Summary: What was meant to be a weekend at the cabin with Peter, Pepper, and Morgan very quickly turned into a weekend alone with your best friend and your recently acknowledged feelings for him thanks to a certain assumption made by your step-mother.
Pairing: College!Peter Parker x Stark!Reader
Warnings: language, sexual suggestions, angst?, too much overthinking, a tad bit of fluff
Being alone at a secluded cabin in upstate New York with Peter meant that you could only avoid him for so long.
You were able to extend your avoidance of him without raising any red flags by showering after you’d trudged back to the cabin, dripping lake water all over the wooden floors as you padded to your room, and you’d spent nearly forty minutes just sitting in the shower and letting the hot water wash over you while you reminded yourself over and over again that you and Peter were just best friends, and nothing was going to change that. Best friends was good. Great even. There was absolutely no reason to change anything about your relationship. You just needed to remind yourself of that every now and then.
By the time you finally pulled yourself out of the shower and pulled on shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, the sun had sunk below the horizon and the scent of burning firewood was drifting through the open windows of the cabin.
You stepped onto the deck, a knitted blanket draped over your arms, and watched as Peter stacked log after log onto the already much too large fire. “Are you trying to burn the place down?” you asked, padding across the lawn towards him. You dropped unceremoniously into one of the lawn chairs that he must have dragged over to the fire pit and glanced up at him. “You add any more wood to the fire, it’ll still be burning in the morning.”
So caught up in what he was doing, he hadn’t even realized you were outside until you spoke. “I thought you had drowned in there,” he noted, completely ignoring your comment about the fire. “Are you all wrinkled and pruny now?”
“Why don’t you come over here and find out, Parker,” you teased, holding your spread fingers up to him. He contorted his body away from your reach, laughing. Just the sound of his laugh was enough to send your heart racing and to make your cheeks hurt from smiling so widely. “Come on,” you laughed. “You know you want me to touch you.” You snapped your mouth shut as soon as you said the words out loud, thinking of just how badly you wanted him to want you to touch him.
Peter froze momentarily, and an awkward silence settled in the space between you. Finally, returned to poking at the fire with an oversized stick, and he forced out a laugh that made you cringe internally, wishing you were anywhere but there. “Do you think there’s stuff here for s’mores?” he asked as if you’d never said anything at all.
“Are you kidding? Morgan would bring the whole place down on our heads if s’more supplies weren’t constantly stocked in the pantry.” You smiled up at him as if to silently reassure him that everything was just as it should be between the two of you, that you didn’t watch the way his biceps flexed every time he prodded the logs in the fire with rapt attention, that you didn’t want to just drag your nails down the length of his arms to watch his muscles jump beneath your touch.
“I’m, uh- I’ll go find the stuff for s’mores then.”
He left you alone at the fire then, left you alone to smack your hand to your forehead and chide yourself for speaking before thinking. If you kept it up over the weekend, there was no way you were going to get through the weekend without inevitably making things incredibly awkward at best or ruining your friendship at worst.
You didn’t want to think about that.
So, to preoccupy your mind, you sent a quick text in the group chat, letting your friends know that you’d be back in New York late Sunday night after you got back from the cabin. Harry and MJ were already in the city, what with MJ attending NYU and Harry attending Columbia with Peter; Harley had left Cambridge the day before you, and he was working on some project - what exactly, you weren’t sure - at Stark Tower over the summer; Ned was still in Cambridge, as far as you knew, but he was bound to be back in New York by the end of next week. With everyone back in the city, you needed to set up a group outing so that planning and preparing could take over the space in your mind that was typically reserved for all things Peter. It was the only way you’d get through this weekend with (what was left of) your sanity intact.
When Peter returned, he sent you a triumphant grin as he raised a bag of marshmallows, Hershey bars, and a box of graham crackers into your line of sight. The smile you sent him in return was half-hearted, but he either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it, instead focusing all of his attention on preparing a marshmallow at the end of his stick before plunging it into the flames.
