You tell Spider-Man about your crush on an oblivious Peter Parker. Spider-Man recommends giving Peter a signal—a sign, so he knows what you want. [4k words, shy!fem!reader/tasm!peter]
˚₊𓆩༺ 🕷༻𓆪₊˚
The night is sweet and warm.
The sun is setting, and the bakery at the end of the street is closing. You watch from your rooftop as one of their workers smokes a cigarette out back, smoke drifting upward, a sight at odds with the smell of powdered sugar ever-present on the breeze.
You pull your knees up toward you and rub your face with a sleeve-covered hand. The hoodie Peter got you is soft to the touch, smelling of detergent against your nose. You stretch it over your knees and peer down at your socks, black with little flowers on the sole. Peter said they looked Minecraft-y, and then he asked if he could borrow a pair from the pack that you never saw again.
You like thinking of him wearing them. Maybe he thinks of you when he does, or maybe they’re rolled up and forgotten under his bed.
You loose a depressed sigh and lean back in your summer chair. There wasn’t much heat for sunbathing today, but the roof makes for a good place to rest in the agreeable evenings. Less so when it rains, which is often. You eye a grey cloud on the horizon but your reluctance to move nor gather your stuff leaves you frowning. You are trying quite hard to stay away from your apartment and, as a consequence, your evil phone. If you have your phone, you’ll check over and over if Peter has replied to your message, but he hasn’t. He doesn’t, really, reply very often.
The sun goes and goes, presenting a miserable dark sky with little in the way of stars, but there are lights in the distance, buildings and cars, all now flocked in artificial white. It’s no soft glow.
You lay down, sit back up, lay down again. You reach for your book and discard it with a sigh. You count the planes that fly overhead, searching for the next whenever the former flies from view. You think about Peter and his big hands, how hot they’d felt pressed to your waist. How brown his eyes are, how soft his lashes must be when touched.
The swip and thwip of spiderwebs being thrown catches your attention immediately. Spider-Man. He must be near—you’ve seen him in person more times than you can remember, and the sound puts you at ease, that delicate snap and stick as he ejects, lets his weight pull, then cuts the line. You lean over the edge of your chair to look for him–
And almost lose your nose as a suit of red and blue comes flying up toward your rooftop.
“Holy–”
“Fuck!” you say, throwing yourself backward with a shout. You bring your hand to your chest, pressing your heart back behind your ribs as the blur of colour comes to a stop on the edge of the roof.
“Sorry!” Spider-Man says. “Jesus, you didn’t see me? I’m kind of, you know, brightly coloured?”
“You came out of nowhere! You’re going sixty miles an hour!”
Spider-Man rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I got places to be. Well, most of the time.”
You feel your heart jumping under your palm. Spider-Man shifts, his head tilting down as though he’s squinting at you assessingly.
“Hey, are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you.”
You swallow your nerves. “Yeah. Yes, I’m fine. You scared me, s’all. Sorry for cussing. And yelling.”
He giggles brightly, plonking down on a creaky lawn chair, unperturbed by its green moss. “Yeah, you should be sorry, potty-mouth. Kiss your ma with that mouth?”
You laugh without thinking. “Sometimes.”
Spider-Man lays back in the chair and folds his arms over his stomach. It strikes you that you wouldn’t know if his eyes were open or closed, he looks relaxed, like he could doze. He looks tired, actually. He gives a long sigh and sits up some. Eyes open, decidedly.
“What are you doing up here?” he asks.
“Oh, I’m reading.”
“Reading what?”
You refuse to tell him that it’s a silky sweet romance with a besotted leading man and a beautiful girl, but struggle to think of a lie. The silence lingers until it’s awkward.
Finally, Spider-Man waves a hand at you, his voice genial as he says, “Keep your secrets.”
“Are you okay?” you ask.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
It might be more apt to ask him what it is that he’s doing up here. Surely Spider-Man has more important things to get too than sitting in a rinky-dink chair waiting to snap beneath any weight at all on your dreary rooftop in the cold weather. And more that he doesn’t know you, hasn’t ever spoken to you, no matter how many times you’ve seen him around the city.
“You look tired,” you say softly.
“I’m okay. But, hey, thanks for asking.”
“Sure.”
Awkward silence lingers again. Your blatant confusion as to his presence becomes obvious, and Spider-Man looks away, rubbing at his neck again with that same nervous hand.
“You looked lonely,” he says. “I guess I wondered if you wanted company, or– or a shoulder to cry on, or something. Anything.”
“Is that something you do often?”
“What good is looking after the neighbourhood if everybody in it goes home sad?” Spider-Man shrugs. “You don’t have to tell me anything, I’ll only sit here if that’s cool.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
You’re thinking about Peter again. It’s ridiculous, there’s a superhero on your roof and you’re thinking about Pete, but you can’t help it. Spider-Man reminds you of him, his height and build, even his voice, though Spider-Man is all bravado and gruffness where Peter’s a tiny bit shy. It’s what made becoming his friend possible—he’s shy and you’re worse, you’re immovable, you struggle to talk half the time. If Spider-Man hadn’t scared the fuck out of you scaling up the building, you wouldn’t have been able to open your mouth.
“I have a friend,” you say, buckling under the pressure of the quiet. “And I like him. And I don’t know what to do, so. That’s why I’m all messed up.”
“You don’t look messed up,” he says, bringing a hand to his chin to hold like he’s pondering something deeply. “You like someone? That’s a good thing.”
“I don’t think he likes me back.”
“That sucks, but– okay, sorry if this is weird, but you’re beautiful.” Spider-Man straightens in his chair. “Like, you’re really beautiful. And your voice is so nice, I’ve barely heard it and I already know it’s addictive.”
You laugh again without meaning to, a sputter of sound.
“You’re really pretty. If he doesn’t like you back, I’m sure you can find somebody else.”
“Thank you, Spider-Man, but I don’t want anybody else,” you say softly. “He’s really perfect. Have you ever–” You clear your throat, picking at a scagged thread on your pajama bottoms and avoiding his gaze. “It’s stupid.”
“I bet it’s not.”
Nobody’s ever called you beautiful before. Nobody’s ever…
Peter makes you feel beautiful. Tips your chin up with his pinky finger to get your eyes, takes a good look at you when he’s seeing you for the first time in a while, but he never says anything about it. He smiles and he's sweet, but he doesn’t call you beautiful.
“He makes me feel like the only person in the world,” you confess. “He’s not perfect, like I said. He lashes out, and he forgets all the time, he’s late constantly, but he always says sorry, and you know he really means it? He’s the most genuine person. And he’s–” pretty, you want to say, but you look sideways at Spider-Man and can’t bring yourself to say it. “I want more of him than he wants to give me, is all, but I don’t mind. I like being his friend.”
“You want more,” he says, as though turning the words over in his mouth.
“That’s the hard part.”
“That’s a nice love story.” He exhales slowly. “Lucky guy.”
“It’s not a love story,” you say, trying for happy acceptance and sounding weak.
“It could be. Have you told him how you feel? I don’t see how a guy could hear all that from a girl like you and not at least try to make it work?”
You bring your knee up and rest your nose on the fabric there. “I don’t usually talk to people like this. I find it really hard.”
“Oh, so I’m special?”
“You’re an exception.”
“You don’t talk to this guy?”
You press your face fully to your knee, thighs aching.
“Peter doesn’t answer the phone,” you mumble, hoping Spider-Man won’t hear you. “Can’t talk to him about anything. And what would I even say? I know we’ve been friends for years and all but I like you now, and I’m prepared to make things awkward between us forever?” You whine quietly. “Everything’s so hard.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Spider-Man sounds flustered. Sounds like he took a long plunge from a tall skyscraper. You look up, perplexed, and he’s facing you completely still. It’s like he’s been turned to stone.
“You–” He swallows. “This Peter guy, you really like him?”
“I’ve had a crush on him since forever! And he never notices me, ever!” You scrub at your face. “I know it’s stupid and childish and high school, I know I should tell him how I feel even if there’s not the slightest chance that he’d ever want me back–”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
You squint at him. “You don’t know Peter.”
He laughs, still sounding all flustered and weak. “Okay.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m being really corny, huh?”
“No.” His voice is higher, too, almost like he’s holding his breath. “It’s not corny, it’s nice.”
“He’s really pretty,” you say, lamenting your sad lonely life without him. And now you’ve made a mess all over Spider-Man’s generous listening. If there was a chance he’d come to see you again, you have surely ruined it.
Spider-Man squeaks.
You stare at him. He’s pulling at the edge of his mask, fanning himself, giving you rare glimpses of his pale skin.
“Are you okay?” you ask.
“I’m sorry, I’m– super warm.”
“Oh. Is the suit hot?”
“It can be, yeah.”
“I guess I don’t know how to move on,” you say, breaking your gaze to stare at the gravelly rooftop instead. “He’s a great friend, and I didn't always want it so badly. I don’t know why… why it got so much worse lately. I see him and I wish he’d grab me and– and kiss me–” You bite your tongue. “Sorry, Spider-Man. That’s too much information."
“Kiss you how?” he asks.
You jolt a little. “Uh, you know. Just kiss me. A real kiss. He’s kind of affectionate, like, sometimes he tries to hold my hand before we cross the street, and one time he did kiss my cheek, but it was, like, a bit. I want a real kiss.”
“Huh.”
“It’s lame.”
“Love is kinda lame. Corny and cheesy,” Spider-Man sounds oddly pleased. “But maybe he’s got all these lame feelings too, and didn’t want to push you. You seem kinda shy. Maybe he’s worried he’s not reading things right. If you’re the kind of girl who’s easily flustered, how can he know if it’s because of him or not?”
“But what do I do?”
“I don’t know.”
You laugh. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, but whatever you do, if he gets the signal, he’ll reciprocate.”
“How do you know?”
“Girl as pretty as you?” Spider-Man’s voice goes soft as butter. “He’d be an idiot not to.”
—
By the time you’d made it back inside that night, Peter had replied to your message.
In fact, Peter had spammed you. Answered everything you said with detail and then launched into an apology for not responding, cos he had a bunch of stuff to do and Aunt May had the car and his phone died on the subway home, yada yada.
He then asked you out.
Alright, he didn’t. He asked if you wanted to come over and watch a movie the next day, which is pretty standard Peter friendship activity, but has you smiling like a loser at your phone.
Yes, you’d texted him, would love to, I’ll bring dinner?
Do not!!!! I will order in for us when you get here :D
You’re standing in your nicest skirt, a pretty pink thing that ends at the knees and, and your newest converse, which aren’t all that new. Your cardigan is charcoal wool and buttoned all the way up to fight the sudden chill. It’s later than you realised; you spent an hour panic-changing your clothes and lamenting your response Spider-Man’s advice. You have to give Peter a signal, right?
You are dressed very cute for a movie at his place, and you smell delicious. You’re gonna give him a wide-eyed flirty stare and who knows, maybe he’ll finally get the message.
Or he’ll wonder why you’re so overdressed.
The door finally opens, and Peter’s already smiling. His cheeks are red like spring cherries with a flush that crawls down his neck and probably stains his broad chest, too, his hair in order for once, his usual hoodie and jacket traded in for a plain white t-shirt that’s a little tight. Shows the indents of his chest, the lines of firm muscle there.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says.
You want him to call you beautiful forever. “Don’t,” you say instead. He should know better. You fluster at anything.
Peter stands aside to let you in. You’ve been to the Parker house a ton of times, but it’s noticeably clean, and dimly lit. There are a couple of candles lit in the living room and a bowl of popcorn stands on the coffee table, filling the room with the smells of toffee and butter.
“Was it cold?” he asks.
You nod hurriedly. “So cold. I thought it was supposed to be summer.”
“We’re not that lucky. Make yourself comfy, okay? I gotta grab your drink.”
You unlace your shoes and leave them by the doorway, padding into the living room in your socks. The couch is fitted with enough throw pillows to turn a three-seater into a two-seater. You’re forced to plop yourself somewhat in the middle, but you’re too tempted by the popcorn to worry. You sneak a piece while Peter’s gone, humming as the sweetness breaks out across your tongue.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he calls.
“For what?”
“For not answering you!” His voice echoes nearer, and he grimaces his way through the hall into the living room, two glasses of your favourite in his hands. “I’m awful. I’m an idiot, and I never check my phone. I’m sorry.”
“Peter, it’s fine.”
“You sure?”
Your eyes widen of their own accord as he sits down next to you, thigh to thigh, so close you can see the little bits of amber that swim in his irises, all that brown fragmented by shards of sunlight.
“I–” You nod oddly. “Am sure. Of course. I don’t expect you to drop everything–”
“I know you don’t, but still. I have my phone with me. I can answer you more, and you’re important to me. I get distracted.”
“Did you get all your errands done?”
“Sure.” He hands you your glass and puts his own on the coffee table. “Thanks. You’re an angel.”
“You’re not so bad,” you say.
You relax. Peter lets you choose the movie, and you feel warm sitting there pointing his remote at the TV, flicking unsurely through everything, but he’s Peter. You put on Cado Lake and hand him the remote, sure he’ll enjoy a sc-fi flick, and are instantly gratified when the movie hooks his attention. Not too much, though. He’s clear of mind enough to put the popcorn bowl in your lap and nip you with little questions. Who’s that again? Hey, she looks like May. Wow, you smell good, what is that?
You’re about an hour into the movie when Peter’s hand sews itself behind your back.
It’s warm, and big. His fingertips skate over the mall of your back until he’s found your side, where it curls, and he pulls you gently toward him. Your head drops into the space between his shoulder and head, the TV a colourful blur in front of you, your hand paused dead in the nearly empty popcorn like you’ve been frozen.
“Okay?” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” you say. You’re fine.
He’s warm. He’s solid beside you.
“You’re letting me eat all the popcorn…”
His laugh is a huff against your head. “I’ll make some more.”
“No.” You rest your cheek on his arm. Bliss flits through your entire body like a wave. “It’s okay. I won’t eat your share.”
“You do what you want,” he says, and you wonder if he’s relaxing beneath you, too, heat of his body seeping through his clothes and into your skin as his fingers rub gently into your side. “Get you a sack of popcorn, if you want me to.”
“This is nice.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. This is good.”
You struggle to pay attention to the movie for the next few minutes, wondering if this is really what you think. It’s not exactly friendship-level affection to wrap your arm around someone, is it? But Peter’s so lovely, it could be nothing. Why would it mean anything? What could Peter want with you? Of course you have a crush on him, he’s gorgeous, but Peter has no such motivations about you. Does he?
He’s quiet for a while. You think the movie might’ve really snagged him, but then he turns to you with a shy smile that brightens exponentially when you sneak a glance at him and end up smiling back.
He doesn’t look away.
It gets so hot you wish you could peel out of your cardigan, but you don’t wanna move and displace the moment.
“You’re missing the movie,” you whisper.
“I’ve missed so much of it,” he says.
“What?”
“Look.” He swallows. “Look, I don’t know if I’m– maybe I’m way off base here, and all, but,” —his hand climbs your side, folding over your, pulling you even closer— “maybe I’m not? I don’t know.”
“Off base about what?”
“You know.”
“Do I?” you ask. You can hardly speak above a breath, but Peter hears it.
Peter’s gaze darts down.
You lift your chin. Spider-Man, you think, watching as Peter’s brows knit like he’s in pain and his pupils turn to dimes, sunshot brown melding dark, this better work.
Peter inches his face down until your noses are touching, your eyelashes forced shut in a flutter at his proximity.
He lingers there, in the quiet, breathing the air your exhale and holding his tongue as he raises his hand to cup your cheek tenderly. His fingers slip beneath your ear and his thumb drags over your cheek, distending your lips, and his lips brush against yours so softly you aren’t sure if he really has kissed you, or if you want it bad enough to conjure the sensation. But then he presses in for a proper kiss, and the quiet in the room gets replaced by the pounding of your heart in your own ears.
He tips your head a little and kisses upward, parting his lips to encourage you to let him in. You suck in a breath as he wades in for a real kiss, the heat of tongue and the soft plush give of his lips on yours. He encourages your head back quick, your eyes squinting ever so slightly, but he’s only moving you to wade in for the same kissing at a new angle. His nose tip scrunches into yours.
Your thoughts are electric. Your hand vies for a place to anchor, grasping tightly at his shirt, screwing the fabric over his chest into a ball.
“Holy crap,” he says, pulling back a touch.
His eyes are shining. His mouth is damp with spit, but you aren’t certain if it’s yours or his.
“I can’t believe I had the willpower to wait this long for that,” he says, running his thumb over your bottom lip. “Shit, you're just as perfect as I thought.”
You laugh in a tangle. “What?” you ask breathlessly.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long. Wow, you taste like toffee.”
“I’m sorry–”
Peter gets his thumb under your chin to tip your face up. “For what? For being perfect?”
“For tasting like popcorn.”
“That is the least of my worries.” He does a one-eyed squint at you, stroking your chin and cheek with his thumb, a caress that makes your stomach ache as much as the kisses had. “Sorry it took me so long to kiss you. You’re a hard girl to read.”
“I know,” you mumble.
He kisses your cheek and ducks his face into the side of your head, gathering you in for a hug that’s strong but careful, too, your thigh curving into his lap. He doesn’t seem to notice the way he’s dragging you onto him as he breathes in your hair.
“Pete?”
“Yeah?”
You struggle out of his arms. “Can you kiss me again?” you ask.
“Yes. Yeah. Oh my god, absolutely.”
Your laugh as he bends your backwards into the mountain of throw cushions is ecstatic. Then smushed, quickly, but it’s fine. The kiss is worth getting cut off.
—
(One month later.)
“I was going to tell you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously, I was! But I didn’t want you to be embarrassed."
“Right.”
“And I didn’t want you to be mad.”
You stare at Spider-Man in your boyfriend’s bedroom, unmasked, Peter Parker with hair like a dandelion and eyes so sorry he’s almost winning you over, the mask clasped in hand.
“You knew who I was talking about,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest, “and you still made me give you a signal? Do you know how hard that was for me?”
“You can do hard things!”
“Peter.”
“I wanted to be sure. I have a huge crush on you, you know that? It was just as scary for me as it was for you.”
You sniff indignantly. Spider-Man drags himself from his window to take your hands, pouting like a loser for your forgiveness.
“Can you please forgive me?” he asks. “Don’t you think it would’ve given my secret away if I turned up at your door and planted one on you? You do not understand the strength it took to wait.”
“Peter, it wasn’t even twenty four hours.”
“You’re really pretty,” he mumbles.
You forgive him already, not that he needs to know that. You have more important questions to ask.
“So, what’s with the webs?”
“D’you like ‘em?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He whines.
You plant a little kiss on his jaw and make for the bed you’d been planning on napping in before his impromptu return through the open window. “Come hold me while I nap,” you say, moving back his sheets, “please. And maybe I’ll think about forgiving you.” You’re too tired to think about this in depth.
Peter throws himself into the mattress. You crawl into his arms.
“You kinda smell like street,” you mumble, nuzzling his neck, a hint of forgiveness to settle his bad nerves.
His head falls back as he lets out a relieved sigh. “You smell perfect,” he says.
Bullshit repeats itself / Is that how the saying goes? / Been here a thousand times / Selective memory though
You say we're drifting apart / I said "yeah I fucking know" / Big deal we've been here before and we'll be here tomorrow
Overview: A headass couple: people acting in a "slightly delusional, somewhat cheesy bubble," oblivious to how cringy or ridiculous they appear to others.
For some reason, you'd thought yourself to be the untouchable exception to the rule that all relationships eventually hit a rough patch. Peter and you were perfect, best friends first, and then dating. There wasn't a better match than the two of you. Except, of course, until there was. Your perfect image is shattered as you realize he's hiding more from you than you'll ever know. After a rough breakup, only one person seems able to cheer you up. A certain webbed viglinate. But, wait... why does his voice sound so familiar?
a/n: There will be the occasional ridiculous name/reference; if you catch them, they're all real (including Jumbo’s Clowns)
wc: 10.0K
They say that the best foundation for a relationship is built on friendship. And you used to believe that. When you first met Peter, it was like coming together with a missing piece of yourself. Even before the romance, the dates, the sex. When it was nothing more than something wonderfully platonic, you thought everyone was right.
But you were delusional. Your head had been too far up your ass to realize the truth of your relationship. You weren’t soulmates. You weren’t any more special than anyone else dating their best friend.
You would think, though, that being friends with someone for years would build enough respect for them not to blatantly mistreat you. To not lie to your face when they hide where they are at night. Sure, maybe other couples who didn’t know each other lied. But not you and Peter.
That’s what you thought, at least. Shows what you know.
Two Months Earlier
“Hi,” Peter rushes into your apartment, breathless and flustered as always. You get a firm kiss to the cheek before he disappears into your bedroom.
Laughing slightly, you peer around the corner and try to get a glimpse of him. “Everything okay, Petey?”
You get a slight hum of acknowledgment before he goes back to what sounds like rustling through papers. Shaking your head, you bring the popcorn bowl over to the couch and wait for him to reemerge.
It doesn’t take longer than a few minutes until he’s strolling back toward you, a slightly cocky pep to his step. You narrow your eyes at him but fail miserably at holding back a grin. “Whatcha up to, Parker?”
“Who, me?” He shrugs, playing dumb as he jumps over the back of the couch, landing on the cushion beside you. You spot something folded in his hand before he tries to hide it.
With little warning, you lunge forward, reaching for his hand. “Hey!” He jumps back, unable to hold in his laughter. “That’s cheating, you know?”
You don’t acknowledge him, grunting in frustration as he holds his hand further and further away from you. “Alright, well, what happened to no secrets?” You push, slightly embarrassed at how breathless you sound.
“Oh, wow,” his hand comes up, cupping your jaw as he pulls your face closer to his. “That’s playing dirty,” he whispers. You can’t subdue your smile, inching closer until your noses are brushing.
“You like it when I play dirty.” Peter’s eyes widen, a visible flush on his face as your lips just barely brush together. The whisper of a kiss. He was so focused on that, he failed to notice you ripping the paper from his hands.
He groans as you lean back on the couch with a triumphant grin. “You’re too easy, Parker,” you tease.
He props his chin on your knee, “Only for you.”
“Oh God, you are so cheesy.” He opens his mouth, a stupid grin on his face. You pinch his lips together and laugh, “Don’t say it again. For the sake of our relationship, please.”
You release him and he presses a quick kiss to your hand before leaning back. “Well,” he nods toward the paper in your hand. “Don’t you want to see what you’ve won?”
Excitement bubbles inside you as you unfold the small piece of paper. The print’s slightly smudged from your wrestling match, but when you bring it closer, you can’t help the sharp gasp that escapes you.
“Peter!” He’s smiling widely, posture relaxed and completely smug as you gush. “I can’t believe you managed to get tickets.”
“One of the guys in my lab knows someone at the museum. He owed me a favor,” he shrugs it off like it’s not a big deal. Like he didn’t just get you into one of the most exclusive exhibitions in Queens.
He lets out a slight grunt when you toss yourself at him, arms wrapping like a vice around the back of his neck. You can feel the exhale of a laugh as he buries his head in the crook of your shoulder, arms quick to wrap around your waist.
“Thank you,” you whisper, pulling back slightly to get a proper look at him. He keeps his grip firm, reluctant to let you get much further.
“You know I’d do anything for you,” he tells you and he has all the conviction of a man who really believes it.
“That’s a big promise,” you smile. “Sure you can keep it?”
“‘Course I can.” When you lean in to kiss him this time, you make sure it's real. Not the whisper of a touch, but something deeper as he pulls you into his lap completely. You don’t think you’ll ever get over how wonderful it is to be loved by Peter Parker.
