not enough to save you

"What?" He mumbles, the word falling soft out of his cotton mouth.

You stir slightly in response to the grazing of his touch, and it kicks Peter-Tingle on high-alert that this was not a figment of his imagination. He's quick to un-hand you, scooting backwards towards the edge—and tumbling harshly onto the floorboards with a loud thump, snatching the sheets with him.

The noise echoes in his eardrums, curls splaying out over the floorboards, and Peter is completely frozen. In absolute cold, drowning terror, he watches you stir fully, turning around and stretching at your limbs—a dissatisfied frown perched in your lips at the sudden loss of warmth.

What has he done?

"Spider-Man?" You mumble, voice groggy, almost muffled as your nose dips deeper into the pillow, the one he occupied seconds ago.

Your gaze finally peers open, one palm coming to rub at your undereyes—before meeting his own widened, nearly terrified expression.

"You're awake." You state, as if his existence within the walls of your apartment is a daily, common occurrence. Even if he hasn’t stepped foot into his most favourite apartment, in years. "Hm, you've got brown eyes, who would've thought?"

Why is he here? Why are you so calm about this?

“I’m—so, so sorry.” His words fumble over each other, ears reddened at the tips. Feeling awfully exposed, he wraps his arms around his knees as he lifts himself into a sitting position, caving in on himself as he averts his gaze. “I don’t know why—or how—oh god. Was I hugging you? How did I even—I’m so sorry, I swear I have no clue on how I ended up here.”

Worse, he wasn't wearing a mask. Or much of anything really, aside from an old t-shirt, and Hello Kitty shorts that barely fit his thighs. As his fingers grip at the edge of the shirt, running over the hem, it hits him that these are his clothes. Ones he never stole back from your place, that he had merely assumed was lost to time.

Nothing could have prepared him for this situation, no prep-time or warnings from E.V.I.E.. He didn't have the protection of being Spider-Man and the mask that's become his second skin. No, he had landed bottom-first as bare-faced, shell-shocked Peter.

"You really don't remember how you got here?" You question, lashes fluttering shut as you struggle to stir awake. "Damn, I was wondering if you could tell me."

"No—I swear, I completely blacked out." He scrambles for a response. "Next thing I knew, I was in your bed—I can't believe I just said that."

Running a hand past the bridge of his nose, he hides pathetically behind his fingers, his best attempt of a mask against the chaotic churn of nerves bundling through his gut. He had promised to keep you safe by staying as far away as he could—aside from the daily checking of your social media pages and the occasional swing down your usual coffee shop just to see if your favourite order remained the same, but this? How was he ever going to forgive himself for it?

He hears shuffling, in the normal sense and not the heightened echoes he’s used to ever since his arachnid side started spinning out of control. Strangely, his senses have been dialed down to normal since he regained consciousness—and he can’t dumb it down to just a good rest. It has to be cause of you.

His lashes flutter against the pads of his fingers as he meets your gaze through the gaps. You face him head-on, sitting cross legged right in front of him, head tilted in innocent curiosity.

“You’re a cuddler.” You hum in acknowledgment.

He was genuinely going to be the first Spider-person to ever die of shame, not that he's met many, but he's sure Peter 1 and Peter 2 have never unknowingly climbed into the bed of their special someone because they couldn't control their own DNA evolution. A low sound escapes his throat, clenched through his teeth—completely at a lost for words.

He has no clue on what he’s supposed to do, not when there's no routine or steps to fall back on. Be Spider-Man (Mask's gone). The man the city actually wanted (One who preferably doesn't have panic attacks wearing Hello Kitty pants). Stay far away from his previous life (Scored a huge FAIL here). Get flowers for May (Done). Scroll through your social media pages (..Done). Feel the thrumming vibrations of the washing machine after patrols (Skipped, was too nauseous). Rinse and repeat.

There’s no coming back from this, and it wasn’t even in his control. He hadn’t meant to find you. The last thing he could recall before passing out in his apartment was—he had just wanted to go home. He swore that was all he intended.

“Hey.” Your voice, soft and warm, finally coaxes him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t even realised just how tight he had been clenching his eyes shut—as his gaze takes a few seconds to adjust back into colour with you in his full view.

Slowly and gently, your own fingers raise to pry his away from his face. He’s sure he has hand marks all over his skin, but you look at him with such a soft expression—he nearly keens.

“I got you. You're safe.” You reassure, repeating it as a mantra. “You’re safe here.”

His Adam’s apple bobs harshly, and he feels the tightening of his chest nearly burst at the seams. God, he missed you. All he wanted was to hug you, and tell you he was sorry—for all of it. That he hadn’t gone a single day without wanting to hear your voice, to be exactly where he was right now—that this was all he needed if he wasn’t so weak. If he wasn’t cursed.

“Sorry.” That’s all that comes out, a croak in his voice that he failed to swallow back.

Your lips quirk into a soft smile, and you look like home. He feels his muscles physically deflate in tension at the sight, something no inhibitor or invention could ever replicate. His life has been spinning out of control, and you've just set the needle aside without even blinking.

“You’re all good, Spidey.” Your voice is warm, comforting. “Aside from hogging the blankets, it wasn’t half-bad for my first sleepover with a vigilante.”

His lips part, a laugh caught in his throat—half shattered, half hopeful.

“Could you—I don’t know, explain to me what happened?” He raises his hands, gesturing to your apartment. “I can’t believe I lost control—I don’t remember anything.”

Your lips part, a small grin tucked between your lips. "If you insist."

A loud crash resounds behind you, kick-starting your frightened senses. Head whipping to the window, you spot your window ledge shoved half-way with brutal force, and a body covered in deep reds and blues on your wooden floorboards.

"Holy shit." You mutter to yourself, skillet pan still in hand, the oil coating its surface bubbling into tiny pops.

Spider-Man is in your living room. Spider-Man is spread out across your floorboards, seemingly knocked out cold, in your apartment.

Another sizzling pop snaps you out of your stump, and you realise the collapsed vigilante is your responsibility. Your fingers fumble to switch off your stove with a click, skillet haphazardly placed over the stove burner—apron still hanging around your neck as you rush towards the body. God, you hope it wasn't an actual body.

