dreams. The city that’s strange and rings with a hollow sort of loneliness, except for right now on a fire escape ledge, the skyline twinkling like stars. “What are you studying?”
“Engineering,” he says, his voice quiet, unsteady, just a little unsure, his gaze turned away from you as he sets the wrapper from his hot dog down beside him, brushing his hands together, brushing crumbs off of them.
“What’s your specialty?” you ask him and he glances back at you, surprise glimmering in his warm eyes, eyebrows knitting together, lips quirking up just a bit like he’s pleased that you’ve surprised him.
“Hold up,” he says, “what are you studying?”
“Engineering,” you tell him, your smile growing wider as the surprise shifts to a pleasant kind of shock in his eyes, like he didn’t expect to have something in common with you. “Specifically,” you continue, “biomedical engineering focusing upon neuroengineering.”
“A brain girl,” he says and you nod, the smile pleased as you turn away from him, back to the skyline of the city that never sleeps. The city you used to dream of as a kid. You lean back, your back slumping against the grated brick wall of the apartment building, your wrappers set aside, hands in your hoodie pockets, gaze trained on the blinking, twinkling lights of the city. “I’m in biotech,” he says and you let out a low whistle as he turns back to look at you, his body leaning forwards against the railing. “What?”
“And I thought I was a nerd,” you tell him and he tosses a balled up napkin at you, one which you swat away with a laugh, one light and bright that has him pausing, just looking at you like one looks at an oasis in the desert. “What?” you ask, a familiar heat flooding your face the kind that comes from embarrassment. Or the fear of it. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” he whispers, scooting himself back over the grating to slump beside you. “I just haven’t had something like this in a long time.”
“Well,” you tell him, letting your head rock to the side, rock to face him, eyes blinking once before focusing on him, tiredness seeping into your bones, to your eyelids, “you have it now.” The smile you give him is hesitant, but he returns it, taking your hand in his, palms against one another, his fingers closing around the sides of your hand, a slight, gentle squeeze given.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess I do. We do.”
“Yeah,” you agree, your gaze darting away from him, flutters in your stomach that are unfamiliar, but also familiar. “We do.”
Peter knows that he should stay away from you, that he should avoid you if he knows what’s good for him. That all knowing you will cause is danger, put you in harm’s way the way it did Ned and MJ, but he doesn’t want to stay away from you. You, the girl who didn’t look at him for a one-night stand, but a friend. Someone to experience New York City with for the first time.
You were lonely, but braver than he’s ever been and you were so…enthusiastic about the comparing of experiences that how could he ever say no to you. He just couldn’t. There’s just something about you that drew him in and the late night talks that keep happening, legs dangling over the fire escape, whispers carried to one another on the breeze, watching as New York lives on, gleaming and twinkling, just make him want to stay more.
Like last night, when you fell asleep beside him and he lay you down, your head on his lap, his hand smoothing down your hair over and over while you slept on, safe and content beside him. He’d whispered to you then, even though you couldn’t hear him, that he should stay away, but he just couldn’t seem to close the door on you.
“You know,” he’d said, “I should stay far away from you and keep you safe but…something about you keeps drawing me back. Like I can’t stay away from you, pretty girl.” That’s what he’s called you in his head, pretty girl, because you are. You’re pretty and you’re nice and you’re smart and you laugh too loud and too long and it’s just perfect and he knows in some way that he’s falling even when he wishes that he wasn’t.
Because he’ll just bring harm to you. That’s the nature of his life, isn’t it?
But can’t he have a friend? Does he have to be alone? he wonders as he swings his legs over the edge of his bed, standing up on slightly shaky legs, tired from the fight yesterday and the classes he rushed to get to.
“PETER!” he hears you call, your voice echoing through the thin door of his apartment, palm flat, slamming against the door and he sighs, an annoyed sounding sigh even when he’s not really annoyed, but happy, excited. Excited in the way you make him because you live and you’re dragging him along with you.
“What?” he rasps as he pulls the door open, the clock reflecting 5:00 AM at him from its perch beside the door. You’re fully dressed, jeans and boots and an Olivia Rodrigo t-shirt on, a trench coat thrown over, arms crossed.
“It’s Saturday,” you tell him and he closes his eyes, sighing again, this time real as he leans his forehead against the door, tired and sore and so not in the mood for this.
“I’m aware.”