“Christ,” you blow into your gloved hands and hope some of the warmth bounces back to your face. You knew it was going to be cold today, but you hadn’t thought it would be a problem. Peter had said he was going to meet you outside the museum, but it’s already been fifteen minutes and you’re losing feeling in your nose.
He does have a mind going 100MPH most days. Usually, you like to give him a leeway on timing. But it’s absolutely freezing today and snowflakes have just started falling. If you were with your boyfriend, this would be like a scene out of a romcom.
Instead, it’s about to be a nature documentary on wild stood-up girlfriends freezing in Queens tundra.
Pulling out your phone again, you bite the thumb of your glove and tug it off. You’ve sent Peter about twenty messages, none of which have even so much as gotten a ‘read.’ You try calling him this time, tucking the phone between your shoulder and ear as you hurriedly tug your glove back on.
“Hey, this is Peter, you know what to do.”
You roll your eyes at his voicemail. “It’s your girlfriend, Pete. But, I swear, if you make me wait any longer in this damn snow, I’m going to be your ex.”
“Good thing you don’t have to wait.” With a squeak, you whip around to find Peter standing behind you. You slap his shoulder and he bounces back with a laugh. The tip of his nose has been nipped red by the cold and his cheeks aren’t much better.
“You’re lucky I like you,” you snap.
“Extremely,” he agrees, not an ounce of sarcasm in his voice. It softens you slightly. When you can feel your fingers again, you’ll consider forgiving him. He throws his arm over your shoulder, struggling slightly with the scarf triple-wrapped around you.
Glancing down to hang up the call, you see a little news notification pop up.
Spider-Man & Molten Man Spotted in Times Square
“What’re you looking at?”
You shake your head, tucking your phone away. “Nothing.”
You send him a smile that he returns eagerly. He passes the staff your tickets and opens the door for you as you step into the museum. You’d like for the first thing you appreciate to be the gorgeous mural on the wall in front of you. But you are far more interested in the blast of heat coming from the vents above.
“Oh, thank God,” you grumble, blocking the door as you greedily soak up all the warmth you can.
“Come on, bug,” Peter laughs, tugging you along so the line of people can get by. “We’ll get you an overpriced coffee at the cafe.”
“You’re paying,” you tell him sternly. “I still can’t feel my nose.”
“Deal.” Peter doesn’t hesitate, just leans down and presses a quick kiss to the tip of your nose. It’s the type of thing you used to see others do in public and gag.
You’d think about how you would never be one of those touchy-feely couples. Peter makes it feel so natural, though. As if you’ve been together all your life and this is just another one of your daily routines.
The giddy smile on your face is wide and can’t even be hidden behind your scarf as you lean into him. He chuckles as he pulls you closer, taking you toward the cafe. “What do you want to see first?”
“I read online that they’ve got a bunch of Monets by the south entrance, we’ll go there and then circle back to the front.”
“You’ve had this planned since you saw the tickets, haven’t you?”
You laugh and shake your head. “Since I read about the exhibit. Remind me to thank you again when we get home.”
Peter glances down, brows raised with a cheeky look on his face. You snort and push his face away. “What? I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did,” you tease. Peter laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as you get in line for a coffee. You don’t even feel like you need it anymore. You’ve been warmed inside-out just by Peter’s presence.
God, when did I become such a cliche?
9:50
where the hell are you
they keep talking about distillation columns and thermo-something
you know I don’t understand nerd
Checking the time on your phone for the nth time, you feel your leg begin to bounce. Something uncomfortable has tied itself around your stomach, squeezing until you can’t stand one more sip of your beer.
Peter’s labmates celebrate around you. They keep jostling each other’s shoulders, talking in technobabble. You have never felt as stupid as you did when Marcy asked you what your thoughts were on a plug flow reactor. Whatever the hell that is.
You’d just said, “Oh, yeah, they’re great.” She’d smiled and slowly backed away, eagerly jumping into the next conversation.
It’s not that they’re not nice people, but this clearly isn’t where you’re meant to be. Not without Peter, at least. You’d promised to come thinking, oh, you know, that your damn boyfriend would be here.
10:30
Peter
Please
I feel so stupid
Nausea is thick in your throat as you hunch over the bar. Peter’s friends have all moved to a table, but you didn’t feel like following. It’s not like they were talking to you anyway. They didn’t know how and you didn’t either.
“This is so stupid,” you mutter, dragging your hand down your face. You push away your empty beer and find yourself drawn to the TV, looking for any sort of distraction.
It’s the news and, of course, Spider-Man’s swinging around the city again. His suit is bright against the night sky, and there’s an odd shape on his head that’s catching the snow. Leaning forward slightly, you snort when you see he’s wearing a red beanie.
“Of course, New York gets the weirdo for a hero,” you mutter. You grimace as you watch Spider-Man get punched down by a man who looks like he’s made himself a megazord. Pulling back the sleeve of your blouse, you sigh at the time.
There’s a tight pinch in your chest as you slide off the barstool.
11:02
I’m going home
You debate saying anything else but decide not to. Tugging on your winter attire, you stop by the others’ table and bid them all goodnight. They’re nice enough to say bye, but you’re pretty sure they thought you had already left.
The wind pushes against the bar’s door as you make your way outside. Snowflakes are quick to whip at your cheeks, landing in your lashes and melting into your scarf. You pull the scarf tighter and trudge forward.
The cold isn’t bothering you any more than your absentee boyfriend is. You’ve always been gracious with Peter about being late. It’s a chronic sickness for him at this point and you’ve been around it the majority of your life.
But it feels different now that you’re dating. Waiting outside an arcade or a restaurant for a friend isn’t a big deal. But when you’re sitting on your own at a table in a crowded restaurant, that’s absolute humiliation.
He’s been dropping the ball a lot more lately and that hurts. But he hasn’t given you any other reason to worry about the state of your relationship. So, despite the sting, you’ve resolved to just swallow down the embarrassment and keep on going.
You hear a small thud behind you and your hand instinctively goes to your purse. Swallowing thickly, you keep walking, hoping it’s nothing more than your paranoia. Then you hear the crunch of snow behind you, the clear footsteps matching your pace. Your hand wraps around the mace Pete bought you and you whip around on them.
To your absolute horror, Peter’s standing behind you. He throws his hands up and lets out a nervous laugh. “Okay, an hour late is really bad, but please don’t mace me.”
You tilt your head and give him a flat look. “Two hours, actually.”
His face screws up and you cross your arms. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry.”
You shake your head and turn back around. “Forget it, Pete. Just go celebrate with your friends.”
Peter jogs to catch up with you and darts in front of you, a frown on his face. “Wait, no, come on. Why don’t you head in with me?”
You let out what can only be described as a guffaw and push past him. “And suffer through more questions about plug flow-whatever’s? Pass.”
“Plug flow reactors?”
You glare at him over your shoulder and he fails horribly at hiding the amused look on his face. “Trying to speak nerd with them was humiliating, Peter.” His face softens at that and he reaches forward to pull you closer.
Out of pure stubbornness, you should resist. But standing outside in the cold is making you desperate for Peter’s insane body heat. “Come inside, just for a little while,” he brushes a hair off your cheek and smiles softly. “I swear, I’ll teach you all our science jargon.”
You roll your eyes, but he knows he’s won when you sink into him. “You’re way too persuasive,” you snap. Peter does his best to lace your mittened hands together as he turns you back toward the bar.
“Yeah, but you love me.”
“Unfortunately,” you glare at him, but your smile gives you away.
For once in your relationship, you’re the one running late. Something you know Peter is about to take far too much joy in. He’s already sent about fifteen texts. The majority of them bemoan being all alone and then asking if this is how you always feel. Those were followed by an influx of apologies.
You’re not thinking about the texts, though, as you jog down the street. You spot Peter waiting outside the diner, leaning against the wall. He’s got his phone in his hands, fingers moving rapidly across the screen.
Sure enough, you can hear your phone ding with yet another passive-aggressive text. “Would you quit it?” You demand, completely out of breath, as you stop in front of him.
He tosses his head back dramatically and groans. “God, finally. I thought you were just going to leave me out here to freeze.”
“Would serve you right,” your brows furrow. “When’d you get this?” You flick the edge of the red beanie shoved over his hair.
Peter shrugs and readjusts it. “I dunno, I’ve had it forever.” You frown, biting your lip as you think. You swear to god you know it from somewhere, but you must’ve just seen Peter in it before and forgot.
He holds the door of the diner open for you and lets out a relieved breath as you both step into the warmth. You would feel bad for him if he hadn’t done this to you five times within two weeks.
“How come you wanted to…” The go to this place so bad trails off into a laugh. You should have known when he kept badgering you about coming here.
Plastered floor to ceiling are comic book characters, clips from the stories, and various forms of memorabilia. You’re absolutely surrounded by a hundred different fandoms, and you’re honestly surprised Peter hasn’t had a heart attack yet.
“I really should have seen this coming.”
Peter laughs and leads you over to an empty table. A busty woman with a purple leotard stares you down from where she’s painted on the wall. You give Peter a flat look and he flushes.
“I mean… the name is Strips.”
“Oh, seriously, Parker. Why would my mind immediately go to comics? I was worried you were taking me to a strip club or something.”
Peter wrinkled his nose and frowned. “That’s way too on the nose. I’d take you somewhere classy like Jumbo’s Clown Room.”
Your lips part and you just shake your head. “I don’t want to know if that’s a real place. And if it is, I don’t want to know how you found out about it.”
“Blame Flash,” he mutters as a waitress comes over with a coffee pot.
You smile and thank her as she walks away. “Oh, I don’t think I’ve gotten a chance to tell you about this, yet.” Peter perks with interest and a wide smile blooms on your face. “You know how I was trying forever to be Professor Beeter’s TA. The position never opened but,” you trail off slightly as the people behind you start getting loud.
“Oh my god, he is wrecking this place!” Frowning, you glance over your shoulder and take a look at what they’re watching. Someone’s phone is propped in the middle of the table and you see yet another ridiculous villain punching through the Chrysler building.
Rolling your eyes, you settle back in your seat. “What was I saying?”
“Um,” Peter’s leg bounces under the table and his gaze shoots toward the door. “I’m not sure.”
You frown, watching him warily as he grows more antsy. “Oh, it’s about Professor Beeter. He offered me a-”
“Sweetheart,” he interrupts you and jumps to his feet. “I’m so sorry, but I just remembered I promised I would help May today.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head.
“What? Peter! You wanted to come here!” He’s already running out the door. You watch, astounded, as he races past the window like hell’s nipping at his heels. You sink back into your seat with a stunned expression and your heart aching.
Clearing your throat, you look up to find your waitress giving you a pitying look. She offers you a sympathetic smile that only makes you sick to your stomach. Grabbing your bag and coat, you jump out of the booth, rushing outside.
What the hell is going on with him? You think, glaring down the street where Peter had gone. Pinching the bridge of your nose, you swallow down a lump in your throat and decide to just head back home.
After his abrupt exit, you haven’t heard from Peter all day. You’ve sent him a few texts, checking in on him and asking about May, but you only got one answer before he went AWOL.
You:
Everything good with May?
Petey:
Yeah
Her pilot was out had to make sure she had heat
After that, you’ve gotten nothing from him. Also, as far as you’re aware, May doesn’t use gas for heat. Peter hooked her up with better appliances forever ago.
It’s as you’re dialing May’s number that you have to try and convince yourself you haven’t gone total psycho girlfriend. It’s perfectly normal to want to check on your boyfriend. Especially after how he was acting today. The line only rings a few times before she picks up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, May.”
She says your name and you practically hear the smile in your voice. “Hey, sweetie. How are you?”
“Fine,” you answer quickly. “I just wanted to be see how Pete’s doing?”
She’s silent for a moment too long. She clears her throat and you frown at the pitch of her voice. “Oh, yeah, Pete’s fine. I’d let him talk to you, but he’s busy right now.”
You hum, fingers twisting your hoodie (Peter’s hoodie) strings as your stomach ties itself into a knot. “Right. Uh, what’d he say he was helping you with, again?”
“Cleaning out the gutters. Apparently, it can be a fire hazard or something, I’m not sure.”
Your body goes cold while something venomous rushes up your throat. “Okay,” you can barely hear your own voice. “I’ll let you go, then.” You hang up before she can respond, phone slipping from your hand and clattering to the ground.
“Oh, my god,” you let out a panicked whisper, smoothing your hands over your hair as you try to think of a reasonable explanation. But there are no anniversaries, no birthdays, nothing special coming up that he might be lying about for a surprise.
You’re honestly more shocked that May would lie to you. Growing up, she’d always seemed like the type of woman to protect a girl from sleaze-bag boyfriends.
So maybe that means Pete isn’t doing anything bad. Maybe she’s covering for him for a good reason.
So, why can't you think of one damn reason May would lie to you?
You don’t want to start spiraling for no reason. People lie, not just boyfriends, and not always for insidious reasons. Plucking your phone off the floor, you call Gwen. She’s usually good at pulling you out of your head when you start getting bad.
The phone rings a few times before she finally answers. “Hey, what’s up?”
You frown and cross your arms across your stomach, trying to keep the nausea down. “Why do you sound so out of breath?”
“What?” She clears her throat but that only makes her sound worse. “No, I’m not. Did you need something?”
“Uh,” slightly taken aback by her tone, you struggle to find the right words.
“Gwen!” Your heart beats ruthlessly against your ribs as your entire body stills.
“Is that Peter?” You know it is. You could pick his voice out of a crowd if you were blindfolded.
Gwen lets out a tense hum. “Yeah, it is. Uh, he was helping me with some chem stuff. So, I gotta go. Call me later, yeah?”
She’s hanging up before you can say anything else. Your hands are trembling as you set your phone on the table. Squeezing your throat to try and keep the lump back, you shake your head.
There’s a reasonable explanation for everything. Right?
The nausea’s still coiled tight around you by the time Peter gets to your apartment. Your eyes are staring blankly at the wall, the only light coming from your window. You’re not sure how long you’ve been lying there. Trying and failing to sleep as you consider all the reasons Peter might have lied to you.
Why he would be with Gwen instead of you.
You hear him padding through the hall and shut your eyes, tugging the blanket slightly over your head.
“Bug?” He calls softly. He’s quiet as he approaches the bed. He brushes a hair off your cheek and leans down to press a kiss to your temple. “You awake?”
Part of you wants to tell the truth. She wants to spring up and start laying into him, demanding to know why he lied. And the other half, she’s a coward. So, you stay curled into a ball, eyes closed, and pretending like you’re not falling apart.
Peter lets out a low groan as he settles in your bed behind you. It takes everything in you not to jerk away when he wraps his arm around your stomach, pulling you into his chest. The last thing you want right now is to have him touching you. But saying that requires being awake.
And that’s more painful than a sleepless night.
Peter wakes up slowly, his body aching after last night. He’s not sure who decided a “living robot” was a good idea. But his ribs are paying the price.
Stretching, he ignores the twinge of pain along his side. His arm gropes blindly along the sheets, searching for you, for your warmth. When his fingers brush against the wall, he reluctantly opens his eyes.
He frowns when he realizes you’re not in bed beside him. Turning toward the rest of the apartment, he doesn’t hear you. You’re not in the shower or humming in the kitchen.
With something cold settling inside him, he gets out of bed. “Sweetheart?” He calls out, hoping to hear you answer. It’s Saturday, and while it’s never been something you’ve both spoken aloud, traditionally, you spend all day in bed together. Just crashing from stressful weeks and overloaded uni schedules.
“Bug?” He tries again, wandering through your apartment. He already knows, deep down, that you’re not in here. But he doesn’t want to accept it. He’s barely had any time for you this week and he was really looking forward to just being lazy with you all day.
In the kitchen, pinned to your fridge, he finds a pink note with his name on it.
Prof. Beeter asked me to come in. Someone messed up last week’s research log
Should be home for lunch <3
The only thing stopping him from spiraling is the little heart at the bottom of the note. He knows it’s silly, but he’s slightly worried that you’re mad at him. He can’t explain where the feelings are coming from, but it's gnawing along the back of his mind.
Peter glances at the clock and groans. It’s only 9, and lunch to you is usually 2 O’Clock. He’s not sure if he’s patient enough to last that long. Peter glances at the note again and leaves it on the counter to go get dressed.
He had Professor Beeter last semester and they got along pretty well. He’s sure the older man wouldn’t mind Peter bugging you for a little while.
Still heavy with the feeling that he’s done something wrong, Peter brought along your favorite sweet treat from the cafe on campus. Hopefully, that will soothe his worries and give you a boost for the day. He knows you look forward to Saturdays just as much as he does.
Peter’s heading toward the lecture hall when his brain finally catches up with the rest of your note. What research were you talking about? You hadn’t told him you were a part of any projects.
He’s always yapping to you about his labs. He figured you would do the same. Maybe it’s new, he thinks.
Pushing open the door, he spots you immediately. You’re at a desk, papers and books piling all around you. There are three other people with you, each of whom he has a vague recollection of.
“I mean, I don’t even know how we’re supposed to salvage this.” Your voice sounds strained, completely pulled taut. Peter frowns, wishing he could just take your problems and shoulder them for you.
“It’ll be okay,” one of the girls assures you.
You finally lift your head from your hands. “Twelve pages with zero references, we’re going to be at this all damn day.” Peter draws back slightly, suddenly wondering if this is such a good idea.
He knows how testy you can get about school. Especially major projects. Sometimes just leaving you alone seems to work better than smothering. But, then, before he can back out, one of the girls, he thinks her name’s Mila, catches sight of him.
“Peter?” She calls out. Your eyes instantly snap to him. If he thought you were angry at him before, he does not feel any better now. Your gaze is sharp, lips in a flat line, and there’s absolutely nothing on your face except perpetual irritation.
“What’re you doing here?” You snap and your voice is way sharper than he was expecting. Holding his hands up slightly, he approaches slowly. He doesn’t want to treat his girlfriend like a stray dog, but you look ready to go for someone’s jugular.
“I thought you might want something to eat. Figured you didn’t have any time before you left to get something.”
Mila and the other girl both aw over him and it gives him the briefest amount of hope. But then you’re shoving out of your chair and storming toward him. Peter swallows roughly as you approach. He almost wishes he were fighting that living-fire guy right now.
You snatch his sleeve in your hand and drag him back toward the door. “Peter, why are you here?” You demand, voice lowered so the others can't hear.
He frowns and shrugs helplessly. “It’s Saturday, we always spend Saturday together.”
You cross your arms, a sharp, derisive look on your face. Okay, definitely mad. “Oh, so you can remember dates now? What’s next? Are you going to show up on time for once?”
“Hey,” he objects, hoping to lighten the mood. “I was on time yesterday.”
Your eyes narrow and something on your face goes blank. He can’t place it exactly, but it’s like there’s a wall where he can usually read you so well. “Yeah, doesn’t count if you ditch me ten minutes later, babe.”
The venom in your voice makes him take a step back. He looks down, knowing you’re right. But he doesn’t want you any more mad than you are, instead of addressing it, he nods toward your desk.
“What’s going on here?”
“We’re working on the dementia research project with Professor Beeter.”
Peter wants to light up, to hug you, and congratulate you for finally getting an in with the professor you’ve been trying to work with since last year. But you deliver him the news so flatly he feels like you’d only get more mad.
“You didn’t tell me about that,” he says instead. Which is very clearly the wrong answer, by the way you back off with a sharp scoff.
“I’m not sure when I would have, Peter. I got placed two weeks ago and I haven’t seen you for more than an hour since then. Besides, when I tried to tell you yesterday, you fucking bolted to May’s.” You pause, and your lips curl up into something cruel. “Or was it Gwen’s place? Sorry, I can’t remember which lie you bullshited your way through.”
Peter feels his heart drop to his feet. It’s like a film goes over his eyes as his mind scrambles for any explanation that isn’t ‘I was busy beating up a robot with a weird, creepy human brain in it.’ Because he’s pretty sure that would be grounds enough for you to dump him right now.
You really don’t give him a chance, either way. You snatch the bag from his hand and the smile drops from your face. “Thanks for the visit. You can go now.” You turn back toward your teammates without another look at him. “Hungry?” You call out to Mila.
She gives a hesitant nod and you toss Peter’s pastry at her. “Dig in.” Even when you sit down, you don’t look up from your books. Not even a twitch as he opens the door.
Peter walks out, still slightly numb from the whole… argument? Did that even count as an argument? Or was that just you finally calling him out?
You’ve let him get away with a lot and maybe he took advantage of that, but he’s worried you might have the wrong idea. He doesn’t know why you would bring up Gwen, but the tone of your voice was so accusatory that he feels sick to his stomach.
Yes, he was at her house last night. But that’s because he needed to be stitched up. She’s known about Spider-Man since high school. It was either bleed out or have her use her beginner's sewing kit.
Peter lets out a shaky breath and runs his hands through his hair restlessly. You’ve both gotten into worse fights before. It’s not like you were a perfect couple. Surely, you could find a way to get over this. He just needs a half-decent excuse for his lying.
Peter perks up as he hears you step into the apartment. He glances at the clock and grimaces. You’re going to be pissed that you had to stay there until 6, fixing someone else’s screwup. When you round the corner and see him, he hears you let out one of the most exhausted noises he’s ever heard from you.
“Peter,” he finally turns to meet your eye. “Why are you here?”
His chest clenches as he forces a smile. “I figured you would be hungry.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Are you ever at your own place?”
Ouch. “I just wanted to make you dinner. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as it’s done, bug.”
You shrug off your jacket and take a seat at the kitchen island. Peter takes your silence as agreement and goes back to stirring the pasta. When you speak again, his ears practically touch his shoulders. This dreadful feeling in his stomach has just been mounting all day. He feels ready to vibrate out of his own skin.
“Peter, where were you last night? I want the truth.”
Peter’s hand clenches around the spoon and he keeps his back to you. “Went over to May’s to help around the house and then I saw Gwen.”
You let out a loud scoff and your hands slap against the counter. “Did you all get your stories straight? Am I hearing the right lie, now?”
Peter drops the spoon and turns to face you. He expects anger, maybe sadness. But you’re not giving him anything. You’re just… cold and Peter hates it. He’s seen you use that look before. It’s always been directed at people you don’t care about. You don’t hate them, you don’t love them, you just… don’t care. He doesn’t want to be someone you don’t care about. He can’t be.
“Look me in the eye,” you command. “Tell me the truth.”
Peter takes in a steadying breath, doing his best not to make it obvious. “Sweetheart, I swear, I went to help May with the heat and the gutters. Gwen called and she needed my help on her chemistry project. I’m sorry that I got home late-”
“I can’t,” you clear your throat and the way your voice cracks makes his heart ache. “I can’t believe that you’re just going to stand there and lie to me.”
He shakes his head and takes a desperate step forward. “No, bug, I’m-”
You hold your hand up and his jaw snaps shut. “You’ve talked Peter, now it’s my turn. I have put up with a lot from you. If anyone treated me the way you do, you know what you would tell me?”
He opens his mouth and you shoot him a look that makes him shrink into himself. “Do not answer that, I am still talking. You would tell me to cut them out. If someone doesn’t respect my time, my dates, if they lie straight to my fucking face, then that’s not someone who deserves to be in my life. You are never on time, if you even show up at all.”
He wants to object, he really does, but he knows you’re right. Still, you must sense his apprehension. “Scroll through our texts from the past two months. It’s just a block of me asking where you are and telling you how stupid I feel. Then you show up, make everything better, and I just let you get away with it. Because I have known and loved you for so long, I let you disrespect me. I can handle missing dates, I can handle not being on time, always being at my place and never letting me over at yours. But I can’t do this, I can’t just swallow down you lying straight to my face. Getting your aunt and my best friend involved in this is sick, Pete. What do you expect me to think when Gwen’s lying about why you’re at her place?”