"Spider-Man?" You call out tentatively, and you're struck by how his body moves in response, the stretch of his back with that familiar logo disappearing to reveal a mop of dark brown curls.

He wasn't wearing a mask. You didn't know what you expected from a hero who seemed nearly indestructible on the news, even when in the process of being smashed into buildings by tanks, but Spider-Man looks much younger than you expected, ahead of you by at most a couple years—bearing a youth that is almost frightening.

He certainly did look battered. Bruises littered his cheek, as if he had slammed himself into bricks or concrete on the way, before he had landed himself in your apartment. Dark circles pooled as a dark shadow under his eye-bags, and his hair was a wet, clumped mess from the rain.

You didn't know where to begin—if you were even allowed to touch him to check if he's hurt, or to call a professional. Did the professionals even know who he was, of his true identity? What if you doomed New York City's most beloved vigilante to his fate, just because you made the wrong call?

Your knees meet carpet, hands trembling in indecision and nerves, coming to rest on his shoulder. At your touch, a hiss escapes his lips and you immediately snatch your hand back, clutching it at the wrist. Who were you kidding, you were the last person equipped to save a person's life—much less a hero's.

You rise halfway, head swinging around to locate your phone—when you feel an insistent pull of your apron, tripping you back to land on the carpet.

"Don't go." He whispers.

Your gaze snaps back to his face, and find his eyes open. Or at least, that's where his pupils should've been. He must be half-unconscious, with the way his eyes are blown into a darkened void, lips parted in some sort of daze.

"I'm going to get help." Your words form despite the panic arising in your chest at the state of him. Is this poisoning? What else could explain the blackened sclera, the way darkened veins coated his skin in an almost bluish-purple. "I'll be right back." You promise.

He shakes his head, almost insistently stubborn, jaw clenching in panic. "No, don't go." His grip tightens almost instantly, and you're swept by his abnormal strength with a sudden tug, tumbling on top of him. "Please."

You freeze, feeling the wet raindrops from his suit seep into the cotton of your apron. Before you even have a chance to push yourself off, his arms wrap around you protectively. Squashed between his broad chest and the tight grip of his hold, your nose is buried into the crook of his shoulder. You smell fresh detergent, sweat, and something so achingly familiar—it churns your senses into mush that it takes you a few seconds to register.

He's shaking, and almost feverishly warm.

"Spider-Man." You plead. "Listen to me. You don't look good. And I do not want a dead Spider on my conscience, so please—you have to let me go so I can find some professionals, just someone to check if you're alright."

His touch is a sizzling heat as the warmth envelopes you, almost like a weighted, heated blanket.

"No. Stay." He pleads. "Please, I don't want—I just need you."

He sounds so exhausted. Why wouldn't he be? Before he had suffocated you into this strange circumstance of a hug, his entire face had been dull in colour, sweat pooling at the curls over his forehead, and he just looked—fragile. Completely unlike the hero of the city you're used to seeing on screen, whether it be receiving the keys to the city or those cheerful quips that make its frequent rounds through the internet when he swoops in to save the day.

"Spidey." You call him gently, trying to think of how to persuade him. "—I won't leave you alone, I promise. Just let me get up, to at least fetch you a change of clothes. You're soaked."

The seconds passing by without a response, or the loosening of his muscles, feel like the longest beats of your life. Your own heart thumps along with the rise and fall of his chest, waiting with bated breath.

"Promise?" He murmurs weakly.

"I promise." You whisper. "I'm not going anywhere."

You feel the slow release of warm breath against your skin, the way his fingers tremor over the small of your back. Something in him relaxes just enough, and his arms give in, thumping heavily at his sides. You rise instantly, palms pushing at his chest and falling back onto the carpet. Feeling the wet residue of the rain coat your apron, and the side of your cheek that had been buried in his shoulder—your cheeks grow impossibly hot.

You need to snap out of it. He needs clean clothes. Yeah, that's a start.

Stumbling in your step, you rush towards your wardrobe—digging through the unorganised mess for a bag of clothes you had kept hidden in the most corner nook. One you hadn't thrown out since your first discovery of its existence, containing Hello Kitty shorts, some old, faded T-shirts—choices you would've never purchased for yourself but had for as long as you could remember.

You had run through a list of reasons for its existence, seemingly packed for an overnight guest. Maybe from that house-warming party you had thrown once before deciding you much preferred your space being reserved for only you, and someone had left their clothes mistakenly. Despite whatever plausibility or excuse—you never found the strength to throw them away. Even when you had every reason to, your mind instinctively buries the thought and the bag remained exactly where it was, kept in a zip-locked bag for it to be used by someone.

Apparently, today was its much-needed day.

Hoisting the bag over to the living room where he still laid, cheek pressed to the carpet, you’re relieved that the tension that previously consumed his expression has faded somewhat, with his lips parted slightly in slow exhales. His body seemed to be recalibrating, instinctively calming down right in the centre of your home.

Your hand comes to rest on his cheek, tapping it gently. Although his eyes with that dark void don't open, a low rumble escapes his throat—convincing you that he's still somewhat conscious.

"Hey, Spidey." You whisper. "I brought some clothes. Do you have the energy to change?"

He doesn't respond, and you poke your tongue into your cheek, analysing the length of him with dawning dread. It's no big deal, you just have to peel off this ridiculously tight suit with no zipper in sight without making it weird, and attempt at successfully pulling a T-shirt over his head.

Making your choice of a 'I Survived My Trip To NYC' graphic tee found at the top of the pile inside, your gaze switches back to the sprawled vigilante. From how heavy his arms had been earlier, rendering you immobile when pinned under them, you wouldn't dare make the mistake of assuming his weight would be easy to flip over. You could attempt to at least expose his back for you to take off that suit—assuming the costume even had a zipper.

Your long calculation apparently does the job for you as Spider-Man senses you near, and his arm curls protectively around your thigh, burying his nose into the crook below your knee. Your entire body stills, a tight grip over the tee as he gently rests his head over your knee, the soft texture of his curls brushing goosebumps against your skin. HIs body turns just enough to expose the expanse of his back—and the sight of a hidden zipper beneath that familiar symbol is a good sign.

