#‘i would say ned stark is kind’ and i wouldn’t. so we seem to find ourselves at an impasse

[jeyneofpoole]

i would say ned stark was kind

and would you agree that ned stark effectively utilized his kindness by lying to his extremely trustworthy and dependable wife for the length of their entire marriage which drove a wedge in between them and led to a category five resented stepchild situation that domino effected into the 2ides 2ofmarch. also that time he took a child hostage from a mother who had just lost her other two sons, kept him in constant fear of execution, and made the hostage carry the sword that might one day cut his head off to all of the other executions where it cuts people’s heads off. would you say that.

[agentrouka-blog]

Didn't Jon literally blame Cat for the attack that happened on Ned after the whole Tyrion abduction? Something along how she is to be blamed if anything happens to his lord father? It doesn't mean he was right but saying that blaming Sansa would be wrong which is true but at the same time he might blame her. Besides, what is Jon's anger on Ned could you expand? The boy looks up to Ned and the only time he was probably angry was after finding out what the Nights Watch actually is and how he was not informed about it.

(post referenced)

Hi anon!

Jon blaming Catelyn is rooted in his lack of information (why she captured Tyrion in the first place) and his personal conflict with her, his friendship with Tyrion (which is also rooted in a lack of information, mind) and his agitation within the moment. 

I don’t think you can create a reasonable parallel to Sansa from that. He has no personal conflict with Sansa (that is ever shown in the text), she was a child, and he wouldn’t get this information in the same juvenile and agitated condition as he did the news of Ned’s arrest. 

He would be questioning the information. 

And there is a lot to question. Even Tyrion considers Cersei’s version of events surprising, though he accepts it and doesn’t even question how Sansa would know “all her father’s plans” of high treason. Jon would. 

“Littlefinger made the arrangements. We needed Slynt’s gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was plotting with Renly and he’d written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn’t come to me and told me all her father’s plans . . .”

Tyrion was surprised. “Truly? His own daughter?” Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and courteous.

“The girl was wet with love. She would have done anything for Joffrey, until he cut off her father’s head and called it mercy. That put an end to that.”  (AGOT, Tyrion I)

Jon knows that Sansa doesn’t seem sweet, tender and courteous. He knows that she is. If someone sold Jon this version of events, he would not just swallow the lie. And if Sansa told him the true version, that she was angry, that she did not want to leave, that she asked the queen for permission to stay and then was questioned, Jon would obviously understand that she wasn’t revealing a treason plot and knowingly putting her father in danger. 

Not to mention, Jon himself spent a whole book stressing about divided loyalties between his wildling abuser and his Night’s Watch vows, the ones he had chosen over his own family in the first place. So it’s not like he has any stones to throw here, unless he wants to be a massive hypocrite. 

Jon would understand what happened.

As for Jon’s anger issues with Ned... you rightfully point out one aspect, which was being denied information about the place he was spending the rest of his life at:

No one had told him the Night's Watch would be like this; no one except Tyrion Lannister. The dwarf had given him the truth on the road north, but by then it had been too late. Jon wondered if his father had known what the Wall would be like. He must have, he thought; that only made it hurt the worse. (AGOT, Jon III)

But there’s a different and larger aspect to his inner conflict with Ned: the lack of explanations. 

"I don't even know who my mother was," Jon said. (AGOT Jon I)

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. (AGOT, Jon III)

Even his own mother had not had a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she had looked like, why his father had left her. Because she was a whore or an adulteress, fool. Something dark and dishonorable, or else why was Lord Eddard too ashamed to speak of her? (AGOT, Jon V)

I will ask him about my mother, he resolved. I am a man now, it is past time he told me. Even if she was a whore, I don't care, I want to know. (AGOT, Jon VII)

He fathered a bastard, a small voice whispered inside him. Where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of her? He will not even speak her name. (AGOT, Jon VII)

Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered, He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name. (AGOT, Jon VIII)

Ned denied Jon any knowledge about an essential aspect of his identity - with no explanation. Even a kind lie would have been better than this rotten silence. He gave him nothing. 

Being Ned’s son is Jon’s sole tie to any sense of identity, to his home and to the source of his personal values. He doesn’t have the emotional resources to direct his anger at Ned properly, especially now that Ned has been killed and Jon finds himself having to defend his honor, leaving no room to question it.

But it’s there. Waiting.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Previously....

I got a wind here... I'm not really sure what's going on, but hopefully it'll sitck around for a while. lol

***

Chapter 6

Willas loved Oberyn, very much so.

They’d met very young, since affluent families tended to stick together in a way. Martells and Tyrells were just like that; their parents pushing them to get involved with the ‘right’ type of people.

They became actual friends some years later, once they were in middle school. Oberyn was already a hellion and Willas liked being with someone who didn’t expect him to be perfect.

As they both came from old money, there were expectations all around them. However, they both dealt with them differently. Willas accepted and embraced the responsibilities of being the eldest son of the Tyrells. Oberyn was the second son and could hardly give a fuck about reputation.

That wasn’t to say that Oberyn was irresponsible, because nothing could be further from the truth. He just didn’t feel the need to act the way the ‘polite society’ around them expected him to act. Oberyn wasn’t the type to hide what he felt or wanted, and Willas had always admired that in him. 

Once they got into University together, Willas felt freer to try things he’d never tried before. And at first, those things weren’t even that daring -miss a class, go out partying in the middle of the week.

The first time he kissed a man, it was one of Oberyn’s friends. It had been interesting to find out he was attracted to men, but he also figured out he wasn’t attracted to that man in particular -even though he was really handsome.

So Oberyn asked Willas if he wanted to try kissing him. Willas wasn’t sure why he said ‘yes’, but he did.

They had a kind-of relationship for a bit over two years. Oberyn was the one who assured him that it wouldn’t change their friendship, even if Willas wanted to stop everything. So they’d be together, kiss, fuck, cuddle, and then sometimes Willas would want to date someone else seriously, or Oberyn would skip town with a model, or a dancer or a photographer…

Most of their friends couldn’t understand how this worked so well for them, but it did. Willas didn’t feel entitled to Oberyn’s time and attention, he didn’t need him to be monogamous or faithfull, because that wasn’t what their relationship was about. They were friends and they occasionaly -or not so occasionaly -liked to fuck.

It worked for them.

Until the accident.

The point was… Willas loved Oberyn (not like a brother, because that’d be weird), and he knew the other man loved him too. It didn’t make him any less fucking furious.

Oberyn had no right to get Sansa Stark involved in this mess. She was young, bright and intelligent, and she deserved much better. She was also obviously the kind of girl that one dated, introduced to one’s family, held her hand…

She wasn’t made for illicit love affairs with two degenerates.

“Lord, help me, Willas.” Oberyn groaned dramatically. “Why are you acting like such a fucking martyr? Degenerates? Illicit affair?”

Willas glared at his friend. “Then what is this? A relationship? Should we visit Ned Stark and introduce ourselves?”

Oberyn snorted. “No, I’m scared of him.” He rolled his eyes when he saw Willas’ face. “Willas, stop acting like you’re throwing a virgin over your shoulder and carrying her to a tower.”

He was not acting dramatically.

Fine. Perhaps he was.

But! He was only doing that because of Oberyn. He didn’t believe -for a fucking second -that the other man wasn’t planning something. Oberyn had accepted a long time ago that Willas was a different person now. He’d never pressured Willas into rekindling their affair, and it seemed like he even understood why Willas broke it off completely.

He didn’t normally get involved in Willas’ love life, so this was something else. Oberyn was up to something.

“You know what I think?”

Willas scoffed. “Please, tell me.”

“I think you’re more bothered by the fact you do want this.” Oberyn threw at him.

“Oh please.”

“You like Sansa, you’re attracted to her, but you’re rather comfortable doing nothing about it.” Oberyn pressed. “And now I did something, and if she comes to us, you’ll be out of excuses.”

Willas glared at his friend. “I will throw my cane at you, Oberyn.”

Oberyn’s phone started ringing. “Hold that thought, love.” He winked at Willas, before pulling the phone out. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway. “Yes?” He opened a huge smile. “Sansa darling.”

Willas’ glare became even more intense.

Oberyn just smirked at him. “Of course I can talk to you now. It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?” Silence as she replied. Oberyn chuckled. “I’ve been thinking about you too.” He paused to listen, then laughed again. “Oh, you didn’t mean it like that?” He teased her. “I did.”

Willas rolled his eyes and once again considered throwing his cane at his (former) friend.

“Willas?” Oberyn was looking at him. “I’ve talked to him about it. I know you’re concerned about him, love.”

Now Willas was frowning. Concerned about him? Why?

“I told you he finds you beautiful.” Oberyn was saying. “I’m not pressuring him or anything. I’d never.” He threw a wink at his friend. “Oh.” He became silent again, this time his eyes getting brighter and brighter. “Really? That’s a lovely idea, Sansa. Yes, we can discuss things during dinner.”

Finally hitting the limit of his patience, Willas shook his hands to get Oberyn’s attention and demand answers.

“I’ll discuss the best place to meet with Willas, right?” Oberyn ignored him. “We’ll have dinner, and talk, and maybe just that. Or maybe we’ll get you properly kissed.” He laughed again. “I’ll let you know when and where, okay? Take care, love. Bye.”

Oberyn was unbearably smug when he looked back at Willas. “She wants to meet and discuss things. She wants to know how it’d work and what we’d expect from each other.”

Willas pressed his lips together.

“She’s concerned about whether you’re really interested.” Oberyn pressed. “She doesn’t want to pressure you. Should I tell her I’ll meet her alone?”

“No.” Willas hissed. “Tell Sansa we’ll have dinner at my place.”

***

Sansa had agonized for way too long over lingerie for this dinner. She didn’t expect anything to happen that night -and wasn’t sure if she even wanted anything to happen so soon -but at the same time…

Margaery had once said to her that some things just have the power to make you feel more confident; like a new lipstick, those killer heels, and even sexy underwear that no one knew you were even wearing.

Sansa did need to feel a bit more confident, so she considered her sexiest lingerie set -Agent Provocateur, bought while she dated Harry and never used.

She’d seen their website and this was quite tame compared to some of the things there, but she loved the color and she felt sexy wearing it. It was exactly what she needed.

So she put on her sexy lingerie, a nice dress, nice heels and went to Willas’ house.

Oberyn had said it was the best place to meet, since they could talk freely and not worry about people overhearing them. He also made it quite clear that it didn’t mean anything other than that. They were not bringing her to Willas’ apartment waiting for something to happen.

She believed Oberyn.

Well, she believed him on that, because she still wasn’t so sure about Willas and his desire to be part of this.

She also wasn’t so sure if she wanted to be part of all of this, but she spent three weeks thinking about it, and she finally realized she needed to talk to them before coming to some sort of decision.

Yes, the idea was exciting and titillating. Yes, they were attractive and -hopefully -knew what they were doing. But Sansa wasn’t the girl who had one-night stands. She wasn’t daring and adventurous or even sexy, really…

She needed to know. She needed to ask her questions and see where it led her. She didn’t want to regret this.

Although then, knocking on Willas’ door, she felt like she just might regret it anyway.

“Sansa.” Willas smiled at her when he opened the door. “You look absolutely lovely.”

Oh… Maybe she wouldn’t regret this after all.

[jackoshadows]

The Arya/Jon post highlighted this bit in the text where Jon assists Bowen Marsh with counts and inventories.

... assisted Maester Aemon with his birds or Bowen Marsh with his counts and inventories - Jon, AGoT

And yet we had a so called asoiaf expert telling me that there was no textual evidence of Jon learning anything about food stores as a steward...

I wouldn’t be so annoyed by things like this if the same person wasn’t also insistently proclaiming Sansa as best at everything because she learned so much by osmosis from any person she spend two seconds with  - despite there actually being nothing in the text that tells us what exactly she learned from Tyrion and the Tyrells and Cersei. Okay, so she mentioned that she would make the people love her instead of fear her. Anything else? Any textual evidence of what kind of administrator she would be? Any deals she she has made with adults to tell us what kind of diplomat she would be? Any laws she has enforced, any justice she has dispersed to tell us whether she will be fair and just or a tyrannical idiot?

Plus, the people she has seen rule as kings are the likes of Robert Baratheon and Joffrey Baratheon. She has seen what not to do. Has she seen what to do? Has she then done it?

Just looking at the characters Jon Snow learned from - Ned Stark, Maester Luwin, Rodrik  Cassel, Maester Aemon, Jeor Mormont, Qhorin Halfhand, Mance Raydar, Donal Noye, Samwell Tarly, Stannis Baratheon - and then thinking that Sansa is more qualified to lead the North? Folks should be honestly embarrassed pretending to be unbiased analysts.

Maester Aemon - The oldest and wisest character in the books - said this of Jon Snow:

“Maester Luwin taught you well Jon Snow. Your mind is as deft as your blade it would seem”

Stannis Baratheon, said this of Jon Snow:

“You haggle like a crone with a codfish”

In book, in story, we have older, experienced characters praising and acknowledging Jon’s intelligence and negotiating skills. Yet, these are so often ignored or discounted.

As an aside, it’s pretty hilarious how much many of these Sansa stans hate Tyrion and disparage his intelligence and yet take his praise of Sansa’s ability to charm as gospel and an indication that she will be The Diplomat ™ 😂. Apparently there are no so called ‘POV traps’ there. POV traps only exist when characters praise Dany or Arya or Jon or when Jon and Arya say something negative about Sansa. 

ASoIaF fandom logic:

Character says something negative about Sansa - Biased and false POV trap. Character says something positive about Sansa - indisputable, absolute truth.

Character says something positive about Dany/Arya/Jon - biased/wrong/POV trap. Character says something negative about Dany/Arya/Jon, usually slavers, Septa Mordane or bigots like Bowen Marsh - it’s the absolute, gospel, indisputable truth about these characters.

Again, the issue is not and never been about what Sansa herself can possibly do in the future and her own skillsets of being charming and well mannered and following the patriarchal status quo rules to the tee and ordering the servants in the Vale to make the bed and clean the rooms and getting SweetRobin to eat his dinner and slowly being able to connect the dots when LF explains his plans to her.

The issue is when people pretend to be these unbiased analysts and then tear down characters like Jon Snow as being an ‘ignorant, privileged rich kid who doesn’t know anything about food stores’ - their own words, and when one then looks at their Sansa essays, it’s nothing but high praise of her exceptional skillsets.

I find pretentious hypocrites to be highly obnoxious. Considering the many posts I have made on this now, folks can guess how annoying I find this  😂. I will stop here... until the next time 😂

[lawonderlandwriter]

Living in Hollywood and working in Hollywood and working for someone who is related to someone who works for someone that is work-related to the Game of Thrones crew and therefore possibly people working on Snow, I feel like I can’t outright say “Fuck Kit Harington” for the things he said about Dany in the GOT Con panel today but.... I’m really disappointed in him, I’ll say that much. (If you’d like to know what Kit said during the panel, read THIS thread on Twitter, other threads have more info but this gives the gist). 

When it was first announced Kit was behind the Snow spinoff, I legitimately had some hope for it and, further finding out about GRRM’s direct involvement (when he had virtually none in the final few seasons of GOT), I had a lot of hope for it that it would try to steer his character’s ending (and maybe a few others) back to what was originally intended in the books, if our theories were correct that the show was complete D&D fan fiction. 

What purpose could Kit - but especially GRRM - have for creating this spinoff other than to “fix” or at least attempt to fix what D&D had broken with the end of Game of Thrones? Money? Returning to the cash-cow, as they say? I had hoped this wasn’t the case. 

And then Emilia was at that panel for the DIFLondon event and said so many hopeful and lovely things about Dany AND JON that I thought, what else could the spinoff be but a way to make all those lovely things a reality? With Kit being Emilia’s alleged best friend, and the two having talked about it before the news was leaked, it made sense to me that she would be a part of it, if not full on producing it with Kit. 

But with the shit Kit said about Jon killing Dany “feeling right”, I just don’t know. That hope I had for the spinoff is definitely crushed, I can’t say that it’s not. Is it crushed completely? Probably not, because I’m a fucking idiot and even with the leaks of 8x05, I still went into watching that episode hoping Dany wouldn’t burn down King’s Landing. That’s just the kind of dumbassery my pea brain participates in. 

The pea brain is scrambling to rationalize everything at the moment. Excuses such as “well, it’s what he said in all his official interviews when the season first came out, all the things he was “forced” to say, but it still differs from things he’s said in less formal settings” and “when asked who he thought should have been King of the Seven Kingdoms, he said he thought it should be Jon Snow even though in the past he’s said he didn’t think Jon should be King because it didn’t suit his character so he’s clearly just saying random shit to please the audience...” Kit also said his favorite season was S2 because there were more character moments so was that a secret dig at everything that went on in later seasons without outright saying he hated them? He also said he was “shell shocked” (yeah, we fucking know, we know he went to goddamn rehab about it) when at the table read and found out Jon kills Dany. He said Ned Stark would not have approved of him killing Dany. He said he hoped Jon would be able to find love again but also said he thought Jon would have issues being in another relationship because of his trauma from what happened with Dany and Ygritte. 

All of which just seems....all over the place. 

Was killing Dany right? Or is Kit’s real opinion what he speculated would have been Ned’s opinion on the situation? Should Jon find love again or is he too fucked up for love? Should Jon have been King or is it not appropriate for the type of character he is? What are the real answers, Kit??

People are also saying that, as with previous GOT panels, everything here was rehearsed / the questions were definitely vetted, meaning the answers may have been rehearsed / pre-written too. But if HBO execs are vetting questions and telling Kit what to say, are they basing his answers on only the previous series or do they write his answers according to what Kit and GRRM have planned for the spinoff. And if the former and not the latter, does that mean none of what Kit said is how he actually feels and therefore should not be taken as a sign of what’s to come for the spinoff..................? 

You would think that a question about the spinoff would have been NUMBER 1 on the questioners’ priority list but no one asked / Kit said nothing about it (which is ODD considering most people speculated that HBO would use this as an opportunity to officially announce that the spinoff was happening, considering, what the fuck else was the purpose of Kit even being there, if not to build up hype for his new show?) 

I’m rambling. Fuck it, I’ll ramble. And I’ll just say, I don’t think his answer about Jon killing Dany was entirely his own and that it was probably pre-written for him by the HBO marketing team who wouldn't give a fuck about the audience’s opinions on Dany. Of course Kit would have to say Dany needed to die after murdering nearly a million people in a single day, or of course the marketing department would make him say that, as they don’t want people thinking, hey, we and our actors are cool with mass murder, even if it’s fictional.  

Am I still upset about what Kit said? Absolutely. Do I think the answer was all his own? Not entirely. Do I think this means anything for the plot of the Jon Snow spinoff? Entirely up in the air. Will the pea brain still have hope for this spin off? Possibly. Even if I believed Kit did answer entirely honestly and that he thought Jon killing Dany “felt right” for their ending together, I still can’t fathom what a Jon Snow spinoff would be about if it didn’t somehow involve her being resurrected. It’s still a limited series. Jon still has fuck all to do up at the Wall with 0 character plot intrigue. Even if they did a “hey, the Night King and the White Walkers aren't really gone,” I don’t know how it would work without Dany. Maybe that’s wishful thinking. Maybe Kit would pull the ultimate beyond ultimate of betrayals and have Drogon return and make Jon his new rider as many Dany haters have speculated....?

Who knows? Whatever. I’m still rambling. I’m all over the place. We have nothing new to obsess over so I will be thinking about this for far longer than is necessary and reading into it far more than is necessary for something that, again, was probably just some generic bullshit written by some marketing intern. 

[peterpparkerwrites]

accident - part two

warnings: language pairing: peter parker x reader word count: 7.9k

masterlist ~ requests are closed

~

Gobby decided to take a break for once, which meant you had time in the morning to stop by yours and MJ's favorite cafe.

Ned and MJ had a different English teacher than you and Peter, and sadly for you they got the fun one - instead of having to sit through school for most of the day, their teacher was taking their class to go see some movie adaptation of a book they were reading.

In a way, you were kind of glad if would be just you at Peter for at least the first half of school - you knew you had some explaining to do, even though he said he wouldn't ask any questions.

He looked a little nervous as you walked up the front steps of the school, trying to balance carrying two cups and your books under your arm that wouldn't fit in your bag. You tried to ignore the way he was looking at you when you approached him.

Finding out your perfectly normal-seeming friend had superpowers was probably a bit much. Maybe he was wondering if you'd grow an extra arm next.

"Hey," you greeted him anyway, holding out one of the cups.

"Hi?" He stared at your hand blankly.

"I brought you coffee," you smiled a little, though even Peter could tell it was forced. He gave you yet another funny look.

"You...don't need to bribe me. I already told you I wouldn't tell anyone."

"I know, and this isn't a bribe. More of an apology? I didn't mean to spring something that big on you. And I'm sure teleporting for the first time with no warning wasn't fun, either."

"It wasn't that bad, actually," he shrugged, taking the coffee from you with a small smile. "But thanks."

Now you were the one giving him a funny look this time. Even Spider-Man was basically laying on the floor for ten minutes trying to recover when you first did it with him. There was no way this boy didn't get even slightly dizzy.

"You got some weird powers I should know about, Peter?" You teased, missing the way he stiffened up. "I teleported a guy away from a robbery last week who literally threw up from how bad it was. You didn't even get a headache? I'm almost disappointed."

"Did you want me to throw up on you?" He asked incredulously, and you laughed, shaking your head.

"No, thanks for not doing that, guess I'm just surprised," you took a sip of your coffee, giving him a look again. It was a little strange how easily he was taking all this, and you felt like you needed to say something about it. "This isn't...going to make things weird between us, right? I'm not trying to talk so casually about it and dismiss your feelings if it's a lot. If you want space or something I can-"

"No!" He said quickly, almost startling you, "No, I mean...of course not. You're still Y/N, just with powers. No offense, but I interned for Tony Stark, I've seen weirder things."

You didn't think about that. But, shit - maybe you should have - Spider-Man was constantly around Stark Tower. That didn't matter, though - you trusted Peter not to say anything to him if they ever crossed paths.

"Well, now I feel like I gotta one-up the weirdos you've been seeing. Wanna teleport into class?"

"No, are you crazy!"

"That was very obviously a joke," you snickered at his horrified expression, "But we should at least walk to class so we aren't late for once."

"Uh, right. I knew that."

By lunch, Ned and MJ still hadn't returned. You and Peter assumed they probably got to just go home (lucky little shits), and sat at your bench near the edge of the school grounds. Peter was a great listener, and you finally had someone to talk to about the other side of your life - aside from Spider-Man. But it wasn't like you could talk to Spider-Man about this side of your life, and having someone that knew both was such a relief that you didn't realize maybe you were talking too much and annoying your friend.

He was staring at you with an indecipherable expression on his face as you were in the middle of some rant about an old villain you beat with Spider-Man, and you immediately dropped your grin and looked at the ground.

"I'm sorry, it's just - it's so relieving to have someone that knows, I felt like I've been bottling it up and it's been so stressful," you sighed, "I can chill out, I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," his expression was soft when you looked back up at him, "Sorry, I was just getting lost in the story. I...I can see how hard it must be to keep this a secret. You can always tell me anything, Y/N. I promise it's safe with me."

You couldn't bring yourself to meet his eyes, the way he was looking at you making you feel off. Peter had always been cute, you weren't blind, and you definitely used to have a crush on him that you never spoke of - but still, he never looked at you like that before, or said such sweet things like he had been since he found out you were Bypass.

"Thank you," you forced yourself to say, standing up quickly to change the subject. "Five bucks says Ned and MJ don't come back until fifth period."

"Ten bucks they don't come back at all."

"Deal."

-

A couple days later, Green Goblin made another appearance, much to your annoyance. You used to joke about anything being better than sitting through science class - somehow you didn't think that your science class would be getting threatened by a goblin man that threw green bombs.

Your teachers were trying to evacuate everyone calmly, but it was sort of a mess as several kids seemed to be debating between running away screaming or filming the whole ordeal. The Goblin had blown up some area on the south side of the school, coincidentally the same one where you and Peter were over a week ago when this exact thing happened.

He chose to attack again when the school was finished blocking off and just starting to repair the area, which still didn't make sense to you.

Among the chaos, you were able to slip away to your alley. Spider-Man was likely on the way already, and you were a little annoyed you left your suit at home - still, it would only take you maybe two seconds to jump there and jump back to the alley.

You were right about to teleport straight to your room, when a red and black figure dropped right in front of you. You both stared at each other for a minute, his masked eyes wide as your real ones were.

"Uh, hello," you said awkwardly, so glad he showed up when he did. Otherwise he would've been just in time to see some "random girl" teleport. You felt so weirdly exposed in front of him, not even sure how to act without giving away that you were Bypass. Would he just know the second you spoke more than one word?

"Hi," Spider-Man said in a similar tone, his masked eyes narrowing, "Whatcha doin' back here?"

"Um...hiding? There's kind of a supervillain running around blowing things up, so."

"Right, I noticed. In an alleyway, though?"

You had taken several measures to make sure this was an alleyway that pretty much no one ever went into. The last thing you expected was for Spider-Man to ever come here.

"I mean...yeah? I didn't have many options since the Green Goblin sort of blew up the other side of my school."

"Your school, huh?" His eyes narrowed again before he shrugged, "I guess this is a good hiding spot. I chose it to do some surveillance here since it seemed like a good place. Guess great minds think alike!"

"Okay..."

What in the hell was he talking about? Surveillance? Since when did he do that?

"Well, anyway," he held his wrist out and tapped it, and you watched blankly as a blue hologram showing a map of the streets near you popped up. You really needed him to leave so you could suit up.

"Uh," your eyes darted to the end of the alleyway, "Should-should you really be doing this here? Should I be seeing this?"

He stared at you, "What, are you secretly a super villain?"

"Well, how would you know?" You said, frowning. He was being dumber than usual.

"You'd be a shitty one for exposing yourself like that, so I have a feeling you aren't," he chuckled, and you frowned even more. "Let's see. We're on 62nd right now, Gobby was last seen on 108th, he can't have gotten too far..."

"Uh, Spider-Man?" You hoped your tone wasn't sounding as annoyed as you felt. "Shouldn't you be meeting up with Bypass somewhere? Maybe she's looking for you."

"That's true, I do wonder where my partner is," he put his hands on his hips and stared at the sky, and you resisted the urge to scream at your horrible luck. "She's not usually late to the party. Teleporting makes that easier, I suppose."

Maybe if you left me alone I could go change into my suit, you thought angrily, crossing your arms. "Strange."

"I better go after our green friend, uh thanks for the company...?"

"Y/N," you said awkwardly, a little startled when he grabbed your hand and shook it.

"Y/N," he repeated quietly, holding your hand a second longer than necessary.

Hearing him say your real name made you feel kind of fuzzy inside, and you hoped it didn't show on your face.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N, you better find somewhere safer to hide than some random alleyway!" One of his masked eyes winked as he lifted a hand to the sky and swung away.

You were cursing under your breath the entire time it took you to suit up and teleport to the rooftop you saw Spider-Man swing up toward.

"Hey, took you long enough!" Spider-Man's cheery voice made you want to smack him with something.

