Dear Mr. Right
Peter Parker x Fem!Reader
Summary: During the week leading up to valentine's day you begin to receive love letters from an anonymous writer. For some weird reason, the handwriting looks exactly like your new English partner’s: Peter Parker.
WC: 4.2k
TW: Peter being an idiot with a crush, reader who hates Valentine’s day, tooth-rotting fluff that chipped away at my lonely soul. Mentions of anxiety (lip biting, bouncing leg up and down to relieve stress)
AN: happy valentines day!! And ignore my mistakes </3
You do not have permission to re-post my work anywhere. It’s my shit, don’t steal it.
Dear Y/n,
Roses are red We’re told that violets are blue I can’t admit my feelings But please know they’re true
February approaches And the sun still shines Though not as bright as you Would you ever think to be mine?
I’ll watch from afar Eternally gazing at you If the world contains any mercy Maybe you’ll feel the same too
I’m no savior I’m certainly no knight I’m a horrible poet But maybe I’m your Mr. Right
- Your secret admirer
“I see Mystery Boy has struck again,” A familiar voice calls, standing out in the crowded halls of Midtown High.
“Jesus!” You yelp, your heart freezing in your chest as you shove the note that was once in your hand deep into the pocket of your pants. “A little warning next time, Michelle?”
“Never,” She chortles, standing to the left of you. She glances at the outline of your newest letter before questioning, “Is this love confession 36 or 37?”
Small strands of her curly brown hair frame her face as the two of you begin to walk down the halls, books in hand, drowning in the sea of students. There’s a certain buzz in the air, the one that only comes out when Valentine's Day is near. Hundreds of couples are pressed up against one another, as if being separated for more than a single second would cause them the most hideous pain.
Lips on lips, hands in pockets, jackets around shoulders, it’s almost sickening in a way. Red and pink streamers are hung up in the hall, and you recognize the penmanship of one Betty Brant on the posters that advertise the school’s annual ‘Lover’s Dance’.
It truly wasn’t anything important. Just the 14th of February, it happened every year and only lasted 24 hours, just like every other day. Except for some reason, the entire month was dedicated to the singular event. Pharmacy after pharmacy filled with cheap, dirty cards and stuffed toys, as if it represented love in any real way.
It was safe to say you weren’t a big fan.
Well, until now.
At the beginning of the month, much to your dismay, you started to receive little notes through the slits of your locker. At first, they were small compliments, just a simple, ‘you look really pretty today :)’ or ‘I really like your shirt! It brings out your eyes.’
Then, they progressed into small words of encouragement, wishes of luck for upcoming tests, and reminders to take care of yourself. Now, whoever he is has taken a liking to poems, and has begun to spill his heart onto the red and blue sticky notes that he shoves in between the cracks of your life.
When Mystery Boy first started his little gig, you were slightly caught off guard. After all, what were the points of love letters and secret admirers? It seemed like such a senseless notion, so you paid no mind.
However, as the days passed and the shoe box under your bed began to fill with the folded paper entries, you found yourself curious about what he would write next. Did you know him? Did you share any classes together? After all, just how much attention was he paying? You even styled your hair a different way to see if he would notice. He did, and once again, he expressed his adoration through words on paper.
And so, a week until the once dreaded date, you let the small letter burn a hole in the pocket of your pants as you walked to your first class of the day.
“It’s not 37,” you grumble in response, “It’s 23, thank you very much,”
“It concerns me that you know the exact number. Please don’t tell me that you’re letting little Edgar Allen Poe get to you. I thought you weren’t into that kind of stuff?” MJ inquires, peering at you curiously. She’s never been a big fan of cheesy romance either, something that you both love to mock come each February.
“I’m not! I’m just curious is all…”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying!” You protest, scrambling your words slightly. “It’s just weird is all! I’ve never had a secret admirer, so I don’t really know what to do in this situation.”
“Do you think he might ask you to the dance?” MJ asks, shuffling behind a pair of freshmen who are glued to each other's side. “Most importantly, if he did ask, would you say yes?”