Okay, sure. You could work with that.

He was ripped. You should've expected that, but the slow rise and fall of his chest expands the muscles across his exposed torso. You force yourself to tear your gaze away from the sight, reassuring yourself that your eyes were purely looking for possible injuries. You wouldn't go that low to check out a vigilante who was passed out in your living room.

Your fingers press into the sides of his cheeks, maneuvering his head so you could fit the opening of the tee over his head. Curls run through the white fabric before landing over his shoulder blades. It's strangely intimate, the way he's easily pliable in your hands—trusting you so completely. His lashes flutter once every few seconds, but he remains exactly where he is, body wrapped almost completely around yours—acting as a human barrier to you and the outside world—as you dress him in something soft and clean.

He's not supposed to be here, and you're not supposed to feel this protective over a stranger who dresses in two primary colours. Yet, seeing him at rest—makes you feel calm. The quiet of the apartment is a low hum rather than the empty chasm you’re used to, and your fingers run through his hair almost habitually.

You can't just leave him on the floor. There's also the latter half of his suit you don't want to deal with.

"Spidey." You whisper.

He lets out a low groan, wincing as his eyes shut tighter—burying himself deeper into your skin.

"No-no." Your hands come up to gently cup his cheek, coercing him.

His lashes part, and you're met with that same, expansive void, finding your own reflection in his gaze. He's still not quite himself, you believe—but he is able and willing to listen to you.

"I need you to put on these shorts." You gesture to the Hello Kitty pants you laid out for him. "Then, I need you to come to bed."

His brows furrow, lashes fluttering slowly as he processes your request. "Bed."

"Yes." You repeat. "You're exhausted, and I'm not leaving you on my floorboards. It's not too far, so please—help me out a little, Spidey."

His gaze doesn't blink, but you feel the shift in his muscles at your command. He stumbles as he raises himself, body slumping into you—but you steady him with your own grip. His nose buries itself once more into a crook to inhale your scent, this time being your shoulder.

"Okay." You mutter. "That's progress. Come on, up."

It takes you a couple minutes, mostly because he clings to you with every step and he is made of heavy weight. Whatever they feed the heroes of New York, it was clearly something out of limits from your measly grocery bill. By the time he managed to slip himself into those Hello Kitty shorts while you kept your gaze heavily fixated on the ceiling, making sure only to look when the waistband was tight around his torso, it wasn't long before he tripped himself face-first into your blankets. Your own body collapses beside him—equally tired as he is.

You attempt to form a pillow fort in your daze, a barrier of sorts. More for him than you, as you're sure in the morning once this side of him disappears—he'll have a much different reaction to waking up in an apartment with a stranger he doesn't know.

It gets demolished within seconds.

As if the pillows have formed a personal vendetta against him, they're thrown aggressively onto the floorboards. Your hand reaches out to grab them because you had just put them in the laundry—but your wrist is snatched too and you're tugged into his embrace.

You land back into the sheets, cheek smothered against his chest, and there he goes again, wrapping himself around you like a cocoon.

Here in your bed with his arms wrapped around you like you're his only anchor, brows furrowed tight—Spider-Man looked so human. Soft, and incredibly vulnerable. His arm still grips limply onto you even if you can feel his consciousness fading, as if the lack of contact would have you disappearing completely from his reach.

"Those pillows were meant for you, y'know." You mutter, unable to hide your amusement.

His lips curl into a stubborn pout. "Don't want them." He grumbles, words nearly incoherent with the small parting of his lips. "In my way."

You snort softly, before noting the dirt that coats his cheeks. With such a close proximity, you see everything. The soft lines at the corners of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, and just how beautiful he was.

"You've got dirt on your face." You whisper softly. "I should help you with that."

His grip tightens considerably, and you're dragged up so close to his face that your noses nearly bump into one another.

"Okay-okay. I'm not going anywhere." You feel the need to remind him, hand slowly lifting to press against his bruised cheek.

If the press of your finger-pads against the bruise was painful, he didn't show it—only burrowing his face deeper into the curve of your palm, a relieved sigh escaping his lips. The crease between his brows finally unfolds, and the years coated on his expression fades with it—leaving him looking impossibly young.

"Smells like you." He grumbles lowly, pressing the tip of his nose deeper into your palm.

Your heart skips a beat, traitorously even when you're sure he won't remember any of this by the morning.

“Do you have anyone?” You ask gently. “Someone I need to call?”

It’s heart-breaking, the way he immediately shakes his head, his curls ruffled against the sheets. For someone so beloved by the city, even in such a weakened state, he still believes that he has no one.

"Why are you here?" You murmur more for yourself, gazing openly over the fanning of his lashes over his darkened circles.

If it weren't for the expansive heat seeping from his broad chest through the cotton tee you tugged over his head, you would've believed yourself to be in the thick of a sweet, non-sensical dream.

You expect him to be fully asleep, but you hear it, low and almost inaudible. "Home."

Your heart tremors, barely able to comprehend it. "What?"

His words grow muffled against the sheets, the mess of his curls sinking deeper into the pillows—but you hear it. “Wanted to come home.”

Peter watches as you wring a cloth of its excess water over the sink, and the familiarity is dangerously luring. How many times has he sat here on your couch, watching as you prepped a medicine kit or a towel after his patrols? It’s almost unfathomable how quickly the new routines, rigorous with repetition and duty, all that control—that responsibility that leashed him tight falls apart the second he is in your proximity. Where old overpowers the new, because there is nothing he craves more than this. The past—the memories that became more present than reminder, when his own life had pressed ‘pause’ the moment he lost you.

He should’ve insisted on leaving when you offered to clean up the dirt that still coated his face. He should’ve shattered the hope that gleamed in your eyes when he gave you the barest nod, knowing how dangerous that fleeting belief could be when his own had never held value.