"Trust me, I tried to get here faster," you said through gritted teeth, kneeling down next to where your partner was crouched behind the ledge, watching the damage below.

"What's got you in a bad mood?" Spider-Man asked teasingly, and you really wished he knew your identity just so you could get mad at him for being held up.

"Nothing, just some idiot wouldn't leave me alone so I couldn't teleport here." Not like he would know he was the idiot.

He let out a loud laugh, holding his stomach while you gave him a weird look. "Well, you made it just in time, sweetheart. Gobby is having a field day with this high school."

Right on cue, that cackling laugh that made you cringe was heard from not too far away. You both crouched down even more as he passed somewhat close, and you made a face at the unflattering up-close view of your newest enemy.

"What is his deal?" You mumbled, curious now more than ever as to why he was targeting your high school. A sudden, horrifying thought came to mind that maybe he had found out your identity and was looking for you there outside of the suit - but that had to be impossible. You were certain no one but Peter knew who you were.

"I have a risky idea, since he doesn't know we're here yet," Spider-Man hesitated, his mask turning toward you. "I had a tracker, I just can't get close enough to him to stick it on his suit or even his hoverboard. But...like I said it would be really risky..."

"Spit it out," you said impatiently, waving your hand.

"Well, you can teleport."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Okay, let me finish! You can teleport onto his board with him, stick my handy dandy tracker on while pretending to just try to land a punch or something, and then teleport back."

You frowned at him, "Well, you were definitely right about it being risky."

"At this point, I would do it if I could, but I've tried. And he's hurting more and more people every day, and it's really bothering me that he's targeting this high school so much...I don't know. Do you think it could work?"

You hesitated, watching as the Goblin did another pass over the school, yelling something you couldn't hear from this far away. "I don't think we have a choice anymore. We need to stop him. I can try to teleport to him but it would have to be really precise or I'll just appear in midair and have to teleport again so I don't fall to my death. It would be a lot of teleporting, I'll tire out quickly."

"Oh, you know I'd always catch you if you fell for me, sweetheart," One of his masked eyes winked and you rolled your eyes, even if that line did kind of work on you - you were a sucker for stupid lines like that, even if they were pathetic.

Anyway.

"Okay, well you can't do that if Gobby is high up around no buildings for you to swing by, or if he's distracting you with his fun little bombs. So like I said, the timing has to be perfect. If you can distract him enough to slow him down while he's focusing on throwing bombs or something, that would help a lot."

He pressed his tracker into your gloved hands. "Okay. Give me a few minutes, stay up here, I'll try to make him come closer to make it easier for you."

"Thanks," you held your fist out and he bumped it, nodding at you. "Good luck."

"You too."

If there was anything Spider-Man was good at, it was annoying supervillains. Goblin was shouting angrily as he flew over the building you were on, hiding just out of sight. Spider-Man swung over too, shouting out something about how he should've chosen a different shade of green that morning.

You watched the way Goblin was flying, trying to pinpoint where he would go direction-wise. He was gritting his teeth and getting ready to lob another bomb at your partner, and you knew that your moment. You took a breath and shut your eyes, concentrating.

It was perfect timing.

Your feet landed on the back of his board and you instinctively grabbed Gobby's shoulders so you wouldn't fall, making him yell in surprise and try to throw you off immediately.

"What the hell are you-" He sounded even worse up close, and you tried not to look down. Heights were really not your thing.

"Man, you really do need a better dermatologist!"

"What?"

You pushed down on his right shoulder with one hand, dropping Spider-Man's tracker with the other onto his hoverboard when his head was turned toward the right to look at you. It was hard not to grin as the little spider locked into place. Bingo.

"Get off, girl," Goblin growled and reached a hand back to grab you, but you let go of him and teleported again.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be one too many. As soon as you appeared on the rooftop across the street, your knees felt weak and you struggled to stand upright. That distracted you from the second green bomb he threw at you - and this time you didn't move fast enough.

It hit the ground two feet in front of you and sent you flying against the brick wall behind you. The impact stunned you too much to think to teleport before you could hit the bricks, so you felt the pain shoot up your arm and chest at the awkward angle you hit it at before you crumpled to the ground with a groan.

The asshole let out another cackle before the sound of his hoverboard was further away, and the lighter sound of feet landing a few yards away from you was much more comforting.

"Hey, you-are you okay?" Spider-Man's voice sounded shaky as he helped you to your feet.

"That hurt," you wheezed, ignoring the pain dancing along your abdomen and wrist. "But I think I'm good."

"I shouldn't have had you do that, I'm an idiot," he muttered to himself as he held you up, "Let's get out of here, don't even think about teleporting right now."

"I don't think I could yet even if I tried," you winced as he held you tighter, shooting a web across the street. "Be careful."

"Of course," he said softly, adjusting his arm so it wasn't squeezing against your hurt one.

The second he landed you both somewhere far away from the school and police, you let out a pained wince and nearly dropped to the ground. Spider-Man caught you and gently sat you down to lean against him on the ground.

"Shit, what-what's wrong, what can I do?"

"It's just my arm, I'm a baby when it comes to these things," you tried to say nonchalantly. Your chest was definitely aching and you knew your arm would need to be wrapped, but the last thing you needed to do was stress him out more.

"I can swing you to a hospital-"

"Spidey, I appreciate the offer, but I can literally just teleport home."

"Oh, yeah," he said awkwardly. "Wait, home? No, you should really get checked out-"

"Secret identity to protect, remember?" You chuckled, pretending it didn't hurt when you did. "Besides, you never go to hospitals when you're hurt."

"Fast healing."

"Whatever. You got stabbed one time and went home, I think I can get a little bruised and go home."

"You had a bomb thrown at you."

"Hey, the bomb itself didn't hit me, we both know that."

He was silent as his gloved hand moved up your wrist, and you tried your best not to make a noise when he gently held it. "You're telling me this isn't hurting that bad?"

"Nope," you squeaked out. If you could see his face, you were certain he'd be glaring at you.

He then moved his hand to your stomach, and you ignored the mix of slight pain but also butterflies you felt as he did that. "Not here either?"

"No," you whispered, glancing up to see how close he was to you. His masked eyes were narrowed but you didn't break the stare even as that weird feeling starting building up in your chest again.

"Fine," he said reluctantly, moving his hand back. You almost missed it. "Go home and rest, I'm serious. I better not see you at patrol tonight if you aren't 100% okay."

"I'll take an Advil or something."

"Bypass."

"Okay, fine. I won't come if I'm really hurt. I promise."

He still seemed hesitant to just let you leave, but you didn't give him much of a choice as you teleported away. One perk to that super power - just randomly leaving conversations you didn't want to be in.

A few hours later, and you realized he was probably right. While your chest felt better, your wrist was still aching. You had plenty of bandages but you were having a really hard time wrapping it with one hand, and it made you more frustrated the longer you took.

It wasn't like you had Spider-Man's phone number to ask him to help you. Your parents would flip if you asked them for help. No one else knew your secret...wait.

You pulled your phone out and pulled up Peter's contact, taking longer than necessary to type a text out to him since you could only use one hand without being in a lot of pain.

hey can i come over? it's kinda important

You frowned at your phone after you sent it, not even sure if this was the best course of action. Maybe you should've been honest with Spider-Man before, but he was always so overbearing when you got hurt, and you didn't want him to start thinking you were weak.

Before you could change your mind, Peter replied.

of course! :)

You smiled slightly, grabbing your bandages and focusing on his room before teleporting there.

"God, shit," Peter jumped out of his chair when you appeared, and you tried not to laugh at his expression. "I-I was not expecting you to do that."

"You said I could come over?"

"You couldn't use the door?" He said incredulously, and then his eyes darted down to where you were cradling your wrist. Of course he noticed that immediately.

"I didn't want May to panic," you explained, sitting on the edge of his bed, "I can't wrap this stupid thing by myself, but if I leave it like this, I'm probably going to just hurt myself more."

"I thought..." he trailed off as you gave him a confused look. He shook his head and took the wrap from you gently. "I mean, of course I can help. Did this happen during the Goblin attack today?"

"Maybe."

You watched him silently for a moment as he started wrapping your hand first, like he had done this many times before. The way he'd been acting around you since he found out you were Bypass had been making you feel funny, like how you used to back when you were certain you had feelings for him.

Everything got weird when you met Spider-Man. Those lingering feelings you had for Peter were definitely still there, but they felt muted when you were with Spider-Man. Once he was dating Liz and then MJ you kind of let it go, and realized you liked Spider-Man as more than a friend, which just sent you through another painful crush considering he didn't want to reveal his identity or find out yours.

Seeing Peter caring for you like this since he found out your secret made it way more complicated.

"You didn't want to ask Spider-Man for help with this?" He interrupted your thoughts hesitantly as he continued wrapping your wrist, and you tried to avoid making any pained noise.

"No, he always gets stressed out when I get hurt, cause he heals faster," you paused, "Pretend I didn't say that. He probably wouldn't be happy with me talking about his powers to other people."

"He probably wouldn't mind one little detail slipping by accident," Peter cracked a smile, "And I'm sure he gets stressed out for good reason. I don't like seeing you hurt...either."

"He doesn't like it even more. It would be cute if it wasn't also kind of annoying," you snickered, trying not to wince as Peter laughed with you and shifted against the hand he was wrapping.

"Aw, you think he's cute?" Peter teased lightly, chucking as he wrapped another strand.

He glanced up when you didn't answer, giving you an unreadable look. "I...I was just joking."

"I know you were," you frowned, staring pointedly at the wall. It was obvious he was still looking at you, waiting for you to say something else, but you weren't really sure what to say. The longer the silence, though, the more obvious it was that his comment bothered you.

"Do you..." Peter trailed off, but you got the gist of the question that he didn't want to finish.

"Hey, you told me you weren't going to ask me any questions about this whole hero thing," you said a little jokingly, knowing full well that he didn't mean this when he said that.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. That's between you two."

It was. But...it was kind of nice to have a somewhat uninvolved third party that might be able to give advice or even just moral support. Peter was your friend, and he was helping you and keeping a secret for you when he didn't have to - what was one more secret?

"He doesn't want us to know each other outside the masks, it...it would never work. I wouldn't mind but I know he would," you hesitated, "Just because I might want more doesn't mean...I don't even know how he really feels about me in general, much less in...that way."

Peter was silent, focusing pretty hard on wrapping your hand. You were pretty sure half of what you said was too vague or confusing to make sense to him, but the gist of it was there. Never had you admitted out loud how you felt about Spider-Man, but it was almost relieving to do so.

Although it was kind of weird to talk about it with a boy you also had confusing feelings for.

Whatever.

"Pretty sure he'd be disappointed by who's underneath the mask, anyway," you tried to joke, but you couldn't help but wonder if there was any truth to that statement.

"I'm-I'm sure that's not true," Peter said quietly, and you finally made yourself meet his eyes when he looked up at you. "I bet he thinks the world of you, actually."

"You really are the nicest person I know," you smiled at him, ignoring when his face turned pink and he focused on finishing your bandages. "And the best person that could've found out my secret. Seriously...thank you, Peter."

"You never have to thank me for this," he said softly, not quite meeting your eyes as he set the remainder of your bandages next to you. "I'm glad I found out you're Bypass. I can't imagine anyone else being her."

You felt those stupid butterflies in your chest as you stared at him, even more confused than before. As if you didn't just spit out your feelings for Spider-Man.

"So, you gonna tell him?" Peter asked suddenly, pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Tell who what?" You asked, sounding distracted.

"Spider-Man...how you feel about him."

You made a face, "I don't think that would be a very good idea."

"What, you don't think he would feel the same?" Peter's tone turned serious, and you shrugged.

"Sometimes I think he does," you bit your lip, "Like...I'll catch him staring. Or when he gets really scared when I'm hurt, it feels like maybe he does. He calls me sweetheart all the time but I can't ever tell if it's a joke, because sometimes he'll say it differently and...I don't know. I don't think I can even entertain the idea, I'm probably just imagining something that isn't there."

"I don't think you're imagining it at all," Peter spoke so confidently that you looked up at him in doubt, "Seriously. He'd be stupid not to feel the same."

"How...are you so sure?" You asked quietly, watching him as his face turned red.

Huh.

The sound of his phone ringing made you jump, and you didn't even realize how close you both were until he was scrambling to get up and answer it.

"Uh, hey-hey May," he said quickly, giving you a look that was somehow between apologetic and frantic. You bit your lip to keep from laughing, opening your phone to check the time, not realizing how late it had gotten.

"Yeah, I'm home. Oh, you're getting Thai? Okay..."

That was your cue to leave. You grabbed your remaining bandages and stood up, almost surprised by the disappointed look on Peter's face as he hung up with May.

"Headed out so soon? May's getting food if you wanted to stay," he sounded a little hopeful, again making that stupid feeling come back.

You needed to get yourself together.

"Nah, my parents are probably expecting me, but thank you," you grinned, "I gotta patrol pretty soon anyway, so."

"If you're still hurt, you probably shouldn't go," he said seriously, and you shrugged.

"I'll be fine. Night patrols have been pretty dead lately."

"If you say so," he didn't seem very convinced, but it wasn't like he could stop you. You stepped forward and hugged him tightly with one arm, and his arms came up around you immediately.

"Thank you again, Peter. Have a good night."

"See you later, sweetheart," he smiled when you pulled back, and you just barely caught his expression turning horrified as you teleported too quickly to even stop yourself.

You arrived in your room and stared blankly at the floor, what he just said finally catching up to you and your thoughts began to run a mile a minute.

Sweetheart. He called you sweetheart.

You stared at the picture of you and Peter hanging on your wall of photos, not even wanting to entertain the stupid thoughts suddenly going through your head. It was a nickname, it was just a stupid nickname and yes only one person had ever called you that before, but that didn't mean it was exclusive to them. Even if it was said so casually, like he'd been calling you that...for a while.

Okay, you let yourself entertain the stupid thought.

Peter was always late, more than you were. Peter was angry when you exposed yourself as Bypass to him. Peter always seemed to know when you had been hurt. Peter didn't get side effects the first time you teleported with him. Peter was certain about how Spider-Man would feel about things, even when it came to how Spider-Man felt about you. The way Peter looked at you lately, the way Spider-Man seemed to hesitate before calling you Bypass, the way Peter turns bright red every time you talked about how much you admired your parter-

You had to be seeing things. You had to be imagining and making assumptions like an idiot, because they couldn't be the same, right? That would make this situation more fucked up than it already was.

"I bet he thinks the world of you, actually."

You stood up abruptly, shaking your head at yourself. They couldn't be the same person. You liked Peter, and you liked Spider-Man, and that would make this too easy. But that would also mean that Spider-Man knew your identity the whole time and decided not to share his own.

He wouldn't have done that. Not unless he thought you would have a problem with them being the same person, which was sort of in character for Peter-

No. You marched to your desk and grabbed your phone, getting all the way to Peter's contact before stopping yourself.

You put your phone down angrily, knowing you were probably just being stupid. Peter was so smart and shy and awkward in kind of a cute way, so he wasn't really that much like Spider-Man, was he? Spider-Man flirted with you (even if jokingly) and dropped the stupidest jokes at the worst possible times, and was really fit and coordinated in a way you never saw Peter. He could hardly hold a basketball without hurting himself somehow.

Unless it was an act to hide his identity.

No, nope, no way. You put that thought away, knowing nothing but trouble would come from it. As you suited up for your nightly patrol with Spider-Man, you tried not to think about it too much, almost hoping you were wrong. It wouldn't make sense, even if it actually, really did.

Spider-Man was pacing when you teleported to the meeting spot. He actually jumped when you appeared, and you frowned - he hadn't been spooked by you, ever.

"Uh...what's up?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all," he said quickly, playing with his fingers and leaning back on the balls of his feet.

"Why are you so...nervous?"

"No I'm not," he laughed, and it came out more of a high pitched squeak. "You-you're the one that's nervous!"

"What?" You almost laughed, but his bizarre behavior was almost starting to concern you. In fact, he was acting so much like Peter when he was nervous that you were a little more certain in your supposedly stupid theory. It still sounded a little ridiculous - and you weren't sure how you'd react if they really were the same person. But either way-

"Do you have feelings for me?"

That caught you a little off guard. You stepped back slightly, eyeing him and wishing you could see his expression if only to see if he was joking or not. But his tone sounded dead serious.

"Um...are we really doing this right now?" You asked weakly, glancing at the glowing red sign on the side of the building you were on, "On top of a Virgin Media store?"

"Bypass," he pinched his mask where the bridge of his nose presumably was, "Yes, we're doing this on top of a Virgin Media. Do you prefer Wicked Willy's across the street?"

"I don't want to answer your first question," you said quickly, ignoring how you both deflected to humor when you were nervous, "I-I don't want to mess with the friendship we have and I'm worried my answer would ruin everything."

Spider-Man stared at you for a second, and you realized you basically did just answer it for him. Where the hell had this even come from? Why did he have to suddenly ask you this now, out of nowhere-

Peter. You felt your chest tighten up a little. He was the only one who knew, and he wasn't the type to tell personal things like that to others for no reason.

Unless he didn't have to tell him. Because there was one simple answer that could explain not only this, but Spider-Man's weird behavior lately and how Peter was way too calm about your powers. And you were already briefly considering it to be a possibility even before this conversation.

Spider-Man took a step toward you, interrupting any thought that went through your head.

Your heart leaped when he pulled his mask up, but he left it tucked around his nose. There wasn't even a second for you to really see what the bottom half of his face looked like, because he was already kissing you.

As much as you toyed with the design, your mask was always better fitting when it only covered half your face. Spider-Man had tried many times to convince you to wear one that fully covered your face, but you didn't care for any of the ones you tried. You were convinced you had a forgettable bottom half of your face, anyway, and it hadn't been an issue before.

Considering how easy it was for Spider-Man to kiss you now, you were more than glad you didn't decide on a full faced mask.

It took you a second to respond, the shock of the conversation and him just kissing you out of nowhere making it hard for your brain to function. One of his hands cradled the side of your face, his thumb fitting just beneath where your mask rested as his lips moved against yours. His other hand slid down your shoulder, moving to hold your waist.

You couldn't help the noise you made when his hand shifted to your back, pulling you closer. No one had ever kissed you like this, and the feeling of it mixed with the realization that he did return your feelings made you want to melt. The fingers of your unhurt hand moved up to his face, and you realized you were feeling him for the first time as your fingertips danced along his jawline.

He finally pulled back as the tips of your fingers started subconsciously sneaking underneath his mask, just feeling the tips of his hair. His gloved hands came up to hold your wrist, not pulling them away, but not letting you move any further.

"Bypass," he said carefully, almost warning you. You weren't going to do anything crazy like rip his mask off, but his voice made you pause, your hand settling on the side of his face. You never heard him without his voice changer in his suit, and his soft, breathless, real voice made you freeze, because...it was familiar.

Your eyes moved down to the part of his face that was exposed before you could stop yourself, the supposedly ridiculous thoughts from before sneaking back into your head.

It was too hard to focus on anything but the bottom half of his face, something you'd never think you'd be able to see. The first thing you noticed was that he looked as familiar as he sounded. Your thoughts from earlier came flooding back even more as you looked back up to where his masked eyes were. You could almost picture that familiar face, and you were pretty sure he had the warm brown eyes you had originally fallen for.

He was still silent as he stared back at you, probably wondering why your heart started beating faster again. Because you were even more positive you knew exactly who it was behind that mask, and suddenly the idea of it being true scared you.

You were too lost in the realization to realize his lips were pressed together tightly, his jaw clenched.

"I can't do this," Spider-Man whispered, and you felt like your heart dropped to the bottom of your feet. The emotional roller coaster he was putting you through was probably going to be the death of you at this point.

"What?" You asked weakly.

He tensed at your reaction, suddenly frantic. "Wait, that's - that's not what I meant! I should've started that differently, God, I'm so bad at this-"

He grabbed your shoulders, and you clung onto the confusion instead of the rejection, knowing that was more bearable. He was acting so weird and you were pretty sure you were going to combust if he didn't start explaining his behavior.

"I meant, I can't do this without first being honest with you. I...I know who you are. Under the mask."

If possible, you tensed even more. That was probably the last thing you expected him to say right then, though it would make sense if he was who you were starting to think he was. You decided you should maybe just let him explain before jumping to conclusions. "...What?"

"I've known for...a while, Y/N." The sound of your real name coming from Spider-Man for only the second time before made you flinch, and his grip on you suddenly loosened. He was giving you the option to leave. "That's not all. I know you, and you know me. In our...civilian lives, I guess. We're friends."

"O-Okay..." You stuttered, your brain starting to feel like you were doing a marathon in your thoughts. He was just confirming what you were already suspecting. You only had one friend that you used your powers in front of, that knew you were also Bypass.

He pulled his mask completely off before you could think to ask.

Brown curls, freckled pink cheeks, a slightly crooked nose and untamed eyebrows hovering over familiar brown eyes. Really, you should've guessed it long before this, and you were already almost positive of who he was in just the last few minutes - but seeing Spider-Man turn into your best friend right before your eyes was still enough to make you a little shocked.

You were right after all.

"You..." your voice dropped off, not even knowing what to say.

"I totally understand if you're angry and you want space to think about this," Peter said quickly, though it sounded like that was the last thing he would want. "I can leave you alone and give you time, I promise. I just...let me talk first, please?"

"Okay," you whispered, watching him shut his eyes for a moment and sigh before speaking quickly in a very Peter-like way.

"I almost exposed myself as Spider-Man the exact same instant you told me you were Bypass. What you said to me, that feeling of not helping when you knew you could help - that was exactly what I felt, and you just beat me to playing the hero. I could never let anything happen to you, as Y/N or as Bypass. That's part of why I never wanted us to reveal our identities in the first place, I have people in jail that know who I am, leaders of government agencies that can hold that over me - I never want that for you. I never want your identity to be used as blackmail, ever.

"But I still hesitated in that classroom, and you didn't. I think - I got angry because I realized too many things at once. I could have been anyone, and you were risking your identity getting out just to save me. Imagine if you were stuck with Flash - that would've been on twitter the second you teleported away. And then I was mad at myself for not acting sooner and letting me be the one to take the fall instead of you. I was mad that I didn't realize it before, that Bypass and Y/N were the same person, and I fell for both sides of that person even before I knew that."

You stared at him wide-eyed, as if that was a surprise after the kiss he just laid on you. Still, it was kind of surprising to know he liked both sides of you first - just like how you felt about him. He brushed his thumb against your cheek, his eyes growing softer as he smiled at you.

"It was too perfect, too simple. Both of the girls I had feelings for ending up being the same girl. I...I never thought I'd be that lucky. But then I knew it wouldn't even matter if you didn't feel the same for me as Peter or as Spider-Man. If I couldn't meet up to your expectations for either of them - me. But..."

His voice trailed off as he brought his other hand up to your mask, his fingers carefully lifting it off your face so he could meet your eyes properly. "You told me you did have feelings for me. As Spider-Man, at least. I knew that I couldn't lie to you anymore, and I had to tell you the truth. About how I feel and who I am."

You were quiet as he took your hand, placing your mask in it and closing your fingers around it. This was honestly the last situation you would have expected for both of you to be unmasked in front of each other for the first time, but you weren't complaining.

"I'll...understand if your feelings for Peter and Spider-Man don't match up," he said when you still didn't speak, though his expression was pained, "If you want to stay just as friends, I can be okay with that."

"Are you insane?" You finally spoke, your tone making him flinch. "You - Peter, Spider-Man, whatever - have put me through the most emotionally distressing five minutes of my life. Actually, the last several days of my life. Of course we aren't going to be friends after this."

"Oh," his hands dropped, "I-I mean, I understand that, too, I just thought-"

You grabbed his face much like he had done to you earlier, and pressed your lips to his. He let out a surprised noise when you kissed him, but he was quicker to recover as his arms carefully came to wrap around your waist and pull you closer to him.

This one was not nearly as long as the last one, because you pulled away to laugh at the expression on his face.

"I am so confused right now," he said breathlessly, and your lips rose in a smile.

"We aren't friends, because you mean a lot more to me than that. Both sides of you do, and they always have. Even if both of those sides put me on emotional rollercoasters all the time."

"Oh," he visibly relaxed, a smile forming on his lips, too.

"You still got a lot of making up to do, Spidey. Especially for that time you bothered me for like ten minutes when you knew I needed to go suit up. Jerk."

He snickered, "That was hilarious. You're cute when you're mad, sweetheart."

"Uh huh," You acted like that nickname coming from Peter's mouth this time didn't make you want to melt.

His laughter softened as he leaned his forehead against yours, still smiling like an idiot as his hands found your waist - but you were definitely smiling just as much. "I am so glad this was your reaction. I was...I was seriously worried."

"Eh, you had no reason to be. I already knew you were Peter."

"What?" He looked almost upset, which made you laugh. "How? I-What?"

"Peter," you cupped your hand around his face, giving him a loving smile, "You're an idiot. You were not careful at all, in fact you were very obviously messing with me multiple times and then turning tomato red when I told you I had feelings for Spider-Man. And to top it off, you literally called me sweetheart as Peter, when that has strictly been a Spider-Man thing. Like, hello?"

"I-I guess you got me there," he mumbled.

"And while I definitely think you should have just told me," you gave him a dirty look, "I understand where you're coming from. If it had been the other way around...I might've done the same."

His hands moved up your back as his face relaxed, the crooked smile he was giving you making you melt. "I figured you'd yell at me for the rest of my life, but I prefer this much more."

You grinned at him.

"I'm not much of a yeller."

~

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[raineydays411]

The best of friends pt3

Peter Parker x Stark!reader

Summary: So it turns out that you do have other friends. Who would’ve guessed? 

A/n: Hello! So.. because i don’t feel like writing the whole fight scene, the events of homecoming already happened before the actual dance and Liz is moving after the school year ends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Am I dreaming or is that you Jason Todd?”

“Yeah its me, don’t cream your pants.”

You laugh, running to embrace your friend, and he catches you spinning you around then putting you down. 

“What are you doing here?” You ask breathlessly, “Doesn’t your dad hate leaving Gotham?”

“Well he had a meeting with your dad today, so we made him bring us.” 

“Ohh, so that’s the meeting dad didn’t want to go to” You think.

“You’re brothers are here?” You look around for the boys, but not seeing any.

Jason laughs, “Just Tim and Damian, I kind of ditched them at the Tower, I think I would’ve gone crazy if I stayed another second.”

“Aw, were you expecting me to be there?” You tease, grinning wide as the boy turned a light shade of red.

“Oh please, if you were there I think I’d die of boredom” He teases back, a matching grin growing on his face. But before you can answer back you hear Mj shout at you. 

“Y/n! Are you gonna keep flirting or can we go on some rides?”

“Yeah Iron baby, are you gonna keep flirting?” 

You roll your eyes at the nickname, despite your protests you know he’s not going to stop calling you that. 

“Hey you’re not here with anyone are you?” “Um no why?” 

You grab his hand and pull him towards Mj and Ned, who were looking at the both of you in shock.

“You’re Jason Todd..” Ned says, surprised to see him here.

“Uh..hi” Jason responds, not knowing what to say.

