You'd laid in your bed, awake until two hours before you had to get up for school, and thought about Spider-Man and Peter.
They had to be the same person. They just had to be.
There were three main reasons why you were convinced that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.
One; he said that he'd wanted to kiss you the first time you officially met him, when he had stumbled through your window, bloody and bruised. You hadn't thought it could possibly be Peter when this had happened, but now it served to confirm your suspicions.
Two; the morning after you almost got hit by the car and Peter had slept with you all night, he left through the window. Your fire escape had been ruined, and you were not on the first floor. How could he have possibly come in through it that night and then left that same way without a struggle? If he was Spider-Man, it would have been quite easy for him.
And third; that very same night that kept you awake, Spider-Man had mumbled something against your lips while he kissed you. You'd been confused at how much tension was in the room, and how heavy his kisses had been. But then he'd murmured, "I almost lost you," in between your kisses, and every doubt in your mind was shoved to the side.
Because Spider-Man hadn't saved you when you'd been thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Peter Parker had.
The thoughts and the unease and the nerves kept you up nearly all night. You'd barely slept; your mind had finally had mercy on you and slowed down your thoughts enough for you to fall asleep. However, a mere two hours later, your alarm had blared, signaling that it was time to get ready for school. Part of you was excited to go to school and see if you could weasel the confirmation out of Peter, but the other part of you was extremely nervous.
You now knew that it had been Peter who had taken your first kiss; it had been Peter that trusted you enough to patch him up after he fought crime. It had been Peter that had saved you on countless occasions. It had been Peter all along.
But he didn't know that you knew.
God, you really wished that you weren't wrong about this. The tiny crush you'd harbored on Peter since the two of you had become friends brought itself to the front of your mind, letting you know it was still there. When you thought Spider-Man was someone else, you'd managed to repress the feelings, but your suspicions ignited those emotions inside of you once more.
Once you'd reached school, you made a beeline for Peter's locker. He was standing in front of it, grabbing his books for his first few periods. Before he could react, you stood right behind him, making him flinch when he turned around and saw you in his path.
"God, Y/N, you scared me!" he shouted, putting a hand on his chest. You laughed lightly and whined about how you showed up at his locker every morning, walking alongside him down the crowded hallway.
Your arm kept brushing against his and you couldn't help but remember how soft his lips had been against yours every time he'd kissed you as Spider-Man, which made your face flush. Did he think about the kisses too? Did he wonder about what it would be like to kiss you in the middle of the hallway the same way you were thinking about kissing him? You shook your head a little to get the thoughts out of your head; you really shouldn't be thinking about this. Technically, you still didn't know if he was Spider-Man.
"You okay?" Peter asked once you'd reached your class. You stopped and sent him a small smile, willing your blush to go away.
"Yeah, I'm fine," you replied. He gave you an odd look and you kept the smile on your face, deciding to change the subject. "So, are you going to, uh, swing by today?" you asked. You watched his face carefully, but he didn't so much as twitch, his shoulders coming up in a shrug.
"I don't know, maybe. I have a lot of homework to do and I don't know if May needs me to-"
"Peter," you interrupted, your smile melting from a little strained to genuine, the edges of your lips softening. "It's fine. Just text me if you decide to come later, okay?" He nodded and you decided to finally walk into your class, glad that you'd see him again later before school ended.
You'd have to get him to slip up somehow.
Algebra had passed quickly, your interactions with Peter not changing. You kept trying to drop subtle hints that you knew, but if he noticed he didn't show it.
As the two of you were heading out of school, Peter seemed jumpy. You thought that he might have finally picked up on your hints, but you still didn't want to just blurt out that you knew; you needed him to be the one to tell you first.
"Hey, uh, I actually have to go pick something up, so I'm going to go this way," Peter said out of the blue once you'd reached an intersection. You realized why he was so jumpy quickly and you pressed your lips together.
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow, then," you replied. Before you'd even finished your sentence, Peter was already bolting down the street and you waited a few moments before slowly making your way down the same street. It was bustling and crowded, which you were used to, but you soon lost sight of Peter and sighed. You contemplated just going home, but then you heard a few people exclaim loudly and you looked up just in time to see Spider-Man swinging down the street from building to building.
Without thinking, you ran after him, your backpack bouncing uncomfortably on your shoulders. You kept your eyes on Spider-Man's back, even though he was swinging much faster than you were running, even as you pushed and shoved between people, ignoring their huffing and yelling.
Your eyes never left his figure, which is why you screamed when you saw it.
Something catapulted right into him, knocking him off of the web he was holding on to and into one of the building walls. You could hear the wall crack and your heart nearly stopped when his body fell onto the pavement, people scrambling away from him while you were frozen in your spot, staring at him half a block away from you.
You could see him start to shakily lift himself up, though half of his body was still lying motionless on the ground. Even from as far away as you were, you could tell that his arms were shaking with the effort to lift himself up. You heard car alarms go off and then a car was flying out into the open air, right toward Spider-Man. You watched it with dawning horror as screams filled the air. You moved on your own accord, sprinting toward him as fast as you could, but you knew you wouldn't make it in time to help him; you were too far away.
A man was yelling and the voice was so familiar that you stopped in your tracks, whipping around to see who it was. You saw a bulging man walking toward Spider-Man and you heard the car crash into the building where he had fallen. You turned back and continued running while the madman shouted in the middle of the street about how he was going to kill "the Spider" and make him a trophy. You reached the car and immediately started looking under it and around it, just barely catching yourself from saying Peter's name.
