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Secrets for the Sleepless

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.”

“Well, there was sort of a—wait, what?”

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