“Jay and I are friends” You say, “ We hang out at the galas and judge people.”

Jason laughs, “That is not what we do.” 

“Oh? So then why do you mean mug people from the corner of the room?” 

Mj and Ned make eye contact, having a silent conversation as you and Jason banter. 

“So, you’re one of Y/n’s ‘friends that don’t live in the city’?” Mj asks, eyeing Jason and you. 

He slings and arm on your shoulders, “ Is that what you call us Y/n?” He turns to Mj to respond but before he can answer Peter and Liz finally make an appearance. 

“Oh so you two finally decided to grace us with your presence?” Mj drawls 

“Sorry guys, I really wanted this Spiderman plush and Peter was trying to win it for me” Liz says with a giggle. Peter blushes, not taking his eyes off Liz. 

You frown at the sight. Frustration growing in your head, this was supposed to be your day with Peter. And now it was ruined. 

“You spent over an hour trying to win a little doll?” You said bitterly, making everyone stare at you. 

“Ah come on iron baby, we all know those games are rigged.” Jason says from beside you. You tear your eyes away from Peter and Liz, “Rigged or not, I bet I can win a prize before you, Jay-Bird”

“Oh is that a bet?” “Um yeah, I literally just said that.” “Okay fine!”

Then you and Jason are off, running towards the nearest booth that gives out prizes. 

“Umm, who was that?” Peter asking, looking in the direction you ran off. 

“That was Jason Todd” Liz responds, “ You know, Bruce Wayne's son.”

“What was he doing with his arm around Y/n?” he asks with a frown.

“Well apparently they’re friends, he just showed up. We didn’t even notice him until we saw him spinning Y/n around like a washing machine.” Ned says with a laugh.

“What, so they’re like...close?” Peter asks. Mj and Ned look at each other. 

“Um I guess...” Ned says hesitantly.

“Well, I for one, haven’t heard Y/n talk as much as she has been now.” Mj says, a knowing look on her face. Peter made a face, not understanding what Mj was talking about. 

“That's true” Liz adds in, “She’s pretty quiet, it’s kinda weird.”

“Well to be fair you two haven’t been exactly talking to her.” Ned defending you, “ She opened up quite a bit after she got comfortable.”

“Yeah, besides, Peter is the one who she knows the best, I wouldn’t be comfortable hanging out with people I just met.” Mj says, glancing at Peter. 

Peter didn’t know how to feel. At first he was psyched to be spending time alone with Liz. He didn’t even think about how you would feel when he invited her and his friends on your shopping day. This whole day he was trying to get closer to Liz, he forgot that you hardly knew Ned and Mj.  But it was okay, you gained two new friends, and now Peter has a chance with Liz. 

He looked at Liz, 

“She looks so pretty” He thinks, but deep in his mind, a voice kept bringing up an image of your face.

“Oh shoot” Liz says, “ Hey guys, my mom is here to pick me up.”

“I’ll walk you to the car!” Peter shouts, startling Mj and Ned. 

‘Okay thanks Pete!” Liz says, wrapping an arm around his. Peter turns back to Ned and Mj with a grin. 

Ned winks back and Mj just rolls her eyes, going to find you and Jason. 

As Peter and Liz walk, he starts to get nervous. This whole day he has been alone with her, but now...now he has to leave an impression. 

“I had a lot-” “It was really coo-” 

The two laugh

“You go first” Peter says.

“It was really cool of you to invite me, I had a great time.” Liz says with a smile. Peter grins, happy that she had a good time with him. and his friends.

“Yeah? I’m glad, I had fun too.” 

They finally make it to the parking lot where Liz’s mother is waiting.  Liz’s face suddenly looks nervous.

“Hey Peter,” Liz turns to Peter, “ Do you have a date to homecoming?”

Peters breath hitches, “Um..no-no why?” 

“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?”

He...he isn’t as excited as he thought he’d be. In fact, this was kind of anti-climatic. 

“Y-yeah, of course!” Peter says forcing enthusiasm.  Liz’s face brightens and she smiles, pulling Peter into a hug.

“Awesome! I’ll text you with the details later?” She asks, pulling away to get into the car.

“That sounds great” Then without warning, Liz grabs Peters face and gives him a quick peck. 

“I’ll see you later Peter Parker.” and with that, she hopped into her mom's car and drove away. Peter stood there, hand on his mouth looking at the spot Liz stood. 

For some reason..he didn’t feel as happy as he should’ve. 

“What is wrong with me?” He asked himself. He shakes his head and turns around. Ready to walk back to where he last saw his friends. 

Turns out, they were all at a booth near the parking lot. And saw the whole thing.

“Dude!” Ned said running up to Peter, “Liz Allen just kissed you! You’re going to HOMECOMING with Liz Allen!” 

“Yeah..I am” Peter says, forcing excitement for his friend,” I can’t believe it.”

“Dude! You’ve been pining over her for YEARS! “ Ned shouts, “ You did it!” 

Meanwhile, Mj is rubbing your arm in comfort as you hold back tears. You saw everything. Peter really didn’t like you the way you thought. You felt defeated, betrayed even. All those moments...they meant nothing to him.  Every moment you held close to your heart. 

“Hey, are you alright Y/n?” Jason whispers, sensing your sadness. 

“um..no not really...” you whisper back, feeling a tear run down your face. Jason wipes it away before you could. 

“Hey, come on lets get you something to drink.” He pulls you away from Mj with a nod. But before he could get far, Peter called out

“Y/n..are you okay?” 

You don’t say anything, your back turned to him so he doesn’t see your face.

“She’s not feeling too hot, I’m gonna get some water and food in her, see if she perks up” Jason responded for you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

Peter looks at the arm, “I can do that” He steps closer to you but before he can touch you, you speak up.

“Don’t touch me, I want Jay to take me.”

And with that, Jason adjusts his grip on you and walks you to a food truck. Leaving behind a disheartened Peter. 

You sit on a bench as Jason orders you some food. Alone, you’re able to gather your thoughts and think about what just happened.  

“Did Peter really not like me? If he didn’t why did he act so flirty with me?” 

It made you mad. It wasn’t fair that he made you feel special then dropped you as soon as someone else came along. He ignores you all day for her, then acts innocent? Screw that.

“Here you go, one greasy ass burger and a bottle of water. We dine like true kings.” 

Jason plops down next to you, “So are you gonna tell me whats wrong or what?”

You scoff, “ Wow, you sure have a way with the ladies.” 

“Whatever.” the raven haired boy rolls his eyes, “ So what’s up? Is it that Peter kid?”

You sigh and explain everything. From when you first met Peter to now. After you were done, Jason stayed quiet. Digesting what you just told him and trying to find the right words to say.

“Fuck him.” He says simply. 

“What?” You say surprised at his comment. 

“Fuck. Him” He repeats looking you in the eye, “ Why are you going to waste your time on someone who doesn’t want you? It’s his lose anyway.”

You stay quiet, not exactly knowing how to respond. 

Two of you eat in silence, watching parents run after their children, and take in the atmosphere. 

“Hey.. we never did finish our bet.” Jason says, standing up. 

You look up at him, a small smile forming on your face. “No, I guess we didn’t.”

“Well come on, I don’t have all day.” He holds out his hand, refusing to look at you. You take it, interlocking your fingers.

You walk in silence, faces red but its comforting. It was nice to see this side of Jason. When the two of you see each other, you both have a this fake persona for the media. You couldn’t truly show who you really were. You only caught glimpses of each others true self when you’d sneak away from the crowds. You both hated those stupid galas Bruce threw. Your dad would force you to go so he wouldn’t be alone, and Jason had to go as Bruce Waynes son. 

A match made in heaven.

“Here we are.” Jason says, releasing your hand. “Ready to get your ass handed to you?”

“Oh you wish Todd.”You scoff, walking up to the man running the booth. 

“Hello little lady, three bucks for a three chances.” 

You hand him the money and get the balls. It seemed simple enough, toss the balls, knock down the clowns, win the prize. 

You wind your arm back, and throw the ball with all your might. You end up knocking down two out of the five clowns down. You go again, getting the other three.v

“You got a good aim little miss. What can I get for ya?” 

“The Iron man please.” You hear Jason scoff from his place behind you, “ Oh, is someone a little salty he lost the bet?”

“Whatever princess, it was pure luck.”

“Luck? or years of training with an expert marksman?” You say referring to the times you trained with Clint.

“Whatever.” He says rolling his eyes.

“Aw come on Jay bird, don’t be so salty.” You coo, “ Here, something to remember me by.” You hand him the Iron man with a smirk.  He takes it with a sigh, trying to hide the smile forming on his face. 

“Yeah yeah, come on let's go play that booth with the balloons.” He takes your hand, dragging you to the booth. 

It turns out to be a game with water guns. You both race to make the balloon pop. Jason wins at this game 

“Ha” He says turning to you with a smirk. “ Aw, come on Princess, don’t be so salty.” He turns to attendant “ yeah can i have the Red Hood, thanks” 

He hands you the Red Hood doll, “ Here, something to remember me by” 

You roll your eyes, “ Don’t you use my words against me.” You take the doll, looking it over, “ Hey, why the Red Hood?”

Jason freezes, as you caught him in a lie or something. “Uhh, cause...he’s from Gotham, and so am I...” 

You squint at him, finding his response weird, “Um, okay?” 

He looks relieved with your acceptance. Weird. 

He takes your hand again and you both walk around, catching up on stuff you’ve missed in the months you haven't seen each other. While you were talking, you could’ve sworn you saw a flash of light from the corner of your eye. 

Oh well.

“Hey guys, over here.” 

You both turn to see Ned and Peter. 

“Hey, where’s Mj?” You ask as the two boys walk up to you and Jason.

“She had to leave, her dad picked her up a few minutes ago.” Ned replied, “We were coming to look for you guys.”

“Oh, are you ready to go?” You asked, “ Is anyone picking you up Ned?” 

“Nah I’m spending the night at Peters, we’re gonna watch Star Wars.” He says excitedly. 

Jason snorts, and you elbow him in the stomach, “ I happen to like Star Wars very much. And even if I didn’t, don’t be a dick to my friends.” 

“Sorry man, you just reminded me of my...brother, Tim. Sounds like something he’d like.” Jason says apologetically. 

“I’m friends with Y/n Stark..” Ned whispered.

Peter was quiet, he hasn’t said a word since he saw you and Jason laughing together. His mood worsened when he saw your intertwined hands. 

“So, you’re feeling better.” Peter states, avoiding your eyes. 

“Um, yeah...guess I just needed some food in me.” You mutter. An awkward silence coming over the group. 

“Hey are we going to ride the subway? It sucks going on there at night.” Ned says breaking the silence. 

“Is it? I know I hated walking around at night back home.” Jason says with a frown.

“Yeah man, my mom had to work late one night and she said she saw two homeless people getting it on.”

The four of you cringe at the thought.

“I’ll call Happy” You say pulling out your phone. You walk away, letting go of Jason's hand.

The three boys are left alone, not exactly knowing what to say to each other.

“So...how do you know Y/n?” Ned asks

“Oh uh” Jason goes to say how he knows you when he stops, he noticed how Peter’s mood seemed to worsen when he saw him with you. 

“Me and Y/n ditch galas together.” He says, “ We sneak into my room and...play games.” 

Peters face darkens, “Play games?” 

“Yeah, you know”

“No. I don’t.” 

“Interesting..” Jason thinks to himself 

“Like poker and shit”He replies, “ She’s shit at it, but i like seeing her get all happy when she wins so I let her.”

Peter smiles, knowing how happy you get when you win at games. Then frowns, knowing that Jason has seen you the same way he has. 

“Hey, whos that?” Ned asks, “ He’s been looking at Y/N for a while now.” 

Peter and Jason whip their head towards where Ned was pointing. Low and behold, there was a guy staring at you. You, too busy on your call with Happy, weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. 

The guy looked like a creep. His eyes roaming your body as if you were a piece of meat. It was disgusting.  But before Peter could do anything, Jason was already striding towards you. 

Now, Peter was strong, but he wasn’t too intimidating out of his suit. But jason? Jason was massive, even for an eighteen year old. He was tall, very well built, and just had this dark aura around him. 

Peter didn’t like him. 

Meanwhile, you were chatting to Happy about the where you were, apologizing for calling him so last minutes. 

“Thanks so much Happy, I’ll see you right now.” 

“Yeah yeah.” He hangs up. You chuckle putting your phone back into your purse. Looking up you see Jason striding towards you. 

“Hey i just-” He cuts you off, harshly slamming his arm above your head and leaning in close. 

“Theres a man staring at you.” He whispers, “ Right over there.” 

You follow his gaze, seeing the man who has a frightened expression. Jason was sending a death glare his way that could have frightened Batman himself. The man scurries off without a second glance.

Jason gently thumps you on the back of your head, “See what happens when you stand there like a space cadet.”

‘Oh..I was?”

Peter and Ned walk up to the two of you

“Y/n, you have to be more aware when you’re by yourself.” Peter scolds. 

“He’s right, or its going to be your own damn fault when someone kidnaps you.”

“Oh right.” You say standing up straight and alert. Jason rolls his eyes.

“We said when you’re alone.” “Right.” you say still alert.

“You don’t have to worry about it when you’re with me, you can space out whenever you want.”

“Oh? You gonna protect me Jay-bird?” 

Jason just smiles, not responding as he looks away from your face. 

“So, is Happy coming or what?” Peter asks rudely, taking you by surprise. He’s never talked to you like that before. 

“Um..yeah he’s on his way.” You respond, “ He should be here in a few minutes.”

Peter nods. Yet another uncomfortable silence falls on the group. 

You start walking to the entrance, and without a word the boys follow you. 

You don’t get it, first Peter ignores you all day and now he’s mad at you? What the hell is he playing at? 

“So I’m assuming you’re staying at the Tower?” You ask Jason, “ Your dad would be blowing up your phone if you weren’t.”

“I turned it off” Jason says with a smirk, “ I’m sure they’ll be alright.”

You laugh at his antics, knowing that he’s gonna get an earful when he gets back. Then. from the corner of your eye, you see Peter roll his eyes and glare at Jason.  Ugh, what a weird day.

Finally Happy, shows up. You pile into the car, a tight fit with all four of you, but you make it work. 

The tension in the car is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Happy doesn’t even make any comments, he just drives to Peter’s house to drop him and Ned off. As soon as he gets there, he jumps off the car as if something bit him. Going into the building without a goodbye. Ned just awkwardly smiles and says bye, then follows Peter into the apartment. 

“Okay...That was weird.” Happy says, “What happened? Usually the kid won’t shut up.”

“I have no idea. He’s just being a dick I guess.” You respond sourly. Looking out the window, signaling that you were done with the conversation. 

You finally get home, exhausted physically and emotionally. As you ride the elevator, you think about today's events. So much has happened today it makes your head spin. You were,’t even paying attention when you got to your floor, Jason having to nudge you to get you to move.

“Jason.”, you hear a deep voice rumble. You look up at the sound and giggle

“Looks like you’re in trouble Jay-bird.” “Shut up, please.” 

You laugh again, “It’s lovely to see you again Mr. Wayne, are you staying at the Tower tonight?”

“Hello Y/n” Bruce says, “ It seems so, seeing as my son has been missing all day and we’ve missed our check in time.” He glares at Jason. 

“Aw come on Bruce, we’ll all have a sleepover, bread each other’s hair and tell secrets” You dad says coming out of nowhere. He pecks the top of your head. 

“Hey kid, how was it?” 

“Ugh, don’t even get me started” You say rolling your eyes, “ How was the meeting?” 

“Ugh don’t even get me started.” Then he turned to Jason, “ Hey, didn’t know you were a fan.” 

You laugh, knowing he’s referring to the plush you won for him. “Where’s the rest of the boys?” 

“Damian fell asleep and Tim is in your fathers lab tinkering.” Bruce responds, “ I was about to head to bed.” 

“Oh me too, I’ve had quite the day.” You hug your dad, “ Night pops.” 

Then you turn to Jason, “ I had fun today Jay, thanks. Good night Mr. Wayne.” 

And with that, you walk off to your room, desperate to shower and sleep this day away. 

“So, care to explain why your phone was shut off?” 

Yikes, poor Jason.

[heartsofbeskar]

the red wolf

chapter one: two swords

oberyn martell x fem!reader

WARNINGS: mentions and descriptions of violence (GOT canon typical), talk of death, language

WORDS: 3.5K

EXCERPT: Sunlight streamed through the window, the painted glass covering the two of you in an array of colours. When you had arrived in King’s Landing, you were sure it was the most beautiful place you had ever been. How could Winterfell compare to this sunlight and sea and splendor? But the longer you stayed, the more you saw that the beauty was but a thin layer, covering the stench of violence and greed.

A/N: this is in second person, but the reader insert character belongs to a canon house which of course implies physical characteristics, including her being white! (ik this is a problem for some reader inserts being coded white so i wanted to address it here)

masterlist

next

Your hands trembled as they threaded through the soft, red locks. You used to do this when she was younger, you recalled, when she couldn’t sleep or was feeling ill or had a frightful dream.

It wasn’t just a dream this time.

Her shaky breath was warm against your neck, and you pulled her head closer in against you. Tears fell down the front of your bodice and you swallowed thickly, as you felt a familiar burn behind your own eyes. You willed the tears not to fall.

“It isn’t fair,” came her voice, impossibly small, against your bare skin. Her hands gripped tightly into the dense fabric of your skirts. “He wasn’t a traitor.”

You shushed her gently, your free hand ghosting up and down her back. You longed for the days when she was small enough for you to collect her in your lap, hold her close to your breast, as your mother had done for you both.

Another sob wracked her body, and you squeezed your eyes painfully shut at the sound. You hated it, you hated this. How you couldn’t protect her, or your father, or your brothers, or anyone.

“Sansa,” you whispered, taking her face in your hands, tilting it up to look into yours. Your heart shattered again at the sight of her, skin glistening with her tears, eyes and lips swollen and flushed from crying. You rested your forehead against hers, thumbs stroking her over delicate features. “You cannot say those things outside of this room. Tell me you know this, please.”

Your voice broke on the last word, emotion clawing its way up your throat. You loathed to ask this of her, to harden her once trusting and open spirit even further, but you needed her to know it. You wouldn’t give the Lannisters any excuse to hurt her, too.

“I do,” she choked out, fresh tears spilling over. You pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, pulling her back into your arms.

Sunlight streamed through the window, the painted glass covering the two of you in an array of colours. When you had arrived in King’s Landing, you were sure it was the most beautiful place you had ever been. How could Winterfell compare to this sunlight and sea and splendor? But the longer you stayed, the more you saw that the beauty was but a thin layer, covering the stench of violence and greed.

“We are Starks, my sweet sister.” You resumed combing through Sansa’s long hair; you weren’t sure if it was a comfort to her or to you. “We will not yield.”

—

The great walls of Winterfell rose behind you, as your feet carried you through the tall grass that grew uncontrolled just outside the keep’s gates. Small creatures darted to and fro under its cover. A gentle wind blew across your face, pushing your hair to the side. You heard the call of a wild raven overhead.

Winter bounded past you, the direwolf’s strong limbs carrying him far ahead of you with ease, though his grey speckled coat made him easy to find against the late summer colours of the grass. He turned back to look at you, mouth wide open in a pant, then gave an impatient bark. You laughed, shaking your head.

“You know I cannot keep up!” You called out to him, as if he could understand your reply. But ever since Winter had been a small pup, brought to Winterfell by your brothers with the rest of the litter, it had felt like he could. All the time you had trained him, he had tilted his head at your affirmations and musings, and had burrowed into your side when you were upset. It was an inexplicable connection between the two of you.

He waited patiently for you now, tail wagging and legs bouncing in excitement. He always loved these excursions outside the walls, and it provided a convenient excuse for you. As much as you loved to blame Winter and his need to get out for air, the same desire always burned within you as well.

Your bow and arrow shifted across your back as you increased your pace. The tips of your fingers grazed across the flowers that periodically sprung up from the dense grass. You made a note to pick some on your way back, for Sansa and little Rickon. You knew they’d enjoy them.

The treeline seemed to swallow the sun overhead as you passed beneath it, relishing in the coolness of the air here. Of course, the air had become cooler and cooler with every day that passed now. Winter is coming, your father harped on. And he was right, as usual. The arrival of your first winter sent a trickle of excitement through your entire body whenever you dwelt on it. Mother and father and Uncle Benjen had told you stories of winter, of the endless white and sparkling ice which could drip from the overhangs in the courtyard.

Winter ran excited circles around you as you set your quiver against the ground. You signalled to him with your hand, a communication in the language only the two of you spoke, and he settled promptly down to the ground, back end still wiggling with excitement. But he knew the best was yet to come if he waited.

Pointing the bow at the ground, you pulled an arrow from the quiver, resting it and nocking it against the string. Hooking two of your fingers around the end of the arrow, you scanned your eyes across the shadowed forest floor.

Before long, a movement caught your eye. A small rabbit sat, just a few yards ahead of you, chewing on some of the greenery there. You brought the arrow slowly, silently, up to your eye level, barely daring to breathe, lest you scare timid the creature away. You gripped the bow tightly in your opposite hand. Bringing the string straight backwards to sit next to your face, you tried to envision the path once you released it. Taking one last deep breath, you snapped your fingers off the string.

The arrow flew, fast and long through the air, and finally — fell a few feet left of the rabbit, spooking it into running deeper into the woods.

“Shit,” you cursed, collecting the wayward projectile from where it had sunk into the earth.

“Now, I don’t think your mother would appreciate that language.” A deep voice emerged from behind you, exciting Winter to stand and jump once around again.

“Father!” You gasped, whirling around. “I am so sorry, I know I shouldn’t speak that way, I would never—”

He held up a hand to cut off your babble, a small smile settling on his time weathered face. “It’s alright. I have cursed too many times to reprimand it from any of my children.”

You mirrored his smile, moving to stand beside him. You looked down at your bow a little sheepishly. “I was just trying to practice a bit. You know how Jon and Robb like to tease.”

“I do.” He placed a firm hand on your shoulder. “But you shouldn’t be out here alone, sweet.”

“I have Winter with me.”

He laughed at that, moving his hand now to scratch behind the ears of the direwolf still pacing eagerly between the two of you. Winter yipped in excitement, pushing up against his hand.

“Winter is about as ferocious as a newborn babe,” he teased. “The opposite of Greywind, might I add. Anyone but Robb approaches, and that wolf is on alert.”

“Winter just has a gentle heart, is all.” You drop to one knee, letting the direwolf nuzzle into your chest, stroking his soft ears.

“It’s not unlike the differences between you and Robb, truth be told. Strange, how you can share a womb with another living being, and yet grow to be so distinct.” He had a far away expression on his face when you looked up. You stood again, allowing him to grasp your hands in his.

“You’re not here just to chastise me for going beyond the walls.” You knew, too well, the expression on Ned Stark’s face when he had to speak of things he didn’t want to.

He nodded. “Sweet child … you know I have nothing but respect for you and your choices. But, I am afraid it has become an unavoidable truth. Your mother and I have discussed this, and we have decided that once we arrive in King’s Landing, we need to decide on a man for you to marry.”

Your face was impassive as you considered his words. You knew in any other family, in any other man’s house, you would have been wed as soon as you’d bled for the first time. But your father had allowed you to grow and mature past that, and you cherished those years, holding them close to your heart. You squeezed his hands.

“I know, Father. And I am happy to do my duty as the eldest daughter of the house. You needn't feel guilty — I know you won’t marry me to a monster.” Your lips quirked upwards. And it was true; you had the utmost trust in your father that he would choose someone kind, someone level headed. That he would make a match considering your wishes, too, and it would be a life you could grow to love a man in.

He sighed, shoulders sagging in relief. You wondered if the prospect of marrying his first daughter, his first child, was more difficult for him than it was for you. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“You’re a good daughter. But still a mediocre marksman; come, let me show you where you went wrong,” he said, picking up your discarded bow and quiver.

—

You longed to be in those woods now, with your wolf and your father and your bow. In your home. All the beauty and splendor and opulence of King’s Landing could never erase the horrors you’d endured here.

You glanced behind you, where Tyrion and her handmaiden were trying their best to implore Sansa to eat something. There was an impressive array of foods strewn about the small table, though your younger sister touched none of them.

As you watched, her handmaiden — whom you suspected was no handmaiden at all, given her incompetence at her job — rose from the table, shooting a glare at Lord Tyrion.

“She needs to eat,” she quipped, looking up at you briefly before she left, her light skirts swaying gently as she retreated down the garden path.

You turned and sat slowly in her vacated seat, saying nothing. Sansa didn’t spare you a glance, her eyes vacant as she continued to look at the table in front of her, not really seeing it.

“I can’t let you starve,” Tyrion implored. You bit back the remark on the edge of your tongue. How amusing it was to think of a Lannister caring for a Stark’s wellbeing. Even if it was the Stark he’d been wed to. “I swore to protect you. My lady, I am your husband. Let me help you.”

“How can you help me?”

“I don’t know, but I can try.”

“I lie awake all night staring at the canopy, thinking about how they died.” This you knew to be true, as those past nights you had curled yourself around her, in her marital bed, unable to sleep, but equally unable to leave her alone in this place. Sansa continued.

“Do you know what they did to my brother? How they sewed his direwolf’s head onto his body?” You shut your eyes tightly, images of Robb coming unbidden to the back of your eyelids. His gentle smile, his awful jokes, his tenderness as you’d raised that very direwolf alongside your own. “And my mother. They cut her throat to the bone and threw her body in the—”

“Sansa, please,” you choked out. You could not take any more, or surely the tears you had so desperately supressed for days would finally emerge. She sent a cool glance your way, but stopped.

Tyrion cast his eyes down; you could tell he was carefully considering his next words. Ever the silver tongue. “What happened to your family was a terrible crime. I didn’t know your brother. He seemed like a good man, but I didn’t know him. Your mother, I admired her. She wanted to have me executed, but I admired her. She was a strong woman. And she was fierce when it came to protecting her children. Sansa … your mother would want you to carry on. Both of you. You know it’s true.”

Sansa didn’t make any indication she had heard his valiant speech. Good, you thought to yourself. She stood, hands lightly falling onto the edge of the table. “Will you pardon me, my Lord? I’d like to visit the godswood.”

“Of course,” Tyrion nodded enthusiastically, brows drawn together. The scar you knew he’d gotten during the Battle of Blackwater Bay was deep set above one eye. “Prayer can be helpful, I hear.”

“I don’t pray any more,” she said quietly, as she began walking away. “It’s the only place I go where people don’t talk to me.”

You watched her form as she walked away, knowing she wouldn’t want you to follow. Your heart felt like it was being crushed inside your chest at the sight of it, at the knowledge that you could do nothing for her pain. Nothing for your own pain, even.

Tyrion appeared conflicted, eyes looking between where his wife had now left, and you where you remained seated. You took a deep breath, straightening your back.

“You needn’t stay and pretend to care for me as well,” she quipped, jaw tense. “... my Lord.”

Another Lord, another Lannister even, would have struck you. But perhaps marrying your child sister had curbed that edge in Tyrion, for he said nothing else before taking his leave from you.