“No, sweetheart,” he finally speaks, rushing toward you, voice breaking on something desperate. He reaches for you, but you jerk back and he swears something cracks open inside him. “I would never.”
“Yeah,” you whisper. “Why would I ever believe you?”
Peter flounders. He tries to think of anything. Anything that isn’t a lie and isn’t the truth about who he is. But his mind is blank. The panic flooding through him is overriding anything that might get you back, might get you in his arms again.
You suck your teeth and give him a jerky nod. “Why do I feel like I’m losing you?” He whispers, afraid that if he speaks any louder, he might actually cry.
“I think this has been happening for a long time, Peter. It’s just your first time realizing it.”
No, no, he can’t handle that. He can’t handle knowing that this awful, barbed feeling ripping through him is how he’s made you feel for so long. But he can’t just spill his guts and tell you everything.
Right after Gwen had discovered him, it was like the bad guys had a missile lock on her. She kept getting thrown into danger, nearly dying, because of him. He can’t be the reason you get hurt. He can’t live with that.
But he’s hurting you either way and for once, he can’t think of a way to make this all smooth over.
You take in a sharp breath and turn away from him. You walk to the stove, turning off the burner as the food begins to smoke. “I think you should go, Peter.”
“Bug,” but he doesn’t have anything to say and you still won’t look at him. He just wants you to look at him. He feels as if you did, if you saw how sorry he was, something here might be fixed.
“I’m going to take a shower. When I’m done, I expect you to be gone.” You toss the pot in the sink and head down the hall, not another word spared for him. And Peter…
He just spirals. Every mistake, every time he showed up late, just pummels into him as he realizes this is all his fault.
You turned off your phone yesterday. The missed calls and texts from Peter were bordering on obnoxious and you couldn’t take it anymore. Even Gwen kept trying to call you. Kept texting you that it’s not what you think.
But did they ever offer any other explanation?
No, they fucking didn’t.
So, not only did you lose your boyfriend, the man you’ve been in love with as long as you’ve known him. You also lost your best friend.
Best. Week. Ever.
Sick of being sad in your bed, you decide to go be sad outside. Maybe just grab a pint of ice cream from the bodega and lock yourself inside your apartment for the rest of your life. That sounds like a decent plan.
Leaving your phone, you grab your keys and some cash. It’s still cold outside, though the snow has calmed down a little bit. It soaks through your tennis shoes, now, seeps along the hem of your sweatpants. No part of you can be bothered to care about that as you trudge toward the shop.
It’s unusually quiet as you walk inside. Usually it’s a lot busier this time of night. Maybe the universe decided to give you a break.
Digging through the freezer section, you frown when you don’t see your favorite flavor. You turn toward the shop owner, Al, who has gotten used to you coming down here the past few days. “You guys don’t have any more Turtlesaurus Rex?”
Al’s silent and you frown, finally turning to fully face him. A man in a black jacket lingers by the counter, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Al gives you a tense smile, and your brows furrow as dread picks at you.
“All out. Maurie down the street might have some.” There’s something about how wide his eyes are that’s making you think you probably should have brought your phone. Especially because you definitely just saw the handle of a gun in that man’s jacket and you really need to call the cops. (Even though they probably won’t do anything.)
“Yeah, I’ll go check over there.”
“Have a good night.”
You try not to sound stiff as you return the sentiment. But you’ve barely made it to the door when you hear the distinct sound of a hammer being pulled back.
“You think I’m stupid?” What a wonderful time this would be for a freak in red and blue spandex to show up.
You turn slowly and shake your head, absolutely zero idea how to defuse this.
“I think the lady’s just being polite. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone encapsulate the term ‘mouth-breather’ so well.”
Your eyes widen, and you whip around to see Spider-Man standing at the entrance of the bodega. What the fuck is your life?
“Hey, jackass,” you hiss, and his head whips toward you. “Who’s he pointing the gun at?”
Spider-Man shrugs, “What gun?” You barely have a second to blink before a thick white string is twhip-ing past you and jerking the gun out of the man’s hands.
“Smartass,” you mutter under your breath.
“I think you mean, ‘thank you, Spider-Man for saving my life,’” you shoot him a flat look and walk out of the bodega. Maybe it’s time to just accept that you’re not meant to be in the outside world. You’re better off cocooned in your bed.
There are no robbers there. No cheating boyfriends and conniving best friends.
About a minute later, you hear rapid footsteps approaching. “I don’t have a purse, phone, or wallet.”
“Wow, great mugger-deterrent. I totally don’t want to rob you now.”
You plant your feet in the snow and hear Spider-Man let out a sharp breath as he skids around you. “I thought you were the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Not the quippy, neighborhood pervert who follows girls around at night.”
Spider-Man lets out a noise that can only be described as a guffaw. “I’m making sure you get home safely. Since clearly you don’t care. I mean, who walks around this late at night without mace at least?”
“Me,” you tell him flatly.
“Pretty girls shouldn’t be walking around here on their own.”
Your lips curl and you gag as you continue toward your apartment. “Okay, first of all, totally not helping with your creep angle.” He groans and you almost laugh at the defeated sound. “Also, I’m fresh off a break-up, so keep the compliments to yourself.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spider-Man quickly jumps in front of you and you frown as he blocks your way. “Breakup,” his voice is pitched so high, you swear it almost sounds familiar. “You broke up with someone?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“R-really?” He tries to lean against a lamppost, slips, and then straightens awkwardly like he meant to do that. “Because you know sometimes people think that it’s just a break and not a breakup, you know? Big difference. Are you sure this isn’t just a break?”
He’s talking so rapidly you can barely understand him. It doesn’t help that he’s got that mask on, so you can’t try to catch the words on his lips to decipher them. You think you might have gotten half of that word-vomit.
“Well, I’m the one who did it. I feel like I should know.”
“Does he?” He holds up his hands, quick to correct himself. “Or she? Spider-Man doesn’t judge.”
“Oh, good to know, he’s a pervert, but at least he’s an ally.” You push past him. “Look, if he doesn’t know, then he’s a lot stupider than I gave him credit for.”
You hear a low, “Ouch,” behind you and figure you might be being a tad harsh about Peter. But what the hell would Spider-Man care?
“You know,” Spider-Man continues after you.
Jesus, he’s like a damn dog.
“I’ve always believed that everyone deserves a second chance.”
You glare over at him and swear you see the eyes of his mask turn down. You’ve never seen a mask emote before; it’s incredibly bizarre. “Do they deserve a second chance after sleeping with your best friend?”
Spider-Man shrugs, throwing his hands in the air. “Do you have evidence that it happened, though?”
“Dude,” you snap. “What do you care? And what other evidence would I need besides the fact that he wouldn’t tell me the truth? If there was nothing to hide, why would he continue to hide shit?”
You hear his inhale of breath and shake your head, holding your hands up. “No, you know what, no. Alright? I didn’t get my Turtlesaurus Rex and I am not going to listen to some weirdo in a unitard give me relationship advice.”
“Unitard?” He scoffs. “I’m not a weirdo.”
“Oh, yeah?” You call over your shoulder. “Then stop following me home!” It takes a few minutes to believe he’s actually gone and you can finally breathe again. What weird ass fever dream was your life turning into?
You sit on the ledge of your roof’s building, a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You’re scrolling through all the texts Peter’s sent you in the last three hours. There are at least fifty of them. But it’s the one at the end that really catches your eye.
Is this really it? Are we done? Bug-
You stop reading at the nickname and put your phone down. Reluctantly, Spider-Man’s words from the other night pop into your head. Some people think it's a break, not a breakup.
How could Peter not have gotten the message by now?
“Fancy meeting you here.”
You let out a screech and jolt forward. Arms winding wildly as you try to regain your balance. The city tilts below you until something’s latched onto the back of your shirt and you’re suddenly being pulled into a firm chest.
“Why would you sit on the edge?” Again, his voice gets an impressively shrill pitch.
Shoving away from him, you whip around and slap his shoulder. “Why would you scare someone sitting on the edge?”
You can hear his sharp intake of breath before his argument fizzles out. “That’s what I thought Spider-Boy-”
“Man.”
“Whatever.” You walk back to the edge and rewrap yourself in your blanket. With a pointed glare over your shoulder, you hop right back on your perch. Spider-Man lets out a world-weary sigh before he jumps up beside you.
“You know,” he drawls. “Most people say thank you when a superhero saves you.”
“Oh,” you laugh. “Is that what you are, now? A superhero?”
“Dude. What is your problem?” His voice goes so flat, all humor sucked out of it, that, for some weird reason, it’s the first thing he’s said to get a real laugh out of you. He seems just as confused as you are if the way he tosses his hands up means anything.
“I cannot figure you out.”
You shake your head and brush a stray curl from your eyes. “It’s not you, Bugboy-”
“Rude.”
“It’s life,” you spread your palms out, gesturing to the sprawling city across from you. “Just broke up with the love of my life. Lost my bestie. The research project I’ve been trying to join for a year is falling apart at the seams. Oh, and I almost got shot yesterday.”
You point your face to the sky and let out a dramatic sigh. “God hates me.”
There’s a light nudge on your arm and you look over to see that Spider-Man’s moved closer to you. “God doesn’t hate you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Because I didn’t let you get shot. I’d say that’s pretty damn lucky.” You snort and from the mask, you think he’s… pleased? It’s really hard to tell.
“I guess that’s fair.”
Spider-Man lets out a satisfied hum as he turns to the city. “You gotta stop being so hard on yourself, bug.”
Your entire body goes still. Your eyes widen as they stare down at your lap, adrenaline rushing through your blood as you turn toward Spider-Man. “What’d you say?” You ask, voice so low you’re surprised he even registers it.
He shrugs, “I said to stop being so hard on yourself.”
“No, you called me something. What’d you call me?”
“Bug,” Spider-Man drawls and you swear you’re going crazy because that voice is painfully familiar. “You called me Bugboy, I thought it would be fair.”
It’s too hard to distinguish whether this swooping feeling in your stomach is relief or disappointment. And you hate yourself for not knowing which one you want it to be.
“Right,” you scoff and rub your eyes. “I’m going crazy, now.”
Spider-Man lets out a long sigh as he watches you. “You kind of seem like you’re having a mental breakdown. Maybe, I don’t know, get off the edge of the very tall building.”
“Oh, don’t tell me Bugboy’s got a crush.”
Your lips curl at his scoff. “You’re impossible.”
Feeling only slightly guilty for the hell you’ve given him, you slip off the edge and get your feet planted firmly on the ground. “Better?”
He surveys you suspiciously before nodding. You pick your phone up off the ledge and, for some reason, are compelled to open up the texts with Peter. You should have guessed how nosey Spider-Man was going to be about it.
“That the ex?”
You shoot him a flat look as he kicks his legs over the ledge. “Yeah. That’s the ex.”
“So, what are you going to tell him?” He motions toward the last text. “Break or breakup?” Your mind snags on how Peter called you bug and Spider-Man’s weird slip-up before you force yourself to dispel the thoughts.
“Breakup. I guess I should have made it more clear.” Your fingers hover over the keyboard before you shoot Spider-Man a look. His back has gone weirdly tense and you frown. “Hey, you’re a guy. How’s the nicest way to tell him it’s done.”
“Don’t.” His voice is clipped, almost angry. “He’ll get the hint. Trust me.”
Your brows furrow as you eye him warily. “Are you okay?”
“Gotta go. Superhero business, you know?” You shrug, but he doesn’t seem to care. He’s already leaping off the ledge, thwip-ing his way to the building across from yours.
“Weirdo,” you scoff.
You figured that after Spider-Man’s abrupt departure on the roof, that would be the end of it. But, no, it’s only gotten worse for you. He’s everywhere now. He’s somehow more consistent than your ex ever was.
Walking home from late research sections, look who wants to be a walking buddy.
Heading to the bodega for a midnight snack, somehow, Spider-Man had the same idea.
Your life is now a Sunday comic strip in the paper. It’s like there’s some sadistic artist out there exploiting your misery for humor. It’s not just him, either. It’s the month. In all your drama with Peter, you’d failed to keep up with the dates.
Now, freshly single for the first time in a couple of years, you sit alone preparing yourself for the next week. Valentine’s Day is Saturday, which means suffering through pink streamers all over campus and girls walking around with gift baskets lovingly curated by their boyfriends.
“I don’t like how often I find you on this ledge.”
You spare a glance over your shoulder and smile. “I don’t like that you still haven’t learned not to scare me.”
“Touche,” Spider-Man breathes out, taking quick strides toward you. “You seem tense. Feel like sharing? I’m a great listener.”
“Nothing big, just Valentine’s Day. I’ve had a boyfriend for so long I forgot how bitter and annoying it is for single people.”
“Tell me about it,” he sighs.
“Really? The Spider-Man is single?”
“I appreciate the surprise in your voice, no matter how forced it is.” You let out a wry chuckle and you swear you can hear a smile in his laugh.
“Probably a good thing, though. I can’t imagine any girlfriend would be happy with the amount of time you spend on this ledge with me.”
“No,” he agrees, “probably not.” The next noise he lets out is soft, tired in the kind of way that resonates with you. For the most part, your interactions are shallow. There’s banter, stupid quips, and then he’s off. You don’t usually hear something so real from him.
“Freshly single?” You ask. His head whips toward you and you shrug. “I recognize the misery of your sigh. It resonates within my withered heart.”
Spider-Man swats your shoulder lightly and you grin. “Yeah, it’s fresh. I still don’t think I’ve accepted it.”
You prop your chin in your hand and smile at him. “What level of not accepted are we talking here? Stalking? Or just crying over Instagram posts?”
Spider-Man goes quiet and you pull back. He recognizes the suspicion on your face and waves his hands. “No, no, no, this doesn’t count as stalking. Not really. I mean, it’s consensual?”
He sounds more unsure of himself at the end than you did. “Let's just not talk about that,” you offer. “I don’t think I want to know what your idea of consensual stalking is.” Spider-Man snorts and you shake your head.
A billboard across from you catches your eye. It’s Gwen’s favorite band, an announcement that they’ll be coming through soon. There’s a sharp ache in your chest when you remember you can’t just text her about stuff like that anymore.
“Gwen would love that,” you say, almost without thinking.
But what’s worse is when the man beside you doesn’t think either. “Oh, yeah, she would.”
Consensual
Stalking
Oh. My. God.
Your entire body stiffens as you turn to Spider-Man/maybe your ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t seem to realize his slip-up and that just makes you freeze up. You don’t know what to do. You can’t just blindly accuse him of being Peter. If you start hinting at secret identities, he might stop talking to you.
Loathe as you are to admit it, you’ve begun to enjoy his company. The main reason being he reminded you of how it was with Peter before you guys started dating.
Oh, Jesus, you’re gonna throw up off the ledge of your building. When the pavement below seems to swim up to you, it’s time to slip off the ledge. Slowly, fighting off the vertigo of your discovery, you drop back to safety.
Spider-Man watches you, head tilted in question. “Um, I have to go.” You search for an excuse, but none comes. “Yeah, I have to go.”
“Oh,” he seems taken aback, but doesn’t comment. “Alright. I’ll see you later?”
You let out a noise between a hum and a squeal as you rush back into your apartment building. Your mind is racing while you scramble through the door of your apartment. Like a detective, you flit through different memories, red string connecting each one as you start to line up Peter’s disappearances with Spider-Man's greatest hits.
Every missed date, every time he showed up late, it was all right there. But you never thought to connect it because… Well, why would you? Peter is Peter. He’s not a superhero. He definitely doesn’t have webs. Please, don’t let him have webs.
Scrambling for your phone, you dial the first number you can think of. It’s barely ringing before it’s getting picked up. “Gwen,” your voice is incredibly shaky as you try to calm yourself down. “I’m going to ask you something and if you don’t tell me the truth, we’re never talking again.”
Spider-Man/Peter Parker/ex-boyfriend-
No, no, too many titles. Peter has not been around in the past week. Not as his alter ego, and not at his lectures. Unfortunately, a lot of your schedule seems to intersect and the majority of your day is spent hiding in a hoodie and trying not to make eye contact.
But there hasn’t been any of that at all this week.
Maybe Gwen told him you know. He’s probably losing his mind right now.
But, no, she swore she wouldn’t and you know she’s not going to risk hurting your friendship again. Though you did profusely apologize for ever thinking that she could do that to you. And then she berated you about thinking she would ever be attracted to Peter.
Which… Ouch.
It’s Saturday, which used to mean days spent with him. Instead, it now means watching people get all mushy on Valentine’s Day. That used to be you, disgustingly in love, kissing way more than you should in public.
Now, you watch it all on the subway with that same old glare you used to have before Peter. You’re thinking about him a lot more than you want to. Especially given that he’s supposed to be an ex.
After your long speech on respect and boundaries and honesty, you should be completely over him. But it sort of makes sense now. Especially after Gwen told you what happened to her when she found out about him.
Peter wanted to protect you. You can understand that. But it doesn’t just erase all of the pain you felt while you were in the dark. You let out a low groan, ignoring the people around you as you walk home. You just keep going in circles over and over again.
The streets around you begin to thin out the closer to home you get. You’re still so deep in thought, you don’t notice the man dangling in front of you until your forehead is smacking into his.
“Ow,” you hiss, pressing your palm to the bruise that’s probably already forming. Backing up, Spider-Man, Peter, is dangling from the small overpass, upside down, as he waits for you.
“Dude,” you drawl. “How long have you just been hanging out here?”
He shrugs, “An hour, maybe.” Only in Queens would people pass by a dangling man in spandex and not question a thing.
One of his hands is tucked behind his back, and the other is holding onto his webbing. “Here,” he says. “I’ve got something for you.”
He untucks his free hand and passes you a bright pink, smothered in glitter, Valentine's Day card. You can hear his proud smile as he asks, “Be my Valentine?”
Narrowing your eyes at him, you shake your head with a low laugh. This is the dork you fell in love with. The boy you swore you would follow anywhere. It’s not his fault he’s such an idiot, not really.
Something soothes the ever permanent ache in your heart as you imagine the smile he’s probably got plastered on face. God, you bet he’s so proud of himself for this silly little Valentine.
A deep longing echoes through you and you reach up, going for the edge of his mask, when he reels back. “What’re you-”
“Relax, Parker,” you whisper. He goes completely still and you take hold of the mask.
“Did Gwen tell you?”
“You did, dumbass. You know, you’re really bad at the whole secret identity thing when it comes to consensually stalking your ex.” He lets out a low groan as you peel down his mask, just enough for his lips to be visible.
Pulling back, you take his face in your hands and smile. “Do you want me as your Valentine, or not?”
“What do you think, bug?” With a soft laugh, you lean forward and press your lips to his. It takes a second to get the angle right, what with his chin brushing your nose and all. But you don’t need perfect, you just need him.
Pulling back, he’s got a goofy grin on his face and you smirk. “Parker?” He hums as you fix his mask. “If you ever lie to me again, I’ll cut a hole in the crotch of your unitard. Or, worse second option, I’ll tell Jonah Jameson where you live. Got it?”
He goes still and you raise a brow. “You’re not joking?” You shake your head, expression flat. “Yeah, I got it, sweetheart.”
Smiling, you press a kiss to his cheek and step back. “Be home by six,” you tell him. “And bring some takeout.” You walk around him as he swings himself back up to the top of the overpass.
“I love you!” He calls after you.
“I know you do, Bugboy!”
𝘞𝘦 𝘈𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦 𝘜𝘱 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵
𝘚𝘢𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 ♥︎
⇄ ◁◁ I I ▷▷ ↻
⁰² ⁰⁸ ━━━━━━━━━●━ ⁰⁰ ²⁵
💿 We've been here before and we'll be here tomorrow 💿
a/n: this was meant to be angstier but, well, I started writing him in the Spider-Man “voice” and folded like a wet paper towel
summary: you’re an insomniac, and you can’t help but notice your new roommate's comings and goings at odd hours. Peter’s a not-very-good liar that gets worse as he falls in love
tasm!Peter x fem!reader ♡ 14k words
You hear the first stirrings when sunlight is already spilling warm and bright through your apartment. The groan of bedsprings, followed by a more human groan, followed by feet hitting the floor. The floor groans too, old wood with old water bubbles trapped beneath.
It’s a short time later that Peter trudges out from his room, going immediately to the kitchen and the pot of coffee you started early this morning. The pajama bottoms he puts on for your benefit are on backwards.
“Good morning.” You stop looking at him as soon as he looks at you, peering intently at the textbook in your lap. You’ve been on the couch since before the sun rose. The fall semester only began yesterday, and already you’re bogged down with readings and the early stages of projects. This couch is new—or new to you, you found it on a curb last week—but soon you suspect the cushion you’re sitting on will have an indent just about where you’re sitting now.
“Morning,” Peter mumbles, tired but not unfriendly. “You’ve got homework already too, huh?”
You give him a rueful smile over your shoulder. “I don’t think it ever stops.”
Peter makes a noise somewhere between humorous and sorrowful and pulls a mug down from the cupboard. One of yours, but you don’t care.
You think that if he’s this tired on the second day of classes, you’re going to hate to see him during finals. You’re tired too, but at least you have a reason. Though, you allow, you don’t know for sure that Peter’s reason might not be the same as yours.
This is the problem with random roommates. You don’t know if it’s more likely that the person sleeping across the hall from you is a nocturnal studier or has a drug problem.
“Did you go out last night?” you ask.
Peter’s brows jump together. He watches his mug as he fills it up. “No. Why?”
You feel immediately stupid. You’ve overstepped. You’re nosy. You don’t mean to be.
“I heard the door open.”
No way to say that without sounding like a paranoid freak. You have a quiet door in a loud city. At nearly midnight, with sirens wailing and your neighbor singing in the shower on the other side of your wall, you shouldn’t have heard it. But you did.
If Peter finds this odd, he doesn’t mention it. “Oh,” he says, dragging the word out long and slow. “Out as in out of the apartment. I thought you meant out out, like to the club or something. No, I just…I had a late night craving. Went down to the bodega to grab some chips.”
You feel yourself frown. You hadn’t heard the door open again until a couple hours later, far longer than a trip to the bodega would take. But to ask more questions would be to admit you’d still been listening, so you don’t. Maybe Peter has some emotional attachment to a bodega in Queens. He said he was from Queens, right?
Peter joins you in the living room. You’ve opened a window to let the air in, still warmish but getting cool enough that you can get away with running the fans and not the air conditioning, and Peter turns his face into the light as he settles in on the opposite side of the couch. You wonder if he’ll have his own dent in time, too. He doesn’t strike you as the type.
“You were up late, too, huh?” he asks. The smell of his coffee mingles with the smells of wet pavement and car exhaust coming in through your window.
“Sorry,” you say, before you can stop yourself, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s cool. It’s not prying to make sure the door to your apartment isn’t left unlocked in the middle of the night.” Peter grins. Two dimples dive into his cheeks. “Were you doing homework then, too?”
“No.” You don’t consider lying. It’s not something you feel the need to be private about, even with virtual strangers. “I just don’t sleep much.”
Your roommate’s head tilts. The movement reminds you of a cocker spaniel. “Like, you can’t?”
“I can’t,” you confirm. “Not usually, at least.”
“Ouch. That sucks.”
Peter’s sympathetic bemusement confirms for you that his reasons for being tired are not, in fact, the same as yours. Whatever they might be, you file it away as None of Your Business. You’ve asked, he’s told, that’s the end of it. You sleep not twenty feet apart, but Peter is a near stranger to you. You don’t have any right to his mysteries.
“So,” he says into the silence that follows, “any classes today?”
