Peter Parker had learned over the years that there were certain kinds of danger you could prepare for.

There were supervillains with military-grade weapons and aliens with world-ending schemes. There were collapsing buildings, runaway cars, fires that spread faster than anyone could contain them, and criminals who became considerably more dangerous the moment they realized Spider-Man was nearby.

Peter had learned how to anticipate punches, how to calculate the angle of a falling object, and how to land on a moving vehicle without breaking every bone in his body.

Yet... he had never learned how to behave normally around a girl he liked.

That particular problem had become considerably more complicated since starting college.

You were a journalism student in one of his afternoon classes, and Peter had noticed you before he had ever spoken to you. You sat three rows ahead of him, usually with your laptop open and a notebook beside it, your handwriting becoming progressively messier as the professor talked faster. You had a habit of eventually closing your laptop for maximum elbow room while scribbling notes down, and you always stayed behind for a few minutes after class to ask questions.

Peter had initially told himself that he only noticed because he was observant.

Then he started choosing seats based on where you were sitting.

Then he ended up in line behind you at the cafe one day before class, and suddenly he was a regular of the cafe despite not even really liking it.

Then he realized he had spent an entire Tuesday evening researching the publication you interned for because you had casually mentioned wanting to work there after graduation.

Ned had listened to this development for approximately four minutes before announcing that Peter was hopeless.

Peter had denied it.

Ned had laughed.

The real problem, however, was that your interest in journalism extended far beyond campus assignments. You had become fascinated with Spider-Man.

Not with his powers.

Not with the spectacle of him swinging between buildings or stopping speeding cars.

You wanted to understand him.

Peter had discovered this accidentally one afternoon when he walked into the student newsroom and found you surrounded by newspaper clippings, interview transcripts and photographs spread across a table.

He had stopped in the doorway.

You hadn't noticed him.

Your attention was fixed on a grainy photograph of Spider-Man standing on the roof of a burning apartment building, his silhouette illuminated by orange light.

Peter had recognized the photograph immediately.

He had been there, obviously.

He had carried a little girl out of that building while smoke burned his lungs and the ash clouded his vision. He had spent the entire trip home wondering whether the fire department had managed to save the other residents.

You were studying the photograph like it contained an answer.

Peter eventually forced himself to walk over. "What's all this?"

You looked up, startled at the sudden intrusion of your safe space, but thankfully, your expression brightened when you recognized him.

"Peter!"

His stomach did something embarrassing.

He tucked his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and tried to look like a normal college student who had not just walked into a room where the girl he was hopelessly in love with had assembled an investigative project about his secret identity.

"Do you know Spider-Man?"

"I've been following his activity for years, not in a stalker way I promise. I'm not a freak."

You turned the laptop toward him quickly, realizing how odd this would likely look to those on the outside of this obsession, for lack of a better word.

There were articles covering the wall behind you, arranged by date.

Peter swallowed. "Why then? Cause-.. no offense! But it does.. look a little.. stalker-ish?"

You looked back at the photograph. "Because everyone keeps asking the wrong question, it's infuriating!"

He leaned against the table, trying very hard not to look interested. "What question? I kinda thought there were no wrong questions?"

"They only ask 'Who is he?'"

Peter's heart stopped, then you continued.

"Everyone wants to know his name. His age. Where he lives. Who trained him. What his face looks like. They treat his identity like it's the most interesting thing about him."

Peter stared at you s you picked up one of the photographs and turned it over in your hands.

"I'm more interested in why he keeps doing it."

Something inside Peter went very quiet while you looked at him.

"He could stop. No one is forcing him to put his life on the line.. or are there people forcing him? No one knows! Because no one asks! Like, what the fuck? There's no way I'm the only person who's thought to ask him this question."

Peter's fingers curled slightly inside his hoodie pocket.

"Do you think he could stop?"

"I think so, yeah. Based on the fact that he doesn't seem to report to anyone, nor really work with a bunch of cronies that you'd see with some shitty guy... I'd say he could stop." You studied the photograph again.

"He has powers! He could use them for money, fame, literally whatever he wanted! Instead, he keeps showing up when people need help, even when everyone is yelling at him for getting involved."

Peter didn't know what to say.

You shrugged, sort of wondering if you had talked just a little too much, but you couldn't help yourself.

"I want to understand what makes someone choose that."

His throat felt suddenly tight.

"You think there's something wrong with him?"

You looked surprised.

"No." Your answer came immediately. "Oh my god no! I think there's something very right about him."

Peter looked away. That was the moment he knew he was completely screwed.

--

Three weeks later, you caught Spider-Man on the roof of your apartment building.

Peter had been in the middle of changing when the stairwell door opened.

He froze.

You froze.

He was still wearing the mask, but his suit was half-off and his backpack was sitting beside him with his sweatshirt stuffed inside. He had just finished wrapping up some things, literally, with some petty thieves, and had been looking forward to ten minutes of peace before going home.