As he turned the corner in the path, you sighed, dropping your shoulders. You stood from the table, returning to your previous spot, overlooking the sea. You let out a shaking breath as you leaned against the short garden wall.

The sea churned beneath you, it's great waves smashing ferociously on the rocks below. It smelled of salt and wind and you tried desperately to fill your lungs with it, to wash away every other feeling inside of you.

“A wolf of winter in the summer gardens; a strange sight indeed.” A lilting, accented voice came up behind you. Turning, you saw a tall man adorned in mustard robes, accents of fine jewelry hanging from his neck, on his hands, wrists, everywhere you could see. His skin was tan, golden, in a way you had never seen before, and the top of his robe exposed the start of a golden chest. His neatly trimmed beard and hair were dark, but not as dark as his eyes, which bore into you now.

You noticed the red suns stitched into the fabric of his robes — House Martell. Your father would never forgive you if you forgot all those long lessons on the great families of Westeros.

“My Lord,” you inclined your head politely in his direction, willing your body into the proper posture. “You’ve arrived from Dorne, for the wedding I presume?”

The man raised an eyebrow at you, stepping closer, until he stood directly in front of you. One step forward and you would be in direct contact with the expanse of his chest.

“You paid attention to your schooling on Houses,” he said lightly. He reached down to grab one of your hands that hung by your side, bringing it slowly up to his lips. “I am Prince Oberyn, indeed of Dorne. Forgive my manners, but I do not believe I need an introduction to you, Lady Stark.”

His dark eyes held yours, as he leaned in further. You could feel his breath on your face. It was pleasantly warm, and smelled of … oranges? “I heard of the tragic events that befell your family, at the hands of your benefactors.” He spit the last word.

“I do not know what you mean,” you breathed out. You pleaded with him with your eyes, please don’t do this; don’t make me speak it where they can hear. “The Lannisters have been most kind and generous to me and my sister, more than we deserve even. My family …” You swallowed thickly; your skin felt hot despite the shade. “My family betrayed the crown, and has paid their price.”

Oberyn’s brows drew together in a worried expression as he studied your face. You didn’t look away from his gaze, holding him there, trying not to show a crack in the facade. He ran a light hand up your arm, and though he barely touched you, a shiver ran across your skin. It came to rest on your shoulder, his thumb rubbing small circles over the fabric there.

“Little wolf, I assure you that the Lannisters are no friends of mine.” Something dark flashed in his eyes, for only a moment, so fleeting you weren’t even sure it had been there. “They have ripped apart my family with their teeth, also.”

You felt that particular burn in your eyes, and you pressed your nails into the palms of your hands, willing it away. You eyed the man’s hand where it still sat on your shoulder.

“Yet you break bread with them, do you not?” Your eyes were glued onto his as they cast downwards. “You come peacefully to King’s Landing, you bring wedding gifts for King Joffrey, and you drink from their cups.”

Your breathing was heavy now, emotion you had pushed into the deepest parts of yourself leaking out. You shut your eyes, shaking your head. This was a Prince.

“I … I am sorry, Prince Oberyn, I should not have—” He cut you off, gently pressing a hand to the side of your face. The skin of his fingers was rough, calloused, no doubt from years of fighting.

“You do not need to apologize, little wolf.”

“You shouldn’t call me that here.”

The side of his mouth quirked upwards at that, one delicate brow arching. It transformed the planes of his face, and you found yourself transfixed on the shapes and textures set into his tanned skin.

“I do believe we are alone here, little wolf.” Teasing now, he used the nickname with purpose. You liked the shape of it on his lips, though you still fought the overwhelming urge to peer over your shoulder at whoever may be watching.

“You don’t understand, my Lord.” You shook your head again, and his hand fell from your cheek. “King’s Landing is a pit of snakes. And they are always — always — listening. You are a Prince of Dorne and I…” You didn’t finish. I am nothing but a stupid girl who waited too long to marry, is too old for the King, is tainted and stained with the stench of my family’s rebellion. I am doused in their blood, being made to drown in it.

Your palm felt wet, drawing your attention down. Opening it, you saw blood welling from the four small crescent shaped tears that now appeared in the delicate skin there. Oberyn’s eyes followed yours, and they softened at the sight, cupping your hand in both of his. They were so large around yours, and steady.

“I am a Prince of Dorne,” he said, his voice quiet, not looking at your face. He pulled a handkerchief from the inside of his robe, next to his chest. Gently, he wrapped it around the palm of your hand, seemingly unbothered by the blood which immediately began to blot onto it. Many moons had taught you that blood never came off. Tying it secure under your knuckles, he met your eyes, lifting your head with a finger under your chin. “And if this is indeed a pit of snakes, it is a good thing you are in the company of the Viper. Your words — all of your words — are safe with me, little wolf.”

You wanted so badly to believe him, to think that there was someone in this wretched place you could trust, outside of your sister. That a man was really looking upon you with kind, genuine eyes, for the first time since they’d taken your father’s head from his shoulders.

The sea crashed particularly forcefully below, startling you. He leaned back now, pulling his hands away from you, and you immediately missed their warmth. As if he had carried the Dornish sun within his very body, all the way to King’s Landing. He kissed your unwrapped hand again, briefly, and he sent you another smile before beginning to retreat, hands clasped behind his back.

At the mouth of the garden entrance, he turned halfway, face playful now. “I should like to make strolling in these gardens a daily habit whilst I’m here; there is so much to see. Would you care to join me in that?”

You nodded, smiling; a small one, but the first smile you remembered giving genuinely to someone in a long time.

A/N: aaah this was so fun to do that i ended up finishing it waaay sooner than i thought i would! so excited to see what people think!! also it will probably end up being oberyn x ellaria x reader bc... i love her and i love bisexuals

taglist: @asta-lily @pedrostories

[flourgirl]

Sleepyhead

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: Peter will try just about anything to help out the very pretty insomniac from his math class.

Work Count: 11.2k

Warnings: Just some sweet, pure fluff with a few curse words every now and then.

A/N: Either the tags aren’t working for me or you guys just didn’t like it, but the final part of “Even If It’s a Lie” has been out for a few days now if anyone’s interested in reading it 🥺 Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this super long piece I’ve been working on to help me get through finals <3

“Touch you softly I call you up late at night No doubt it isn't right But you could be my one and only” -Softly, Clairo

Peter had seen you around campus a few times, but it wasn’t until you started sitting two rows ahead of him in his linear algebra class that he really started to notice you. 

He thought you were really pretty, and he liked how cozy you always looked in the puffy winter coat you kept on in the perpetually freezing lecture hall. You took a lot of notes, which told him that you cared about the class, and never showed up without a giant cup of iced coffee.

You’re being a creep, Peter told himself. He had thought about switching seats to somewhere in front of you, so he could actually listen to his professor discuss permutations instead of staring at how you chewed on the end of your pen when you were thinking.

It was even worse when you started sleeping in class, your soft hair falling around your shoulders as you leaned your head against your desk. It seemed like all the coffee in the world couldn’t keep you awake, and Peter wondered if he should ask if you wanted to borrow his notes or something. But that would mean him admitting to looking at you way more than he needed to, and that was weird, so he quickly dropped the idea.

Still, he was worried about you. So when he came back from patrol in the middle of the night and bumped into you outside of the dorm kitchen, he figured it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce himself and maybe even find out why you were so tired all the time. 

The only problem was that he had accidentally knocked your pan of banana bread out of your hands, and you were currently staring at it laying on the floor with your sleepy eyes, not saying anything.

“Shit, uh, I’m so sorry,” he told you, crouching down to scoop up the remnants of your late-night snack into the pan. “Were you really up baking at 3 a.m?”

You blushed a little, starstruck that the cute guy from your math class was talking to you. “Um, yeah. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come down to the kitchen while nobody else was here and make something. Baking always helps me calm down, and so here I am. And here we are. And there’s my bread, all covered in whatever kind of dust the custodians refuse to sweep down here.”

He offered a soft smile, and it made you feel better about the fact that you were rambling way more than you wanted to.

“I’m Y/N,” you continued, gently taking the pan from his hands. “You’re in linear algebra with Professor Meyers, right?”

“Yeah, you, um, you sit right in front of me. Well, not right in front of me. Two rows in front of me. Shit. I’m not creepy, I promise. It’s just… uh… My name is Peter and I’m going to stop talking now.” 

That couldn’t have possibly gone any worse, he thought. You were probably thinking he was a serial killer or something.

“It’s okay. I know you sit behind me,” you reassured him. “You answer a lot of questions.” He was cute and smart, and you hoped he couldn’t notice how flustered you were to be this close to him.

“What are you doing up so late?” he asked, which made you laugh at how ironic his concerns were, considering he was also wandering around the dorm basement at this hour.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you replied, sitting on one of the benches that jutted out of the walls of the corridor. “I mean, you’re here too. At least I was baking. What’s up with you?”

You had a point. “I had an emergency… with my internship. I work for Stark Industries, and Mr. Stark rang me in the middle of the night to come to the lab immediately for something, so, yeah. That’s why I’m awake right now.”

“Okay,” you said, not buying his story. “So that’s why you have a black eye and you’re lurking in the basement hallway? Did Tony Stark punch you?”

Fuck. Did he really have a black eye and not notice? He didn’t think that Doc Oc’s stupid mechanical arm had punched him that hard, but apparently, he was wrong. And now he had to come up with some reason as to where it came from, although he could already tell that you were about to call his bluff.

The only solution he could think of was to change the subject. “Why are you always asleep during class?” he blurted out, causing you to give him a funny look before frowning down at your slippers.

“Isn’t it obvious,” you yawned, stretching your arms out in front of you. “I’m an insomniac. It’s actually kind of funny. I never really had any problems with falling asleep until I moved here. Maybe it’s the cold weather or the constant pressure to get good grades, but I just can’t sleep anymore. It sucks.”

Normally, you’d never tell this much about yourself to somebody, let alone a complete stranger. But somehow, you felt really comfortable around Peter. There was just something about him that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Peter caught himself staring at you again, your baby pink pajamas a far departure from how put together your usual outfits were. Even without your makeup or hair done, you were still the prettiest girl he had ever seen. For some reason, even the dark circles under your eyes were really cute to him.

“You never answered my question,” you reminded him, hoping that he’d say something to fill the awkward silence. “What’s with the black eye and wandering around in the middle of the night? Are you some kind of superhero?”

“What? No! That’s crazy. Me, a superhero,” he laughed awkwardly, wondering if you had somehow figured out his secret identity. Had you spotted him that one time he made sure that you and your friends got home safely from a late-night study session? Even so, you totally couldn’t have known it was him, right?

“Relax, I’m just joking,” you giggled, thinking about how cute he looked when he was flustered. “Although my friend did tell me she thought she saw Spider-Man a few weeks ago on her way back from a party.”

“Haha, yeah,” he breathed out, a wave of relief washing over him. It was times like these that he really started to appreciate how well-hidden his muscles were underneath all of his oversized sweaters.

“Does that hurt?” you asked, bringing your hand up to lightly brush his lip, which was bleeding. He flinched instinctively before settling under your touch, your eyes focused on the small cut. “I have a first aid kit in my room if you want some help cleaning it up.”

“Oh, no, it’s cool. I wouldn’t want to bother your roommate,” Peter told you, scooting further away on the bench, nearly falling off the edge of it. Ned hated it when he stumbled in at some ungodly hour after patrol and woke him up. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, standing up and gesturing for him to follow you. “I have a single.”

Peter looked at you in awe. Freshmen never got rooms to themselves, and yet somehow you had one. “Okay, fine. But only because I’ve never actually seen a single in this building before.”

“That’s cool with me,” you smiled, reaching for his hand so he could keep up with your pace. He noticed that you were chewing some of the banana bread, which he really hoped was from the part that didn’t fall on the floor. To be fair though, it did smell really good.

Not only did you have a single, but you lived on the first floor. Peter couldn’t believe how lucky you were, considering the building that the two of you lived in didn’t have any elevators to traverse its seven floors.

He was even more shocked when you opened your door, revealing the coziest dorm room he had ever seen. How on earth did you transform the glorified prison cell into something that felt so... comforting? From the twinkling lights that were wrapped around everything and the soft rug under his feet, Peter found it really hard to believe that you had trouble sleeping here.

“Sorry, it’s a bit messy,” you apologized, piling your many throw pillows and blankets into a basket to clear up some space on your bed. “You can sit here.”

If this was messy, then Peter and Ned’s room needed some serious help. “No worries,” he said, watching as you rummaged around your drawers in search of your first aid kit.

Eventually, you found it hidden under a bunch of graph paper and colored pencils, untouched ever since your overprotective grandparents had helped you move in. “Here we go,” you mused, now looking inside it for alcohol wipes and band-aids.

He winced as you rubbed the little cloth against his lips, and you made sure to be more gentle as you cleaned up the other cuts on his face. Thankfully, nothing was bad enough to require stitches, something you were seriously under-qualified to do.

All Peter could focus on the entire time was how close you were and what it would be like to just kiss you right then and there, but he knew that was way too forward of him. Plus, he didn’t even know if you liked him like that. Surely you were just being nice.

Still, the way he caught you staring into his brown eyes after smoothing a band-aid on his forehead made him think otherwise.

“You’re going to have to tell me eventually who beat you up,” you sighed, gathering up wrappers to throw away and tucking the first aid kit back into its place in your drawers.

“It’s a long story,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding your stare.

“I’ve got time,” you replied, climbing onto your lofted bed to sit next to him, innocently brushing your bare leg against his jeans, which made his breath hitch. “Tell me about it.”

“Uh, how about another time?” he stammered, hopping off the bed and running his hand through his hair. “After class tomorrow, or something. It’s getting pretty late. We should, um, go to sleep.”

“You can stay here if you want,” you offered, his eyes widening at your invitation. “On the bean bag, I mean. It’s actually really comfortable. You mentioned something about bothering your roommate and I figured that maybe you’d like to avoid the trouble tonight.”

“Oh…” Peter hesitated, looking for a reason to say no. He knew he’d never be able to sleep knowing that you were in the same room as him. “I don’t have any pajamas.”

“True,” you agreed, a little disappointed that he wasn’t interested in sticking around.

“I don’t actually even wear pajamas to sleep,” he continued, making you look back up at him instead of playing with the hem of your shirt. “It’s just… I sleep in my boxers.”

“I’m sorry for asking. I didn’t mean to put you in an uncomfortable situation,” you sighed, your face hot with embarrassment.

“It’s not that! I mean, I do want to stay here. But, uh, you… well, you make me really nervous, Y/N,” he muttered, his glance bouncing around the room.

“Why?” you asked, your brows furrowing. “Did I do something?”

“No, no! Nothing at all. I promise, okay?”

“Okay. You can, um, get ready for bed, I guess. I promise not to look,” you assured him, turning on your side to face the wall.

“Thanks. Yeah, alright.” You heard him fumbling with his clothes, his sneakers making a soft thud on your floor. You did your best to resist the urge to glance back at him.

“Can I just use any of these?” he asked, although you had no idea what he was talking about.

“Peter, I’m not looking, remember? You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

“The blankets. Do I just pick one, or are you particular about them?”

“Oh. You can use whichever one you want to. But the coral one’s the softest and my personal favorite.” Peter stared at the basket in confusion. To him, they were all just pink. But based on touch alone, he pulled one out that he figured was a little more orange than the others.

He walked over to the light switch and flipped off the overhead fluorescents, letting the room be illuminated by the warm glow of your fairy lights, which weren’t too bright, but still twinkly and beautiful.

“Goodnight, Peter,” you whispered, snuggling into your comforter in the hopes that your heartbeat would slow down and let you fall asleep for once.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” In a matter of minutes, you could hear his soft snoring, and you figured that it would be okay just to take a quick peek since he’d probably be bundled up in one of your blankets.

His hair was perfectly messy, and he looked so cozy wrapped up in the blanket you had recommended. Still, as much as you could stare at his adorable face all night, you were exhausted. Burying your face under the covers, you did your best to calm your nerves and get some rest before class tomorrow.

----------------

“Peter,” you whispered, jostling him lightly by the shoulders in the hopes of waking him up. “Uh, we have an hour before class. I was thinking that it would be enough time for you to go shower and change, and then we could go get coffee or something.”

He blinked back up at you, amazed at how well he slept on your bean bag. You had already gotten ready for the day, doing your makeup and picking out one of your many fluffy sweaters to keep you warm in the New York snow.

“Thanks, that sounds awesome,” he yawned, accepting the hand you held out to help him up. The blanket fell, and you stared at each other in shock, having forgotten that Peter was in nothing but his underwear.

You dropped his hand as fast as you could, covering your eyes. “Oh my god! I’m sorry. Shit, I completely forgot, Peter. I’m so sorry. I’ll let you get dressed.”

Peter watched as you stumbled around the room, your eyes squeezed tightly as your hands attempted to guide you away from him.

“Y/N,” he started, catching your attention as you nearly ran into your bed frame. “You can open your eyes. Really, I don’t care if you see me like this if it means I can keep you from breaking your nose.”

You hesitantly opened your eyes, relieved that Peter had already managed to pull his pants back on. Still, he was completely shirtless, and you found yourself staring at the abs you would have never expected to be hiding underneath his clothes.

Moments later, you averted your gaze, although you knew that he probably noticed you looking at where was now covered by his plaid button-down and dark blue sweater.

“I’ll, um, be right back,” he muttered, before practically sprinting out of your room and up the stairs. You groaned in embarrassment, burying your face in a pillow before attempting to take a quick twenty-minute power nap.

Peter couldn’t believe it. Sure, he had thought one time about you seeing him without clothes on, but this wasn’t how he thought it would go at all. Still, the image of you staring at him shirtless, your face flushed, made him feel like he was going to have a heart attack.

“Dude! There you are,” Ned screamed, startled at his roommate’s unexpected entrance. Peter panted, having run up four flights of stairs as fast as he could. “Wait a second. Did you finally get laid? Is this a walk of shame?”

Before Ned could praise him any further, Peter was grabbing a change of clothes and sprinting towards the bathroom. Don’t think about her, he begged himself.

The memory of your leg touching his last night immediately came to mind, and Peter was so angry at himself for being this starved for physical intimacy. To be fair, though, you were the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and so he cut himself some slack.

Shit, he told himself, making sure the water was set to cold. He needed to calm down, but instead, his thoughts were stuck on how good you looked in your pajamas, but also how good you would look without them and—fuck it. 

Peter liked you a lot, and if thinking about you like this in private kept him from being a complete weirdo in person, then maybe he just needed to get his feelings of desperation over with.

When he came back down to your room about thirty minutes later, you were still super tired. You trudged your way towards the door, your hair now noticeably messier than earlier, but at least that meant your nap had been a success.

His hair was still damp and this time he was wearing yet another blue sweater, which made you wonder if he ever wore any other color. He had his backpack slung over one of his shoulders and a nervous smile on his face as he locked eyes with you.

“Hey,” he said, pushing some of his hair out of his face. “Are you ready to go?”

You leaned against the doorway a little bit, letting out a yawn that was literally the cutest noise Peter had ever heard in his life. “Yeah, let me get my backpack.”

“It’s so heavy,” you continued, rightfully complaining as the weight of all its contents practically pulled you downwards. “I think it’s so stupid how almost every professor bans computers from class. Like, it’s not fair that I have to lug around three textbooks every day. I don’t have time to run back to my dorm in between classes like some people!”

Peter frowned. Three textbooks were nothing to him, but he knew that you didn’t have spidey-strength and that you were also pretty tiny compared to him. It must’ve been hell on your back to be carrying all that stuff around every day.

“I can carry it for you,” he offered, holding out his hand to switch with you. “Here, you can take my backpack if it’ll make you feel better. I have a lot of programming classes today, so I’ve only got my laptop and a notebook in there.”

You gave him a look of gratitude as he traded bags with you, literally taking the weight off your shoulders. He was right. His backpack was much more manageable for you, even if the dark grey contrasted with the light colors you always wore.

In contrast, it looked kind of odd for him to be walking around with a backpack that was covered in a soft pink floral pattern, much like everything else you owned, but the sight of him carrying your books brought a smile to your face. 

It was one of the sweetest things a guy had ever done for you, and Peter wasn’t even your boyfriend. He probably didn’t even think of you in that way.

“Uh, where do you usually get coffee?” he asked, slowing his pace so you could keep up. He felt bad seeing how tired you were, no doubt due to the lack of sleep you got last night.

“The Starbucks next to Hendrie Hall,” you replied, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. “You?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” he admitted. “I’m actually more of a tea person.”

“Oh,” you hesitated, wondering if it was worth it to walk all the way across campus just for a caramel ribbon crunch frappuccino. “We could go somewhere closer then.”

“It’s okay,” Peter reassured you, grabbing your hand and pulling you along to your destination. “I like walking.”

----------------

You hadn’t really talked to Peter since that morning before class, but sometimes you would peek behind you and catch him stealing glances at you. Eventually, he had started to feel brave enough to give you a little wave whenever you caught him looking at you. Well, at least the times when you were awake.

One day, not even the loud shuffling and growing chatter of your classmates exiting the lecture hall could wake you up, and Peter figured he better do something before you got chewed out by one of the TAs.

“Y/N?” he said, leaning closer so that you could hopefully hear him. “Y/N. You gotta wake up. Class ended three minutes ago.”

He shook you a little bit, nervously hoping that you wouldn’t mind him touching you. Your eyes fluttered open, and you smiled softly as soon as you realized it was Peter. 

“Oh. Thanks,” you said, standing up to slide your empty notebook into your backpack. Your hand brushed the side of your mouth, making sure you hadn’t drooled onto yourself.

“You can borrow my notes,” he offered, glancing at you sheepishly as you gathered up your coat and fixed your hair. “If you want to.”

“That’d be great,” you sighed, wondering whether you should skip your next class and just go take a nap. At this point, you weren’t even bothering to put on makeup and you basically wore whatever clothes you had that weren’t already sprawled across your room.

“Are you alright?” Peter asked, walking close to you to make sure you didn’t fall over. He knew you were an insomniac, but you looked seriously sleep-deprived today. “Have you been sleeping at all lately?”

“Nope,” you huffed, lugging your perpetually heavy backpack along. “But I’m skipping the rest of my classes today. I’d rather lie that I’m sick through an e-mail than have to explain to my professors why I was sleeping during their classes.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, stopping you in your tracks to take your backpack from you. “I’ve actually got some time before my next class. I can walk you back to your room and give you my notebook if that’s okay with you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you told him, reaching to take your bag back from him, although he didn’t let you. 

“Y/N. Come on, you’re exhausted. At least let me carry your stuff, alright?” He had such a kind look in his eyes, and you certainly didn’t have the energy to keep arguing for no reason.

“Okay.” You crossed your arms, the cold air slowly waking you up as the wind hit your face. Your ears were super cold, but you were glad you had pulled your hair into a quick braid to keep it from flying everywhere.

It wasn’t long before you were kicking your boots off in your dorm room, your teeth chattering as you wrapped yourself in a blanket. 

“Do you want some tea?” you asked Peter, inviting him to sit down wherever.

“Sure, but I thought you drank coffee,” he reminded you, watching as you pulled an assortment of tea bags for him to choose from.

“I do,” you said, handing him the box and running to your bathroom to fill up the electric kettle. “But you drink tea.”

Peter’s ears suddenly felt hot. You had gotten tea just for him. Or maybe you were just a really good hostess and kept some around for all of your visitors. Probably the second option, he thought.

“Are you even allowed to have one of those?” he asked as the two of you waited for the water to boil.

“No,” you laughed, sitting next to him on your bed. For someone with so much space to themselves, you really needed to invest in more places to sit. “But you can’t have candles or fairy lights either, so I guess I’m just a rule breaker.”

“Guess I’ll just have to report you to the RA,” Peter teased, getting up to make himself a cup of earl grey. “Do you have any sugar?”

“Top drawer on the right,” you replied. “Do you have a sweet tooth?”

“Yes.” You watched as his lips blew on the tea to cool it down before remembering that it was weird to stare.

“You should let me bake something for you. What’s your favorite dessert?” You were kicking your dangling legs, suddenly feeling a lot more awake than this morning.

“Chocolate cake. With chocolate frosting,” he said in between sips, walking back over to you. With you on the tall bed and him standing, your faces were level with each other.

“I’ll have to make you one to thank you,” you smiled, peering into his eyes. Peter felt your heartbeat quicken, and the grin on your face as you stared at each other made him weak in the knees.

“Can I get those notes?” you asked, making him remember that people don’t just look at each other and say nothing like that.

“Oh! Yeah, definitely.” He quickly set the mug down on your nightstand to rummage through his backpack, flipping one of his notebooks open before handing it to you. “There are the ones from today, but all of the ones I’ve taken this semester are in there too.”

“Wow,” you laughed, making a worried expression form on his face.

“What’s wrong? Are they not good?”

“No, it’s not that. They’re just, uh, very thorough.” He had basically transcribed your professor’s lectures onto the pages. “You must write really fast. But thank you, Peter. I really appreciate it.”

Peter nodded before nervously gulping down the rest of his tea, not even noticing how hot the liquid still was as it nearly burned his throat. 

“I should go now,” he started, looking around the room for his things. “I want you to get some rest, Y/N. Please.”

He had this look in his eyes that was so genuine—so full of care and concern—that it made you want to do whatever he asked you to.

“I’ll try,” you told him, awkwardly rubbing the top of your arm in the hopes that you could actually fall asleep after he left. “Have a nice day, Peter.”

“Bye, Y/N. I’ll stop by later,” he said, already halfway out the door. “For the notes, I mean! Uh, bye. Again. Okay. I’m going to go now.” 

You giggled, giving him one last wave before he left. Like magic, the more you thought about how Peter was worried about you, the easier it was for you to drift off into a peaceful sleep, finally feeling at ease for the first time in weeks.

----------------

You woke up later that day to Peter knocking on your door, this time standing next to some guy in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt.

“Hi, Y/N,” Peter greeted you. You looked a lot less tired than when he saw you this morning, which relieved him. “This is my roommate, Ned. He just wanted to know who I’ve been hanging out with, so I hope it’s okay that I brought him here to prove you’re real and not a figment of my imagination.”

Ned leaned closer to you, your hair still a little messy from your nap. “Blink twice if he’s paying you,” he whispered, causing you to giggle. Peter looked on nervously, unsure of what his best friend had just said to you.

“What did you say!?” he asked, lightly pushing Ned on the arm, knowing that it was probably something meant to embarrass him.

“Ow! Okay, now I’m really not telling you,” Ned replied, rubbing the spot where Peter had just hit him.

“Y/N, what did Ned say to you?” He turned to you, a worried look on his face as you and Ned held back your laughter. Peter’s face turned as red as a tomato, making you instantly feel a little bit bad. 

“It was nothing, Peter. Really,” you said, pulling him into the room with you. “It was nice to meet you, Ned. I’ll make sure he’s back before curfew.”

Ned laughed, offering a quick thumbs up and mouthing “I like her” to Peter before you shut the door on him.

“I knew that was a mistake,” Peter sighed, his back against the door. You were still a bit giddy from the exchange, giggling softly as he slowed his breathing.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed around me,” you reassured him. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s just that…”

“What?” You could barely hear him as his voice trailed off.

