#alibi!peter

“Go away,” you laughed and held your hand up towards him, making sure your palm was blocking your eye-line to the camera and so your face would be blocked too. “There are plenty of people here to bother. Take Josh’s photo,” you tilted your head to the side to bring Peter’s attention to one of the many people in your friend group studying together on the grass.

Josh lifted his head and gave a huge, cheesy smile to Peter - who then snapped his photo before looking back at you. “See how easy it is?”

“I’m reading about currents. Josh can model for you.”

“Just one smile.”

You sighed, lowered your hand, and smiled for the camera. His own smile grew wide and warm, but before he could fully snap your photo you dropped your face to a deadpan.

He peeked out from behind the lens to give you a look of betrayal. “Why don’t you love me anymore?” He whispered in fake pain.

That made you laugh, and you looked away before he could take a photo of it.

“Do I need to rig a self-timer, come over there and make you smile?” He threatened playfully. You shot him an unimpressed look and there were a few cutesy comments around from the group of seven or eight people studying together. A lot had music going through their headphones, so they weren’t really paying attention.

Knowing he was bluffing, you challenged, “Yeah, go for it, Peter. See how good that picture looks.”

Josh laughed next to you and then dropped his book. “If this is what it’ll take to shut you two up,” he suddenly scooted behind you and dug his fingers against your sides. You immediately squeaked and folded in on yourself. “Alright, Pete. Go for it, bro.”

“Oho gohohod,” you giggled hard and tried to scoot away but Josh kept you in place. “Fihine!” You squeaked and looked up at Peter, who was frozen in place.

Peter licked his lips and grimaced. “Josh, man, you don’t have to-”

"Tahake the damn pihicture, Pete," you giggled, then fell to your side on the grass as Josh followed you down and continued on his onslaught.

"Alright," Peter chuckled dryly, lowering his camera further, “cut it out now.”

"Take it already!" You squeaked and then kicked your leg out.

"O-ho! Your girl's a fighter!" Josh laughed, and you gave him the best death glare you could muster. "Have you got the shot yet?"

"Hey, really-"

"PEHETER!"

"Josh!” Peter shouted, drawing stares from around the circle. “Get the fuck off my girlfriend! NOW!"

The anger in his voice was so out of character that it made both you and Josh freeze in place and wither sheepishly. Anyone in the circle who had been paying attention averted their eyes awkwardly, and anyone who hadn’t been paying attention - people in other groups on the lawn - were subtly looking over.

Josh looked down at you with a guilty blush and lifted his hands in surrender, "Hey, I didn't mean-”

"No, no," you held up a hand to reassure him. "Pete, we were just messing around." You sent him a confused glare but his eyes were on his camera as he zipped it back into the case.

He sniffed in annoyance. "I uh- I need to go check on the developments." He stood and left faster than you could stop him.

Josh looked mortified and he turned to you with a stammered apology. "I really didn't mean to-"

"Josh," you put a hand on his arm. "You're my friend. It's not weird," you assured him. "Please don't feel bad, alright?" He nodded. "I'm gonna go talk to him."

Peter had all but run off, leaving you walking to the university’s darkroom by yourself. You’d been there with Peter a few times, given he had 24/7 access due to his enrolment with a minor in Photography. He’d shown you how he developed the film of the photos he’d taken. Some, he’d snapped from the rooftops of New York’s highest buildings. You had one of those photos, stuck with a small collection of others, just above your headboard. Sometimes when worry got the best of you, if Peter had been injured recently, you’d look at it as you waited for him to climb through your window so you could make sure he was okay. He’d seemed okay lately, but there he was - snapping at one of his good friends.

It’s not like Josh made you uncomfortable. It’s not like he was flirting with you. Peter was out of line. Maybe he needed more sleep. Maybe he needed someone to put their foot down and say, you’re too stressed and you’re taking it out on people who really care about you.

It wouldn’t quite be all guns blazing, though you made sure to enter the darkroom with confidence in your step. Peter was the only person in there, and he was pouring the fluid chemicals into a tray. He didn’t look up as you entered, even though you both knew he knew it was you.

You opened with "Are you okay?"

"Yep."

"Then what was that all about?" You prodded with an edge to your voice, walking to stand beside him, just a few feet away. "You made Josh feel like he'd done something wrong."

Peter shrugged, setting his jaw, still looking at the solution in the tray. "Maybe he did."

You scoffed and folded your arms. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you know, maybe you did too," Peter turned to you with a frustrated glance. "Because how are we supposed to play a convincing couple if you're out there flirting with other guys-”

"That wasn't flirting, are you serious?"

"-and letting them put their hands all over you-"

"Peter, you do that to me all the time it's not-"

"-Right in front of everyone, I mean, come on-"

"What's the big deal? He was just tickling me!"

"Oh, come on! Really? Really?" He scoffed. "No one puts their hands all over someone like that for no reason. It's an excuse to have you close to him. Can you really not see it, or-or do you just not want to?"

A thick silence fell across the room, only the hum of the dark lights filling the small space between the two of you. You dropped your arms to your sides and raised both eyebrows at him. Peter looked taken aback. He opened his mouth to say something else but instead turned back to the tray, opting to focus his attention on taking the photo out to hang on the line. You didn't say anything as the weight of his outburst sunk into the atmosphere. There was no coming back from it, no confusing it or explaining it away. Right from the start he'd put his hands all over you in a cute playful way, and now he'd just told you what it really meant. He was absolutely, entirely, busted.

"Peter."