He did none of what he was supposed to do—and he didn’t even have the gull to feel ashamed for it, taking in the sight of you with unconditional hunger, absorbing every trace of movement and the way your voice resonated in the hearth of your home. He belonged in your life once, the same way the remains of his old t-shirts were kept in your wardrobe, or how the bathroom door still has the replaced hinges he fixed once on your third home date. There’s him all around, and the sight was its own guilty pleasure that the universe hadn’t completely stripped away the parts of him that used to exist in your life.

"You didn't do anything." You reassure him from across the kitchen counter. "Trust me, when you showed up in my apartment—you weren't in a state of anything other than being near-collapse."

His expression contorts. As if he needed more reasons to hate these new changes to his body—messing up all that is predictable. Predictable is good. It's safe. What isn't within even the remote levels of safe, is forcing you to look after him the entire night because he isn't even in control of his own body.

You stop in front of him, brushing some magazines and half-littered candy wrappers to the side as you sit on the coffee-table, knees brushing against his.

"Breathe." You murmur softly, eyes crinkling with a soft teasing expression.

He hadn't even realised he was holding his breath, being so close to you that it makes him feel faint. Oxygen swoops back into his lungs, his chest rising and falling as he stares at you openly with his mouth slightly gaped.

The cloth in hand raises to press against his cheek, and he feels the slight sting of its cool temperature against the warmth of his skin, the bruise above his cheekbone.

It doesn't truly register for him, not when you're staring at him so keenly he feels the need to ask. "What?"

"I just didn't expect Spider-Man to be so—" You struggle to find the words. "Human. I don't know. I suppose that sounds stupid, but you could pass by me in a coffee shop and I'd just sum you up as a cute stranger I'd never see again, not an actual crime-fighting vigilante."

The two of you were together, so it shouldn’t have struck him with elated surprise to hear it, but the admission that you still found him—he feels sixteen again, taken back to when you had first pressed a kiss onto his cheek and he understood immediately on what it meant to fall in love so completely that you could never look back.

You're too focused on dapping the wet cloth to notice his widened gaze, or the way he swallows dryly—licking at his lips. "You think I'm cute?"

"I mean—this entire time, I half-expected Spider-Man to be at least half-spider. Plus, I have eyes." You tease, your fingers gently brushing the wet cloth over the darkened soot across his cheek, rubbing off the marks. "I meant to do this last night, but you kept protesting when I tried to leave the bed. Clinging onto me—"

"Okay, okay." He raises his hand, catching you by the wrist. He's definitely flustered now. "I don't need to hear the details. I believe you."

You snort softly. "Thought you wanted the full story."

"Yeah, summed up—minus the details." He splutters. "I'm already dying inside from shame, and I've definitely ruined my impression with you forever."

"That's not true." You hum.

He blinks slowly, processing your words.

"There's no shame in reaching out for help, hero or not. I know you’re under a lot of public scrutiny but—it doesn't change who you are, y'know? You're deserving of support, just as much as everyone else. Even if the world expects you to be a hero—" You state. "You're still a person, and it seemed like you really needed someone."

He stiffens, jaw tightening as his eyes avert from yours to pinpoint his focus elsewhere—anywhere but you.

"You're not just someone." He mumbles lowly.

The press of the cloth against his cheek falters. "What?"

"You're—" His voice trails off, jaw clenching tight. “You weren’t scared of me?”

He understands how he can get when he loses control. The way his vision blacks out, and how his mind caves into silence—with his body moving on instinct rather than command. The reflection of a monster in the mirror, everything he swore not to be. The version of him that snuck into your apartment, clinging onto you as a lifeline—was stripped of the rules and promises he had made to keep everything together.

It was him at his most selfish—doing what his instincts pleaded—no, begged for him to do, and he had caved in for all of it. That's why he's here, and why you're staring with an expression he didn't dare uncover.

“I think you’re a lot more scared of yourself right now than I am.” You answer truthfully. “You were in a lot of pain. The last thing I would be was scared, when all you needed was someone to look out for you. Even if it's just for a little while.”

"I—" What is he supposed to say to that? That you're right on, and you've always been even without knowing who he is, and that he's been losing himself ever since he lost you? He swallows thickly. "I haven't been myself lately."

Your fingers tighten imperceptibly, grounding him. "You're still you, maybe you've just been putting aside what reminds you of that. I'm no vigilante, but working yourself to the bone and collapsing in a stranger's apartment—I think that's a signal for a horrible work-life balance."

"I have been resting." He argues. "I get enough hours, I have proof."

"Yeah, that's definitely why you slept like a log last night."

His lips part, gaze finally meeting yours, staring at you wordlessly. Eventually, a laugh escapes his lips, deepening the lines near the corners of his eyes. It's a little sad, and you wonder just how much he had to carry on his own—for a laugh to sound that broken.

"This is hard. I'm not supposed to—" He mutters, and that's the closest thing to raw honesty that you've pulled out of his mouth. "You're way too good for me."

Your smile deepens, and your fingers trace gently over his cheek where the bruise was finally fading. That must've been the mistake of it—the familiarity of muscle memory after a long patrol. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek in thank you.

It’s only when he spots your frozen expression that he realises what he's done.

"I was not supposed to do that." He mutters to himself, widened eyes locked onto the spot where he left the kiss.

You blink, and he follows the movement—staring at each other in complete silence. His expression contorts, and you can't help the giggle that bubbles out of you.

"That was—wow." You choke back on your laughter. "I think you're running out of things you're not supposed to do, Spidey."

His own gaze crinkles into a smile, abashed. "I'm sorry, I just—I wanted to thank you. It was out of habit."

"Habit—you crash into people's apartments often and give out these free kisses?" You tease. "Is it part of the job description?"

He shakes his head immediately, terrified by the suggestion. "No—no. I swear this is my first time ever doing anything like this. I got the habit from my aunt, she used to—um..."

His expression dampens considerably. "Kiss my cheek for good luck."

Your gaze softens. "She sounds sweet."

"Yeah." His laugh churns awkwardly with a wince. "You would've loved her."

You watch him, and you sense it again—that chasm that ran deeper than the surface of his winced smiles. The way he shook his head when you asked if he had anyone, and even now, the way he fumbled with his fingers as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself in your gaze—and how he hadn't suggested once since waking up that he wanted to leave.