“Yeah.” You check the time on your laptop. Corner the page of your textbook. “Actually, I’d better go. It starts in twenty minutes. Do you care if I leave my mess on the coffee table?”
Peter glances at your collection of pens and highlighters with a look that makes you think his version of mess might be different to yours.
“Go ahead,” he says. “So long as you don’t mind my mess joining it.”
“Of course not.” You zip up your backpack, relieved.
“You coming back for lunch? I think I’m gonna go grab a bagel in a sec, I can bring you back one.”
“Oh, that’s…” That’s too much. That’s more than roommate duties, and more than you want to return. “That’s okay,” you say, moving towards the door. “I packed a sandwich, I’ll probably camp out on campus between classes.”
Peter raises his hand in a lazy salute. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” You try to mirror him. It feels weird; you let your hand drop halfway through. The door shuts nearly silently behind you.
—
Peter plies you with meatloaf when you return. He’s been to his aunt’s in Queens and brought back enough to feed a family of four.
“It’s not…I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s a not world-renowned meatloaf,” he says, bringing a forkful to his mouth. “But it’s food and it’s free and I can’t eat it all by myself, so.”
You’re not in any position to turn down free food. You sit on the couch next to him. Peter’s left the cushion by the window open, and you wonder if already you each have your own spot. The meatloaf isn’t bad.
You talk about your classes. Peter’s studying biophysics and biochemistry, two words which mean nothing to you but apparently require lots of time spent at the labs on campus. He congratulates you on the achievement of getting matched with a roommate who will make you feel like you live by yourself; his classes are only getting started, but soon he’ll be in the lab most of the time. Though your own classes are far from easy, you don’t envy him.
Peter doesn’t need any help from you; he finishes the rest of the meatloaf in that one sitting.
—
You get into a rhythm quickly. On campus from your first class in the morning until your assignments (or at least the ones due the next day) are finished usually sometime in the evening, cooking at home, eating on the run, plasma donation on Thursdays at seven to make some extra cash, four scoops of coffee grounds in the machine because both you and Peter need it strong. Peter brings home more meals from his aunt. Her name is May, you learn, and after the third free dinner you write her a thank-you note for Peter to bring back to her.
Your hot water goes out. Peter sweet-talks the landlord while you send stern emails to the leasing company until it gets fixed. You bring his laptop instead of yours to campus by mistake and have to meet up at a library to swap. Peter comes from the lab, half-jogging with plastic goggles pushed up into his hair and making it stick out in every direction. It’s endearing beyond reason. You make him a sandwich to take to class when he oversleeps. He comes to pick you up from the plasma donation clinic when you forget to eat beforehand. You develop inside jokes about the flickering light above your stove, and the erratic banging you think is your upstairs neighbors having sex, and the too-good-for-this-world cashier at the bodega on your corner. No matter how Peter tries to get you in on it, you refuse to develop inside jokes about his Aunt May’s cooking.
It’s in the dull blue of a sleepless night in September, Aunt May’s pasta pomodoro still heavy in your stomach, when you hear the lock on your front door click. It’s a quiet sound, but you’re too antsy to miss it in your otherwise silent apartment. The door opens with a shush of air.
You wonder if Peter is going out or coming in. It’s late, but not so late for the overworked grad student population. He warned you that he’d eventually be spending long nights at the lab.
You don’t get up with any suspicions. You only want to make sure the door gets re-locked, and you haven’t heard the second click.
There’s an odd sound as your bedroom door opens. Like plastic ripping or cast fishing line, blink-and-it’s-over. You step out to find Peter wrapped up in your largest blanket and absolutely covered in filth.
You blink.
Peter blinks back at you.
“Jesus,” you say.
“Nope, just me.” Peter grins, but it falls short of his usual. “Sorry, lame joke. My uncle used to make it. It was lame then, too, I guess.”
“What happened to you?”
“Uh, there was a small accident at the lab. You should be asleep.”
“Small? Is that soot?”
“It’s…it’s soot, yeah.”
You’re reeling. You turn the kitchen light on to see him better. Peter’s left footprints in from your front door. There’s soot even in his hair, tinging it a darker color. “Was there an explosion?”
He grimaces. “It was a super small explosion. Very contained. But, you know, chemicals. Volatile stuff.” You shake your head, baffled, and his expression softens. “It was freaky, but everything’s fine now. It’s late, you should go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
Peter’s brow furrows; the lines are more pronounced with soot etched into them. “You weren’t? It’s almost three,” he says, as if to himself.
“What’s with the blanket?”
“The…oh.” He looks down. “Right, yeah. The lab actually took my clothes. They’re probably not contaminated or anything, but they’re being disposed of for liability reasons.”
You look down at your blanket, covering him toe-to-chin, and back up at Peter. “They made you walk home naked?”
Peter blinks. “Uh. No, no, not…totally naked.”
You raise your eyebrows at him.
“They gave us…lab coats?” His voice tips up at the end like a question and the corners of his mouth tip up with it, sheepish. He gives a little shrug. “It’s not super modest, but it’s what they had on hand. Sort of like a slutty nurse costume situation? I didn’t want to, uh, you know, scar you as you were coming out of your room.”
“Right.” You frown, embarrassed of the heat you can feel coming to your face. “I…appreciate that.”
“Anytime. But you can go to bed now, seriously.” Peter starts edging towards the bathroom. “Don’t let me keep you up, I know you have that nine a.m. tomorrow.”
You wave him off. “I’ll be fine, we don’t have any explosions in my class. Are you okay? Is there anything I can help with?”
“Nope! No help.” Peter’s voice pitches slightly when you step towards him. He draws the blanket tighter, walking backwards until his back bumps the wall and feeling his way into the bathroom. “It’s just that I’m really basically naked. Like, so, so naked, and it’s embarrassing, so you should just go to your room and I’ll shower and then we can, uh, probably just not talk about this, if you’re alright with that. Because I’m embarrassed. Okay?”
“Okay.” You hold your hands up peaceably. “If you’re sure.”
“Super sure.” Peter flashes you a smile before shutting the bathroom door. “Goodnight!”
You go back to your room and sit with your head laid flat in the middle of your pillow, your bent knees making a tent of your covers. You listen to the shower running until it squeaks off at three-thirty.
—
Your backpack feels heavier leaving the library than it did on the way to campus this morning. Your train runs less frequently after midnight, so walking is nearly just as efficient. It’s a long, slow trudge up the hill that leads from campus to your neighborhood, past empty university buildings and through dapples of pale streetlights. A raccoon stops riffling through a trash can to look at you as you pass. You raise a hand to let him know you’re a kindred spirit.
It’s cliché, but you sort of love the city after dark. It’s less glitzy than people think. The city may not sleep, and neither do you, and apparently neither does Peter, but some people have to. The streets are relatively quiet, technicolor dulled into grays and blues that blur together as you pass them by. Somewhere out of view, a siren wails like a ghost’s cry.
It’s the quiet that allows you to hear the schwick and rush of air that comes before feet hit the sidewalk beside you.
You flinch hard. Nearly send yourself tumbling into the street, but a hand whips out to catch you before you can slip off the curb. Slippery red fabric with black latticework spanning up the wrist.
“It’s okay.” Spider-Man steps back as soon as you’re steady. He holds his hands up. “It’s okay.”
You put a hand to your heart, feeling it beating beneath your palm. “Jesus. Don’t you know not to sneak up on girls walking by themselves?”
“Don’t you know girls shouldn’t walk by themselves?” Spider-Man counters lightly.
You suppose you’re meant to feel chastened, except you are a girl, and you have to get places, you can’t have a chaperone at all times. Also, this superhero speaks in a deep, rough voice that makes you think of teenage boys trying to sound tough.
“Is this really the most pressing thing you have to deal with?” you ask him. Spider-Man’s head tilts, and you gesture around you at the empty street. “Aren’t there any bank robberies happening? Or, like, serial killers on the loose?”
He’s wearing a mask, and yet you could swear it’s like his eyebrows raise. “How common do you think those are?”
You shrug and keep walking, though you’re careful not to put your back fully to him. Even Spider-Man could turn out to be a bad guy to be stuck alone with. “I don’t need any help,” you say. “Thanks for the tip, though.”
He keeps pace with you. “Are you a student?”
You look at him sideways. “Maybe. What makes you ask?”
He taps the pin on your backpack. “The university has a walking buddy program, you know. So students don’t have to walk home alone after long nights at the library.”
“How long have you been following me for?”
“What?”
You narrow your eyes at him. You don’t like that he guessed you were coming home from the library; however, on the chance that it is a guess you’re not about to tell him he was right.
“I’m just saying.” Spider-Man’s hands are up again, in a gesture of peace. “You should think about calling a walking buddy next time.”
“Maybe I’d rather be alone than alone with someone who’s volunteered to learn the routes to people’s homes.” You throw him a pointed look.
Spider-Man’s casual gait doesn’t falter, but he lets out something that sounds almost like a laugh. “Are you always this suspicious of people trying to help you?”
“John Wayne Gacy was known to lure victims by promising help.”
“But I’m…” The voice behind the mask changes, turning younger and less polished. He lifts his gloved hands haplessly. “...Spider-Man.”
You shrug, not allowing yourself to feel bad. “I’m suspicious of people in general. And I don’t need help.”
“Noted. Listen, can I just walk you to your building to make sure you get in safe? I won’t know your apartment number or anything.”
You give him an appraising look. Spider-Man walks with a respectable distance between you, his hands swinging at his sides. It’s not like you could actually make him go away even if you wanted to, but you do think he would fuck off if you said no. Ultimately, that’s what makes the decision for you.
“Okay,” you say, tacking on reluctantly, “thanks.”
“Hey, all in a day’s work. Until there’s another bank robbery or serial killer, obviously.”
Spider-Man turns out to be a half-decent walking companion. He offers to give you a lift instead—but once he clarifies what he means by lift and you swiftly decline, he only continues walking beside you at a New Yorker’s amble. He asks you about your classes. You admit to having fallen asleep earlier at the library, and then staying late to make up for the study time you’d missed. He tells you about how it feels to swing through the city at night; how there are some neighborhoods he likes better than others for their calmness, but of course by the nature of what he does he tends to stick to the noisier ones. Times Square isn’t only a hotspot for crime during the day, as it turns out. He says, in a light, kind voice, that he’s glad to have the break of walking you home. He enjoys the quiet of your little neighborhood, too.
True to his word, Spider-Man lets you go at your building. He watches you walk up the front steps, waving when you turn around briefly before buzzing yourself in. You hear the schwick of his webbing shooting out just before the door closes behind you.
You slog up the flights of stairs to your apartment, letting your backpack drop by the door and sending a silent apology to your downstairs neighbors right after. You feel lighter without it, but still your body all but drags you to the floor when you sit to take off your shoes. You turn at the sound of a door creaking open.
Light spills out into the hall as Peter emerges in his plaid pajama bottoms. You wince.
“Hey,” you say softly. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No.” He shakes his head, though you obviously did. His hair is all messy from sleep, sticking out in every direction. “Did you just get back?”
“Mhm.”
Peter makes a face highly reminiscent of a sad puppy. “You were on campus all day?”
You shrug, like what can you do? Peter’s a grad student, too; he’ll get it.
But your roommate looks troubled. “Did you eat?”
“I…” You blink, realizing why, besides the late hour, you might have felt so tired on your walk home. “I guess I forgot about dinner. I fell asleep for a while in the library.”
“Yeah?” Peter’s already moving towards the kitchen. “Sit down, I’ll make you something.”
“Peter, that’s okay.”
“I’m not gonna have you passing out waiting for the microwave or whatever. Just sit down.”
You find you don’t have much argument left in you. You’re dead tired, and the couch does look like a nice place to rest. “I thought we ran out of May’s lasagna.”
“We did. I can’t cook as good as her, but I can whip up a half decent quesadilla.”
You fall silent, resting your cheek on the back cushion of the couch and watching as Peter puts a thin slice of butter into a pan on your stove. Your teeth worry into your lower lip.
“Doesn’t the library close at midnight?” he asks.
“Two,” you correct him. “It’s open twenty-four hours during midterms and finals week, though.”
Peter glances at you out of the corner of his eye. “It’s not midterms or finals.”
“Hence why I got kicked out.”
He makes a chuffing sound like laughter, familiar in a way you can’t place. “Can’t believe you stayed late enough to get kicked out.”
“I know, right? It’s like bar close for students.”
“Are you really comparing yourself to people who get kicked out of bars?”
“Hey, we’re both committed, just to different pursuits.”
Peter hums, ceding the point. “I guess the only difference is that you got kicked out on a Tuesday.”
“You think the barflies aren’t there on Tuesdays?” You give him a droll look. “Wisen up, Parker.”
Your roommate casts you a glance paired with a half-smile. “You know productivity decreases with exhaustion, right?”
You scoff. “You don’t get to talk about healthy sleeping habits. I know you work just as hard.” He brings you a plate with a neatly folded quesadilla on it, and you soften your tone as you take it. “Thank you.”
Peter settles into his side of the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table. He watches you take your first couple of bites. “I just think,” he says, “that if you pass out somewhere from sleep deprivation or low blood sugar or whatever, there might be some part of our lease agreement that says I’m responsible for that.”
You raise your eyebrows at him. “Did you read that whole thing?”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m only saying that it’s possible. Landlords love weird clauses.”
You hum as you chew, playing along. “Okay. That’s fair. What if I kept a note constantly on my person that said this isn’t Peter’s fault, so that if someone finds me passed out you can avoid culpability? Would that make you feel better?”
Peter’s lips twitch. He shrugs. “A little.”
“Perfect. That’s what I’ll do, then.”
“You could also just come home before some poor librarian has to kick you out. Or,” he goes on, “call me to walk you home if it’s late.”
You give him a look. “I’m not going to call and wake you up so you can come get me every time I stay late on campus.”
“I wouldn’t mind being woken up. I might be on campus too, and anyway I’d want to help.”
“I don’t need help.”
Peter frowns. “If you say so.”
You nod, trying to smile to soften the rejection. You hold up what remains of your quesadilla. “This is really good, by the way.”
Peter mirrors your half-hearted smile. “I learned from the best.”
“Yeah, you did. I really owe May another card.”
“You don’t owe May anything, and if she were here she’d tell you that herself.”
—
You feel like something is amiss. It’s not a new feeling. Some nights, you can’t stop going over things you’ve done wrong. Times you said something you shouldn’t have, acted without thinking, didn’t act and regretted it, going back as long as you can remember. It’s enough to make you hate yourself.
Other nights, like this one, you become convinced there’s something still yet to be done. You didn’t actually hit submit on that assignment. You’ve left the stove on. Your water bottle is sitting abandoned on your table in the library, begging to be stolen. Someone’s trying desperately to call you, but you clicked your phone to silent without realizing.
The anxieties worm their way into your weary bones until the only option is to drag yourself out of bed and quiet them. It’s not like you were going to fall asleep anyway.
Your building is old and creaky. You take care to walk on light footsteps into the kitchen, reassuring yourself forcefully as you go. The stove is off. The freezer is shut. The heater is not turned up so high that you’re going to be surprised by a heart-stopping electrical bill. The kitchen sink isn’t leaking. Your school things are just where you left them, heaped together in your backpack beside the door. The front door is…
The front door is unlocked.
You know you locked it when you came in. You’re sure you did, because you don’t allow yourself to put your keys on the hook unless you have and there they are. You look towards Peter’s room.
When you text him, there’s no chime you can hear.
YOU: Hey, are you home?
PETER: Just left, forgot my laptop on campus! Everything ok?
YOU: Yeah, it’s fine. The door was unlocked.
PETER: Shit. SO SORRY!!!
PETER: U can lock it, I have my key.
YOU: It’s fine. Locked now.
PETER: Won’t happen again. Promise!
You double-check that Peter’s key is missing from his hook before actually locking the door. You think wryly that you and Peter may have synced in your sleeping habits; you always seem to be awake at the same times. Or maybe you were simply both such terrible sleepers to begin with that the comings and goings of the other don’t make much difference.
You run through a few more checks before going to bed. The window that goes to the fire escape is latched. The oven is off. Your laptop is charging.
Right next to Peter’s.
—
The next night, you’re not woken by worries but by cold. You rouse from a fitful hibernation to find yourself coiled tight like a crab within its shell, knees pressed together and chilled nose hidden beneath your covers. Early winter seeps through your apartment like a frozen kiss.
You take your blankets with you as you stumble out of bed, bleary-eyed. You feel the chill more when you leave your room, though less in the living room. The heat is supposedly on. Peter’s door is closed, but you knock to see if it’s woken him, too. There’s no answer.
“Peter,” you whisper.
Still nothing, and you knock again.
“Pete, are you up?”
When another minute of this produces no response, you turn the door knob tentatively. You know it’s a massive invasion of privacy. You know that. But your apartment feels like it’s teleported to the Arctic, and for all you know Peter could be comatose with hypothermia right now.
It feels all the more plausible when you open the door and the air that meets you is cool enough to make your skin pebble under your blankets. Peter really might have hypothermia. If he was here.
But Peter’s bed is empty, and his window is open.
You decide to leave it that way in case it’s how he needs to get back in. You take more blankets with you to go back to bed.
—
There are few things you can think of which require someone to be out in the darkest hours of the night. None of them are reassuring. Things too illicit to be exposed to daylight, risky things, illegal things.
If you’re being honest with yourself, you probably should have realized sooner. New York is expensive, and Peter doesn’t seem much better off than you are. You’re both full-time students without jobs; everyone has to supplement their income somehow. He probably makes more doing whatever he’s doing than you do pimping out your plasma once a week.
Peter may not seem like the type, but you don’t have to be the type to do drastic things when you’re broke. Anybody could be doing anything. Some people do yard work, some people babysit, some people buy cheap shit and resell it on ebay; you donate plasma; Peter deals drugs, probably. It’s fine. It’s…well, it’s not fine, it’s dangerous, but you can understand it. He has access to a lab and pays for school with government grants. He had to be paying for your rent somehow.
“Hey.” Peter returns to your table with a mug in each hand. “You good?”
You let out a little hum. “Yeah, why?”
“You just looked kinda spacey.” He sets your coffee in front of you. You pick it up, gratified by the way it sears your tongue and seeps sweetness into your tastebuds.
You’ve taken to spending your Saturdays together at this coffee shop, The Daily Bean. It’s big enough in size that you can always find a table in some hidden corner if you look hard enough, small enough in popularity that regulars can still stare-shame anyone who talks too loudly when everyone else is trying to work. You and Peter like that it’s walkable from your apartment, and that the chairs are comfortable, and that every mug is unique so you can debate who got the better one when your drinks come out. The icing on the cake is that if you order a simple drink, refills are free so long as you bring back your mug. You keep asking Peter to go up to the counter because you’re worried the employees are going to get angry with you for abusing their policy by camping out all day, and no one can get angry with Peter.
And that’s sort of the sticking point, isn’t it?
Peter is a good guy. He’s nice, he works hard in school, he pays rent on time. Obviously he has this other thing going on on the side, but that doesn’t make you like him any less. It’s not fair that he should have to give up sleep and put himself in god-knows-what dangerous situations just to live. Lately, the crescents under his eyes are nearly as bad as yours. You’re worried about him.
“You do photography, right?”
Peter looks up, blinking, from where his attention had gone back to his laptop. He’s working on something he told you about during the walk over, some report of some sciency thing. You think he could tell you weren’t grasping it even as he explained it to you.
“I take pictures sometimes,” he says, doing a side-to-side sort of nod. “Not really the same thing.”
“But you’re good.”
It’s not a question. You’ve seen the photos all over Peter’s room. They’re stuck to the walls with scotch tape like he’s not even proud of them, but they’re incredible. Candids of a graying woman you imagine to be Aunt May in different locations of the same lovingly cluttered home. Stills of people in the motions of their day, on the subway and lounging on front steps and smiling at dogs. Angles of the city that make you feel like you’re flying.
Peter makes a face. “Eh…”
You huff a laugh at his humility. “I’m just saying, have you ever thought of charging people for that?”
“For…”
“To take pictures of them. Or to buy your pictures, either way.”
“I don’t know.” Peter shrugs. He looks almost like he might be blushing. “I can’t think of anyone who would want to pay for that, and anyway I’m not sure I have the time to, like, monetize it or whatever.”
“I could probably help,” you say casually. Take a sip of your coffee to sell it.
Peter watches you, unabashed in his staring even when you won’t look back at him. “Yeah? You’d do that?”
You lift your shoulders. “Sure.”
“How come?”
You meet his gaze, though it sends tingles from your ears all the way down your spine to do it. The brown eyes waiting for you are just as warm and thrice as sweet as the drink in your hand. “Because I want to,” you say.
Peter’s mouth kicks up in the corner. “Noted,” he replies. “Thanks.”
You make a mumbly sound of acknowledgement, going for your coffee again. Your roommate’s grin worsens.
“Hey.” He bumps your ankle lightly with his under the table. “You want to learn something about protein misfolding and Alzheimer’s?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you do.” Peter shuts his laptop, setting his elbows on it to lean closer to you. “So, when proteins lose their functional shape…”
—
Lately, the only place you can find sleep is in places it shouldn’t be. Slumped over the table of a study room, in the chair of the plasma donation clinic, in your sunlit living room between classes. When Peter finds you, you’ve started a small puddle of drool on your textbook. The fluorescent lights of the library press at your eyelids, obscuring any awareness of time in a distant outside world.
Peter says your name with something soft curled around the syllables.
Your eyes burn as you open them to find him crouched by your chair, one hand on your textbook and the other floating a few inches above his knee like he’d been thinking of reaching for you. His hair is sticking up the way it does when he’s run his fingers through it.
“Peter?”
“Hey. Hi.” He clears his throat, blinking something away from his expression. “Glad you still know my name. Since, you know, you seem to have forgotten where we live.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I’m hoping to save the librarians some hassle.” His mouth curves, pink and lovely, into a little smile. “Ready to go?”
You peel yourself off of your textbook, allowing Peter to close a pencil in it to mark your page before dropping it into your backpack. You feel like you’re moving through molasses, back clicking as you stretch; you must have been sleeping deeply.
“What time is it?” you yawn as Peter helps you into your coat. He shoulders your backpack without saying anything.
“One-thirty.” When you blink blearily at the near-desolate library, he touches your shoulder gently to direct you toward the elevators. You try to take your backpack from him, and Peter only hikes it up further on his shoulder. “They’re gonna put posters of you up at some point. I think you’re here more than anybody else on campus.”
You send him a droll, sleep-addled look out of the corner of your eye. “I don’t think you get to talk about staying out late.”
He doesn’t look at you. “No? Why not?”
“Because you’re always at the—” You yawn hugely. “At the lab.”
Peter huffs a laugh. If it sounds a bit relieved, you’re perhaps too tired to judge. As you step into the elevator, he hits the button for the ground floor and steps back beside you to put an arm over your shoulders. “Touché.”
You stand still in silent uncertainty as the elevator descends. This is closer than you and Peter have been before. It feels a slight shift from bumping elbows in the kitchen or accidentally brushing each other’s knees under your table at The Daily Bean, though maybe that’s just you. Regardless, it’s going to be a cold walk home; Peter’s body is emanating an enviable warmth through his coat, and you’re just sleepy enough to consider leaning a bit on him as you walk. You stay where you are.
“How’d you know where I was?” you ask as the elevator doors open. Peter steps out with you tucked under his arm as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s almost two in the morning on a Thursday.” He waves to the librarian at the desk, pushing the front door open for the both of you. “Where else would you be?”
