hello! <3 thought I'd update my pinned post since it's been six months I've had this account and a lot has changed!
my name is grey and I am 18 years old, I grew up in london but currently living in brighton for uni! this is a very heavily music based blog, plus mainstream film/tv — I've got a couple heavy obsessions that are pretty steady on this account (marvel, shoot from the hip, stranger things, etc) and many more that simply come and go!
my pronouns are they/she but in general I don't mind how you refer to me :)
please chat! send me asks, request stories, everyone is welcome! in fact, below I have a list of all the people I write for (and the topics I'm uncomfortable with writing please keep a note of this!)
one of my main current obsessions is stranger things — I have been watching stranger things since s2 (i definitely shouldn't have been watching it but i have! shush don't tell my parents) and am a major major fan
fyi I have been listening to djo since mortal projections was released as a single for twenty twenty and I'm very protective of him, call me parasocial I'm beginning to own it lmao and I will be gatekeeping him for as long as a possibly can :D
I am also a major marvel fan (bucky barnes ily) so when doomsday comes out expect a revival of that obsession, plus I'm very into comedy at the moment (bo burnham, john mulaney etc) so if they pop up, expect them here <3
music I listen to: djo, the clash, hayley williams, goat girl, poppy, billie holiday, elis regina, declan mckenna, james marriott, greta isaac, jamiroquai, steely dan (+many many more, feel free to recommend artists as you can see I literally listen to everything)
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it really, really pisses me off when a writers entire blog is so blatantly ai, yet they still have so many people interacting with their posts and praising them for their "writing".
i genuinely feel crazy thinking im the only one who can tell that its ai. please just write fics on your own its always better than that slop and I CAN TELL ITS AI IF YOU USE IT.
Warnings: canon divergence, angst, fluff, smut. I have a love-hate relationship with the John Smith episode.
The first time you saw the fear in his eyes, real, cold, hunted fear, you knew this was different.
“They can find me anywhere by my scent,” the Doctor said, hands flying over the TARDIS console with a frantic energy that set you on edge. The central column wheezed and groaned, the ship shuddering through the vortex as alarms you’d never heard before blared in discordant tones. “Every time I set foot outside, every time I even think about running, they lock onto my biodata. Time Lord biology. It’s like a beacon.”
“So we don’t run,” you said, gripping the railing as the TARDIS lurched. “We fight. We always fight.”
He stopped then, hands stilling on a lever, and looked at you across the glowing console. His brown eyes, usually so bright with manic energy, were grave. Haunted. “Not this time. If we fight, people die. Innocent people. They don’t want conquest. They don’t want resources. They want me. The last of the Time Lords. They want to be immortal. And they will tear through anything, anyone, to get what they want.”
You swallowed hard. “What are you saying?”
He straightened, tugging at his tie in that nervous way he had, then ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “I’m saying I need to stop being the Doctor.”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Completely serious.” He was already moving again, circling the console, pulling up holographic schematics you couldn’t begin to understand. “The TARDIS can do it. Rewrite my biology on a fundamental level. Suppress every memory, every scrap of Time Lord knowledge, every regeneration. Make me human. Properly, genuinely human. One heart, one life, one unremarkable biological signature the Family of Blood can’t track.”
Your heart was pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. “And your memories?”
“Gone. Locked away. Not destroyed, I’ll need a way back if things go wrong, but buried so deep even a psychic probe wouldn’t find them.” He paused, fingers hovering over a crystalline interface. “There’s a catch, though.”
“Of course there is.”
His mouth quirked, just slightly, a ghost of his usual smile. “The process needs an anchor. Someone to hold the key. The TARDIS can create a biodata module, a fob watch, something innocuous, that holds my Time Lord essence. But it needs to be kept safe. And I need someone to watch over the human me, make sure they don’t find me, and…” He hesitated. “And if they do, if it all goes wrong, someone who can bring me back.”
The weight of what he was asking settled over you like a shroud. “You want me to be that someone.”
“You’re the only one I trust.” He said it simply, without artifice, without the usual theatrical flourishes. “I know it’s a lot to ask. I know it’s not fair. But...”
“Yes.”
He blinked. “You haven’t heard the rest of it. The human me won’t know you. Won’t remember anything about our travels, about who I was, about any of it. You’ll have to start from scratch. You’ll have to lie, every day, to someone wearing my face. And it could be years. Decades, even, before it’s safe.”
“I said yes.” Your voice was steadier than you felt. “Tell me what I need to do.”
He stared at you for a long moment, something raw and unreadable flickering in his gaze. Then he pulled you into a crushing hug, his face buried in your hair.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
You held on tight, memorizing the feel of him, the lean strength of his frame, the double beat of his hearts against your chest, the faint scent of ozone and tea that clung to his suit. You didn’t know if you’d ever feel it again.
When he pulled back, his eyes were suspiciously bright. “Right. No time to waste. There’s a few things you need.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, pressing it into your palm. Your fingers closed around the cool metal automatically.
“Keep this safe,” he said. “It won’t work for the human me, well, it might, if he’s clever enough, but he won’t know what it is. You’ll need it if…when the time comes. And this.”
From another pocket, he produced a simple silver fob watch, unadorned except for delicate circular Gallifreyan script etched into the casing. It felt warm in your hand, almost alive, pulsing with a faint rhythm that matched the Doctor’s hearts.
“My essence. My memories. Everything I am.” His voice was carefully controlled, but you could hear the terror underneath. “When the process is complete, I’ll just be a man. An ordinary man with an ordinary life. The TARDIS will create false memories, a background, a history. She’ll choose somewhere safe, somewhere quiet, somewhere no one would ever think to look for a Time Lord.”
“Where?”
He smiled, properly this time, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Knowing her? Somewhere spectacularly boring.”
The TARDIS materialized in a narrow alley between a bookshop and a bakery, the scent of fresh bread and old paper wafting through the doors when you opened them. Outside, a typical English street stretched in either direction, all red brick and gray sky, bicycles chained to lampposts and a postbox on the corner.
The Doctor, no, not the Doctor anymore, not really, stepped out beside you, blinking in the watery sunlight. One moment he’d been standing at the TARDIS console, the fob watch open in his hand, golden light pouring from his eyes and mouth. The next, he’d crumpled to the floor, and when he woke, the watch was closed, and the man looking up at you had only confusion in his brown eyes.
“Where am I?” he’d asked, and your heart had broken clean in two.
Now, standing in the alley with a bewildered expression on his face, he looked so ordinary it hurt. The same sharp features, the same lanky frame, the same ridiculous hair, but the weight was gone. The centuries of grief and guilt and impossible knowledge that had always lurked behind his smile had vanished, leaving behind something lighter.
“I think I’m supposed to be here,” he said slowly, patting his pockets. He pulled out a wallet, flipping through it with growing confusion. “John Smith. That’s my name. I’m…I’m a librarian? Apparently I have a job interview at the local library this afternoon.”
“That’s nice,” you managed, your voice coming out strangled.
He looked at you properly then, and something shifted in his expression. The confusion didn’t exactly fade, but it was joined by something else. Recognition, almost. Like he was trying to place you and couldn’t quite manage it, but knew, somehow, that you were important.
“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture so achingly familiar that you had to look away. “This is going to sound mad, but…do I know you?”
Your fingers tightened around the sonic screwdriver in your coat pocket. The fob watch was nestled beside it. “Not exactly. We’re…I’m new in town too.”
“Oh.” He smiled then, a shy, tentative thing that was nothing like the Doctor’s manic grins, and your heart did something complicated in your chest. “Well, that’s a coincidence. Or maybe not. I can’t really remember how I got here, to be honest. Everything’s a bit fuzzy.”
“You hit your head,” you said, the lie sliding off your tongue with practiced ease. You’d rehearsed it with the Doctor before the transformation. “On the train. Concussion, the doctors said. You might have some memory issues for a while.”
“Right. Right, that makes sense.” He nodded, seemingly satisfied with the explanation. Then his gaze drifted back to you, and that strange, searching look returned. “I don’t suppose you’d want to…I mean, I know we’ve just met, technically, but I feel like…” He trailed off, flushing slightly. “This is going to sound completely insane, but I feel like I know you. Like I’m supposed to know you. Is that mad?”
“No,” you said quietly. “It’s not mad at all.”
The first year was the hardest because of the sheer, grinding normality of it all.
John Smith got the librarian job. He rented a small flat, all creaky floorboards and windows and a tiny kitchen that always smelled faintly of cabbage. He bought secondhand furniture and started wearing cardigans and joined a local book club that met every Thursday evening in the back room of the local pub.
And you, tasked with keeping him safe, had to build a life beside him.
You found a job at the bakery next to the alley where the TARDIS still sat, hidden behind a perception filter that made it look like an old police box that had been decommissioned years ago. You rented a flat of your own, two streets over, and learned to bake sourdough and make small talk with customers and pretend that you weren’t a time-traveling companion of a centuries-old alien who was now shelving books and recommending Agatha Christie novels to pensioners.
It should have been unbearable. It was, in many ways. But there were also moments that caught you off guard, moments that made the lie feel almost worth it.
Like the first time John asked you to dinner.
“It’s not a date,” he’d said quickly, his ears going pink in a way the Doctor’s never had. “I mean, unless you want it to be. Which you probably don’t. We’ve only known each other a few weeks. But I was going to make pasta, and I always make too much, and you mentioned you don’t cook much, and I thought...”
“John.” You’d touched his arm to stop the ramble, and he’d gone very still under your hand. “I’d love to have dinner with you.”
The smile that broke across his face was like sunrise.
It was nothing like the Doctor’s smiles, which always held a hint of darkness, of secrets, of the terrible knowledge of all the things he’d seen and done. John Smith’s smile was just a smile, and somehow that made it devastating in an entirely different way.
Dinner was pasta with a slightly burnt sauce and cheap wine from the corner shop and conversation that meandered through books and music and childhood memories that had been fabricated by the TARDIS but felt real enough to John that he told them with genuine fondness. He asked about your life, and you spun half-truths from the fragments you could safely share, and when you left that night with a container of leftovers and a warmth in your chest that had nothing to do with the wine, you knew you were in trouble.
He asked you out properly a week later. A film at the little independent cinema two towns over. Then dinner again. Then a walk along the river, where he’d reached for your hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and held it like he was afraid you might disappear.
“I know this is fast,” he’d said, his thumb tracing circles on your knuckles. “And I know I’m not…I mean, I’m just a librarian. I’m not exciting or adventurous or anything particularly special. But being with you feels right. It feels like the most right thing in the world. Does that make sense?”
You’d looked at him, at this gentle, earnest, utterly human man who wore the Doctor’s face and spoke with the Doctor’s voice but held none of the Doctor’s impossible weight, and felt your heart splinter into a thousand pieces.
“It makes perfect sense,” you’d whispered, and when he kissed you, soft and sweet and trembling slightly, you let yourself pretend, just for a moment, that this could last.
The second year was easier. Routine set in like weather, predictable and comforting. You saw John nearly every day: lunch at the bakery, dinner at his flat or yours, weekends spent exploring the countryside or curled up on his sofa reading books he’d brought home from the library. He’d read passages aloud to you, doing voices for the characters, and you’d laugh until your sides hurt, and then he’d look at you with such open adoration that you’d have to excuse yourself to the bathroom to pull yourself together.
The TARDIS sat in its alley, untouched. You visited it sometimes, late at night when you couldn’t sleep, running your fingers over the weathered blue wood and feeling the faint hum of life still pulsing within. The fob watch you kept in a locked box under your bed, wrapped in velvet, its warmth a constant reminder of what you were guarding. Of who you were waiting for.
Some nights you took it out and held it in your palm, watching the Gallifreyan script gleam in the darkness, and wondered if the Doctor was still in there. If he could feel the passage of time. If he knew what you were doing, what you were becoming to the man he’d made himself into.
Some nights, lying in John’s arms while he slept peacefully beside you, his single heart beating steady and slow against your back, you wondered if you even wanted the Doctor to come back at all.