Instead, you stood in the doorway holding a grocery bag and staring at him with your jaw truly on the ground.

Neither of you moved.

For a second, the rooftop felt too small for the silence stretching between you, like the city itself had gone quiet just to listen.

Then your eyes flicked down. To the backpack sitting beside him. To the half-zipped suit. To the unmistakable shape of something that did not belong in a normal college student’s life. Then back to him.

Peter’s brain started screaming.

Not the dramatic, superhero kind of screaming he was used to. He would honestly rather be fighting some monstrous alien or world-class killers than standing in front of you and completely caught off guard.

The only thing he was feeling was pure panic.

You slowly raised your eyebrows. “Spider-Man?”

Peter forced himself to relax in a way that was absolutely not relaxing at all.

“Hi.”

You stared at him.

He immediately hated himself for saying hi. Of all the things he could have said — of all the carefully constructed lies or deflections or something cool and mysterious or even just silence — he had chosen hi.

You looked toward the edge of the roof, where the city dropped away into glowing windows and moving headlights.

“Are you… leaving?”

“Yeah.” His voice came out steadier than he felt while he vaguely gestured vaguely toward the skyline, like that explained anything.

“I have... Spider-Man... stuff.”

You nodded slowly, as if that was a completely reasonable sentence to hear on a rooftop at night.

“Of course you do.”

Peter wanted to disappear. Not swing away. Not run. Not even fall off the building in a dramatic, tragic way.

He literally wanted to cease to exist for about five minutes.

You looked at him for another moment, and he could practically see the shift in your expression, the way your attention sharpened. The journalism student in you clicking into place, not like a threat, but like instinct. Like you were assembling a story you had no intention of publishing.

Then you surprised him, again.

“You don’t have to tell me who you are, in case you like, I dunno, decide to use my apartment building's roof as a break room again.”

Peter went still, he wasn't frozen like before.. now he just didn't know how to continue. That was something he had never heard before. He knew you felt that way, but it was different to hear it while he was behind the mask.

Your voice softened. “I swear, I’m not trying to find out.”

He looked at you through the mask, suddenly hyperaware of every breath he took, every sound the city made below, every blink behind his mask, even every twitch of his muscles.

“...You’re not?”

“Nope.” You set your grocery bag down carefully, like you didn’t want even that small noise to break whatever fragile thing was happening between you.

“I’ve written about you, not in a creepy way. I'm a journalist. I’ve asked questions about you. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to understand you, but I don’t want your name.”

Peter’s chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with his suit. “Why not?”

It came out quieter than he meant it to.

Yet, you didn’t hesitate. “Because if you wanted people to know, we’d know.”

The simplicity of it warmed him from the inside out. You just acepted the boundary that he had never even said out loud. The amount of times people shoved their phones in his face to record him during an interview after he just got done living through yet another traumatic event, and the only thing they asked him was "Who are you?" in whatever variation they decided on that night was too many to count.

You looked toward the skyline again, where the city lights blurred into each other like spilled paint.

“I think you deserve to have something that’s yours.”

Peter stared at you. Nobody had ever said that to him, not as Spider-Man or Peter.

He cleared his throat, suddenly aware of how loud it felt in his own ears. “Sounds like you’re a pretty good journalist.”

You smiled, small and real. “Thank you.” You said almost sheepishly.

“Still ask too many questions.”

“Occupational hazard.” Your smile only grew as you shrugged in a teasing manner.

He let out a quiet laugh beneath the mask, more air than sound.

“You ever get tired of writing about me?”

“No.” The answer was immediate. So immediate it made him actually laugh this time, short and disbelieving.

You smiled at the sound like it meant something to you.

“Why not?” He questioned, his head tilting to the side a bit.

You tilted your head slightly to the same side, studying him again like a person you were trying to understand without taking him apart.

“Cause you’re interesting.”

Peter’s heart started pounding so hard he was briefly convinced you might hear it through the suit.

He desperately hoped you couldn’t. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You stepped closer.

Not enough to invade space. Just enough that the distance between you felt intentional now, not accidental.

“You’re complicated.” You smiled a bit again, the intrigue in your eyes making sure he knew that you meant that in the best way possible.

Peter swallowed. “So I’ve heard.”

“And you clearly don’t trust people very easily.”

That one landed differently. he looked at you more directly. The wide eyes of his mask narrowed a bit.

“Can you blame me?” There was no defensiveness in it. Just honesty, entirely truthful, and exhausted honesty.

You shook your head. “No.”

For a few seconds, the city stretched quietly around you, distant sirens and wind and the hum of something alive far below.

Peter had spent years building a life around separation — mask on, mask off, never letting the two touch more than they had to. It was safer that way. Cleaner. Less chance of losing something he couldn’t afford to lose.

