Be it totally and completely out of the blue, you awaken one bright, blazing Tuesday morning in early November, brisk chill whipping through the air, and decide that later that night, when you see him somewhere that isn't so public and academic like, you're going to kiss Peter Benjamin Parker.
You're not quite sure what brings it on, perhaps you should just leave it to the raging teenage hormones that the doctors and psychologists and guidance counselors blame everything on, but another part of you understands that this longing, yearning, to let yourself fall in love with your best friend is something far from foreign or new. This loving feels familiar to you, like coming back home after vacations far away and far too long, and it's warmth in the way that burrowing under your blankets when the chill settles into your bones is. Boys like Peter demand to be adored, and they demand to be kissed as if never before. You'd be damned if you let such prime opportunities escape your grasp, or rather, your lips.
The hours in school glide by, which was, admittedly, utterly surprising. Typically, when you're anticipating something later in the day, any hours before the event that is to transpire drag on as if you're not impatient, as if you can wait all day without a complaint. But suddenly it's last period, then two-thirty rolls around and you're bounding over to your locker where your best friend awaits you, rocking slightly on the heels of his feet the way he has a tendency to do when he's overexcited. This motion is arguably the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Then again, anything Peter does, the simplest actions that bear no real relevancy, is something that you mark down in your head as the cutest thing you've ever seen.
Peter glances around the halls, unable to see you through the mounds of students rushing hurriedly past him in order to relieve themselves of academia for the day as soon as possible. He pulls down the cuff of his sweater over his hands, then rethinks this and pushes them back up to his elbows. Blue looks nice on him. There are just these little things you tend to notice about him, silly things that only a person in love would pick up, and these tiny details, like the way the light catches in his eyes and the smiles he saves for certain people, make your heart bright and happy and whisper lovingly to him in a voice he can't hear. The crowd disperses considerably enough, and you manage to fight your way through the remaining throng of people loitering in the hallway for no real reason- beyond frustrating, you think, but then Peter catches your eye and his already happy demeanor increases tenfold. With a beam that practically stretches out and reaches into your heart, seizing it carefully and determinedly, Peter ambles toward you, trying to appear more relaxed than he felt, and pushes himself into your personal space, as usual, by wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into him.
"You're in a good mood," you note, because at this point in your relationship there's no need for formal greetings, as he parades you out of the building after letting go of you long enough to allow you to gear up for the cold sweeping through the borough outside the walls of Midtown. He casts a glance your way, sideways but still joyous, then shrugs, nonchalant. "You're just so happy to see me, aren't you, Pete?"
You're half joking and not expecting much until Peter gives you a little look, head tilted to the side and his eyebrows furrowed slightly like he can't believe the question is something you don't know the answer to. He gives your shoulder a squeeze. "You should know the answer to that by now!" He exclaims, mock disappointment in the head shake he gives you. "The answer is yes. We see each other for, like, two seconds at a lunch all day and that's it. I'm deprived. I miss you."
"We're together right now," you laugh, nudging into his side.
"Not enough. I see Ned twenty-four-seven, I need both of my best friends with me all day every day if I'm gonna survive the next two and a half years of high school." Your heart sort of twitches again, your palms feel warm. He has that influence over you. Love is such a strange thing sometimes, impossible to decipher or make sense of, and then other times it feels like the simplest emotion in the world, easy and steady and everything. You'll never know what to make of it. "I just miss you, okay? Don't make a big deal out of it," he jokes, rubbing your shoulder for a second before letting his hand dangle across the edge of your shoulder. You reach up to intertwine your fingers with his, the way you have millions of times before in the same seemingly intimate way, pretending as if you don't know the sweet grin that the gesture elicits from him, staring adoringly at the profile of your face like he couldn't possibly get enough of the view.
"Aw," you coo, pinching his cheek with the hand that wasn't holding his. Peter flinches away, his eyes squeezing shut and his cheeks pink. "I missed you, too, Pete. So, where are we off to today? Can we go traipse around SoHo? We haven't been in ages and oh! Look, I see the A train, it's on every corner, let's go." Before he realizes it, he's being dragged down toward the steps of the subway, his complaints about constantly getting lost there falling upon deaf ears.
Much more than a mere few hours later, Peter is shaking his head as you laugh hysterically down the block leading to your apartment building. He has a feigned look of annoyance on his face as you talk, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes. "C'mon, Peter, we didn't get lost that bad this time. Seriously, we made it to Union Square, which was right by the R train, then we took it to the mall and hopped on the M which we took to the F, ridiculously simple!" You exclaim, taking a sip from your bottle of water. "You're acting as if we, like, walked around in a circle for an hour."
"Because that's exactly what we did!" He replies, playfully punching you in the arm, but with a carefully light touch. Peter is, and has always been ever since it became a pressing issue, terribly aware of his enhanced strength and senses. He's so nervous about accidentally hurting you when his intentions were to be playful that he does everything with extra caution now, barely letting himself touch you most of the time or even give a gentle squeeze of your hand. "We did walk in a a circle for an hour! And your phone died while you were trying to use Google Maps, it was pouring rain, you got so cold I had to give you my jacket which made me cold-"
You interrupt him, "No one said you had to give me your jacket!"
He continues on his rant, pretending as if you haven't spoken even though the smirk twitching at the corners of his lips beg to differ- "we couldn't figure out where we were which is stupid since we're supposed to be New Yorkers, then finally I said to just keep walking straight, which we did until we found Union Square due to pure dumb luck." Peter watches you throw your head back and laugh, high in sound and utterly happy, and he shoves his hands deep in his pockets, a stupidly thrilled grin on his face, too. He hated that he couldn't stop grinning; it was ridiculous and it hurt his cheeks and made his eyes squint so hard they ached once he was finally able to let his mouth rest. Oh, how his heart couldn't stop hammering! He was so nervous he could hardly think straight. Peter Parker was drowning, suffocating, choking on these emotions that had been so far buried deep, deep within the recesses of his heart that he hardly knew what to do with them now that they were drifting to the surface like leaves on a pond.
You can feel his eyes on you, the soft and sweet, carefully watching gaze of Peter, and so you take the moment for your own. You're standing in front of the door to the apartment building when you whip around toward him, and he goes in for the hug like he knows what you're planning to do. Instead, you lean up, take his face in your hands and you note how cold his cheeks are as you avoid his surprised gaze. Then, you're kissing him. You are kissing Peter Parker in the way you've never kissed anyone before; it's hesitant, over too fast like it never even happened, but you kissed him and he knows you've just kissed him, but the thoughts flipping through his brain and the way his stomach is clenching doesn't allow him to form coherent sentences that you can hear and comprehend.
Instead of kissing you again, instead of lifting you up in his arms and spinning you around the street and singing like a madman because the person of his dreams seems to want him right back, he stutters for five seconds. The only words that he can manage to say are, "Thank you," before he turns back around and quite literally sprints down the block to his own apartment.
When he gets home he collapses on his bed, grunting a hello to May before he shoves his pillow over his face and screams into it, unabashed screaming that he drags out for two minutes. He pulls back, red cheeked and panting. He immediately rolls over to call Ned, begging him to come over immediately and no, Ned, he doesn't care about the comic you're in the middle of reading because this is an emergency damn it!
