This City Never Sleeps (When It’s All Too Much)
Word Count: 2787
Pairing: Eventual Peter Parker x Female!Reader
Warnings: Hella angst and fluff.
Summary: Part Five of This City Never Sleeps. Suddenly, you had to know.
Note: I feel very nervous about this one so please let me know what you think.
Tags: @seargantbcky @darlin-you-bitch @emily-ily2 @rosep16 @comics-and-stuff @t4rt-deco @octopishisahybridanimal @slythergirlimagines @philipshaaayyyy@catwoman2502@minimalistxx@sophiatomlinson23@johnsonxstilinski @raindancer2004@vanessly@newyorkrebel @letstrysomefanfic @half-superhero @mermaid-princess-wannabe @mmmaff@spideysensesparker @ttholland @zpidey-sense
Fall came and went, and before you knew it the semester was over, the city was covered in twinkling lights, and Christmas music played inside every public building. The concrete jungle was blanketed in soft, white snow, and you knew it was only a matter of time until it turned into dirty, gray slush.
After the events at the Homecoming dance, Tony had gifted Peter’s suit back to him, and you took a step back, allowing Peter the space he needed to find new balance in his life with this responsibility. You offered your friendly support, making repairs to the suit as needed, and letting him pop into your bedroom via the terrace when he needed a break from his superhero duties, a snack, or--on more than one occasion--to pee.
Sometimes he swung right back out the door, and other times he stayed for a while, just talking with you or asking you to read to him from whatever book was in your hands as you relaxed into your pillows.
That’s where you were now, but there was no book, no Peter, and you were not relaxed.
You stared blankly at the wall in your dark bedroom, seeing nothing in front of you and everything in the even darker corners of your mind. Drawers in your memories that you’d kept so carefully locked up were ripped open, flooding your consciousness with images you had tucked away so meticulously.
A red light. A black dress with a single white stripe around the skirt. Pink and purple clouds. Your favorite song. His voice. Warm eyes meeting yours in the rear-view mirror.
A green light. A silver SUV. Squealing tires. Crunching metal. Shattering glass. Screaming. Frightened eyes meeting yours in the rear-view mirror.
Pain.
A small box encased in purple velvet lay open on your bedspread, its contents strewn across the comforter.
A necktie. A photograph. A keychain. A pair of earrings. A one-dollar coin and a two-dollar bill. A birthday card.
“Breathe,” a voice said into your ear. You knew it was PURDUE but you couldn’t help but imagine that it was his voice. The voice you could still hear singing along to your favorite song.
You forced yourself to take a shaky breath as the tears spilled over.
A green light. Pain.
A silver SUV. Pain.
Your breath caught in your throat and you knew there was no escaping the depth of the downward spiral your thoughts were twisting into.
Squealing tires. Pain.
Crunching metal. Pain.
Three knocks. What?
Shattering glass. Pain.
Screaming. Pain.
Two knocks. Your bedroom wall.
One knock. Peter.
A couple taps to your watch and the lock clicked open. The handle turned and Peter stepped in from the terrace. The door shut behind him and out of the corner of your eye you saw him pull his mask off, a few flakes of snow fluttering down and melting before they hit the carpet. Normally you would greet him, but the spiral had already started to pull you back down.
A green light. Pain.
“Man, you wouldn’t believe how stupid people can be when they-- Hey, what’s wrong?”
A silver SUV. Pain.
You couldn’t even respond to Peter’s worried question. Your eyes were glued to the photograph. It was upside down at this angle, but that didn’t matter. You had every detail memorized.
Crunching metal. Pain.
You felt Peter kneel next to you by the bed more than you saw it. He pulled his gloves off, fingertips pushing hair back from your face and wiping your tear-stained cheeks. The comforting touch brought a new wave of sobs wracking through your chest and catching in your throat.
Shattering glass. Pain.
Peter sat next to you on the bed, pulling you into him. You went willingly, letting yourself be held.
Screaming. Pain.
Frightened eyes.
Agony.
You cried into his spandex-clad chest for what felt like hours. He held you tightly, stroking your hair, and rubbing your arms until your weeping subsided. When you finally quieted down, Peter shot a web across the room, grabbing your water bottle off your desk and pulling it toward him. He handed it to you and you drank from it gratefully, then tucked your head back into his shoulder as he set the now-empty bottle on your nightstand.
“You never talk about it. Them,” he said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
It took several moments for you to respond, but Peter was patient.
“I don’t-- how-- where would I…” you trailed off, unable to complete a sentence and a little frustrated with yourself because of it.