“Then you’re aware of the fact that we’re looking for the best place to get breakfast,” you say, one eyebrow arched in the way you have when you’re annoyed, your hips canting, weight resting on your left foot, right loose.
“Right,” he sighs, pushing himself off the door and holding up four fingers to you, closing the door, saying, “four minutes!”
“I’ll be waiting!” Maybe that’s what keeps drawing Peter in, the fact that you wait, that you never push, that you plan. That you’re so different from MJ, the girl he still loves, can’t entirely forget, can’t entirely erase no matter how hard he tries. Most of the time he still remembers that goodbye, holding her tight, but when he’s with you…he can see that there is a future. One where he’s okay.
“Why NYU?” he asks you, his hand wrapped around yours, the two of you walking on a path in Central Park, raincoats on, the sky grey and overcast, clouds hanging low, swollen with impending rain. “I mean,” he continues when you look back at him, your expression quizzical and so, so pretty that his breath catches in his throat, “why not MIT if you had the grades?”
“I did have the grades,” you tell him, tipping your head up, eyes closing for a moment as you breathe in the smell of the rain. He knows that you do this often, that you like the stormy weather, has watched you climb out onto the fire escape when it rains to just stand there, arms wide, the rain soaking into your clothes. “I got into MIT, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia and Cornell, plus of course, NYU. But as a kid,” you pause, your head tipping back down, gaze falling on the cracked pathway, the lines of breaking. “As a kid, I dreamed of New York and NYU because…I don’t know…I just felt that it was right.”
“Gotta say,” Peter says, squeezing your hand, breath hitching as you look over at him, lips curled into a soft smile, the kind you reserve for him, “that I’m glad you chose NYU.”
“Me too, buddy,” you tell him, knocking your shoulder against his, his skin tingling, feeling alive in a way it hasn’t really. It’s felt like rubber stretched over bone and now it feels like skin, like he’s alive.
But is it selfish to love you?
“Hey! Puppies!” you cry, tugging him along behind you, taking off towards the animal shelter set-up, puppies tumbling over one another and as he follows, as he watches you scoop a wriggling rottweiler mix into your arms, as he watches that puppy lick your face, eliciting a giggle, one that rings through the park and his heart, he finds he doesn’t care if it’s selfish to love you because he’s fallen anyways.
And he can love you from afar, be your friend. It doesn’t change that.
It won’t.
It can’t. Right?
The stadium is packed full, your baseball cap pulled low, a newly bought Yankees jersey on, Peter beside you, his body radiating heat as the game goes on. You don’t entirely understand what’s going on having never been a baseball fan before, but it’s the Yankees and it’s iconically New York so you dragged Peter with you after saving up for the tickets.
It’s been six months of being buddies with Peter and it’s a sweet kind of torture because every minute that you spend with him, the more you learn about him, the more you feel for him. You don’t know if it’s love, if it can be quantified as such but it’s something. It’s something and you know you should stop hanging out with him, just give your heart a break, but something about him means that you can’t stop.
He just keeps drawing you back in. You’ve gone shopping with him, picking out books for one another based on vibes. You’ve spent hours together poring over engineering books and formulas, doing homework side-by-side and every time, there’s that moment when he looks at you with pupil-blown eyes and you think maybe, just maybe but then the moment passes and you curse yourself every time.
You curse the heart that just can’t stop hoping. It hurts to hope yet it doesn’t stop.
“HOLY SHIT!” Peter yells, standing up and pulling you with him, a baseball flying up at you and you shriek, lifting your hands to bat it away from you, but rather your fist closes on it and you’re left staring at the baseball in your hand. “YOU CAUGHT IT!” he cries and then his arm is around your shoulder and for a moment you can’t breathe because to breathe is to smell him, his uniquely Peter scent of vanilla and sandalwood and nutmeg.
The casual touch is the worst part of this torture.
“What…what do I do with it?” you ask him and he looks at you, face incredulous before he curls your fingers tighter over the ball, the fingers that had opened, holding the ball out to him like an offering.
“You keep it,” he tells you and there’s another moment. Another one where you think maybe, just maybe, his gaze dropping to your lips, his lips parting, but then he blinks and turns away, neck muscles rigid and you can feel that deflating, that crushing. That loss of hope.
“Will do,” you whisper, your eyes on him, on the line of his neck, of his jaw. Of him. You really hate hope.