He was waiting, the way one waits for permission to exist in a room when they haven't been invited in one for years.

"Spidey." You call out.

He whips his head to look at you, pupils still widened in some perpetual disbelief, over the fact that he was in your apartment—that you were right in front of him.

"I'm going to make breakfast." You start, not leaving room for argument. "And you're going to help me."

He blinks once, then twice in astonishment. He swallows dryly. "O-Okay."

Your smile loosens into something reserved for a vigilante you had stayed up all night checking his temperature for.

You find that Spider-Man is pretty good in making pancakes, and that he easily maneuvers himself around your kitchen as if he had already memorised the layout. Of where your favourite mugs are, and how he didn't question twice when taking out the ice-cream tub without you needing to say it.

You could narrow it down to Spidey-senses, or whatever theories that's come up on your feed for his inhuman capabilities—but could it really just be that? Could his super-human abilities be the only reason behind why the warm hazel of his eyes light into the tiniest fireworks as he watches you scourge on your pancake, smiling at him with butter at the corner of your lips—as if the sight of you eating breakfast was the most beautiful thing he's ever seen?

Or why he picked you as his destination for home, or the slip of his tongue on how you meant a great deal more to him than just a someone who so happened to let him stay the night.

You have so much to uncover, but for now, he's just a boy in a NYC graphic tee that’s his exact size, and fluorescent shorts that do nothing for his thighs. He catches your gaze on his peculiar outfit, and his own lips purse in amusement.

"Any reason for the outfit choice?" He murmurs, a knowing smile covered by his fist as he rests his chin over his wrist, head tilting slightly as he gazes at you. "It's inventive."

"Oh—" You blink. "I don't know. I kinda always had them. They don't belong to me, but I just didn't see a need to throw out free clothes."

Your lips quirk up, teasing. "Suits you though. Think you'll keep it?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I think I'll have to return it."

"Why?"

"So I can borrow it again." He suggests slowly.

You stare at him, unable to hide your growing grin. "Smooth, Spidey. Real smooth."

His gaze lights up. "Better than the cheek kiss?"

"Tons better. You could try it again—I'll see if I can adjust the scores." You tease.

"Really?" He stutters, akin to a flustered high-schooler.

"Yeah, but you'll have to tell me your name." You gesture with a point of your fork. "Can't go around giving free kisses without ID."

You meant it as a joke. You're no expert in superhero protocols, but you're sure the codenames meant no personal information spilled outside their work-life. Even when you've already seen his face, and shared a bed with him, and let him take your second favourite mug though he can't possibly know that last one. There's lines you've certainly crossed, but his name?

You part your lips to take back your impulsive request, to brush it off—only to find genuine consideration forming in his expression. Your smile falls slack in wonder. No, he wouldn't. He couldn't possibly.

Yet, he looks at you, almost peering deep into your soul. He looks at you as if he knows you, all boyish and unguarded. Whatever he sees, past the bed-hair and ice-cream smothered lips—it's worth it to him. It's worth something honest, and sacred—a truth he'll never be able to take back. It's a genuine, soft thing—a precious smile that lifts his lips, one you have no idea how brave he is for keeping. He has made his choice, and you're a part of it, always.

Peter looks at you, and he sees the only present he'll ever want. Past spells and starting-overs and stupid choices—at the centre of it all, it all becomes so simple. You—who his body sought out of instinct, who inhabited his mind with your own personal island, who had taken his heart from the first time he saw you. You're home, and no rules or lines drawn could've stopped him from returning back to you. His everything.

"Peter. Peter Parker."

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You had been on a total of three dates with one Peter Parker so far. Far too impatient for your own good, so you'd suggested his place this time, low-key, no pressure, you'll bring the wine, and he'd said yes fast, too fast, in a way you'd have found suspicious from anyone else. But not Peter.

You wanted, so badly, horrifically, to get your hands on him. You had wanted this since date one, technically, possibly since before date one, and you had spent the intervening weeks channeling that want into research and preparation, the same way you channeled everything, because if you were going to lose your mind over a boy you were at least going to do it efficiently.

First, you wore kitten heels for the occasion even though this is definitely not the right occasion, but you couldn't help yourself. They were the ones that made your ass perk up just-so and led to three seconds of Peter eyeing your legs up and down as you passed him into the elevator, and you even wore perfume that a very reputable and frankly life-changing article on The Cut described as the closest thing to a pharmaceutical aphrodisiac you can legally buy at Sephora. He had leaned over in the cramped elevator car and looked at you, wonderstruck and in that low, boyish voice of his, "You smell really good."

And you were, as of nine-forty-two p.m., extremely fucking frustrated, because none of it, not one single thing you've done, had resulted in the guy making a move.

The movie's some spin-off Star Wars movie that Peter had frantically explained before chucking it into his bootleg streaming site, laptop flickering slightly as he plopped next to you on his couch. God yeah, Rogue One was just so severely underrated, he says as one hand brushes against your shoulder, and you'd nodded along like you had any context for what he was talking about, and you'd had to press your knees together like that would help. You've already decided you're going to watch the other seven (eight? nine? you should probably know this) before you see him again, so that next time you can argue back instead of just making the interested noise you've been perfecting for the last twenty minutes.

You end up abandoning the heels. 

That was his idea, technically, a stammered offer somewhere around minute fifteen—you can, um, if your feet hurt, I don't know if they hurt, forget I said anything—that you'd accepted with a swiftness that surprised you both, unbuckling the little metal straps and easing your feet into his lap like you'd been waiting all night for permission.

Now his hand's on your ankle. His thumb does this thing, tracing little spiderwebs around your lateral malleolus, and you're so fine. So okay with this progression, totally.

"You can talk during it," he says ten minutes later when your feet, have decidedly fallen asleep, not looking away from the screen. "I know people say you're not supposed to talk during movies, but I like—I mean, only if you want. You don't have to. I just talk during movies, but not in like, a mean, dickish way like some people do in theaters, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just a little disrespectful, but not in my apartment, so if you were gonna say something you don't have to feel—"

His thumb then drags one slow line up along your instep, absent, unthinking, entirely unaware of what it's doing to the rest of you, and something in your chest pulls taut like a wire about to snap.