“Tell me about this,” Peter said. He picked up the neck tie and handed it to you. You ran the silk between your fingers a few times, tracing the pattern of dancing candy canes, turning and twisting it as you remembered.
“This was my favorite tie of his,” you told him. “I thought it was so funny. Whenever he wore it we always imitated the candy cane dance in the kitchen that morning. Sometimes he would wear it out of season and I would laugh so hard every time. Then he would put me on the school bus shouting ‘Merry Christmas!’ and I would laugh even harder because it was April.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Peter says.
“It was,” you agreed.
“What about this?” Peter asked, handing you the keychain. You rubbed the pad of your thumb along the textured plastic. Three butterflies following each other up toward the sky: blue, orange, and pink.
“He used to take me to the butterfly garden in the Bronx. We went for my birthday three years in a row, because it was all I wanted to do. One time a butterfly landed in my hair and I thought it was the best day of my life.”
You picked up the birthday card. The glitter still sparkled in the dim light despite how much time had passed.
“This is from my eighth birthday. It was my favorite because it was so sparkly.” You flipped the card open, tracing the blocky letters inked inside. “And it’s the only thing I have with his handwriting on it.”
Your fingers lingered on Love, Dad and you swallowed hard around tears that threatened to spill over again. You picked up the earrings.
“These were hers,” you held the sapphire studs delicately. “I don’t remember her well enough to ever remember her wearing them, but I’ve seen them in pictures. I took them from the back of his closet. I don’t know if he ever knew they were gone, or that I had them.”
You reached for the coin and the dollar bill.
“These were from the Tooth Fairy,” you said, the tiniest of smiles creeping onto your face. “He thought it was way cooler to give me uncommon coins and dollars. I wish I had been able to keep more of them.”
The photograph.
Him, her, and you.
You were just two years old, dressed up in a too-poufy, festive dress, and looking startled by something behind the camera. He was wearing reindeer antlers and a red nose. Her hair fell in perfect waves down her shoulders, Santa hat tilted artfully atop her tresses.
“You have the same smile as him,” Peter said.
“She left a week after this was taken,” you whispered. “No note, no phone call, no apology. Nothing. She just left.”
Your hands started to shake, but you couldn’t look away from the eyes that were so much like your own.
“Does she even know what happened to my dad? Does she even care?”
The tears spilled over again.
“Why doesn’t she care?”
Empty dresser.
Missing toothbrush.
Forgotten earrings.
Pain.
Peter had stayed with you until you’d eventually cried yourself to sleep, leaving you a note and a full bottle of water on your nightstand.
You texted him as soon as you found your phone, tangled in the mess of sheets and blankets.
Thank you.
Any time. x
Now you stood outside his apartment door, ready for the Friend-mas celebration that you, Ned, Peter, and Michelle had planned, Secret Santa gift for Michelle in your hands. May let you in and you were greeted by the aroma of her famous cherry pie and a smiling Peter, who gave your hand a quick squeeze after May had made her way back to the kitchen. Michelle and Ned were already in the living room, laughing over sparkling cider and holiday mad-libs.
You and Peter joined them, and it was everything you could do to not just stare at Peter as you played round after round of the word game. You loved the way his eyes brightened and just nose scrunched up when he laughed. The way he leaned back against the couch, relaxed open around those he trusted. The way he would smile whenever his eyes met yours.
You were so, so grateful for him.
Soon, dinner was ready and you all squeezed around the tiny dining table, gorging yourselves on ham, yams, homemade macaroni, and of course, cherry pie. You delighted in the warmth of the room, the full feeling of home that came with Peter and May’s apartment. The sense of family that came with your best friends.
You did your best to ignore the electricity sparking up and down your skin whenever Peter’s knee would bump yours under the table. The first time it happened you thought it was an accident, and maybe it was, but then it happened again. And again. And again. Eventually, without looking away from Ned--who was telling a riveting story about his little sister getting stuck in a clothing rack at Target--you found a wave of confidence and hooked your ankle around Peter’s. His fidgeting ceased and you saw the tips of his ears tinge red as he looked down at the matching color inside his pie, but he didn’t pull away, so you counted it as a victory.
When you couldn’t eat anymore and the dishes were cleaned up, you all retreated back to the living room to exchange gifts.
Michelle went first, giving Peter a T-shirt that said “May the Mass Times Acceleration Be With You.” Then she spent the next half hour ignoring all of you in favor of reading the copy of The Metaphysical Club you’d gotten her.
Peter gifted Ned a mug shaped like a Pokeball, and Ned gave you a soft sweater with your first initial on the front, much like that of the Weasley’s.