The street is lit by the streetlights, dark descended while you were still in the stadium watching a game you didn’t really understand, holding a ball you didn’t mean to catch in your hands.
“Let’s go here,” you tell Peter, the two of you looking for a place to eat something sweet, a bakery just off to the side with lights blazing.
“No,” he says. “They suck.”
“You’ve been there?” you ask him, lips curving up as you look at him, watching as his expression blanches, eyes go wide, calculations occurring in that wonderful brain of his.
“Yeah,” he says and then he tugs on your arm, pulling you towards a dimly lit diner, an overhang in red and black obscuring a sign that glimmers, refracting at you. “And this place is good.”
“And how would you know that?” you ask him, tone leading, high-pitched in the way it is when you know something and you’re trying to pry what you already know from someone.
“Um…well…uh,” he swallows hard, gaze focused solely on the diner as the two of you run across the street, rushing just as headlights come up to the side, the two of you stepping onto the cracked and falling apart sidewalk as the car rushes past, a breeze blowing by you.
“You’re from New York, right?” you ask him and he looks over at you, shock writ upon his features as he pulls the door open, the two of you stepping into the diner, knocking dust and street litter from your boots on the mat.
“How’d you know?” he asks and you roll your eyes, sighing as the two of you cross to a table, him sliding in on one side of the booth and you frozen for just a minute. A part of you wants to sit beside him, but you know you shouldn’t, but as you go to slide in across from him, he pats the seat beside him and you slide in beside him, your side pressed against his, heart racing, racing, racing.
“No one just finds all of those places on the first try,” you tell him. “Plus…you have this look about you, like the city isn’t a marvel, but rather home. I don’t have that.”
“So, you just knew?” he asks, his elbow on the table, cheek resting on his palm, attention locked upon you. “You just knew?”
“I told you I’m smart,” you tell him and he smiles at you, your body alight with feelings and sensations and you look away from him, picking up one of the grease-covered plastic menus, the red binding fraying, plastic cracking in a way that tells you this place is good, well-loved.
“What will it take to earn your forgiveness?” he asks and you glance up at him, eyebrows knitting together, your heart climbing into your throat as you look at him, at the way he’s looking at you. Looking at you like you matter.
“You don’t have to earn it, Peter. I’m not mad, just curious. Why’d you lie?”
“Because you were so…enthusiastic and I…I was enamoured by it and didn’t really want anyone else to be your buddy.” You swallow hard, your throat thick, tears stinging your eyes because of what can never be.
“Oh,” you whisper and he takes your hand in his, the one beside him, interlacing your fingers with his, resting the joined hands on his thigh.
“Do you want to go out with me?” he asks you, stare intense and you can feel your skin heating up, flushing, heart racing and you swallow hard again, mouth just a little bit dry.
“Aren’t we kind of already?” you ask him and you like how he ponders what you’ve said, his stare changing, shifting as he considers.
“I guess so,” he says. “I mean, we spend all our time together. We might as well just make it official.”
“Official?”
“Will you be my girlfriend?” he asks, his cheeks a bright red and you nod, the gesture fast and excited and then he’s letting go of your hand, shifting, hands coming to rest on your cheeks, pulling you to him and pressing a soft and lingering kiss against your lips.
It’s a kiss that tastes of first chances, of hope and promise.
It’s a kiss for the ages.
“I don’t want anything to really change between us, Peter,” you whisper one night, your body curled into him on the fire escape, the two of you watching the skyline of New York, entranced by it.
“Then it won’t,” he whispers and you lift your head from his chest to look at him, at the way his face is relaxed, his body safe and warm and not tense like it sometimes is.
“Promise?” you ask and he nods, leaning forwards, his lips pressing against yours, open-mouthed and hot, tongue sliding in like a promise, his grip tightening on you like he never wants to let you go. Never wants to lose you.
“Promise,” he vows, breaking away from the kiss, his forehead pressing against yours, his eyes closing like you’re his safe space.
You think you just might be.
“Jesus!” you cry out, your back arching off the bed as Peter thrusts in for the first time, sliding in with ease, but the stretch still burns a little bit no matter how long he spent with his face buried between your legs, wanting to make this first time with him the best. It’s a good kind of burn though, a good kind of pain.
“’m sorry,” he breathes out, hips rolling slow and steady, the rickety bed still creaking beneath him.