He set the tongs down and planted his hands on the table, shaking his head in defeat. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I should've said something sooner," he turned back to face you, standing right in front of you, as he gesticulated and grimaced and apologised for the way he felt. "I thought I could get over it even though we're together all the time, but you- you're amazing, you know, and I've tried to ignore the way I feel when I'm with you but I- I can't and so maybe we should-"

"Peter."

"Yeah?"

You let out a huge breath. “Stop. Talking.”

He always talked too much. So you stepped forwards and silenced him with a kiss. A long, long, overdue kiss.

He didn't seem surprised or guilty or anything other than right there with you. Peter’s strong hands cupped your jaw as he deepened the kiss and sighed into your lips. He pulled back, opened his eyes and looked between yours for any signs of hesitance or any signs you weren't right there with him. You felt a smile tug at the side of your lips as you gave a cheeky nod towards the photos. "But if any of these are of me while I was sleeping I'm gonna rethink things-mmmhm!" You giggled against his lips after he rolled his eyes and pulled you in to kiss you once more. He stepped you backwards, then to the side, then effortlessly lifted you onto an empty table to sit level with him as he stood between your legs and pulled you closer by a hungry grip at your waist.

"Go on a date with me," he said, breathless and earnest.

You laughed and gave him an endeared stare. "We go on dates all the time, we-"

"No, no," he shook his head. He rested his forehead against yours for several seconds before lifting it and gazing his deep brown eyes into yours, an excited smile plastered across his kiss-blushed lips. "A real date."

You giggled and nodded, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okahay," you laughed harder as Peter pulled you in for a tight hug and nestled his face into the crook of your neck.

"Okay," he sighed contentedly, holding you close, running his hands up and down your back as you two sat in the darkroom, locked in an embrace making up for lost days. You breathed him in and out, lacing your fingers through his hair, tugging affectionately, smoothing your hands along his back, his shoulders, his neck. Nothing had ever felt so right or so needed compared to sitting here right now, with him, as close as he'd ever been.

You had to ask, because you had to know. "How long?" You whispered. He hummed in question, asking you to clarify, and kept his head where it was. "How long have you felt like this?"

"I don't know," he mumbled against your skin, drawing his breath in close to you, then he lifted his head and pressed a soft kiss to your lips before pulling away just enough to look at you with a love-drowsy shimmer. "I do know when I realised."

“When?”

"When you called me. Freaking out. Telling me to come to your dorm," he started, then kissed you again. "It was just a double-date, and you were being overdramatic," he teased. Another kiss. His eyes fell to your lips as he said, "But I didn't know that when you called," he whispered. He met your eyes. "All I knew is that you felt like you were in trouble and I felt like I couldn't breathe."

You smiled shyly and lifted your hand to cup his cheek. Your fingers swirled at the hair behind his ear. Then, you kissed him again. Before you could pull him back against you, he broke the kiss to ask, "What about you?"

"Oh, like three minutes ago," you rolled your eyes and teased. Peter broke into a grin, a playful growl and then pulled you against him to nuzzle sloppy kisses against your neck and dig his fingers into your ribcage. "Okay-okay-okay!" You laughed and tapped on his back. He put his face level with yours, hands planted either sides of your legs as he looked all around your face like he'd never been allowed to before, fighting the urge to kiss you senseless.

"When?" he whispered, dragging his gaze away from your lips long enough for you to capture him in a locked stare. A smile formed across your lips as you told him.

"Do you remember the first time you called me your best friend?" He nodded. You gave a breathless laugh, then looked at his lips too. "It didn't feel like enough."

He broke into a soft grin and shook his head. "It wasn't."

"It's not," you corrected. "It's not enough. I wanted more then and I want more now I just-" Your breath caught as he nodded in agreement and leaned in closer. Your lips touched, and that electric spark flew through your bodies. Peter kissed you deeply, passionately, not daring to take his hands off you even when he'd break away to let you both breathe. As your lips and breaths collided, so did your whispered words. "I just want you."

"You have me."

"All of you."

Alone in your dorm, you cried hard into your pillow as you tried to come to terms with the fact that your grade on your most recent test was, by definition, poor but passing.

D.

Forever on your transcript.

It wasn’t as if this one grade on this one test was going to put your scholarship in jeopardy, but the anxiety cleaving to your chest was the thought that this could be the beginning of a steep, slippery slope down to worse grades and failing the class and losing your scholarship and failing out of college and- oh god. You were stuck in a cycle of catastrophic wondering. A cycle framed by tears and failed attempts at deep breaths for nearly a full hour until you finally got a grip of yourself long enough to remember you wouldn’t have this privacy for much longer; Peter was out on Spider-Man duties tonight, like most nights, and he was sure to climb through your window at some point soon.

So you cleaned up all the tissues, used a makeup wipe on your face just to feel a little more fresh, chugged half a bottle of water to replenish your tears supply, and switched your bedside lamp off. You doubted you’d sleep. That swelling pit in your stomach which threatened to swallow you whole surely promised to keep you awake for the six hours until your next class started. If you couldn’t sleep, your focus would be off, and you wouldn’t retain the information, and then you couldn’t study right, and then you’d nearly fail another-

The familiar gentle landing of Peter’s sneaking form near your window snapped you from your spiral and back to the task at hand: pretend to be asleep. Pretend everything’s fine. Like it did most nights, the window slid open. Seeing the darkened room and your turned-away blanket-covered body, Peter climbed into your room as quietly as he could.

You sensed him crawling along your ceiling all the way to the door before he dropped with nearly no sound at all. If there’d been any sort of fan or white noise in your room you wouldn’t have heard him at all. He picked up the clothes you’d stashed by the door and changed into them before he balled up the Spider-Man suit and placed it in your hamper as per usual. Just as you heard him zip up his sweatshirt, he went dead silent.

