Peter Parker Imagines

68. Begin Again - Part Six

a/n: oh this is gon HURT hahaha but it's nothing compared to what's coming

warnings: language, angst, death mentions/allusions, ptsd/anxiety 

my requests are CLOSED

Your first semester of college ended faster than you would've expected. The last week before winter break you only had two finals - your photography class just wanted the project turned in online, and one of your other classes didn't require a final and let you off early. 

The project was submitted and graded within the first week, your exams went by fairly easily, and the holidays and new year came and went with barely a blink. Before you knew it you were done with your first semester and getting ready for your second.

And Peter didn't speak to you all of break.

He didn't send you a goodnight text the night you got home after he basically ran from you, like he normally did. You sent one anyway, thinking maybe he had just been out being Spider-Man and forgot. 

He never responded.

You had texted him the next day asking if he was alright, still getting no response. The whole day you were on edge, thinking something bad had happened to him when he was patrolling - but then you saw a news story about Spider-Man saving some people from a bank robbery, and knew he was alright. 

Then your worry turned to confusion. Why would he ignore you? He's never ignored you, even back when he was mopey and closed off. You didn't have your read receipts on but you knew he must have read your texts. You even tried calling him a few times, and after a while they went straight to voicemail.

You had a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach the last time you saw him, almost like your body was warning you that something would happen. The guilty look on his face when he left wasn't reassuring either.

It was obvious to you now that he was ignoring you on purpose. After a week of no response, you decided to stop trying. What were you going to do if he wanted to be left alone? It sucked, it really did, and you felt a pang of hurt every time you opened your phone to see no new texts from him, but what were you going to do?

You did have a life outside Peter Parker, and it wasn't going to stop just because he was ignoring you.

The new semester started (with nearly three weeks of no word from Peter) and the newspaper kept you busy. It wasn't like you were getting good shots of Spider-Man, either - as much as Peter was avoiding you around campus, he also did it while he was dressed up in his spandex, and you could never seem to find the guy. So you resorted to scrambling to find small news stories on campus or around the city that you could partner with a writer for to photograph before Harry could. 

The lack of classes shared with Peter made it easier for him to avoid you - there were times you considered just going and knocking on his door, but you didn't know his new schedule. Not that he would answer even if he was home.

It wasn't like you didn't have friends or anyone to hang out with, but Peter meant a lot to you. You only knew him a semester but he had been shaping up to be one of your best friends, and you let yourself think that maybe it could turn out to be something more. He had let you in a little, shown you the home he grew up in and the person who raised him, only for him to immediately shut you out right after.

None of it made sense to you.

-

Peter sat with his legs crossed, fingers tapping his knee and the grass underneath him. He didn't care that it was freezing or that he was in his suit or that the grass was wet and disgusting or that it was nearly three in the morning.