“Don’t be sorry,” you whisper, your nails digging into his back. “Just go harder.” He looks at you, concern etched upon his face before he nods and it’s like he’s had restraint and then just lets go, driving in and out of you with force you didn’t really know he had.
It’s hard and fast and relentless, stimulating every part of you as he drives in and out, your body moving with the force, his lips hot on your neck and chest as he sucks hickeys into your skin, marking you, the bed creaking and creaking and creaking.
Honestly, the warning signs were all there, but you were too fucked out to notice and Peter was too obsessed with the feel of your walls clinging to him, to the taste of you on his tongue and the way you cry out his name, but the bed creaks one more time as Peter thrusts in and then it feels like the ground has given way, the bed breaking, landing on the floor with force.
“Shit,” Peter whispers, pausing in his rhythm, hands running over your body, not to turn you on, not to make love to you, but to check for injury. “You okay?” he asks and maybe it’s the way he asks, but you can’t help but let out a small giggle, one that grows as he looks at you with such horror on his pretty face. “Why are you laughing?”
“We broke the bed,” you tell him, your voice high, a giggle itself.
“And that’s funny? Because I’m still inside of you and you laughing is not doing much for my confidence,” he tells you and you’re still giggling as you lift one hand to his cheek, his head moving into your hand, pressing in.
“I just think it’s funny that we broke the bed, Peter. We were already going to get noise complaints,” you tell him and his expression darkens, but not in an angry way, rather a horny way.
“We’re gonna earn those noise complaints,” he tells you and that’s all the warning you get before he’s thrusting back into you without abandon, your back arching up and into him again, the giggles turning to cries of his name.
It’s later, after, the two of you curled into each other on his broken bed when he rests his hand upon your cheek that he whispers, “I love you.” It’s like the world has stopped, your heart in your throat, tears stinging your eyes, but the good kind of tears.
“I love you too,” you whisper and he pulls you even closer against him like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together, just burrow into you.
And it’s the best sleep you’ve had in ages. The first time you’ve ever felt safe.
Peter’s tired as he swings into his apartment, ready to just peel his suit off and fall into his bed, the attic apartment better for his arrivals, better because it goes unnoticed, it’s not right next to your apartment. He can’t drag you into this if you don’t know.
He lands in his bedroom, hands drifting to his mask, pulling it off and preparing to toss it onto his bed when he shrieks, a figure sitting on the bed, arms crossed.
“Who the fuck are you?!” he yells, shooting a web at the figure only to hear your muffled groan of distaste. “Pretty girl?! Is that you?!”
“Yeah, it’s me,” you tell him, voice flat with distaste, your figure pushing off the bed, rising and walking towards him, expression irritated, arms stuck to your torso by webs.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice gentle as he walks to you, pulling the webs from off your body, tossing them aside, his hands, still gloved in his costume, resting on your upper arms, grip warm and your expression softens.
“I figured out that you were Spiderman weeks ago and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, but you haven’t and I was tired of waiting so I…you know, broke in.”
“You broke into my apartment?” he asks and you nod, your hand coming to rest on his cheek where a bruise is forming from where the bad guy hit him. He hisses as you touch it, your touch achingly gentle but the skin so sensitive.
“I wanted answers,” you tell him and he walks the two of you backwards towards his bed, pulling you onto his lap, your body curling into him, fitting to him in a way that makes his heart ache in good ways and bad, guilt seeping in.
It’s a guilt that made him write a letter weeks ago to MJ, one to never be sent. He feels this deep guilt because he worries that he moved on too soon. But when he’s with you like this, feeling alive, feeling loved when to the rest of the world he’s naught but a ghost, he doesn’t feel guilty at all. He feels like he’s right where he belongs.
“Are you mad?” he whispers and you look at him, shock and hurt on your face as you press a soft, gentle, tender kiss against his lips, the taste of your cherry lip gloss slipping into his mouth.
“Never,” you whisper and he relaxes, your hand tracing shapes on his still suit covered chest. “It’s just…can you tell me everything about Spiderman or…” you trail off, your gaze falling away from him, brow furrowing and he lets go of your thigh to reach up, pulling your face to him, making you look at him, his lips pressing against yours in a harder kiss, one that says forever. That says everything he needs it to say.