As much as you tried to not hold your breath, or to do anything unusual which would give away how upset you were, a surface-level understanding of Peter's heightened senses told you he’d clocked something was off. Knowing that he knew was enough to make you choke back another round of tears, and a small sniff broke through your defences.

He was by your side in a second.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothed in a worried whispered. The bed dipped with his weight pressing down beside you, and the gentle pressure of his kind hand on your upper back was enough to crack the floodgates even further. The embarrassment of that was enough to make you turn more away and shield your face with your hands. “Hey, talk to me.”

You shook your head when you sensed all of Peter’s silent questions, not knowing how to explain that you were crying over something that seemed so silly compared with what he tended to on a regular Tuesday night. He must’ve thought someone died, or that you were hurt or sick or something that made sense to cry over. How much pain had he encountered on the streets of New York that evening, and you were crying over a bad grade? Regressing into the guilt of feeling awful only made you feel even worse.

Seeing you weren’t in the headspace to respond, and that you certainly weren’t calming down at all, Peter leaned down and rested his head against your side while he let his palm draw up and down your back. When that seemed to placate you a bit more, to have his physical strength and comfort around you, he shifted to lie down on his back next to you. With a gentle but firm tug, he turned you over. He let you keep your hand in front of your face, but instead had you rest your head against his chest. Then, he wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you in close.

Your cheeks stung with the burn of your tears and your sheer mortification that someone - that Peter - had found you like this. But his hand cradled the back of your head and the more your cheek sunk into the strength of his body, the longer you settled against his steady heartbeat, and with every gentle sweep of his fingers through your hair, you felt yourself calming. Letting go of the fear of his judgement or the potential for your nose to drip against his sweatshirt, you willingly buried yourself deeper into him as you breaths slowed to be deep, even and peaceful. Before you could unravel an explanation in your head, you’d fallen asleep in his arms.

“Hey.”

A gentle whisper, a hand on your shoulder and the lingering smell of strong, black coffee roused you from your sleep. As soon as you opened your eyes you noticed how stuffy your head felt, how puffy and tight your nose and eyes and ears were with the tears from the night before.

“Oh, god,” you groaned, looking over at Peter’s nervous smile as he crouched next to your bed. Then, panic struck your chest as you noticed it was light outside. “Class,” you gasped, “W-what time is-”

“Hey, hey, chill - we’re not late,” Peter assured and stood as you made to sit up. You felt grossly hungover from your meltdown, right down to the headache and that sticky taste in your mouth. “But are you sure you want to go? I mean-”

“I have to go,” you mumbled and swung your legs over the side of your bed, not quite meeting his eye. “Sorry, Peter,” you sighed.

He didn’t immediately respond with words, instead setting down the coffee he’d brought you on your bedside table before taking a seat beside you. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you sniffed, nodded, wiped your nose with the back of your hand. “It’s stupid. It’s just…” you felt your breath catch, tears threatening to spill all over again. “It’s just a D. My GPA will recover,” you laughed humourlessly and stood up. Peter grabbed your hand from where he was sitting, prompting you to look back and down towards him.

“It’s not stupid if it matters to you.”

You tried giving him a thankful smile, but your skepticism towards his sentiment clearly shone through. He squeezed your hand again.

“I’m serious,” he nodded and repeated, “I’m serious. I know how much this means to you. It's not stupid.”

You fumbled over a response. Then, finding none, you just smiled sadly and squeezed his hand before putting on a brave face, picking out a change of clothes, then slipping through to the shared bathroom to have a quick shower.

It was hot and good and woke you up to a new day and unfortunately the reality that last night really had happened. Peter had done his best to assuage your guilt and embarrassment at your reaction, so now your melancholy disposition was a result of the facts at hand: you’d really only gotten a D on that test. The worst part was that you left the room feeling good about it. That for the first time in a long time you’d let it wash right off your shoulders as you moved on with your day. What a stupid mistake for a stupid- no. Don’t go down this path.

Peter was sitting on your bed with his hand over his eyes as you reentered the room, slipping them open for just a second to peer and ask, “Are you decent?”

“Yehes,” you sniffed a laugh and tossed the towel over the hook on the back of your door. “Thank you,” you said sincerely as you walked over to your bedside table and picked up the coffee he’d brought you. He did that a lot, you realised. Said it was “something a boyfriend should do.” But he never once accepted your cash to pay him back. “For the coffee, for… last night. It was nice to not be alone.” You sipped the coffee. It was still hot. “Sorry if I got snot all over your sweatshirt.”

“Oh it’s drenched in your snot,” he teased, obviously joking. “It’s really gross, actually, it’s just caked it in.” You scoffed and nudged his knee with your own before gathering your things to head to the class you two both had. It was the very same class which brought on your very first D. Maybe you should talk to the professor afterwards. Gosh, if you could show your face to her - what if she thought you hardly listened, hardly tried, or just didn't care?

“We should get going,” you ignored his tease, but couldn’t hide the half-grin spreading across your lips.

You walked the almost ten minutes across campus to the lecture theatre and Peter’s arm slung around your shoulder as you got closer, probably because he could hear the way your heart was beating faster. “Ask about a re-sit,” he offered as you two stepped into the building together. “I’m sure Dr. Deshpande would make an exception.”

Biting your lower lip, you nodded and clutched the half-empty coffee cup just a little bit tighter as you and Peter entered the lecture hall. The first thing you noticed was the small line of students waiting to talk to your professor, which made your brow furrow a little bit since that was usually an after-class feature of the lecture. You saw her look somewhat confused, hold up a hand to ask someone to slow down, before leaning down to look through her computer. “She’s asking everyone to sit down,” Peter told you, having an advantage on listening in. “A few people were asking about their results.”