The thought makes you gulp. You? A dance? The event never truly crossed your mind, just another thing to ignore, overlook, and simply not care about.
“It doesn’t matter what my answer would be MJ, I don’t know who he is. How am I supposed to go with him if he’s anonymous? How would I even tell him, seeing as I’m almost positive he's never uttered a single word to me?”
“Who knows,” She drags on, eyes shifting around, “maybe he’d ask you in person?”
“I doubt it, he seems so shy in his letters,”
You frown as the words leave your lips. Your poet seems nervous in himself, but confident in his words. You haven’t known him long, but there’s no need for him to force himself to do something he isn’t ready for.
“Getting attached, are we?” She pesters further.
“I’m sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of angsty teenage romance in the halls,”
//
“Good morning folks!” Your cheery English teacher says with far too much enthusiasm for nine o’clock in the morning. “As I mentioned last week, today we’re starting our poetry assignments!”
How fitting.
“In a moment,” they continue, pulling out a list, “I’ll assign you your new partners! Remember guys! Each partner must pick out a romance poem. When you both have read and analyzed the work, you’ll then write an essay comparing the similarities and differences in the writing styles!”
Subtle groans in protest arise, yet you’re more aggravated by the damn holiday than the assigned partners. Wherever Mystery Boy is, you hope he’s having a better day than you are.
As the names were called, and possible partners kept disappearing, you gave up hope of being paired with a person you were friends with. Bored and grumpy, you blocked out the slight chatter as students moved around the room. Of course, you were going to be paired with some half-wit asshole who wouldn’t dare to contribute anything more than their name, and it’ll be your job to-
“-And you’re with Y/n!”
Shit. I finally got a partner and I don’t even know who it is.
“Y/n, did you hear me?” The teacher asks from the front of the room, “You’re with Peter, he sits over there!”
Your brows furrow. Peter?
Peter... Parker? That strangely smart kid who MJ is sort of friends with? You slightly smile to yourself, maybe you won’t have to carry this assignment after all.
Your eyes wander around the room until they find the unfamiliar head of curls, and you walk towards his desk that’s two rows over. There’s a small spring in your step, after all, if MJ can tolerate this guy, (which is very rare), maybe he’s not so bad?
“Peter, right?” You ask him as you plop into the seat next to him, pencil clutched tightly in your hand. There’s an awkward pause between the two of you as he nods his head. His cheeks are a deep shade of red, brown doe eyes staring back into yours.
“So, any idea what poem you wanna do?” You ask, a smile gracing your lips as you twirl your pencil around your fingers, flipping through the many different poets in your mind.
His mouth opens but nothing comes out. He looks nervous, incredibly so, and you wondered if maybe, deep down, he had a hidden fear of poetry.
It wouldn’t surprise you. Nothing does anymore.
“Ok…” You begin, “Well, we could look at some from Edgar Allen Poe, obviously, or William Blake, maybe even Charlotte Smith?”
When he didn’t respond, you internally grimaced. Didn’t this kid have an internship with Tony Stark? You weren’t going to waste your time sitting here in this uncomfortably warm chair just to have Peter refuse to pitch in.
“Look, if you're not gonna do anything, just tell me now and I’ll work on my ow-”
“No!” He blurts, a bit louder than he intended to, and you cringed at the sudden noise. You caught a few groups quickly glance over before stiffly peeling their eyes away. “I mean- ‘m gonna do my work I swear! M-Maybe we should make a list or something?”
The word vomit rests heavily in the air as you slowly nod and begin to open up to a blank page of your journal.
This dude is... weird.
You began to brainstorm, Peter beside you, watching as your brows furrowed, scribbling out different titles and themes of famous romantic poems. You were lost in concentration, and he was seemingly lost in you.
“Here,” you say, sliding the notebook over to him, “Write down a couple of your favorites, then sort through them later,” You end your statement with a small smile. There’s no reason to be rude, and the poor boy seems to be shaking. The least you could do was have some common courtesy, even if the swirling events of a useless holiday were tossing your insides around like a rag-doll.