“Well, uh, not all of my friends are, you know…”

“Spit it out, Peter,” you said, leaning closer so that you could hear him better.

“They’re not as pretty as you,” he muttered, making you blush at his words. Did he really think you were pretty?

“Oh. Thanks,” you smiled, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. Peter lifted his head up, relieved that you didn’t think he was a creep or something.

“Your notebook’s on my desk,” you continued, stepping back a little to give him some space. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as the distance between you and him grew. “I just took a bunch of pictures, so I can look at them on my computer whenever.”

“Alright, awesome,” he said, walking over to collect it before turning back to you. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty well, actually. The best I’ve slept in a while. I think you’re some kind of good luck charm.”

“Really?” he asked, a little surprised that he had been helpful.

“Really. You know, I’ve been thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe it’d be nice if we hung out somewhere that wasn’t my room all the time,” you said, a hopeful look in your eyes. “If you want.”

Peter had never noticed it before, but the two of you really did spend most of your time together in your room. It really was a nice room, but it made sense that you’d want to get out of it every once and a while.

“I’d like that. What did you have in mind?” Play it cool, Parker, he told himself. You can freak out with Ned later.

“How about ice cream on Friday?” you suggested, which came as a bit of a surprise to him.

“In the middle of winter?” As far as Peter could remember, you were always cold.

“Yeah. I really love ice cream,” you added, smiling up at him.

“Okay, then. Ice cream it is,” he agreed. There was absolutely no way he could ever say no to you when you looked at him like that.

----------------

“May! No, it’s not a date. She’s just a friend. Yeah, I got it. Open the door, pay for her, don’t be an idiot!” Peter sighed into his phone, hoping his aunt’s unwarranted crash course on first dates would be over soon. “Yes, I’m wearing the green sweater. Thanks, love you. Bye!”

“I have no idea who told her I had a date tonight,” he groaned, slumping down onto the couch next to his best friend.

“I texted her,” Ned replied nonchalantly, not even looking away from whatever video game he was playing. “Knew you’d need some kind of pointers. Y/N is way out of your league.”

“Hey!” Was he right? Yes. Did Peter need to be reminded of it right before his not-a-date date with you? Definitely not.

“Come on, you know I’m right. It’s Liz Allan all over again. I have no idea how you keep pulling all of these pretty girls, but hey, credit where credit is due.”

“You’re so mean.”

“I keep it real and you love it. Good luck, man.”

“Bye,” Peter grumbled, slipping on his coat and walking out of their room. Four flights of stairs later, he was at your door.

“Hi!” you squeaked, wrapping your arms around him. This was the first time the two of you had ever hugged and Peter was not going to forget about it anytime soon. “Come in. I have a surprise for you!”

“Here,” you continued, holding out a blue and white beanie for him. “I made it for you. To match all those blue sweaters you wear all the time.” Except this time, he was wearing a forest green one, which brought out the slight hazel tinge in his eyes.

“You made this for me?” he asked, eyeing the different stitches you had used and fiddling with the pom-pom on top. It looked store-bought.

“Well, yeah, silly. I just said that,” you replied, hoping that he liked it. With all the time you didn’t sleep, you were knitting anyway, but this was a special present for him. “Try it on.”

“I didn’t get you anything,” he sighed, pulling the hat onto his head. He looked really cute, the ends of his wavy hair peeking out from underneath the brim.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, pulling him out of your room and towards the front of the dorm building. “Getting to hang out with you is good enough for me.”

“Where’d you learn how to knit?” Peter questioned, walking alongside you on the snow-lined sidewalks. With how cold it was, and considering he didn’t have a hood on his coat, it seemed like perfect timing that you had given him a hat.

“My grandma taught me,” you shared, taking in the twinkling of the streetlamps and how they bounced against the snow. In New York, that was practically the closest you could get to stargazing. “My, uh, grandparents actually raised me.”

“Oh. I was raised by my aunt and uncle,” Peter confided. It made you feel not so alone to find out that he didn’t grow up with his parents either, even though you knew firsthand just how hard it was.

“Do they live around here?” you asked, stealing glances at him and how rosy his cheeks were in the cold air.

“Yeah, my aunt lives in Queens,” he told you, staring at his feet to both avoid eye contact and make sure neither of you accidentally slipped. Not that he wouldn’t catch you, but he wanted to be safe. “My uncle actually passed away a couple of years ago.”

You stopped walking, immediately feeling a sense of regret. “I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay, Y/N. There was no way for you to have known that,” Peter reassured you, his warm breath coming out in clouds, and he reached for your hand to run his thumb across your knuckles. He gently pulled you along, keeping you from dying of embarrassment in the middle of campus.

“What about you? Are you from around here?” he asked, hoping to break the silence and make you feel a little bit better.

“No, I just moved up here for college. I grew up in Texas but moved to North Carolina when I was 13, so I finished school down there,” you explained, Peter suddenly noticing a slight Southern twang to your voice. “I just really wanted to go to school in a big city and not next to a farm for once in my life.” 

“That makes sense,” he laughed, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere else. “I’ve only ever lived in New York City.”

“Do you like it here?”

“I love it. Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, to be honest.”

“Me either,” you sighed, squeezing his hand tighter as the two of you enjoyed your walk in the snow.

It seemed like forever before you reached the ice cream shop, but you didn’t mind. That just gave you and Peter more time to get to know each other better. Turns out you both competed in academic decathlons, although you were more of a math person and he preferred science.

“Okay, you’re wrong. Night at the Museum 2 is so much better than the first one. I mean that kiss between Ben Stiller and Amy Adams? The Jonas Brothers as little cherub angels? Name one thing from the original that tops that,” you ranted in between spoonfuls of peppermint ice cream.

“I just really like when the little cowboy and gladiator are driving that toy car around,” he reasoned, subtly admitting defeat.

“Don’t even get me started on why the second Shrek movie—”

You were interrupted by the sound of Peter’s phone ringing, and you immediately recognized his ringtone as the Coconut Mall theme from Mario Kart. He peered down at his phone screen, sighing and mouthing an apology to you as he accepted the call.

“Uh, hey, Mr. Stark. Did you need something?” Well, at least you knew he wasn’t lying about his internship at Stark Industries. “Toronto? Tonight? I’m kind of busy.”

There was a long pause as Peter mentally kicked himself for talking back to Tony, resulting in an earful about how being an Avenger should always be at the top of his priorities.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be right over… but I need a favor. Could you send Happy to pick my friend up? Yeah, it’s the ice cream shop on 1st. Thank you so much, Mr. Stark. Bye.” He frowned at you, and you could tell from what you had heard that he had to go.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s just, something came up last minute and Mr. Stark really needs me to go on this business trip with him,” he apologized, pulling his coat on. “But, uh, he’s sending a car for you. So don’t worry about walking back alone, alright? I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you when I get back, okay? Bye!”

“Oh, okay. Bye!” you managed to call out before he was running out the doors and down the street. Lots of customers were staring as you awkwardly gathered your things and went to go wait on the sidewalk.

A few minutes later, a shiny black car had pulled up to the curb in front of you, a man rolling down the window.

“Miss Y/N? I’m Happy Hogan. Mr. Stark sent me to drive you home,” he called from the driver’s seat, before getting out to open your door for you. You stepped in, a little starstruck at how nice the car was. You had never been in anything this expensive before. 

The two of you were sitting in silence until you finally got the courage to speak up. 

“Mr. Hogan,” you started, causing him to turn down the smooth jazz that had been playing on the radio. “Do you know why Peter has to go to Toronto?”

“Yes,” he replied, glancing at you in the rearview mirror. “But I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, okay,” you accepted, shifting to look out the window at all of the places in the city that you hadn’t yet gotten the chance to explore. 

Eventually, he was dropping you off in front of your dorm, and you were trudging inside to your room to sulk about how your not-a-date date with Peter had gotten interrupted. You stared at your ceiling all night, wondering when the next time you’d see each other would be, and whether or not he’d come back with the same cuts and bruises as when you had first met.

----------------

Peter had been gone for six days and counting, and you were starting to worry that he might never come back. You had already started missing him the night he left, and now it was just some agonizing waiting game for him to return.

You must have spent hours in the basement kitchen before deciding to visit the fourth floor where Peter lived. You knocked on the door and was quickly met with Ned’s shocked expression.

“Uh, hi, Y/N. Peter’s not here right now. Did you need something?”

“I know,” you acknowledged, holding up the plate in your hand. “It’s just, well, I’ve been baking a lot and I didn’t really know who to give all of these cookies to, so I was wondering if you wanted any.”

“Oh, in that case, sign me up!” You watched as his face lit up as he noticed the assortment of chocolate chip, sugar, and snickerdoodle cookies all still warm from the oven. He offered his hands out to take the plate from you, which you happily relinquished. 

“These are really good,” he complimented, his mouth full of a sugar cookie. “Can I keep the rest of them?”

“Yeah, of course,” you answered, doing your best to smile despite how much you wished it had been Peter opening the door. “I’ll see you around, Ned.”

“Hey, Y/N,” he called out to you, making you turn around on the stairwell. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Peter’s going to be back any day now.” You nodded, offering him a wave and walking back down to your room.

Turns out Ned had been right. The strange noises outside of your window were masked by how loud you were jamming out to We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel, jumping around and listing off the lyrics that had never made much sense to you. Peter knocked louder on the glass, startling you as you quickly switched off the music to investigate.

“Holy shit,” you whispered, squinting your eyes to make sure you weren’t hallucinating. “Spider-Man? Is that really you?”

You fumbled to push up your window, extremely confused as to why one of the Avengers was outside your bedroom this late at night.

“It’s me, Y/N,” he explained, his voice suddenly becoming extremely familiar. Your eyes widened as you realized who was behind the mask.

“Oh my god! PETER?” you screamed as he slipped through the window, pulling off his mask and clapping a hand over your mouth.

“Don’t freak out. It’s okay. It’s just me, okay?” he stammered in an attempt to get you to calm down before an RA heard. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I really wanted to tell you, but we were in public when I left, and I couldn’t risk it. And I didn’t want to text it or do it over the phone because it’s kind of a big deal, so I figured I’d just come to see you as soon as I got back and Mr. Stark said that you have to promise—”

“It’s okay, Peter,” you interrupted, wrapping your arms around him and burying your face into the very weird material of his spider-suit. “I won’t tell anybody.”

He softened under your touch, resting his head on top of yours. “I like your dance moves,” he whispered, making you glare up at him, your face suddenly very red.

“How long were you watching?” you groaned, dramatically throwing yourself onto your bean bag, your face covered by your hands.

“Only for about a minute,” he answered, pulling your hands down so you could see him grinning at you. “I especially liked how you used your hairbrush as a microphone. Plus, I thought we agreed to stop being embarrassed around each other?”

“Well, that was before I knew you were freaking Spider-Man!”

“Okay, fair enough,” he agreed, nudging you to scoot over and make room for him.

“So, that’s what that whole Toronto thing was?” you asked as he sat next to you, your knee touching his.

“Yep. There was this thing about aliens and these guys that could shapeshift. It’s a lot to explain.”

“Are you going to keep that thing on all night?” you asked, gesturing at his outfit, which was very tight and very distracting from whatever alien story he had to tell.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so,” he shrugged. “I don’t have anything on underneath it.”

“How scandalous,” you teased. “Not so family-friendly after all, huh, Spidey?”

“Oh, shut up,” he quipped, rolling his eyes as you let out a long yawn.

“Have you been sleeping much?” he continued, suddenly remembering the issue that had brought the two of you together in the first place.

“Of course not. I’ve been too busy worrying about my classes and, oh, just some idiot I know that abandoned me in the middle of an ice cream shop. Pretty sure he said he’d make that up to me, by the way.”

“Okay, okay. Message received. What would you like?” Please say a kiss. Please say a kiss. Please say a—

“Can I meet them? The Avengers, I mean. It’s not like anyone else really has a secret identity except for you.”

“Oh. I mean, I’d have to ask Mr. Stark and the rest of the team and see if they’re cool with it, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Awesome! You’re the best,” you chimed, wrapping your arms around him and planting a kiss on his cheek.

It was then that Peter decided he would just never be able to wash that side of his face again, his heart nearly skipping a beat.

“Peter,” you said, breaking the silence he had left the two of you in. “I’m tired.”

“Me too,” he sighed. “I should head up to my room. Gotta make sure Ned knows I’m still alive.”

“Yeah, of course,” you agreed, standing up to see him out. “Aren’t you worried somebody will see you, though?”

“Y/N, it’s 4 a.m. I’m pretty sure that you and I are the only people on campus that are awake right now.”

“Oh, right. Still, be careful, okay?” you told him, slightly worried at his secret identity being found out by some college kid that just couldn’t stay off Twitter.

“Will do,” he said, smiling and giving you a little salute before leaving.

----------------

A few days later, before you could even greet him, Peter was already walking into your room. It was 10 p.m., a little earlier than when he usually came over, but by now you were used to him showing up at your door unannounced.

He was already wearing his pajamas, a t-shirt with a science pun and some flannel pants that he had invested in to avoid any more awkward moments between the two of you. You were dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt, the clothes you usually threw on after class just in case you fell asleep on accident. There had been more times where you had woken up sweaty with your jeans stuck to your legs than you were willing to admit.

“Okay, so I asked Mr. Stark about your request and he told me he doesn’t think now is a good time, but…” he grinned, holding out a giant cardboard box with some kind of minimalist home appliance on the front for you to look at.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” you blinked back, trying to figure out what the hell you were staring at, considering that all of the text written on it was in a language you didn’t know how to read.

“It’s some fancy white noise machine from Japan. If I remember correctly, Mr. Stark said he made Pepper order it because I wouldn’t shut up about you, and it would be in everybody’s best interest if you got some sleep, so I could stop annoying him and the rest of the team.”

“Oh. That’s pretty thoughtful, I guess,” you said, gathering things off your floor to make space for it.

He set the box down on your rug and got to work opening it. Meanwhile, you were busy translating what exactly Tony Stark had so generously gifted to you.

“Peter, wait. This thing is like $300. Doesn’t he know that you can just look up whale noises on YouTube for free?”

“Yeah, but this one adjusts its volume based on the noises around it, has a light that simulates the sun rising, and has an alarm noise that’s supposed to support healthy cortisol levels.”

Peter peered up to see your arms crossed and brows furrowed, it suddenly becoming clear to him that the things he had just listed meant very little to you.

“Plus, he’s a literal billionaire, so I don’t think it was that big of a loss for him,” he added.

“Fine. Let’s just hope this thing works,” you sighed, watching as Peter leafed through the instruction manual before tossing it behind him. “It’s a little early to go to sleep, though.”

“Y/N, plenty of people go to sleep at 10. Not everybody is nocturnal like you.”

“I guess you have a point,” you agreed, kneeling down beside him as he fiddled with all the settings.

“I know,” he said with a smirk as you rested your chin on his shoulder to get a better look at what he was doing. “What time do you want to wake up? 7 a.m. would give us time to go get breakfast before class, but we could do 8 if you wanted to sleep in.”

“We?” you mused, liking the sound of that. “I guess that means you’re staying here tonight?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not letting you have all these overpriced rainforest noises to yourself.”

“Do 7. We can go get those blueberry muffins that you like,” you decided, standing up to get Peter’s makeshift bed on your bean bag ready. “Do you actually like sleeping on this thing, or were you just trying to be polite the first time I asked?”

“Dude, that thing is awesome. It’s like I’m on this little cuddly cloud, and then you add all those warm blankets and the twinkly lights and it’s the perfect recipe for me to fall asleep.”

“Wow,” you nodded, looking around your room to see all of the things that Peter was talking about. “I wish it worked that way for me.”

“Maybe it will, tonight.”

It didn’t. You were tossing and turning for nearly an hour to the agonizing sounds of birds cawing and the occasional monkey chatter, all set against the backdrop of a heavy thunderstorm. To be honest, it was something that would’ve given you nightmares when you were little.

“Y/N?” Peter whispered from the floor. “Are you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“Could you turn that thing off? It’s really distracting me.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, leaning over to switch the noise machine off. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

He hesitated, not really sure if he should ask the question that he had been thinking about for a while now. “How old were you when your parents died?”

You had to think for a moment, not really sure about the answer. For as long as you could remember, you just lived with your grandparents. “Um, well my mom left when I was a baby. And I think my dad passed away when I was four.”

“Oh,” Peter mumbled. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a parent leave you, but he didn’t want to pry just in case it was a sensitive topic. “Are your grandparents from your mom or dad’s side?”

You rolled over to rest your head on the edge of your bed so that you could see him better. He looked so cute bundled up in all of your blankets, his hair already a bit messy. “They’re my mom’s parents. It’s weird. I see a lot of pictures of her from when she was growing up, and I look so much like her, but she’s basically a stranger to me.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something else, but there was a long pause and he decided not to.

“What about you? How old were you when your parents passed away?”

“Five or six. They met while working at the C.I.A. together, but most of my memories are from the stories my aunt and uncle told me when I was growing up.”

For a moment, neither of you could find the right words to say to each other.

“Peter,” you spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m really glad I met you.”

“I’m really glad I met you too.”

----------------

Peter’s next plan of action involved even more advice from his fellow Avengers, and you were not looking forward to trying out any of their suggestions. 

“Okay, so, Steve—I mean Captain America—said that when he was little, you know, in the 1940s, all he had to do was drink a glass of warm milk before bed.”

“I’m lactose intolerant,” you groaned, crossing your arms.

“I just saw you eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s in one sitting the other day.”

“Regular milk has almost 15 times more lactose than ice cream. You’d think a science nerd like you would know that.”

“I’m a geek,” he scoffed, clearly a little bit offended. “Not a nerd.”

“Yeah, I can see that now. It’s okay, though. At least you’re pretty,” you said, pinching his cheek.

“Just try it,” he grumbled, handing you the warm glass and waiting impatiently for you to take a sip. If anything, the milk did a better job at keeping you up that night than putting you to sleep. Not even thirty minutes after you had gone to bed, you were feeling sick to your stomach.

“I hate milk,” you gagged, Peter holding your hair back as you kneeled over the toilet bowl. “My grandpa could never get me to drink it as a kid.”

“Is that why you’re so short?” he laughed, helping you up. You glared at him as you moved to the sink to wash the acidic taste out of your mouth.

“Shut up, Parker,” you quipped, tired and grumpy from how terrible you felt. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”

“Alright, munchkin,” he smiled, pulling you out of the bathroom and back towards your bed.

Somehow, the warm milk wasn’t even the worst of Peter’s ideas, because a few days later, he was standing at your door with a bottle of some Asgardian sleep aid from the lightning god himself.

“Are you sure this is safe for me to drink?” you asked, your eyes widening as you stared at the silvery liquid that was almost shimmering.

“Uh, I’m about 87% confident you’ll live,” he said, “But I’m 100% sure that it’ll work.”

“Gee, thanks. Now I really want to drink this weird alien potion,” you sighed, looking at him nervously.

“Just drink a little bit and see if you feel anything,” Peter encouraged, leaning over your shoulder. You nodded, hesitantly bringing the drink up to your lips to take a sip.

“This stuff tastes amazing,” you mused, taking a bigger gulp this time. “Like a blue raspberry slushie.”

“Whoa, that’s enough,” he warned, taking the bottle from your hands before you could drink any more of it. “We don’t want you to go into a coma.”

“I don’t feel anything,” you shrugged, frowning back at him. “Maybe I should—”

You stopped mid-sentence to let out a loud yawn, the potion starting to take effect. Peter caught you as you slumped down in your chair, helping you into bed.

“Okay. I definitely feel it now,” you admitted, already half asleep. Peter tucked you under your blankets, placing a kiss on your forehead as your eyes fluttered shut.

“Sweet dreams, Y/N,” he whispered, turning off your lights and softly closing the door behind him. 

For a moment, Peter had thought he had finally found a solution to your insomnia. At least before you slept through class the next morning. And then the day after that. But it wasn’t until the third day that he really started to freak out.

“Where’s Thor!?” he panted, having run all the way from his class over to the Avengers Tower. Wanda and Vision stared back at him from the kitchen, very confused at what he was so panicked about.

“He’s in his room,” Bucky called from the couch, his mouth full of popcorn as 13 Going on 30 played on the big screen. “What’s going on, kid?”

“No time to explain. Gotta go!” Peter called, sprinting up the stairs towards Thor’s room. He knocked frantically until the door finally swung open.

“Greetings, young Spiderling. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Thor smiled, his long, golden hair shiny as ever.

“I think I killed my almost-girlfriend!” Peter blurted out, practically sweating from how stressed out he was. “She drank that stuff you gave me and she hasn’t woken up in three days now!”

Thor chuckled, patting Peter on the head. “Do not worry, my brother. I’m sure she will wake up given time. It was a very potent drink, after all. Calm yourself.”

“Okay,” he sighed, relieved to know that he hadn’t poisoned you to death. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. She’s fine. Everything’s fine. Thanks, man. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Farewell, Peter. May we meet again soon,” he grinned before closing the door in Peter’s face.

On the way back down the stairs, Peter figured he’d give you a call and see if you were still sleeping.

“Hello?” you groaned, your throat dry from just waking up. “Peter, what the hell happened to me?”

“THANK GOD YOU’RE ALIVE!” Peter yelled into the phone, making you recoil from the volume of his excitement. “You’ve been asleep for three days, Y/N. I thought you were dead.”

“I am very much alive,” you laughed, slowly feeling the potion wearing off. “Where are you?”

“Uh. I may have run all the way to Midtown to ask Thor if I had killed you,” he admitted, feeling you roll your eyes through the screen. “I was worried, okay?”

“Now you know how I feel whenever you leave for a mission,” you countered, glad that Peter couldn’t see how much you were blushing. “Hurry up and get your butt back over here. I have the weirdest dream to tell you about.”

----------------

Even if you still weren’t getting a full eight hours of rest at night, it was obvious that all of Peter’s efforts had vastly improved your sleep schedule. Over the past few months, you had gone from staring at your ceiling all night to actually being able to stay asleep for small periods of time.

“Your eyelashes are so long,” you mused, playing with Peter’s hair. He was sitting in between your legs and How the Grinch Stole Christmas was playing on your TV.

“Really?” He tilted his head back to look at you, batting his eyelashes and making you giggle.

“Yes. It’s not fair that boys get all of the pretty eyelashes,” you pouted, watching as the Grinch explained his plan to steal all of Whoville’s presents to his dog.

“I think yours are pretty,” he replied, a soft smile on his face. “But there’s a rogue one just hanging out on your face right now.”

“Can you get it?” you asked, your eyes still glued on the TV screen. Peter nodded, twisting around to gently brush the eyelash from your cheek.

“Do you want to make a wish?” he laughed, holding the little eyelash on the tip of his finger in front of you.

“Okay,” you agreed, squeezing your eyes shut and blowing it away. When you opened them, Peter’s face was only inches away from yours.

“What did you wish for?” His gaze shifted downwards to look at your lips for a split second, before returning to look into your eyes.

“I can’t tell you, dummy. Then it won’t come true.” You weren’t about to tell your best friend that you wished for him to kiss you. At least not now, while the two of you were stuck in this really weird “not dating, but more than just friends” limbo.

“Fine,” he frowned, crossing his arms and pouting in a way that you recognized had been mimicked after you.

“Don’t make fun of me,” you said, mirroring his stance. Your puppy dog eyes were definitely a lot more convincing than his.

“I’m not.”

“Uh-huh, sure. You smell really good, by the way. Well, your hoodie does. I could just wrap myself up in it and fall asleep.”

“How come you’ve never mentioned that before? You could’ve been out cold every night months ago!”

“Guess I was just too distracted by your dreamy face,” you teased, causing Peter to blush.

“Whatever. Seriously, though. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I think it took me a while to realize how sleepy I got whenever you were really close to me,” you shrugged. “You’re not mad at me, right?”

“Of course not. But if I had known sooner I would’ve just given you one,” he said, slipping the hoodie over his head and handing it to you. “Here, put it on. You better fall asleep instantly or I’m calling bullshit.”

“You caught me, Peter. This was all some elaborate plan for me to steal one of your hoodies.”

“Just put it on. The suspense is killing me.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled his hoodie on. Just from looking at Peter and how slim he was, you never would have guessed that it would be this oversized on you.

“How do I look?” you asked, striking silly poses in front of him. Peter involuntarily licked his lips and he knew he’d be replaying this image of you in his head for the next few weeks.

“You’re going to have to keep that,” he stammered, doing his best to hide how much he really liked seeing you in his clothes. “It looks a lot better on you. I, um, have to go do my homework. And call my aunt. And walk my roommate.”

Peter stumbled to his feet, staring at his wristwatch to maintain his act that he was late for something before grabbing his things and heading out the door, making sure to hold his backpack in front of him. “Let me know if the hoodie thing works. Bye!”

----------------

Brushing off Peter’s strangely abrupt departure from last night, you nuzzled into your pillow, the warm morning light spilling through your curtains. Last night had probably been your best sleep in months, and you even got to wake up late since it was Saturday. Things probably couldn’t have gone any better.

Before you knew it, you were running up to Peter’s room and banging on his door. He opened the door on your fourth knock, right after Ned had chucked a pillow at him, and you were met with his sleepy eyes and messy hair.

“It worked!” you yelped in excitement, twirling around and still wearing his hoodie. “Well, kind of. I fell asleep after about an hour, and then I slept for maybe three after that. But I had to pee in the middle of the night, and when I got back into bed I couldn’t fall back asleep until 6 a.m.”

“That’s some good progress,” he yawned, stepping out into the hallway to keep your little celebration from bothering Ned too much. “If only we could get you to sleep the entire night.”

“I know right. But I’m so happy!” you cheered, wrapping your arms around him. “We finally did something right!”

“We need to celebrate!” you continued, grabbing Peter’s hand and dragging him down the stairs. “Come on. We’re making you a chocolate cake!”

You stopped by your room on the way to the kitchen, piling a bunch of ingredients into Peter’s arms from your mini-fridge and various shelves.

“Okay, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, chocolate. Damn it. We’re all out of milk.” You side-eyed him, remembering the whole Captain America induced fiasco from a couple weeks ago. 

“I think we might have some in our room,” Peter laughed. “Ned drinks a lot of milk mixed with Milo powder. It’s some obsession he picked up when his family took a vacation to Australia. I’ll go get it.”

He set all of the ingredients you had given him on your desk and sprinted back up the stairs to raid Ned’s stash, already thinking of ways to apologize for it later.

A few minutes later he was knocking on your door, out of breath, and dressed to brave the many inches of snow that had fallen overnight. 

“We didn’t have any milk,” he panted. “But I can run to the dining hall and get a few cartons.”

“I’ll go with you.” You quickly pulled on your snow boots and layered your puffer coat on top of Peter’s hoodie, wrapping a hand-knit scarf around your neck just to be safe. “All ready.”

Getting the milk was the easy part. Making sure you didn’t die of frostbite was another story. By the time you and Peter got back to your room, your nose was super red and you couldn’t feel your toes.

“Okay,” you said, your teeth chattering. “I thought I was used to the snow by now, but that was something else.” You dropped your coat on the ground and climbed into your bed, burying yourself under your comforter.