After five minutes, a constantly murmuring buzz of students whispering amongst themselves, one very stressed-looking teaching assistant and one very unimpressed Dr. Deshpande, your lecturer stepped to the centre of the teaching stage and everyone immediately quietened.

“I am afraid there has been a mistake made with the input of grades. As you may recall, the test contained sixty-five questions. It appears the grades were inputted as the total questions correct, instead of the percentage correct - as they should have been,” she tried to not sound annoyed at a nuclear level as people buzzed with relieved whispers of excitement.

Sixty-four. Not sixty-four percent, sixty-four out of sixty-five.

A+.

You whipped your hands up to your face, trying to stop the tears of pure relief which threatened to spill over. Given the sounds from some other students, the feeling was definitely mutual. But Peter slung his arm around your shoulders and his relieved chuckle was enough to stave off the tears and instead make you also laugh a bit in disbelief. Maybe it wasn’t the end of the world.

After trying to pivot your focus from your roller coaster of emotions to the matter at hand - momentum and its properties - you did your best to focus on the lecture instead of Dr. Deshpande’s promise that the grades would be rectified no later than one o’clock in the afternoon.

So there you sat, after lunch, on your bed in your dorm with Peter. Even though you knew your grade, you kept refreshing the page to make sure your teacher's words weren't some kind of hallucination. Peter had made himself comfortable with his long legs crossed in front of him on your bed, his back against your headboard. You opted to sit with your back against the wall, your knees tucked to your chest, feet resting against his shin. You two usually sat like this, even though no one was around to see it.

Finally, the page refreshed and there it was. Ninety-nine. Your loud sigh of relief told Peter the grades had finally been updated, making him chuckle again.

“Feeling better?” He grinned and took a sip of his juice.

“Uh, yeah,” you laughed back and shut the lid, rubbing your sleepy eyes, remembering you only really got a few hours of rest the night before. “What did you get?”

After a few clicks on his own laptop, he made a classic ‘not bad’ face. “Ninety-eight.”

“Ooh,” you clicked your tongue with a wink. “Looks like I got you beat, Parker.”

“Hey,” he pointed an accusing finger at you with a cheeky grin. “Not too long ago you were dripping snot all over my sweatshirt and-”

“-we’ll I’ll clean it, if it’s such a big deal-”

“-and I was very helpful in calming you down and-and I brought you coffee-”

“-yeah, as a boyfriend should!”

You crossed your arms defiantly as Peter grinned and set his drink down on your bedside table. “I’m glad it’s all okay,” he said in a tone so soft it caught you off guard. You uncrossed your arms and smiled back.

“Thank you for staying.”

“You know you can call me, right?” He took a sharp breath in and lowered his eyebrows. “When I’m out there. Any time. You can call me if something’s wrong.”

You smiled, looking down at your feet. “That’s above and beyond your duty as a fake boyfriend.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but… you’re my best friend. That’s real.”

Beyond touched, you felt your jaw go a little slack as you tried to find the words to tell him he was your best friend too. Why was it so hard to say? He looked at you for a few seconds before laughing once or twice to break the tension.

“I’ll take your stunned silence as a mutual declaration of best-friendship,” he took another sip of his drink and wiggled his eyebrows. “Unless you have another friend you wipe your snot all over?”

“Peter!” You kicked at his shin where your feet were still resting against him, making to reach behind you for the pillow between your back and the wall to whack him with. Instead of going through with it, you decided to be cheeky back. “Yeah, fine. I’m the crying friend. But I’m also the smart friend.”

“Oh, ahare you now?” He laughed, placing his drink back on the table.

“Yes,” you raised your nose in the air and crossed your arms. “Mister Ninety-Eight,” you nudged his shins with your foot again, and his eyes flitted down to where they were messing with him.

“Fine, you can be the smart friend,” he started, and you narrowed your eyes at the mischievous gleam in his own. “You’re also the ticklish friend. Let’s not forget that.”

“Well, that’s yet to be proven,” you snarked, trying to hide the way you’d tensed at his playful threat.

Peter’s smile hadn’t quite turned into a smirk but definitely had turned cheeky. “D’you want me to prove it?”

You eyed your move, and the executed it. As you shoved yourself forward to place your seat over his shins, you shot back, “I can do it myself.”

By the time your hands made their way beside you to tickle at the bottoms of his socked feet, Peter’s hands were already around your upper arms. He twitched and laughed and pulled gently (gently for him) on your arms until you couldn’t fight him any more. You grinned at the laughs that’d spilled over his lips as you relented in your fight and resigned yourself to crashing backwards, half into Peter and half onto your mattress.

“You sure I’m the ticklish friend?” You giggled as you held your hands up in self-defence. “Those were some cuhute little laughs, Peter,” you kept giggling, shooting your gaze between his hands and his face.

He scoffed and nodded, narrowing his eyes as he made quick work of breaking past your defences. “Say that again,” he warned loudly as he dug his fingertips in your sides and lower ribs. You yelped and squirmed as he pinched and prodded at the sensitive places on your sides, all you could really do was half-heartedly push at his hands.

“Okahay, okay fine- Peheter!” You squealed and kicked your legs as you writhed under his hands, eyes shutting, laughter bursting from your lips. As much as you tried to fight him, it was worthless. He didn’t stop until you admitted, out loud, that you were the ticklish friend.

After being worn down from his attack, tired from the lack of sleep and emotional exertion of the previous night and early morning hours, before you knew it was happening, for the second time in a single day you fell asleep on Peter Parker.