Because John Smith was good. John Smith was kind. John Smith brought you tea in bed and remembered how you liked your toast and left little notes in library books he thought you’d enjoy. He had nightmares sometimes: fragments of the Time War bleeding through in dreams he couldn’t understand, images of fire and screaming and a red desert under an orange sky, and you’d hold him until he stopped shaking, murmuring nonsense reassurances until he drifted back to sleep.
“I feel like there’s something I’ve forgotten,” he told you once, in the gray light of early morning. “Something important. Something terrible.” His brow furrowed, and for just a moment, he looked so much like the Doctor that your breath caught. “Does that sound mad?”
“No,” you said, your voice steady despite the ache in your chest. “Everyone has things they’d rather forget.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned to you, propping himself up on one elbow, his expression soft and searching. “Whatever it is, I don’t think I want to remember it. I like this. I like my life. I like…” He trailed off, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
You’d known it was coming. You’d seen it building for months, in every look and touch and unguarded moment. But hearing it aloud, in his quiet, earnest voice, still hit you like a physical blow.
“I know,” you whispered.
“You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know.” He smiled, that gentle, uncomplicated smile that still undid you every time. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
You didn’t say it back. Not then. You kissed him instead, pouring everything you couldn’t say into the press of your lips against his, and when he pulled you closer with a surprised, pleased sound, you let yourself fall into the warmth of him and tried very, very hard not to think about the fob watch ticking away under your bed.
But eventually, you said it. Of course you did. You’d loved the Doctor for years, silently, hopelessly, watching him flirt and charm his way across the universe while you stood in his shadow. Loving John Smith was different, easier in some ways, impossibly harder in others, but it was still love. Still real, still yours.
And he was so happy when you finally said the words. So incandescently, transparently joyful that you almost, almost convinced yourself it could be enough.
The proposal came at the end of the second year.
It wasn’t grand or dramatic. John wasn’t grand or dramatic. He took you to the riverbank where you’d first held hands, spread out a blanket, and produced a picnic basket filled with slightly lopsided sandwiches and a bottle of wine that was far nicer than anything he usually bought.
“What’s the occasion?” you asked, amused.
“Do I need an occasion?” But his ears had gone pink again, and he was fidgeting with the edge of the blanket in a way that made your heart stutter.
Halfway through the meal, he set down his sandwich, took a deep breath, and turned to face you fully. His brown eyes were bright with nerves and hope and something that looked terrifyingly like certainty.
“I know we’ve only known each other a couple of years,” he said, his voice slightly unsteady. “And I know I’m not…I mean, I don’t have much to offer. I’m a librarian. My furniture is secondhand and my cooking is mediocre at best.” He let out a shaky laugh. “I’m not exactly a catch.”
“John...”
“Let me finish, please, or I’ll lose my nerve.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. “The thing is, every good thing in my life, every happy moment I can remember, has you in it. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep. And I know it’s fast, and I know it’s probably mad, but I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to waste a single moment we could have together.”
He opened the box. Inside was a simple silver ring, set with a small, glittering stone that caught the afternoon light and scattered it into rainbows.
“Will you marry me?”
The world stopped.
For one long, crystalline moment, you let yourself imagine it. Saying yes. Marrying him. Building a life in this sleepy little town, growing old together, surrounded by books and bad cooking and the quiet, steady love he offered so freely. You could do it. You could lock the fob watch away forever, let the Doctor sleep for the rest of John Smith’s mortal life, and take this happiness for yourself.
It would be so easy. So terribly, temptingly easy.
But even as the fantasy bloomed in your mind, you felt the weight of the sonic screwdriver in your bag, the ghost of the fob watch’s warmth against your skin. You remembered the Doctor’s face, grave and trusting, as he handed you his entire existence. You remembered the aliens, still out there, still hunting. And you remembered that this man, this sweet, gentle, ordinary man, wasn’t yours to keep.
“John.” Your voice came out cracked, barely a whisper. “I can’t. Not yet.”
The hope in his eyes flickered, but didn’t go out. “Is it too soon? I know it’s only been two years...”
“It’s not that.” You reached out, cupping his face in your hands, memorizing the lines of him. “I love you. I love you so much it terrifies me. But there are things…things about my past, things I haven’t told you…”
“I don’t care about your past,” he said fiercely. “Whatever it is, whatever you’ve done or been through, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“It matters to me.” You stroked your thumb across his cheekbone, feeling the faint stubble, the warmth of his skin. “Just…give me time. Ask me again. Not now, but someday. Ask me again.”
He searched your face for a long moment, and you saw the exact instant he decided to trust you. It was in the softening of his jaw, the release of tension in his shoulders, the way his hand came up to cover yours.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “I’ll wait. As long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
He tucked the ring box back into his pocket and pulled you into a kiss instead, and you let yourself melt into him, hating yourself just a little for the tears that slipped down your cheeks. He mistook them for happiness, or maybe just emotion, and kissed them away with a tenderness that made your heart feel like it was being wrung out like a dishcloth.
That night, alone in your flat, you took out the fob watch and held it in your trembling hands.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered to it. To him. To both of them. “I’m so sorry.”
The watch said nothing. It just kept ticking, marking out the seconds of a borrowed life, waiting for the moment it would all come crashing down.
The moment came on an ordinary Tuesday in spring.
You were closing up the bakery, wiping down the counters and trying to decide what to make for dinner, when the bell above the door chimed. You looked up with your customer-service smile already in place, and felt the blood freeze in your veins.
Three people had entered. They looked human, two men and a woman, all dressed in unremarkable clothing, all wearing pleasant, unremarkable expressions. But their eyes were wrong. Flat. Cold. Empty of anything resembling genuine emotion.
And they moved wrong, too. Too smoothly. Too precisely. Like puppets being operated by someone who hadn’t quite mastered the strings.
“We’re closed,” you said, your voice remarkably steady given the terror clawing at your throat.
The woman smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “We’re not here for baked goods.”
“We’re looking for someone,” one of the men added. His head tilted at an angle that was just slightly too sharp to be natural. “A very particular someone. We’ve been searching for a very long time.”
“Sorry.” You gripped the edge of the counter, your knuckles going white. “Can’t help you.”
“Oh, we think you can.” The woman took a step forward, and you caught a flicker of something beneath her skin, a ripple of wrongness, like something was moving underneath the surface. “You see, we can’t find our quarry. We’ve searched every corner of this galaxy, every dimension, every timeline. And then it occurred to us, perhaps our quarry isn’t our quarry anymore. Perhaps he’s become something else. Something…human.”
Your heart was pounding so hard you could barely hear them over the rush of blood in your ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” The second man spoke this time, his voice a flat monotone. “You’ve been here two years. You arrived at precisely the same time our quarry disappeared. And you spend an extraordinary amount of time with a man who, according to all records, didn’t exist until that exact moment.”
“Coincidence,” you managed.
“There are no coincidences.” The woman’s smile widened, “Not where the Doctor is concerned.”
They knew. They knew, and they’d found you, and John was probably at the library right now, shelving books and humming to himself, utterly unaware that death had come to his quiet little town wearing human skin.
“We’ll find him eventually,” the woman continued, as if reading your thoughts. “We can sense him, faintly. The trace of what he was, buried deep. It’s only a matter of time. But it would be so much easier if you simply told us where he is.”
“Never.”
The word tore out of you before you could stop it, and the woman’s expression flickered into something that might have been satisfaction.
“Loyal,” she observed. “Touching. But loyalty can be…painful.”
You stumbled backward, reaching blindly for anything you could use as a weapon, and your hand closed around the handle of a rolling pin.
“I wouldn’t,” said the woman, almost gently. “It won’t do you any good.”
“Maybe not.” You lifted your chin, meeting her flat, dead eyes with as much defiance as you could muster. “But I’ll make sure it hurts.”
For a long, suspended moment, no one moved. Then the woman laughed.
“We’re not going to kill you,” she said. “Not yet. You’re going to bring him to us. Tomorrow, sunset, at the old church on the hill. Make sure he hands us his essence of immortality. If you don’t… well.” She smiled again. “This town is full of fragile little humans. It would be a shame if something happened to them.”
She turned and walked out, the two men following in perfect synchronization. The bell chimed cheerfully as the door swung shut behind them, and you stood there in the empty bakery, clutching a rolling pin and shaking so hard you could barely stand.
You didn’t go home that night. You went straight to the TARDIS.
The old police box was still there. You pressed your palm against the wood and tried to think.
They’d found you, and they’d find John sooner or later, and when they did, they would tear him apart. There was no running this time. No clever escape. The only option was the one you’d been dreading for two years.
You had to bring the Doctor back.
The fob watch was in your bag, along with the sonic screwdriver. Now you pulled out the watch and held it in your palm, watching the Gallifreyan script pulse with soft golden light.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’m so sorry, John.”
Then you squared your shoulders, wiped your eyes, and went to find the man you loved to destroy him.
John was at his flat, as you’d known he would be. He opened the door with a smile that faltered the moment he saw your face.
“What’s wrong?” He pulled you inside immediately, his hands gentle on your shoulders. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Come in, sit down, I’ll make tea...”
“John.” You caught his hands, holding them still. “We need to talk.”
He went very still. “That’s never a good sentence.”
“Please. Just…come with me. There’s something I need to show you.”
You led him through the darkening streets to the alley where the TARDIS stood.
“What is that?” He stared at the blue box, his brow furrowing in confusion that was rapidly becoming distress. “I’ve walked past this alley a hundred times, I’ve never seen…why have I never seen…?”
“Because you weren’t supposed to.” You pulled out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the TARDIS doors, which swung open with a familiar wheezing groan. “Come inside.”
He followed you in a daze, his eyes darting around the impossibly large interior. The central column glowed softly, a slow, sleepy pulse that spoke of deep hibernation. The Doctor had programmed the TARDIS to maintain basic functions but nothing more, keeping her hidden and dormant until she was needed again.
“This is…” John turned in a slow circle, his face a mask of bewilderment. “This isn’t possible. This is…”
“It’s a spaceship,” you said quietly. “It’s also a time machine. And it belongs to you.”
He laughed incredulously. “That’s mad. That’s completely mad. I’m a librarian. I’ve never even been on a plane.”
“You’re not a librarian.” The words tasted like ashes in your mouth. “You’re not even human. Not really.”
And you told him. Everything. The Doctor, the transformation, the two years of lies. You spoke until your voice went hoarse, and through it all, John stood motionless, his face slowly draining of colour.
When you finished, he was silent for a long moment. Then he whispered, “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t a joke, or a prank, or…or some kind of nervous breakdown?”
“No.”
He turned away from you, his shoulders hunched, his hands shoved deep into his pockets in a gesture that was so Doctor-like that you had to look away. “Two years. Two years, and everything I remember, everything I thought I was…”
“Some of it was real.” Your voice cracked. “We were real. We are real.”
“Were we?” He spun back to face you, and there were tears in his eyes, bright and angry and devastated. “You’ve been lying to me since the day we met. Every moment, every conversation, every...” His voice broke. “Every ‘I love you.’ Was any of it true?”
“All of it.” You stepped toward him, reaching for his hands. He let you take them, though his fingers remained stiff and unresponsive. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it’s not fair. But I loved the Doctor, and then I met you, and I loved you too, and I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“The Doctor.” He said the name like he was tasting it, trying to find himself in the syllables. “That’s who I am. Who I was. Some kind of...alien hero?”
“The last of the Time Lords. He’s saved countless worlds. Countless lives.” You squeezed his hands. “And right now, he’s the only one who can stop the alien parasites from destroying this town and everyone in it.”
He looked at you then with devastation in his eyes. “What happens to me? If he comes back, what happens to me?”
You couldn’t answer. You couldn’t tell him the truth, that John Smith would cease to exist, absorbed back into the vast, ancient consciousness of the Doctor like a drop of water into an ocean. That the gentle, ordinary man you’d spent two years loving would become nothing more than a dream, a footnote, a brief flicker of humanity in an impossibly long life.
But he saw the answer in your silence, and his face crumpled.
