tags: fluff, established relationship, not canon compliant, food, food as a metaphor for love
wc: 4131
ao3 link: here
summary: peter parker uses his love language of gift-giving to get a treat they’ve been talking about for weeks
a/n: this is my first published fanfic which is exciting! i’m not american so there may be some inaccuracies. i hope you enjoy <3
New York City
March 17th 2012
He’d sat in silence for the last forty-five minutes. The sound of wind, writing and page-turning marred his quietude every so often. Peter laid in his bed against the wall, knees tented in front of him, his Organic Chemistry textbook leaned against his thighs. He had a blue, number two pencil in his hand and shook it as he read the chapter about isomers. Peter knew Organic Chemistry wouldn’t be in the AP paper. Still, he underlined and circled various paragraphs and figures.
His window was open, the oak-coloured blinds drawn high. Winter had begun to pull on its Spring suit like Peter pulled on his Spider suit. Spring was the optimal time to wear it, the air cool and the temperature mild. He wasn’t overly sweaty after fighting off the newest villain to terrorise New York City, or rescuing a cat from a tree. He had to endure it during Summer though. It was part of being the Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman, he supposed.
The breeze swished through his bedroom and flicked the edges of his textbook, the photos of Gwen and Uncle Ben tacked onto the corkboard at his desk. Peter pushed up his glasses and moved the textbook on top of his pillow, put his pencil in the middle and folded it over. He’d come back to it later under the light of his desk lamp while Aunt May slept across the hall.
She wasn’t aware of his secret self. He could only guess her reaction based on his late-night entrances: gasps, tears and concerned chats when she saw the cuts and bruises. It would be three, four in the morning and a crash would sound from his room as he flew through his window on a web attached to his closet door. Peter tried to be silent like a real spider, though human spiders couldn’t do the same. At least not him. His room was too messy: his desk chair was home to three days worth of socks and t-shirts, textbooks piled around his room, camera equipment everywhere.
Peter slid across his bed and stood up. He squished one of his faded chucks, kicked it across the floor. It rolled over three times, then came to a stop against his backpack. He spun his black and red chair around and sunk deep into the mound of clothes. Then, he turned around and kicked his legs onto the desk, crushing a sketch for new web-shooters he’d been working on for the last week.
He looked up at the corkboard and scanned the polaroids. Photography kept him on the ground, mostly. He’d take photos of anything he saw, photography could capture what the eye could not. Though the only thing it couldn’t capture properly was Gwen’s beauty, he thought. The board was mostly photos of Gwen—adventures of them in places they shouldn’t be and dates around the city. Peter hid photos of him in his Spider suit with her. He’d tape them to the back of inconspicuous polaroids so that Aunt May couldn’t find them if she snooped around his bedroom. Not that she would though, thanks to his automatic lock.
Peter smiled to himself and plucked a photo of Gwen on a wrought iron park bench tagged with scuffed stickers. The sun set behind her in a blend of pink, yellow and purple with delicate swirls of clouds. She was eating an everything bagel, trying not to laugh while he took the photo of her. He wanted a candid shot, alas, he was caught. He took Gwen out as often as he could. He’d call her as he swung between alleyways on fire escapes, asking if she was available and if she could be at the chosen destination soon. Yesterday afternoon—after saving a concrete pipe from flattening a construction worker—he took her to a play at an off-off-Broadway theatre, they were one of four couples. It was a low-budget historical play, they enjoyed it nonetheless.
Over the last two weeks, Gwen had been asking him to try out a new bagel shop that one of her friends recommended. Artur’s Bagels was a quaint family-run business that specialised in extravagant food. “There’s no way I could take one bite of that,” he said as she scrolled through Yelp photos on her laptop. “Oh, Peter, we must go. They look amazing—the mess will be worth it.” He whispered agreement and pressed a gentle kiss on her lips.