He trembled slightly before writing down a few titles, grasping his pencil with such force you were surprised it didn’t crumble under the pressure. His jaw was clenched, and you couldn’t help but stare. Weird? Sure. Incredibly attractive? Absolutely.
His hair spilled over his forehead, and his sweater was pushed up to his elbows, showing off his toned forearms. Long, slender fingers worked quickly as he gracefully created a list right beside yours, irises tracing back and forth as he contemplated his choices.
“I think I know which one I want to do,” he mumbles, the words falling from his thin pink lips. “Love’s Philosophy,”
“Percy Bysshe Shelley, good choice.” Your words are soft, yet true. You had memorized that poem when you were younger, and it never seemed to leave you.
“And the sunlight clasps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea,” You began, pulling the stanza from a hidden part in your brain.
“What is all this sweet work worth if thou kiss not me?”
You freeze slightly, your breath lodged in your throat. You’ve read this poem hundreds of times, yet hearing Peter mumble the last line seemed foreign in the best of ways. You refused to meet his gaze as you wordlessly took the journal back, checking the clock only to realize you had moments before the bell rang.
“Um,” You clear your throat, desperate for the lump that has magically appeared to dissipate, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
When you look back up, he’s staring heavily into your soul, and suddenly you feel far too warm. Heat rises to your face, and you feel yourself sizzling.
This is pathetic, he’s just a boy.
A very cute one, but that doesn’t matter. Not right now.
He nods as the bell rings, and you book it to your next class.
You didn’t have time for cheesy love letters.
And you certainly didn’t have time for Peter Parker.
//
Later on in the evening, you’re splayed out on your bed, sheets askew with your English journal right in front of you. You had been going back and forth between “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe, a classic, but something that might be overused, or “Love and Age” by Thomas Love Peacock, another beautiful piece of literature that had a deep hold on you.
You looked over to Peter’s chart, his chicken-scratch handwriting printed on your page. Though, the more you looked at it, the more familiar it became. The way he crossed his T’s, the subtle swoop of his A’s, and the curves of his E’s.
You knew that handwriting.
“What the hell..?” you murmur, shoving your pen between the pages of the book. You hopped off your bed and crouched down on the floor, fishing for the small box that was hidden in the darkness. When your hand touched the corner, you grasped it tight and tugged it out.
It was filled to the brim with crumpled and torn sticky notes, words smudged and jumbled together in a heaping mess of romance. Very quickly, you dumped all of them out on your comforter and began to shuffle through them.
Your heart was in your throat as you clumsily flipped through the pages of your journal to find a sample of Peter’s handwriting. Titles after titles of the world’s most romantic poems, something that looks more like a Hallmark website than an actual assignment.
Your hands are drenched in sweat by the time you reach to grab one of the matching sticky notes, the deafening silence leaving a poisonous ring in your ears and a hollow feeling in your chest. You fear the worst before it happens, bracing yourself for whatever blast of emotions you might experience the moment you put the pieces together. Time doesn’t listen to your pleas as the realization dawns on you.
Nerdy Peter Parker is Mystery Boy.
Sweet, warm, loving words written on cheap paper, hidden in the comfort of your locker, barely taking up space under your bed. The phrases have been ripped away from you, and nothing feels sacred.
Does he mean what he writes? Does he know how much it makes your heart race every time his pen hits the page? Does he realize that you love this so much you almost hate it? Does he lie awake thinking about you in the way that you think about him?
Would he ever understand how terrified this feeling makes you?
You don’t have the heart to be angry, but you do have the right to be confused.
How long has he felt like this? Why didn’t he say anything? Was he prepared to wait days? Weeks? Months?
You chewed your lip raw until it began to bleed, your leg bopping up and down, faster than your heartbeat, which was louder than the ringing in your ears.
This is insanely stupid. There’s no reason to be acting like this.
“I need to go to bed,” you sigh, rubbing your palms over your eyes before shoving everything back into that damn box, willing yourself to forget it.
Unfortunately for you, your budding feelings were harder to hide.
//
Ok, you’ll admit, you didn’t think this one through.