“No.” He pulled his hands from yours, backing away. “No. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be him. I want to be me. I want to be John Smith, the librarian, who burns pasta sauce and loves you more than anything in the world. Doesn’t that matter? Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It means everything,” you whispered, tears streaming down your face. “But they are here. They’ll kill you, and everyone else, unless the Doctor comes back. I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” His voice cracked on the words. “Please. Please, don’t make me do this. We can run. We can hide. We can find another way.”
“There is no other way.” You pulled out the fob watch, holding it up between you. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, John. But I made a promise.”
He stared at the watch, and you saw the moment understanding truly hit him. The moment he realized that the thing in your hand contained everything he’d been, everything he really was, and that opening it would mean the end of everything he’d become.
“I love you,” he said, and it sounded like a goodbye. “Whatever else was a lie, that wasn’t. I love you, and I was happy. For two years, I was so happy.”
“I know.” You stepped closer, reaching up to cup his face, memorizing the lines of it one last time. “I was happy too. And I love you. Both of you. All of you. The Doctor, and John Smith, and every version of you that’s ever existed or ever will.”
He closed his eyes, leaning into your touch. A tear slipped down his cheek, warm against your fingers. “Will he remember? The Doctor? Will he remember us?”
“I don’t know.” It was the most honest thing you’d said all night.
“I hope he does.” John opened his eyes, and there was something almost like acceptance in them now. “I hope he remembers that he was loved. That he was happy. That he was a good man.”
“You were a good man,” you said fiercely. “You are a good man. The best man I’ve ever known.”
He kissed you then: soft, desperate, trembling with all the fear and love and grief of a man saying goodbye to his entire existence. You kissed him back with everything you had, pouring two years of stolen happiness into the press of your lips, trying to make him understand without words how much he’d meant to you.
When you finally pulled apart, he was crying openly, and so were you.
“Do it,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Before I lose my nerve.”
You opened the fob watch.
Golden light exploded outward, filling the TARDIS, filling John, filling you. He arched backward, his mouth opening in a silent scream, and you watched as two years of false memories were stripped away, replaced by centuries of impossible knowledge. You watched John Smith dissolve into the vast, ancient, terrible consciousness of the Doctor.
And then the light faded, and the Doctor opened his eyes.
They were the same brown eyes. The same face, the same body, the same hands that had held yours a thousand times. But the expression in them was different. Older. Harder. A universe of grief and fury and cold, calculating rage. “Where are they?”
“Old church on the hill,” you said, your voice hollow. “Sunset tomorrow. They’re wearing human skin.”
He nodded once, sharply, and strode past you to the TARDIS console. His hands flew across the controls with the practiced ease of centuries, waking systems that had been dormant for two years. He didn’t look at you. Didn’t acknowledge the tears still wet on your cheeks, or the way your hands were shaking, or the shattered expression on your face.
“Doctor?” you asked hesitantly.
“Not now.” His voice was clipped, distracted. “I need to think. These are dangerous, but they’re predictable. If they’ve taken human form, they’ll be vulnerable. I can work with that.”
And just like that, John Smith was gone. The Doctor was back. And you were standing in the middle of the TARDIS, clutching an empty fob watch, feeling like your heart had been ripped out of your chest.
The Doctor dealt with the Family of Blood.
You didn’t see him do it. He told you to stay in the TARDIS, and you did, because you couldn’t bear to watch him be the Doctor, cold and brilliant and terrifying, when all you could see was the ghost of the man you’d lost.
He came back three hours later, his suit slightly rumpled, his expression grimly satisfied.
“It’s done,” he said. “They’re in three separate eternal prisons, scattered across three separate dimensions. They won’t be bothering anyone ever again.”
“Good.” You were sitting on the jump seat, still holding the empty fob watch. You hadn’t moved since he left.
He looked at you then uncertainly. “The danger’s passed. We can leave whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m not going with you.”
The words came out before you’d consciously decided to say them, and once they were out, you knew they were true. You couldn’t go back. You couldn’t climb into the TARDIS and fly off to new adventures and pretend that the last two years hadn’t happened. That you hadn’t fallen in love with a man who no longer existed.
The Doctor went utterly still. “What?”
“I need time.” You set the fob watch down on the console, your fingers lingering on the cool metal. “I need to…pack up my flat. Say goodbye. I’ve been here two years. I have a life here. I can’t just leave.”
“You don’t have a life here,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice now. “You had a cover story. A role to play. The role is over.”
“It wasn’t just a role.” You stood up, finally meeting his eyes. “I worked in that bakery for two years. I made friends. I built a life. And I loved John Smith, and he loved me, and now he’s dead, and I need to grieve him. Can you understand that?”
Something crossed his face, too fast to read, there and gone in an instant. “I remember it,” he said, and his voice was quieter now. “The transformation. Two years of memories, all at once. I remember everything.”
“Then you know why I can’t come with you tonight.”
He didn’t argue. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable, and watched you walk out of the TARDIS and into the darkening evening.
Your flat was exactly as you’d left it. The half-finished cup of tea on the counter. The pile of library books on the coffee table. The photograph of you and John at the riverbank, taken last summer, his arm around your shoulders and his smile so wide and bright and happy.
You sat on the edge of your bed and finally, finally let yourself cry.
You cried for John Smith, the gentle librarian who had loved you simply and completely. You cried for the Doctor, who had trusted you with his entire existence and come back to find that you’d fallen in love with a version of him that no longer existed. And you cried for yourself, for the impossible situation you’d been put in, for the love you’d found and lost and would never quite get over.
At some point, exhaustion overtook you, and you fell into a fitful sleep, still fully clothed, still clutching the photograph.
You woke to the sound of the TARDIS materializing in your living room.
The wheezing groan was unmistakable, and you bolted upright, your heart pounding. The blue box solidified in the corner of your flat, looking utterly incongruous next to your secondhand bookshelf and the potted plant you’d been nursing for eighteen months.
The door opened, and the Doctor stepped out.
He looked…different. Still the same body, the same suit, the same ridiculous hair. But some of the coldness had gone from his eyes. Some of the fury had ebbed. He looked at you, and for just a moment, you saw something that might have been vulnerability.
“You didn’t come back,” he said.
“I told you I needed time.”
“It’s been three days.”
You blinked. “It’s been one night.”
“Time moves differently in the TARDIS. You know that.” He took a step toward you, then stopped, as if unsure of his welcome. “I waited. Outside your flat, at first, and then inside, when you didn’t come out. And then I…I started thinking.”
“That’s usually where the trouble begins.”
His mouth quirked, just slightly. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was closer than anything you’d seen since he’d come back. “You said something. Before you left. You said you loved John Smith, and you loved me. Both of us.”
You looked away. “I was emotional. I didn’t mean...”
“Yes, you did.” He crossed the room, stopping just in front of you. Close enough that you could smell the familiar scent of him. “You meant every word. I know you did. Because I remember. I remember everything, and I remember how you looked when you said it.”
“Doctor...”
“I’m not him.” The words came out harsh, almost angry. “I’m not John Smith. I’m not gentle or simple or uncomplicated. I’ve done terrible things. I’ve made choices that would horrify him. I carry the weight of a billion billion lives, and it’s made me hard, and cold, and sometimes cruel.” He reached out and caught your chin, tilting your face up to meet his eyes. “But I am not a different person. I’m just…more. Everything he was, I am. Everything he felt, I feel. And I am tired of pretending that’s not true.”
Your breath caught. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” He paused, struggling with the words in a way the Doctor rarely did. “John Smith was a simpler version of me. Unburdened. Free. He could tell you he loved you without the weight of centuries pressing down on him. He could ask you to marry him without hearing the screams of everyone he’s ever failed.” His grip on your chin gentled, his thumb brushing across your cheek. “I can’t be him. I can’t be that unburdened. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel what he felt.”
You stared at him, barely daring to breathe. “You remember loving me.”
“I remember everything.” His voice dropped, rougher now. “Every moment. Every touch. Every word. It’s all in here...” he tapped his temple “...and it’s not just memories. It’s not just data. It’s real. It’s as real as anything I’ve ever felt. And I have lived a very, very long time.”
“Then why did you...”
“Push you away?” He laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Because I’m an idiot. Because I was furious at my enemies and terrified of what I’d put you through and convinced that you couldn’t possibly want me...the real me, the whole impossible mess of me, when you’d had him.”
“John Smith was you,” you said, your voice breaking. “Just you. Without the pain. Without the weight. But still you.”
“And you loved him.”
“I loved you.”
Something shattered in his expression. The cold mask cracked, and underneath it was everything you’d been searching for, the Doctor, raw and open and terrified, his ancient eyes bright with something that looked very much like hope.
“Then come back,” he said. “Come back to the TARDIS. Come back to me. We can figure out the rest as we go.”
You didn’t answer with words. You reached up, grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, and pulled him down into a kiss.
It wasn’t like kissing John Smith. John had been gentle, hesitant. The Doctor kissed like he did everything else: with intensity, with focus, with the barely contained energy of a man who had lived too long and felt too much and didn’t know how to be gentle even when he wanted to be.
He made a sound against your mouth, something between a groan and a growl, and his hands slid into your hair, tilting your head back to deepen the kiss. When you gasped, he took advantage, his tongue sliding against yours, and the taste of him was familiar and alien all at once.
“I’ve got two years of memories,” he murmured against your lips, “and two years of wanting. Do you have any idea what that’s like? To remember wanting someone and not being able to touch them?”
“I think I have some idea,” you breathed.
He pulled back just far enough to look at you, his pupils blown wide, his breathing ragged. “This isn’t going to be gentle. I’m not…I can’t be gentle. Not right now. I've too much burning in my head.”
“I don’t need gentle.”
Something dark and hungry flashed in his eyes. “Good.”
He kissed you again, harder this time, and walked you backward until your shoulders hit the wall. His body pressed against yours, lean and solid, and you could feel the double beat of his hearts thundering against your chest. His hands left your hair to trail down your sides, gripping your hips with a force that would probably leave bruises.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his mouth moving to your jaw, your throat, the sensitive spot just below your ear. “Tell me to slow down. Tell me you need time.”
“Don’t stop.”
He made a sound that was almost a snarl and hoisted you up, your legs wrapping around his waist instinctively. The wall was cold against your back, but he was warm, so warm, warmer than a human should be, his body temperature running high with Time Lord biology and barely restrained desire.
Clothes became an impediment. Buttons were undone with frustrating slowness, fabric pushed aside rather than removed entirely. His mouth was everywhere: your throat, your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, and his hands were everywhere too, mapping your body with an intensity that bordered on desperation.
“I remember,” he kept saying, the words pressed into your skin like prayers. “I remember everything. Every moment I wanted to touch you like this. Every night I lay beside you.”
“I know.” You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth back to yours. “I know. I was there.”
He laughed, a real laugh, surprised and almost giddy, and kissed you again, and this time there was no more talking.
He took you against the wall, then on the floor, then finally in your bed, the TARDIS abandoned in the corner. He wasn’t gentle. His hands gripped hard enough to leave marks, his teeth scraped against sensitive skin, his rhythm was demanding and relentless and utterly, impossibly him. But there was tenderness too, in the way he whispered your name, in the way he paused to check that you were alright, in the way he held you afterward like you were the most precious thing in the universe.
You lay tangled together in the wreckage of your sheets, the Doctor’s arm wrapped around your waist, his face buried in your hair.
“I’m still not him,” the Doctor said quietly, after a long silence. “I can’t be. I can’t give you the simple life, the quiet happiness, the white picket fence.”
“I don’t want a white picket fence.”
“You wanted him.”
You turned in his arms, facing him. His expression was guarded, but his eyes gave him away, ancient and afraid. “I wanted you,” you said firmly. “Every version of you. John Smith, the Doctor, whoever you are tomorrow and the day after that. I didn’t fall in love with a librarian. I fell in love with you. The impossible, infuriating, brilliant, broken, wonderful you.”
He stared at you for a long moment. Then he smiled, a real smile, not the manic grin he used as armor, but something softer. Something that looked almost like John Smith’s smile, but deeper, older, more complicated.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said.