Peter knew Gwen had been working extra hours at Oscorp this week. He would sneak her in through the window at night after he picked her up. They swung from skyscraper to skyscraper all the way to Aunt May’s house. She would tell him about Dr Osborn’s new research for hours as he ran his hands through her hair. The movie he put on would go ignored as they talked about new things they’d both learned until Peter had to swing her back home before George called repeatedly.
He dropped his legs off of the desk and gripped it, then he pulled his chair forward. Peter turned on his monitor, and while he waited for it to load he tacked the picture back where it belonged: in the centre. The screen flashed on and he typed in his password, it was surprisingly easy to guess for someone who hid their identity. He double-clicked the Google icon, then thrice more. Aunt May’s Wi-Fi was slow. By the time it loaded he had opened up five tabs, he closed four. Peter typed ‘Artur’s Bagels NYC’ into the search bar. Millions of results came up, many of a similar name. They weren’t very creative for a city known for the arts, he thought. He clicked on the top result and looked through the pictures to ensure he had the right one. He hoped he did. Peter snatched a pen from the pot by the mouse and scribbled the address on the back of his left hand. It wasn’t too far from Aunt May’s—for a guy who could swing from webs—and it didn’t close for another two hours.
Peter switched off the monitor and got up from the chair, the sock draped over the back fell off and joined the rest of the detritus. He bent over and hooked his hand through the handle on his backpack and tossed it onto his bed. It was filled with books for school. He hauled them out and dumped them on the floor. His Spider suit was under his bed, he’d stuffed it there last night when Aunt May barged into his bedroom because he’d forgotten to lock the door. Peter crouched down, tilted his head and searched for the suit. The dust under the bed made his nose tickle. The suit was buried against the wall among more books. He reached out and pulled it from its rushed hiding spot and stuffed it into his backpack, his web-shooters already inside. He scooped up his chucks and slid them on, they needed to be replaced but he couldn’t bear to part with them. Peter grabbed his jacket from the closet and put it on, then he zipped his backpack closed and slid it onto his shoulders.
He activated the lock, waited for it and walked out of his bedroom. He made sure to lock the door behind him. Aunt May’s door was open, he walked in. The bed was freshly made, her laundry basket empty. “Aunt May,” he shouted as he left the room. She didn’t answer. He shouted again.
“Yes, Peter, what is it?” Her voice came from downstairs, likely the kitchen. He jogged down the stairs, his steps were light from being Spiderman. He went through the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb. Aunt May was bent down picking up bedsheets and loading them into the washing machine. She stood up and turned around, then she smiled at him. He flashed a quick smile back, he missed smiling at strangers. The mask hid his face, though it was worth it to keep Aunt May, and the rest of the world, in the dark about his identity. His and Gwen’s secret.
“I’m going out. Need anything while I’m gone?” Aunt May would occasionally ask him to stop at Trader Joe’s for eggs, milk, laundry detergent. Peter would agree to her requests, only to return with a backpack full of his Spider suit and disappointment, he was forever tangled in webs of incidents around the city. Aunt May would sigh and say, “Oh, Peter,” and ruffle his hair.
“No, it’s fine, dear. You stay safe.” Peter chuckled to himself, his cheeks pulled taught with a smile. He fixed the straps of his backpack and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. “Love you,” Aunt May shouted as he took a bite into the apple. “Ugb ooh,” he garbled and pulled the backdoor open, the juices of the apple flowed down his left hand. After he closed the door he wiped the juice on his sweater, threw the apple into the trashcan by the fence and looked at the address on his hand. He walked around to the front of the house and walked five blocks away before he slunk into an alleyway between two complexes so that no one could see him.