"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead," you chanted under your breath, your voice shaky. You could feel your body start to tremble and bile rose up in your throat when you saw smears of dark blood on the broken sidewalk. Your fingers were sticky with it when you pulled back from underneath the car and you stared at your hand in horror while the city was in chaos around you.
A hand gripped your shoulder hard and you yelped, flinching away while tears clouded your vision. When you turned to face the person touching you, you saw someone in red and blue and you blinked your tears away quickly, not caring about the blood on your hand while you wiped them off of your cheeks to see better.
It was Spider-Man.
His suit was ripped in some places and you couldn't see if he was bleeding or not, but he must have been from that fall and the blood that had been on the sidewalk. You let out a broken sob and shakily got to your feet, ignoring whatever it is he was yelling at you to throw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your head into his chest while you cried. His arms instantly came around you and held you close, but he soon pulled away, looking into your puffy face, tears streaming down your cheeks.
"Why are you crying?" he asked hurriedly, moving his hands to grip your arms and check you over for injuries. "Are you hurt?"
"No," you replied quietly, watching him worry over you silently, the occasional sniffle coming out here and there. He shifted to stand straight up again, his hands still gripping your arms, and you saw him shifting his weight to his right leg, which meant he must have been hurt somewhere badly enough that he couldn't stand. "Let me check your injuries, you're hurt-"
"No!" he shouted, moving his hands up to hold onto your shoulders. You snapped your head up to look at him with wide eyes. "You have to get out of here right now, like yesterday-"
"There you are! Finally come out to play, have you?" a voice boomed, making you turn to look. You caught sight of something flying toward the two of you before Spider-Man wrapped his arm around your waist and hugged you flush against him. You didn't even have time to process his body on yours before you were being yanked into the air with him, your arms and legs wrapping around his body.
"Dammit," Spider-Man growled as the two of you sprang between buildings, objects being tossed into the sky repeatedly by the man in the middle of the street, his bulging muscles and accuracy making a chill run down your spine. Every object missed the two of you only by a few inches, your body being jerked at every angle as Spider-Man dodged whatever was thrown at you.
You wanted to tell him to set you down, but you weren't stupid and you knew that he couldn't. If he tried to set you down now, he'd probably get himself killed. You clung onto him tighter, wanting nothing than to bury your head into his neck; but you couldn't take your eyes off of the man in the street. He tossed a food cart into the air, the cart slamming into the building next to you hard enough to crack it and have cement falling off.
"P-Spider-Man!" you screamed, pointing down at the ground. There was a little girl staring up at the falling cement, not moving an inch as people around her ran away from the danger. He swore under his breath and swung down, your heart dropping into your stomach at the sudden fall. You dislodged his hand from your waist as you two neared the ground, falling and rolling on the street. You could feel your body stinging, hissing as you pushed yourself up. Spider-Man had ran ahead and grabbed the little girl, shielding her from the clumps of building. You ran over to him and took her from his arms, nodding at him to let him know everything was fine.
Spider-Man made his way back toward the man yelling for him, and you watched him go with the little girl tucked into your arms. She started crying and you had to tear your eyes away from the fight, picking her up and quickly making your way down the street, away from Spider-Man and whoever it was he was fighting. You didn't know where to take her, so you stopped next to an alleyway, staying in the street. You set her down quickly and kept a tight grip on her hand, turning back to watch Spider-Man just as he was webbing up the bulked up man.
"Now, this is interesting," a voice said quietly from behind you. You turned without missing a beat, but a hand closed around your throat before you could really process what was happening. Your hand slipped from the little girl's as you were thrown against the wall of the building behind you. You could hear her screaming as she stared at the man holding onto you, a mask covering his face.
You stared into the eyes of his metal mask, the little holes glowing green. The hand wrapped around your throat tightened and you could see black spots dancing around your vision. He leaned in closer, tilting his head a little to the side as he assumingly studied your face.
"What makes you so special to Spider-Man, I wonder..." he trailed off quietly. You squeezed your eyes shut and grabbed his gloved hand with yours, digging your nails in as best you could to try to ease the pressure from your neck. You could still hear the little girl crying faintly through the sound of the blood rushing in your ears.
You heard someone calling your name and you registered it must have been Spider-Man who was calling for you, but before you could even think to do anything, the man with the giant metal wings grabbed you around the torso and turned you to face Spider-Man as he flew up into the air.
"Y/N!" he yelled, getting ready to launch himself after the two of you. The man holding you loosely laughed, loosening his grip enough that you feared you'd slip through his fingers, making you clutch at his arm in fear, your eyes wide and trained on Spider-Man in his ripped suit. "Put her down!"
"Come and get her," the bird-man replied, tightening his grip on you and turning quickly, flying away from Spider-Man. You held your breath, the wind harsh against your skin and making your eyes water. You could hear the sounds of the webbing Spider-Man used behind you, meaning he was following after the two of you. You couldn't focus on anything that was happening besides the sounds of the man holding you shooting something back at Spider-Man, who you assumed was keeping up and dodging everything. Eventually, you heard the webbing cling onto the motor of the metal wing and the two of you jerked in the air, the man's arm releasing you.
You screamed as you fell toward the ground, Spider-Man calling out your name.
