Peter Parker One Shots

Petrichor

"I'm not giving up Spider-Man for you!"

Peter's eyes were bright fire, burning embers packed into two powerful orbs that sent me flinching back. Hands clenched into fists at his side and distance from me long in a way that made my stomach curl, he spoke softer, "If you can't accept it...then go."

A sound comes from my parted lips. A gasp of surprise or a whimper, it's one that resembles the crack that appears against my heart. His words are a slap - no, they're a blow to my side with a sword - and no amount of clearing my throat gets the lump dislodged from it. My eyes burned and in seconds I knew hot tears would tumble from them. I didn't want him to see them, have the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me, so I gave up my fight. I've never been good at reciprocating fire, especially when it came to those I loved. Peter fell into the deepest part of that category.

Without a word, I grabbed my bag and left. The flood came the second the elevator doors shielded me from his floor.

For my seventh birthday, my mom got me a fish.

A beautiful betta fish a shade of indigo I'd never seen before, named Shimmer by my young mind. For months I'd kept her alive on my own, talking through the glass bowl lit up on my nightstand for hours after I returned home from school. Shimmer was my first friend, my best friend and though she never talked back, I loved her.

I cried for weeks after she died.

My parents thought there was something wrong with me, asking around their friend circles to see if any of their children broke after a pet died. I learned that I grew attached to things quickly, especially after I named a boy my best friend for picking up a yellow crayon of mine. And later, when that boy moved away, I found that when I lost those I was attached to, it was painful.

Leaving that apartment physically hurt me. Days have passed one after another, I've never been thankful that Christmas break has begun - and that's saying something. I sit around in Peter's Midtown School of Science and Technology sweatshirt and wish that we could be spending our time away from school together. Plans of binge-watching the Star Wars movies morphed into stuffing my face with ice cream and playing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on a loop until I've run out of tears to cry.

I haven't yet.

I don't know if we've broken up or are on some kind of break but I feel like I've lost Shimmer all over again. My chest is tight with a pressure that only fits the definition of ache and my head has been pounding since I pulled into the parking garage of my apartment complex.

"Just go."

I wipe at my cheek with a dark blue sleeve pulled over my fingertips and unload another spoonful of cookie dough ice cream into my mouth. My attachment to it does nothing to soothe my garbage mood. Rain splashes against the windows in harsh strokes, the battering of it on the fire escape outside the glass creating a symphony of soft clangs that soothe my bones. I curl in on myself, finding no shame in inhaling the scent engraved in the threads of Peter's sweatshirt. A sweet smell, subdued by something I've never been able to place. I allow my lashes to flutter and shield my eyes from the poignant scene that's been drawing away all my happy energy and replacing it with something worse.

A powerful knock at the door draws me from the haze of content I'd constructed.

Groan slipping past my lips without sanction, I burrow further into my arms and convince myself that I just imagined the sound. The aroma of Peter brings the image of him to the black of my eyelids and comfort flows in waves as I watch the colors splash against each other, painting a picture of a boy laughing, blushing.