The alley was lined with Dumpsters that were oozing with trash bags, one of them leaked a brown substance onto the floor in slow drips. Peter walked down the alley and crouched behind the emptier Dumpsters. He slung his backpack onto the floor and unzipped it. As he pulled out his suit the Dumpster began to rattle behind him. The trash shuffled around inside, something plastic rolled across the base. He pressed his suit back into the backpack and rose carefully, turning to face the noise. The sound of a plastic bag ripping echoed through the alley. Peter shuffled his right sleeve over his hand and opened the black lid, he moved his body away as he did it. He flipped it back against the red brick wall and a stray tabby cat turned and hissed at him. Then, it lunged for his face and he stumbled backwards. The cat perched on the edge of the bin and leapt off, it ran down the alley and out into the street. He exhaled and ran his hand through his hair while he brought out his suit.
Peter peered round the bin to check for strangers. A silver Toyota Camry drove past, above the speed limit. He would’ve shot a web at their tyres if he had his web-shooters on. He abandoned the thought and stood up, then peeled off his clothes. He hopped around on his right foot as he tried to remove his jeans and fell onto his backpack. “Great. First the cat, now this,” he said. Peter stuffed his regular clothes into his bag, zipped it closed and traded them for the Spider suit. He slid on the body, the spandex morphed to his skin. A shiver tingled through his body—the temperature had dipped slightly on his walk here. Peter grabbed his web-shooters and slid them onto each wrist; he flicked his hand outwards as though he was going to shoot, a test run. He twisted the one on his right hand and gave it another flick. Satisfied, he bent over and snatched his mask that laid atop his bag and pulled it over his head. He bent his neck to both sides and stretched backwards, the spandex stretched tightly over his chest. He picked up his backpack and put it on his shoulders.
Peter walked into the centre of the alley and scanned the area for unwanted intruders again. His Spider-Senses stayed silent, he breathed in and pointed his web-shooters upwards. He exhaled and his wrists jolted backwards as he shot the webs, one on each building. Hands gripped firmly on the webs, he stepped backwards until the webs were tight, and flung himself up like a slingshot. It was one of his favourite moves. The wind dragged against his face as he shot into the sky and slung another web, pulling himself around the building. He took hold of the web and straightened his body to ease the turn.
He shot webs and swung through the labyrinth of Queen’s, into Brooklyn and then Manhattan; past brownstones and bodegas, subway stations and stalls. The cars honked their horns like Midtown’s band, uncoordinated and loud, as he swung over the street. “Spidey!” “Yo, is that Spiderman?” “Mommy, look. It’s Spiderman!” They’d all point and shout. Peter smiled and laughed under his mask.
He rounded another granite-coloured apartment building and grappled onto a lamppost halfway down the street. Peter soared towards it, a feral-looking pigeon flapped away in fear. He landed and it rattled, a stranger looked up at him. He waved and shouted “Hi! Hope I didn’t scare you.” They continued on their way and he crouched in a V-shape, placed his hands on the post to stabilise himself. Then, Peter shot a web underneath the lamppost and flipped over, he descended in his V-shape to read the street sign. Artur’s Bagels was two blocks away if he remembered correctly. He reached his hands up and took hold of the post, then swung back and forth to gain momentum. A crowd of strangers gathered around him, and when a child pointed at him he leapt and shot a web across the street. It latched on to another apartment complex and he pulled himself across the street.
Peter zig-zagged from each building to Artur’s. Cars honked again, people shouted and pointed. This time, he came to a stop on the edge of an office building. He crawled in between the windows to avoid attracting more attention than he already knew he was getting on the ground. “The consequences of having spider-like abilities,” he whispered as he crawled. Peter stopped one floor up and looked around the street for the shop. The street was filled with pedestrians: a mother pushing her child in their stroller, a biker smoking in a doorway, a group of teens on their cellphones. The traffic was stationary next to them, exhaust fumes collected in the air. Another benefit of wearing the mask, he thought.
He leaned away from the building to look around a tree that was sprouting new leaves. Twenty feet from the biker-looking guy was a line of three people that trailed out of an open door. A sign hung above the doorway, it swayed in the light breeze. It had a singular image painted on it: a circle with a smaller circle inside. “That’s a bagel, right?” Peter asked himself. He shot a web across the street and dropped from the building. His feet skimmed the roof of a yellow cab, they honked and shouted a curse word out of their window. He shouted back, “Sorry!” and turned to wave at them. The car began to move forward and Peter looked away. He stuck his feet in front of him, quickly, to avoid splatting against the building.