You watched him - of course you did - taking note of the red and orange hues of the fire that reflected in his dark eyes, the way that his tongue poked out of his mouth as he gave the flaming marshmallow his full attention, and the cute furrow of his brows as he pulled the marshmallow from the fire, his lips puckering slightly before he blew gently to put out the flame that lingered on the marshmallow.
His gaze shifted to you then, full of amusement and happiness and heat, and you froze, unable to think, to speak, to breath. Hell, if you were being honest, you probably couldn’t remember your own name for as long as he looked at you like that.
You were saved by the bell. Or, more accurately, you were saved by both yours and Peter’s phones ringing.
“Group chat?” he asked, too busy trying not to get gooey marshmallow and melted chocolate all over his fingers to check for himself. It was the only reasonable answer as to why both yours and Peter’s phones would be ringing in sync with one another.
A quick glance at your phone screen confirmed his suspicions. “Yeah.” You plucked your phone from your lap and answered the incoming call. “What’s up, losers?” you greeted, your lips curling into a smile when you saw the faces of your friends.
“Y/N!” Harry greeted happily. “Thanks for the invite to the cabin, asshole.” You heard him groan, and you could barely make out MJ’s curly hair beside him. What was she doing with Harry? You’d definitely be texting her about that later.
“Where’s Peter?” Ned asked.
“He’s here,” you replied to Ned before addressing Harry. “And it’s not that I didn’t not invite you.” You saw his face contort with confusion as he visibly tried to make sense of your words. “This weekend was supposed to be just the Stark ladies and Peter. Not my fault you’re not important enough to be included, Harold.”
He scoffed, but before he was able to say anything in response, MJ spoke up. “What do you mean it was supposed to be just the Stark ladies and Peter? Are you guys not at the cabin?”
“No,” Peter finally spoke up. “We’re here. Pepper and Morgan aren’t coming up.”
“So you guys are at the cabin all alone?” Harley asked, his head poking into the frame briefly to ask his question before all you could see was the ceiling in what looked like the lab of Stark Tower once again. “Just the two of you? Alone? Together?”
“Harley,” you warned through gritted teeth.
“Yeah?” Peter sounded just as confused as he looked, glancing from the phone to you as if he’d find the answer to his unspoken question just by looking at you. “Pepper wanted to give me and Y/N a weekend to catch up with each other. Right, Y/N? You said she wanted to give us some alone time this weekend.”
Jesus Christ, this boy was the most naive genius you had ever met. You slumped in your chair, slowly sinking out of frame so your friends couldn’t see you implode from embarrassment.
“Alone time?” MJ asked incredulously. “Is there something that we don’t know about? Anything that you two need to t-”
“Did you two finally fuck?” Harry interrupted, looking entirely too pleased with the situation than he had any right to.
“What?” Peter sputtered while you groaned, “Kill me now. Please, Thor. Stick me down where I stand.”
“You’re sitting,” Peter so helpfully pointed out. “Not standing.”
“Hey, don’t try to change the subject, you animals,” Harry scolded. “Give us all the dirty deats, Pete. Did you and Tiny Stark finally get it on? It’s about fucking time. Did she do that thing with her mouth? The one with the ice cube and the-”
“Harry!” You were absolutely mortified. You were one more prodding question or embarrassing comment away from disappearing, changing your name, and going completely AWOL. “Please. Stop. Talking.”
“No, Harry,” Ned interjected. “Please keep talking. I’m curious about the ice cube thing.”
“Harry, I swear to any God that’s listening, I will fucking kill you if you keep talking,” you threatened. The others laughed at your threat, but you sat straight-faced. You absolutely meant it, and judging by Harry’s sudden silence, you knew that he knew you’d meant it as well.
“Wait,” Peter interjected, and you prayed that he wasn’t about to continue the conversation that Harry had attempted to start.You were pretty sure if Peter asked you about the ice cube, you’d spontaneously combust. “What do you mean finally, Harry?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know, Parker,” Harley answered for Harry. “The two of you have been dancing around each other since your senior year of high school.”