“Ha ha,” you mutter. “But, like, how’d you find me?” It’s a big library. Five floors, dozens of tables, and you’d been hidden away in your own private corner chosen specifically for how rare it is for any other student to stumble across. You suppose someone outside might have seen you through the window by your table, but even that seems unlikely. It’s higher up than most people think to look.
“I’m an efficient search committee,” says Peter. He adjusts his hold on you when the wind picks up and you step closer unconsciously, hand slipping down your arm to encourage further sharing of his warmth. “Cold?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t this bad when I left.”
He makes a half-smug humming noise; you feel its vibrations kiss the top of your head. “That’s what happens when you stay out this late, I guess. My Uncle Ben used to say nothing good happens after midnight.”
“Have I called you a hypocrite yet?”
“Only in implication.”
“Well, you are.”
Peter laughs, the sound wonderfully crisp. “Did you at least eat?”
“It’s not your job to feed me, you know.”
“Seems like someone’s gotta do it.”
“Well, for the record, I did.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Peter seems to gather that if you walk all the way home he’s going to end up carrying you for at least part of it, so you go down into the subway to wait for the next train. You fall briefly asleep on his shoulder waiting, and again in your seats once you get on. It’s a feat, considering you’re only a stop away on this line, but both times Peter rests his chin on the top of your head like he’s surrendered to the idea of keeping you there.
It’s only after he’s half-dragged you up the stairs to your apartment and is digging your key out of your backpack (why he doesn’t seem to have his, you don’t bother asking) that you say, “I’m sorry you had to come all the way to campus to get me.”
Peter makes a quiet scoffing sound, jiggling the handle until the door gives way. “I didn’t have to. I don’t mind, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You’re always doing things for me, though.” You shuck off your coat, tossing it over the back of the couch as he does the same with his. “You’re either making me food or picking me up from places or bringing me my stuff…”
Peter’s eyebrow twitches, a teasing curve to his mouth that fits his voice to its shape. “So what, I’m not allowed to do things for you? You’re gonna rob me of that?”
“Do you have a hero complex or something?”
You think it’s obvious you’re teasing him back, but Peter’s expression flickers with something that makes you wonder if he didn’t catch the levity in your tone. He recovers fast. “Maybe.”
“I’m just saying,” you try on a bit of sincerity, “you don’t have to.”
“Hey, I know.” He moves closer, eyes dark in the low light. Neither of you have moved for a light switch, your apartment cast in the cool blue tones of the moonlight coming in the window. “I really don’t mind. I like doing things for you.”
“But,” you ask, hesitating, “who does things for you?”
Peter’s eyebrows lift slightly, as though he’s surprised you’d ask. When his voice lowers, there’s something about the roughness of it which tugs at a memory. “You do.”
You feel yourself frown. Yes, you try to do things to make Peter’s life a bit easier, but that’s half out of a sense of gratitude for all he already does for you and they’re never really sizable things. A few extra pancakes left in the fridge when you know he won’t wake with enough time to make breakfast before class, a pack of twizzlers snagged from the bodega when you notice he’s running low. Is that as much care as Peter gets? It can’t be.
You’re about to tell him that he deserves better, but when you open your mouth you realize he’s right there, and letting yourself list forward is just as easy.
Peter kisses you like he’s breathing you in. Slow at first, the beginnings of an inhale, and then in great pulls. He cups the side of your face, stepping forward, crowding you, his other arm winding around your waist to keep you from falling when you move backwards into the couch and nearly tip yourself over the edge. A few seconds later and he’s changed his mind, sending you both over so you collapse down onto the cushions in a heap, him all on your side and you all on his. One sleepy, confusing tangle.
“I thought you wanted me to go to bed,” you mumble against his lips.
“Who said that?” Peter rolls you sideways, putting you to the inside of the couch so he can push your hair away from your face. “Tomorrow’s Friday. It’s basically the weekend already.”
“Could’ve probably stayed at the library then.”
“Too cliché.”
His hand coasts up your back, and you find you’re out of cleverness. “Yeah?”
“Mhm. Plus, what would the librarians think of you? You’re a big name over there.”
“You’re such a hypocrite.”
Peter sighs into your mouth. “Tell me about it.”
—
Maybe it should be awkward, but it’s not. You and Peter already live together, already have your routines and your in-jokes and an ease of moving about each other in a small space, so adding kissing to the mix really doesn’t feel like so far of a leap.
It’s not fireworks. Or butterflies or cartwheels or any of that. It’s…easy. Like slipping into a warm bath. You feel yourself unspool one inch at a time, until coming home from class to lay yourself down in Peter’s lap and go over flashcards with him is as natural as breathing.
“It’d be over in Chelsea, so I could stay here and take the bus.” Peter’s got his glasses on, which always make you want to kiss him hard enough to get them all askew, and his hands are wandering your legs and waist as he talks, not helping matters. “And they’re doing this really cool stuff with ion channels that I could get involved in…”
He’s telling you about an internship he’s applying to for the summer. You’re sitting in his lap trying to look engaged and not humiliatingly wanton. Really, you like the sound of this internship. It would mean you’d both get to stay in the apartment for the summer, since you’re returning to a previous internship in the city, too, and of the options Peter’s told you about this one offers the best pay. You may not understand ion channels or space radiation or half of what he talks about, but you love the idea of anything that might supplement his supplemental income.
“Didn’t you say your internship’s in Greenwich?” Peter asks, touch coasting up your back.
You hum in the affirmative.
He grins, flashing a dimple you want to poke your tongue into (because you’re a nonsensical, depraved thing). “We could meet in the middle for lunch.”
“That would be nice.” You give into your baser urges and lay a soft kiss on the side of Peter’s nose. The frames of his glasses dent into your cheek. “Where would we go?”
“I know a good sandwich place on Eighth and Hudson,” he murmurs, pushing his glasses up into his hair to kiss you properly. Damn him. His voice hums against your lips. “Maybe lunches there sometimes, dinners at Chelsea Market.”
“Chelsea Market?” You smile, and Peter’s quick to kiss the corner. “Are we made of money in this fantasy?”
“Duh. We’ll have high-roller internships—”
“Speak for yourself.”
“—and those of us who are possibly being taken advantage of for their cheap labor and wonderful, perfect—” He mushes his lips to your face with each word. “—really very valuable brain will luckily have a lovesick biophysics intern to sponsor them.”
You hum, sliding your finger along the curve of his glasses behind his ear. “Where am I gonna find one of those, you think? Should I start loitering on park benches reading genetics books and looking confused?”
For someone so gentle and who spends so much of his time in labs, Peter is surprisingly strong. You’ve discovered this several times over now, enough to want to goad it out of him when you can, and still it surprises you to find yourself flat on your back against the couch cushions less than a second later. You’re giggling breathlessly before Peter even gets to you.
“You think you’re so funny,” he mutters, a far cry from menacing as he smooshes wet kisses into the underside of your jaw.
“Or I—I could try hanging around the three-in-one shampoo at the discount store—” Peter squeezes your waist, and you gasp out a laugh. “—or hoard all the city’s ramen so they come to me.”
“Okay, you know I eat better than that, you traitor. Are you trying to get yourself cut off from my culinary resources?”
You squirm, pushing at Peter’s hands and enjoying how useless it is. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Also” —he breezes right past the threat, because you both know he wouldn’t— “if you have a problem with my hair, all you’ve gotta do is say something. Does it smell bad?”
He sticks the top of his head in your face, the soft ends of his hair tickling your nose. You stick your face in dutifully to take in a pull. You know the scent of Peter’s three-in-one (you live together, you’ve read the bottle), but somehow his hair always manages to smell like fresh laundry, too. You have every intention of feigning shock and disgust, except you’re overtaken by a rush of affection and the teasing mood leaves you.
You press your lips to his forehead. “It’s perfect.”
“Wow. Even with three-in-one in there?”
“I’m surprised, too.”
Peter tilts his head up, bumping your noses together. “Guess you don’t have to go on the search for some other biophysics guy to fawn over you, then.”
Fawn. That’s exactly what Peter does, fawn over you, but it’s somehow worse that he does it knowingly.
“Maybe not,” you say, “but you know I’m not just going to let you get my lunch every time.”
“Oh, yeah? How are you gonna stop me?”
“I don’t know.” You heave a long, thoughtful sigh. “I guess probably start selling your photos to make my own way in the world.”
Peter laughs. “I think probably one of the most adorable things about you,” he says, lips to your cheek, “is that you think those are worth something. They’re all yours, pretty girl.”
“They’re definitely worth something. I’m going to make millions.”
“Sure you are.”
“You’ll see, when I move out of this place into a penthouse and you’re still just scraping by on your measly STEM salary.”
Peter watches you with an analytical gaze. You’re playing at levity, but he knows by now when you’re hiding your sincerity away, and he also knows what you’ve been pushing for for weeks now.
“Why do you want me to sell them so badly?” he asks.
You shrug. “Because,” you say, “I’ve never seen the city the way I do when I look at them. I think other people would like that, too.”
He mushes your hip in his hand affectionately. “They’re not that original. I’d be one of a thousand people trying to sell pictures of New York.”
“Yeah, but yours are good.”
“You’re so stubborn,” he mumbles, pushing his face into yours to kiss you with a vengeance, “and cute. I just don’t have the time, sweetheart.”
“I can set you up a website.” It’s not said in haste. You’ve been trying to think up ways to get this idea off the ground for a while now. “That way you don’t have to do anything, I’ll just list them for you and handle the shipping when people buy them.”
Peter blinks at you. It’s clear he’s caught offguard, and it aches a bit that you offering to help him out is still so unexpected. You’ve been trying to do it more—though it’s near impossible to keep up with how often Peter helps you, and it seems like he ups the ante with every attempt you make—but you wonder if Peter will ever get used to the feeling of someone wanting to do things for him. You can relate to that particular discomfort.
“Would that make you happy?” he asks after a moment.
“It would,” you reply honestly.
He hesitates. “I would want to choose which ones you put up. And I don’t want you to be disappointed if they don’t sell…”
“I won’t be disappointed.” You wave him off, already reaching for your laptop despite still being trapped underneath him. “They’ll sell like hotcakes.”
“What even is a hotcake?” Peter muses, though he moves when you nudge at him, allowing you to sit up and open your laptop.
“Pretty sure it’s an old-timey word for pancakes.”
“Do pancakes sell famously well?”
You cut him a dry look. “Then they’ll sell like Mets merch, Peter. Is that better?”
The distracted look in Peter’s eyes diminishes, replaced by a more familiar one. “I think you’re the hotcake they were talking about,” he says, smarmy.
“Are you saying I sell?”
“No! No. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, walk that one back, Parker.”
—
You’re halfway to a dream about holiday break and Peter’s fresh-laundry smell when the fire alarm goes off. It knocks you out of your study fugue state and knocks your coffee clean over, making you gasp and fumble for your laptop. It’s gotten all over your lap, too, but you don’t have time to think about that, ignoring the burn and the shrill wailing in favor of wiping your keyboard off on your shirt.
A moment later, and the coffee is no longer your laptop’s paramount threat. The sprinklers go off. You stow your laptop in your bag, hugging the whole thing to your chest like you can shield it with your body. It’s then that you remember what a fire alarm means.
You’re not the only brain dead, half asleep straggler in the library who hasn’t been quick to action. There are other students just now making their way to the stairwell door; you grab your notes and follow suit.
The alarm is deafening in the stairwell. It bounces off the walls in a painful, ceaseless screech, punctuated by flashes of bright white light. Coming down from the top floor, you’re joined by a throng of others as you descend. People shove; a girl shouts her friend’s name; someone else stops by the railing, halting the flow around them as they try to make their way back up to some forgotten item. Most heads are ducked, the sprinklers still raining down and water dripping from chins and noses. You say an apology that gets swallowed up by the cacophony when you step on someone’s foot. You wince when someone else steps on yours. You curl around your backpack and keep going.
You’re near the back of the push down the stairs, so when Spider-Man arrives your only indication is the change in tone of the shouting below you. Cheers go up with the siren’s shriek, and you peer over the railing just as a stream of webbing shoots past you, sticking to the ceiling. The spandex-clad vigilante follows it up. He goes slowly, scanning faces as he goes by.
“All good? Everybody okay? Let’s make our way down in a neat and orderly fashion, folks. No need to push. Where’s the fire, am I right?”
If he wanted to go put out the fire, or even to sweep from the top floor down to make sure no one’s still not evacuating, there are surely quicker ways, but you’re a bit warmed that Spider-Man is taking the slower route to check that you’re all okay. He’s risen nearly to you now, and while some of the students around you have stopped or taken out phones, you’re still trying to get out of here. Of course, now that you’re looking at Spider-Man and not your feet, you fall straightaway onto your ass.
It’s embarrassing. You narrowly avoid hitting your chin on the stair railing; someone near you gasps. Your tailbone and your pride both feel terribly bruised.
“Oh, shit. Hey. You okay?”
It doesn't help matters that you’ve pulled Spider-Man’s attention, too.
He swings neatly over the very railing that nearly concussed you a moment earlier, reaching down to pull you upright.
“Yeah, you’re okay. Nothing feels broken, right?” He skims touches over your elbows, your waist. It’s all too much at once, an overwhelm, but you step away quickly when he lays a probing hand at the small of your back.
“What?” Spider-Man’s voice rings with concern just loud enough to be heard over the alarm. “That hurt?”
You’re shocked speechless. Does he just go around touching everyone like that? It feels intimate to you.
“Oh.” He seems to get it. His demeanor changes, a few more inches of space appearing between you. “Sorry. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” you say.
“Can I, uh.” He looks up in the direction he was heading, then back to you. “Can I give you a lift down?”
You feel yourself frown. “I can make it on my own.”
Spider-Man breathes out a dry chuckle. “I forgot how suspicious you are of people who want to help you.”
You blink, biting your tongue against the question that rises to it. You remember me? It’s difficult not to feel flattered, but you’re also just baffled. Spider-Man saves dozens of people every day, and yet he remembers a conversation with a girl he only walked home on an uneventful night?
“Just let me take you to the ground floor,” he asks. “I won’t be able to relax if I think there’s some injured bootstrapper hobbling their way down the stairs.”
You don’t remember deciding to agree, and you certainly think you’re going to argue his bootstrapper label more than comes out, but you find yourself clinging to spandex-clad and surprisingly warm shoulders a minute later, Spider-Man’s hold far from unwelcome now as he lowers you gently to the ground.
“Come on,” he says, ignoring the people who stop and stare in favor of guiding you outside.
You think it’s probably a good sign that there isn’t smoke visibly pouring out of any windows you can see. The library’s fire suppression system may have worked fast enough to put the fire out before it grew too large. Spider-Man keeps you close, maneuvering you both through the gathering crowd and past the arriving firefighters to the curb across the street.
“What happened here?” he asks you, something achingly familiar about the gentleness of his tone as he looks down at your lap. Whereas most of your clothes are speckled with dampness from the sprinklers, across your thighs is a dark, prominent splotch.
“Coffee,” you answer resignedly.
He hisses. “Hot?”
“Not cold.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, not really. I think the sprinklers cooled me off.”
You try on a smile there. You think maybe Spider-Man mirrors it, his tone lightening some.
“Is your butt okay, too?”
“My butt’s none of your concern.”
“Hey, I concern myself with every butt in this city. You’re all under my care.”
It feels ridiculous, laughing while your university library is still being evacuated and alarms are still going off. It’s also nice. The laughter gathers like bubbles in your chest, fizzing and popping and disrupting the tension in there. You wonder if this is how Spider-Man does what he does, if it’s what makes him so good at it.
“I’m fine,” you tell him.
“Promise?”
“Yeah. Don’t you need to…” You look at where the firefighters are running into the building.
Spider-Man follows your gaze. “Yeah,” he says, though he doesn’t move. He glances between you and the building a few more times, fingers twitching at his sides. “I, uh.”
“Thanks for your help.”
The dismissal is clear, and it seems to snap him out of it.
“Right. Okay.” He finally takes a step back. “Stay put, okay? Don’t go anywhere. I’m serious. Just, I have to—you stay here.”
“Okay,” you say. He’s already shot away on a web, and with the sirens and the shouting, you aren’t sure if he hears you.
You aren’t sure why Spider-Man would ask you to wait. Does he plan to come back? He seemed flustered; he might not have meant it. You’re resting your head on your knees with eyelids growing heavier, but it seems rude to leave when someone rescues you and then asks you to wait up.
“Hey.” You jolt when a hand lands on the back of your neck. “Hey, hey. It’s just me.”
Peter’s a sight for sore eyes. His grin is tentative as he sits on the curb beside you, all soft brown eyes and hooked brows. The apprehension goes out of you in an instant.
“Hi,” you say, warmth filling your chest.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Peter rubs between your shoulder blades, looking you over. “What happened?”
“There’s a fire in the library.”
“Yeah, I think they put that out.” He offers you a small smile. “I mean what happened to you? What’s this?” He sets a hand to your thigh, over the wet spot on your jeans. His brows rise. “It’s warm.”
“Yeah, I…” You shake your head, breathing out a sigh. “I knocked over my coffee when the alarm went off.”
Peter frowns. “Ouch.”
“How’d you even know about the fire? I thought you were at the lab tonight.”
“I, uh.” He seems distracted, still looking concernedly at your burnt jeans. “I saw it on the news.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, the school sent out a text alert. Hey, don’t you want to get those pants off?” Peter gives you a look in exchange for the one you give him. “Not like that, you delinquent. Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean let’s go home and put some ice packs on your or something, okay? Are you good to walk?”
You’re shaking your head before he’s finished talking. “Pete, I’m fine. But I have to…” The words shrivel up, humiliated with themselves, before leaving your mouth.
Can you really tell Peter that Spider-Man asked you to wait here for him? Peter might like you well enough to make out from time to time, but you can’t imagine they make rose-tinted glasses thick enough to look past anything that sounds so pathetically made up as that. Why would the city’s favorite vigilante, with his very busy schedule, want you to stay put so he could come back for you after saving the day? It’s a good question. Peter said the fire is out; if Spider-Man was coming back, surely he would have already?
“What’s up?” Peter asks you. His voice is gentle. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” You shake your head to clear a nagging thought. “Let’s go home.”
You stand on your own, though Peter’s hands hover while you do and he gets an arm around you as soon as he’s allowed. You walk tucked close to his side, his thumb rubbing absently over your hip.
“How’d you know I was gonna be here?”
“Well, it’s quarter to midnight on a Friday. I was gonna go around checking the clubs first, but…”
“Asshole.”
“Nerd.”
“...Did you really come looking for me?”
“Duh. And it’s not like I was far, the lab’s just across campus. Hey, did you hurt your butt somehow?”
“What?”
“You’re walking funny.”
“I am not.”
“Yeah you are, it’s like…it’s sort of a hobble. Did you?”
“You’re making this up.”
“I’m not! What happened to your butt?”
“I am not hobbling.”
—
You find out the next day that the fire was started by some idiots who tried to smoke and then freaked and tossed their still-lit blunt when they heard someone coming. If it had fallen onto the carpet or a table it might have gone out, but of course it landed right on the corner of a bookshelf, seemingly endless kindling spread out in front of it like the promised land. The fire was put out quickly, but not before most of that shelf went up and not without incurring water damage on everything else in the library.
You read the news article and seethe while Peter applies burn cream to your legs, doing it for you because he claims you’re neither gentle nor patient enough with yourself to do it nicely. His touch is featherlight.
It’s Saturday, and so Peter succeeds in cajoling you into spending the day in bed, napping and touching and musing in whisper-soft voices about what you might order for dinner, but Sunday you heed the university’s call for help.
The library is all but destroyed. The carpet needs to be ripped out, some of the furniture needs to be recovered or replaced, hundreds of books need to be inspected and salvaged. The librarians and janitorial staff can’t do it all themselves.
You may be selfish (Peter calls it single-minded), but this isn’t something you’d normally concern yourself with; you’ve got your own shit to deal with, impending exams and a now-glitchy laptop that could use some attention. It bothers you that this was your library, though. You’ve spent a lot of time tucked away in its stacks, Peter’s spent nearly as much navigating them to come drag you home, and if the fire had been more serious you could’ve been in real trouble. You feel like you owe it something, a little bit. At least a few hours of your time.
Peter comes to help, because Peter doesn’t need a sense of obligation to step up. He’s made of better stuff.
You go through the shelves with other volunteers, sorting books into bins based on how damaged they are. Peter gets tasked with bringing old furniture out into the sun, stuff that should have been replaced decades ago but the school is still going to try to save, even if it’ll probably smell like mildew forever. You get periodically distracted when he walks by with some musty armchair and you can see the shapes of his biceps through his shirt. At lunchtime you run home to make sandwiches, and you and Peter eat them on the same curb he found you sitting on two nights prior, the sun on your faces and breaths clouding in front of your mouths.
You call it quits when it gets dark, though some of the volunteers switch the lights on and stay. Peter buys you both hot chocolate on the way home. He waves you off when you try to pay and teases you about being extra careful because you’ve already had enough hot drink incidents for one week.
Despite knowing you have heaps of studying left to get through, you feel strangely energized. Peter sits down in his couch dent when you get home and pulls up his notes, and you can’t stop thinking about the library. There’s got to be a more efficient way to dry the books. Who’s making sure the staff gets meals, when they’re there supervising all day? And surely there’s a more durable flooring than carpet to put in a library. If they take it down to the hardwood, and then people donate old rugs to help swallow sound…
You go back. It becomes a part of your routine. You go to class, you study, you help at the library, you bring Peter something to eat at the lab, you study some more. Peter goes for dinners at his Aunt May’s and comes home with tupperware intended specifically for you. At night, he tries to help you fall asleep, experimenting with different things he’s read to see what works. On some of those nights you end up faking it so that he feels accomplished. Most nights, you don’t, so that he’ll stay with you for longer before eventually saying he has to go to the lab or to the bodega or to wherever before slinking off. Those nights you think you sleep the least, though it’s hard to be sure.
You and two other students haul a donated couch up the library stairs. You learn how to wedge paper towels between the pages of the most waterlogged books, a tedious but rewarding process. You get friendlier with the librarians than you ever have been, which Peter finds ironic considering you spend half the time you used to there. One of them is married to one of your professors, and your efforts earn you a bit of extra credit, a small miracle you’d never have dared to hope for.
“What’s this?” Peter asks one afternoon at The Daily Bean. You’re meeting between classes for a quick study session; you haven’t seen him since you left him sleeping early this morning to go to the library. Rain falls in gentle patterings outside the window, fog clinging to the panes. Autumn is having its last hurrah. Thanksgiving is next week, and the city tends to grant everyone’s wishes for snow soon after that. The last of the leaves have been shaken from the trees, and now they squelch rather than crunch under your feet.
You look at where Peter’s turned your hand to the side. “Oh.” You roll your eyes, rubbing at the white so that it flakes off. “It’s paint.”
“They’re making you paint now?”
“Yeah. I guess they figure if they’re already gutting so much of the building, may as well do a full remodel.”
“Is it starting to feel like they’re just using you for free labor?”
“Oh, definitely,” you laugh.
Peter’s dimples frame his smile in parenthesis. “You don’t seem mad about it,” he says.
“No, I’m resentful.”
“You are?”
“I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup.”
“You seem resentful.” Peter’s grinning for real now, his eyes warm. Sometimes you think you’d say anything to get him looking at you like this. It’s addicting. “You seem ready to revolt.”
“I might.” You take a sip of your coffee. “No, I don’t know. I don’t mind it.”
“Aw,” he says. “You’ve gone soft.”
“I have not. Don’t think I’ve abandoned my get-rich-quick scheme. The website is up.”
Peter blinks. “My website?”
“My website,” you correct him, teasing, “since you won’t sell your own photos yourself. I’m just waiting for the go-ahead from you on which ones to put up.”