“Probably not. But you’re stuck with me anyway.”
He pulled you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Good. Because I’m never doing that again. The transformation. The forgetting. I’m never giving you up. Not for anything.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” His arms tightened around you. “Now get some sleep. We’ve got a universe to explore in the morning.”
You closed your eyes, listening to the steady double rhythm of his hearts, and let yourself believe that maybe, just maybe, you could have both, the Doctor and John Smith, the adventure and the love, the impossible and the real.
a/n: Likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated. <3
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Because I’m tired of fighting with people in TikTok comment sections.
Peter Benjamin Parker was born August 10th, 2001. This date is a callback to Spider-Man's first appearance in The Amazing Fantasy #15 comics, which premiered in August of 1962. Some iterations have his birthday as August 27th, but Peter’s passport shown in the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home officially confirms his birthdate. The year of his birth being 2001 coincides with his age throughout different films in the MCU, as well as being listed in the official Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki.
The age in which he would have moved in with his Aunt and Uncle has yet to be determined, as we have not gotten any concrete evidence. What we do know for sure is that Aunt May raised him. Although Uncle Ben has yet to be mentioned by name, Peter alluded to his existence in Spider-Man: Homecoming:
Peter: Ned, May cannot know. I cannot do that to her right now, you know? I mean, everything that’s happened with her, I... Please.
There was also a deleted scene mentioned by John Goldstein, who co-wrote Homecoming with John Francis Daley. This would have the character’s mention Ben Parker by name.
Another confirmation is in the series “What if.” The whole point of that series is that it is canon up until one specific point, in which the story diverges into a new variation.
Watcher: But in another universe, a single choice created a whole new hero. All this to make one Super Soldier….There. That's the moment that created a new universe. When asked to leave the room, Margaret "Peggy" Carter chose to stay. But soon it would be her venturing into the unknown and creating a new world.
In Episode 5 of What if, Peter mentions Ben as someone he has previously lost, confirming his existence in the MCU.
Peter: Practice, I guess. My mom, dad, Uncle Ben, Mr. Stark. Now Happy. I've... I've lost a lot. But my Aunt May says... used to say, that if we don't keep smiling when they can't, then we might as well just be gone, too. And... Well, they'd want us to keep going.
We also see Peter’s briefcase contain the initials “B.F.P”, further solidifying his existence in the MCU.
In the comic’s, Peter’s parents died in a plane crash. In the TASM series, Peter is four years old when his parents say goodbye to him for the last time. From what I could find in my research, Peter’s age varies and has never been confirmed, although it is pretty certain that he was between the ages of infancy up until six years old. This would mean Mary and Richard Parker would have passed away between the years 2001-2007.
We first meet Peter Parker in Civil War. This is where the concrete dates become a little bit harder to track. Most people place Captain America: Civil War in June 2016.
Peter mentions in his conversation with Tony that he's had his powers for 6 months, meaning that he would have been bitten by the spider sometime around January 2016.
This would line up with Peter’s age in Civil War (14 years old.) We also know that there is a two month time skip between Peter being dropped off at his Apartment by Tony Stark and Happy Hogan and the start of Homecoming.
Bronx School of Science, the real life Science School Midtown High is based on, had its first day of classes on September 8th for the 2016-2017 school year. This would place that scene in the car in early July, which still lines up with the approximate timeline of civil war (depending on when this scene takes place in the continuity.)
This also lines up with Peter’s age, as he is supposed to be 14 in Civil War and 15 in Homecoming. Peter would have celebrated a birthday in the two month time jump. This also lends credence to Tony calling Peter a “fourteen year old kid,” after the Ferry incident; as Peter would have been 14 when he initially did his research on him.
The Academic Decathlon is said to take place between October 13th-15th, According to a poster visible in the movie. There is another poster contradicting this information, placing the Academic Decathlon a month earlier in September. This could be a continuity error, but a better in world explanation would be that the poster claiming the competition is in September is from the year previous. The poster itself is shown to be in Peter’s room, and he could have held on to it since it wouldn’t be a jump to assume he was on the team the year before, especially as the teams are established the year prior.
Of course, this is all assumption, it could still very well be taking place in September.
American Homecoming is typically set late September and can happen as late as October. This would place Homecoming sometime late October. If you are working on the assumption that the poster in Peter’s room is the correct date, Homecoming can take place as early as late September, as the Homecoming dance is the last major event in the movie.
Spider-Man Homecoming ends with Peter being offered a spot on the Avengers. This scene can take place anytime in the school year, but presumably not too long after the events of homecoming. I would guess the end of October early November, but that’s fully a guess. It doesn’t seem to be Christmas just yet, with no snow and warmish weather, but it could also take place as far as April/May 2017. Peter would still be fifteen at the end, regardless of this fact.
There is a significant jump between Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War.
Infinity War takes place in April 2018, making Peter Parker 16 years old. From Tony and Peter’s interactions, they have definitely had some level of a maintained relationship in that year/ year and a half between the two movies. This is a topic the producers, Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland have all commented on. We don’t know exactly how long there is between the start and the end of Infinity war, but it can’t have been longer than a few days.
Peter was snapped in April 2018, and returned on the same day of the final battle in Endgame, sometime in October 2023. He would still be 16 years old, as you do not age when blipped from existence.
By his literal birthday, Peter would not turn 17 until his next birthday, which is on August 10th, 2024. Biologically, as they weren’t snapped away for exactly 5 years, he would hit 17 sometime in April 2024. For simplicity's sake, we are still going to use his birthday as a marker for his age, which is what they do in the MCU.
Far From Home takes place 8 months after the blip, placing it in June 2024. This lines up with Peter’s age (“I’m 16!” to Beck in the bar) and the fact that School trips to Europe typically take place in June. We don’t know how much time takes place between the end of Far From Home and the end credit scene/the beginning of No Way Home, but we do know it takes place after August 10th, as J.J. Jameson notes that Peter is a “17 year old boy from Queens.” We also know that it takes place before the start of the school year, as we see Peter’s first day of class after the fact. This places the start of the film anytime after August 11th, 2024 and before the beginning of September, 2024.
The final scene of the movie shows that it takes place around Christmas time. Peter has not completed his High School Diploma, and Ned and MJ are still in New York, meaning that their senior year is not yet complete. This places the end of the movie is set in December 2024, right at the same time as Hawkeye. Hawkeye takes place Christmas 2024, as shown by an invitation to Kate’s Mother’s Party, which shows the date as December 2024.
There is another sign that shows that it’s “New Year 2025.”
This date would make Peter Parker 17 at the end of the film, NOT 18 as some people have placed him. The only argument typically used here is the fact that seniors are usually 18, but that’s not taking into account his birthday. He’s an August baby, making him the youngest of his year.
(Take it from me, an August baby myself. I only turned 18 several months after I completed high school.)
There you go, a complete timeline of events. Use it to write fic, win arguments- I don’t care.
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me reading though the go3 tag as someone that actually loved the ending and thought their decision was a perfect characterisation
because here's the thing, no heaven, no hell, what happens when humans die? what else is there?
reincarnation.
aziraphale and crowley get to relive each other over and over again, they get eternity together but in the most human way possible
as aziraphale said themselves (well about Adam, but i like to think its applicable here too) they aren't heaven incarnate or hell incarnate, but human incarnate. so they aren't immortal beings, they will still find each other in every life they live, and thats what is important
no kiss? sure, its upsetting, but a queer couple shouldn't need to kiss for you to understand their bond, their love. it was made very clear both pre-reset and post-reset that they love and care for each other so much
but they also care about humanity, and are willing to put that above their own memories, their own relationship
content warnings: fem!reader, swearing, mentions of sex, reader gets drunk (i'm sober idk what it's like to get drunk, it will be inaccurate, sorry), awkward peter, reader has been having dreams of peter (but they're actually real and her old memories), ex's to lovers, but she doesn't remember him, amnesia trope i suppose, reader should need more convincing but let's be real, this is fanfiction, its supposed to be unrealistic
summary: you've been having dreams about this man for the past year... why does it all feel so real. and... wait, how the hell is this guy at this party your friend forced you to?
word count: 6k
author's note: so... i'm not back! probably. uni has been a bitch, i thought I killed my laptop today and I have an exam tomorrow but fuck it we ball have a fanfiction about peter parker because brand new day comes out soon and I'm so excited
JUNE, 2024
"Do you think that dreams are alternate realities?"
The question kind of came from nowhere. Well — it had been on your mind a lot, and especially recently. Especially on patrol, especially when you were sat, legs dangling off the edge of the high risers in lower Manhattan, with him sat next to you. You don't know why you thought about it more when he was around, you just did. And you could barely even explain yourself without giving everything away.
Spiderman turns to face you, mask covering his face because you don't know who he is, but you can still tell — he's got his eyebrows furrowed at you. He's confused. The two of you had been sat in silence for the past ten or even fifteen minutes and then suddenly you blurt that out. You couldn't even help it. It just… happened. And now you would be forced to explain yourself.
You don't know Spiderman. You know him in the sense of you fight crime together, you meet up on rooftops in the middle of the night and scout out people doing wrong and sort it out, save people from danger, etc.
But you don't know him. You don't know his favourite colour, or what he does for work, or hell, even school. You don't know his likes and his dislikes. You don't know who his friends are, what motivates him to get up in the morning.
You don't know who he is.
So then why do you feel like you do? It doesn't make any sense. It keeps you up at night, trying to figure it out. You don't know who he is and he doesn't know who you are, so why does it feel like you've been friends for years and years? Why does it feel like he knows you like the back of your hand? How you manage to work so smoothly together as heroes if you've only been doing it a month or two — it didn't make sense.
"What?" He asks, perched on the edge of the building next to you, literally on the edge, not worrying about falling because well — the spider thing, you know.
You shrug, stumbling over the beginning of your sentence, trying to figure out out exactly to word it without sounding crazy because if you were being honest… it was crazy. "Well… you know the theory, surely? That when we dream, we're just experiencing other realities in the multiverse that different versions of us are actually living. I mean — we know so little about the unconscious mind that I reckon it's pos—"
Spiderman chuckles a little, shaking his head but still not letting his eyes leave you. "Alright, okay. Yeah, I know the theory. What's brought this on?"
Here we go.
Because there's been this guy. That's all he is. You think. You don't know and — that's the problem. Around 85% of the dreams you've had in the past year or so (you know, you've done the maths), there's been this guy in your dreams.
Holding your hand, kissing your cheek, taking you on dates to the movies and sitting next to you in class. Laughing along with you, hell — even meeting your parents. And it all feels so real. It all feels like something you've experienced before. It all feels like something that has happened to you before and somehow your brain has just forgotten.
But how could you forget something like that? Something so incredible, so real, so full of love and care and everything you wish you could have.
You explain it to Spiderman, making sure not to look him in the eye because you think you would die of embarrassment if you saw his reaction. But who else were you supposed to tell? In fact, it was probably best for you to tell someone that had no idea who you were, because if you were ridiculed for this, made fun of by Spiderman — which would be crazy but you're ready for any reaction — you had no obligation to stick around with him.
Once you've finished, your voice calms, having rambled on for quite a bit, only stopping once you realised you've probably said a bit too much. You don't tell him everything. You don't tell him what this guy looks like, you don't tell him about the more… explicit dreams. You don't tell him about how whenever you wake up it feels like part of you has just been ripped away.
You keep it as… normal as this situation could possibly be.
Spiderman stays quiet for a moment. You're considering just getting up and leaving, never coming back, that whole ordeal. But something in you begs to stay and hear him out. Just for a little. Just to see what he thinks.
Then he speaks, just like normal. "And you're saying this guy is in like, 85% of your dreams?"
You nod, simple. "Yeah, I, uh… I did the maths. It's like 84.567% but rounding, you know." You stutter, blabbering on again. Fuck.
"Do you know his name?"
"No."
"You don't refer to him in the dreams?"
You shrug, finally looking at Spiderman. "Not really. If I do it's with some cringy petname or something. Like baby or sweetheart. Something sickly sweet, you know."