“How would you know? You were in Cambridge. And we have not been dancing around each other, Harley,” you argued, rolling your eyes despite knowing that you were still out of frame and Harley likely wasn’t even paying attention to the images of his friends while he worked on whatever the hell it was he was working on in your dad’s lab. “We’re friends.” Recalling Peter’s comment earlier, you added, “Just friends.”
“Mhm,” he hummed, though his tone told you he believed you just as much as he believed that Santa Claus was real. “Yeah. Sure, Y/N. Definitely.”
“He’s right, you know,” Ned piped in. “Watching the two of you act like there was nothing going on between you was exhausting.”
“There was nothing going on,” you told him firmly. Jesus Christ, you wanted to be anywhere but here. This was almost worse than the time you and MJ had an extremely detailed conversation about your respective sex lives after you butt-dialed Happy. Almost.
“I was dating MJ our senior year of high school,” Peter reasoned, and while it was sound reasoning, you were sure that your friends had bullet pointed arguments prepared for this exact conversation. Especially Harley and Harry, which only made the entire situation more awkward for you.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you and Y/N have been like one confession away from jumping each other’s bones since we were like sixteen,” MJ argued, and you heard the sound of hands clapping together in a high five.
“Y/N and Peter kissing in a tree,” Harry singsonged. “F-U-C-K-I-”
Harry was the literal worst.
“What? No!” Peter argued, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “Why are you all so concerned with mine and Y/N’s relationship? We’re just friends.”
“Are you really though?” Harry asked in response. “Our friend group is like fifty shades of fucked up. We’re all in like a weird love pentagon.”
“Pentagram,” MJ commented offhandedly while you deadpanned, “Really, Harry?”
“Keep me out of this,” Ned scolded. “I’m not involved in your weird shit.”
“Okay, our friend group minus Ned is fucked up,” Harry corrected before proceeding to explain, ticking each point off on his fingers as he went. “Y/N and Peter are ‘just friends’ that would definitely have sex with each other,” he bent his fingers into air quotes to emphasize ‘just friends’, “Peter and MJ dated, MJ and I are- Ow! MJ, what the fuck? I dated Y/N, Y/N and Harley have-”
The sound of clattering interrupted Harry’s explanation, and within the blink of an eye, Harley’s face was in the frame again, his eyes wide and flashing with annoyance. “Shut the fuck up, man.”
“Continue that sentence, Harold, and I will end you,” you hissed through your teeth. Your gaze flickered over to Peter, trying to gauge his reaction to Harry’s interrupted explanation. He was staring at you, curiosity and something else, something unplaceable, swimming in his dark eyes.
“‘Y/N and Harley have’ what?” Peter asked, a bite to his tone that you hadn’t been expecting.
“No, no, no. What about MJ and Harry? Let’s focus on that,” you attempted, trying to steer the conversation as far away from that topic as possible, and what better way than to bring attention to yet another relationship within your friend group. “You guys have been spending an awful lot of time together. Don’t think I haven’t seen all of the Snapchat stories and Instagram posts of you guys together.”
MJ protested immediately. “Excuse me. Don’t change the topic, Y/N. We’re talking about you and Peter.”
“We were?” Harry asked. “I thought we were talking about Y/N and Harley.”
“I have an idea,” you offered. “Let’s not talk about Y/N at all, hm?”
“Sure, sure. Let’s talk about how Peter and Harley both have similar taste in women,” Harry offered instead. “You know, daughter of a superhero, nice to look at, insanely smart, rich as fuck, and not half bad in b-”
“Harold!” You interrupted, to which he only laughed, and in that moment, you had never wanted to kill someone more than you wanted to kill Harry, to reach through the phone and wrap your hands around Harry’s throat until he-
“No. Let’s back up,” Peter instructed before repeating his earlier question. “‘Y/N and Harley have’ what?”
Before you could put an end to the conversation entirely, Harry spoke. “Dude, they had s-.”
You disconnected from the call and glanced up at Peter sheepishly. “Oops?”
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