He took a minute to recuperate before dropping onto the pavement. A woman walked into the shop and the line shuffled forward. Peter joined the queue and put his backpack onto one shoulder and searched inside for his cellphone. He felt in his jacket pocket and pulled it out, it was two-thirty. He pulled up his text thread with Gwen. Peter sent her ‘c u soon :D’ and waited for her reply. The line moved forward again, the man in front of him stepped into the doorway. He turned around and said, “No way. Spiderman?” Peter looked up from the ground and said, “Oh, yeah. That’s me.” He scratched the back of his head. “Lunch break, huh?” The man chuckled.
Peter’s phone chimed in his hand. He turned it on and saw a message from GNA—her contact name. He thought it was hilarious when he called her ‘DeoxyGwendonucleicacid’ on one of their dates; he was saved as ‘BugBoy’ on her cell. ‘What??’ she texted back. Peter slipped his phone back into his bag, it was his turn to order.
He walked through the door to a tiny shop. The counter had a white-faux marble finish, a glass case housing a variety of bagels. Through the back, he could see an older man assembling a bagel tower. The woman serving was looking down, “Hi there! What can I get for you?” She looked up and her eyes widened, lips parted. “Hi, hello, Spiderman.” Peter laughed and greeted her. He looked at her name tag, it said Violet, and then up at the horizontal chalkboard above her. It had their extensive menu along with floral decorations and a cartoonish bagel with a speech bubble saying: WELCOME!
Peter marvelled at their range of bagels: from simple ham and cheese to chicken salad with bacon, dill pickles and mayonnaise and other tall assortments. “Can I get a Big App—” he paused. “Scratch that, can I get a ‘You’re My Everything’ bagel, please.”
“Sure thing,” she said, “Can I get you anything else?” She smiled at him and tapped her fingers on the counter.
“And a ‘Ur-The-Wurst’ bagel. Oh, and one of your double chocolate chip brownies. Thank you.” Violet wrote his order on a miniature notepad in a loose scrawl and tore it out. She turned around and extended her arm to the man in the back. “That’ll be twenty-three dollars exactly,” she said, still smiling, her cheeks bunched like roses. Peter slid his backpack to one shoulder again and opened the front pocket where he kept money, chapstick and extra polaroids. He plucked a thin wad of cash and handed her twenty-eight dollars. “You can keep the five,” he said.
“Thank you so much. Can I take a name for your order?”
“Bug Boy,” he said proudly.
“Okay, Bug Boy it is,” she giggled, “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Peter walked into the left corner by the window. A monstera plant grazed his suit as he waited for his order. Five minutes later Violet shouted, “Jaden!” The man that was in front of him in the line stepped forward. He had headphones in now, the music came out of them fuzzy. He nodded at her and she said, “Have a great day,” as he left the shop. Violet looked over at Peter as she walked back into the kitchen, he waved back at her.
The radio played from the back, a local station playing a rock song. Peter absently tapped his foot to the beat. He looked through the back: Violet was assembling the bratwurst bagel while the older man assembled Gwen’s. He wrapped the bagel and peeled a sticker from a sheet and placed it on the wrapper to seal it. He slid it along the shiny metal countertop to Violet. She sealed her bagel too and grabbed a paper bag from the hanging basket under the counter. She flapped it open and placed the bagels and brownie inside.
“Bug Boy!” she shouted. Peter waved his hand and collected the bag.
“Thank you, have a great day,” he said. “You too,” she giggled.
Peter tucked the bag into his backpack and flicked his wrist out the door. The web grappled onto another office building. “See ya,” he said as he zipped out of the shop and across the street. A flock of pigeons parted around him as he flew through the air. He held onto the side of the building and mapped out his route from the plethora of street signs that decorated the sidewalk.
