You twirled your pen restlessly in between your fingers while listening intently for your chemistry teacher to announce who got the highest grade on the test last week. You had studied for hours, weeks on end, to come out on top of this one-you were not going to let Parker take it from you this time.
The two of you had all of your classes together, much to your dismay. You were always the best, always the smartest, until this semester started and this kid began giving you a run for your money. Every class became a contest to see who was better.
Your eyes flickered over to where he sat in the row next to you, and he was just as on edge as you were-his hands tightly gripped the edge of his desk. Before you could return your gaze to the front of the class, his eyes suddenly moved to meet yours.
"Congratulations to the student who earned the highest grade this time," you teacher announced, "[Y/N] [Y/L/N]."
A satisfied breath escaped you as you smirked around the room, looking back over to Peter, who glared at you.
"Better luck next time, Parker," you said, slinging your backpack over your shoulder as the school bell rang through the classroom.
"You got lucky," he muttered back.
Rolling your eyes, you turned on your heel and threw over your shoulder: "See you in biology."
Biology was an even stronger subject for you, as you slid into your lab table stool, still feeling the accomplishments of beating Peter-again. You eyed him as he entered the classroom, silently taking his seat next to you, not saying another word.
The bell rang again, and your teacher began lecturing on the importance of structure within an ecosystem. As the pair of you took notes, you noticed that he kept glancing over at your neat, organized words written in your notebook. Was he-copying you?
You angled yourself away from him so his vision of your work was blocked. You heard Peter huff: another silent victory over him.
"Alright," you teacher clapped his hands to get the room's attention. "I know I've talked about the midterm project a few times, but today's the day I'm actually assigning it."
You flipped to a fresh page to take more notes on project-no doubt related to ecosystems, you were sure. Parker, you thought to yourself, I'm wiping the floor with you on this one.
"-everyone look to the person sitting next to you, because this is a partnered project," your teacher said, "And the two of you will share a grade."
Your pen froze mid-sentence as you registered what he had just said, the ink bleeding into the paper. You've got to be kidding me.
You refused to look at the boy sitting next to you, refused to let your pride fall through. You crumpled up the ruined page, and began taking more notes on what the project's subject was on-feeling the red blush creeping into your cheeks.
At the end of the class, the bell rang out-and as you packed up your things, Peter awkwardly cleared his throat.
"I guess we should-ah, collaborate on ideas," he said, his voice wavering nervously. "Seeing as we're...we're..."
You finally raised your eyes to meet with his own, a thousand emotions running through you, a thousand words and sentences sitting on the tip of your tongue-and all you could manage was a nod.
He bit his lip, and scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper. "Here-my number. We should meet up soon."
"Yeah," you agreed, taking the paper from him and shoving it into your bag. "Should be fun."
A week had passed, and in that week, you had swallowed your pride and sent Peter a text asking when it a good time for him was to meet up and discuss your biology project-he replied almost instantly, saying that Saturday afternoon was perfect. So here you were, standing in front of his apartment door, knuckles frozen in front of the wooden panels. Jesus, were you actually nervous? It wasn't too late to cancel.
You rapped two loud knocks on his door, and stepped back, your eyes going to the blue carpet of the hallway. Inside, you could hear a woman's voice, and then the lock on the door clicked and it swung open-revealing a beautiful older woman who looked a lot like Peter-standing there with a friendly grin on her face.
"You must be [Y/N]!" she exclaimed, stepping aside in a gesture for you to come in. "I'm his aunt, you can just call me May."
You obliged, entering the cozy apartment while giving her a polite smile. "I'm supposed to meet Peter to work on our lab project," you offered, awkwardly twisting the strap of your bag, not knowing what else to say.
"Yeah, he told me the day it was assigned," she replied, closing the door. "You're even prettier in person!"
"In person?" you asked, confused.
May pursed her lips, and shook her head. "The way he talks about you, it's very....animated-he's in his room, down the hall."