The inches upon inches of rainfall ended up being a convenient thing in more ways than one, since your roommate Olivia ended up staying in the room for two nights in a row. Her girlfriend was out of town and bug-bombing her apartment while she was away, so Liv ended up finally using the accomodation she paid for semester after semester.

That first night was pretty fun, actually. You two got along well enough but just didn’t spend a lot of time together, and you ended up unexpectedly staying up until three in the morning laughing and joking and catching up.

The second night was a bit different. Not necessarily bad, but… well, Peter knocked on your door at 10:52pm.

“What’s up?” You cracked the door just enough that he could see Liv was on her bed watching some YouTube video with her headphones in. He winced, scratched the back of his head, looked over his shoulder and then back to you.

“Jeremy’s put a sock on the door.”

“Uh oh. Wait… is that what I’m hearing above me?!”

“Maybe,” he grimaced. “Mind if I crash on your floor?”

“I’m sure Liv would be cool with that,” you tilted your head to invite him in, then shut the door.

Your roommate looked up. “Hey, Peter.”

“Hey, Liv. Sorry, my uh-… Jeremy, is, um-”

“His roommate’s having sex. Is it cool if Peter crashes on the floor?”

She paused, then looked up at the ceiling. “So that’s what that noise was… should’ve guessed,” she shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t care,” she smiled, then laughed a bit. “But you don’t have to take the floor. You guys have been dating for almost a year. It’s not like you haven’t christened her bed a thousand times over-”

“Ho-kay!” You clapped and blushed before clearing your throat and refusing to look Peter in the eye. “I’m ready for bed.”

“I can see that,” Peter’s voice with a cheeky, teasing edge told you from behind. “Cute panda pyjamas.”

“Shut up about the pandas.”

Once you’d directed Peter to the mouthwash in the bathroom and given some track pants and a T-shirt of his that you had stashed for his returns from patrol, you went over and pulled back the covers. Strangely enough, your heart was pounding just a little bit.

“Thanks for being cool about this,” you smiled gratefully to Liv, who shrugged and smiled back.

“Of course. I know you’d do the same. Just control yourself tonight, huh?” She grinned and you threw a throw pillow at her, allowing it to fulfil its true purpose. She smirked, tossed it back and then put in her white noise earbuds that she needed to sleep.

When Peter emerged from the bathroom, he put his clothes in your hamper from pure instinct and then walked over to where you’d slipped between the sheets of your twin bed. You smiled apologetically at him, but he just grinned back since he’d seen your shy blush. So instead, you rolled your eyes and scooted more towards the wall.

“No funny business,” you said sternly, just loud enough for Liv to hear. You know, to keep up the charade.

Unless you count that time Peter stayed with you all night when you were near-inconsolable, he’d never actually spent the night in the same bed as you. Once or twice, when Jeremy put a sock on the door and it was still there when Peter returned from Spider Duties, Peter had snuck back into your room and slept on top of Liv’s bed. Even then, you only knew about those time because he’d told you the next day.

He slipped into bed next to you and the resulting seconds were you two frantically trying to get comfortable, while trying to not show how frantic you were, as if you’d done this a hundred times before. But the bed was so small and Peter so lanky that you nearly fell into awkward giggles as you smushed yourself more into the wall to give him some space. He turned on his side, away from you, but then turned back to face you. He mouthed “Turn around.”

You furrowed your brow but did as he suggested and turned on your side to face the wall. No sooner had you done that, did his arm slide over your waist and pull. Your eyes widened as you slid the few inches across the mattress and your back came to a gentle rest against Peter’s firm and muscular chest. You couldn’t deny it was infinitely more comfortable than trying to give him space.

“Is this okay?” He whispered. You swallowed hard, and nodded. It didn’t have to be weird… right? You two held hands all the time. He’d sometimes kiss you on the side of the head. It never felt awkward or forced or-… yeah. It always felt comfortable. You smiled, but your heart beat a little faster. Which made your cheeks heat up, knowing Peter could hear it. Again, his spider-senses were good, because he somehow knew better than to tease you for it at this point in time.

You heard Liv reach over and turn off the lamp, and then it was dark and silent.

Snuggling a bit more comfortably into Peter, you let out a relived sigh that this all seemed to be working out. Peter, understanding your breath, gave you a little squeeze and then relaxed down into the mattress. It was kind of nice feeling him relax cause it meant he’d been a bit nervous too. That somehow made it better. Or perhaps it would become something to overthink.

“Are you sure this is okay?” His whisper was bated and concerned.

You nodded and whispered back, “Is it okay with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

It went silent for several long seconds and you felt a small amount of tension still there, so you decided to tease him a bit to make him feel more comfortable.

“You’d better not snore.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” he teased right back. You scoffed in a whisper.

“I do not snore.”

“Like a chainsaw.”

“Liar!” You whispered louder.

His chest shook with some subdued whispered chuckles. “I’m not lying. You ever heard a Harley engine revving?”

You pulled your foot forward, and then shunted it back into his lower shin. He responded by swiftly hooking his ankles around your own shins to trap them in place. “Kicking me won’t make you sound any less like a lawnmower.”

“Ugh!” You grunted and pulled on your legs, freeing one of them, while you slapped once at his forearm.

“What’s wrong?” He teased. “A little sensitive about sawing logs?”

“I’m warning you,” you licked your lips and blushed harder, trying to come up with some sort of witty comeback.

“You’re like a sleeping dragon. With a blocked snout.”

“I’ll make you pay,” you seethed, squirming a bit in his hold to free your other foot and elbow him lightly in the stomach.