Now you were standing in front of him, and somehow you weren’t trying to pull the mask off at all.

You were just… looking at him and understanding what it meant to leave it on.

Understanding without curiosity blurring into entitlement. Hoenstly, that was the part that made his chest feel too tight to breathe properly.

You wanted to know him, you didn't believe you were just owed the right to his identity and who he was.

Peter didn’t really know what to do with that. So he did what he always did when he didn’t know what to do with something too big for him.

He made a joke.

“You know, most people ask for pictures.”

You laughed immediately, soft and surprised. “Seriously? That is like at the bottom of what I would want to do wih a random Spider-Man meeting.”

He stepped backward slightly, instinctively moving toward the edge of the roof where the city waited for him like an escape route.

You watched him, not stopping him or chasing your story like a mad man. “Be careful.”

The words were simple, but they weren’t casual, and Peter couldn't help but smile beneath the mask.

“I always am.”

You gave him a look that said you absolutely did not believe that for a second. “Kay, well we both know that’s a lie.”

He laughed again, real this time. Then he turned, fired a web while snatching his bag, and swung away into the night.

You stayed on the rooftop until he disappeared between the buildings, swallowed by the city like he had never been there at all.

Peter landed three blocks away too hard, soles slapping the concrete as he stumbled forward and caught himself against a wall.

For a second, he just stood there, completely still. Then both hands came up to his mask.

“Oh my God.” He whisper yelled at himself. His palms pressing against his face like that could somehow reset his entire nervous system.

It did not.

He stayed like that for a moment longer, breathing too fast, heart still acting like it was mid-chase.

Then, very quietly, like saying it out loud made it more real...

“She likes Spider-Man.”

A second passed so he could catch his breath.

He looked up at the sky between the buildings. “...I'm Spider-Man.”

Another second passed as his brain finally caught up with what was happening.

“She likes me.”

He said it again, like repetition might turn it into something he could understand.

Then he pushed off the wall and nearly tripped over nothing on his way to the next rooftop.

--

The next morning, Peter walked into class and found you sitting in your usual seat.

Like nothing had happened. Like you hadn’t seen him on a rooftop in half his Spider-Man gear. Like his entire life hadn’t just shifted slightly off its axis. Like he didn't stalk your Instagram the second he swung through his window that night.

You looked up as he walked up the aisle between sections.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

He dropped into the chair beside you a little too quickly, immediately pretending to organize his notebook like that was a normal thing to do with shaking hands.

He was very aware of everything.

His heartbeat. His breathing. The fact that you were right there and somehow still acting like this was just Tuesday.

You studied him for a moment. “You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“Why?”

He hesitated.

Then shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near disaster.

“Spider-Man stuff, you... inspired me to do some digging I guess.” His voice raised a few octaves as he came up with that lie on the fly.

You smiled excitedly, which promptly caused Peter to fumble his phone out of his pockets and on to the floor.

You turned back toward your laptop like that answer made perfect sense.

“I actually had another thought about him.”

Peter’s eyes widened so fast it was a miracle they didn't pop out of his head.

“Yeah?”

“I think people misunderstand why he keeps his identity secret.” You said so casually, as if every time you mentioned SpiderMan it didn't absolutely rock his entirely world .

He carefully set his notebook down, suddenly very aware of his hands.

“How so?”

“I think everyone assumes he’s protecting himself.” You glanced at him briefly, just long enough to make his stomach flip. “I think he’s protecting everyone else.”

Peter stared at you. For a second, he forgot how to respond to anything.

You didn’t look at him again. Just turned back toward the front as the professor began speaking, like you hadn’t just casually rearranged something fundamental inside his head.

He spent the next fifty minutes pretending to take notes.

In reality, Peter couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that the girl he loved had somehow managed to understand the most important part of him without ever knowing you did it.

And when class ended, you gathered your things and looked over at him. “Coffee?”

Peter blinked, his brain not catching up to the fact that that was actually an invitation, not just a half-formed thought you hadn't meant to say out loud. “Coffee?”

“Yeah.” You smiled like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I figured you've stuck around for my crazy ideas, so we should probably get to know each other beyond the Spider-Man talk." should probably get to know Peter Parker a little better.”

Peter stared at you with wide eyes, his mouth opened then closed then opened, and all that came out was a breath.

You laughed softly, not unkindly. “Was that a no?”

“No,” he shook his head quickly, finally finding his voice. “No, definitely not a no . I like coffee. I’m a huge coffee person. Huge.”

You smiled. “Good, c'mon it can be my treat!” You stood, slinging your bag over your shoulders and heading toward the door.

Peter followed a second later, still slightly in shock, still very much not recovered from anything that had happened in the last twelve hours.

And for once, he didn’t mind that his heart was racing. Because maybe, maybe, he was finally going to get the chance to let you know him.

Not Spider-Man.

Just Peter.

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