I Can't Make You Love Me || Peter Parker x OC

Chapter 12: Inhale Fire, Exhale Desire

Credit to Twenty-One Pilots and the lyrics to their song Car Radio for the title of this chapter (Love them)

Anneliesa's perspective

By the time I had even thought to process my mistake, it was already over and the cat was out of the bag without a doubt. Some childishly naive and pensive area of my brain tried to convince me that Peter may not have noticed, and that even if he did, he may not make the connection right away. That part of my brain was dumb. Peter was one of the most clever people that I knew, as well as a trained superhero. If he gets any piece of information, no matter how unassuming it may seem, he is going to go to the ends of the earth and back to get some answers and order from it.

Not too long of a story made very short, I'm screwed.

Peter was back from my room no more than 30 seconds later, and the expression on his face was no different than it was before. Just like his tone when we first got back to my apartment, the neutrality and passive nature of him as a whole set off alarms for me. Peter was too observant to not see the engravings, and he was too well-versed with his fellow Avengers to not connect the dots between Dean's partial spil-up and finally seeing my full name.

"Thanks for doing that. I'll check in on it again in a few hours once it charges a bit." I scared myself a little with how easily the fear in my voice and every emotion that I was feeling was able to be covered up immediately. Separating myself from the shell that I built around myself throughout my life wasn't as cut and dry as I wanted it to be when I'm around Peter.

"Oh, no problem. Hope it's okay." He didn't smile at me as he sat down, but his mood wasn't closed of either.

The air and the tension that was rapidly traipsing into it was suffocating me as I sat there. He was acting like nothing had happened, but I knew better than to fall victim to the easy way out of this. I just wasn't ready to face the reality of any of this, I couldn't make myself bring it up. Peter hates me, he would have to now, right? I practically lied to him.

"...How much longer do you think you're going to be staying?" Even light conversation wasn't enough to keep me from drowning in my anxious nerves.

"I dunno, a few days maybe? Is that a problem for you?"

"No, not at all. Just curious." Curious about how I can get you to stay here with me forever, yeah.

"Alright, cool. I can't stay here forever because I have to finish up school, work with Mr. Stark, and all that jazz. But I really meant it when I said that I want to stay around you after this. You're...nice to be around."

Even when you know my secret?

"Uh, thanks. You're not too bad to be around, yourself."

Silence followed us and seeped into my lungs like water if I were drowning. Burning fires of guilt and dread were battling inside of me, making every inhale feel like razor blades inside of my chest, and every exhale like molten lava in my nostrils. There's no actual way that anything could be wrong with me, and I understood that on some level, but I felt like I was dying.

"I shouldn't have kissed you!"

"I saw what was on your watch."

Both of us seemed to explode out, speaking over each other in such a panicky and jittery way that no legible words were discernible in the vocal chaos.

"Really?!" Both of us spoke in unintentional tandem, in utter disbelief of what the other had just admitted.

Peter, despite seeing my total breakdown after doing so, couldn't believe that I regretted kissing him on the playground. And I, despite knowing for a fact that my big secret was no longer secret, couldn't accept actually hearing him say it aloud. My head snapped up just in time to see him do the same, our lines of sight clashing together in an almost painful way.