“Yeah,” he says, quieting. “We can do that.”
“Soon?”
“Tell you what, pretty girl.” Peter takes your hand, kissing the side of your pinkie just before the paint starts. It sends goosebumps all the way up your arm. “You find some time to pencil me in between your studying and being the school’s go-to laborer, and we’ll do it.”
You have to look away from your roommate’s sweetheart brown eyes. He’s still holding your hand. “I’d probably have less studying to do later if we actually did some now.”
“You can’t study now. This is a date.”
“It is?”
“Yeah, duh. Did you think we were actually going to study? That’s just how I get you to come to these things, loser.”
—
“Is it, like, the suit and tie kind of dinner or the nice sweater kind?” you ask.
Peter’s exhale suggests he’s trying to be quiet about his amusement, but not very hard. “You could show up in yoga pants and my sweaty t-shirt, and she’d still think you were gorgeous.”
“Could you try to be a little less biased?”
“If I was being biased, I’d tell you to wear my sweaty t-shirt and forget the pants.”
“Peter, I’m serious.” You step out of your room and into the hall where he can see you. “Is this going to be okay, or should I pick something nicer?”
Peter turns around from where he’s standing in front of his own mirror trying to subdue a cowlick. He’s wearing a sweater and jeans, which is reassuring. It’s also new. You’re used to seeing Peter in his pajamas, or in rumpled sweatshirts he threw on in a rush to get to class, but this is…well, your roommate cleans up nice. His handsomeness is no surprise, but the new effect on you is. The green of his sweater somehow makes his eyes look an even softer color as they take you in.
“You look beautiful,” Peter says.
Your cheeks tingle at the bald reverence in his tone. You finger the hem of your dress. “It’s okay?”
“Come on.” He huffs a laugh. “Are you kidding me?”
“No.” But Peter looks like he wants to eat you, and he’s dressed more casually than you are, so you think you have your answer. You move on before he gets any ideas. “I’m thinking of trying to throw together a pumpkin pie,” you say, going to check on your rolls in the oven. Peter tails you. “I’d have to run to the bodega, though. Do you think we have time?”
Peter leans against the counter. “What would you have to get?”
“A pie tin, crust, pumpkin puree, eggs, and…um, I think there might be milk…” You take out your phone to check.
Peter steals it from your hand, kissing the frown that comes to your lips. “Don’t sweat it. Your rolls are going to be more than enough.”
Your frown persists. “It feels rude to only bring one thing and let her do everything else.”
“It’s not rude. Are you kidding? Aunt May’s had me mooching off her since forever, she’ll be psyched that you brought anything at all.”
“I already owe her for probably a dozen meals.”
“Sweetheart.” Peter puts his arms around your shoulders, drawing you into a lazy hug. “You’re freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“You are. And it’s sweet,” he allows, kissing your temple, “but you don’t have to. May’s already obsessed with you. She’s asked me, like, six times this week if you like green bean casserole.”
“I like anything she makes,” you mumble.
“I know. Kiss-ass.”
You can’t deny it. You want Peter’s aunt May, this woman who’s fed you for the better part of a semester and now invited you to Thanksgiving at her home, to like you, obviously. And part of you suspects that Peter’s reassurances aren’t entirely empty. It’s hard to imagine anyone who raised a boy this kind being anything but loving and generous. You’ve seen pictures of Aunt May in Peter’s room; she has eyes remarkably like his, considering they’re related by marriage, and smile lines etched onto her face the way only genuine warmth can scar. It’s not so much that you’re worried she’ll dislike you for wearing the wrong thing or using the wrong fork, but she’s something to Peter and it’s becoming harder to deny that Peter’s something to you now, so you can’t help but want to make a good impression.
“Not trying to be a kiss-ass,” you murmur, circling your arms around Peter’s waist, “but you look really nice.”
Peter smiles. “See, that’s exactly the kind of thing a kiss-ass would say.”
“I know. It was a risk I had to take, because I needed to tell you.”
You get squished to Peter’s chest. You suspect it’s so you won’t see him fluster.
“Don’t tell her the rolls were frozen, okay?” you plead. “The story is I made them from scratch.”
“Right. With, like, yeast and wheat?”
“And whatever else goes into bread, sure.” You squeeze him back, but your grip slackens when Peter hisses. “What?”
“Nothing.” His voice buoys with false levity. “Sorry.”
“Peter, what?” You retreat enough to see him, hand skimming up his side. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing,” he says again. His hand comes up to cover yours when it lands on his ribs, and you know without asking that’s the sore spot. “I just, I fell yesterday. I’m a little bruised up.”
You look up at him. Your concern feels like a tender thing, like your guts are spilling out into the space between you. It makes you a bit sick. “What happened?”
“I was, uh, skateboarding.”
“You were skateboarding.”
“Yeah.” Peter’s shrug looks bashful. “I haven’t done it since high school. Turns out it’s not exactly like riding a bike.”
You don’t know if you believe him. You want to. You really want to, you want to think Peter would never lie to you, but you know already that he does. It used to be something you could ignore, but now it makes you too sad to bear thinking on.
“Please be careful with yourself,” you ask him.
Peter catches the sobriety in your tone. “I’m fine,” he says, more sincerely now, cupping your face. “I won’t do it again. Anyway, maybe I’m tougher than I look, did you ever think of that?”
You chuff a laugh. “You’re not.”
“Mean.” He kisses you. “You’re a meanie.”
“Kiss-ass, meanie. Pick something to call me and stick with it.”
When you arrive at Aunt May’s, she already knows who you are, but Peter introduces you anyway. This time, he calls you his girlfriend.
—
On occasion, when you know Peter’s gone on one of his late-night errands, you also take the opportunity to do away with the pretense of sleep. Finals are nearly done. There’s nothing you can do for the library at night, though repairs are nearly completed and the school expects for it to reopen at the start of the spring semester anyway. There’s really not much for you to do, but your head drives you out of bed with an itchy sense of urgency nonetheless.
This time of year, your apartment is well lit all through the night. The wattage of the city has increased tenfold, lights of white and red and gold twinkling at all hours to entice tourists and holiday shoppers into storefronts. Peter insisted on getting you a cheap tinsel tree, too. It glows warmly in the corner of your living room.
You hear Peter’s window slide open somewhere around two-thirty. It’s a bit earlier than he usually comes back, but you hope he’s in to stay. You know Peter knows that you wake up to find him gone at least some of the time; but you don’t ask, and so neither does he. It’s…an ache.
You imagine the silence sometimes like a physical thing, a weight balanced on a string that stretches between the two of you, pulled tight. You feel it some times more than others. You hear the slide of Peter’s window, and the string tugs at the center of your chest, impeding on your breathing room. A dull, familiar ache.
You know from experience what will happen now. Peter will sleep in his room for the rest of the night. You might hear another few sounds—a shoe being tossed into the closet, the groan of bedsprings. He’ll come out in the morning to find you—maybe asleep, maybe still awake—on the couch, and he’ll chide you between playful kisses so as not to seem too serious, and you’ll pretend not to resent his hypocrisy, though really it’s not the hypocrisy you resent.
You don’t expect him to come out of his room.
You almost wouldn’t know it was him if not for the way the figure steps carefully over the squeakiest of your floorboards. Peter is wearing sweatpants and a bulky hoodie, so rumpled you almost wonder if he threw them on just now. He cracks the door to your room, peering inside.
“Peter?”
Peter turns on his heel lightning-fast. “Hey,” he says. He looks flustered, face mostly in shadow but the whites of his eyes are lit in your tree’s glow. “Hey, hi. What’re you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Your voice sounds shockingly normal for the tension crackling through the room. Peter shifts on his feet. “Are you okay?”
He shrugs, giving a quick shake of his head as though unsure why you’d ask. “Yeah, I’m just—I had a weird feeling, so I wanted to see if you were okay. Nightmare, I guess.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“So you are?”
“Huh?”
“You’re okay?” Peter’s acting twitchy, and it’s making you nervous. Of the two of you, he definitely seems the least okay.
“Yeah, Pete,” you say gently. “I’m fine.” You open your arms in invitation, and Peter hesitates a moment before stepping forward. It’s a bit of an awkward hug, you half twisted to reach over the back of the couch and him bent over to get to you, but you make the most of it.
“What’s going on?” you murmur, raking your fingers through the hair at his nape. It’s sweaty, like he’s been running. You don’t really anticipate a genuine answer to your question, but it feels important for Peter to at least know you care enough to ask.
You feel his head shake. “Nothing,” he says. He gives you a squeeze, some other half of an excuse probably already on his tongue, but before he can get it out you both jerk apart.
“Ow.” Your skin burns where Peter’s wrist pressed to it.
“Shit. Sorry, baby, let me see.”
You turn around, allowing him to pull the collar of your sleep shirt down enough to look at it. “What was that?”
“I have, uh. I was just tinkering around with something in my room—you know me, tinkering—and this thing I was messing with sort of exploded. I didn’t realize it was still hot, I’m sorry.” He blows a bit of cool air on your skin. You turn to try and see for yourself. “Hold on, I think we still have some of that burn cream.”
But in turning, you can now see the light on his face. “Peter,” you breathe.
Peter must hear something in your voice, because he stops mid-pivot. The weight between you heavies. You feel the strain on your lungs.
“What happened to your face?”
His expression twinges. You wonder that it doesn’t reopen the cut on his lip, or if that slow seep of blood is all it can muster anymore. Your boyfriend’s jaw is marred with an ugly splotch of color, already darkening in the center. The cheery glow of your Christmas tree shows in unforgiving starkness the dried blood crusted around his nostrils and the bruise of his nose.
“This?” Peter smiles, and now his lip does reopen. He hardly seems to notice. “I, uh…well, it’s embarrassing, but I fell out of bed.”
“Peter.” Your voice thins.
“I know, it’s so stupid. Didn’t put my arms out to save myself or anything, just boom—face to floor.”
“Peter,” you say again. “Just tell me what happened. Please.”
“I’m telling you.” He’s smiling still, like you’re silly, his silly girl, but you can see the strain around his eyes. “Babe, I think you’re more tired than you notice. Let’s go to bed, okay? I actually have to go out and get a replacement part for the thing I exploded, but—”
“Don’t.” Your eyes are burning. You see Peter see them, his smile dissolving at the edges. “Please just tell me the truth. Who’s doing this to you?”
“Sweetheart—”
“No, I—I got it at first, because we’d just moved in and you had no reason to trust me. It wasn’t my business, and I got that. I didn’t—I was fine with letting you do whatever you wanted to.” Tears blaze hot paths down your cheeks, but you refuse to break Peter’s stare long enough to wipe them. “It just seems like it keeps getting worse, though, you know? Or maybe it was always this bad and I just didn’t know, but now—I don’t know, I don’t really know what this is, but it’s different than it was at first. We’re not strangers anymore, right? You can trust me. Please, I just—” Your voice splinters. “I just want to help.”
Peter’s looking at you with something desperate in his expression. You can see the whites of his eyes again, and his chest is moving like he’s breathing harder than he needs to. He takes a step back, and the string between you pulls taut. It feels sharper than an ache now.
“I have to—”
“Don’t go,” you cut him off.
Peter’s face pinches. “I have to. I have to, I’m sorry. Please go to bed.”
“Why?” Your shoulders jump, something in you crumpling as you realize there’s nothing you can do to make him stay. Your nose runs. “Just stay here.”
He glances toward his bedroom, then back at you. He must have left the window open; you can feel the night chill beginning to permeate your apartment. Peter’s fingers twitch at his sides.
“Please,” you try again.
Sirens wail outside, and Peter takes another step away from you. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to go right now. I’ll be back, okay?”
You don’t reply, watching through blurred vision as he goes.
It takes you less than a minute to come to a decision after that. You’re still leaking from your eyes and nose, so you grab a wad of toilet paper from the bathroom, cramming it into your pocket before throwing on a sweatshirt over your sleep clothes and shoving your feet into shoes.
Peter’s not on the fire escape when you stick your head out his window. You have no clue how he climbed down so fast. You push the window closed and go out the front door.
Your neighborhood is less quiet tonight. The sirens that make up the city’s constant white noise are closer than usual, louder, echoing down alleyways to reach your peaceful cluster of buildings. You think half-humorously that they might create an opportunity for Spider-Man to pay a visit; maybe if he’s not too busy, you can get him to help track down your runaway boyfriend and scare some sense into him.
You hate to think of what could compel Peter to come back out here tonight, when he was already so beat up and he clearly didn’t want to. You don’t understand what role he could play. Is he making things for someone? Is that why he had that exploding thing on his wrist? Peter’s skilled, and smart, but you don’t think he’d get mixed up in anything that required him to pass off dangerous technology to anyone who wouldn’t be responsible with it. Unless he had to, at least.
You’re so furious with him. You tear off a square of toilet paper, blowing your nose. If he gets any more hurt than he already is, you’ll tell Aunt May on him, you swear to god.
It’s almost funny, considering how much better lit the streets are, that you don’t notice anyone around until the gun is at your back.
“Purse,” says a voice at your ear.
“I don’t have one.” Your voice wobbles, but mostly because of the whiplash. Christ, what a shitty day. “I don’t have anything on me.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” The gun presses harder into your back. “Phone, then.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I don’t! I left it at home.”
“You know what—”
“What?” Comes a voice from behind you both. A familiar voice.
For a millisecond, you could swear it’s Peter, your heart clenching, but you turn after the mugger does to find Spider-Man standing a few feet away. As soon as the gun is trained on him, white webbing jams the barrel and it’s cast harmlessly to the side.
“I don’t think she’s lying, man.” Spider-Man moves toward you, firing webs on the way that plaster the mugger’s feet to the concrete. “I think you just picked the wrong girl tonight.” He jerks his head at you, and you get his meaning instinctively, stepping out of the way as he moves close enough to give the mugger a shove. The other man goes careening backwards. As soon as his hands land on the ground, webs ensure that’s where they stay.
Spider-Man takes your elbow in hand, guiding you away. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m…” Something’s nettling you. You wish for Spider-Man and he appears, is that how it works now? You have the feeling like you’re forgetting something. “This is where I live.”
He laughs, but it doesn’t sound very amused. “I know, but why are you here? What’re you—” He pulls the waist of your pajama pants up from where they’ve started to slip. “Sweetheart, it’s freezing out. Couldn’t you at least have put on a real coat?”
Sweetheart.
Your voice sticks in your throat.
“Your fingernails are gonna fall off,” Spider-Man goes on in a familiarly chiding tone (playful, so as not to seem too serious). He walks you out of the alley, ignoring the calls of the man stuck to the pavement. “What do I have to say to get you back inside? I’ll come with you, how’s that?”
“Peter?”
Spider-Man looks over at you. Eyes of all white, and yet everything said in the tilt of his head. “I was going to tell you when I got back,” he says, still walking towards your building, “but of course you had to go out and find trouble. You probably think I’m full of shit now.”
“Peter,” you say. Not a question this time, but an exhalation. Something released.
“I’m not making it up, though, I really was going to tell you. I would have told you before I left, but there wasn’t really time, I could hear the cops having a shootout and I really felt like I had to go—I actually only came home because my web-shooter caught a stray, so I needed a backup…”
You’re reeling, you think. Or swooning. You’ve never figured out the difference. Spider-Man’s (Peter’s. Spider-Man’s?) hand has found its way around your waist, keeping you propped up against him. Silly, to be treated like you’re the delicate one when you know for a fact he’s all bruised and bleeding under that mask. There are probably other injuries you don’t know the half of.
When Peter stops, you don’t understand why until you realize you’re standing in back of your own building. You’ve crossed streets without noticing.
“I thought we’d take the fast way up,” he says.
You manage a “hm?” before he’s tightening his grip on you and you’re sling-shotting up six stories. Peter sets you down on the fire escape. You grip the railing when he lets you go, the cold metal digging into your palms as he jimmies open his bedroom window. He has to gently uncurl your fingers to usher you inside.
It’s clear one of you is more practiced at going in and out of windows than the other. You half-crawl onto Peter’s bed, stumbling a bit in an attempt to avoid getting your shoes on his pillow, whereas your boyfriend slips gracefully through and is laying down before you’ve managed to turn around. He pulls the window shut so that it hardly makes a sound. You wonder if it’s habit.
“You okay?” Peter asks as he pulls off his mask.
You stare. “Me?”
He looks chastened, but says anyway, “Yeah, sweetheart. You’re shaking a little.”
“I’m…” You reach for him. Your fingertips lay themselves over the bruised bridge of his nose. Peter’s eyes are sorry. “I’m surprised.”
“You also just had a gun pointed at you.”
“So did you. You probably have guns pointed at you all the time.”
He shrugs, as though this is more or less true. “Are you mad?”
“I don’t know what I am,” you admit. “Probably, a little.”
“Is it okay to ask for a hug?”
“Am I going to hurt you?”
“No,” he promises, reaching forward to bring you to him. His lips mush to your cheek. “It looks worse than it is. Perk of the spider mutant thing, I heal fast.”
You’re still careful with him. You hug him with your arms around his shoulders, feeling the strange texture of the webbing spread over his suit. There’s a strangeness to your senses; it feels like a tuning fork has been struck, everything reverberating and trembling its way into alignment. Your heart trembles with it.
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” you hear yourself say.
“It’s not? I sort of thought you had it all figured out.”
You shake your head.
“Well, you’re taking it a lot better than I expected. If that helps at all. I kind of thought you might freak out.”
“I don’t know how much freak out I have left.” You intend to stop there, but the next admission comes tumbling from your mouth unbidden. “I’ve been worrying for a long time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Peter sounds genuinely apologetic, and so doting it makes your chest tight. He rubs your back like he can feel it happening. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t want to drag you into this, but then it seemed like you were gonna find out no matter what, and…honestly, I just thought I’d get matched with a roommate who didn’t give a shit.”
“Bad luck.”
“Yeah, maybe. Not really.” He pulls back enough to kiss you, bumping his nose against yours affectionately. “Hey, maybe it’s too soon, but there might be a pro to the whole dating Spider-Man thing.”
You look at him. A face you know as well as anything, and from the neck down a suit you’ve seen mostly in news clips. He’s your boyfriend; he’s Spider-Man. He’s your boyfriend who’s Spider-Man.
“Yeah?” you ask.
“If you really like those pictures in my room, I can bring you to the places where I took them from. It’s not, ah, something most of the public can access. Special privilege only.”
“Oh.” You nod slowly. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
“Too soon?”
“Maybe. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that you work for the cops.”
“Uh, okay, I don’t work for the cops, I work with them. I’m not some narc.”
The incredulity in his tone is so distinctly Peter that you come back into yourself. All of the trembling pieces settle into alignment.
“Right, it’s just. I don’t know.” Your lips give a small tug. You see a familiar amused curiosity ignite in familiar warm brown eyes, and you press a quick kiss to his lips before delivering the news. “I’ve been picturing you more or less at odds with the law. I was pretty sure you were a drug dealer.”
summary: peter parker isn't mentally prepared to see his teammate and crush wearing an 'i ❤️ spiderman' t-shirt, but he tries to play is off smoothly despite being around teammates who can read his behaviour better than anyone in the world.
wc: 1k+
cw: fluff, peter gets humiliated. trying to bring the old thor eats poptarts and clint is in the vents vibes back.
The elevator announces its arrival at the avengers living quarters with a muted ding sounded from inside its closed doors. They begin to open with a dull noise as the mechanisms shift, and from across the living room, Steve hears you humming absentmindedly from inside the elevator. The doors finally open, and the three avengers in the room glance up as you walk out, sipping at a cold drink, your phone in your other hand. There’s a couple of shopping bags hanging from your arms, and your lips are decorated with what seems to be a new gloss.
Natasha and Steve watch as you walk slowly towards the couch, letting all your bags drop from your arms, and Peter, on the couch in front of them, listens closely to your movements while pretending to mind his own business. Your eyes are still glued to your phone as you scroll through texts you missed out on hours ago, and you slump down on the couch between your shopping bags, melting into the cushions and throwing your feet up onto the table. Peter turns his head to look at you, smiling softly at your focused expression. He’s on his own phone, seeing in real time as the texts between him, Ned and MJ get read by you, your little profile photo popping underneath each message as you read it. He almost feels bad for you; the three of them aren’t done with this conversation and it started the second you left the tower.
Then, despite having just sat down, you get to your feet again. You put your drink on the table, putting your phone in your pocket and grabbing all of your bags again. And it’s only then, when you’re standing up straight and moving all your bags to one hand that Natasha sees the design on your tee. She instantly grins, taking the moment to stare while you pick up your drink again and take another sip. Then, she strikes.
“Is that an ‘I love Spiderman’ shirt?”
Peter’s head snaps up towards Natasha, then towards you. You aren’t taken aback by the question at all, only glancing down at your shirt and humming. “Huh, yeah. I’ve had it for a while actually, but these jeans were just never clean.”
Peter’s heart thrums a little too hard in his chest, and he doesn’t miss the way Steve’s lips quirk up into a smirk at his reaction — one which is only obvious to the super soldier. He shakes himself out of his daze, calling out “That doesn’t look like me at all.”
The way you laugh causes another dangerous reaction in Peter, whose breath hitches as you smooth a hand over the graphic design of your shirt. There’s a big red heart, and on it swings an animated Spiderman, who admittedly looks nothing like Peter. In or out of his spider suit. “I’ll make sure to let them know.” You tell him, walking away in the direction of your room.
“Good job buddy, you almost managed to hide that little crush of yours.” Steve comments when you're out of earshot, and Peter huffs to hide the way his face darkly flushes. He sticks his nose back into his phone to hide himself from Natasha before she gets involved with the teasing too. “You gonna tell her how you feel one of those days?” She asks, her voice velvety smooth in a way that almost has Peter marching up to your room and confessing his feelings for you. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about.” He retorts, pitch spiking embarrassingly.
Steve laughs, the sound coming from deep in his chest, and Peter wishes in that moment that he could just disappear. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Captain America laugh like that. Neither does Tony apparently, who comes walking into the living room with something to say — because when does he not?
“A laugh from Captain America? How do you manage that?” Tony asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Is it the little article that came out about your girlfriend?” Peter and Natasha straighten up: Peter in a panic and Natasha in a newfound curiosity.
“What article?” Peter squeaks, his mouth going dry. Tony smirks as he walks around Peter, sitting down in the exact spot you were in just a couple of minutes ago. He puts one foot on the table, then swings his second leg over it while he flicks through his phone. “Oh, just this article that popped up on my google alerts. ‘Avenger goes shopping in New York City wearing an ‘I love Spiderman shirt: Is she telling the fans to back off her man?’ And there’s this cute little picture of you guys in your suits outside this mexican place.”
Tony hums to himself as Peter sits there in horror, only imagining your reaction. Would you laugh it off, make a joke, and pretend it never happened? Would you make a face and an accompanying noise of disgust, only able to see Peter as a brother to you? Peter shudders at the possibility.
“That sounds like a first step to me.” Encourages Steve with a smile, but Peter decides to move his gaze to Natasha instead, eyes widening at the sight of her grinning widely at her phone and scrolling through what he only imagines can be tabloid headlines. In his hand, his phone screen lights up with notification after notification, and he furrows his eyebrows as links keep going through the Avengers group chat, all under the name ‘Spider sister🤪🤪🕷️🕷️’. “Not cool, Natasha!” Peter argues, and yet he opens the group chat to scroll through all the news articles she sent. “Now she’s gonna see all of those!”
Except what Peter doesn’t know is that in your room, you scroll through your phone with a smile on your face. You’ve purposefully looked your name up yourself after seeing the text through Natasha’s notification, not wanting her to see that you’ve read her messages. You’re honestly impressed that the news outlets got your message so clearly, but you’ve also learned how to communicate with them, so what can you say?