“I don’t want to have secrets from you,” he whispers and then he tells you everything. He tells you about his parents, the spider bite, the first villain, the meeting of MJ and the Europe debacle; Aunt May’s death, the other Spidermen, the erasure of himself from everyone’s memory.
He doesn’t know what he expected when he finished, but it wasn’t this, the way you hold his cheek so tenderly, so preciously, like he’s everything, your eyes warms and glimmering, full of love.
It wasn’t you whispering, “I know you, Peter. You’re not a ghost. Not to me. I didn’t know you before but I know you now. I don’t think that’s nothing.”
“It’s not,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against yours. “It’s everything because you’re right. I’m a ghost to everyone, but you and I love you. More than that, I’m in love with you.”
“Me too, Peter. I’m in love with you too,” you whisper and that’s how the two of you fall asleep, curled into one another, his suit still on.
And when he wakes in the morning, he doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, just pulls you closer. You, the only person in the world who knows him. All of him.
He wouldn’t trade that for the world.
“Peter!” you squeal as he swings into his apartment, scooping you up and running to the bathroom. “Put me down! You need to shower!”
“I know,” he says, closing the door behind, peeling his suit off, standing there in nothing but his boxers before you, a tent noticeable. “You don’t expect me to do this alone, do you?” You laugh as he strips entirely naked and pulls your clothes off, guiding you into the shower and under the spray.
It’s not rough sex or fevered sex. It’s slow and gentle and full of kisses, lips gliding along skin, tongues against tongues. Him tracing the lines of your body with his mouth, whispering I love you against your body with every kiss.
It’s hot and sweet and perfect. Just like him.
You didn’t go looking for the letter, you went looking for your notebook that you left at Peter’s place two days ago, but you found the letter anyways. The letter written for the girl who forgot him, the girl he apparently never got over.
And sometimes, Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. Even if it breaks Peter Parker's heart. Maybe I'll never read this to you. Maybe I'm just writing this for me. Maybe that's my responsibility, to live alone with the truth. But the truth is I love you.
And I hope that deep down, something inside you remembers you love me too.
You didn’t go looking for the letter, but you found it anyways when it fluttered out of the pages of his favourite book. Almost four years of being with him, of knowing him, every piece of him and it’s not enough.
It’s not enough because someone else holds his heart and you are just the other woman. You are the one warming his bed until some miracle occurs and she remembers and they can live happily ever after together. And you’ll be nothing but a footnote in his story.
An adventure without her.
The truth is I love you.
How many times has he said that to you, you wonder, your tears soaking into your pillow, body shaking with your sobs, blankets pulled up to your chin.
Logically, you know it could be old. That it doesn’t matter, that things changed, but you…don’t believe that. You have spent nearly four years loving him and he hasn’t loved you. Maybe he doesn’t even now.
Maybe he’s never loved you. How do you know? The problem is you don’t.
All you know is that your skin is seared with tears, throat thick, heart racing, chest constricting, lungs burning as you cry. As you cry everything out, sobs hurting your body, destroying you because you know that even after that, you will not leave him. Because you love him.
Because how can you leave him when you don’t know the truth of the letter? Maybe it’s old. Maybe he does love you.
And life is good, isn’t it?
You just need to cry right now. That’s all.
“Peter?” you call out, pushing his door open, stepping into his apartment in the attic, webs everywhere. You’ve been avoiding him for a week, the hurt of the letter still too fresh. It’s why you’re here now, you want to talk to him about it, get the truth behind it, but the apartment…it looks destroyed.
Furniture knocked over, webs on every surface, over all the walls. Nail marks on the walls, deep gouges.
“Peter?!” you call out, your voice urgent, worried, your heart beating a frantic rhythm as you step deeper into the apartment, hearing a strange sound from his room. “PETER!”
“Go away!” you hear him yell, his voice hoarse, halfway between his voice and a deeper sound, a growl. “Just go away!”
“No,” you call out, heart beating both out of fear and anger because you are here because you need answers and you’re not just going to be turned away. “No, come out here!” You hear him stand, shuffle out towards you and your breath hitches when you see him, eyes black, just black. “Peter? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not…me,” he rasps, the black leaching away as he looks at you, body sweating, shaking, stumbling towards you. “I’m worried I’ll…hurt you.”
“You won’t,” you whisper and then he’s there, pulling you against him, his body shaking as he holds you, his nose buried into the crook of your neck, breathing you in.