“No need to get violent. Hey, should I call you Snoozy? Like one of the seven dwarfs?”

“I’ll take Snoozy over Dumpy,” you shot back, then elbowed him again. He responded by scoffing and prodding his fingers in where they lay at your side. It was soft, so you squirmed, but it was just enough to make his point, so you softly groaned, “You never fight fair.”

“And you never fight very hard.” You could hear the smirking grin on his words, and you scoffed.

“It probably doesn’t feel hard to a guy who can stop a bus with his hands,” you hissed. “And you never let me get revenge.” You turned back around and slumped into the sheets. “It’s not fair.”

Peter chuckled and relaxed himself back into the bed. You bit your lip to stop from smiling too wide as you felt him release more tension against you, against the mattress and the pillow, and release the way he always held himself enough to start drifting off to sleep.

If there’d been a time to overthink the comfort you drew from each other, and the nervousness you both held at this predicament, it hadn’t been that night; you fell asleep too quickly. By the time you awoke in the morning, Peter’s arm was still around you but you’d turned yourself in your sleep to be facing him. You registered that, with a drop of your stomach, before you’d opened your eyes - which is probably the reason you didn’t let out a huge gasp when you opened your eyes to see your face inches from his.

Fighting the urge to hold your breath, or jump out of bed, or shove him away, or all three, you peered over to see Liv’s bed empty and made, her workout bag gone, and the clock tell you she’d most likely left for lacrosse practise that started in five minutes. It was just before seven in the morning, so you didn’t want to wake Peter just yet.

It felt weird, though. Almost dishonest, to stay like this when he was asleep and you were awake. As well as you’d gotten to know him over the last year, something in you still didn’t know if he’d have done this if you both hadn’t been backed into a corner by an unwitting Liv. Strangely, you didn’t know if you’d have done it either. Or if you would’ve. Yeah, you’d definitely be overthinking this later.

So you decided to wake him up.

But... just as you held your breath and were about to move your hand to shove at his shoulder, you saw the perfect opportunity. The opportunity for revenge.

The place where your arm was bent in front of you, between your chest and Peter’s, was the ideal position to attack; one swift move, one half-a-foot distance, and you could jam your fingers right into the slightly-exposed crease under Peter’s arm. His t-shirt wouldn’t provide much protection, and his spider-senses weren’t active when he was asleep… were they? He’d probably - or, definitely - get you back... hell, it was totally worth it.

As you flattened your hand out to ready your jab, Peter sniffed and shifted ever so slightly. You froze. He let out a deep breath through his nose. His breathing remained steady. It was still fine.

Before you gave yourself room to doubt or chicken out, you shot your hand upward to dig your wiggling fingers deep into the softest space underneath his arm. His reaction was hampered by him being roused from a supposedly deep sleep, though instant nonetheless.

His bicep clamped down against his upper ribs, trapping your hand in place as you kept wriggling, then deciding to brave shifting your body to free your other arm to claw against the front of his stomach. He burst into laughter, his knees knocked yours as he instinctively folded in on himself. You laughed along, spidering your fingers all along the front of his shirt as he began making moves to fight you off. Peter’s laughter and your advantage of surprise hindered his ability to catch your hands, so he ducked his head and started shifting backwards. When it began to look like he might fall off the bed, you relented and quickly got to your knees, holding your hands out to start reasoning as to why he shouldn’t counter-attack.

“You deserved some payback after all this time,” you started as he started catching his breath, letting out residual laughs. “You were one-hundred percent owed everything you got, and more, so you should be happy I stopped when I did.”

He looked up at you with an endeared, and somewhat goofy, smile plastered on his face. You, with your outstretched hands that would do nothing to ward him off. Him, with his still-sleepy eyes sparkling at you. Peter just laughed once or twice, sniffed again, then asked, “Do you feel better now?”

You squinted and lowered your hands a bit, feeling your brow lower in confusion. Did he…? “Wait, you…” You let out a breath and dropped your hands, a wry smile pulling at your cheeks. “You let me do that?”

He shrugged. “You were so excited to try,” he laughed. “I couldn’t take that away from you.”

“But- you- but-” You sighed again, the pushed at his knee. “No, I got you,” you said defiantly. “You can’t take this victory from me. You were asleep.”

“My senses still work through my sleep.”

“But-”

“Take the win.”

“No!” You huffed indignantly. “I got you. I can beat you,” you insisted, surging forward with your hands aimed for his sides. He caught your wrists with ease and gave you a half-amused, half-pitiful glance.

“Try that again, and I will retaliate.”

“That’s not fahair!” You whined and pulled your wrists away but he held on with a cheeky grin, keeping them suspended in place and not budging a single inch. Just to make his point that he was far stronger and far more agile that you could ever hope to outplay. “Fine,” you sighed and gave him a look. He released your wrists and leaned over to pick up his phone.

“I got video evidence that you snore.”

“Peter!” You surged forwards again, reaching for the phone to prevent him from mortally embarrassing you, falling over him as you tried to navigate and swipe as he held it out of reach.

“I know what you’re thinking and don’t you da-HARE!” He warned, then gritted his teeth as you tickled your fingers under his outstretched arm. “That’s it.”

You squeaked as he dropped his phone on the table and turned his full attention to subduing his insubordinate bunk-mate, making quick work of pulling you down and settling himself to be sitting over your stomach with your arms firmly pinned to your sides underneath him. As much as you wiggled your hands, there was no hope to reach anything to grab or tickle or shove to get him off of you.

“First, you’re gonna listen to your snoring,” he told you with a mock-scolding look on his face, unlocking his phone then looking back down at where you’d given up struggling. “Then, I’m gonna get you back.”