Maybe this will finally hit Peter with an inspiration to come and tell you how he feels. If not, you might have to buy a ‘I love nerds who are also my roommates who are also spiderman’ shirt.
Summary: You discover Peter’s secret identity after inviting him upstairs to tour your new apartment.
Content Warnings: Kissing, grinding/dry humping, mentions of a suit kink(?), use of "good girl," and implied sex.
Author's Note: Inspired by Sabrina Carpenter's song by the same name! Please let me know if you liked this and would like to see more! Comments, reblogs, or even asks are always appreciated. Hope you all enjoy <3
TASM!Peter Parker Masterlist
“Thank you for dinner, baby. I had a really great time.”
The corner of Peter’s mouth curves up into a smile, fully registering your words and gently squeezing your hand. “I’m glad. I know it was last minute, but after they closed the lab for cleaning, I figured I could seize the opportunity to see my girl.”
“Your girl?” You could see his smile widen in your periphery as you questioned his choice of words.
“My girl.” He repeats, dropping your hand and pulling you in by the waist until you are tucked into his side. “Definitely my girl.”
You lean into his side, “For a man who’s only taken me on four dates, you’re really staking your claim.”
“Well, you didn’t seem to mind being my girl after our last date,” he teases, craning his head down just enough to whisper in your ear, “My good girl, if I recall correctly.”
“Peter!” You scold, smacking his chest as the heat of memory creeps up your neck.
“It’s true!” He muses, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Plus, you call me baby. I think calling you my girl is fair game.”
A rebuttal rests on the tip of your tongue. If this were any other date with any other guy, you would’ve shot down the playful possessiveness. But this wasn’t any other date with any other guy; this was a date with Peter: your friend and the guy you’ve had a crush on since Betty introduced you to him at the Daily Bugle’s holiday party two years ago. Being his girl was a title you wanted, and if he was willingly bestowing it upon you, you saw no reason to argue against it. “I suppose it is.”
He hums in response, clearly satisfied with your answer. “I forgot to ask, have you been to the restaurant before?”
You shake your head as the two turn the corner onto your street, “I have not. I’ve been wanting to since I moved into the neighborhood, but hadn't had the chance until you suggested I choose the spot when you called.”
Peter nods and gives your waist a soft squeeze. “I’m glad we got to try it together. I also had a really great time.”
“Did you, now?”
“I’m with you, how could I not have a good time?”
“Sweet talker,” you playfully accuse, stepping forward once the red hand of the walking sign changes to the person walking.
“Sweet enough to come upstairs and see your new apartment?”
You raise your eyebrows at him, pleasantly surprised by his ask. “You helped me move in, Pete. You’ve seen my place.”
“But I haven’t seen the place since you furnished it,” he counters.
“I see…so you want the house tour?” You tease as you reach the entrance to your apartment building.
“I want whatever you’ll let me have, sweetheart.”
You brace against the brick wall, turning to face him, taking the time to admire the way he looks under the golden glow of the street lights. There was something so romantic about the way he looked standing in front of you in a half-zipped puffer jacket that exposed the white button up and tie he had on underneath, cheeks and nose a little red from the cold air nipping at his face, with his fluffy hair left unstyled in the perfectly messy way it always was. “And if all I want is for you to come inside?”
Peter grins at your question, stepping closer and resting his hands on your hips. “What are we waiting for then? Lead the way.”
—
“Take your shoes off, baby. House rules.” You tell him as you unlock the door to your apartment, step inside, and turn on the lights
Peter shuts the door behind him, kicking his shoes and neatly placing them in front of your shoe rack. He glances around the apartment, taking in the open layout of the space and shrugging off his coat. Your cozy little kitchen was the first thing you saw when you walked in. The dark brown cabinets and wooden countertops complemented the many magnets and photographs on your fridge nicely.
He hangs his coat next to yours and steps further into the apartment, eyes roaming over the pictures before landing on a photo strip of the two of you from when he was your plus one to a friend’s wedding a few months back. He glances over his shoulder at you, watching you unzip your boots, “You know, May took this from my apartment when I told her I finally asked you out to show her book club?”
“I know and I’m honored,” you half joke, putting your boots aside and joining him in the kitchen.
“You know?”
“May and I gossip, baby. She told me all about nabbing the picture and you refusing to tell her about our dates. And I gotta say she made a shaky but damning case about how she and her friends had been waiting too long for us to get together for you to hold out on them now.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Since when do you gossip with my aunt?”
“Since I called her a few months ago to ask if she wanted to come to the dinner party I threw to celebrate my promotion. It was supposed to be a quick call, but then we started talking about our days, and you and it just spiraled from there. Now we chit chat every other week.”
“So that’s why she stopped asking me about our dates,” he thinks aloud.
You shake your head and reach for his hand, tugging him out of the kitchen, past the small dining table, and into the living room. “Partly. She knows she won’t get anything out of me aside from telling her that the date went well and that you were the gentleman she and your uncle raised you to be.”
“And that’s all you say?” He asks, glancing around at the way you decorated your living room. Everything was so…you. From the sofa to the throw blanket hanging over the arm, to the pillows, to the books scattered across the coffee table, to the framed pieces of artwork mixed in with pictures. Your apartment felt so lived in, considering you moved in only a few weeks prior.
“I don’t kiss and tell, Parker."
“I know. I know you don’t,” he responds, taking a seat on the sofa. “I love what you’ve done with the place, by the way.”
“Do you?” The question rolls off your tongue with ease and affection.
He looks up at you, the smile on his face widening into a grin as you stand between his legs. “I do,” he affirms, stretching his palms out until they were firmly planted on your hips. “I really really do…definitely a view I can get used to seeing,” he continues, eyeing you up before tugging you into his lap.
Your hands press flat on his chest, pushing him back against the couch just enough for you to readjust your position and comfortably straddle him with your knees on either side of his hips. You lean back on his thighs and admire the dopey smile he was sporting. “If you’re lucky, I might even let you admire the view in the morning too.”
“Yeah?” He questions, tugging you closer and stifling a groan when your hip rolls over his. “And how lucky do I have to be to admire you in the afternoon?”
“My nights, my mornings, and now my afternoons? I’m beginning to think you have a thing for me, Parker.”
A familiar smirk graces his face at your teasing comment. “Am I that transparent?” He asks, sliding his hands down to the curve of your ass and kneading your flesh over the skirt of your dress that was riding up.
“Mhm,” you hum, craning your head down to kiss him.
The kiss, like all your kisses had been, started off slow with his lips moving gently against, letting you set the pace but allowing himself to be a little selfish in the way his hands roamed your body. He caresses your thighs, squeezing them as you start to rock against him.
Peter groans against your mouth, his hands jumping back to your hips to guide your movement, and taking the chance to try and deepen the kiss by running his tongue over your bottom lip.
“So eager,” you mumble, rocking harder against his growing bulge, grinning when he lets out a moan.
“Can you blame me?” He breathes out, hiking up the fabric of your dress a little further until it bunches at your hips. “Look extra pretty tonight.”
“So beautiful,” he whispers, kissing along the length of your neck and reveling in the low whimpers you were letting out as you grind against him. “Can’t believe I get you all to myself.”
His quiet praises never failed to make you flustered, and tonight was no exception. “Such a sweet mouth.”
“I can get a lot sweeter,” he jokes, nipping at your pulse point.
Your hands move off his chest and towards his neck, loosening his tie and then traveling back down to toy with the buttons of his shirt. “Can I take this off?”
“Who’s eager now?”
“Still you,” you quip, rolling your hips over the tent in his pants to prove your point as you start to unbutton his dress shirt.
His head rolls back with a shaky moan, “Sweetheart, cmon—“
“What the fuck!”
Peter’s head snaps up to look at you, a panicked look on his face as he tries to figure out what prompted the wide-eyed expression on your face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
You stammer over your words as you hesitantly touch his chest, “Y-your…are you…Is this real?”
He glances down at your hand tracing over the webbing of his spider suit and freezes. “Is this real? Are you Spider-Man?"
He opens his mouth to answer, but the words get caught in his throat. He knew he'd have to tell you at some point, especially if the budding romance between the two continued to bloom, and he was ready to do so at a later point when things were more official.
“Oh my god, please don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who dress as him and hustle tourists for money. Wait, is this a sex thing?”
“What?” He laughs, the question immediately making the anxiety weighing in his chest disperse.
You smack his chest, “Don’t laugh! I’m serious! I don’t mind a bit of roleplay, but a heads up would have been nice.”
“Not a sex thing,” he tries to assure, through stifled laughter. “It’s not, I promise. And I’m not one of those guys that walk around taking pictures with tourists in Times Square either.”
“So you’re the real deal? You’re actually Spider-Man?”
“I am.”
“Prove it.”
“Is the suit not enough?”
“You know how many guys probably have a spidey suit tucked away in their closet?”
He raises his eyebrow, “Do you know guys with a Spider-Man costume on hand?”
“Three excluding you.”
“Three?”
“Is it that surprising? Spider-Man has a ton of fans.”
“Yeah, but it’s mainly little kids that dress up as me. I’ve seen a few adults on Halloween and the ones in Times Square, but that’s it.”
“You still haven’t proved that you’re him. You could just be some guy in spandex.”
“I’m your guy in spandex,” he counters.
“But is my guy the real Spider-Man or just another fanboy?” You question, your fingertips gliding over the spider logo on the suit.
“So skeptical,” he teases as he unbuttons the cuff of his sleeve and reveals a wristband with a red device attached to it. “These are my webshooters. They have an optical sensor and when I move my fingers, it recognizes the gesture and shoots out the web.”
He aims his hand at your dining table, curling his middle and ring finger towards his palm until a loud thwip! echoes through your apartment, and a web shoots out and covers the wood.
“Woah!”
“They dissolve in about two hours.”
“Wow. I want to touch it,” you blurt out, starting to move off his lap, only for him to catch your waist and hold you in place.
“Don’t. It’s really sticky, and I don’t think either of us are interested in waiting two hours for you to get unstuck.”
You nod and sit back against his thighs. “I’m guessing this isn’t how you were planning on telling me.”
“Not at all. I completely forgot I had the suit under my clothes. Admittedly, I didn’t think the night would end like this. I thought I’d walk you home, maybe get a couple kisses before you send me on my way, but then we started flirting, and I made the comment about coming up, and then you said I could, having the suit on didn’t really cross my mind.”
He squeezes your waist and pinches the fabric of your dress between his fingers. “It’s really really hard to think about all of that when you’re on my lap and kissing me and grinding on me.”
“Too horny to think,” you conclude with a light laugh.
“Yeah,” he huffs out. “Is this a deal breaker for you?”
“Definitely not. I’m a little worried about your health and well being, but this doesn’t change how I feel about you. Or well it does, but not in a negative way.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your big brain and even bigger heart are two of the many reasons why I’m crazy about you, Pete. You being Spider-Man is just an enhancement of what I already knew; you’re a good man.”
He breathes out and drops his head to your shoulder, “Good. That’s good. This is good. I know you probably have a lot of other questions, and I’ll answer them.”
You hum in agreement and thread your fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. “I do have a lot of questions, but I’d much rather finish the house tour before we get to that.”
“Finish?”
“Haven’t even seen the bedroom yet, baby. What kind of tour guide do you take me for?”
You could feel his lips curve into a smirk against your shoulder before he picks his head up to look at you. “I see. Wouldn’t want to leave things incomplete now, would we?”
“No, we would not.” You whisper, leaning in to give him a fleeting kiss and sliding off his lap. “If you’d follow me this way, I’d love to take you there. It’s my favorite room.”
He stands up and reaches for your hand, letting you lead him down the hallway. “Any reason why?”
“There’s a theory that it's a place where your dreams come true. You’re a man of science, do you want to test that theory?”
“What kind of scientist would I be if I said no?”
ps!clark kent x f!reader x ps!peter parker | genre: smut | wc: 6.6k | view profile
warnings: explicit sexual content (18+), porn with plot, threesome (m/f/m), fingering, oral sex (m receiving + f receiving), spit roast, double vaginal penetration, unprotected sex (filming context), creampie, rough sex, praise, use of pet names (“baby”), light restraint, overstimulation, nsfw themes + language.
don’t want to see this kind of content? feel free to block these tags: #pornstar!clark #kentwiththegooddick #kwtgd
Subject: Freaks & Geeks Collaboration Proposal
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: Clark Kent <[email protected]>, Peter Parker <[email protected]>
Hi,
We’re reaching out with a potential collaboration opportunity featuring you, Clark Kent, and Peter Parker. All three of you remain among the highest-ranking performers across many platforms, both individually and through your partnered content, and there has been continued audience interest surrounding the history between you. Viewers have consistently commented on never getting the chance to see either pairing film together while those relationships were public, with more recent requests asking for a scene featuring all three of you.
With that in mind, Freaks & Geeks would like to offer you the opportunity to reunite for an exclusive video produced through our platform. The concept would lean into your shared past without requiring anything beyond what each performer is comfortable including. Compensation, testing, boundaries, scheduling, and final concept approval would all be discussed before filming.
Please reply all to confirm whether you’re interested, and we’ll move forward once we’ve heard from everyone.
- Freaks & Geeks Casting
Your eyes drifted back to the names copied beneath yours. Clark Kent and Peter Parker, sitting right there in the same email thread like someone hadn’t just casually suggested putting you and both of your exes in a video together.
You clicked reply all and started typing. Or, at least, you tried to. Every sentence made it halfway across the screen before you deleted it, caught between this being a horrible idea and one far too good to turn down. Answering too quickly felt desperate, but waiting too long would only make it seem like the proposal bothered you more than it did. And it did bother you, just not in a way to push you any closer to saying no.
The breakups hadn’t been messy. There hadn’t been any cheating, screaming, or catastrophic fallout that made working together impossible. It had only been bad timing with Peter and somehow worse timing with Clark, something you’d eventually made peace with in both cases, especially considering the kind of work you were in. Relationships were hard enough without schedules, travel, contracts, and thousands of strangers having opinions about who you fucked both on and off camera.
There had also been years of silence since then, enough that you couldn’t decide if it made the whole thing better or worse. Maybe the time apart meant there was nothing left to complicate. Maybe enough had changed that the three of you could walk onto a set, do the job, and leave without dragging anything old back up with it. Or maybe the distance just gave you enough of an excuse to say yes without looking too closely at why you wanted to.
You had just started another response when a notification dropped into the thread.
Clark Kent: I’m interested. Feel free to send over the proposed dates and additional details.
Professional, polite, and sent quickly enough that you found yourself checking the timestamp twice. Clark had barely taken five minutes to agree to filming with you and Peter, and before you could decide what that meant, another response came in beneath his.
Peter Parker: I’m in. Scheduling should be flexible on my end, so just let me know what works for everyone.
That left you staring at the thread with their answers sitting beneath the proposal. Neither of them had asked for more time. Neither had suggested talking privately first or added some careful little condition to make the idea sound less insane. They had simply agreed, one right after the other, leaving you as the only person in the thread still pretending the thought of finally getting both of them in the same bed required much more consideration.
Your hands returned to the keyboard before you could talk yourself out of it.
You: I’m interested too. Send over the details when you have them. Looking forward to working with you both.
You read it once, decided it sounded professional enough, and pressed send while you still had the nerve.
Even with the message sent and their replies coming back within seconds, your mind circled the last part of your email. It had sounded polite when you typed it, safe enough to pass as the kind of thing you could tack onto any booking without anyone reading too much into it, except you knew better. Your words had been more honest than polite, more than some little piece of professionalism added to keep the email clean. You meant it. You were looking forward to seeing Peter again, to seeing Clark again, to finding out whether all those years apart had actually changed anything once you were in front of either of them again.
And, yeah, maybe you were looking forward to the fucking part too.
Probably a little more than you should have.
When filming day finally rolled around, the pleasantries were quickly out of the way, both boys having greeted you with those soft, almost sheepish hi’s that had fooled everyone else into thinking they were far more timid than they actually were. Unfortunately, knowing exactly how misleading those little hi’s could be did nothing for your ability to keep yourself together around either of them.
You’d made it through each introduction without embarrassing yourself, only to lose half a sentence when Peter stepped closer to hear you over something one of the crew members said, his smile pulling wider the second yours faltered under the attention. Clark wasn’t much easier. He asked whether you liked the set, a completely harmless question delivered while his gaze made one slow trip over you before settling back on your face, and you spent long enough staring at his mouth that he had to repeat himself.
It was awkward, sure, and there were nerves because there was simply too much history with each of them for there not to be, but none of it felt reluctant. If anything, the longer you stood around waiting for filming to actually start, the harder that became to believe. And slowly, somewhere between Clark trying not to stare and Peter very clearly enjoying the fact that you noticed, you started to realize that maybe you weren’t the only one with eagerness sitting just beneath every look and word.
By the time the camera pushed in, the skit was already done, the dumb little excuse for why three people were suddenly half naked having served its purpose, leaving you sitting between them on the edge of the bed in nothing but a skimpy bra and matching panties that seemed designed to hide as little as possible. Clark and Peter were shirtless beside you, close enough that their shoulders kept brushing yours while their hands started finding places to settle.
Clark had one hand on your chest, palm covering most of one breast while his mouth worked at your neck, sucking just hard enough to make your head tilt toward him. Peter was on your other side, kissing beneath your jaw while his hand ran up your thigh, fingers spreading over the inside of it before he tugged your leg toward him and hooked it over his. The movement opened you right up between them, and Peter didn’t waste the angle.
His hand went straight between your legs and under the lace, finding you wet enough that the first rub over your clit came slick. Your head fell back on instinct, mouth opening around a breath, and Clark took the invitation for what it was, dragging his mouth lower over your throat and chest while you reached for both belts like the scene called for. Your hand on Peter managed well enough, thumb catching the buckle and pulling the leather free, but the one working at Clark’s belt slipped the second his mouth closed around your nipple. He sucked through the lace first, wetting the fabric against you, while his hand came up to your other breast and squeezed before pinching your nipple hard enough to make your fingers lose the metal completely. You found the buckle again, fumbled it, finally got it loose, but Peter had already decided to make the whole thing harder.
Two fingers pushed inside you.
That alone would’ve been manageable, except Peter didn’t fuck them in and out the way most guys did when the camera wanted something easy to see. He went straight for what he remembered worked on you—fingers curling up inside while his thumb stayed pressed to your clit, rubbing in tight little passes that made your thighs tense around his hand. You knew that move. Knew exactly how quickly it could wreck your concentration, which was probably why the moan that started in your throat came out sharper than you meant it to.
Peter caught it with his mouth before it got far. He kissed you open and messy, tongue already pushing against yours while his hand kept going between your legs. It looked sloppy from the outside, wet mouths and bad angles and too much tongue, but there was nothing careless about it. Peter knew when to curl his fingers. Knew when to press his thumb harder. Knew exactly how much pressure would make your hips roll into his hand without sending you over too soon, and you were still trying to keep up with his mouth when Clark decided he wanted yours.
His hand came up under your jaw and turned your face away from Peter mid-kiss, pulling you into him. Clark’s mouth covered yours before you could breathe, deeper and heavier, while Peter moved in behind your ear and started kissing the damp skin there, his fingers never stopping inside you. If anything, he got nastier with it once Clark had your mouth, curling harder while his thumb stayed planted against your clit, keeping the pressure constant enough that your body started tightening around him in little involuntary pulls.
A quiet “fuck” slipped against Clark’s mouth when Peter hit the right spot, then another when Clark’s hand closed around your breast again and rolled your nipple between his fingers. Neither of them eased off. Peter kept his hand buried in your panties, working you just enough to keep you soaked and twitching, while Clark kissed you like he’d forgotten the camera was six feet away. Your hands were still somewhere near their belts, technically, but whatever you’d been supposed to do with them had become a distant problem because there was suddenly too much happening at once. All of it was getting overwhelming much faster than you’d expected, and worse, the two of them seemed entirely too comfortable making sure it stayed that way.
Clark’s hand disappeared behind you a second later, fingers finding the clasp of your bra and popping it open with one easy motion. The band loosened against your ribs and the cups shifted away from your chest while Peter’s hand finally slowed between your thighs, then stopped altogether as his attention moved upward. His fingers withdrew, wet enough that you felt them drag along your inner thigh before his hand came up and caught the strap on his side. At the same time Clark pulled the other free, the bra falling down your arms until your breasts spilled free.
Peter’s mouth was on you almost immediately, lips closing around one breast while Clark took the other, and whatever little room you’d had disappeared somewhere between them. The difference in the way they touched you made it impossible to settle into either one for long. Peter was rougher, teeth catching your nipple every time he pulled back before his tongue swept over the sting he’d left behind. Clark stayed on you, sucking until the pressure had your back arching before flattening his tongue over the sensitive tip, slow enough to make you feel every pass. Your body kept giving you away in stupid little jerks between them, hips shifting and shoulders twitching whenever one of them changed what he was doing, only for the other to make it worse before you could adjust.
Your head tipped back, another curse breaking loose as their hands joined in. One squeezed where a mouth had just been, the other dragging lower over your ribs and waist, both of them touching wherever they could reach like neither wanted to give the other much room. Their bodies kept crowding closer until the camera started losing you between them, the shot turning into flashes of bare shoulders, hands gripping skin, mouths pressed to you, belts coming loose, denim shoved down, and the last scraps of lace getting tugged away somewhere underneath all of it.
When the next shot finally cleared, there wasn’t anything left between any of you. You were on your knees between Peter’s thighs with Clark positioned behind you, one hand already locked around your hip while the other ran up your spine. He dropped lower without wasting time, both hands going to your ass as he spread you open and settled in close. Your fingers closed around Peter’s cock at the same time Clark’s slipped through your folds, collecting what was already there and dragging it back over you in long passes.
You gave Peter a few strokes, thumb brushing over the head, trying to stay focused on what was in front of you while Clark made that increasingly difficult from behind. His fingers left you and his mouth took their place, lips pressing right into your pussy before his tongue dragged through you. Wet, open, and hungry. You leaned forward to take Peter into your mouth and missed him completely when Clark sucked at you hard enough to pull a loud moan out instead. Another sound followed when Clark’s tongue pushed back over you, and then another, your mouth hovering uselessly near Peter while the man behind you kept eating you like getting you distracted had become the whole point.
Peter had always been good with his hands, way too good, and it wasn’t like either of them had ever left you wanting when it came to their mouths, but there was just something different about the way Clark ate you out. He didn’t rush through any of it. Every lick felt like he wanted the full taste before moving on, every suck drawn out just enough to make your thighs tense, and every time you shifted against his face he answered with one of those deep, rough sounds that vibrated through you.
So when your hips bucked back into his mouth by accident, the gravelly noise that tore out of Clark was filthy—damn near obscene—as his hands tightened around your ass. A soft chuckle came a second later, his lips ghosting wetly over you as he murmured, “You miss that?”
It was quiet, something too low for the mics, but you heard every word. Before you could respond, Clark flattened his tongue against you and dragged it up in one firm press, hard enough to make your hips push back into his face again, this time very much on purpose. Another groan left him at that, warm against you, and apparently that was answer enough. He gave the back of your thigh one light kiss, almost sweet compared to everything he’d just been doing, then rose onto his knees behind you.
You finally leaned in and took Peter properly into your mouth, lips stretching around the flushed tip before you took him deeper, the effect on him almost immediate. His head tipped back, throat working around a sharp hiss while one hand found your hair, fingers tightening before he caught himself and moved them beneath your jaw instead. His thighs tensed beneath you, the slight draw of muscle across his stomach showing every time you took more, along with the effort it took to keep himself steady as his cock pushed farther toward your throat. He wanted to thrust. His hips kept threatening to follow you, his hand flexing against your face, but he held himself mostly still until one jerk got away from him, a stutter that pushed him all the way in and made his breath catch.