“It’s like…the world is dark…” he whispers. “Like I know…nothing. Nothing but you. Always you.” And then he’s pulling you down onto the floor, his body holding yours, tight, tight, tight like he can’t let you go. Like if he lets you go, he’ll lose you.
Like you’ll leave him.
And if he knows nothing but you…doesn’t that mean he loves you?
“Peter,” you whisper, “is this because I’ve been avoiding you?” His grip tightens, a growl sounding deep in his throat.
“Mine,” he whispers and you swallow hard, guilt leaching into your bones as you shift, your hands brushing his hair back from his face, the black in his eyes leaching back to the warm, soft brown. “I think…maybe…it was a trigger. For my…change.”
“Peter,” you whisper and he looks at you, warm brown eyes filled with tears. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not. I was dealing with some stuff and didn’t know what to do, but I’m not leaving you. I love you.” And that’s your truth—you love him. Deeply, like it’s a piece of you.
“Don’t leave,” he whispers and you press your forehead against his, hands still smoothing his hair back, his body shuddering beneath you.
“Never,” you whisper and that’s how you stay, held tight by him all night. Because he needs you.
And you need him too.
“What if we…inhibit whatever is changing you?” you ask him the next morning, seated on the only intact chair in his apartment, pencil moving on the scrap piece of paper, formulas spilling out, a design sketching across the paper. “Like…Professor Banner did one. If we could inhibit this change in you, chemical or biological and prevent it from controlling you…that would be good right?”
He turns from where he’s been struggling to make coffee around all the webs and destruction. “God, I love you,” he says and you roll your eyes, a pleased smile growing on your lips nonetheless.
“Well come on, biotech engineer! Can’t do this without you!”
Peter knows nothing when the arachnid comes over him, takes over. It’s like the world is dark and everything is strange and foreign and so much. Too loud, too strong, too bright. It’s like he’s possessed, the real him shoved down, but one thing he does know.
You, always you. It’s like he’s engineered to know you, designed to love you.
He always knows you.
The arachnid in him always whispers mine and when Peter wakes up…he can’t argue with it. Because he’s never loved anyone like he’s loved you.
Peter doesn’t know how Jean Grey got into his apartment, but she did. She found the letter he wrote three years ago to MJ, back when he was feeling guilty, back before he’d spilled everything to you. Back before you became his everything.
But Jean Grey found the letter to MJ and once again he’s put her in danger. Because he loved her once, because he knew her. Because he misses her, not as a girlfriend, but a friend. The person he used to know. And he feels so guilty over putting her in danger again.
Which is why he’s here, at MJ’s apartment, bursting in only to see you there too, sitting and talking with her, that soft smile on your face, the one he fell in love with all those years ago.
“Babe?” he calls out and you turn, a question in your eyes.
“Why’d you ask me here?” you ask him and he can feel the ground shift underneath his feet as he looks at MJ, a smile on her face that he doesn’t know. One that’s wholly not her.
“You’re in MJ aren’t you, Jean?” he asks and the grin only widens as she nods, stepping around the kitchen counter, a knife in her hand. “Come on! Stab me, I can take it.”
“It’s not for you, Peter,” Jean says, but it’s MJ’s voice and it hurts, hearing her voice say his name. “It’s for your girlfriend.” He barely has time to breathe, to speak before he’s watching MJ (Jean) plunge the knife into your stomach, your body bending into the gesture, folding in, a silent scream leaving your lips.
“NO!” he yells and he can feel the arachnid claw up into him, the inhibitor not yet finished as he crosses the room to you, your body falling into his arms.
“Peter, Peter. Peter,” Jean says, her words in a parody of MJ’s voice, dark and cruel and unrelenting, teasing and taunting.
“WHAT?!” he roars, turning, his arms still holding you, tears slipping down his cheeks.
“I’m giving you a choice,” she says and he realizes just how close MJ stands to the open window, the one that if she fell out of would kill her. “You choose one of them to save. There’s a right choice and a wrong choice, Peter. The right choice saves them both, the wrong choice has one die. Who’s it gonna be, Peter?” He watches as she climbs onto the window ledge, turning, preparing to jump, that cruel smile on her face.