“Isn’t the video payback enough?” You groaned as he placed the phone by your ear and you shut your eyes tight.

You let out several embarrassed whines and laughs, shaking your head as you listened to the video. Something about Peter’s sparkling eyes and smile, when you’d open your eyes to pout at him, made the whole thing okay. Sure, it was mortifying, but not in the way that you couldn’t laugh at yourself. Because Peter wasn’t laughing at you - he was laughing with you. He laughed with you throughout the minute or two of footage, and then with you when he reached behind himself to knead his fingers against one of your hips.

His spider-senses were good, so he’d managed to put a pillow in front of your face before you let rip a scream of laughter that would’ve woken the entire dorm if unimpeded. Luckily for your sanity, and for your airways, Peter only engaged in a few seconds of payback for your payback, before removing the pillow and laughing with you at your giggly pleas and apologies.

Then, he laughed with you as he swung his leg off and fell back to the mattress beside you. “Thanks for letting me stay here,” he turned his head to face you. “I hope it wasn’t too weird.”

“It wasn’t weird,” you rushed to assure him. “I just didn’t want you to feel weird.”

“I didn’t,” he said softly, still looking at you, you still looking at him. He smiled a bit, which made you look at his lips, but then quickly look away because that wasn’t something you needed to think about. After a few more moments, Peter sat up and turned his back to release several cracking pops from his spine, then planting his feet on the floor and stretching some more. “Wanna grab lunch before Math?”

“Yeah,” you pulled the covers back over yourself and turned to your side. “I’m gonna sleep for a bit longer.”

“Cool,” he slowly cracked the door and listened for any noise he may have missed. Sensing it was clear, he looked back at you and grinned. “See you soon, Snoozy.”

You laughed and rolled your eyes, and Peter made a swift exit before you could come up with any sort of rebuttal. After setting your alarm for an hour from then, you snuggled back into the sheets. The bed was still holding his warmth, gifting it back to you until you’d used it all up.

Even though it’s what you were used to, the bed without Peter felt strange. Empty, almost, as you started drifting back to sleep. Or maybe now was the time for overthinking. Time to mull over the quickening of your heart as he pulled you against his chest, or the way he smiled at you when he let you make him giggle like a schoolgirl, or the way his lips looked up close.

You reached over and opened the window for Peter - something you sometimes did to say 'hey, I'm still awake.'

Peter's spider-senses were scarily keen and they were probably what you were most jealous of when it came to his powers. Whether or not they'd rubbed off on you from all the time you’d spent together, or whether it was just getting to know Peter Parker over the past eleven and a half months, the second he came into your view you knew something was off. He climbed through the window, moving far too feebly, and you knew for sure.

"Peter?" You asked what was wrong with just his name. Your eyes darted around his body, bathed in the blue light of your laptop screen. There were no obvious injuries. He stepped carefully over your bedside table, then sank to the floor. "Peter," you repeated, sliding off the bed to kneel beside him. He pressed his back against your roommate's hardly-touched bed, curled his knees into his chest and placed his shaking head in his hands. "What's wrong?" You whispered, feeling the panic rise in your chest. "Look at me, please." The anxiety had gripped your voice, which cracked with your plea as your fingers broke past his defences. He let you take hold of the bottom of his mask and he removed his hands to allow you to pull it over his head. Against the pale blues and greens of the dark colour-graded frames glowing from the laptop, supplemented by the warm lamp of the refracted streetlight pouring in the window, slivers of moonlight joined in the scene as he looked into your eyes. His brown eyes were glassy, hollow, and shaken. He looked away and choked out the words:

"I think I just killed someone."

Since he'd spoken those words you'd both been silent. Silent as you walked over and picked up his change of clothes. Silent as you walked back and kneeled beside him. Silent, as you found the zip at the base of his neck and pulled it down your friend's stiff and shaken body. You'd heard of the thousand-yard stare, seen pictures of it too, and it was so much more terrifying up close.

When you wrapped your hands around his to pull the suit from his torso his fingers nearly slipped through yours. Looking down, you finally saw the blood still glistening in the slivers of illumination.

"I took him to the hospital, just-..." Peter's strangled admission startled you, and you flinched as you looked up at him. He was looking at his hands. And yours. There was a lot of partially-dried blood. "I-I dumped him on the doorstep."

He pulled his hands toward himself, gripping the fabric at his shoulders to strip away the skin-tight suit. For the first time, of all the times he'd taken it off in front of you (which was never a big deal considering he always wore briefs underneath), it felt heavier. It felt like shame.

You sat back and passed him some makeup wipes to clean the blood that'd smeared onto his skin, taking several for yourself to remove the stranger’s blood from your palms and between your fingers. Peter sniffed once or twice, taking deep breaths, his eyes were still glassy.

"He was, uh..." His voice was watery and wavered. "He was mugging this woman and he was roughing her up. Unnecessarily violent, I mean she was doing what he wanted- she was listening and-and giving him the bag. He didn't just want her money, he wanted to hurt her and I-... just lost it." He pulled the shirt over his head, then paused again. His jaw set, and he looked up with a steady, solemn stare. “He deserved it.”

“Whatthefuck,” you blurted out. “Y-you don’t mean that,” you got more urgently to your knees, disbelief rife in your plea: “Tell me you don’t mean that.”

“No, you didn’t see her,” he argued back with shimmering eyes full of defiance. “She was almost unconscious, she- he- he was gonna kill her and I had to stop him but I-...” He sighed. “I gave him to the cops two, three months ago.”

“What?”