When you promised yourself you’d do your best to ignore his gestures and act like a civilized person, you didn’t realize he’d be sitting across MJ at your sacred lunch table. The table where you mocked, criticized, judged, and just overall became a sarcastic mess.
It’s alright, I’m gonna be fine, it’ll be great.
You forced yourself to put one foot in front of the other, clenching your jaw as you walked up to a group of Ned Leeds, Betty Brant, Michelle Jones, and one Peter Benjamin Parker.
You pulled out the new book you had started to read, shoving your nose so far in you could practically smell the ink. You re-read the same page over and over again, almost walking into a freshman. Anything to avoid human confrontation.
“Well good morning to you too,” MJ chortles, shutting the book of her own, “whatcha reading?”
“Another Colleen Hoover book that is bound to wreck my emotional stability for a week. I swear this woman has it out for me.” You groan. You looked up and said your hellos to the rest of the group, hoping they’d move on and leave you alone, but not everything goes your way.
“Why is it that the only romances you enjoy are the ones that have such a hard journey?” Betty asks in between sips of her water, blonde hair tied into a proper bun with not one piece out of place.
“Because Betty,” you start, sending a brief glance to Peter who has taken quite the interest in the soggy food before him, “love is a fleeting feeling that is destined to destroy the souls of the innocent.”
You take pride in the eye rolls you receive.
“I'm shitting with you, Brant. Hoover is an exceptional writer and I like her style.”
Normally you wouldn’t have corrected yourself, but the fleeting dash of despair that overtook Peter’s eyes was enough to have you regret every word.
As conversation followed, you tried not to notice every time Peter’s big honey eyes traced your face and the way h- nope. Stopping now.
But for every time he looked away, he’d never notice all of the times you’d look back.
Close to the end of lunch, a terrible idea popped into your head.
Peter Parker wouldn’t happen to have any sticky notes on hand, would he?
“Hey, does anyone have a sticky note? I need one,” you ask, watching Peter tense. He toyed with you often, why not return the favor?
Betty hummed as she searched through her bag, pushing around her color-coded notes and mechanical pens, but ultimately coming up empty-handed. You knew MJ didn't have any, and Ned didn’t bring his bag, so just as you planned it, Peter was the last man standing.
“I -uhm,” he gulps, and you look him dead in the eye, “red or blue?”
“Hm, can I have both?” You peer, pushing him. He’s breaking, his ink is spilling out onto a new page and you’d burn the world just to read it.
He pushes the stack towards you, thin hairs standing tall on his arms, daring you to speak.
And you just can't help yourself when you say, “Thanks, Peter! You’re my Mr. Right.”
//
When the bell rings, you’re more than ready to leave. Nothing else matters besides exiting the premises as you weave through people, clenching your jaw at those who walk incredibly slow.
Your combination is muscle memory, and it doesn’t take you long to pop open your locker. When the metal squeaks and the hinges groan, another poem falls gracefully to the floor, and suddenly time stops.
The paper feels familiar against your hand. You know the sensation and it brings you comfort. You know the writing, the script, the way he rhymes, and the way he lets you see small glimpses of himself that leave you craving more. You’re hesitant to read it, but ultimately give in. When it comes to Mystery Boy, now known as Peter Parker, you’ll always give in.
I worry now That you’ll leave Because you don't like The heart on my sleeve
I fear you know The secret I keep Locked away So you won’t see
Tell me we’re ok Tell me this won't change Say we’ll be alright And I’ll take the blame
I understand If the writing needs to stop I’ll throw away the paper And the pen will be dropped
But if you change your mind If this is just in my head Then please say something And end my dread
Atop a swing is where I’ll sit Waiting in the night Come and find me, it won’t be tough I’ll show you I’m Mr. Right
- Your secret admirer
Well shit.
He wants to meet you? Tonight?
That's a little risky. Nevertheless, incredibly tempting.
You lift your head up and scan the hallways in search of Peter, but he’s nowhere to be found. All that remains is the crumpled stanzas and your mixed emotions that are fighting a war with one another.