“Peter,” you whisper, your hand reaching for him, your blood soaking your shirt, soaking the floor and he feels his body hitch, fold in on itself because he wants to stay with you, call the ambulance and save you, but he knows that MJ is the right choice. Because he failed her once and he can’t fail her again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers and he lays you down on the floor, gentle and takes off, jumping out the window, arms wrapped around MJ, webs shooting up and out, carrying her away, carrying her to safety in Castle’s hideout.
“Wrong choice, Peter,” Jean whispers and then she’s gone and in her place is MJ, scared and terrified MJ who he explains some things to and she relaxes, going with him. He drops her off and then he’s rushing back, his heart feeling like it’s breaking as he races against time back to MJ’s apartment, hurrying and breaking, bursting back into the window, your body unconscious, the blade removed, a giant pool of blood beneath you.
“NO!” he cries, falling to his knees beside you, shooting webs into your stomach, using them to hold you together, the sound of the ambulance roaring, the webs soaking with blood and he holds you against him, crying, your pulse so weak. “NO! STAY! I LOVE YOU!”
And he stays with you until the EMTs take you away and then he leaves the apartment, needing justice. Needing to finish this.
For you.
“Why’d you do that to me, Jean?” you ask, your body lying flat in the meadow. A memory of yours that you’re in, that she’s in too.
“To show Peter the truth,” she says and you sit up, turning to look at her, a redheaded girl no older than you are, her face worried and tear-stained. “That sometimes you make the wrong choice and you have to live with that. With what it does.”
“So, you killed me for that?”
“No,” she says, sinking down beside you in the swaying grass. “No one was ever going to die. I called the ambulance as soon as he made his choice. I just need him to understand.”
“Why Jean?” She looks at you, utterly broken.
“Because I have answers that I need and I keep making wrong choices. And I have no one.”
“Not true,” you tell her and she looks at you, brows knitting as you reach for her hand, taking it in yours. “You have me.”
“I almost killed you.”
“But you were never going to let me die,” you tell her and watch as a single tear slips down her cheek. “You know, there’s this story I read once about sisters forged in blood. And I don’t know your story, Jean. But I can be that if you need it.”
“Why?” she asks you, her voice not breaking so much as already broken.
“Because everyone needs someone. And you’re not evil, Jean. You’re just…you need someone and that can be me.”
“I’d like that,” she says and the two of you lay back into the meadow, the ring of ambulance sirens just cutting through along with the echo of someone yelling stay. “I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah,” you tell her. “Later.” And she disappears and you’re left with the knowledge that Peter didn’t choose you ringing in your heart, tears slipping down your cheeks until the light flares bright and pain flares stronger and the meadow winks out and the hospital lights wink in.
“She’s back!”
But back to what, you wonder. What’s there for you now in a city where you’ve only really found pain?
When you got discharged from the hospital, the first thing you did was pack up all your stuff, the acceptance to Oxford for your Ph.D finally chosen. Two weeks before you fly out. Two weeks before you leave New York behind for good.
You took your stuff to your best friend, Gwen’s house where you’ve been ever since, camping on her couch, alternating between crying your eyes out and going out only when you know that Peter will be busy with work. The times where you’ll never cross paths.
He didn’t choose you. He chose MJ. He had the chance to save you both and he saved her because he didn’t see the fact that he could have caught her with a web while staunching the flow of blood from your wound. Choosing you was the right choice but he didn’t think at all. He just said sorry and took her to safety.
He left you to die.
He left you to die like you were nothing.
You can’t stay around him because when you look at him, how will you ever see anything but the man who left you to bleed out? How can you forgive him?
You can’t.
You just can’t.
So, you’ll bide your time before you fly out, before you leave New York, leave the fucking country behind, finding safety at Oxford, at the hallowed halls you’ve always wanted to be at.
You’ll leave Peter behind and move on with your life.
Because you deserve that.
Because he didn’t choose you. He’ll never choose you. You were just the Other Woman.
Peter didn’t want to meet with Ned, but he’s spent weeks moping over you, over the fact that everywhere he looks you’re not there. The arachnid is not happy, but it can’t do anything, not now that Peter can control it. Not now that he knows that it’s him.
He went because he just wanted to know if he could remember him and he wasn’t expecting that spark, the handshake or the way Ned cried after he said Peter. He wasn’t expecting him to remember.
“You really love her?” Ned asks now, the two of them in his attic apartment, piecing Legos together to form the Millenium Falcon.
“I really do,” he answers, pressing a block down and Ned sighs, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head at him.
