It was eleven o'clock at night and, as per usual, you were neglecting the sleep you desperately needed in order to finish up the notes on your assigned reading novel that were due in just a few short hours. You were never one to finish tasks, especially menial ones such as homework, in a timely fashion. This was just the tip of the iceberg. You briefly took off your glasses, rubbing your tired eyes that were now struggling to focus on the words in front of you properly. When you slipped them back over your nose, glancing up toward your bedroom window that lead out to the fire escape, you saw the familiar face of your best friend peering in through the glass in a way that was only slightly creepy.
Peter knocked rapidly on the glass, waving at you in the typical, hyperactive way that he always had about him. You jumped off your bed, reaching out to shut your bedroom door before walking over to the bay window and unlocking it. A rush of cold winter air nipped at your face the minute it swung open and Peter Parker shoved himself through. Visits from him in this particular manner were common, especially after a day's work of fighting crime throughout various parts of New York, but not usually this late- and never without a text to alert you first.
"You must be freezing," you shivered, closing the window quickly. "How long were you out there?" Making yourself comfortable on your bed once again, you propped open your book, ready to force him into helping you study. He didn't answer. Instead, he drew his sweatshirt closer to his body, sliding to the floor beside your bed and leaning his head against the soft duvet. His curls were sticking up in every direction when he pulled his hood away, his cheeks and the tip of his nose a brilliant shade of red, but not from the bitter chill that was sweeping mercilessly over Queens.
You heard a distinct sniff, then another, then another. His breathing, already shallow from the frantic climbing he had done to reach your fire escape, became even more labored. He pulled his knees to his chest to hide his face. He felt you press yourself against him, your arms around his shoulders and across his chest before he could pull away in embarrassment. Your glasses creaked when they pushed too far into his shoulder. Neither of you moved. You clung to him and he sat there, silently shaking and leaning into your embrace as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
"Hey, hey, shh, shh, Peter, you're okay," you whispered, rubbing his back. "I've got you, I promise. You've gotta breathe, though, okay?" He was always ashamed of his sensitivity, but he couldn't help it. He was a sensitive boy and he cried easily and had an awful lot of anxiety sometimes. Today was one of those days, with good reason. He nodded stiffly, maneuvering himself to hug you back, face pressed into your shoulder this time.
"It's... the anniversary," he said, his voice broken. "One year." Hollow. "One year since- since Ben. One year tomorrow."
He pulled away, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his oversized sweatshirt. There were traces of tears still making their way down his cheeks, sliding across his nose and down to his lips. He tried to rub them away, too, but you caught his wrist in your hand.
"You're not wrong or less of a dude for crying, Peter." The way you looked at him, so lovely and caring and worried, made his heart cry out for the safety of your embrace again. "Were you at the cemetery?" You matched his stance and rested the side of your cheek on your knee, still carefully studying his face.
"Yeah," he exhaled, placing his chin in his palm. "I'm gonna go again in the morning with May. Gonna miss school. I- I probably should've, um, stayed with her tonight but I..." he trailed off, "I needed you." He said it as he said most things to you, with his soft tone of voice and his hesitance that made him, him. He never really noticed until now.
"What are best friends for, right?"
"Yeah. Best friends."
Ignoring the odd way those two words slipped out of his mouth, you said, "I'm sorry, Peter. I know you loved Uncle Ben so much. I'm sorry, you don't deserve this. You and May don't deserve this." You reached out to him, your hand gripping his without an ounce of doubt. You had small hands and he didn't but he felt a thousand times better when yours found his. "I'm always here for you. Do you wanna talk about it?"
Surprisingly, he shook his head adamantly. "No, no." He squeezed your hand. "I kind of, um, just wanna go to bed. Crying like a little baby really tires a guy out, you know?" He gave a weak laugh, a tiny grin, and you smiled right back at him before pulling him to his feet. "Can I use the bathroom?" He needed to wash the sticky feeling of dry tears off his face, rub the sadness out of his eyes. He wanted to be strong for May when he got back in the morning.
"Of course, just be quiet. Mom and dad are asleep." You padded across your rug and opened your door a crack, holding it in a specific way so that it wouldn't creak when you let Peter through. He gave you a grateful squeeze of the hand again before disappearing into the bathroom.
He splashed water on his face, staring up at his reflection, at the water dripping off his eyelashes and the curling ends of the hair that was plastered to his forehead. He rubbed at his face and took a deep breath. He wasn't going to cry anymore. You had sufficiently comforted him for the night. Peter could breathe again.
Peter quietly walked back down the hallway and into your bedroom, watching for a second as you pulled spare blankets down from a shelf in your closet and arranged them on your bay window. You had cleared your bed of your school supplies and had left the covers open for Peter to crawl into without a second though. Which he did. Your covers smelled quite lovely, actually. It was the scent of your perfume that you wore often enough for him to recognize the scent, and he wanted to fall asleep under the inviting covers that were laid out for him. Then, he saw you sit atop your window, about to lie down.
"Wait, why are you doing that?" He got out of bed and took your hand for the third time that night, growing accustomed to the feeling of it. He pulled you over to your bed. "You're not sleeping on a stupid window. That's ridiculous. I'll take the window." He spun you around and ignored the protestant noise you made, gripping your shoulders and sitting you down on the bed.
"I'm not letting you take the window, either!" You argued, yanking him back down on the bed. He huffed, glaring at you in a teasing manner. "C'mon, just take the bed. You need it more than I do." His glare dropped to his lap, an idea rolling around in his head. "What?"
"Y/N, how about we just both take the bed?" He said finally, lifting his eyes back to yours. He wasn't sure what made him say it, why he didn't just take the floor like he probably should have, but the words were out there in the world and there wasn't a way to take them back now. You bit your lip, then shrugged, scooting over.