"Peter, that's not it. That's not—it's just—I've never done this," you say, quieter now, and it costs you something to say it, you can feel it cost you something. "Any of it. I don't have a… single fucking clue. I don't know how this part goes."

"Neither do I."

"I know you don't, that's the problem, we're both just sitting here being—" You cut yourself off. Start over. "I'm not gonna say it. You have to do it."

"Do what?"

"Peter."

"I don't know what you—"

"Take what you want," you say, and it comes out low, and a little wrecked, and entirely unlike you. "For the love of God. Just—take it. Please. I'm not saying it again."

That's how he ends up fingering you over the arm of his couch, half-suspended and scrambling for purchase. A mean, relentless lover is most definitely not what you pegged Peter Parker to be. The boy who was flustered and uncertain just a mere ten minutes ago shouldn't be wrapping a stray arm around your waist to pull you closer, practically making you fuck yourself against his fingers. The boy who's now making embarrassing huffs of breath escape your lipgloss-stained lips and wrenching the oxygen out of you. 

You know, for a fact, that Peter would never, ever let you drop, but the look on his face when you turn your head over your shoulder makes you think that the ground might be a bit safer for you.

God, you've never even been fingered from behind before but the angle of it, the relentlessness, it makes you feel so thoroughly used, dizzy from the speed and the sheer force of him taking you. Combined with him dipping his head down, sucking harsh love bites into the swell of your ass, and you think you may as well have just lost your mind.

The movie's still playing when his hands force your legs wider apart, his hushed "that's right, hips up for me," lining up at the same time as Vader chokes and dismisses Director Krennic, breath hitching. You're so proud of Peter, he had mentioned how cool this scene was, and he's so focused—your cunt squeezing tight like a vice grip on his fingers. Your whole world is spinning, just an endless cacophony of Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter—and oh, oh god, when his thumb swipes over your clit, you realize that that that's all you've been saying.

"What is it? What do you need, sweet girl?" He bites harder at your neck, filing the way you twitch and heartbeat flutters uselessly. You're gonna be all marked up tomorrow, but you couldn't care less. The pleasure and pain felt like an electric current through your body, sending phantom shocks down your spine.

"M–More, please—Peter, oh, Peter—"

"Pretty girl needed someone to take care of her, huh?" His brows furrow in mock concern, even though his hands make no move to slow down. Your thoughts trail off, wondering if Peter could take care of you just like this forever. You think he might, he could, he should. You wouldn't mind. You'd let him keep fucking you until your voice ran raw, keep his fingers wet and pretty for as long as he wanted, just one orgasm into another. 

"Someone to spoil you," his tongue drags from your cheek, up to your lower back, "someone to give it to you every day," up, and up, and up your spine until his breath bears down on your neck. "I can be that for you, right, baby?"

Your whining hits a fever pitch, blissed out and on the edge of your orgasm. "Yes, of course, mmm—just don't stop."

Peter slaps your clit once, twice—fuck, and your cunt squeezes one final time around his fingers, and you're coming, your hand closing into a fist on the chenille fabric. It feels like the rest of the room is just pure nothingness, just static and buzzing and the feeling of Peter's hand coaxing you through each wave. 

"You got my hand so wet, honey," He tuts, and oh. There was no reason for that to be as hot as it was, and you're sure he can feel it too, the way you clench down on his hand and pull him further into you. You've always been told you respond like a dream.  "Such a good pussy. You're going to feel so good around my cock."

You turn onto your back when Peter gently pulls his fingers out of your cunt, still breathless and heaving from the attack on your senses and nothing ever could've prepared you from the sight before you. He examines his fingers in the light, the way they glisten–god, did you really get that wet—a small smile playing at his lips—and sucks those very fingers into his mouth.

Maybe it's only been seconds, or maybe it's an eternity, but you sit there like that, watching him in that entranced way of yours. He doesn't break eye contact with you once. It's filthy. You think you could be raring up to go again just from the way he looks at you. 

Peter hums contentedly. The sound goes straight to your cunt. This boy's gonna be the death of you.

The laptop stirs back to life at some accidental brush of the trackpad many, many moments later, Rogue One resuming exactly where you left it, some spaceship still doing something important that neither of you had ever actually been watching. 

"Oh man, we missed the ending," Peter says, squinting at the screen and dragging his mouse down to try and wind it back. 

"Really, Peter? You just made me come and you'd rather I care about the ending?"

"You're gonna care. I'm gonna make you care. I have so many more things to explain to you."

"I'm sure you do."

"Is that—was that sarcastic? I can't always tell with you."

"Fine, we can watch the movie," you say, and press your smile into his shoulder so he can't see it, and he does, mostly, in between turning to look at you every ninety seconds like he still can't quite believe you're still there, and you let him check, again and again, all night, because you're checking too. "Go ahead, play it back."

+ from mara

this was short and sweet! i haven't written anything in over a year, but after seeing tom holland's rock hard abs grace my screen, i simply had to dip my toes back in. it's been hard getting back on the horse (that is, the metaphorical writing horse) and i fear you guys will most definitely be able to tell but i hope you guys like it! IM SO SCARED but okay stream audrey hobert and support your local nurses <3

Either way, you’d started trying to avoid that gnawing feeling in your chest. Besides, you were growing out of the phase where going to every party and meeting every person you could fascinated you. Maybe one day that deep, dreadful sinking would go away. Maybe it would stop appearing at parties, on every birthday you turned a year older, on the small amount of dates you’d gone on where the feeling got so strong it made you nauseous.

Today, though, was an exception. You’d graduated this past summer and moved back to New York with MJ and Ned, and they were determined to throw one last party with all the college friends that had wound up back in the city, too. 

Well, Ned was determined. You and MJ were lukewarm about the whole thing. 