Like water and oil, your thoughts clashed. What's the harm in going? Besides, why would you leave him alone in the dark?
No. No. The harm in going is obvious. His kind words that weaseled into your heart went against everything you stood for, and you promised you’d never become a “lovey-dovey” hopeless romantic.
But it’s Peter! Sweet, adorable, rosy-cheeked Peter who writes you notes and takes time out of his day to slide them in your locker. Smart, wonderful Peter who deserves the world and everything it has to offer.
Peter Parker who gives you his heart and trusts you not to break it.
You’re going, there's no doubt about it.
//
Atop a swing is where I’ll sit Waiting in the night Come and find me, it won’t be tough I’ll show you I’m Mr. Right
The air nips at your skin as you walk across the uneven pavement, up to the only park in Queens. It’s old and simple, nothing special, but it reminds you of better times and you find yourself missing certain parts of it.
The sun is setting, bleeding out onto the sky. The dusty red fights the deep blue that threatens to take over the night sky, and you chuckle at the color choices.
The last final moments of the sun glare in your eyes as you walk up the final hill, shoes scuffing against the pavement with each step. The world is quiet, and for once you embrace the silence in your mind.
When the ground peaks, you stop.
There he is, faced towards the sun, exactly where he said he would be.
His back is tense, and it takes everything in you not to soothe him the way he does you. His curls shift in the cold wind, and the mulch beneath his feet shuffle every time he swings slightly.
You never realized how beautiful he really is, inside and out. He’s shown you parts of himself that he thought he’d keep locked away forever, and you know you want to see more. Even the small things that shouldn't matter, but do. Like if he prefers chocolate or Vanilla, or if he’s team Edward or Jacob. What his comfort movie is, what food he hates, the song stuck in his head, or even what he had for lunch.
You want to learn, and you’ll let him teach you.
You know him through his words, through his pages, through the box you keep to yourself, and you hope with time, you’ll gain more.
He hears you coming, the ruffle of your sweater is a dead giveaway. He lets you stare, after all, he’s surprised you came. He’d wait forever in the sun until the only light is the moon. You can watch as long as you like, he doesn't mind.
Your heartbeat calms him. Even if you’re taking your time to approach him, he’s glad to see you.
When you do finally work up the courage to sit beside him, all you can do is stare. His freckles dance like wildfire, his eyes trace your face, and the two of you see each other in a new light for the first time.
“So,” you speak first, breaking the comfortable silence, “You’re Mystery Boy?”
He expects to hear resentment in your voice, but it's simply pure curiosity. There's no malice, no venom, no poison; just you.
“Yeah, how’d you figure it out? Was I that obvious?” He asks, lips quirking into a smile.
“No, actually. At first, I honestly had no idea who you were. I memorized your handwriting from the letters, and then realized the poem list that you wrote in my notebook during English looked far too familiar,”
He’s surprised at the confession. You memorized his handwriting?
“And I confirmed my suspicions during lunch, wanted to see if you carried the supplies around with you,” you stared straight ahead when you confessed your words, embarrassment wrapping itself around your throat like a noose.
“I always keep them on me. I never know when I’ll have a free moment so I kinda learned to work around it.” He follows after. His words are kind, and there’s no trace of bitterness.
“Who knew that Peter Parker would be a poetry master?” You tease, enjoying the way the tips of his ears turn the same shade of the dying sun. There’s a silent acceptance of what’s growing between the two of you, warmth seeping into your dry bones despite the sharp cold.
“Thank you,” you say after a while, causing Peter to look at you once more. “Your notes were some of the best parts of my day,”
“And what happened to hating hopeless romantics?”
You groan and bury your head in your hands, squeezing your eyes tight. Your words are muffled as you reply, “Oh my god, you sound like Michelle,”
He laughs as you shrink into yourself, but you know he means no harm. To prove it to you, he hesitantly grabs a hold of your hand, and you have no problem letting him.
“Will you let me change your mind?”
He’s vulnerable. He’s showing you another part of himself that you'll never forget, no matter how hard you try.
“Alright, Peter. You can be my Mr. Right,”
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