#i was kinda (understatement) zonked :)

[caremitthefrog]

i like to insert myself into fiction sometimes and at 2-3am the other day i wanted to know what i (and anyone around my height) would look like standing next to Gojo while using Shoko as a reference and apparently Shoko doesn’t have a listed height…hence…the math… in the end i ended up being right about the “exact” height difference i came up with while just eyeballing it… also Gojo is apparently listed as “above 6’3” so i just rounded it down (please don’t check my math 🔪) (a lot of thanks to @andreethier for helping)

[basicjetsetter]

Part III

♡ Pairing: Peter Parker x Black!FemaleReader

▹ Warnings: Mild Language, Small mention of suicide attempt, Start of the Slow Burn

▹ Words: 3.1k

▹ A/N: Get ready for the slowest slow burn of your life.

Peter Parker is your Soulmate.

Peter Parker is also Spider-Man.

Your bewildered brain tries to rapidly absorb this news as he swings you back onto your apartment’s roof and nimbly sets you down on your feet, safely away from the ledge.

Well, that explains all the times he went missing during school trips. Those days are like a distant memory now, but you hazily remember the day Spider-Man rescued your classmates from a collapsing elevator in the Washington Monument. It was all anyone in Midtown talked about for weeks.

The boy-next-door was your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man all this time. Shock lags in your system. For some weird reason, you aren’t that surprised by the sight of Peter in the Spider-Man suit or by the idea of him being an Avenger, and as you stand on this roof mere feet from him, all you're concerned about is what he might possibly say.

Your heart races as you skeptically watch him spin around to face you. 

He rubs a quick, nervous hand against the back of his neck and then, in a split second, pulls off his mask.

Time’s barely touched him, but then again, you long pieced together that your Soulmate must have suffered from the blip. His slightly disheveled hair is still the same chestnut brown, and his cute, boyish features remain intact. The only thing different is his eyes. Nothing extremely drastic changed about them, but even in the dark of night, you spot that they’re somehow more mature than you remember, older in a way that oddly aches a small place in your heart.

All while you scrutinize Peter’s exposed face and apprehensively stare into his eyes, part of you braces for the fireworks to explode and all the stars in the universe to align. This is it, isn’t it? The fated moment your childhood stories preached to be an epically magical experience? Aren’t you supposed to feel something? Anything?

A cricket chirps nearby.

Peter clears his throat, extends a hand to you, and sheepishly says, “Um, h-hi.”

You stare at his hand until it drops down to his side.

“Oh, geez!” he smacks a hand to his forehead. “Sorry, sorry. That was dumb. You probably aren’t thinking about that right now. Are you okay?”

It takes a while to part your lips, and once they’re open, all that comes out is, “Huh?”

“Are—are you okay? You just fell off that ledge over there,” he adds the last part with a gesture to the ledge, as if he’s trying to jog your memory.

You glance at the edge of the roof behind you, then slowly drag your gaze back to him. “Yeah.” Shaking your head, you repeat louder, “Yeah, I’m fine. It was… it was an accident.”

He blows out a relieved breath. “That’s great. Glad I got to you in time cause that would have been a nasty fall.”

You try to hide your flinch, but you’re sure he catches it because he immediately casts his eyes downward, mumbling more apologies while shuffling from one foot to another.

Sobering silence clouds the air around you as the last five minutes replay in your mind. You nearly died. You were seconds away from ending your life. Peter Parker saved you.

Gulping past the enormous lump in your throat, you whisper, “Thank you.”

Both sides of Peter’s mouth quirk up into a soft smile. “You’re welcome.” He pauses for a few beats, appearing to choose his next words carefully, then says, “So… you’re my Soulmate.”

Hearing him speak the words aloud thickens the obstruction in your throat, and all you offer back is an acknowledging nod, which expands Peter’s smile into a grin so bright it trips up your galloping heart.

“I was beginning to think I’d never meet you. I kept, you know, hearing you say my name in my head, so I kinda guessed you were still out there somewhere. Just never thought you’d be in my neighborhood.” He holds out his hand again, and this time you grudgingly shake it. “We had Spanish together, right?”

