secrets - peter parker

f o u r

"Yeah, Aunt May?" Peter's voice yelled from the other side of the door. I awkwardly shifted and leant closer to the door as I spoke.

"Uh actually, it's Violet."

From this, I heard a sudden shuffling noise, as well as something falling over in the room. Along with some muttering that I couldn't make out, it took Peter a while to open the door, to which he looked slightly panicked.

"H...Hey." Peter awkwardly opened the door further to let me in, shutting it behind me, a small lock of his hair falling over his eye.

Something told me he was either being extremely awkward, or was hiding something. From the looks of the room, I had noticed the desk lamp was knocked onto the floor, but he quickly picked it back up before I could question it.

"Hi." A small giggle emitted from my lips, moving into the room which was vaguely familiar. I had only been in his room a handful of times, and from what I could recall, it hadn't changed much.

My gaze fell upon the chaotic scene that was his bedroom. Posters, computers, textbooks. Peter seemed to register and began to scratch the back of his head.

"Sorry about the mess."

"You have more books than I remember."

There were stacks upon stacks, filling the shelves, piled on the floor. They were ranging from maths, to physics, to computing. I would have assumed he was keeping busy, but soon doubted that idea from the layer of thick dust upon each of them.

"Yeah, I uh..." Peter didn't have an answer. "...So the sports section, huh?"

Peter looked at me with intrigued eyes, as if he was trying to figure out the person I had become. This was understandable because I wondered the same about him.

"It was the only thing they had." I strolled over to his side table which displayed a few picture frames. "I heard you're taking photos for the entire paper now, you've been keeping busy."

"Yeah, I could use the distraction." He leaned his form against his desk, folding his arms over his chest.

His words triggered my next ones. "I'm really sorry about Uncle Ben."

Peter looked down at his feet, offering but a small nod. "He'd have liked to seen you back."

Feeling like she had just instantly put him in a sombre state, I intended to lighten the mood.

"He never let go of the fact that I managed to beat you in an arm wrestle that one time." I cracked a smile, thinking back to how Ben would joke about how Peter let a girl beat him.

He shook his head and emitted a laugh. "I let you win."

"You did not! You were practically sweating."

"Alright," he held his hands up in defence, his deep brown eyes meeting my caramel coloured ones.

"But I was always the better chess player." The corner of his lip lifted into a smirk.

"Now that's debatable, Parker." I scoffed.

I forgot how much I had missed being home, and those occasional evenings I spent in this apartment were some of the best memories I had. Once they had dinner, Uncle Ben would crash on the couch while watching tv, Aunt May and my mom would sit chatting for hours over cups of tea and that left the pair of us who usually liked a good game of chess.

I found Peter's eyes intently on me. Not in a creepy way, but more like a look of adoration. Nevertheless, I was beginning to feel a little self-conscious under his gaze and so spoke up again.

"So do you have the photos?" I pulled out the flash drive from my jeans pocket, remembering why I had come here in the first place.

"Oh right, yeah." Peter shook himself out of his daze and turned to his computer, bending down to its level. I handed him the flash drive to which he inserted and began searching.

As he clicked through various files, he found where his photos were stored. In the folder were a bunch of images he had taken around school. I also leaned down to look at the photos he had taken – admittedly, they were good.

As he scrolled through the thousands of images, his shoulder briefly touched mine only to move away instantly as he cleared his throat.

Pretty much, nothing happened after that. Peter uploaded the photos onto my flash drive and I thanked him. Reunions were odd. It's difficult to pick up from where you left off, but Peter and I didn't necessarily leave off from anywhere. We had simply been neighbours, and yeah we hung out a few times, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.

For now, though, I wanted to take the chance to get settled in, enjoy a life where nobody knew my other half, and whether I liked it or not, Peter gave me that sense of normality that I needed.

~

[third person p.o.v]

Later that evening, Peter suited up for his usual late night patrol. Slipping the red mask down onto his face, he quietly climbed out of his window and onto the fire escape.

However, before he took off, his Spidey senses heard soft, faint music from nearby.

With the aid of his webs, he landed on to the fire escape two windows to the side, his legs crouched onto the railings as he found the source of the music.

He watched as Violet sat in her room, looking as beautiful as ever, reading a book under her lamp light. He was so used to that room being empty, but to see her created a kind of warm feeling within him.

His lips stretched into a smile behind his mask as he watched the girl he was utterly infatuated with before swinging off into the night sky.