Ned left around nine-thirty, needing to make his curfew by ten, and Michelle was picked up by her mom shortly thereafter. With nowhere else to be, you hung around and continued to soak in as much warmth as you could from the Parker household. You curled up on the sofa in your new sweater, scrolling through your phone and half-watching the Christmas movie on TV. Peter had disappeared into his room for a few minutes, and when he poked his head back out, he asked you to join him.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he said.
“Okay, but just because you show me yours, doesn’t mean I’m going to show you mine,” you joked, enjoying the way Peter sputtered and splotches of crimson rose on his cheeks.
“Shut up,” he said. “Just come in here.”
You followed him into the bedroom, sitting down on the bed when he gestured for you to do so. You watched him stretch up on his toes to reach the top of his closet, pulling down a plain brown shoebox. He sat down across from you, putting the box between you. You looked at him quizzically.
“I have one, too,” he said, and suddenly you understood.
He pulled the lid off and set it aside, and you peered into the box, an assortment of mismatched items inside. He pulled out a small snowglobe first. It said Paris in looping letters on the side, glitter swirling inside the globe around a miniature Eiffel Tower.
“My mom collected these. Everywhere she travelled she made sure to find one. They were scattered all over the house, and some days I would run around to each one, shaking them and trying to make them all swirl at the same time,” Peter said, passing it to you. You turned it over in your hands, smoothing your fingers along the glass as he reached back into the box.
“This is a mixtape Uncle Ben and I made when I was in second grade,” he said, pulling out a cassette tape. “His car was old and didn’t have a CD player, so we made these to listen to.”
“You always were into retro tech,” you said with a smile, examining young Peter’s messy handwriting on the label.
A tiny pair of safety goggles came out next.
“My dad got me these so I could be a ‘real’ scientist when I did my first experiment,” Peter said. “It was just mentos and coke but it was the most exciting thing I’d ever done.”
Peter dug out an antique-looking emerald ring.
“This was my great-grandma's, then my grandma’s, then my mom’s.”
You held the ring delicately, the thin band was slightly bent from years of wear.
“This was my dad’s watch. I think about wearing it all the time but I’m too afraid of breaking it.”
The analog clock ticked quietly. You wondered exactly how many years, days, and minutes it had counted.
“This is my picture,” Peter said, and you looked up from the items in your lap. It was a picture of a small Peter, barely four years old, standing on a staircase behind his parents, who were sitting on the step below him. He was leaning his elbows on their shoulders between them, hands cupping his round cheeks and smiling brightly at the camera. It was the cutest thing you had ever seen.
You looked at his parents. You could see he’d gotten his big brown eyes and high cheekbones from his mom, and his nose and strong jawline from his dad. They both looked happy. Just as happy as your parents looked in the picture hidden away in a purple box under your bed.
You carefully set everything back in the shoebox, replacing the lid and smoothing your hands over the cardboard.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” you said. Peter’s hands covered yours.
“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re alone or don’t have anyone to talk to. Because-- ‘cause I get it, you know?” You turned your hands up to wind your fingers with his, squeezing them. You looked up at Peter and met his eyes. You maintained the eye contact for a moment before his gaze dropped back to your linked hands. “And… I really care about you. A lot. Like, more than I can.. I don’t know. I just…” he trailed off.
And suddenly you had to know.
You had to know if he felt everything you were feeling. You had to know if his heart wanted to leap out of his chest whenever you were around, the way yours did for him. You had to know if every text of yours made excitement pulsate through your veins. You had to know if you were the only one who often got distracted thinking about laughing together, reading together, being together.
You had to know what his lips felt like on yours.
You leaned forward on your knees, one hand disconnecting from his and carding through the soft brown hair behind his ear.
“Peter,” you whispered, and soft brown eyes looked up at you, round and wide. You saw a twinge of nervousness there, along with determination and something you weren’t quite yet ready to name.
When he gave you a barely-perceptible nod, you closed your eyes and pressed your lips to his.
A warm, buzzing feeling exploded from your chest, the heat racing through your veins to every connection of your skin. Your fingers tightened in his. Your other hand pulled him closer to you, nails scratching his scalp lightly. His free hand came up to hold your wrist and his lips… If Peter’s home was warmth then his lips were like fire, soft-yet-firm, warm, and gently setting your soul ablaze.
It was slightly off-center but you quickly corrected yourselves, reconnecting your lips once, twice, and tilting your heads just so, as though you’d practiced a hundred times. You couldn’t wait to practice a hundred times.
When you finally pulled apart, you didn’t go far, leaning your forehead against his and letting out a shaky breath.
“Wow,” Peter said, and you smiled. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
“I think I do.”
Cherries. Bliss.
Brown eyes. Warmth.
Peter.
Joy.