Behind you, Clark already had one hand wrapped around his length, guiding himself to your entrance. The thick head slid through the wetness his mouth had left behind, pressing in until your body gave around him—slow enough to feel every inch, hard enough that your body opened around him with a stretch that pulled a filthy groan from him. His hands locked around your hips while he fed more of himself into you, and the second he bottomed out, your moan spilled around Peter’s cock instead of into the room.
You didn’t pull away. If anything, your grip tightened around Peter, both hands wrapping around the base while your mouth stayed on him, tongue circling the head before you sucked him back in.
Peter exhaled roughly.
“Fuck.”
The scene kept building around that: Clark fucking you from behind while you worked Peter in your mouth, your body caught between two rhythms. Clark had one hand on your hip and the other spread over your lower back, holding you steady while he kept pushing deep enough to rock you forward. Peter kept catching that movement from the other side, hips jerking whenever your mouth pulled back, chasing your lips until the head of his cock knocked into the back of your throat and ruined whatever little breathing pattern you’d managed to find. He’d always done that when he got worked up, that involuntary little chase like his body got ahead of him, and apparently time hadn’t changed it.
Before long, there wasn’t much rhythm left for you to keep at all. Every thrust from Clark shoved you farther onto Peter, every push from Peter made your throat tighten around him, and the sounds coming out of you were mostly useless now, wet and broken around a mouthful of cock. It turned into this nasty back-and-forth where neither of them really had to do much more than keep going because your body was already taking the force from one and feeding it straight into the other.
The crew stayed close through all of it, catching spit slick around your mouth, Peter’s cock disappearing between your lips, Clark’s hand digging harder into your hip every time you clenched around him. Then someone behind the camera finally called for the switch, and Clark slowed just enough to pull out. Your hips followed him before you could stop them, pushing back into the empty space he’d left like your body was still expecting another thrust. You gave Peter one more pass before moving, taking him deep enough that his breath broke into a jagged sound above you, then dragged your mouth back up his length until the swollen head slipped free with a wet pop.
As the camera pulled wider, Peter shifted farther back against the mattress and took you with him, his hands settling at your waist while you climbed over him. Clark stayed right behind you, following the movement until one knee sank into the bed and his other leg came up beside you, foot planted firmly against the mattress. You barely had room to think about how close he still was before your thighs opened around Peter and you settled over him, knees bracketing his hips while your hands came down near his head.
Peter reached between your bodies and wrapped a hand around himself, dragging the wet head through your folds before lining up beneath you. You started lowering yourself, your body opening around him inch by inch while his hands returned to your waist. The burn had you struggling to catch air, but you kept sinking, watching his expression change the more you took him. One of your hands moved from the mattress to the side of his neck, fingers curling there, while the other cupped his jaw and tipped his face toward yours. Peter looked right back at you, lips parting on a rough breath while your own opened around a quiet sound as he filled you deeper and deeper between your thighs.
Clark started easing in from behind once you’d settled over Peter, one hand catching your hip while the other guided himself into the little space left between you. He pushed the head of his cock against where Peter was already buried in, trying to fit in beside him, and the second that thick pressure started forcing its way inside, your whole body jumped. The stretch hit mean and immediate, your thighs locking harder around Peter as your fingers clenched at his jaw.
“Wait—” You sucked in a breath, your forehead nearly dropping against Peter’s. “I need a warmup.”
Clark stopped right there.
He backed off just enough to take the pressure down, leaving only the head pressed against you. Peter’s hands shifted at the same time, one sliding up to your shoulder while the other held firm at your hip, and then he started fucking you from underneath. His hips lifted into you in short, steady thrusts at first, working you open around him while Clark stayed there behind you, waiting. Each push from Peter forced more air from your lungs, your body moving over him as the tightness started to give. The drag of him inside you felt different now with Clark pressed at the edge too, every lift making you more aware of just how full you were about to be.
Peter kept going, filling you, pulling back, then pushing up again while your body slowly gave around him. Little by little, your hips started meeting his on their own, following the movement instead of simply taking it. Clark’s hand stayed at your hip through all of it, steady but restless, the little flex of his fingers giving away how badly he wanted to try again.
“You okay?” Peter asked, voice low and already a little fucked up from the way you were tightening around him.
You let out a shaky sound, the answer coming as a soft, breathy hum while your hips kept moving with his.
In the same second, both of Peter’s hands dropped to your thighs, palms sliding down until he had enough of a grip to start driving up into you harder, his hips snapping under yours in a quicker rhythm that made every stroke hit sharper. You leaned down with it, one hand bracing beside his head as your mouth found his, and the kiss turned messy almost immediately, your breathing too uneven for anything cleaner. Peter kissed you through it anyway, catching every little sound while his hands moved from your thighs to your ass, spreading you wider for Clark.
You felt Clark’s hand join his from behind, palm pressing into one cheek as he opened you up farther and started easing back in. He was slower than Peter, had to be, the thick head of his cock working into the same tight space Peter was already filling while Peter kept fucking up into you underneath. The stretch came back, only this time you didn’t stop them. Your mouth broke from Peter’s around a sharp moan as you tried to breathe through it, tried to work your body around both of them while Clark kept feeding himself in a little at a time.
The closer Clark got to being fully inside, the messier it became. Peter was still moving faster under you, hips snapping up in short, dirty strokes while Clark kept sinking farther from behind, and the difference in rhythm made your whole body work around them instead of with them. One thrust would make you gasp, the next would pull a curse out of you, and then both of them would move close enough together that you couldn’t tell whose cock had hit what, only that the fullness kept dragging higher and hotter until your thighs started shaking. You could feel Peter beneath you, Clark behind you, both buried in the same place and moving just differently enough to make every second hit twice.
“Oh, fuck—shit,” you breathed, except it came out broken because Peter thrust up again at the same time Clark pushed deeper.
That was what made you fold.
Your arm gave beneath you and you dropped forward onto Peter’s chest, the movement so sudden he caught you on instinct. His arms wrapped around you, one hand spreading wide across your back while the other settled high between your shoulder blades, holding you against him as they kept moving. Peter turned his mouth near your ear, breath hot against your skin, and the praise that came out of him was quieter, dirtier, more specific than anything rehearsed for a camera.
“Yeah, there you go,” Peter murmured, his hand pressing flat between your shoulders when he felt you tighten again, his voice slipping into that same low, familiar tone you remembered far too well. “You’re doing so fuckin' good. Knew you could take both of us.”
The words hit almost as hard as the next thrust. You moaned into the side of Peter’s neck, fingers curling into the mattress while your body stayed wedged between them, already too full to pretend any of this felt remotely manageable.
A cameraman moved in closer for another angle, and Peter adjusted with him, catching your arm and folding it behind your back until your chest opened toward the lens. The second he did, Clark’s hands locked onto your hips from behind, palms spreading wide like he finally had the leverage he wanted. Peter planted himself beneath you, Clark used the hold at your hips to drag you harder into him, and whatever softness had been left in the pace disappeared instantly.
Peter started driving up into you while Clark pounded in from behind, the two of them picking up at nearly the same time until the room filled with the wet smack of skin, the bed creaking underneath it, your own voice getting dragged out louder with every hit. You felt them moving inside you, Peter’s hips meeting yours just as Clark drove forward, their cocks rubbing against each other inside you. Every thrust changed the pressure. Sometimes one pulled back while the other went deep, sometimes they both pressed in close. Clark made a rough sound behind you each time you clenched hard, fingers digging into your hips as he kept fucking into the same cramped, slick space Peter was already taking up.
You were a mess now, moaning too loudly to care what the mics picked up, breath hitching every time one of them reached somewhere sharper inside you. The pace had you slipping in and out of any rhythm of your own, just taking what they gave you and reacting to it, your pussy stretching around both of them while their movements kept grinding against each other.
“Yeah,” Peter murmured when another helpless sound choked out of you, his mouth close to yours while his hips kept snapping under you. “You like having both of us, huh?”
You wanted to answer, but when Clark drove in harder, the only thing that came out was another snagged sound, your chest heaving while Peter watched you struggle to catch up.
“Hey,” he said against your mouth, lips brushing yours. “Breathe.”
You tried. You actually did, pulling in what little air you could, but Peter pushed up at the exact moment Clark managed another inch into you and the breath fell apart into a moan. Peter’s arm drew you closer, not pinning you, just keeping you from folding completely while his free hand came up over your chest. His palm closed around one breast, squeezing as his mouth went to the other, kissing and sucking at your nipple while Clark kept pounding into you from behind. The extra sensation made your whole body jump between them, and somehow Peter’s name finally made it out of you, choked and thin, barely recognizable under everything else.
“I know. I know,” he murmured against your chest, his hips easing just a little beneath you while his hand stayed firm at your back.
Clark felt the difference from behind before you even managed a proper breath. The sudden pull of your body around them. The little shake that ran through your thighs. His hand came off your hip and found the arm folded behind your back, fingers closing around your forearm while Peter’s hands dropped to your waist instead. You tensed harder at the change, breath going thin in your throat, and Clark caught it instantly. “Slow, deep breaths,” he told you from behind, voice low but steady. “Come on. Nice and deep.”
You listened, pulling one shaky breath all the way into your lungs, then another, forcing yourself to loosen around the two thick lengths already stretching you open.
Clark waited just long enough to feel you give before he started fucking you harder. His hand kept your arm pinned where it was while his hips drove forward with more force, each push feeding more of his cock in alongside Peter’s as Peter started thrusting up beneath you again. The rhythm got filthy fast, both of them moving through the same soaked, overfull space, their shafts dragging against each other while your pussy tried to hold around both.
Your careful breathing fell apart into moans, each one getting louder as Clark gave you more of himself and Peter kept meeting him from below, and then Clark hit you just right and his name tore out of you on a cry. It cracked halfway through, thin and fucked up, your body clenching hard enough around them that Peter cursed beneath you.
“Come here,” Clark said, rougher now, not stopping. He gave your arm a firm pull, just enough to lift you off Peter’s chest and bring your upper body higher while Peter kept both hands planted at your hips.
Whatever rhythm you thought you'd found disappeared once they picked up again, Peter punching upward from the mattress while Clark pounded in from behind, your body caught between the two motions with nowhere for the pressure to go except straight through you. Clark’s free hand came up to your shoulder and brought you a little more upright, changing the angle enough that more of him disappeared inside you with every thrust. The next one landed with enough force to leave your mouth hanging open around a broken sound.
You started trying to move with them, hips working where they could, riding Peter while pushing back for Clark, your body chasing both at once even when it barely knew which rhythm to follow. It was getting too good too fast. You could feel it all building, every thrust feeding the pressure while you tried to fuck back into them through it, thighs shaking around Peter’s hips as Clark kept you lifted just enough to stay seated fully inside of you.
“Feels so good,” you forced out, the words coming out breathless and ruined, more moan than sentence by the end. Neither of them needed much more than that. Peter’s fingers sank into the flesh at your hips, his thrusts getting rougher while Clark’s pace turned heavier as your body kept bearing down around them.
They could feel how close you were, and judging by the way Peter’s breathing had gone ragged and the rough sounds Clark kept letting out behind you, they weren’t far off either. Your pussy kept pulsing around both lengths, slick and stretched, catching harder whenever one pulled back as the other pushed in, and Clark felt every bit of it.
“That’s it, baby,” he said behind you, voice lower now, gravelly from how hard he was working. “Just like that.”
The name hit somewhere stupidly low in you, somewhere you hadn’t even realized was still there, and your body reacted before you could think too hard about why.
Peter noticed it too, the way you cinched around them and the little sound that slipped out with it.
“You still like being called that?” he asked, breath rough beneath you.
“Yes,” you managed, but the word faltered halfway out and turned into a soft, helpless hum when the pressure inside you shifted again.
Peter’s palms pressed harder into your hips. “You gonna come for us?”
You tried to answer. Really tried. But the words got tangled somewhere between the next thrust and the one after that, your mouth opening around something that sounded closer to a moan than anything useful. Clark kept you where he wanted you, his palm bearing down against your bare shoulder as another thrust knocked whatever was left of the answer right out of you.
“Can’t hear you,” Clark said from behind, voice strained and wrecked enough to crawl straight down your back.
“Me neither,” Peter added, and there was something almost sinful about how calm he sounded saying it while his hips kept snapping up into you. “Say it again, baby. You gonna come for us?”
“Yes,” you said again, louder this time, only for it to crack apart into another sound. Every little shift between them changed the pressure in some new awful, perfect way, and both of them seemed way too aware of what they were doing to you.
Peter’s focus stayed locked on you, intense enough that it made the words feel heavier than they were. “One more time,” he said. “Lemme hear you say it.”
Finally the word broke through, over and over.
“Yes, yes, yes,” spilled out of you in a rush, each one harsher than the last as they kept working you between them. You were making a mess of everything. Breathing too fast, cussing under it, trying to ride Peter and push back for Clark at the same time.
“That’s it,” Clark said, his voice soft but heavy. “There you go. Keep going.”
Peter’s hand moved over your side, steadying you when your body started losing its own rhythm. “Come on, baby. You’re right there.”
That was the problem. You were so close it hurt, and they knew it. The angle had you stretched in a way that made every nerve feel lit up at once, Clark keeping you upright while Peter held you in place on top of him, and the praise only made it worse. Every soft little correction, every filthy bit of encouragement, every time one of them said baby now that they knew exactly what it did to you. Somewhere between another curse and whatever got dragged out of you next, your whole body gave up trying to keep any of it contained.
Your voice came out too loud, the sound followed immediately by a moan that turned into something dangerously close to a sob. Your thighs went rigid first, the rest of you locking around them before the tremors started rolling through. There was no holding any of it back after that, nothing graceful left in the way curses, moans, and breathless little cries kept escaping from of you. Each wave hit hard enough to leave you shaking, Peter and Clark having to keep you balanced as you clenched around them again and again, your body squeezing down so hard it pulled rougher sounds out of both of them.
They talked you through every ugly, helpless reaction your body gave them, but Peter was the first one to lose whatever restraint he still had underneath you. His eyes stayed fixed on you while you came apart over him, watching your face, your shaking body, the way your tits bounced with every movement, still flushed and marked from where his mouth and hands had been all over them earlier. That sight got him. You watched it happen in real time, his jaw going tight, breath breaking with one rough curse as his body tensed beneath yours.
The first hot spill of him landed deep while you were still coming around both of them, and the feeling ripped another cry out of you before you could swallow it. He kept filling you, thick and warm, your body squeezing around him through every pulse while Clark stayed buried behind you and felt all of it happening. Peter’s orgasm pushed you even further over the edge, the fullness turning obscene now, everything inside you slick and crowded and too fucking good.
Clark didn’t last much longer after that.
He finally let go of the arm he’d kept pinned behind your back, both hands dropping to your hips instead, and whatever control he’d managed to hold onto went with it. His hips lost the measured rhythm they’d kept all scene, each thrust turning more frantic as he dragged you back to meet him, Peter still underneath you, shuddering through the last of his own release. Clark kept chasing the feeling until even that started slipping, every movement less controlled than the one before until it finally broke apart completely.
Clark came with a guttural groan, driving himself in as far as your body would take him before filling you right behind Peter. The second load made the pressure inside you feel almost ridiculous, hot and heavy and way too much in the exact way the scene had been threatening to become from the second you agreed to it. Their final pulses kept coming against the same stretched, sensitive walls, one after the other, leaving you trembling around everything they’d given you.
The last of them had barely faded when Clark finally pulled out, Peter following as his hold loosened around your hips. Without either of them there to keep it inside, cum started leaking from you almost immediately, slow, heavy streaks gathering along your pussy before trailing down over the swollen skin. That was when the cameraman moved in. The lens dropped low between the three of you, close enough to catch the aftermath the wider shot couldn’t.
You were still hovering above Peter with your knees spread and Clark close behind, too oversensitive to do much more than hold yourself there as more cum dripped from you and ran down over them. Some caught along Peter’s shaft where he lay beneath you, more streaked over Clark’s as he stayed close at your back, both of them still coated from being inside you.
Sweat, spit, slick, cum, all of it was there in the shot, mixed across skin and flushed bodies while the three of you tried to catch your breath. It was filthy, excessive, obscene in the best way, and exactly what everyone had asked for: you completely fucked out from both of your exes.
The camera pushed in for one last dirty close-up of the aftermath, of you still stuck in the middle, leaking over them until—
“Cut!”
The word came, meaning the shoot was over but between the three of you, nothing really changed even when it should’ve. Peter’s eyes met yours, his hands slowly tracing back up your thighs, while Clark’s breath warmed your shoulder, lips hovering so close to the skin there that one small shift would’ve turned it into a kiss. Neither seemed particularly interested in putting space back between you.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, it finally hit you how little you’d wanted to hear that word. How little you wanted any of it to stop. The cameras cutting, the set resetting—everything going back to normal. And judging by the way Peter still hadn’t looked away, or the way Clark’s mouth brushed the spot near your shoulder anyway, you had a feeling you weren’t the only one thinking it.
You’d spent so long caught up in all the what-ifs of the shoot that you hadn’t really thought about what came after. And now that it was over, one video suddenly didn’t feel like enough.
for more pornstar!clark content, visit @kentwiththegooddick!
a/n: it’s finally here!!! again, i’m sorry it took FOREVER (four months to be exact) but it’s here now. i’m still a little new to writing threesomes, so please bear with me. on that note, i hope you guys enjoy all the filth that went into this. please let me know if you like it!! <3 (also pornstar!peter au?? i think yes.)
peter came in through the window last night ; cw. fluff , established relationship , rom-com cliché's , prompt inspired by the song of the title ; words. 0,6k
author's note ⌇ with the brand new day trailer out i feel like the best thing i could do is comeback with a peter parker blurb even though its tasm!peter lololl anyways feel free to send in some of ur thoughts and requests for himmm
dating new york's infamous spider-man was far from normal. even before that, who knew you would have a spark with the boy you barely acknowledged in high-school? never mind that, who knew he'd be your boyfriend let alone the blue and red vigilante crossing the busy streets? it's a bizarre scenario your thirteen year-old self would've imagined. but hey, you're living it now.
somehow, you'd have to smuggle late night emergencies and early morning absences within your routine. peter would crash by during the most painful hours and yet you showed no complaints, patching him up as you listen to his recent encounters with all kinds of villains, and finishing up with kisses plus takeaway pizza from the shop nearby.
you were used to him entering your room via window all bruised up and muddy, with puppy dog eyes you couldn't imagine saying no to. but of course, being peter parker's girlfriend you wouldn't expect anything less. not when your bed-rotting, music-listening, session was interrupted by obnoxious knocking. peter parker smiled obliviously through your window, mouthing a 'please let me in' whilst giggling internally.
the skies were melting into a dark orange and purple tint, you got up to open the locked latch as peter struggled to find balance. greeted with a kiss on the nose, peter clumsily fell onto the carpet— all existence of his spider-senses seem to vanish into thin air when he's around you. you scoff in disbelief whilst he fixed his hair, peter finally spoke, "don't look at me like that, at least i'm not bleeding onto your carpet like the last four times,"
"five times, actually," you correct him.
he scratches his head, he asked, "you keep count?" in which you nodded. you took the time to study peter, it was a refreshing sight to see as he's correct on one thing, he isn't all bloody. he was wearing the shirt you bought him months ago, layered on top of a long white sleeve top, and it complimented the jeans he was wearing too. you were undeniably in love with him at this moment— peter looked as if he just came out of your favorite 2000s rom-com.
"if you're not all beaten up, why come so suddenly through my window?" you furrowed your brows, peter shrugs ultimately, "i dunno? it's a nice change, and i don't think your doorman likes me anyways," the room lights up alongside his dimples. you gesture peter to join you on the carpet, "mr. stevie? he's the sweetest, what could you possibly do for him not to like you?" he leans onto your head.
"remember when you were sick and i had to buy two huge tubs of soup and deliver it to you personally?" peter questions, you nod slowly, as if you were unsure— "yeah, well, i only gave you one tub, because guess what happened to the other one..."
"oh peter, don't tell me you spilt it—"
"all over his attire, fully coaxed in warm soup."
you slapped the palm of your hand onto your forehead, peter laughed as he fixed the crook of his glasses. the laughter slowly fades into one with the light of the sun setting, the hues mixing harmoniously with you and peter's features. he took a moment to fully embrace your beauty. you did as well— peter's glasses were slightly crooked from all the falling and tripping throughout the months, his hair messy from either the wind outside or his sudden entrance, the shirt hugged him so well you knew the second you gave it it's as if it was made for him.
peter's gaze was locked onto yours, "if you wanted to kiss me, you know you can, right? i didn't come through your window for nothing." his teasing tone made you snap back to reality. the stupid grin on his face grew as you became embarrassingly red.
The small apartment fills with the sounds of lips smacking against each other. Sun rays poke through your curtain hung over your bedroom window, reflecting over your two bodies. A large hand grips your waist pulling you flush against his chest.
Suddenly, a large ringing erupts from your bedside table, Peter pulls away to check the time before groaning. “Shit, I really have to get ready sweetheart.”
Your boyfriend kisses you one last time before escaping to the bathroom. As you lie in bed you hear the shower turn on. Your schedules made it impossible for you both to have a chill day at home not even adding the Spiderman gig. The two of you had previously planned to spend the whole day at home, however the night before his boss called, begging him to come in so he could fix something that went wrong with a project.
Standing up, you throw on one of Peter’s shirts and walk to the kitchen yawning as you do so. You grab one of the coffee cups from the dishrack and place in on the counter. There you look around the cupboard for the instant coffee packs.
Pressing the on button on the coffee maker, you watch as the bitter liquid fills the cup. Carefully measuring the creamer and sugar, adding it to concoction. Gently stirring you hear Peter opening and closing wardrobe doors and dresser drawers. Squirting a thin layer of whipped cream in the cup, you put the top to the cup on and set the finished drink on the countertop.
You go to reach for the cereal on top of the refrigerator when a hand grabs it for you. Peter places the box on the counter behind you, before caging you in. His beautiful brown eyes protected behind his thick black frames.
Brushing the brown locks out his face you gently kiss his lips. He pulls you unbelievably closer to his body, before picking you up and setting you down on the counter. If you had to rank the ever growing list of things your boyfriend was good at, kissing would be second.
Peter knew how to leave you breathless and wanting more, it’s actually why he stopped kissing you goodbye in the mornings, because you two would end up in a situation like this. Five minutes go by of you two kissing in your kitchen, five minutes until he has to leave.
You’re interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket, groaning as he pulls away to check. It’s his alarm, saying he needs to be out the apartment. “We can never have a morning to ourselves.” Arms wrapping around his shoulders.
His head tilts back in annoyance attempting to give you goodbye pecks which turn into deeper kisses. “Baby-” Peck. “I need to-” Peck. “I need to go.” Contradicting his own speech he pulls you in by your neck, no pressure just a direction.
When Peter does end up pulling away, he rests his forehead against yours before leaving you completely, going to the other side of your small kitchen. Leaning against the cupboard behind you, you point to the cup of coffee. “Made it just how you like it.”
He smiles, dimples poking through grabbing the coffee cup, and giving you a forehead kiss. “Thank you love, bye. Enjoy your day.” With that he’s off, front door slamming behind him. Jumping off the counter, you grab your cereal and make your breakfast, thinking of what you were possibly going to spend your boyfriendless day.
i did write the entirety of this in class btw. i wrote this with tasm!peter in mind, but you can say it's anybody.