Gwen’s house was around seven blocks away. He crawled up the building, the bricks rough on his suit, and clambered over the lip at the top. Peter stood on a squelchy patch of moss that sprouted on the rooftop. “Ugh,” he said, and shook his feet. He walked over to the other side of the building and climbed on top of a rusted vent that blew grimy, warm air into the city’s already polluted atmosphere. He looked around and searched for the quickest route to Gwen’s apartment.
He turned to his right, “That way,” he shouted, pointing it out to no one. Peter flung his wrist downwards and shot a web onto a window ledge in the alley between the buildings in front of him, then he dove off the edge and swung downwards. His stomach rose into his chest, a weightless, tingly feeling that would never go away, no matter how much he used his webs. He lifted his legs to avoid skidding across the puddles on the ground and sprung up into the air, above the weathered buildings. Peter shouted “Wahooo!” as he flipped backwards in the air and slung another web on his descent.
He wove through alleyways and main streets until he could see Gwen’s apartment building. The towering, white-brick complex was manned with doormen and security guards at all times. It made entering tricky. Peter had to crawl around the back and enter through Gwen’s window to avoid being detected by George Stacy. Peter halted on the side of the building opposite her apartment and snuck onto the roof. A few onlookers pointed up at him. Thankfully no one gathered a crowd, he thought. He walked over to the edge of the building and aligned himself with the alley next to Gwen’s place. “They say dating in New York City is hard, no one said it would be this hard,” he sighed, “But worth it.”
Peter scanned the ground to ensure that the security outside wasn’t looking before he leapt into the street and shot a web into the alley. He made sure to aim high to avoid being seen. As he flew through the air taxi cabs honked and their engines grumbled—the usual for the city. Peter landed on the fire escape, it shifted downwards as he landed. It was incredibly weak from his repeated landings, the webs failing to secure it to the wall. He knew he had the tools in his room to fix it, but it would only alarm the tenant if there was a man in a red and blue suit sitting at their window for an hour.
Peter gripped onto the wall and scaled it onto the roof. They’d spend hours up here, Gwen held close to his chest, his jacket held around her as they watched the stars or people watched. She would turn around and they’d gaze into each other's eyes, Peter would smile and Gwen would rise on her toes and kiss him. He’d always get butterflies every time they kissed, it was a comforting feeling. The roof was their private bubble away from the world. The one place he wouldn’t photograph. No cameras, no phones. Just them.
He ran over to the back of the building. Peter took off his backpack and placed it on the ground. He grabbed the paper bag from Artur’s and slid it over his wrist, zipped his backpack up and put it back on his shoulders. Peter exhaled and climbed over the edge, and crawled down the wall. He was used to heights, for the most part, but ever since his web block, he feared falling down the edge as he went to Gwen’s window.
He crawled down four storeys and over three windows to the left, underneath them to prevent being spotted by her neighbours. He flattened his body against the wall next to the window, he tilted his head in front of it. Gwen sat at her desk, scrolling through her laptop and taking notes. He knocked on the window twice. She jolted backwards and put her hand over her heart, then she jumped out of her chair. Her hair was tied back, she wore a white cotton dress with a light grey blanket draped over her shoulders. The blanket slipped off as she opened the window, “Peter,” she said and smiled. He held out her bagel, the brownie placed carefully on top of it.
“A ‘You’re My Everything Bagel’ from Artur’s.” Gwen stared at him for a minute before taking the food from his hand, she placed it on her desk. “That’s the place you wanted to go, right?” She was silent again, her soft breaths drowned out the rest of the city. “Gwen?” he asked.
“Yes, Peter. It is. Thank you.” She pulled off his mask and discarded it on the floor. The pink-tinged sky glazed her eyes as she grazed his jaw gently, her soft fingertips gave him goosebumps. She leaned in to kiss him. At first, slow and careful. Then, her lips took control of his. They parted for a moment and Peter said, “I’m glad, my love.”