“I thought we were making a cake,” he laughed, walking over to see you peeking out of the pile.

“Cake will have to wait,” you whined, your voice slightly muffled by the blanket. “Come here. I need some of your body heat.”

“Okay,” he stuttered, kicking off his sneakers and climbing in beside you. He had sat on your bed a lot since the two of you met, but this was the first time that he was actually laying in it. You snuggled up to him, and he hesitantly wrapped his arms around you.

“This is nice,” you sighed, nuzzling your head into his chest. “Is this one of your superpowers? Spidey-warmth?” Peter let out a soft laugh. It was silly but true. Ever since the bite, he never really noticed how cold it was outside anymore.

“Y/N,” he whispered, tightening his grip around your waist. Your head was nestled underneath his chin, and he could smell the faint citrus scent of your shampoo. “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, Pete?” you yawned, your eyelids heavy from how comfy Peter’s cuddles were.

“I love you.” He held his breath, nervously waiting for you to respond.

“I know,” you giggled, intertwining your legs. “Sometimes, you talk in your sleep. You’ve probably professed your love for me at least eight times by now.”

“Oh.” Peter had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that.

“Don’t worry. I love you, too,” you assured him, grinning and placing little kisses on his jawline. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Maybe you could make it a little more obvious,” he mumbled, his heartbeat getting quicker as you shifted up to kiss him on the lips, your hand running through his hair.

“I will,” you smiled, your forehead resting against his. “But after we take a nap, okay?”

“Okay,” Peter agreed, snuggling as close as he possibly could to you, never wanting to let go. In no time at all, he watched happily as you fell asleep in his arms, wondering how the two of you hadn’t thought of this sooner.

----------------

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[shieldofrohan]

I don't think GRRM explores the flaws in Arya's characterisation rather he explores how the world is unfair to her. Whenever I read Jon, Sansa, Dany , Robb and Bran, I feel they behave as their age requires them to be. They show capabilities yet are not exempted from bad choices which a character at their age can easily commit. With Arya, sometimes it feels like I am not reading a 11 year old kid but a grown up 25 year old woman who never messes up things or has any characterisation flaws which are not inherent within like the other child characters but those failings are primarily influenced by the society.

Hello Anon,

I have to agree and disagree with you.

I agree with that Martin writes Jon, Sansa and Dany better- MUCH BETTER.

I am obviously not a Daenerys fan but I enjoyed her character more than I did with Arya. I said it many times but I am going to say it again: Daenerys is the best written character in the series. She is much more interesting villain than man-pain Tyrion [looking at you Martin.. really, Tyrion?].

Objectively I find her character well written and interesting. But my problem with her is that her cult like fans who completely ignore her true position and characterization in the books. Hopefully in the future people will enjoy Dany character for the right reasons.

I felt like I need to explain my thoughts about Dany first to show my problems with the way of Arya was written by the author.

Arya is the WORST written main character. TRULY. Everything about her is so FAKE/FORCED/CLICHE/UNREALISTIC…

Author says that Arya is the underdog/outcast of the family. Does the writing show this?

NO!

She is literally her father's favorite child. We see Ned constantly favoring her, letting her do what she likes, he never scolds her, he makes time to talk with her about her traumas like losing a friend, he fcking finds a Water Dancer for her [but not a harp teacher for Sansa]. I have a great dad but jeez, even he never showed me this kind of devotion.

Catelyn seems like she knows her daughter well… we don’t see her abusing or ignoring her. She even acknowledges her struggles.

Her siblings love her. Even Sansa tries to keep include her into her own circle to enjoy things together, she covers for her against Septa Mordane.

As we can see, she seems doing fine as a tomboy girl in the family of 5 men/boys and 2 women/girls.

BUT SHE COULDN’T SEW SO SHE WAS BEING ABUSED.

Really? Wow she must be the only special snowflake who wasn’t good at sewing. I am sure rest of the girls in North were all experts. Arya is the only one who lacks some skill people and it made her super sad.

Fans tried to paint this as some "omg anti-feminism/sexism in society" thing and it feels absurd because Arya was bad at history and heraldy too..

A tomboy is not good at some female-coded skill is so fcking cliche for character building and I am not buying it. And this is BAD/LAZY WRITING.

Did Martin try to make her look like an underdog with this??

Well Sansa is not good at math? I am sure she had bad days because of this too but we didn’t read it. If you ask me Sansa (girly girl) being bad at math (male-coded subject) was more sexist than sewing and Arya thing [considering Sansa was good at music and playing instruments which require math but whatever.]

Arya is an outcast because she is not like other girls… WOW, it has never been written before, how did George come up with this idea? Meanwhile we have girls like Mormont girls so obviously she is not the only "NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS MARY SUE".

Evil Mordane bullied poor Arya. Mordane is totally not good for her BUT Arya literally never listens HER TEACHER. I am not talking about her lack of skill in sewing. Arya simply NEVER listens anyone. She disobeys her septa, she declines QUEEN’s invitations rudely, she talks sh*t about CROWN PRINCE while princess is next to them.

Girly lessons like sewing weren’t the only lessons she was not into it…

Sansa would have known who he was, and the fat one too, but Arya had never taken much interest in titles and sigils. Whenever Septa Mordane had gone on about the history of this house and that house, she was inclined to drift and dream and wonder when the lesson would be done.

[ACOK; Arya VII]

She simply never cares about any lessons and she simply refuses to learn basic DECORUM. Yeah I am sorry that she had to learn things she didn’t want to but welcome to real world.

MY POINT IS: all these are so weak points to make her look like an outcast/underdog.

Don’t even let me start with Jeyne Poole calling her HORSERACE nonsense. I said it before so I repeat it: This feels so forced in the story considering Arya is the daughter of Warden of the North and Jeyne is some simple daughter of a simple man who works for Starks.

This is what author himself says about class system:

Q: What was the hardest thing in writing about such an alien world?

GRRM: The vast majority of fantasy is middle agey time wise, and he himself finds the period fascinating; glad to adopt it for novel writing - likes knights and castles and such. He objects to bad fantasy practice which adopts a time setting without accepting the culture - imposing 20th century values like the cheeky stableboy telling off the princess (in reality cheeky stableboy would lose his tongue - look what happend to Mycah); the class system was not just and ornament and these people truly belived in blood, and the rank and priviledge that came with "good" blood. [2006]

But Jeyne somehow had no fear when she was “bullying” a princess. Does this make sense to you or does it feel forced to make Arya look like a victim. And this bad writing keeps repeating itself while author writes Arya and when you realize this pattern you can’t unsee it and it ruins the books a little.

I wrote all these to explain what is ACTUALLY wrong with Arya as a character. I don’t blame Arya for the bad writing, I blame the author.

And I disagree with you a little when you said: "With Arya, sometimes it feels like I am not reading a 11 year old kid but a grown up 25 year old woman who never messes up things or has any characterisation flaws which are not inherent within like the other child characters but those failings are primarily influenced by the society.”

[I explained the her failings in society’s eyes part already.. that thing is a cliche and unrealistic writing]

I don’t agree with that reading Arya feels like reading an older woman. No it feels like reading a VERY UNREALISTIC AND DISTURBING CHILD. She totally makes mistakes:

Talking bad about prince in a room full of people, declining Queen’s invitations, not listening her septa and Sansa, making prince angry, hiding for 4 days while she should have gone to her father to deal with the mess so maybe Mycah and Lady wouldn’t be dead, attacking her sister, killing a stableboy, killing many other people, joining a assassin cult, killing a Black brother because she thinks she has the right etc..

She makes mistakes but we didn’t see her face any consequences. Will we see her face them?? When it comes to Arya I don’t trust GRRM. GRRM covers for her all the time. GRRM = Ned Stark. He favors her. I mean look at this:

Sansa saves Dontos who later molests her and he works for Baeslish who also molests her.

Arya saves Jaqen H’ghar and he turns out to be a Faceless Man who kills THREE people for her.

Sandor sexually assaults Sansa but not Arya [I am not saying he should!! But why is it always Sansa? Does the author punish Sansa for her beauty… ANSWER IS YES because I am done!]

Sansa trusts Joffrey and Cersei ends up the most hated character in the books [even author says she had a part in her father’s death and he is ok with fans hating her]

Meanwhile Arya’s spider senses tell her to not trust Roose Bolton or anyone etc.

Arya runs into people like Yoren or Harwin meanwhile Sansa… you got it.

Basically this is a simple case of author favoring a character and it happens in all books.

The only thing that indicates author knows she is not perfect is that him calling her a “psycho” or not disagreeing when fans call her a psycho [I know I usually make fun of this but actually this is not some good take about a child character especially if you say Starks- including Arya- are the heroes]

In conclusion: I think she is written terribly, she is the weakest part in the story and character building. I simply hate the way author deals with her character. I think she is not interesting. She turned out to be a very dark and disturbing child character and I have no idea what is GRRM trying to tell with her.

Thanks for the ask. Have a nice day.

[loverholland]

sunrise. pp x reader

summary: y/n finally arrived back in new york after a year in cali. not only does she find that her little corner of the world is disappearing, but that he little crush just so happened to not have disappeared. word count: ~1,900 warnings: none that I can think of. a/n: i hope you like this. this has been in my drafts since 2019 i think.

✨☁️💭🪴🪐🧋🛼🎐

Y/N’s hand touched the railing of Peter’s balcony. It was a simple apartment, one that she would expect for him to have. It was a small, one bedroom and one bath apartment that sometimes had hot water and sometimes had mice, but nonetheless, Y/N loved it. It was the first time she had ever seen his apartment other than in FaceTime, which were far and few between. He had such a perfect view of Queen’s where the tree’s sang beautiful songs and the bird’s would join in with harmonies. It reminded her of those times when she would go to Aunt May’s apartment and sit on the fire escape. She missed the yellow chipped paint and the abundance of plants. It was small and minimal but it was home. Pictures would line the walls and almost every surface that she could fill - many of them were Peter and her or Peter and his parents, but when he began bringing home Ned and Y/N, the pictures became more inclusive of their friendship.

Y/N always brought a Kodak camera everywhere. Those pictures felt the most authentic. The most real, so those were the ones she gave Aunt May. Every Christmas, every birthday, were just months worth of pictures that she could put anywhere she imagined.

Everything felt so normal, but they weren’t. Of course, they weren’t. Washington Heights experienced a blackout, one that hadn’t hit for ages. Everything was going away from her in so little time. Nail Venom was moving, shops are closing down, people are leaving. Her humble abode is leaving and it was getting close to her parent’s closing up their ?? and leaving Washington Heights for good. Leaving what she knew for good.

“Y/N?” Peter yawned. She turned her head to look at him in all of his glory. He jue woke up but he looked so stunning in the rising rays and he looked like a Renaissance painting. His curls were much messier than they were last night and his beautiful chocolate brown eyes looked like the perfect coffee that she would get back at UCLA. He was shirtless and only wore a pair of gray sweatpants and my Gods he was made right out by the Gods themselves.

“I’m here.” She whispered before turning her head back to the world in front of her. Not wanting to give it up for just a moment longer. They had practiced some Spanish, drunkenly, she must add. He was good at it, not that she would ever tell him that. Never would she imagine giving him such a big head like that.

“Are you ready to try again?” Y/N asked, implying to the previous Spanish lesson. It was so early, but she felt so at peace. The corners of her lips rising a bit more when Peter answered:

“I think I’m ready.”

“Okay,” Y/N paused, turning to leverage herself on the railing, pushing back for a moment, a wide smile spreading across her face as she looked at Peter. “Let’s go.” There was a moment as she thought of what to say. Something that he knew? Give him something hard. A curse word? She would laugh if given the chance but then the idea of her home. En Washington Heights. Her esquina was slowly leaving this earth for good, only few being able to tell the story of Washington Heights.

“Esquina?”

“Corner.” Peter answered correctly, a short lived smile creeping towards the corners of his lips. He knew he was right.

“Tienda?”

“Store.”

“Bombilla?”

“Lightbulb!”

“Too easy” she thought to herself. She turned her head to look over the horizon. The world was wonderful with how the sky was painted orange and pinks. The moon was still out, it was beautiful. And not only that but this world had Peter, the most wonderful man she had ever been lucky to know. Well, shit. Maybe not wonderful.

Last night was a lot. The lights were brighter then than any light now. The screams of joy and laughing from everyone around her, we're nothing like her experience. A drunken Peter was angry that Y/N’s father didn’t accept their relationship. He was so angry and the way he threatened his internship at Stark Industries (not that papi would get anywhere). The world felt like it was ending and it kind of did. All of Washington Heights suddenly became dark, a forgotten and hidden place in the world. The once joyful noise turned into horror and fear, everything quickly declining. And then she was alone.

In the middle of chaos, she was alone.

But now, here she is on Peter’s fire escape. The beautiful and peaceful world going on around her. Sure, it was hot. But the world was so much better. The people were quiet and asleep while the sunshine danced along the buildings. Animal’s running the streets freely before everyone woke up. Everything was right.

“You’re sure?” Y/N questioned after a moment of reminiscing. She gave him a smile after biting her bottom lip for a moment. He was right and she knew it but she just wanted to see if he was confident in himself and his answers. He hadn’t taken Spanish since high school and he claimed that he forgot a majority of it, but she always questioned it but never pushed him to speak in her native language with her.

Peter paused and pushed himself off the brick wall, taking a step towards her. His eyes searched for a reason to stop, but he couldn’t find one. Hell, he wouldn’t be able to ever find one. “I’m sure.”

“Three out of three, you did alright.” Y/N pushed herself off the railing and took a step towards Peter, her head tilting back to look up at him. She couldn’t help but be infatuated with Peter. She had only been back for a few days and all of the past feelings came flowing back. She spent so long believing that she would never be good enough for Peter that she just hid the idea of ever being with him or him sharing the same feelings. Oh, how she was wrong.

“Well teach me a little more…” he trailed, his hand going to touch Y/N’s cheek. He didn’t immediately touch her however, he wanted some form of consent and when Y/N leaned her face to touch his hand, he took that as an ‘okay’ before brushing her cheek with his thumb.

“Calor?”

“Heat.”

“Anoche?” Y/N raised her eyebrows.

“Last night.”

“Dolor.

“Pain?”

“That’s right.” She confirmed, eyebrows knitting together. She lifted her right hand and laid it on Peter’s chest, staring at it as the words left her lips like endless lullabies. Not taking any longer to think of what to say, she knew what needed to be said for both of them. “Llámame?”

“Call me.”

“Ámame”

“Love me.”

A breath escaped Y/N’s lips. They felt so close yet so far away from one another. Her eyes lifted away from being set on her hand on Peter’s chest to look at his beautiful, comforting eyes. “Perhaps I do-”

“Well, how do you say “kiss me”?”

“Besame.”

“And how do you say “hold me”?”

“Abrázame.” Y/N inevitably whispered, the words all making the flutter in her chest more intense. Her eyes were filled with so much joy yet so much anxiety at the same time. “Al amanezer. At sunrise.” [need to look up]

“Anything can help at sunrise.”

Y/N looked up at Peter’s eyes, she just wanted to kiss him right then and there. They held eye contact for a moment before her eyes dropped to his lips, leaning in a bit closer. She could feel how clammy her own hands were. She hated the feeling of it, but she knew this could dictate so much more especially considering her future. This action could change so much between them and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for it. But maybe she should just dive in head first. Her heart thumped against her chest, eyes closing for a moment as her lips parted, allowing air to escape and to his Peter’s lips.

“What will he say?” Peter pulled back, removing his hand from her cheek and dropping it down to his side, fiddling with the pocket that was hanging out of the sweats.

What a dramatic ass.

“Que dirá?”

“When he sees me around you?” He asked, eyebrows knitting together with concern. Y/N understood exactly how he felt. The fear of losing one another to her father. Losing this connection again. Y/N always believed that the time wasn’t right and that if it were destined to be, it would be.

“How do you say “Promise me?”” Peter asked, quieter than before. His forehead was pressed against hers, eyes closed as they took in the moment, hands briefly touching as a spark traced up their arms.

“Prometeme.”

“Promise me you’ll stay beyond the sunrise and that we won’t care what anyone has to say -”

“Beyond the sunrise.” Y/N cut off Peter. Their eyes met, searching for an invitation to kiss one another. The world seemed to stop at this moment. The trees' sweet songs slowed down as Peter leaned into the small space between he and Y/N. The birds stopped their harmonies and the cars stopped the melodies, it felt like the perfect interlude to any great story.

And then it just happened. Peters hand cupped her cheek like an angel cupping a baby for the first time. He softly guided her lips to his; it felt so soft and secure. His lips touched hers and in the moment she swore she was infinite. She was so alive and free in this moment. His lips melded with her like a beautiful piano melody being played. Everything that she could ever love and more was right here. Her heart pounded to the thought of him. To the action that was being played out.

Never in her wildest dream did she think she'd be kissing Peter Parker. During the sunrise. In Queens. She always thought that maybe one day, when they're older and they finally come to the conclusion, or maybe her accepting it more than she did before. She wasn't too sure how it would happen, but this was never the plan.

As quickly as it started, it ended. Peter pulled away, breathless

“Promise me you’ll stay.” Peter whispered against her lips as he pulled back. There was a moment of hesitation. Stay… how? With him? In New York? She wasn’t too sure what he meant, but those were the words she’s always wanted to speak to him. Just the act was something she thought about many times in high school. She had told herself that if she didn’t go to UCLA she would finally man up and tell Peter about her little crush and go to a school in NYC. But then she left.

“I’ll stay.” Y/N promised, her fingers interlinking with Peter’s. The pad of his thumb rubbing across the top of her hands. A promise that she would swear to fulfill. If not for her, then for him. She couldn’t imagine the world that he has around him but that world would be her’s. He would become her world in such a short amount of time.

Beyond the sunrise.

[parkersharthook]

We’ve Only Just Begun

Peter Parker x reader

Warnings: bad words, crack fluff

2.5k+ words

Reference TikToks: kiss my best friend challenge & rich best friend check

series masterlist

~.~

“Peter I’m bored.”

“Hi bored, I’m Peter.” Peter looked to you with a small smirk

“I know, I did just address you. Also, never say that joke to me every again if you wanna keep dating.”

“ooh, harsh crowd.” Peter laughed.

“babyyyy I’m bored. It’s summer vacation, I should not be this bored.”

“y/n, you’re distracting my intern.” Your dad snipped quickly, elbows deep into some kind of machinery. You weren’t really sure what they were working, having gotten very uninterested once they started. “He’s helping me right now; do you want me to lose an arm?”

You rolled your eyes and spun around in the chair, “dad you always take him.”

“hey, you get him every day during the school year. Summer is my time.”

Peter looked between the father and daughter with a brow raised, “are you two seriously fighting over me right now?”

“well I wouldn’t have to fight over my boyfriend with my dad if Harley was here right now. That selfish idiot left and now you’re the only wonder boy to entertain my dad.”

Tony scoffed and held out his hand, wordlessly asking Peter for some tool. Peter handed it over immediately before turning his head back, “where did Harley go?”

“I don’t know, he just said he was leaving and walked out.”

“maybe he’s got a hot date.”

You huffed and slouched in the seat, narrowing your eyes at Peter. “makes one of us.”

Tony laughed and twisted slightly to give you a wink, “sorry honey but that was the deal. I let your boyfriend stay here if he helps me out.”

You rolled your eyes so hard Peter was concerned you’d see your brain, “oh puh-lease, you wanted Peter here just as much as I did. Either for Spidey stuff or normal nerd stuff, you’re just using this as an excuse.”

“fine but at least I’m not complaining about him sneaking into your room every night.” Peter sputtered, his face going instantly red and almost dropping whatever mechanic was in his hand.

“oh Mr. stark, i- we don’t- it’s not-“

“relax kid, if I was going to crucify you I’d have already done it.” Tony spun to face you, “now can you please go bother someone else. If you really want to spend time with Peter you’ll let us finish this.”

You huffed and left the lab as Peter blew you a quick kiss causing you flip him off jokingly. This is not what you wanted when you wished for your boyfriend to get along with your dad.

--

It had been a few hours and you were still bored. You had promptly gone to your room after leaving the lab and gone on tiktok, you’re absolute favorite way to waste time but now you were bored again. And you missed Peter, especially after a stupid trend kept popping up on your fyp of people kissing their “best friends” making you realize you weren’t kissing your very kissable boyfriend right now.

As if he could read your thoughts, Peter waltzed into your bedroom and immediately shucked his shirt off to wipe his face and hands.

“well hello to you too stud.” You said, biting your lip and very obviously ogling his toned body.

Peter laughed as he threw his oil stained shirt into the hamper and went to grab another from the dresser. You pouted, “why are you putting a new one on? You look fine without it.”

“because it’s the middle of the day and anyone could come looking for us and I am not about to be killed by any of the avengers because I’m corrupting their ‘little princess’”. Peter said as he put the new shirt on and flopped next to you, his chin now resting on his hand as he looked up at you.

“ugh they need to get over themselves and realize that we’re adults who’ve been dating for three years and basically already live together.”

Peter shrugged, his empty hand rubbing against your bare leg casually. “you’re always going to be the little girl they watched grow up.” He laughed at your pout and squeezed your thigh, “what have you been up to? Cured your boredom?”

“No.” you huffed, “just been scrolling on tiktok. Kinda want to start making them, could be fun.”

“what would you make?”

You shrugged, immediately struck with a great idea. “I don’t know whatever the trends on. I’m gonna put the tv on, don’t move.”

You shimmied out of bed, setting your phone up as discreetly as possible and turning on your tv. You started the video and moved back to the bed. You knew the trend was to kiss a best friend but you thought it would still be fun with Peter, plus you are best friends… you’re just also already dating. So not cheating, just a loophole.

Peter was still on his stomach, hand supporting his face, as he scrolled aimlessly through Instagram. And with you sitting against your headboard, it looked friendly enough. You waited for the right time before sliding down so you were laying next to him, practically under him. He looked up at you and smiled and for a second you were worried that he was gonna go ahead and kiss you but luckily he waited just long enough where you could initiate it in time with the song. You surged forward, hand immediately coming to weave into his curls to pull him closer.

Peter was obviously not expecting you to kiss him so aggressively so he fell slightly before catching himself on one arm that was now positioned next to your head, the other going to hold your hip. Now you really were under him.

You got lost in kissing him for a few moments when you realized the video was probably done and detached your lips. You giggled as Peter chased your lips, eyes still mostly closed. You slid out from beneath him and walked over to your phone.

“wha- where are you going?” Peter pouted, running his hands through his messy curls. You bit your thumb nail slightly as you rewatched the video, it was cute. “did you take a video of that?”

You nodded and showed him, watching a goofy smile stretch onto his face as he looked up at you, “so when you said you were gonna start filming TikToks you meant immediately.”

You shrugged and sat next to him, “no but the opportunity presented itself.”

You quickly captioned the video ‘sooo I kissed my bsf’ and tagged Peter’s account before posting it and throwing your phone to the side.

Peter kissed your bare shoulder, “is this gonna become a regular thing?”

You giggled and shrugged, “I don’t know. Guess you’ll have to wait and see.” Peter groaned, grabbing you around the middle and falling back onto the bed, pulling you down with him.

--

It was a few days later when you opened tiktok again, surprised to see your video had racked up 600 thousand likes and over 5 million views. You were surprised to see that it had gone semi-viral and yet no one recognized you. Not that you had your legal name in your username and you definitely weren’t as famous as your dad and family, but you weren’t hidden away either. Honestly though, this was kinda nice to just be another twenty-one year old on tiktok, posting stupid videos for fun.

You went to the comments immediately to see what people were saying and laughed at some of the funnier ones. You noticed that even MJ had commented.

Usera: aw so cute *blocked*

Userb: ms girl… he’s been waiting for this

Userc: no way best friends kiss like that

everythingbagel: “bsf” yeah fucking right y/n

⇲ begginstrips: hehe love you mj

You went back to your fyp and scrolled through a bit before you ran into stassie baby’s video of her showing off Kylie’s car collection with the audio saying, ‘rich best friend check’. You quickly sent the video to Peter, who was currently at lunch with Harry and Ned.

y/n: wanna do this when you get back?

Peter: lol sure seems funny

it was a few more hours before Peter got back to the compound, him easily finding you curled into the couch watching How To Train Your Dragons. You smiled as he dropped a kiss to your forehead, “this movie again?”

“it’s one of the best movies ever made,” you sassed back, “so yes, this movie again.”

He leaned down over the back of the couch smiling into your face before giving you another quick succession of kisses. “wanna film that tiktok?”

You checked the time before nodded, languidly stretching your body and standing up. “where should we start it?”

And that’s how Wanda found you and Peter at 3 am, videoing rando fancy stuff around the compound, you strutting and swaying your hips dramatically. Wanda followed Peter around, who was filming, laughing at your antics and giving you tips on what to include. The three of you got so loud, that Tony eventually woke up to investigate what the three of you were up to… as it was usually not great.

“are you sure we can film this? I don’t reveal any state secrets.” Peter whispered not so well.

“what state secrets are we revealing?” you whirled around to see your father, one brow raised and a hip cocked to the side.

“good entrance, very dramatic dad.” You said with a laugh, “and there aren’t any state secrets being revealed.”

“what are you filming?”

“A tiktok.”

Tony rolled his eyes, “I’m not even gonna pretend to know what that is. Anyways go to bed, you guys are being loud.”

“yeah, yeah. We’re just finishing up.” You watched your dad walked away before turning back to Peter and Wanda, “let’s go film in front of one of his suits.”

--

Peter had posted the photo to his account and captioned it: “@begginstrips is my sugar momma ;)” before promptly throwing his phone to the floor and passing out next to you in bed.

It was 10 in the morning – which was far too early as you and Peter had only fallen asleep at 4 am – when MJ started calling you and didn’t stop until you literally rolled out of bed onto the floor to pick up.

“what the fuck m? it is too fucking early.”

“you’re all over the news.”

You paled, “what?” Everything you ever did wrong very quickly flashed through your eyes, your mind scrambling to remember what was caught on camera.

“yeah your tiktok went viral. People are freaking out.” You sagged in relief.

“Jesus mj you can’t just say that shit for it to be tiktok.” A pause, “wait which tiktok?”

“the one Peter posted of his ‘rich best friend’ and you walking around the compound.”

You let out a quick laugh, “oh ok. That’s not that bad.”

“also can we talk about this whole best friend schtick you and Peter have going on tiktok? What the fuck?”

You chuckled slightly before crawling back into bed, your heart now beating at a normal pace. “the first one was just a trend so I lied to follow it and then it was just the sound. Also he is my best friend, he’s just also my boyfriend.”

MJ scoffed, “rude. I’m your best friend.”

“right, right. Sorry.” Peter grumbled slightly as he buried his head into your hip. You gently carded your fingers through his curls, “do you know why it’s all over the news?”

“apparently people didn’t know you existed? I don’t know, just thought that you might want a warning in case your dad got angry.”

“well I appreciate it, regardless of the fact that you basically gave me a heart attack and woke me up at butt fuck.”

“it’s 10 am, get over yourself and have a cup of coffee. Anyways, lunch tomorrow?”