Spiderman hums, nodding slightly. He stops perching, instead sits down properly, not closer to you, exactly the same distance, but there's something different about it. Like he's less on watch and more interested in this conversation now. Then softly, he turns to you again, and you wish now more than ever that you could see what he looked like under the mask. "Do you know what he looks like?"
You blink, head whipping up from his hands to his face, so fast you would nearly have given yourself whiplash. "What?"
"Well sometimes people in dreams are just like… faceless blobs. Is he a faceless blob?"
Swallowing thickly, you turn away, gaze darting across the New York skyline, following as lights from different apartments turned on and off, the car lights driving down the streets. Anything but looking at him. "No. He's not a faceless blob. I— I know what he looks like."
"And?"
"Brown hair, brown eyes. Nice smile but I'm probably bias." You laugh your way through describing this mystery man, acting as if you thought it was so stupid as well, and that it was all bullshit.
Spiderman goes quiet. Just nods along.
Then you hear police sirens and you're both up and following the noise. The cars are on a street a block or two down and are heading towards a bank a mile or so out from your house. Spiderman is already moving so you follow, quickly and swiftly, just like you trained.
You shouldn't, but you're thankful for the distraction. Part of you regrets telling him anything.
SEPTEMBER, 2024
Peter didn't realise that you would be here. In fact, you were the last person he expected to be here. Sure, MJ and Ned, they were supposed to be here, it was an MIT building that the landlord rented out to students for a cheaper rate and without ever knowing Peter Parker, they had gotten into MIT with flying colours. But you?
You'd never showed interest in going to MIT. Did you know someone going to MIT? Who were they? Why had you even moved to New York? He supposed your dad still got ill, you still came here to live with your mother. Had you still been involved in everything with Thanos? Had you still known Tony?
Peter still had all his memories, the ones with you in them, the ones where you noticed him, where you liked him hell— even loved him. You didn't have those memories.
Peter didn't know if he was willing to relearn you. Not with the memory everything before.
Because there you were, in that gorgeous black dress, that fit you perfectly, that made his heart soar. You'd put make up on, a rare but brilliant occasion, with his favourite coloured eyeshadow, the specific shade that made your eyes pop, even in the darkness of the apartment. And— were you looking at him?
You're talking to MJ and Ned. You shook their hands, smiled and laughed at something Ned said, and Peter can only think of the first time he introduced you to the two of them. Then there's a glance, to your left, directly in his direction.
It happens as quick as it stops. Peter doesn't know what to do with himself.
When you finish the conversation with MJ and Ned, Peter watches you head straight towards the alcohol. Since when did you..? You never drank before. You refused, never went near even a drop of the stuff. Peter watched you b-line for the table, pour yourself a nice big glass of whatever you've chosen, take one more glance towards him before taking a big gulp. Peter can't figure out what the hell is going on. There has to be a reason you keep looking at him, he can't just be going crazy.
Now, Peter needs a drink. He's not stupid. He waits until you leave the table before heading over to it. He doesn't even know if he can ever work up the courage to talk to you again, especially this early on.
Courage. And what have you both just given yourself? Liquid courage.
It doesn't take long for the alcohol to kick in. An hour, maybe two. You've had a couple drinks by now, someone you've only just met dared you into a shot, and now you're sipping a lovely glass of wine. Not only have you had a lot, but you've been mixing, too. Bad idea.
Peter, on the other hand, isn't as bad. He's had a bit, he's slurring his words, attempting to talk to someone he didn't know previously, avoiding you, MJ and Ned like the plague. He's still not well-minded though. He's still glancing at you every time you walk into the kitchen and back out again, and he's definitely still noticing every time you stare at him. Spidey senses, or whatever. That's what he tries to tell himself it is, but Peter thought both then and now, that even if he had never been bitten, he would have found you either way.
Then suddenly, even though he's been avoiding you so much it's been killing him, you pop up behind him, and Peter realises just how drunk you really are.
"You're cute." You say, the first half of the sentence so slurred that Peter has to take a second to figure out what you said. Cute, yeah, he's fucked.
Peter's lips part, eyebrows furrowed as he looks down at you. "Uh—" Fuck, what does he even say?
You hiccup, leaning against the doorframe like if you didn't have something to hold, you would be on the floor instead. "M'sorry, I don't even know you, y'just, cute. Had to say something."
"Thanks." Because, what else is he even supposed to say. If he even tries to string a sentence together, it'll come out all jumbled and while you certainly don't care about that, he doesn't want to risk spilling anything at the moment. Perhaps never.
"I've actua'y been avoidin' you al'night."
What?
"Didn' wanna say somethin' I shouldn't've." You shrug, smiling up at him with big eyes and Peter can almost feel his insides melt. It's the exact same look you used to give him when you'd convince him to do something he knew was a bad idea. Fuck. "But, then I stop'd caring'. Dunno why."
"Maybe the alcohol?" Peter squeaks.
Then you're gasping, the gleeful glint in your eyes only getting brighter as in your drunken haze, remember the existence of alcohol, even though it's running through your system like crazy. "Oh m'god-! Yes! Alcohol! Love it s'much. Need some more…"
Peter can't help himself then. He's so used to lending you a helping hand, comforting you when you need it, being by your side and doing anything for you that the second you mention more alcohol, he protectiveness kicks in. He grabs your hand as you attempt to run off towards the kitchen and you pause in your hastiness.
"Woah, maybe we should get you some water instead, hey?" Peter says, keeping his voice soft and trying to push through the less alcohol in his own system in order to help you.
You look up at him with those big eyes again and sigh dreamily. "Y'cute and carin'? Are y'single? There's no way you're single, right, cutie? Someone has to have… you know, ugh. I can never find the right guy."
Peter rubs a palm against your shoulder, doing his best to ignore your question. Of course he's single, he would never be able to be with anybody else. "Come on, towards the kitchen."
Carefully, Peter guides you towards the kitchen, grabbing an empty cup from the side and heading towards the tap. He makes sure it's cold but not too cold and hands it to you. He tries not to take notice of the way you can't stop staring at him. How he managed to get into this situation, he doesn't know, but all he knows now is that he can't just leave you, drunk out of your mind, with no way home.
It's late into the party now. A couple people have gone home but it doesn't look like it's going to quieten down any time soon. Peter takes a glance at the clock and is shocked by the time, any other day and he'd be perched on a rooftop beside you — without you even knowing it was him.
Still, you're here. Somehow, still with him. It was a joke you always used to have. You said it from the beginning of your relationship and it was the last thing you ever said to him, knowingly. We find each other in every universe. No matter what. And you were right.
Once you'd finished the water, you chucked the cup into the bin next to the sink and turned back around to Peter, a pout on your face that was going to be the death of him. You're leaning against the counter, but this time not out of drunkenness but instead with how tired you are. The hyper-ness of the alcohol has been very quickly replaced by sleepiness.
"I'm gonna go t'sleep." You murmur, leaning further towards Peter, your eyes fluttering shut.
Peter stops you, holding you up by the shoulders. "Can't sleep here, I'm sorry. Do you have a way to get home, sweetheart?"
You shake your head, the pout reappearing at both remembering how your friend abandoned you and how Peter didn't let you go to sleep. "M'friend was gonna drop me off, but she's gone home with a guy, I don't know."
"Okay, where do you live? I'm more than happy to walk you home."
"Upper Manhattan." You grumble, beginning to lean into Peter, rather than the counter and not realising that that was much too far away to walk and Peter couldn't afford you an Uber. He also didn't trust you on the other end of a taxi. "But, s'okay, right? Can just sleep at yours. Don't you live in th's buildin' cutie?"
Peter furrowed his eyebrows at you, genuinely concerned. "You don't know me."
You shrug, smiling up at him, trying to stay awake. "I dunno, feel safe around you. Feels like I've known y'longer than I actually have. And if you try anything, I'm a fantastic archer."
Yeah, he knows, Peter smiles at that. You were fantastic at everything but you always found most pride in the archery thing. Always looked up to people like Hawkeye, always helped as many people as possible with a skill so mundane, in your eyes. In Peter's eyes, it was the least mundane thing ever. He thought you were so cool, and he was so proud of you. Even if you had no idea anymore.
"Okay, sweetheart, let's go." He says, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone as he guides you towards the door. He only lives downstairs, so it doesn't take very long until you're standing in his apartment. You've never been in here before, it's weird. Though Peter always imagined that you had been. That you'd been here countless times, that he'd cooked you dinner, that you had your own drawer of clothes and your toiletries were in the bathroom.
Peter heads towards his drawer, grabbing some sweatpants and a spare shirt, a stupid nerdy one that has some dumb physics joke on it. When he reaches you again, he finds you looking at a photo on the mantle of a canal in Venice, it's bland, it's boring, but anything else would have to have had you in it. He only had one of them, and it wasn't going to leave that in his apartment.
"Here, go into the bathroom and change, there's a spare toothbrush in there. I, uh, don't have any make up wipes or cotton pads, I'm sorry." Peter stammers, letting you take the clothes he folded just to give to you.
You smile, still drunk, still tired, but something more real settled behind your eyes. "Thanks, this is more than enough."
Peter watches you stumble off to bathroom, unable to take his eyes off you. Even with everything that went wrong, you were still here with him. Different, and you didn't really know him, but you were in his apartment and you felt safe around him, even if you didn't know why, and Peter felt something settle in him. You'd be here. He'd be here. Always.
He drags himself to the bedroom, grabbing his favourite pillow (leave one for you) and the blanket he left draped at the edge of the bed, and headed back towards the sofa. By the time he had set everything up, you had come back out of the bathroom, make up a little cleaner with simply water, and in his clothes.
In his clothes.
Peter almost burst into tears in that exact moment. In another universe, you would be his. You would be wearing his clothes because you liked the smell, not because you were drunk and had nowhere else to stay. You'd be in his apartment because you would practically live there, not because you bumped into Peter at a party.
It dawns on Peter just now weird this situation actually is.
His heart aches, but he puts on a smile, and nods in your direction. "Bedroom's just through there. I'll be out here, if you need anything."
"Thanks." You mumble, eyes all cute and droopy. "See ya in th'morning."
And just like that, you're gone, off to sleep in his bed, without him.
When you wake, it's to a headache, and an apartment that isn't your own. It's to the sunlight streaming in through the window and bedsheets that smell like home, even though they aren't yours. It's that familiarity, like in your dreams, and suddenly you're sat up, looking around the room you find yourself in.
It's somewhat decorated, the walls are a simple cream but there's the odd poster, a corkboard with post it notes scattered on it, and the flooring is a dark wood with a simple rug half underneath the bed.
Then you start remembering everything.
It comes back in waves, it always does. First seeing him when you first arrive, introducing yourself to the host, MJ? You think. It's still blurry. Then seeing him throughout the night, watching him watching you. Why was he watching you so much?
And then… oh fuck. You've actually gone and fucked it now, for definite. Is this his fucking apartment?
Oh my god, did you sleep with him?
No, because where is he? You woke up in the middle of the bed, so he couldn't have slept in here with you. And you still had clothes on, not yours, true, but not the type you put on after sex. Proper clothes.
So where is he? You drag yourself out of bed, feet dangling over the edge of the bed while they adjust to the cold flooring. It's a particularly cold September.
As you swing the bedroom door open, a great weight is lifted off your shoulders as you spot the pillow and blanket made up on the sofa. The man is still nowhere to be seen, which scares you a little bit, but then you spot the piece of paper left on the kitchen counter.
His handwriting is messy, cute, all of that. Its a short message, scrawled onto an open page in the notebook he's left out and reads the following.
Morning, hope you're okay. Make yourself at home, there's painkillers in the bathroom if you need them and help yourself to some breakfast. It was nice meeting you last night, I would have stayed to meet you properly this morning but work calls. — "Cutie" as you called me.
You reckon you're actually going to end it. I mean, obviously you're not but you might as well. You've embarrassed yourself in front of this guy who you don't even know, but you've been dreaming about for the past year. Now you're sober and he's not even in the apartment.