Did Peter....talk about you often to her? Your thoughts were a jumbled mess as you stood once again in front of a door you were nervous to open, but he took care of that for you. As you raised your knuckles to softly tap them against the door, he opened it a moment too soon. You stood there staring at each other for a split second, noticing his ears turning a pink tinge.
"Right on time," he said, glancing at his watch. "I was-ah-doing some quick cleaning."
Your eyes darted behind him into his room, immediately noticing his bunk bed. Moving past him, you walked up to the large map of New York City hanging on the adjacent wall, fingers reaching out and tracing a subway line down the length of the thin paper. "Your room is pretty cool," you remarked, fiddling with the giant chess set sitting on his desk in the corner.
He still stood by the door, looking almost nervous. "T-Thanks."
"Bunk bed," you winked at him. "Very grown-up."
"Funny," he scoffed, sinking to the floor in a seated position and pulling papers out of his backpack. "So for our project-"
The sound of his desk chair squeaking loudly as you sat in it cut him off. You poked and prodded at the hunk of tech sitting beside his chess set, leaning in for a closer look. "You re-hardwire this stuff?"
His audible sigh filled the room. "Yeah-it's a...it's a hobby."
"That's pretty awesome," you said, swiveling the chair around to face him, the chair screeching again. His expression was nowhere near amused.
"Look, if you just came here to make fun of me, we can-"
"Whoa, whoa," you said, putting your hands up defensively. "Peter, I'm not making fun of you-why would you think that?"
He stared at you for a moment, his bottom lip quivering. "I don't know-you always act like you're better than me, I just...."
Sliding from the chair, you sat cross-legged in front of him, frowning. "I'm sorry that I come off as-as a pompous ass....I just thought it was some friendly competition."
"It doesn't feel very friendly to me," he admitted, playing with a pen.
"I'm sorry," came your reply. You picked up a page of his notes and studied it, glancing up at his unchanged expression. "I'm not here to make fun of you, Peter. I'm here to do this project with my lab partner, who turns out is actually kind of cool."
His eyes met yours, and a glimmer of a smile crossed his features. "You think I'm cool?"
"I think your room is cool."
That earned a laugh from him. "So you like nerdy stuff too?"
"It looks like you're a Trekkie," you observed, pointing to the vintage USS Enterprise poster beside his bed. "I like Star Wars."
Peter wrinkled his nose. "I guess we really are sworn enemies."
"Okay, okay," you managed to get out between breathless laughs. "I've got a really corny one for you."
Peter wiped his watering eyes and nodded. "Hit me with it."
"What does-" you stopped to laugh some more, "-what does a nosy pepper do?"
"A nosy pepper?" Peter ran a hand through his unruly curls. "I don't know-what?"
"It gets 'jalapeno' business!"
His laugh was loud enough to wake up his entire building as he clutched his sides and rolled on the floor. You joined in, no noise coming from your giggles, and that made the two of you laugh even harder.
"What's going on in here?" May's muffled voice came from the hall, pushing the bedroom door open wider and sticking her head in. "I thought you guys were working on a project."
"We finished it," Peter said, pointing to a skilled diorama of a pond's ecosystem sitting by his bed. "We're just....hanging out now."
"Alright, well," she regarded the two of you over her glasses. "It's a school night-and it's getting a little late."
You hadn't even realized the time until you looked at your phone and nearly dropped it. "Holy shit, I-sorry, for the language-I need to get home." Standing up, you shoved all of your books you were showing Peter into your backpack again, and he cleared his throat while he walked you to the front door.
"I'll-uh-see you in class?" Peter shoved his hands in his pockets and opened the door for you.
"Yeah," you replied with a shy smile. "This was a lot of fun-we should do it again sometime."
"I'd like that."
"See you, Parker," you grinned, playfully poking him in the shoulder and leaving his apartment. Before you turned the corner at the end of his hall, you peeked back at him, and saw him staring after you-but quickly clearing his throat and disappearing behind his door.
And as you walked home, you began wondering what other sides of Peter there were that you never saw, ones that he didn't normally show other people. The fact alone that you were now thinking about him caused your cheeks to heat up, and with a huff, you denied your feelings.
You were not crushing on Peter Parker.