Which is why you were in your—abysmally small—bedroom, working through this line of code that you were pretty sure was going to get you fired from your shiny new job if you didn’t figure out why it wasn’t working, with your door open to the noise beyond. It was to keep an eye on MJ and Ned, you told yourself, even as you eyed all the swaying people around the TV you’d just spent fifty dollars on from Facebook Marketplace. Ugh, you should have moved it before. If they broke it, you were totally making Ned buy you takeout for a week.

You went back to work, thankful everyone seemed to be too preoccupied with the party to worry about the weird girl staring at her computer screen on her bedroom floor. You couldn’t figure this out. It was driving you crazy. You were sure it had worked yesterday evening, and then when you’d come into work this morning it was all wrong and every single test you did didn’t fix it and you were going to throw your computer—

A knock on your open door. A cleared throat. “Um, hey.” 

You looked up.

A guy around your age stood in your doorway. The first thing you noticed about him were his eyes, wide and expressive, looking at you as if you were the one who’d shown up in his bedroom. But…reverent too, almost in disbelief. He was looking at you like he’d never seen a girl before. 

But he was cute. And something about him…

He seemed familiar. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you. His gaze starts to bounce around the room the second you meet it, avoiding your eyes. “You looked, um, mad?”

“Oh!” You laugh a little at yourself. “I’m just doing some work. I’ve been told I look mad when I can’t figure something out. I don’t even realize it.” But who had told you that? It wasn’t your family, or Ned or MJ. But someone had told you. Who had it been?

The guy shifts on his feet. You realize he’s holding a bouquet of flowers, which is a weird thing to bring to a party, but you find it charming. He squints his eyes at you, but the corner of his mouth is lifting like he wants to smile. It makes something in your chest flutter. “You’re doing work during a party?”

He’s teasing you. You feel yourself smiling back. “Yes, I am. Super important work, I might add.”

“Oh, yeah?” He leans a shoulder against your doorframe, eyes on yours now. 

You can’t look away. 

“Yep. Keep an eye out because I’m gonna dethrone Spider-Man from the first page of the Daily Bugle tomorrow with my amazing work on debugging this finance app that only has three hundred downloads. Really groundbreaking stuff.” 

He smiles fully, now. It makes you feel triumphant, nervous, and warm. “That’s awesome because I love—What’s the name of the app?”

“Financipply” Stupid name. From the doubtful look he sends you, he agrees.

“That’s perfect because I love Finacnipply. Can’t wait to see you on the front page.” You roll your eyes, but you laugh. You both do, his shy and small, as if he hasn’t done it in a long, long time. As if he shouldn’t be laughing at all. But his eyes are bright. They turn towards the floor as your laughter dies, shy.  “So what can’t you figure out?”

And you just can’t stop looking at him. You motion towards your computer screen vaguely. “Just this code. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s just not working.” 

He takes a small step forward. “Do you think…Can I…look at it?”

“For real? You code?”

He shrugs, one hand in his pocket. Adorable. “I…dabble?”

“Are you sure about that?” 

Another flash of a smile. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright then. Knock yourself out.”

He comes to sit next to you on the rug you found at the thrift store a couple blocks away, rubbing his palms over his jeans and looking intently at your computer screen. He smells like clean laundry and the rain the city had earlier in the day, and he’s looking at your code like he actually understands it. “Oh wow. Cool.” He scrolls through it a couple times, up, down. You’re entranced by his profile, so close.  He stops to type. “Did you try this?” 

You blink. Look at the screen. “Oh my gosh, no.” A simple line edit. You know when you see it that it’ll work. “Holy shit. You did it. Holy crap. Thank you. You’re, like, awesome.” 

“It was nothing.” But he's ducking his head with a blush.  “Seriously.” 

“What’s your name, anyway? Since you saved me from getting fired.”

“Um, May..nard.” 

“Maynard.” It sounds wrong. You’ve never had that thought before—that someone’s name is wrong. But it’s a sure feeling in your chest. The one you have when you know your code tests are going to work, and when you decided you wanted to move back to the city. It’s really the only feeling you trust anymore. 

“Yep.” He leans back on his palms, and your eyes run down his arms unconsciously, tracking muscles and veins. You have a brief, overwhelming urge to curl closer to him, to run your hands down his biceps, to take his hands into yours and trace the lines of his palms. And it feels normal, to have that feeling. So normal, your body almost starts moving on its own accord. But his voice breaks you out of it. “So, is this what you want to do? Program apps?” 

You tell him that your dream is to work on developing video games, and he nods like it makes complete sense and gets you to tell him that you’d love to make a game based off of Star Wars, which makes his eyes light up in a way that has your breath catching. 

And that’s how you end up talking to a cute boy on the floor of your bedroom for an hour, about Star Wars and your favorite video games and what got you into them in the first place. He makes you laugh, and talking to him is so easy. It’s hard to believe you just met him now and not in high school. He would fit right in with MJ and Ned. You can almost see it for a moment; the four of you hanging around the diner MJ used to work at before college, laughing and teasing and studying. The image is so visceral that for a moment it feels real. 

You’re just about to invite him over sometime because you’re so sure that they’d love him and that you want to get to know him better, when there’s a crash from the living room. 

Both of you turn, and your face immediately drops. That better not have been your TV. 

You sigh. “I need to go make sure nothing important is broken.” You almost add on a desperate wait for me, but he’s already standing up and holding out a hand for you. 

That would have been too weird to ask for, anyway. Right? 

You let him pull you up. When your hands touch, it’s almost as if the warmth radiates from his calloused fingers, grips your heart, and drags it all the way down to your toes. He lets go quickly, as soon as you’re on your feet, but you stand there for a moment, disoriented. Feeling like…feeling like you’re right where you need to be. But also like you’ve forgotten to do something. It pulls at your brain like a grocery item list you know you were thinking about five minutes ago, but no matter how far you reach, you can never remember what it was. 

It shouldn’t bother you this much—you’ve been feeling it since you went to college. It hung over you during orientation, and move-in day, and every visit home. It reaches you in dreams, and weirdly, whenever Ned shows you the thousands of videos he gets of Spider-Man swinging across the city. 

But you’d never felt this close to grasping it before. You can almost see an image in your brain, faded around the edges like an old photograph, a word floating just on the edge of your consciousness. 

