Ink was smeared across your fingertips, significant frown lines were beginning to appear in that strained space between your eyebrows, and a dark, hazy cloud had seemed to take up a permanent residence above your head. A figurative cloud, of course, but a nuisance nonetheless. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever cause you more stress than the upcoming exams, exams that were less than a week away and causing an absolutely frantic wave of utter distress to wash over the students at Midtown.
You were running yourself ragged with all the studying you were doing. You had review classes two hours a day, every day, after school. On weekends, you holed up in your room for hours with piles of textbooks and a multitude of web pages pulled up on your Mac all corresponding with what topic you were cramming for that night. You were more than panicked about your finals. There was a final for every subject, in addition to the regents examinations for Chemistry, Geometry, and Global History II.
Failure, you were beginning to think as you sat up at midnight once again with your notes in scattered piles in front of you, was inevitable. All this studying was making your brain go numb. You could barely concentrate in class, you fell asleep twice in one English lesson, you were skipping lunch to sit in the library with your earbuds crammed in your ears as you tried to reteach yourself nine months' worth of Chemistry notes, and your social life had effectively slipped into the deepest pits of Hell.
Stressed and exhausted were no longer the correct words to use when describing your current mental state. You were pretty much a walking ball of anxiety.
This was a fact that, just for the record, did not go unnoticed by Peter Parker. He was attentive like that. He was also surprisingly good at reading people. Well, not everyone. Mostly just you, and sometimes Ned. Ned was easy to read in general, though. You were harder to crack, but he always got there eventually, and he was nothing if not determined to get you to open up to him.
"Hiiiiiii, Y/N," he sang, that bubbly grin plastered on his face as he slid into the seat beside you in the cafeteria. His grin faltered at the sight of your own frown, a look that seemed to never leave you these days. Your fingers pinched the bridge of your nose and you were squinting at the pages open in front of you. "Hey, are you okay?" He waved a hand in front of your face. You blinked, seeming to snap out of whatever trance you had slipped into. "Maybe you should take a break," Peter took the book out of your line of vision, but you grabbed it back before he could put into his bag.
"No, no, Peter, I'm fine," you insisted, finding the page you had just been on and propping the book up in front of you was once more. "Just gotta study." You gave him a smile that was less than convincing.
"You look exhausted."
You turned your cheek away from him, slightly embarrassed. You knew the dark circles that had rooted underneath your skin were beginning to look pretty scary, but you thought you had covered them well enough for the day with the make up you had bought at the drugstore for that specific purpose. "Wow, Pete, you're quite the charmer these days, aren't you?" You replied dryly, rubbing the drowsiness from your eyes as you flipped the page. You let out an involuntary yawn, quickly covering your mouth.
The tips of his ears turned red. He wasn't trying to be rude, he was just worried. "You know I didn't mean it like that." You did, didn't you?" He placed a hand over yours, the one reaching forward to turn another page. "Tell me one thing you just read on that page before you flip to the next."
You panicked. "Uh- um, well, you know, something about, like, the- um, the, you know, kinetics, and, umm, equilibrium?" It was a good guess.
Or, rather, it would have been, if the book that was opened was a Chemistry textbook and not a Geometry one. Peter raised his eyebrows, showing you the cover of the book. You groaned, covering your face in your hands, elbows propped up on the table. "That's it. I quit. I'm gonna fail and go to summer school and then I'm gonna fail summer school and drop out of Midtown before I turn sixteen and be disowned by my parents who expect so much and have to work in a brothel in Germany and live out the rest of my days alone and stupid." He heard you sniffle, though it was a soft and muffled sound.
Trying to make you laugh, he said, "I hear Germany is really nice these days."
This was the wrong to say, naturally.
You lifted your head, a glare to rival the wrath of even the angriest God upon your face. Peter slowly slid away from you. "You're so dumb sometimes, Peter." You shook your head, running a hand through your already messy head of hair.
He went to protest, then didn't. "Yeah, you're not wrong." He resumed his seat beside you, closer than he had been before. His fingers tapped against the top of the table as he cast anxious glances at you every few seconds. Finally, he said, "Okay, I'll just say it right now. I'm worried about you." Peter slid his hand into yours urgently. You didn't move, keeping your hand perfectly still. The feeling of his warm, surprisingly soft palm in yours wasn't unfamiliar. Peter was a notorious hand-holder. He held your hand so often it was almost strange to find him not doing so. This time, though, he wasn't holding it to joke around about not being able to cross the street without a hand to hold, or because he needed to drag you off quickly so he could show you something ridiculous and slightly time-wasting.
In fact, it probably hadn't been necessary to hold your hand in this moment, but he held it anyway, secure, and that was what made it different. That's what made your heart jump oddly in your chest and your stomach clench uneasily. This was uncharted territory.
"You don't even know what you're reading right now," he said in a quiet manner, always gentle with you in moments where he knew you were in a fragile state of mind. "I think you need to take a break. For yourself, not 'cause I want you to. You're gonna burn yourself out like you always do. I know you and that's what always winds up happening so could you please just take a breather?" He pried the textbook from underneath your free hand and managed to get into his own bag without a word of protest.
"Yeah, all right," you sighed, rubbing your aching temples. Your skull never ceased its pounding these days. The ache of it had become an unfortunate constant and while it was now a familiar part of you, it never stopped being irritating. "I'm pretty tired," you admitted, defeated.