You yawned, “sure sounds good. Wanna invite betty?”

“she’s still in Hawaii with her family, they’re coming back this weekend.”

“right, ok. Let me know what time you wanna go.”

“will do. Love you bitch.”

You smiled into the phone and yawned again, “love you bitch.” You hung up and tossed your phone to the floor, rubbing your eyes harshly.

Peter barely opened his eyes as he looked up at you, “what was that about?”

“apparently we’re famous.” You replied as you reached over his body to grab his phone.

Peter snuggled deeper into your body, wrapping his arms around your leg and laying his head in your lap. You rested against the headboard, one hand still playing with his curls and one now scrolling to Peter’s tiktok.

You blanched as you saw the video had gotten over 6 million likes and 45 million views overnight. And according to the comments, people were very confused.

User1: ummm is that the avengers compound or am I tripping?

User2: so we’re all just finding out tony stark has a child rn?

User3: mmmm something don’t add up here?

You sighed as turned the phone off, rubbing your eyes again. A headache was quickly setting in. You leaned down to press a chaste kiss to Peter’s cheek before slowly working your way out of his grasp.

He whined, “baby where are you going? It’s early.”

“I have to go talk to my dad about this but you keep sleeping babe.”

He rolled over to face you as you walked towards your closet. “are you sure? I can come with you.”

“no, it’s ok baby. I really don’t think it’ll be a big deal.”

--

It was slightly a bigger deal than you realized. Pepper was now talking you through ‘making sure SI had a good image on social media’ while your dad smirked in a corner.

Pepper stroked your arm, “this isn’t bad press or anything. You’ll just have to be careful going into the future. And you know that with being a Stark, you’re gonna have a lot of eyes on you and probably a lot of criticism.” She sighed, “we’ve done a good job shielding you from the press for this long but it might be a lot.”

You smiled at her softly. Pepper really had always been like a mom to you and now that her and your dad were officially married, it was even more true. “Yeah I know. I’m honestly not too worried.” You turned to your dad, “did you know people didn’t know I existed?”

Tony shrugged, “Doesn’t surprise me. I have almost every record of you sealed from the public for your safety and you never were one for the spotlight.” He walked over and dropped a kiss onto your forehead, “never show my suits on your clock app again.”

You rolled your eyes and stuck your tongue out at him, “for someone who owns a company based on new and cutting edge technology, you sure are out of touch.”

He gasped, a hand pressed to his heart. “how dare you, my own daughter.”

Pepper laughed softly, “she’s not wrong. Anyways, post whatever you want to your personal account. You’re an adult, so we trust you just be careful. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

You kissed her cheek before standing and stretching out your back. “don’t worry, I already have a plan for my next video.”

“god help us.” Tony muttered.

[guardianofthepeanutwrites]

Skirts and dresses Part 4

Part1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 5

Tag list: @purplefreakwolffish  @mayucerise​

This chapter is for @sarcastich​​ and @starkeraddictbaby​

Thanks to Gypsywoman13 for beta-reading!

CW: genderfluid Loki, Kinda asshole Thor

PeterParkerBingo2021: square Pet Names (card below)

Thor & Loki

Because Peter had been fairly young when he moved inside the compound, they had put his room next to Tony’s quarters since he was the one in charge of their youngest member. Then one day a door appeared in the middle of his room, connecting it to the Stark’s private quarters. They had a long discussion about boundaries: “Ask before putting doors in my bedroom” and “don’t threaten people because they hurt me” etc. Tony had argued it was easier (it was, but that was not the question) because they spend more and more time together. Which was true. 

Tony and Pepper had started to teach Peter some things about business practice. They took him to smaller meetings and introduced him as Tony’s intern; it suited Peter very much. That, plus his patrols, as well as other Avenger business, like training, and his new business classes...Peter was now even busier than he already was.

Except on Sundays. Sundays were days Peter could rest, sleep, visit his aunt May, hang with Ned and MJ, and watch movies with Bucky the other Avengers.

Every Sunday morning, before leaving their quarters, Peter and Tony would eat the most decadent brunch that Peter would let Tony buy him. From all the changes that happened in his life since he got adopted by Tony Stark, Sunday brunches were certainly Peter’s favorites. He loved those calm moments with the man that he admired so much. He also loved that he could put on whatever clothes he wanted because FRIDAY would only let people in the know enter.

That Sunday, they were finishing their meal when Steve entered. He briefly stopped at the soft pink hoodie, gray and pink plaid skirt, and long white socks Peter was wearing before dismissing it and greeting the two men.

“So, Steve, what can we do for you?” Tony asked, forgoing the pleasantries. Peter knew Tony hated being interrupted during Sunday brunches, and saw that Steve started to move from one leg to the other, a bit nervous. Peter frowned.

“Oh, I-I mean, I wanted to apologize for-” Peter tried to interrupt Steve, he had told him many times that Steve was forgiven, but the man was stubborn and didn’t let him talk. “I know, you already told me, but I- I made this for you.” Steve gave Peter a piece of paper. 

On the paper was a beautiful drawing of Peter in the purple dress that he had been wearing when Steve had discovered his secret. Peter was startled out of his stunned silence when his dad gently took the paper from his hands.

Tony simply whistled when he saw the drawing. “Aunt Peggy had told me you could draw, Rogers, but this is something else.” Steve looked at Tony, in shock.

“Au-Aunt Peggy? But you-you weren’t-” 

Tony snorted, irked. “I went to her grave later, Rogers, because there was an emergency, and if there was something Aunt Peggy could understand, it was emergencies. She was Howard’s friend, and my godmother.” Peter, who had been told the story, silently stroked his dad’s back in support as he continued. “We also fought a lot when you came back.” Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Tony didn’t let him. “Not that it’s any of your business, Capsicle, but who do you think covered the truth about Howard’s death? Who do you think had enough power for that? Peggy Carter. She let me think my father killed my mom because he was a fucking alcoholic.”

Steve looked as if he had swallowed a lemon, grimacing. “I didn’t know. I am sorry, Tony.”

Tony lifted his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He lifted the paper with Steve’s drawing on it, looking at it pensively. “You’re very talented. We should make you an art studio. There is an empty room with great lighting.” Tony turned to Peter to watch him. “What d’you think kid? Wanna design it?” 

Peter felt excited to be offered this opportunity; he nodded with way too much enthusiasm. It made Tony smile, proud.

“You’re gonna make some blueprints, and we will see with the Captain what he needs and likes. No, Cap, don’t argue, it will be good training for the kid. Now, Steve, if you don’t mind, I was having brunch with my kid.”

Peter only had 30 seconds to thank Steve for the drawing and promise him he would make the best art studio there was before Steve left. After Brunch, Peter framed the drawing and put it on his shelf with the piece of his first skirt and the picture of his dad in a dress.

--

Later that day, while Peter and Tony were looking at a movie, before heading out for a diner with Aunt May, someone crashed into their quarters through the window.

Tony was ready to fight in seconds; his watch changed into a piece of armor around his right fist, while his left arm pushed Peter behind him, only to find that it was Thor, son of Odin, that had crashed on the ground. Peter couldn’t help but find it kind of cute that his dad would try to protect Peter with his body when Peter could take the most damage.

“For fuck’s sake, Point Break, what the ever-loving fuck?” Tony let the gauntlet recede back into his watch and put his hand on his heart. “I have a heart condition, you know? And we have doors. FRI, baby, tell everyone in the compound there is no immediate emergency. Put the compound in code orange until further notice,” Tony turned to look at Peter, seeing the pink skirt, the hoodie, and the panicked glances his kid was giving, then added, “Tell them there is no need to come and lock the quarters immediately.” 

Peter relaxed some and started to play with the hem of his skirt. 

“I apologize, Man of Iron. It seems like I missed the door.” Thor stood up from where he had crashed, and he opened his arms to hug Tony. “It has been too long my friend. How are you doing?” Tony frowned, but he let the god hug him. 

After they separated, Tony started to give instructions to FRIDAY for the reparations while Thor turned to look at Peter. There were a few seconds where Thor paused to take in how Peter was dressed before he widened his eyes.

Before Peter could react, Thor bowed deeply before speaking. “Good day, Lady Peter.” 

Peter winced. Why would he be a lady? Just because he was wearing a skirt?

“I-I, no, Thor. I-I am a man.” Peter hated how his voice shivered. 

Thor righted himself, beaming at Peter as if nothing had just happened. “Good, how are you doing Man of Spiders?” 

Peter looked at the god, completely lost by what had just happened. “I-I am fine? Thank you, mister Thor,” Peter said with a small voice. 

The god nodded happily. “I am happy to hear that.” Thor promptly turned to Tony. “Man of Iron, I am in great need of a favor.” 

Tony scowled looking at the damage. “Is it more important than repairing the hole in my wall?” 

Thor’s face became serious in a blink, making Peter shiver. “I am afraid it is really important, my friend,” Thor said in a deep voice. 

--

The meeting had been going on for hours, and Peter was exhausted. 

Thor wanted their help to get some information out of his brother Loki. The Asgardians had a reason to think that Loki hadn’t been the one behind the invasion and could even have been a victim of the scepter like Barton and the others, but Loki wouldn’t talk. Thor hoped that maybe someone on Earth could help them because they had tried everything.

The news was welcomed by an uproar, led by Hawkeye and Fury, and had calmed down after Thor had explained that if his fears were correct, there was something worse coming to Earth. He also promised that they wouldn’t need to bring Loki for them to interrogate him and that there was a magic mirror they could use to talk to him.

It was decided the mirror would be locked in Tony’s lab, the most secure room at the compound.

However, they all forgot Peter had unlimited access to the room.

--

The first time Peter saw Loki, Peter was walking along the glass walls of the main lab. He could see Natasha and Maria Hill looking frustrated at a mirror. In the mirror, there was a gorgeous woman with long, raven black hair; she had piercing green eyes, green lipstick, and she was wearing a stunning, black leather dress. 

If Peter hadn’t been gay, and stupidly in love attracted to Bucky, he knew that he could have fallen for this beautiful lady.

Then his brain started to work again and realization clicked: The woman was Loki. Loki was wearing (and rocking) a dress. He looked like a woman, but how? When she/he/the God of Mischief saw Peter, they winked. Peter startled and simply walked faster to the B-Lab where Bruce was waiting for him.

--

Peter couldn’t get Loki out of his mind. The God didn’t look uncomfortable wearing a dress or looking like a woman in front of his enemies. 

After some days, Peter decided to go to the main source of information about Loki: Thor.

“Oh, yes, Loki sometimes, uhm, switches? Mother always said to respect the gender he looks like, but you know that Loki is my brother, so it was difficult at first.” Thor massaged his neck, uneasy. “But then, Loki started to play vicious pranks on the people who would call him a man when he was dressed like a woman. So, I learned to, uh, call Loki a lady when he wears a dress.”

And then Peter understood. “That's why you called me a lady the other day!” 

Thor nodded. “But luckily you don’t ask me to call you a woman.” 

Peter frowned. “Why do you say luckily? I mean, I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking someone to call you a woman if… you feel like a woman?” Thor, confused, looked at Peter and was about to reply, but Tony (since when had he been in the room?) answered first, making Peter and Thor startle.

“No, there is nothing wrong, Peter. Loki is genderfluid, which means that they don’t identify themself as having a fixed gender.” Tony, who was at the door, walked into the room and up to Peter. “We asked Loki and he said you could use the pronouns depending on what he looks like. It’s easier because Loki is a shifter, and can change depending on his moods. But if you ever meet another genderfluid person, you can just ask them what gender they identify with at that moment.” 

Peter nodded. It made sense. 

Thor looked a bit crushed when he started to speak again. “So, it’s not only Loki?” Tony simply shook his head. “Oh. I think I need to talk to my br-Loki.” With those words, the god left the room.

--

Peter did some research about genders - Tony helped - and he concluded that he was a man that liked to cross-dress and that there was nothing wrong with that. Peter had felt very loved that his dad, who was always so busy, had taken the time to explain all of those terms to Peter until they found the ones that felt right.

But Peter was a curious person, and it was what led him to be bitten by a radioactive spider in the first place... Peter wanted to talk to Loki. He wanted to talk about the dress, and about being genderfluid. He knew that the god was not a good being, but Loki was already in prison. What could go wrong?

--

“The mighty Avengers are sending me a child, now? Interesting.” Loki’s bitter words made Peter flinch. Peter silently closed the door behind him, before he entered the lab.

“No. I- I mean, I am an Avenger, but they didn’t send me.” Peter nervously played with the plaid shirt he was wearing that day.

“Then why are you here?” 

Peter lifted his head and looked directly at Loki for the first time. He noted that Loki was in a male form. 

“I learned that you are genderfluid. I- I just wanted to talk.” 

Loki’s face softened a little bit. “Oh, yes. People of Midgard have been strangely open-minded about it.” His face then hardened again. “What do you want? Do you want to see the shift? Do you want me to become a female?” 

Peter winced. 

“What? No! Only if it’s what you want. But, no, who would want you to do that? You’re not some kind of animal.” Peter was horrified, just thinking about it. Loki huffed but said nothing, watching Peter with piercing eyes. Peter took a deep breath and gathered his courage. “I-I like to wear dresses. It is called cross-dressing here.” 

Loki looked at Peter like he was analyzing Peter’s very soul. “Why are you telling me this, human?” he seemed perplexed.

“I saw you in that dress the last time, and you were gorgeous. I mean, that dress, it looked like it had been made just for you.” Peter couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice. Loki raised an eyebrow, but Peter could see that he was fighting a smile.

“That would be because it was crafted for me. I am a prince of Asgard, little one.” The reply was unexpected, and Peter felt his eyes open with shock that was rapidly replaced by glee.

“Oh yes, my da- Mr. Stark let a tailor come to the tower, and he wanted to tailor some things, but I wasn't ready yet. Mr. Stark said that the man could come back later. ” 

Loki didn’t fight his smile this time.

“And why weren’t you ready, yet, dear?”

--

Peter and Loki talked a big part of the night until Peter started to yawn too much, then Loki sent him to his room. As days went on, after his patrol and doing some homework, Peter visited every night to talk about stuff with Loki.

--

“By the Norns! Dear Spider, why would you not simply tell the man that you want him?” Loki asked, sitting against the wall of his prison.

“What? No! He doesn’t feel that way about me,” Peter answered stubbornly while painting his nails with a green nail polish that had been approved by Loki.

“You won’t know until you try, dear.” Peter shrugged and changed the subject.

--

Of course, after a visit one night, they were discovered. While Tony and Natasha (and Bucky) hadn’t been really happy about it, there was nothing they could do or say to change Peter’s mind.

--

“You what?” Peter asked, dumbfounded.

“I stabbed the mongrel,” Loki answered, way too smugly if you asked Peter.

“Because he slapped your ass? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

“Oh my sweet, sweet, little Spider. If you let men get away with unwanted touching, they will think it is alright to do it again and again. No one should dare touch a lady like that without consequences.” Loki played with the knife that had been in his hand since they started to talk that day.

“Yes, but still, Thor is your brother.” Peter never had had a sibling, but if he had, he wouldn’t have stabbed them, for sure.

“After that, neither Thor, nor any of the savages he called ‘friends’, ever touched me without my consent.” The smile Loki sent his way made Peter shiver.

“Yeah, ok, fair.” The god did heal fast, so Peter guessed that it was okay-ish.

--

Peter had been surprised when a raven had given Peter two identical letters one morning after breakfast. He was even more surprised when the letters ended up being Loki’s complete confession. One had been addressed to ‘The Mighty Avengers’ and the other to ‘Sweet Spider’. 

Loki explained how he had fallen into Thanos’ lap after the destruction of the rainbow bridge; he mentioned the torture, the scepter, and how the beating that the Hulk gave him had helped him evade his conditioning. He also laid out Thanos' strengths and weaknesses, including how and when to beat him.

At the end, Loki wrote that he would never have written his confession if it weren’t for Peter. 

Peter then took the last page, where Loki had drawn them both and had it framed to be placed on his beloved shelf.

[cellsshapedlikestars]

Hello!

I love all your work so much and I saw that you were going to be taking a break from your Bachelor universe so I wanted to throw some prompts your way to maybe help get some other creative juices flowing *waggles eyebrows*

1) switched at birth AU

2) Everyone already knows their dating AU

3) Law and Order (SVU AU)

4) you’ve got mail AU

Thank you anon, I'm glad you like my writing!

Now that I've finished my Bach fic, I've been at a bit of a loss what I want to do next. Maybe it's because I'm all out of new ideas, maybe it's because work has been absolutely hectic, but my creative brain is completely empty. So I figured, why not try to do one of these prompts?

Here's the thing: I have never seen SVU or You've Got Mail. And I'm pretty sure Switched at Birth is also a TV show I have never seen? When I saw "everyone already knows" my immediate thought was "oh! like in Friends!" but then I remembered I have absolutely read that fic somewhere?? Like someone already wrote that for Jonsa. (I tried to find it again but have had no luck.)

So I chose switched at birth as a concept - I'm not sure if you meant the TV show or not, but I just wrote whatever popped into my brain.

A warning: this turned out a bit more angsty than I intended, and isn't necessarily Jonsa? It is if you squint. A few other notes, Alayne is a completely separate person from Sansa, Lysa is not related to Catelyn, and Baelish never knew Catelyn either. Sorry if it's confusing and/or not at all what you were looking for!

.

.

Sansa feels as if the world has dropped out from beneath her.

They all sit in the drawing room of what she can only describe as a mansion (and she knows that next to her, Father is likely seething. This is the kind of money he aspires to, but will never be able to reach. He will never have a name. Father is a Baelish, he could never be a Stark.)

She stares at the family sitting opposite and her heart sticks in her throat at the sight of them – the mother, the three sons, they all have the same copper hair that she does and she swallows against the rising tears.

This is what she could have had, she thinks as she averts her eyes, but she only manages to catch sight of the family portrait above the mantel. A father, a mother, siblings. She could have had all of this, if not for the slip-up of an overworked, underpaid nurse sixteen years ago. She could have been Alayne Stark. Instead she is Sansa Baelish.

Switched at birth.

Alayne sits with her family (that should be Sansa's family), and she doesn't look as out of place as she should. Her dark hair matches Mr. Stark's – matches the other daughter, Arya. Alayne fits right in.

Sansa sits with Father (no, not her father; the man who raised her) on the opposite couch and wonders if her Mother (no, not her mother) had known, somehow. Is that why Mother had always been so cruel to her? Why she always seemed to hate Sansa for reasons she could never figure out? Perhaps Mother had known, somehow, that Sansa wasn't hers. Sansa remembers reading fairy stories of Changelings – how the mother would know, insist the child wasn't hers, how no one ever believed her. Is that why Mother threw herself off the roof all those years ago?

“Well this is fucking awkward,” the girl, Arya, mutters, and it breaks the silence as Mr. Stark sighs and presses a hand over his face and Mrs. Stark begins to scold her for her language and impropriety. Sansa watches Alayne laugh, and she feels more than ever like an intruder. She may share the Stark blood, but it seems as if Alayne and Arya are more alike than not. And by the way the brothers are trying to hide their own laughter, it seems Alayne fits in with all of them.

Perhaps it wasn't a mistake to switch them, Sansa thinks bitterly. Perhaps the Starks are better for having Alayne.

….

She is forced to get to know the Stark family, though she does not think she wants to. She doesn't want to look at their life and wish it could have been hers – wish that Ned Stark with his kind eyes and calm voice could have been her father. Wish that Catelyn Stark with her smiles and her freshly baked cookies could have been her mother. Wish that she could have been surrounded by siblings and dogs and even two strange psuedo-adopted-but-not-really brothers that she meets later on named Jon and Theon. The Stark household is chaotic and confusing and Sansa tells herself she would have hated growing up here.

….

She isn't surprised to find that she's not sad Father isn't her real father. In fact, there's a sort of joy inside her that when she turns eighteen, she can be free of him. He is still her legal guardian, the courts have decided, but she has less than two years before she is free and they aren't actually related and so she doesn't have to feel guilty about her dreams of leaving him.

It grows inside her as the weeks and months go by – a hatred she has never truly let herself feel before. She hates him, despises him. She always has.

Catelyn Stark is insistent on getting to know her because Sansa is her daughter, but Sansa can tell that Father has no real desire to get to know his own real daughter. He does not care about Alayne – no, what he cares about is ingratiating himself into the Stark family. She wonders if the Starks can see it like she can. She hopes not – she doesn't want them to think she's only coming to these weekly meetings for their money and their name.

In all honestly, she's not actually sure why she keeps coming to these meetings. All they do is remind her that the Starks will never truly be her family. All they do is highlight how much Father cares about social climbing. These meetings are painful and every week when she finally gets home and takes a shower and gets into her pajamas and climbs into bed, she sobs into her pillow for what could have been.

…

“You know the party's inside, right?”

Sansa startles out of her reverie and whirls around, heart pounding, to find Jon Snow standing behind her, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket.

It's Christmas and the snow is thick on the ground and she's shivering in the thin wrap that she came outside with, her coat in a closet where Mrs. Stark had taken it hours earlier.

“Are you allowed to be smoking?” she asks instead of answering and he laughs, pulling one out of the pack and placing it between his lips.

“I'm eighteen,” he shrugs, speaking around the cigarette dangling out of his mouth. His hands come up and he lights it, with one cupped around the end against the cold winter wind.

“I can't imagine Mrs. Stark approves of smoking,” she sniffs, then shakes her head no when Jon holds the pack out to her in offering. She watches his mouth twitch into a smile for a moment, like he knew she wouldn't take one, before putting the pack back in his coat pocket.

“Seems you don't approve, either.”

“Well, I am her daughter.” She says it and means it to be a joke, but the words come out soft and it wavers at the end.

Jon watches her for a moment, then unzips his coat and shrugs it off and holds it out to her and she stares at it blankly, her mind not processing the gesture. He shakes the coat, like he's insisting she take it and she finally does, slipping it on and then closing her eyes at the immediate warmth of it.

“I get it,” Jon says after a while, when he's halfway down to the filter, clouds of smoke drifting up into the night sky. “I mean, not exactly, I'm not sure there's anyone who can understand... you know-” he gestures at her. “But I get what's it's like - to be a Stark, but not. They practically raised me, but I'm not... I'll never actually be one of them.”

“I used to read fairytales,” she admits, turning her face from him because it's easier to talk into the dark, snow-covered landscape than him. “About secret princesses, and the king and queen were always so happy to have their daughter back. In the stories, there was never another princess who already took her place. Who fit in better.”

Alayne is a perfect Stark, she thinks. Over the months, she's seen it – how Alayne plays football and hockey with her brothers and sisters, makes jokes that Sansa would never. She's nothing like Sansa, who always preferred reading poetry to playing outside, with perfect manners and perfect posture. Cold and reserved. She wishes she were more like Alayne – more like a Stark.

She hears Jon sigh and take one last drag of the cigarette before he puts it out in the snow. “You're a lot like Cat, you know,” he says finally, and she feels something twist painfully in her chest. “And Bran. I mean, I don't know you that well, I guess, but...”

She shakes her head because he's wrong. She's nothing like any of the Starks (though she's not a Baelish, either). Jon sighs again, louder this time, with more annoyance.

“You are,” he insists, and she finally turns to face him again and opens her mouth to argue, but he gets there first. “You'd see it if you let yourself. If you actually tried. Cat's... Cat is trying so hard. You should see how she gets before you come over. Everyone is freaking out about it but you won't even try to get to know them. And I might not get how you feel, but Alayne? Have you even tried to talk to her?”

That painful twist in her chest tightens, it swoops down into her belly and up into her throat. “I am-”

“Like I said, I can't imagine how it feels, you know? And I'm sure it's a lot, and you're allowed to feel how you feel, but the Starks are... they want you here, I promise. But if you don't want to be, if you don't want them in your life, maybe this should all stop, cause it's hurting them and I think it's hurting you. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to force it if it's not what you want.”

Her mind is blank, she can't think of a single argument, though she wants to argue. She wants to say that Alayne hasn't tried talking to her, either. She wants to insist that she is trying, but... but she's not. Not really. She's holding herself at a distance, she's already decided she doesn't belong.

“What if they don't like me?” The words slip out of her, unbidden, her voice barely a whisper. It wavers in the dark. (Her deepest fear – that if she lets them get close to her, they'll decide she isn't worth it, that they don't want her.)

She's not sure what response she was expecting, but it's not for Jon to smile – he does, gives her a little half smile and raises his shoulders in a shrug. “I don't know you that well yet, but so far I like you just fine. And I'm not even a Stark.”

“You seem like a Stark,” she tells him, and watches something flicker across his face and she doesn't know him well enough yet to tell what it is.

“I'm not actually related,” he says, though she already knows this. “Not by blood or anything.” For a moment he brings his hand up to rub at the back of his neck and he suddenly won't look at her and she wonders if she said something wrong. “We should go back inside,” he seems to change the subject and she hesitates, but then he holds out his hand. After a moment, she takes it, and follows him back inside, out of the freezing night air and into the warmth of the house. In the distance, she can hear voices and laughter, she can smell the cinnamon and pine in the air.

She could get lost here, if she let herself.

“There you are,” Mrs. Stark looks up as they enter the kitchen, and Jon lets go of her hand. Mrs. Stark narrows her eyes at Jon, then looks at the back door, like she guesses what he was doing out there and doesn't approve.

“I'm uh...” Jon starts, looking between Mrs. Stark and her, “I should get back to the party.” Before he goes, he turns back to her and she remembers she's still in his coat and she hurriedly takes it off, feeling heat high up on her cheeks as she does. “Try,” he says, voice too low for Mrs. Stark to hear. Then he takes his coat and leaves the kitchen – leaves her in the kitchen. Alone. With Mrs. Stark.

“Are you having fun?” Mrs. Stark's voice is light, but there's something underneath, a hesitance.

“I am,” she says back, wondering if she should make some excuse and leave. Wondering if Mrs. Stark doesn't want to be here talking to her.

(Try.)

“I wanted to thank you for inviting me,” she blurts out, and Mrs. Stark looks at her sharply. “I had some of the pumpkin pie, it was really good.”

It's such a stupid, nonsense thing to say, but Mrs. Stark looks pleased.

“It's a family recipe,” Mrs. Stark says, and then – a bit of hesitation - “I could teach it to you, if you'd like.”

Sansa's breath catches in her throat and it takes her a moment to say, “I like baking.”

“So do I. I could never get Alayne or Arya into it.” Mrs. Stark says it with a fond smile and Sansa feels something break open inside of her and she realizes, she knows, that she wants this. She wants to know this family, she wants to be a part of it. She doesn't want to take Alayne's place, she never could, but she...

“You could teach me,” she whispers. “Sometime. I'd like that.”

“So would I,” Mrs St- her mother, says with a smile that lights up the room.

[deniigi]

To carry on the MCU Peter anon: would you ever write a multiverse / blend where your Peter meets a more MCU Peter (actual MCU Peter not the fanon created one)? And/or initimable Peter meeting another version you’ve created?

Also, would you ever write a MJ (my beloved) POV fic?

Hey boo

So Question 1: I did a little piece with a MCU/Inimitable crossover here

It’s not quite the same, since it’s from the pov of MCU Peter.