It would be easy to leave, right now, it would. You could just get up, go, and it would mean nothing. You'd never have to see him again and you could forget all of this.
But then you catch it by the door. A worn leather wallet, on the counter by the door, left in a bowl. Jackpot.
Because even after last night, you didn't know his name. You didn't know who he was, but now you could find out.
You hesitantly step over to the door, picking up the wallet and letting it sit in your hand for a bit before opening it. This is a big moment, this isn't just a guy you met last night, this is a guy you've actually, non-metaphorically been dreaming about for the past year.
Slowly, you open the wallet. The first thing you see is his ID, perfect. Slipping it out of the folder, you scan through the information.
Peter Benjamin Parker. Born August 10th, 2001, Queens, New York. Aged 18.
After all this time, you had his name. Peter, of course. It made sense. He looked like a Peter.
But there was more. Something you had noticed immediately, too impatient to find out his name. All wallets had that little clear folder, made for a little photo. Usually loved ones, if you were a parent, it had a kid in it, or grand-kids, or just partners.
In that little folder, was a photo of Peter, next to you.
Not just a photo of you, a photo booth photo, with your lips pressed against his cheek, a grin on his face. It must have been a while ago, you only look 16, he looks a similar age too. And the worst thing wasn't even the fact that you were in this photo.
The worst thing was that you had this memory too.
You had dreamt about it. Last May, it must have been around the. He'd taken you on a date to the movies, and they'd just put in a new photo booth at the theatre and he insisted on getting a set with you, even though it was five dollars and he didn't have a job yet.
Oh, you need to sit down. You reach for the nearest chair, a single wooden, uncomfortable chair by the table, and you practically collapse into it. You can't stop looking at the photo, why does he have it? Why do you remember it? Have your dreams been real this whole time?
Then there's a jangling of keys on the other side of the door, and it swings open. There he is, in a jumper with his shirt collar hooked over the wool, backpack on one shoulder, cheeks heated and eyes stressed.
"Hey I forgot my wallet—" He cuts himself off when he sees you with his wallet. You stand from your seat.
"You're Peter Parker?"
He nods. "Yeah. Can I have- my wallet back?"
"Too late." You shake your head, turning it around. "Explain this photo to me, now."
Peter chuckles nervously, holding his hands out as be shuts the door completely. "Uhh, it's a photo?"
You blink, unfazed. "Why do you have a photo of me in your wallet?"
"Its complicated"
"I've got nowhere to be." You shrug. Peter doesn't quite know how to deal with this. You've never actually been angry at him before. You've been disappointed before, you've been worried that has manifested itself as angry, but never properly angry.
So Peter nods curtly, removes his backpack and sits it by the other chair. He drags it out and takes a seat, urging you to do the same.
You sit, sliding the photo out of the folder and chucking the wallet back to him. He's not getting that photo back unless he's got a completely valid reason.
"Okay, just under a year ago I made the biggest mistake of my life got into a lot of trouble. At first, everyone I loved was in danger and then the whole world was. So, a friend of mine, a sort of… sorcerer, had to bail me out, majorly. I owe him my life and he doesn't even know." Peter explained, eyes dashing between your gaze and where he hands were clasped on the table. "It was difficult, but he had to make everyone forget who I was. Everyone forgot the name Peter Parker."
You furrow your eyebrows at him, frowning. "Everyone?"
He nods. "Everyone. It was the only way I could save everything. So everyone forgot me."
"That sounds… lonely."
"It has been… well, there is someone but, again, complicated." Peter shrugs, and you have no idea who he is referencing, but for some reason, it makes your stomach twinge with jealousy. "Anyway, before he made the spell, I asked him one thing. Just one thing."
Your features have softened, no longer full of anger but instead just warmth. You couldn't be angry at him. "What was it?"
Peter sighed, looking down at his hands. "I asked him to keep this one photo, the one I kept in my wallet. That it would be enough and would get me by without anyone else. The photo of my and… my girlfriend."
"Your…"
"Girlfriend." Peter nods, finally looking up at you. "You were my girlfriend. For 3 years. I'm so sorry. I swear, I had no idea you would be at that party, I wasn't even planning on talking to you, and then you spoke to me and couldn't get home and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I didn't help you."
"Peter." You speak, voice soft as you struggle to find the words. You don't know what a normal person would even say in this situation. There's nothing that makes enough sense, nothing that could help your brain process all of this. And you still haven't taken those painkillers. "You said there were painkillers in the bathroom?"
He furrows his eyebrows, but then nods. "Yeah, cabinet above the sink, help yourself."
"Thank you."
Swiftly, you get up and head to the bathroom, making it clear you don't want Peter to follow. There's nothing you can even conjure up that would even make a bit of sense. Hey, you know me really well but I don't remember much of that, only a couple moments, but you're still cute and we clearly get along so I'm willing for this to be a thing again?
What kind of nutter were you. Not only did you stand in the bathroom for ages while taking the painkillers, you also stood above the sink, splashing your face with water. You thought that maybe this was some form of dream, but it wasn't. It actually wasn't. This was real.
So, where to start? All of the dreams you've been having over the past year have been real. You haven't made them up, and you in another universe experienced them for real. But that version of you is you, and now you've met the guy that you apparently forgot. How much of your relationship had you forgotten? Were they just the main moments? Were they the ones you held dearest to your heart or were they just random?
Peter's explanation hadn't exactly been direct. He had told you what you needed to know in order for him to explain the photo but you could tell it hadn't really been everything. Because now you had two following questions, worse than any prior questions:
Why did he need everyone to forgot him?
How was he friends with a sorcerer?
And you need an explanation for these. The only sorcerer that people really knew about was Dr Strange, but then how would this random dude know Strange? You'd met him a couple years ago during a run in with a couple bank robbers, but he'd handled that. The only way you would be able to know Strange well enough for him to bail you out like that was if you were a superhero.
You sighed, took one last look in the mirror and left the bathroom, praying that the painkillers would kick in sooner than it said on the box. When you stepped out of the bathroom, you immediately spot Peter with his forehead against the wood of the table. He looked a little stupid but you can tell he's attempting to regulate his breathing. Then quietly, you hear him murmur, over and over under his breath,
"Stupid, stupid stupid. Just tell her. She's gonna find out either way. I mean, she's a genius, she'll find out eventually. And if you don't tell her now, she's gonna be so mad when you do."
You scoff a little under your breath, then say, louder, "Peter?"
He jumps up, sighing as he sees you. "Christ, scared me."
"Sorry." You murmur, sitting back down in your seat and fiddling with your hands in your lap. "What were you mumbling to yourself there, huh?"
Peter shakes his head, an internal debate over whether he should tell you. He must decide quicker than you had expected because then his lips are parting and he attempting to form the correct sentence. The correct way to say whatever he's planning on saying. Jeez, how life changing could this be. "There's more. That I should tell you, about… well, us, I guess. Well, me."
You nod, curt, unsure. "Go on."
"I know about your dreams. About me." He says, and then realises that he must sound like an absolute creep, so he stammers, trips over his words a bit before finding the correct foot again. "I mean, you've told me about them, but you didn't even realise it—"
Of course. There was only one way he would have been told about your dreams, if you had told him yourself. That's why it felt like you knew him better than you actually did. It's why he didn't want to take the mask off, he was the one that implemented that rule, not you. That was why he'd asked if you knew what he looked like, or his name. It's how he knew Strange. Everything had come together, so easily, so perfectly. How you hadn't realised in the first place, you didn't know.
"Are you Spiderman? "
Peter looks up at you, that warm, hopeful look settled into the brown of his eyes, and he nods, soft and sweet. "You were always a genius."
You blink at him, leaning forward in your seat because of course, everything makes sense now. "So that's how you know Strange? And that's why it felt like I knew Spiderman better than I should, because I did."
"Yeah."
"I mean, what are the chances the one person I go to tell about my dreams, just so happens to be the exact guy I'm dreaming about." You laugh to yourself, sitting back in your chair, head in your hands, partly embarrassed, partly unable to process this information.
"Yeah." Peter chuckles a little this time.
"So."
Peter pauses for a moment, just looking at you, who doesn't seem to be thinking. You'd just stopped talking, sat with everything for a minute. Peter cleared his throat. "So?"
You shrug, lips parted and brows furrowed hesitantly. "I don't know… where we go from here."
"That's fair."
Slowly, you lean forward in your seat, looking towards Peter, then away, then back at him; like you can't decide what to say, what to do. Like everything is still so jumbled but you don't seem to know how to even start untangling it. Peter understands. It's a lot of information to take in. Even if you just wanted to leave forever and never see him okay, he would understand.
And that was what you had realised. From your dreams, from the way he acted as Spiderman, from even just your conversation with him now. Peter cared. Deeply. Unlike anyone you'd ever met before. Even when he was still in love with you (—okay, you're assuming here, but to him, everything still happened, so), he cared for you. He would do whatever was comfortable with you, no matter what. He'd disregard his own feelings completely if it meant you were okay.
Which means something, especially considering everything he's gone through.
"If you want, I'll give you my number, and if you are ever able to properly process this and want… something out of it, friends, more, I don't know, I don't mind, you text me." He offers, showing his maturity, showing his politeness, showing how much he cares. "You don't have to, it's just a suggestion."
You look up at him, and for the first time, your eyes are soft. You're looking at him like you look at him in your dreams, like how you look at Spiderman. "No."
Peter nods. "Whatever makes you—"
"Shut up." He purses his lips, holds in a laugh, which makes you laugh as well, even if you're trying to hide it too. You've got a finger held up to him, supporting your statement, but you're still giggling as you speak. "Shut up. I… am willing to get to know you again."
You can see the way Peter's eyes light up just from pure hope at your words, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "Okay."
Lowering your finger, you swallow thickly, still not completely sure if you're making the right decision here but still going through with it. "You're cute, I didn't lie to you last night. And… clearly we get along. I don't have very many people, not that I'm close with. And you seem funny, and I'd like to get to know you."
"Thank you." Peter breathes. "Take as much time as you need, we're going your pace, whatever makes you most comfortable, okay? And… I'll try not to be weird about knowing everything about you already. Just habit. Things I couldn't really forget—"
"Peter." You breathe, stopping him mid-sentence, reaching a hand over to rest against his which gives him no choice but to look you in the eyes. "It's okay."
He nods, sheepish, it being obvious there's still something on his mind. "Okay. Yeah. Thanks. And uh… it's really nice hearing you say my name like that again."
You smile, then, soft and warm.
Because maybe he knows more about you than you do of him, but that doesn't matter. You can see the care. You can see the potential. You have some memories of what the two of you used to be like and you can relearn him. You're willing to relearn him, after all this time. Even if it's a rocky start, even if there are problems, or you get frustrated with the knowledge differences.
You're willing to relearn him. Even with no memory of before.
a/n: thanks for all the love! wish I could write more but uni is a bitch its assessment week, but summer holidays soon so fingers crossed? we'll find out, thanks for the support love you all!! <3
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warnings → mentions of alcohol, family issues, angst if you squint, fluff :p
summary → peter notices something’s been off with y/n all night, and after a few drinks, she finally lets him see why.
click here 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ for the previous chapter!
✩₊˚.⋆ Chapter sixteen ⋆⁺₊✧
Y/n stood behind the counter, adjusting a stack of books that didn’t really need adjusting. She lined the edges up carefully, pressing them into place before stepping back-then immediately fixing them again.
“Relax” Lauren said from beside her, barely glancing up from her phone. “It’s a book signing, not your wedding day.”
“I am relaxed” Y/n muttered, nudging the top book into perfect alignment.
Lauren finally looked up, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve fixed that same stack three times.”
Y/n paused, then crossed her arms loosely. “…I like symmetry.”
Lauren let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, okay.”
The store buzzed quietly around them. Chairs had been arranged near the front windows for the signing, soft music drifting through the speakers overhead while Karen moved around making last-minute adjustments. The smell of coffee and paper filled the air, warm and familiar.
Y/n usually loved nights like this.
But tonight her thoughts felt tangled and restless, like she couldn’t settle into herself properly.
The bell above the door chimed.