"See? Stop trying to hide things from me. I know you too well," he gave you a warm smile, like the sun beaming down on your face, and then realized your hand was still encapsulated in his own. He looked at you to move first, but neither of you did.
"Whatever," you scoffed playfully, shrugging your shoulders. "I'm just gonna sit back and accept my failure. Seems to be the only option."
Peter shook his head adamantly, taking both his hands and placing them on your shoulders. "Y/N, you're being ridiculous. You are the single smartest person I know. If anyone is going to pass their exams with flying colors, it's you, you beautiful genius. You're incredible at literally everything you do. This isn't going to be any different." He usually saved his fair share of gushing for the confines of his bedroom when it was just him, Ned, and the growing adoration he had for you tingling in the air between him and his best friend as he did nothing but talk about of you. He figured now was as good a time as any to reveal that he thought you were the amazing person to ever grace this universe with your presence.
In another moment, perhaps, you would've flushed with pride and grinned your brightest grin, given Peter the tightest hug you could manage, kissed the lovely boy on the cheek and tell him that you thought the world of him and more. But you just couldn't. It was those words that were making you stressed, because it was the same thing your parents thought of you, what your friends thought of you, your teachers, your classmates, everyone just expected greatness from you because of the high levels of your typical academic capabilities. You pretty much sat there staring at him for a good second before starting to cry.
Peter, frantic, rushed to put his arms around you. He didn't know what the hell he said to make you burst into tears but what he did know was that he was even dumber than he thought he was, at least in social situations. "Oh, God, Y/N, I didn't mean to make you cry oh my God I'm really sorry I just think you're so smart and I have so much faith in you I didn't mean to make you upset I'm sorry," he said quickly, his voice muffled in your hair. He rubbed your back in a slightly awkward way, but you knew he was trying.
"Not- not your fault, Peter," you mumbled, pulling away. You wiped your face. "Sorry... ugh, I'm really sorry. It's just so stupid," you cried out miserably, taking the sleeves of your sweater and wrapping yourself in your own protective embrace, sort of missing Peter's.
"C'mon," he touched a hand to your shoulder. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Your feelings are valid and you can tell me anything and I'm really worried now so, please tell me what's going on." Sweet, caring Peter.
Before you could think better of it, you blurted it all out, spilling your heart out to the boy in front of you and hoping he wouldn't brush you off like you knew anyone else would. "Well, it's just that everyone has such high expectations of me and everyone thinks I'm just automatically gonna pass everything and that I don't need help and that everything just comes so easily to me, like I just sit down at a test and automatically get an A which isn't the case. I bust my ass to get the grades that I do and I'm not a natural genius like you are, I have to study for hours to score the grades that I do and I work on essays for weeks before I turn them in so I know that they're perfect. I work really hard and no one thinks that I do and everyone assumes I'm going to be perfect and everything but I'm not I'm like dying over here and I'm drowning in school work and I don't know how to ask for help because I've never had to before and I don't wanna admit it but I've burned myself out and I need help, Peter."
You were so small in that moment, your voice quieter than he had ever heard it and so much more vulnerable than he had ever known you to be. Peter lifted his hand to your face, his thumb caressing it softly. Gentle Peter. Gosh, you adored him. "Y/N, I said those things because I know them to be true. You are- you're the best person I've ever met, all right? The amount of faith I have in you is ridiculous. You've gotten through tough situations before and you'll get through this one, too. You're not alone in this." He took a breath. "You have me. Always have. Always will. Okay? You've got me. I believe in you. Your intelligence is undeniable." Evidently, so were his feelings for you.
Absolutely undeniable.
Your hand met his, fingers curving around him. "That really means a lot." His shy smile peeked out again as he brought his hand down, reluctant. "Peter, I-"
"I like you." Your voices ran together, and the blush that slid across his cheeks was effortless. "Oh." You said it again, together, as you did most things. You laughed at the same time, that pure elation that came from new love now pumping from your heart and making its way into your bloodstream.
Peter played with a strand of your hair that swept over your shoulder, his fingers twisting it around absentmindedly. Without looking at you, happy that you reciprocated his long hidden feelings but still nervous as ever to be with you, he asked, "Would you- would you maybe... want to go... on a date, with, um, with me?" He lightly tapped his chest. It was a silly question, maybe, because you had just told him that you liked him back, but he had to ask. It'd be improper of him not to.
This time, it was you pulling him toward you, your lips hovering over his for just a second. "I would love to go on a date with you, Peter." You leaned forward to press your lips to his, only for a brief moment. You didn't want to make a scene in front of the entire school, not just yet.
His lips followed yours even after you pulled back. A slight pout fell upon him when you were no longer kissing him, but he recovered quickly. "Oh, wow, um, that's great. That's so great. Would you, um, wanna be my girlfriend, then? Maybe? Possibly? I just like you so much and I always have and being your boyfriend would probably make me the happiest person in the entire universe, which is really big, just so you know-"
You placed your finger on his lips, silencing his babble. "I'm all yours."
"I think I'm gonna pass out from happiness." A dork through and through, but nevertheless, your dork now, and your love for this idiot in front of you, his face alight with joy, was something inherently undeniable.