The idea of young Inimitable Peter meeting someone who he could have so easily been if he’d not gotten involved with Team Red and had instead stuck closer to Stark would be an interesting thought, I must say. Not so interesting that I’d write it, but I’d def have half a drink and then a muse on the idea and how it would unfold.

For MJ, I have written some stuff from her POV! ( See just roll with it from the Dumpster Fires Verse)

I also wrote a terrifying piece a long ass time about about some non-NYC vigilantes trying to step in and overthrow the vigilante/Superpeople order of things by trying to goad Peter, Matt, Wade, etc into a fight. MJ narrates it and it’s sort of dark so I’m putting it under the cut here.

trigger warnings for violence (like Netflix DD and Punisher levels), violence against minors at school, and some pretty heavy injuries.

-------

“Michelle?” a voice she’d never heard in her life rasped into the classroom door. The smell of iron and smoke and god, blood—that was blood she was smelling—it was all suffocating.

“Michelle, honey, c’mon, sweetheart. We ain’t got time for being scared right now,” the voice said.

She’d never thought that she’d have to consider the fact that those were boots coming towards her, not sneakers, not shoes.

The butt of a rifle swung down into her view. Joined the boots right in front of her. Bones popped as the Punisher knelt down.

She knew him by the skull on his vest.

She knew him as a monster. Not a hero.

He held out a hand to her.

“I got you, baby girl,” he promised, “Ain’t no one gonna touch you.”

His hands were smeared in some kind of grease. Gun oil? Soot? It didn’t matter. He stayed crouching low. He didn’t wear a mask.

His nose was kind of crooked. And his eyes were deep set.

They were brown.

He said nothing, just held out his big, greasy hand.

She took it.

 --

 The Punisher’s grip was calloused and firm and he kept her behind him at all times. He was even bigger than she’d ever imagined; bigger than Mr. Murdock. Bigger than her dad. Maybe the around the same size and build as Wade.

He didn’t explain things; he used his hands to talk.

Stay behind me, said the press of his rough palm. Don’t let go, stay behind me.

Out front, the fingers said later, now curled over the tops of her own. Walk, walk fast. Out front.

Stay behind.

Out font.

Down.

He made her kneel with him and peeled off his vest. He didn’t give her a choice.

It was heavy. So heavy. He strapped it onto her as tight as it would go.

“Home stretch, darlin’,” he finally said with words, the noise of bullets and panic around them seemed quieter with him talking. She found that she didn’t want to leave him. “You go when I say, alright? You go when I say and you don’t look back, alright?”

No.

No, he would die if she left. He needed to wear the vest.

“Look at me, Michelle.” She did, through the tears. “You don’t look back.”

She nodded.

 --

 He said go.

She didn’t look back.

Not until Mr. Murdock was pulling her away, shouting at the top of his voice for an ambulance. She’d never heard that gravel in his tone before.

“Michelle, look at me,” Mr. Murdock told her, grabbing her cheeks and pulling her gaze away from the classroom where the Punisher was dying.

“Look at me, honey, look.”

There wasn’t much to look at, she couldn’t see his eyes through his mask.

“Are you hurt? Where are you hurt? Show me where you’re hurt.”

It didn’t matter, she couldn’t feel it anymore. The Punisher was dying in there, he needed his vest.

“Frank’s fine,” Mr. Murdock told her. He pulled her head back to face him, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. It was like he was looking down at the space between them. One of her hands felt warm on top, cold at the fingers. It didn’t want to cooperate as she pulled at the vest. “He’s fine, he’s gonna be fine. Fuck. Fuck. Put your arms around my neck, honey, c’mon. There you go, good girl. Alright, up you go. No, one more time. There you go, I got you. It’s okay, I got you.”

Mr. Murdock was stronger than he looked and he didn’t seem to mind that the vest was digging into his chest. His voice didn’t seem as loud, even though her head was right next to his throat.

She couldn’t tell if he was talking to her anymore.

 --

 She woke up.

There was white and blue and gray everywhere.

Her mom was burgundy. Her sweater was. Then she was tears, tears pouring out of her eyes, down over her lips. Her eyes weren’t burgundy, they were neon. Neon pink.

 --

 Her mom held her hand while the doctors explained to her that she’d have a lot of scarring, but she would be okay. She’d need some physical therapy to make the wrist do what it was supposed to again, but the bullet hadn’t caused irreparable damage.

The same for the wound in her ankle.

She’d be okay.

So why did she want to cry so bad?

 --

 She remembered why.

 --

 Peter was okay. He was in the room one over, attached to a lot of machines, but he was okay. His face wasn’t as clean as hers, the doctors and nurses hadn’t had the same kind of time to wash him down, they’d been busy trying to save his life.

His aunt had stepped out to go get things to wash his face for him. She was still wearing her scrubs. She worked in the ICU upstairs.

 --

 Ned was okay, he had a row of stitches from the bump in his wrist to his elbow. He told her tiredly that once he turned eighteen, he’d get a tattoo to cover the mark. Maybe laces, like sneaker, he told her.

Maybe stitches again, to remind himself what he’d almost lost.

 --

 Flash was okay. Abe was okay. Melanie and Gabriella were okay.

They were all okay.

Including the Punisher.

 --

 He came to see her in the hospital, he’d swiped a staff ID to do it. She thought that that was maybe overkill, but this was the man who’d offered his life for hers.

He was startled and went wide-eyed and stiff when she threw her arms around his broad chest and started crying. But he loosened up and told her that she shouldn’t be putting weight on her ankle. He let her hug him sitting on the bed instead.

He didn’t say things were okay like the others did. He grabbed her chin and shook it a little and said, “You’re fucking brave, girl. You’re so fucking brave.”

She didn’t believe him.

She’d just gone and hadn’t looked back.

“Sweetheart, there are times when you think, and times when you move. And both of them are different kinds of bravery,” he told her.

Different kinds of bravery.

“Do you mean courage?” she asked him.

He cocked his head. He had stitches of his own at the top of his cheekbone. Bruises from his temple to his chin.

“No, courage, that’s something else,” he said, “I’m talking about bravery.”

She didn’t understand. He said that he didn’t have a better way of explaining it. He smoothed her hair back and said that he was glad that she was alive and that she was going to get better.

He’d been the one who’d carried Peter out. He’d had to send her out first because he couldn’t carry both of them.

Mr. Murdock’s voice was raw and hoarse because he’d come running from the fire in the classroom next door and he’d been trying to find Peter. He was the only one who could hear Frank Castle through the fire and the bullets and the creak of the burning building. And Mr. Castle had told him that he couldn’t take both Peter and Michelle.

She remembered now.

Mr. Castle had been talking to himself the whole time they’d been running and hiding through that building. He’d been talking to himself, but he’d really been talking to Mr. Murdock who was trying to find a way in and a way out that wouldn’t get him killed.

There hadn’t been one, there were too many guns. The second she’d started running, Frank Castle had whistled, hard and loud and piercing and all the guns had turned on him.

She didn’t look back.

She thought that he hadn’t either.

“Thank you for saving us,” she told him.

He shook his head.

“Red’s your man, he called me screaming. Man never calls nobody in that tone of voice. You’d have thought y’all were his babies dying in there.”

Okay.

Okay, so was Mr. Murdock okay?

“Nah, girl. I don’t think he is. But I think he’ll get there.”

 --

 Mr. Murdock pretended like he was okay, but the way he wrapped his arms around both Michelle and Peter when they came to his office said that he was very much not. It wasn’t an awkward hug, even though there were two of them.

It was firm.

It was tight.

And Peter started crying and it was hard, really really hard not to join him.

Mr. Murdock let them go and pressed his forehead to Peter’s and said nothing. He just held Peter’s shoulder with one hand and smoothed a hand through his hair with the other. Peter wasn’t making words so much as he was making distressed sounds, but Matt understood him.

“He’s alright, Pete,” he said. “He’s alright.”

Who?

 --

 Wade was fine, somehow. There wasn’t a bullet hole in him. There wasn’t a scratch on him, he claimed, trying to smile and make Peter stop sobbing his heart out.

Matt told him that he wasn’t fucking helping and to just be fucking honest for once in his goddamn life.

Matt’s hands shook a little at his sides. His cuticles were still stained gray from the soot.

Wade looked from him to Peter a little helplessly and then at Michelle and he sobered. He held out an arm for her to come closer.

He was big, too. His ribs felt different from Mr. Castle’s.

“Where’s Ned?” he asked, pressing a hand on the back of Peter’s head to encourage him to direct his upset into his chest.

Ned was at home. Ned’s mom and dad were too upset to let him out of their sight for now.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Wade said. He didn’t hug her as tight as Matt had, he more laid a heavy arm across her shoulders and pulled a bit.

 --

 They weren’t allowed to go back to school. The whole campus was closed, there’d been significant damage to the south side and there were too many photos and crime scenes that needed to be documented.

Peter’s wounds were already mostly healed, while hers ached and burned with every movement.

He apologized for not getting to the room she’d been in faster.

That was some dumbass shit, that was.

“Who did it?” she asked him.

Peter set his jaw.

“We don’t know. Wade and Mr. Castle said they’re finding out. They aren’t letting me or Matt in on it.”

What did that mean?

“I think it means that it’s something bigger than us.”

And what did that mean?

“Uh, maybe bigger isn’t the right word. Lower.”

Lower. Like?

“Someone underground. Deeper in than me and Double D. We’re—we’re mostly surface level. Wade and Mr. Castle, they’re deep under there.”

“Were they trying to kill you, Peter?” she asked him.

He took a long shaky breath.

“I really hope not.”

 ---

 They weren’t trying to kill Peter, Mr. Murdock eventually told them, having had them come to his home for this news. He had them sit on his faux leather couch as he said this.

He was trying to say something without words, Michelle thought.

She thought she was reading it right.

It was personal. This was personal.

“Were they trying to kill you, Matt?” she asked. He shook his head.

No.

They weren’t trying to kill anyone, they’d been trying to draw them out. As many of them as possible.

“They’re taking stock of us,” Matt said to his fists. His knuckles never seemed to heal. “Making lists. They knew a school would bring everyone out and we fell for it like fucking chumps.”

What did that mean?

“Means there’s something big brewing, and I want nothing to do with it.”

That’s not what his knuckles said.

“Peter,” Matt said, “Whoever they are, they’re going to target you. You’re young, that makes you an easy mark. Do not engage, do you understand?”

Peter understood.

 ---

 Peter was hurt. He was hurt every day over the next few weeks. He had bullet wounds and knife wounds and it got to the point where, even after school reopened, he didn’t come back. It wasn’t suspicious, a lot of kids didn’t. Their parents were still terrified, maybe looking into other academies.

Peter was just sleeping. He had to sleep to heal and he had to heal because the second he set foot out the door there was someone there waiting for him and he couldn’t engage. He just had to take it. Suit or no suit.

MJ would have hit back by now, she was amazed that he hadn’t.

“The second I hit back, they’ll take that as permission,” Peter told her quietly at his desk in his room. May had bandaged his arm for him. She wasn’t concerned about school, she didn’t want Peter to even leave the house.

“Permission to do what?” she asked.

“To engage,” Peter said.

What did that mean, though?

“They’ll kill me.”

He couldn’t know that. He couldn’t—

“They don’t care who I am. It’ll be a message. As soon as I hit back, that makes whatever happens next fair game, so I can’t do anything.”

“Can’t Stark help you?” she asked. He sighed and looked at his bandaged wrist.

“If it gets any worse, he and May said I’ll stay with him for a while. But they’ll just move onto the next guy, and then the next guy, until someone engages. We can’t avoid them forever.”

‘We,’ Peter said. That meant that this was beyond him. This was everyone on that list those guys had shot her, stabbed Ned, scared everyone to make. The list that had set their school on fire.

 ---

It got worse.

Peter didn’t come to school.

He couldn’t breathe very well. He slept even more, but not at home. He slept at Stark Tower, where Tony Stark could guard him, because no one else could at the minute.

 ---

 It got worse because they started picking on Matt.

Matt as Mr. Murdock most certainly would not have engaged, but Matt as Matt was struggling. He was very obviously struggling.

Just sit back and take it, was what he had to do. Unlike Peter, who slept and had somewhere to go when things got too bad, Matt didn’t heal and Matt didn’t have anyone to lean on.

He stopped showing up to work.

Neither Foggy or Karen said anything about it. They carried on with the cases and the work and the filing as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing happened. As if they weren’t both suffocating, trying to carry their friend’s pain with their own.

Michelle went to see him and Foggy told her to be as quiet as she could be.

He slept with a broken arm laid up on his chest. He shivered in his sleep. His knuckles weren’t bruised, but his neck was and he didn’t acknowledge anyone who spoke to him.

There was a woman there with him, she was his sister, MJ remembered her. Elektra was watching him with silent, stoic fury in her eyes. It showed nowhere else on her.

“She’s protecting him,” Foggy explained as he made them all tea. “Well, maybe not protecting, but guarding him so he feels like he can sleep.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, not when Spiderman and Daredevil could only rest in unconsciousness.

“Why are they doing this?” she asked him. Foggy sighed and set the kettle down.

“Because they’re cruel and they’re jealous and they think that this will get them respect,” he said.

Respect.

Psh.

All it did was make her mad.

“If you show them that you’re angry, Michelle, that’s as good as engaging. We can’t let them know that they’re getting to any of us.”

This was bullshit.

 ---

 Bullshit because Matt went to get groceries and didn’t come home and Wade had to go find him. They wouldn’t let Michelle see him, but she heard his sister screaming. She screamed at anyone who touched him, swore that she’d put the lights out of the next person who tried.

Foggy didn’t stop her.

Matt didn’t say anything.

He didn’t come to work and Foggy kept his office door closed.

Karen told Michelle that Elektra had taken Matt somewhere with her, where he would be safe. He wasn’t in Hell’s Kitchen. Elektra wouldn’t say where they’d gone, but she’d sent Foggy pictures so that he knew Matt was safe.

 ---

 It was bullshit because they were too scared to fuck with Wade or Castle, so instead they attacked Hawkeye the younger and Michelle heard through Wade that Hawkguy had nearly exploded in his anger. He couldn’t do anything, of course he couldn’t, that was how this game worked.

But he’d swapped his easy-going persona for the one he used when he worked with the Black Widow.

Wade said it was eerie to see him so quiet and focused. Locked onto his target.

The people trying to pick a fight, well, they were scared of Hawkeye.

 ---

 Not for long. They went in on both of Hawkeyes at the same time and soon Hawkeye the elder reached breaking point and called in the Widow so that he and his partner could get two minutes of peace. Just two.

 ---

 It was interesting how the second the Widow got involved, everything went topsy turvy.

Michelle had passed by the place where Wade had told her the Widow was standing guard and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Then she realized that whoever these guys were, they were really, really scared of the Widow.

Not so high and mighty now, huh, boys?

They abandoned the Hawkeyes and went after Jessica Jones.

 ---

 It went on and on like this for two, three, maybe even four weeks. People took as much as they could. They picked themselves up. Some limped into the offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page. Some limped, watched carefully by people, in the street.

They were stopped at all hours by guys in plain clothes who struck out without warning. Threw fists. Feet. Spat on people. And instead of fighting back, local bodies threw them off and ran away. Avoided confrontation. Put walls and doors and fences between themselves and the others as much as they could.

It was, in a way, amazing.

The level of restraint was super human.

 ---

 Then the new kids got cocky and shoved the Winter Soldier.

They were in for a lesson.

Michelle saw the conflict on the news. Five guys throwing themselves at Bucky Barnes, who was trying to buy a bottle of whiskey in peace.

He ignored them, counted out exact change.

He walked right through their group on the way out the door and they parted around him, then followed him out of the convenience store.

Camera phone footage showed him walking home, being heckled by these creeps. A few blocks, presumably, from his home he stopped walking and the gang of people drew in close around him.

And then they all leapt back.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t taking their shit, he’d apparently decided. Loud enough to be heard from the cameraman’s place across the street, he shouted, “Y’all have one more chance to get the fuck out of my way.”

Let no one say he didn’t warn them.

They went down hard and they went down fast and they all went down within a minute of each other.

Bucky Barnes held a guy by his throat and told them to call their motherfucking leader, he wanted to have a chat.

It was the beginning of the end.

 ---

 Do not engage went right out the window and MJ woke up to her phone sending her six thousand alerts not to take such-and-such road or to approach such-and-such area.

The news showed her Peter slamming his fist into a man’s face like he was born to do it.

The Man in the Mask was out in broad daylight, stalking towards those people who were suddenly trying to escape him. He picked them up and dropped them without so much as breaking the rhythm of his pace.

Ironman beat the shit out of twelve people in the company courtyard.

Hawkeye had switched his bow for a rifle.

The general advice from all city personnel was to stay the fuck inside.

This was war.

 ---

 And then it was over.

And everything was cleaned up and bodies were carted off if they were found.

Peter arrived to school.

Matt reappeared in his office.

They carried on like nothing had happened. But there was something about the aftermath of silence that made the day of brutality so much more violent.

Neither of them were smiling. They were cold, thawing slowly.

Michelle thought of all the things they weren’t saying.

She thought she heard their combined bodies whisper, this is my city. This is our city. Get with it or go the fuck home.

She didn’t know if it made her feel better, but it certainly made her feel safe.

 --------

[naancypants]

maybe this is perfect

Alright here is my finalized repost of the fic I accidentally published yesterday, LOL. If you enjoy, I'd love some support on Ao3 (work link is below)! I wrote this after 2x12 (+ updated to reflect news about 2x13 & 2x15, hehe) as a sort of speculative, "personal ideal" confession scene for the finale episode.

Ao3 | 2,051 words

--------------------------

"Hey," Nancy says from behind, twisting both hands around the strap of her messenger bag. "Can we talk?"

At the sound of her voice, Ace straightens from in front of his locker. He lets out a close-mouthed sigh as the question sinks into his stomach, and when he turns towards her, the discomfort she's feeling becomes evident in her body language.

"Yeah."

A beat passes where neither makes a move.

Nancy, however, is the first to take a step, drawing in a shuddering breath. "You've been avoiding me... for a while now. Ever since the whole life-and-death thing with Daniel West. And I'm sorry that I was willing to let people die to save you. I thought you would understand, that you would've done the same thing-"

"It's not about the list," Ace cuts in with a shake of his head, "That was a long time ago."

In reality it had only been a few weeks since Nancy and Grant traded a hit list to a professional killer to spare Ace's life, but time seems to move inordinately slow in Horseshoe Bay.

"I know. But that was also the same time I called in for a favor with Celia Hudson..." she allows her sentence to drift off there, urging Ace to connect the unspoken dots.

He hadn't tried to hide his feelings on the whole Celia situation, especially whenever he and Nancy talked one-on-one; yet still, her ability to pinpoint the root of behaviors she already notices in him never fails to surprise.

"I just... wish you would have consulted me before you made a deal with the devil."

Nancy recalls a talk during which she was alone with Ace, where he'd briefly confessed his dismay at her recent dealings with the Hudson matriarch.

A string of monotone words all run together as she attempts to explain, "We already went over this, Ace. I-I-I had to figure out how to save you, there was no time to consider my options."

"Maybe it wasn't worth it."

Within a second, revulsion twists every feature on Nancy's face.

"I'm sorry, what?" she demands.

Ace doesn't elaborate. Instead he lifts his raincoat from its hook and shuts the door to his locker, staring down at the garment in his hands with a shamed expression. It isn't long before Nancy has his elbow in a firm grip.

"Hey," she convinces him to whirl around and face her. "You're worth it to me."

You're always worth it to me. You're worth everything to me. A thousand times over, she wants to say. But she doesn't.

"I guess that's my problem."

"Your problem is that I care about you?"

"I don't want to be the reason you sell your soul to the Hudsons."

Nancy blinks, her ferocity weakening as she pulls away. "Aren't I allowed to make my own choices?"

"Of course. But... that doesn't mean I have to like them."

The way he says it is so casual, so lacking in venom that it makes her stomach wrench. He doesn't realize that the only approval Nancy craves is his; she is willing to stand up against even the closest of people in her life - Nick, George, her own father - but not Ace. His opinion of her serves as a compass whenever Nancy is too tired or worn down to trust her own judgment. His opinion is the one that matters most.

"Then what do you want from me? Tell me what I can do to make it better."

It's the most fragile, the most desperate she thinks she's heard herself. Nancy Drew is independent and decisive and strong. So whose voice is it that wobbles in fear, laying down her pride in the hands of another?

If there's anything Nancy can't stand, it's being clouded over with emotion, but the tightness in her throat only warns of an oncoming flood.

"Honestly, Nancy, I don't know right now. Maybe just... help me understand why before you make these kinds of decisions. I don't want you to get hurt."

Their eyes linger for what feels like an eternity, distanced by walls that neither of them know how to tear down.

When Ace moves, he turns decisively away.

Panic beginning to swell in her chest, Nancy pushes past all the other emotions running through her mind - fear, guilt, uncertainty - and takes one last step into the room before he has the chance to get away.

"I did it because I love you."

If anything could stop him cold in his tracks, it's that particular confession. His eyes meet the floor in front of him, speechless and calculating, each second ticking by in tense silence. He turns to face her once more.

There in the center of the room she stands, the bold and courageous girl detective herself, looking smaller than ever. Her voice is barely above a whisper now, eyes in danger of spilling over, "Ace... I think I might be in love with you."

Ace stands motionless in awe, save for a swallow and quick shift of his weight.

When Nancy gets nervous she often rambles to relieve some of her tension. "I didn't know how to say it before, and I- have never actually been in love so maybe I didn't even know what I was feeling until recently, but, you were with Amanda Bobbsey and not in love with me and it's all... very confusing..."

Breath leaves her lungs as quickly as words leave her tongue, anxiety shaking her down to the core. She blinks when the self-awareness sets in; lowers her gaze to the floor for a length of awkward silence.

"Nancy."

Eventually she looks back up to find him just a few feet away now, having crossed the room sometime after she finished prattling on about nothing. His raincoat hits the bench.

"There are.. a lot of reasons why I can't do this right now." He indicates himself with a curved hand to his chest.

Though her heart sinks, Nancy's eyelids still flutter. "But you- you would? Hypothetically?"

His mouth flattens into something that's not quite a smile, eyes as earnest as ever. "It's just that... y'know, Amanda's only been gone for a week. And I don't want to lose what we have - what all of us have."

"You won't," Nancy states with a furrowed brow, "Why do you think you would lose us?"

He bobs his head a bit. "Things could get complicated between us. Especially considering... things."

"What do you mean? What kind of things?"

"Well, I'm not trying to point fingers, but... there is your track record. With relationships."

It doesn't escape her attention that he refuses to make eye contact when he says the last part. She tenses up and repeats, "My track record?"

Ace opens his mouth to soften the words, but the look on his face is enough to suffice as an apology. Nancy retreats on her own as three particular guys - Ned Nickerson, Owen Marvin and Gil Bobbsey - flash through her mind's eye. Guys she had used as a distraction, a rebound, and a means of sexual gratification, all of which Ace witnessed firsthand from the sidelines.

"Yeah I deserve that, don't I," she says quietly.

"No, you don't. That part's fine. It's about everything else."

"Everything else being the Hudsons, Amanda, and losing what we have."

He offers only a nod. Draws in a breath. "Nancy, I want to love you too. And I'm not saying that I don't, but..." his voice breaks, just a bit, but enough for Nancy to notice.

"...It's not the right time," she finishes for him with a resigned nod; "yeah," under her breath.

This time it's Nancy who won't meet Ace's eyes. She darts them all across the room in avoidance, lips pursing together. "I'm- I'm sorry. This is.. not really who I am and I probably shouldn't have said anything to begin with, but-"

"No - no, don't apologize," Ace says with the usual gentle firmness and a slight tilt of his head. "I'm glad you said something. Really glad. In fact, um, if you're not opposed... there is something I wouldn't mind trying before you go off to Columbia."

"Ha. Who says I'm getting into Columbia?" she asks sardonically, crossing her arms.

Ace gives a subtle grin of support. "You'll get into Columbia."

She stops to consider his words, but then emits a soft chuckle, smiling gratefully at her best friend as though there were no mistakes, no confession of feelings, no heartbreak to contend with.

Time drags on as his vague statement from before remains unaccounted for, though almost as if pulled by gravity, there's a mutual instinct that draws them closer together.

Along with instinct, however, is hesitation - a slowness in the way they line themselves up, a caution in the way they read each others' eyes. Gradually his hands find their way to her jawline and before she knows it, in stark contrast to their prior pace, her back is up against metal with the most satisfying warmth she's ever known on her lips.

Nancy's entire body lights on fire, so much that it takes a dazed moment before she is able to react. Her eyebrows lift as she takes full advantage of the moment, kissing him back with the fervor of months worth of pent-up feelings all finally coming to surface; hands crawl upwards from his arms, to his shoulders, and eventually land on either side of his neck.

For a few rapturous seconds, they allow themselves to melt entirely into each other with the realization that things won't be like this again for a while; not until they're able to overcome the doubts, the obstacles, the emotional walls that they both know would cause more harm than good if they were to pursue this now.

Maybe this is perfect. Maybe one kiss - one blissful, ravenous taste of just what it is they're missing out on is enough to satiate their appetites for the time being and prepare them for what's to come.

With one last surge forward, hands sliding down his chest, Nancy realizes that kissing Ace never felt this good in her dreams.

Then, sooner rather than later, it's over.

Though their lips disconnect, everything else remains. A breathless minute comes and goes before either have any words to speak.

"Are you- are you sure you don't want to change your mind?" Nancy finally asks through her teeth, eyes drifting down to his mouth more than once.

A smirk tugs at his face as he steps back, hands remaining on Nancy's forearms for perhaps a touch longer than necessary. "Few more of those and I might."

Nancy gives a wistful giggle, using her shoulders to launch herself away from the lockers right when her phone buzzes.

Ace watches with curiosity as she opens her latest text notification, but waits silently to be filled in.

"It's George. She says they're waiting for us at their place," Nancy murmurs with her brow lowered, looking at Ace for a potential answer to her confusion.

Rarely one to disappoint, Ace nods in recognition. "Oh yeah, they took it upon themselves to reschedule game night. I was supposed to tell you."

Nancy raises her eyebrows in good spirit. "Ah. Well, I'm sure glad you told me in plenty of time."

"Come to think of it, Bess pretty much insisted I be the one to tell you. The whole thing must've been a ruse."

Nancy shrugs. "Eh, you know what they say. What's done is done." she waits a beat before thumbing towards the back door over her shoulder. "Join me?"

"Yeah," Ace agrees as he grabs his raincoat and the pair start walking out. "Yeah but I have to warn you, none of what just transpired is going to have any affect on how badly I demolish you in Absurd Code Word."

"Wow, Ace, I think you're underestimating my game night abilities. Have you ever seen me in Absurd Code Word?"

"Don't need to."

"I see. Is it because I'm a girl?"

"C'mon, Nancy. You know me better than that."

The ease with which they're able to shift gears serves as a delicate reminder of how intrinsically they are connected; of the level of comfort and stability within their potential when the time is right.

Whenever that may be.