“You okay?” He’s asking you. Maynard. God, why does that name sound so wrong to think?

He looks about a second away from grabbing your hand again. 

You want to let him. 

But you hear MJ’s voice from the living room, firm in the way she only uses when she’s annoyed, and you know that your TV is probably done for. Maynard seems to be able to sense it too, because he urges you to go. 

And your TV is broken, thanks to some idiot and his friend who decided to start play-fighting for no reason. He gives you a twenty from his pocket, but you can’t even focus. Your mind is too busy playing back your night. Warm brown eyes, messy curls, soft smiles. You end up just waving it off—but you keep that twenty—and rushing back to your room to find Maynard. 

Only, he’s not there when you return. 

Your laptop is closed and placed at the foot of your bed. On top, the bouquet he showed up with. 

You stand there, in the middle of your tiny room, touching your fingertips to the carnations and grieving. 

Grieving for what? You keep asking yourself. Why do I feel this way?

But you can’t figure it out. It stays, stays, stays. 

Later that night, his face comes to you in your dreams. It’s younger, unburdened with the sadness you’d seen lying underneath. He’s laughing, bright and beautiful, and he’s looking at you. You’re on a rooftop somewhere, both of you golden in the sun, and he’s saying your name with a fondness that notches into your spine. 

I love you, he says, and he means it. It’s in his eyes, in the way his expression melts into softness, in the way he traces his fingers across your shoulder and pulls you into him. 

Peter, your voice sounds just as yours does now, weighed down by adulthood. You run your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, and there’s a peacefulness in your body that you know you haven’t felt in years, even through the haze of the dream. I’ll always love you.

You feel the press of his lips to your hair, the curve of them as he smiles.

You wake up. Gasping, gripping the thin sheets of your bed, sweat gleaming on your collarbone. 

Peter, your mind whispers to you in the dark.

“Peter.” You murmur it into the moonlight shining across your floor, to your heart beating against your ribcage, to the knot in your stomach that finally releases. 

“Peter.” You say again. Taste it on your tongue, certain you’ve said it a thousand times, in a million different ways.

“awn- c’mon, sweetheart.” his eyes dragged over you body, taking in the very few millimeters of space that you created between you two before pulling you back down onto cock making you gasp for air.

your fingers folding inwards, clawing into the flesh of jack’s chest as he buries himself further inside your pussy making your insides choke around his length, involuntarily twitching and squeezing as your spine arches forward — pressing yourself against him.

jack feigns a frown, biting back an uncontrollable smile because he just thinks that you look so fucking adorable beneath him right now.

eyes glossed over with lashes clumping together from those thick tears fall down your cheeks, and the little sniffles you take every other second to not snot yourself as you cry from an indescribable amount of pleasure. you can’t even moan jack’s name without it turning into an incoherent mess. “j—j .. ja-nnghn.”

“that’s it, my sweet girl.” jack coos, a gentle rasps scratching at his throat as he brings one of the hands locked behind you knees to your face. gently cradling the side of your head as his thumb brushes away any stray tears. “so damn sensitive, all for me.” he watches you nuzzle into his palm, and it makes his cock twitch as he lets out a gravelly groan before grinding his hips deeper into you — a direct target against the spot that makes your bladder feel instantly full.

“i can’t, i can’t, mmff— you c-can’t!” you yelp, pleading as you shake your head feeling the throb of your clit want to burst. “shh.. yes you can, darlin’.” he shushes, ducking down to press his forehead against yours.

his eyes on yours, convincing you that it’s possible as his thrusts never stop bullying into that sweet spot. he has no intention of stopping, even with your begging. “please, ja—mphck!” a moan rips through your throat as jack delivers the cruelest, toe curling stroke that makes you go completely mute as your eyes roll back to your skull.

your body quivers under his, mouth open with no words coming out as you take each and every thrust he feeds your abused pussy.

“look at you, baby— you’re doin’ it right now.” he hums satisfyingly, watching you choke to find inaudible words as his groan lingers. “i know, sweetheart i know— jj knows it’s a lot for you, yeah.” he whispers, lips grazing against yours, “it’ll all be over soon, okay baby?” he assures, as his hips tell the complete opposite. “just keep singin’ my name would’ya’.”

the second— no, actually … the third time—

bobby doesn’t seem to care anymore.

he’s terrible at this, he’s admitted it every single time you whine at him and try to stop it from happening, before it becomes an even bigger habit. you can only get lucky so many times. something is bound to take. but he shushes you when you start whimpering for him to pull out, distracting you with sloppy kisses and sweet rubs on your clit that have your brain all fuzzy and useless for the moment. something to keep you on the edge and close to cumming yet again.

“bobby, you cant keep doing this,” you whimper into his mouth just as he presses his hands into the backs of your thighs and spreads you out some more. a sign that he’s about to lose control. you can feel every inch of him, can hear every lewd sound that comes from between your thighs and every deep groan falling past his lips. he nuzzles his face into the side of your own, ignoring your hiccuping and babbling entirely. you’re trying so hard to get him to listen with your slurred and breathy words, it almost makes him feel bad, “you have t’pull out.”

“baby, baby— don’t make me.” he chokes out, sweaty forehead resting against your temple as he triples his efforts. he ruts into you as he rambles, sloppy but practiced enough to have your toes curling and your brain liquifying in your skull, “i fuckin’ can’t. i can’t do it. you feel so fuckin’ good, baby … gotta stay right here in this perfect pussy.”

he knows he’s got you the second your nails claw over his shoulders and down his back with no intent other than begging him for more. the sharp sting forces a growl out of his throat before he muffles himself with your mouth, his tongue rubbing against your own as he spills his messy load in you with stuttering movements.

“fuuuck—” he breathes over your lips that are covered in a mix of his saliva and your own, nearly whining as the aftershocks take over and bite at his heels. he grunts, pressing into you like his life depends on it. his gaze drops between your thighs, seeing a mess of white that makes him shudder, “i’ll clean you up after, baby, i swear. jus’ let me have this, pretty girl. give me a second. please.”

you huff under him, mewling as your used up cunt milks him without trying. like it’s second nature, devastatingly.