"It is big enough for the two of us." You turned away from him, turning off your lamp and getting under the covers. You heard Peter slide in next to you, but your back was toward him until he poked you sharply. "What's wrong, Peter?"
"Can you- um, well-"
You flipped over on your side, just barely making out his face in the darkness of your room. "Do you want me to cuddle you?" Though you said in a teasing sort of tone, you were silently quite pleased when he mumbled a reluctant yes. You moved closer, one arm going around his waist and the other underneath him. Your head was on his chest, listening to the resilient beating of his heart. He placed his chin atop your head. He focused on the sound of your steady breaths until you were sleeping peacefully beside him.
He was so grateful for you- the person who stood by his side throughout anything and everything. You, so strong and beautiful and brave and comforting in his times of distress. You, who never seemed to waver in your loyalty to him. You, the very picture of loveliness and a girl who he'd very much like to-
His eyes flew open, and he almost jumped away from you. He didn't want to risk you awakening, though, so he stayed put, freaking out internally rather than externally the way he was prone to doing. He had been thinking of kissing you. That was what he was going to say. Kiss. The thought had come so simply to his brain it was like he already thought the same thing for years. Maybe he had. It wasn't like he was blind. You were a stunning girl, even if you didn't think so yourself, you were his best friend, you were practically perfect and Peter would be an idiot to not adore you the way that he did.
Adore, adore, adore. Oh, boy. Peter glanced down at you, sleeping in his arms, and confirmed what he had so stupidly never noticed before. His infinitesimal, brief affection for Liz Allen had absolutely nothing on his all encompassing love for you.
Peter bid you goodbye that morning at six thirty sharp, before either of your parents had woken up for work. Before he slipped out your window and into the cracks early morning sunlight, he had pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to your cheek. It was only the briefest touch of his lips to your face, but you had held your face, right in that spot, for practically the entire day. Ned had questioned why, but you brushed him off with an answer of exhaustion.
The day after that, Peter returned to school, dragging Ned off to the side as soon as he stepped off the train platform. He had waited for the other boy purposely, seeking advice.
"I have a huge, gigantic, terrible awful problem right now, Ned!" He exclaimed as soon as he saw him, throwing his hands up in the air. "I need help."
"Psychiatric help," Michelle supplied, appearing out of nowhere as she usually did before walking down the path to school.
Ned shrugged. "She's not wrong."
Peter, frantic, seized Ned's shoulders and shook him. "This is not a roast Peter session! This a cry for help! Help me, Ned Leeds!"
"Am I your only hope?" Peter wanted to scream.
"This isn't the time for Star Wars puns, either!" Not waiting for Ned to quip back that every time was Star Wars time, Peter said, loudly, "I'm in love with Y/N and I don't know what to do!" He ran his hands in his hair, wanting to pull it out. "I just- I just realized the other night! Everything just kind of, like, clicked and I've been so stupid. I should've realized it before, but of course I didn't and now I have no idea what to do!"
"Wait, dude, you seriously have never noticed this before? Are you kidding me? Peter, you're supposed to be the genius of the school. I feel let down." Ned shook his head solemnly. "Dude, everyone knows you love her. Even Flash. That's why he picks on her all the time. He likes pissing you off and nothing gets under your skin more than someone messing with Y/N. She's the first one you told about being Spider-Man, you go to her for all your problems, you practically pee yourself racing to be her partner for almost everything- not science because science is our subject, but still. I figured you knew you loved her and just didn't wanna talk about it because she's out of your league."
"Hey! I am not-" He stopped. "So what if I am? That's not even the point. The point is that I love her. Me realizing it was inevitable, even if it took me like eighty years to get there. Doesn't matter. I've gotta tell her, right?"
"You totally should," Ned encouraged. "She's definitely in love with you, too."
Hopefully, Peter grinned. "You really think so?"
"Anything's possible!"
"The reassurance you give me is suffocating, Ned. Stop before I die."
That day in gym class, Ned and Peter went off to the side to pretend they were doing stretches while you sat with Michelle and conversed about literature for the first half of the period. Your conversation, however, soon led off into other directions.
"Hey, MJ, have you ever... I don't know, been in love?"
Michelle raised her eyebrows. "Only with crushing the patriarchy. Why? Have you?" The intuitive girl already knew your answer, of course, but she was invested in you and Peter's love story and was desperate to hear the truth from your own lips.
You played with the hem of your shirt, thinking. Peter and Ned casually inched closer, having been listening to the conversation for quite sometime now. They were unapologetically nosy. "I think I am."
"With who?" Peter clasped his hands together, silently pleading with the universe to grant him this one wish. I promise, universe, I'll never ask for anything ever again in my whole life if you just let this girl love me back I swear I'll be the best Spider-Man there ever was and I'll protect New York until I'm eighty five just please oh my god please-
"With Peter."
The gasp he let out was involuntary, but you didn't hear him. He turned to Ned, his expression of shock, as well as elation, mirroring Peter's own. Suddenly, Ned stood, shouting for the entire gym class to hear, "Y/N! Peter loves you too!" You looked up, Michelle's happy and knowing smirk going unnoticed by you because the only thing you could focus on was Peter and what Ned had just declared.
The gym fell silent, every student turning to stare at you and Peter. You were frozen in shock up until the bell rang and everyone filed out quickly, leaving you and Peter alone.
"Did he mean it?" You asked, your sneakers squeaking against the floor as you closed the distance between you and Peter, your head tilted to meet his.
"It's the truest thing anyone has ever said." His lips met yours, and the slant of his mouth against your own was a feeling you could definitely come to adore more than you already did after just one kiss.