Her head lifted automatically.
And just like that, something inside her softened.
Peter stepped into the store with cold air curling in behind him. His hoodie hung loose over his frame, sleeves pushed up slightly past his wrists. His curls looked windblown and messy, cheeks pink from outside.
His eyes found her immediately.
They always did.
his expression turning into something soft and warm as he smiled.
“Hey” he said as he walked over.
Y/n smiled a little. “Hi.”
Peter leaned casually against the counter beside her, glancing around the shop before looking back at her.
“Where do you want me?”
She shook her head lightly, fingers tracing the edge of the counter absentmindedly. “You don’t have to do anything..Just hang around if you’re not busy.”
There was something about the way she said it that made his expression shift slightly.
she wasn’t asking for help when she told him to come by.
She just wanted him there.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not busy.”
His hand moved without thinking, brushing lightly against hers where it rested against the counter. Not fully holding it. Just enough to feel her there.
Y/n glanced down at the touch before looking back up at him.
The smile she gave him this time was softer.
But something about it still didn’t sit right with him.
Peter knew her too well not to notice.
Something was bothering her.
He could feel it almost immediately.
But he didn’t say anything yet.
✩₊˚.⋆🕸️⋆⁺₊✧
The event began not long after.
people gathered in a loose semi-circle around the author as she spoke. Her voice carried easily through the store, steady and practiced.
Y/n stayed near the side of the store, tucked beside one of the bookshelves with her arms folded loosely across her chest. She watched and listened, but not fully there.
Her thoughts drifted in and out, catching on random things before slipping away again.
Peter had been in the back room with Karen at first, helping her with something technical on the computer. Once it was sorted, he lingered for a second before glancing out towards the shelves.
And like always, his attention found her immediately and he moved quietly through the crowd until he was standing just behind her.
he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, warm and familiar, pulling her back against him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She softened instantly.
The tension she hadn’t even realized she was holding slipped away, her head tipping back slightly until it brushed his shoulder.
A small smile tugged at her lips.
“Hi” he murmured, his voice low enough that only she could hear.
“Hi” she breathed back.
She wasn’t tense, She wasn’t pulling away but something about her felt… quieter than usual. Like she was there, but not all the way.
His grip tightened just slightly.
“You okay?” he whispered.
She nodded almost immediately. “Yeah just.. tired.”
He didn’t fully believe that.
But he also knew better than to push her before she was ready.
So instead, he pressed a soft kiss into her hair and stayed there holding her while the author continued speaking.
✩₊˚.⋆🕸️⋆⁺₊✧
By the time the book signing ended, the shop felt lighter again as people filtered out slowly, once it was officially closing time karen clapped her hands once. “Alright, that went well. No one knocked anything over, no one cried, and we made sales.”
Lauren raised a hand. “I almost cried.”
“We’re not counting you laur” Karen said.
Y/n laughed quietly, leaning against the counter next to Peter.
Karen glanced between them. “We’re going to the bar across the street, my treat, you guys deserve it”
Lauren gasped. “I love you.”
“I know” Karen said, already grabbing her coat. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
The bar was warm, dim, a little loud-but not overwhelming. they all squeezed into a booth, their drinks arriving faster than expected.
Peter stayed beside Y/n the entire time.
Close enough that his knee rested against hers underneath the table.
Y/n didn’t plan on drinking much.
But one drink turned into two… then another..then another…and by the time they were leaving, her head felt light, her steps a little uneven.
Peter’s hand immediately settled against her waist to steady her. “Okay” he murmured as they stepped out into the cooler air. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m fine” she insisted, immediately leaning into him.
“Mhm m’sure you are” he hummed.
The walk back wasn’t long.
the second they reached their building, Peter bent slightly and scooped her into his arms without hesitation.
Y/n immediately melted against him with a soft sound, arms loosely wrapping around his neck while her head dropped against his shoulder.
“Remember last time you carried me up these stairs?” she mumbled sleepily.
Peter smiled to himself as he climbed. “Yeah”
“I thought you were sooo hot for that.”
He laughed quietly under his breath.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah” she said seriously, lifting her head slightly to look at him. “I think you’re very hot actually. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.”
Peter’s cheeks warmed immediately.
“Thank you” he said, trying and failing to sound normal.
He smiled despite himself, adjusting his grip on her as he reached her apartment door.
He unlocked it with her keys and nudged the door shut behind them once they were inside.
Peter carefully set her back on her feet, though he kept a hand on her waist when she immediately swayed a little.
“Okay” he said softly. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Okay” she echoed.
He guided her towards the bed, helping her sit.
Careful, gentle.
He moved slowly, helping her out of her clothes, making sure she didn’t trip over herself in the process.
She watched him quietly for a second before speaking, her voice softer this time. “…you know my mom called today.”
Peter stilled almost immediately.
Something in his expression shifted, like he already knew where this conversation was heading. He knew how her parents were. Knew how easily they could make her feel small without even trying.
“…yeah?” he said gently.
“Yeah..she kept telling me to come back home” she murmured, her voice quieter now, the buzz softening into something else. “saying what am I doing all alone in New York?”
His chest tightened.
“I told her I’m not alone” she went on, shaking her head faintly. “And even if I was… what difference would it make going back? I’d still be alone there.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
“You know?”
Peter stepped closer without thinking, his hand coming up to cup her face, thumb brushing lightly along her cheek.
“Yeah, baby” he said softly. “I know.”
He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. He hated that they could still do this to her. Hated that one phone call was enough to leave her carrying this heaviness around all day.
“I’m so happy you and I met, Peter” she whispered.
Something in his chest pulled tight in the best way.
“Me too” he murmured.
He stood for a second after that, pulling his shirt over his head, then his pants, tossing them aside before climbing into bed.
“C’mere.”
She didn’t hesitate.
She crawled toward him, settling into his arms like it was instinct, her head tucking under his chin, her body fitting against his like it had always been meant to.
His arms wrapped around her immediately.
His fingers slid into her hair, moving slowly, gently, grounding.
“I’m sorry” he said quietly after a moment. “For how they treated you.”
She shifted a little closer, her hand curling loosely against his chest.
“They’re missing out” he continued softly, his voice low in the quiet room as his hand moved through her hair again, careful, soothing.
“They don’t get to see how much light you bring into a room just by being in it, or how special and kind your heart is”
He let out a small breath.
“and that’s their biggest loss.”
He pressed a soft kiss into her hair.
“You’re not alone” he whispered, pressing another kiss into her hair. “Not here, not with me.”
He kept talking quietly after that even when he wasn’t sure she was still awake.
Just soft little things.
Mindless things.
Anything to fill the silence for her.
But eventually he glanced down and realized she’d fallen asleep halfway through it.
Her face relaxed completely against his chest.
Peter smiled to himself, something soft settling in his chest. Carefully, he brushed a few strands of hair away from her face, his fingers lingering for just a second.
Then he leaned down and pressed a quiet kiss to her head, holding her a little closer after.
author’s note: omg I have the cutest idea for the next chapter, I haven’t written it yet so I’ll have to write and see if I’m sticking with the idea or not :p but it’s very happy dw…
Peter Parker had always been good at noticing details-tiny things most people missed, like the faint crack in a locker hinge or the way a spider web shimmered differently depending on the angle of the light. But when it came to you, noticing things wasn’t a skill. It was instinct. It was automatic, like breathing.
He couldn’t remember exactly when it started. Maybe it was sophomore year, when you walked into class with your hair curled for the first time, soft loops catching the fluorescent light and bouncing gently when you laughed. Or maybe it had been earlier-freshman year, when you sat two rows ahead of him and turned around to lend someone a pencil, smiling so easily, like kindness cost you nothing at all.
Peter told himself it wasn’t a big deal. People had crushes. It was normal. Except his crush didn’t fade, didn’t quiet down or blur at the edges. It sharpened over time, growing more specific, more detailed, until it felt like he carried a private gallery of you in his head.
He noticed everything.
The way you sometimes straightened your hair on Mondays, sleek and glossy, tucking it behind your ear as you focused on your notes. The way, on other days, it fell naturally around your shoulders, slightly messy like you hadn’t tried too hard-but he knew you had, because you always looked just a little too put together for it to be accidental.
He noticed your makeup too-not in a weird way, he swore to himself, just… observant. Like when you wore a soft pink gloss instead of your usual clear one, or when there was a faint shimmer on your eyelids that caught when you blinked. Once, you showed up with a slightly darker eyeliner, and Peter spent the entire day trying to figure out what was different before realizing it. It drove him insane-in the best, worst way.
“Dude,” Ned had whispered once, following Peter’s line of sight as you laughed with your friends across the cafeteria. “You are down astronomically bad.”
“I’m not-” Peter had started, then stopped, because you’d pushed a strand of hair behind your ear and smiled again, and suddenly he forgot what he was saying.
Ned snorted. “You literally noticed when she switched coffee cups last week.”
Peter flushed. “It was a different color-”
“It was beige.”
“It was a different beige.”
Ned just shook his head, grinning. “You’re a simp.”
And maybe he was. Because he noticed the way you held your coffee with both hands when it was cold outside, fingers wrapped around the cup like you were trying to keep the warmth from escaping. He noticed how you sometimes paused before taking a sip, tilting it slightly to take a picture-just a quick one, nothing dramatic-if the foam art was cute or the lighting hit just right.
He noticed your outfits too. Not in a shallow way-at least, he hoped not-but because they always felt like an extension of you. Soft sweaters in the fall, sleeves just a little too long so you could tug them over your hands. Light, flowy tops in the spring that moved when you walked. Once, you wore a jacket that made you look like you belonged in a movie, and Peter spent the entire day wondering what kind of movie it would be.
The problem was… he’d never talked to you.
Not really. Not beyond a passing “sorry” in the hallway or a mumbled “thanks” when you handed him a worksheet once. Every time he thought about saying something more, his brain short-circuited. Words got tangled, confidence vanished, and suddenly he was hyper-aware of everything-his hands, his voice, the fact that he might say something stupid.
So he stayed quiet. Watched from a distance. Memorized.
Until one afternoon, everything changed.
It wasn’t dramatic. There were no slow-motion moments or cinematic music swelling in the background. It was just the hallway after school, crowded and noisy, lockers slamming, people talking over each other. Peter was distracted, trying to shove his notebook into his already overstuffed backpack, when he turned too quickly-
-and walked straight into you.
“Whoa-!”
You stumbled slightly, your coffee tilting dangerously in your hand. Peter’s reflexes kicked in before his brain did, and he reached out, steadying the cup before it could spill.
“I’m so sorry!” he blurted immediately, stepping back like he’d just touched something fragile. “I didn’t-I mean, I wasn’t looking-are you okay?”
You blinked at him, surprised, then smiled.
And Peter’s brain completely, utterly stopped working.
“It’s okay,” you said, your voice soft but clear. “You actually saved my coffee, so… thank you.”
“Oh-yeah-no problem-I mean, it’s just-coffee-so-” He winced internally. Smooth. So smooth.
But you laughed. Not in a mean way-just a small, genuine laugh that made his chest feel weirdly light.
“I’m glad,” you said, glancing down at the cup before looking back at him. “It was really cute. I was about to take a picture of it.”
Of course you were. Of course you were, and of course he noticed.
“It is cute,” he said, a little more steady this time, nodding toward the foam art. “It looks like… a heart? Kind of?”
Your eyes lit up slightly. “Yeah! That’s what I thought too.”
There was a pause-not awkward, just… open. Like something could happen in it, if he let it.
Peter swallowed, heart pounding in his ears. Ned’s voice echoed faintly in his head-You’re a simp-and for once, he didn’t try to argue with it.
“Um,” he started, then pushed through before he could stop himself. “I was actually-there’s a movie playing this weekend, at the theater on 5th, and I-”
He almost backed out. Almost laughed it off, pretended he hadn’t meant it. But then you tilted your head slightly, listening, waiting, and suddenly he couldn’t not say it.
“-I was wondering if you’d maybe want to go? With me. As, like… a date.”
The word hung there, fragile but real.