“Then dude! You have to get her back.” Peter looks at Ned, red just tinging his vision, the urge to smash the work of several weeks still there, the darker side always going to be there.
“How, Ned? I chose MJ and she thinks I left her to die! I doubt she’ll believe anything I have to say.”
“If you really love her,” Ned says, leaning forwards in his chair, arms resting on his knees, hands folded under his chin, “then show her. Put everything on the line for her and tell her everything. Even if it means leaving it all behind.”
“But what if she still says no?” Peter whispers.
“But what if she says yes, man?”
The airport is far too loud for this early in the morning and you’re still sad, that particular sadness of leaving your life behind swirling in your gut, the sight of Gwen’s teary face as she waved goodbye still eating at you now while you sit, waiting for the time to board. Waiting for the time to leave it all behind.
At least that was until you heard your name being called in a voice you never wanted to hear again. You turn in your chair, taking in the sight of Peter, his curls brushed out of his face, hooded jacket on, dark blue jeans and the Rolling Stones shirt you bought him one Christmas on his frame.
He looks good. And that hurts. You turn back around, ignoring him, hoping he doesn’t come closer, but of course you aren’t that lucky, his footsteps, his unique rhythm echoing behind you as he steps around to sit down beside you, his hands folded in his lap, attention focused on the large windows exposing the planes.
“When Harry Met Sally,” he says and you glance at him, surprise etching on your face, throat thickening and lungs burning as you look at him.
“What?” you ask, your voice thick in that way a voice is when you’re holding back tears, that image of his masked face whispering sorry still too strong.
“Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, blue, popcorn and milk duds. You hate coding but you love calculating. You love watching sunrises but hate watching sunsets. You like the moon more than the sun but the sun more than the stars. You hate sleeping with the windows open. You love sleeping with your arms out of the covers. You love when we cuddle. You love coffee, so much so that if we cut you open, you always say that you’d bleed caffeine.”
“Peter,” you whisper and he looks over at you, his face creased with pain, tears slipping down his cheeks over and over again, his face carved with the rivulets of grief. “Peter, you didn’t choose me. You left me to die. How can…How can I-I forgive you?” Tears are slipping down your cheeks now and he sighs, reaching for your hand, fingers interlacing through yours.
“I chose wrong,” he whispers. “I know that now. I could have saved you both, but all I thought in that moment was that I had already failed MJ and that I didn’t want her to die because I felt guilty. But I went right back for you. I must have broken a thousand speed records to get back to you.
“I held you as you bled. It were my webs that saved you, staunching the blood flow. I held you until the EMTs arrived. I yelled and begged and pleaded for you to stay, but you were unconscious, you didn’t hear me. But I was there.” He looks at you with such pain that you reach forwards, hands cupping his cheeks, thumbs wiping away his tears.
You look at him and in his eyes, you see the truth there. You know he’s not lying. You know he loves you. That he would do anything for you. That he loves you. That it wasn’t fake.
You weren’t the other woman after all.
“Peter,” you whisper, your voice still hitching with the tears, “I forgive you…but I can’t stay here. I can’t stay in New York.”
“I know,” he whispers and then a figure steps up beside him, two carry-on bags on his shoulders.
“I’m Ned,” he says and you can feel a bit of shock in your system, this man, Peter’s best friend. The one who forgot him. “And yeah, I remember.”
“I’m coming with you,” Peter says.
“While, actually,” Ned says. “We’re coming with you because he’s following you and I’m following him because I’ve gone four years without my best friend and not any more. Also, I’m mission control so… you know. He needs me.” He sits down beside Peter and Peter elbows him, a choked giggle escaping from your throat as you wave at Ned. Peter whispers, “Shut up” at Ned and it only makes you laugh harder.
“But what about Spiderman?” you whisper and he looks at you with such love as he pulls you against him that it feels for a moment like you’re complete.
“I’m always gonna be him,” he says. “It’s not the city that matters. It’s you. I can be Spiderman anywhere so long as my home is there. As long as you’re there, because, pretty girl. You’re all that matters to me. Where you go, I go.”
“I hope you like rain,” you whisper and he pulls back, pressing his forehead against yours.
“I love it,” he whispers and then he’s kissing you, hard and deep and fast and you were wrong before. Your first kiss wasn’t a kiss for the ages.
This is.
Because this is the moment that you became real.
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