“Guess he’s out on parole,” Peter laughed humourlessly, before scoffing and shaking his head. “Me, the cops, the whole system… we all went too easy on him the first time. Maybe if I stop pulling my punches-”

“No, Peter-”

“If I’d broken his legs the first time-”

"No, you listen to me," you gritted your teeth and sniffed back the tears, taking his head in your hands to force him to look at you. "You can stop a bus with your bare hands, Peter." As much as you didn't want them to, a few tears spilled over. "You can't do this, you hear me? You can’t do this if you can’t pull your punches,” you grabbed the mask and stood to your feet, shaking your head in defiance. “I won’t let you.”

The look he gave you was strange and melancholic. You both knew with one flick of his wrist he’d have that mask back in his hand and there was nothing you could do to stop him. But you wanted to stop him, so that had to mean something.

“You’re bitter,” you sniffed, wiping the tears on the back of your free hand. “I get that. But this city needs Spider-Man. Not an executioner.”

Peter’s eyes didn’t leave yours as he got to his feet in front of you. Your chest heaved with sadness as you held back the tears, clenching his mask tight in your fist. The suit was still on his lower-half, there were small smudges of blood now on the hem of his t-shirt and just above his collar, and more on your hands where it’d transferred from his mask - the mask you didn’t know if he was about to rip from your grip before walking out the door, showing you how powerless you truly were to stand between him and the man he should never become.

He looked at the mask, not taking it from you. His lower lip trembled as he spat out a single cry, his voice broke as he finally admitted, “Sh-She looked like Gwen. The woman she-... she looked like Gwen.”

Your shoulders deflated with the release of your deep breath, full of sympathy and understanding. Before wondering if he’d even want it, you took a step forwards and threw your arms around his neck. You didn’t need to perch up to your toes, because Peter’s head hung and he buried his face on your shoulder while he tried his best to keep it together. Behind his head his bloodied mask was still held in your hand, your other hand lacing through the hair at the nape of his neck in some kind of automatic motion as everything but your words called to him saying, I’m here, and you’re okay.

Peter’s arms did find a place around you too, and he held you tight as his breathing turned deep and steady and came back under his full control. After so many minutes of accepting your comfort, he began to pull away. “You’re right,” he whispered. He bent down, still right in front of you and picked up some of the fresh scented wipes, then rose and gently guided your wrists to sit between you. With his elevated sight, he didn’t need to turn on a lamp to see the now-dried blood smeared across your hands. With intentional care, he cleaned your free hand. Smoothing the cool, clean cloth over your soft skin until it was pure again. He shifted to clean the other one, which still held fast to his mask. When he closed his own fingers around it, you relented knowing it was a losing battle. But he did the most peculiar thing: instead of tucking it under his arm, he cleaned it, and put it back in your freshly clean hand.

You looked at him curiously, caught off-guard, as your fingers once again tightened around the mask. Peter didn’t look at you. Not your eyes, anyway. Instead he focused his attention on where he was making sure every last fleck of blood was gone from your hands. When it was, he held the stained wipe in his hands, watching it carefully.

“You’re right,” he repeated with a nod and a sniff. “I am bitter.” His lower lip trembled but he held it in this time. His eyes were still glassy as he met your gaze, and he bit his lower lip before letting out a resigned sigh and taking your free hand to place it also around his mask. “Maybe you should, uh, hold onto this for a little while.”

It didn’t feel right to have that kind of leverage, that kind of power to control whether or not Spider-Man slung between buildings in the dead of night. To have the responsibility to decide when he was alright to go back into the streets. It also didn’t feel right to argue with him. Not right now, anyway. Not when he still had half a suit on and dried blood smeared at random points across his clothes and skin and hair. So you looked at the mask, and then back at him.

“Please stay tonight.”

Without hesitation, still looking at the ground, he nodded.

“You should have a shower. I’ll find you another shirt.”

He nodded again, still looking at the ground, he shot a web out to pull the sweatpants into his grip as he walked past you to enter the bathroom. He shut the door.

You held in your tense puff of breath, knowing he’d hear it even under the hot spray of the shower head. He probably wouldn’t be long, so you put the mask in your laundry hamper to think about tomorrow. Spider-Man could wait. Peter Parker needed help right now.

You found a shirt that would easily fit Peter and placed it in an obvious on the edge of your bed, and put a spare blanket on Liv’s bed for Peter to use before climbing between your sheets and lending a nervous ear to the sounds of him drying off and changing. Thank goodness Olivia wasn’t here on this night of all nights. You couldn’t imagine what he would’ve done. Where he would’ve gone. How he may have spiralled.

Peter emerged in the sweatpants, his damp hair rained a few droplets on his bare shoulders before he pulled the shirt on with ease. You didn’t think you needed to mention the blanket you’d left out for him - it was plain to see on your roommate’s bed. Whether he missed it or ignored it, you didn’t know. All you knew is that instead of finding his sometimes-place on the bed across the room, Peter, in seconds, was settling in next to you.

A small, sad smile pulled at your lips as Peter turned on his side and placed his head on the place where your shoulder met your chest. His arms were curled against himself, his knees slightly tucked, he didn’t seem willing to speak, his eyes were already shut tight.

Without a second thought, your hand was once again working through his hair. With gentle ministrations, you traced your fingertips around the places behind his ear, by his temple, down by the collar of the shirt. Careful to have just the right amount of weight in your touch, and careful to keep your breathing steady and soothing. You didn’t quite know how he managed, but he was asleep in less than ten minutes.

Once he’d fallen into a deeper slumber, you, as gently as possible, reached over and picked up your phone. There was an alarm set for your eight-a.m. class.