For a second, he thought he’d messed everything up. That he’d rushed it, that it was too much, too sudden-
But then you smiled again. Not the polite kind. Not the quick, automatic one.
A real one.
“I’d like that,” you said.
And just like that, everything shifted.
Peter nodded, trying very hard not to look like he might pass out. “Cool. Cool, yeah. That’s-great. I’ll text you? Or-do you-have-”
You laughed softly and pulled out your phone. “Here,” you said, handing it to him.
His hands were slightly shaky as he took it, typing in his number, painfully aware of how surreal this felt. Like one of those moments he’d replay later just to make sure it actually happened.
When he handed it back, your fingers brushed his for just a second-barely anything-but it sent a spark up his arm anyway.
“I’ll text you,” you said.
“Yeah,” he replied, smiling a little helplessly. “Yeah, okay.”
And as you walked away, coffee still safe in your hands, Peter stood there for a moment, heart still racing, mind buzzing-not with distant observations this time, not with quiet, one-sided details-
summary → after y/n anxiously waits for peter on the roof, the night takes an unexpected turn.
click here 🕸️๋࣭ ⭑ for the previous chapter!
✩₊˚.⋆ Chapter fourteen ⋆⁺₊✧
Y/n sat cross-legged on the roof, her sketchbook open in her lap, pencil resting between her fingers but unmoving. The page had been blank for a while now.
Her eyes kept drifting up.
To the skyline.
To every flicker of movement between buildings.
To nothing.
The news she’d seen earlier kept replaying in her head, something about an explosion across the city. They hadn’t said much, just enough to make her chest tighten in that quiet, awful way she was starting to recognize.
Her fingers pressed a little harder into the edge of the page.
He should’ve been back by now.
She tried to tell herself she was overthinking it. That this was normal. That this was just what his life looked like.
But all she could think about was last time.
all the blood, the bruises, the way he could barely talk.
her stomach twisted.
A sudden movement in the distance made her head snap up.
A figure swinging between buildings.
Her breath caught.
“Peter-“
She was already on her feet before she realized it, her sketchbook slipping from her lap and hitting the ground with a soft thud as she stepped forward.
He landed a second later, a little heavier than usual.
And she didn’t even think.
She crossed the space between them quickly, throwing herself into his arms.
“Are you okay?” she rushed out. “Are you hurt?”
For a second, he just stood there.
Then he exhaled softly into her hair, his arms wrapping around her like it was automatic.
“I’m okay” he said, voice quieter than usual.
She pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands already moving, tugging his mask up without waiting for permission.
It slipped off and fell somewhere behind them.
Her hands went straight to his face.
Turning it slightly, checking for bruises.
“Was it the same guys as last time?” she asked quickly, her voice tight. “I saw the news and I just-“
“Hey-“ he cut in gently, “Look at me.”
She did.
“I’m fine” he said softly. “Nothing happened to me, okay?”
She let out a shaky breath, but her hands didn’t leave his face.
“I was so worried” she said, quieter now.
“I know, I’m sorry”
There was a pause.
He swallowed, like he was debating something.
Then he said it anyway.
“…this-this is why I didn’t want us to be friends after you found out.”
Her brows pulled together immediately.
“What?”
“I don’t want you worrying like this” he said, a little more rushed now. “I don’t want you sitting up here thinking something happened to me or-or feeling like this every time I’m gone.”
She blinked at him.
Her hands slowly dropped from his face.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means this isn’t fair to you” he said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with-with all of this.”
“I didn’t ask you to decide that for me.” her voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp enough to make him stop.
“I’m just saying-“
“No, you’re not just saying” she cut in, stepping back a little now. “You’re doing that thing where you act like you know what’s best for me without actually asking me.”
“I’m trying to protect you” he said, frustration slipping in.
“From what?” she shot back. “Caring about you?”
“Y/n-“
She shook her head, already stepping back a little, not letting him finish.
“If you don’t want to be friends, then just say that” she said, her voice tighter now.
His expression shifted immediately. “That’s not-”
“Then stop pushing me away and pretending it’s for me” she cut in.
Her chest was rising faster now, but her voice didn’t get louder, just heavier.
“Telling me it’s better if we’re not friends because you’re trying to protect me?” she continued. “That’s not protecting me, Peter. That’s you deciding how I’m supposed to feel without even asking me.”
He went quiet.
“I get to choose that” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “I get to decide if I want this-if I want you in my life, even if it’s messy, even if it’s scary.”
“I’m just trying to make this easier for you” he said quietly.
“Jesus, Peter, you’re not!” she said, the words rushing out. “When are you gonna understand that? You’re not making it easier-leaving me isn’t going to help, it would literally break my heart. It would hurt so much because I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
She went still,
Like she just realized what she’d said.
Her wide eyes flicked away immediately, like if she didn’t look at him it wouldn’t be real.
Her brain was already scrambling-take it back, fix it, pretend it didn’t happen, literally disappear if possible.
“Y/n… what did you just say?” he asked, softer this time.
She shook her head quickly.
“Nothing” she said, way too fast.
Peter didn’t move.
She let out a small, awkward breath, still not looking at him.
“I didn’t say anything, I just-I was talking, you know, just saying stuff” she added, waving a hand vaguely like that would somehow make it make sense. “You can ignore that, that wasn’t-it didn’t mean-“
She stopped herself before she made it worse.
Her shoulders tensed slightly.
“Just forget it.” she muttered.
She risked a glance back at him.
Big mistake.
He was still looking at her, with that look.
the look that made her want to die.
“Y/n” he said again.
She shook her head, taking a small step back this time.
“No, seriously, drop it Peter” she said quickly, a little more defensive now. “I didn’t mean to say it, it just came out, so can we just-“
He stepped forward.
Closing the space she’d just tried to create.
Her words caught in her throat.
“What are you doing?” she asked, quieter now.
“You said you love me” he said slowly.
Her stomach dropped.
“I didn’t-I mean, I did, but not like-“ she stopped, pressing her lips together. “Can you please just pretend I didn’t?”
“No.” he said simply.
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
“Why not?” she asked, frustrated.
“because I don’t want to” he said.
That made her look up at him.
He stepped closer until there was barely any space left between them.
“Why?” she asked, her voice quieter now, a little breathless.
He let out a small, almost disbelieving breath.
“Why?” he repeated, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Are you serious?”
She didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Because he was right there.
Because she could feel his breath now.
“I’ve been in love with you since the second you walked into this building” he said, the words coming out low, almost rough. “I’m so in love with you it actually hurts sometimes. It hurts being this close to you and not doing anything about it.”
Her breath caught.
“It hurts not touching you” he continued, quieter now. “Not kissing you-Not telling you how much I feel for you-“
“Peter” she breathed.
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Don’t say my name like that” he said, softer now, but it still came out strained. “Don’t make me do something I won’t be able to take back.”
Her eyes flicked between his.
He was already leaning closer.
She didn’t move away.
Not even a little.
“Tell me to stop” he whispered, his nose brushing against hers.
She stayed silent.
And that was it.
That was all it took.
Because Peter couldn’t hold himself back anymore.
He closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers.
It felt like they could finally breathe. Like they had both been underwater for a really long time and were finally pulling in air again.
Y/n held his face between her hands as she moved her lips against his, his hands wrapping themselves around her waist as he deepened the kiss. She let one of her hands travel up to his hair, her fingers nestling themselves into his curls as she tugged gently, causing him to groan softly against her lips.
Peter felt ashamed at the fact that his suit was actively becoming tighter around his..lower area, he was completely overwhelmed by her. He was so starved for her, and getting a taste like this made something in him snap, every thought, every reason he had to hold back just… gone.
His grip on her waist tightened slightly, pulling her closer without even realizing it, like he needed to keep her right there as his mouth moved against hers, deeper this time, a little more urgent, like he couldn’t get enough.
Y/n kissed him back just as desperately, like she’d been holding it in just as long, her fingers tightening in his curls as she leaned into him, matching every bit of it.
It was overwhelming.
Too much and not enough all at once.
When she finally pulled back, it wasn’t because she wanted to, she just needed to breathe for a second.
“Peter-“ she whispered, breath uneven.
His hand came up, tilting her chin gently back towards him as he pressed softer kisses to her lips, slower this time, like he was grounding both of them again.
She let out a small breath against him, a smile making its way to her face.
That made him smile too, the soft dizzying smile that she loved so much.
He rested his forehead against hers, still close, still not letting go.
Their breaths were uneven, mingling in the small space between them.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Like they were both still catching up.
Peter let out a slow breath, his thumb brushing lightly against her cheek without thinking.
“…I love you” he murmured, the words quiet, almost like they’d slipped out before he could stop them.
Y/n’s smile widened instantly, soft and a little breathless.
“Yeah” she whispered, her forehead pressing a little closer to his. “I figured.”
He huffed out a small, disbelieving laugh at that.
She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes warm, steady.
“I love you too.”
author’s note: ;) yay they kissed and did more stuff right after this chapter ended that I won’t write but you can imagine what it was..anyway who’s cheering :D!!
i didn’t think i’d ever have to say this but do not upload my fics to character ai. in no way have i ever given permission for anyone to put my work into ai. it’s basic human decency not to steal other people’s work, but uploading it to another site under your name with no credits is insanely disrespectful.
do not steal my fics. i do not give permission for my fics to be uploaded anywhere, especially without credits or links back to my blog and especially not to ai sites. my ao3 is linked on my blog and from now on everything will be cross-posted there.
i think there is a huge maturity issue in the fanfiction community. below are some things i'd like to address.
minors in adult spaces you are not 'mature' for you age if you cannot follow a simple boundary. if you lie about your age, you are also endangering the adults you contact, it's not just about your safety. just because you yourself are comfortable or going through puberty and need to get off, it does not mean you should interact and cross a very explicit boundary. this also brings me to mdni blogs who pick and choose specific minors just because "they write good smut" or "they're almost 18 anyway". if you have a boundary, then enforce it. you are making the 'mdni' label seem like a joke. don't call yourself 'mdni' if you're not.
disregard on kink etiquette there is a difference between writing dark content and normalizing real, dangerous situations. do not interpret real life cases of abuse as inspiration for your fanfics. i remember some time ago, there was someone requesting about elvis presley and his history with a minor. also, if you are into unusual things and someone is against it, it's so easy to not interact. do not step over people's boundaries just because you feel like they have more morals than you. nobody cares what you're into as long as you keep it in your own space, it doesn't harm anyone, and you don't force it onto others.
talking behind people's backs i see no issue with shittalking as long as it's something you would say to the person upfront or have no intentions to interact with the person. to mock, belittle, and 'drag' someone behind their back is, honestly, strange. most of you are above middle school age, act like it. the issue is not with shittalking, but with pretending you are above it and do it.
whining about interactions it's okay if you're frustrated that a post isn't doing well, it's okay to post about it. readers these days on tumblr need to be reminded that to keep the fanfiction ecosystem alive, you should reblog. however! posting stuff like "omg, i'm gonna quit if i don't get 100+ likes" or "all of you better like rn" just makes you look odd. write for yourself or you always get burnt out.
sympathy baiting no, you cannot have bpd nor any cluster b disorder if you are under 18 unless you have an explicit diagnosis from a professional. no, you cannot post smut as a minor just because you were groomed and normalize sexual content. no, you cannot jump into adult spaces just because you're 'mature for your age'. no, adults are not the bad guys for setting boundaries. no, mental illness isn't a silly label to put in your bio for extra points.
trauma dumping without asking we are not your therapists, we are not licensed, and no one on here wants to play babysitter to someone at risk of self destructive behavior. if you need help, then seek it irl. if you cannot, then advocate for yourself. you will not get better by being a whiny bitch about it on tumblr. you will not get better if you complain about things in your control to stop.he person upfront or have no intentions to interact with the person. to mock, belittle, and 'drag' someone behind their back is, honestly, strange. most of you are above middle school age, act like it. the issue is not with shittalking, but with pretending you are above it and do it.
if you do not have the maturity for at least most of these, you should not have a mdni blog (if applicable) nor be on the internet at all.
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