Once again, you’re stunned into silence. How the hell does Peter even know you? Back in your high school days, you don’t ever remember speaking a word to him, let alone doing something memorable enough for him to know which class you took together. As far as you can recall, Spanish was the only class you shared, and half the time, he was too busy waiting for class to end to notice you.

While you search your memory's repressed files to trace back any time you may have interacted with Peter, he says your name, causing your eyes to flash to his. 

“You know my name?”

“Yeah…” he answers like it’d be strange if he didn’t. “We were in the same class for a while, and you painted that really awesome Starry Night with my friend, Ned.”

Something faintly warm and fluttery pitches around in your chest, but you’re quick to stow away the feeling into a locked box. It’s just a compliment—nothing more, nothing less. He seems like a nice guy and all, but there is clearly nothing between you two. No sparks. No deep gazes. No instant connections. Nothing.

Disappointment stings like a cut in your chest as you hurry over to the ledge and gather up your art supplies. When you turn back around, Peter’s staring at you with disheartened confusion, furrowing his brows.

Words haphazardly spill out of your mouth. “It was nice meeting you, Peter, and um, thanks for saving me, but I gotta go cause I have work early in the morning, and it’s super late—” 

“Wait, wait, wait!” he rushes, marginally lunging forward as you take a few steps toward the exit, hand outstretched to stop you. “I just—can you tell me where you work? Maybe I can come by, and we can, y’know, talk a little bit. Get to know each other?” he ends with a hopeful, lop-sided smile.

The “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea” sits right on the edge of your tongue, armed and ready for dispatch, but Peter’s anxious little smile stalls it in its tracks. Instead, you shockingly find yourself replying, “Hal’s Diner.”

Peter perks up. “Oh, cool. I know that place. It’s got good pie. So… um, guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you mumble, trying hard not to kick yourself for giving in so easily. Out of courtesy, you force a small smile onto your lips and say, “Goodnight, Peter.”

He returns your smile ten-fold. “Goodnight.”

As the exit door shuts behind you, you hear the slightest Thwip.

Why couldn’t you just say no?

✦ ✧✦ ✧

Bright and early, you show up at Hal’s Diner thirty-five minutes before you’re scheduled to be there, currently helping Hal prep for the Sunday breakfast crowd. To say your boss was astonished to see you at the front door nearly an hour before opening would be an understatement, but he thankfully didn’t question you.

After everything that transpired last night, from the fall to meeting Peter, the last thing you expected was a restful night’s sleep, but you were zonked the moment your head touched the pillow. For the first time in forever, those words didn’t plague your dreams and your every conscious thought. Your mind is now gloriously quiet.

You finally met your fated person, and now, you can eventually move on.

Except, not really… because Peter thinks it’s necessary to get to know you. Not if you can avoid it.

With that thought looming over your head from the second you woke up, you zoomed through your morning routine and made it out of your apartment in record time. You didn’t really have a game plan or destination in the works when you left, but you knew that your hands and mind needed to be busy to keep the more pressing thought at bay. Hence, your reason for prepping with Hal. At the moment, he’s droning on and on about what a mess last night’s shift turned out to be while you peel potatoes.

“And that new hire, the Dennis kid, screwed up three orders. Three consecutive orders! Two of ‘em from the same couple. If the boy weren’t so good at cleanup, he’d be out the door,” Hal swears, eyeing his inventory list. “Looks like we’re gonna have to stock up on eggs again.”

You hum to show you were listening, but it didn't really matter. Hal could go on like this for days, with or without an audience.

He leans his heavy body against the gigantic industrial refrigerator, then perches his thick-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his bulbous nose. “Alright, now you mind telling me what’s got you here so early?”

“Nothing,” you lie breezily, taking your bowl full of naked potatoes to the sink to rinse them off. The hot water runs freezing cold but gradually warms as you painstakingly rinse the whole surface of every potato, struggling to keep your hands and mind busy. “Just thought I’d be a good employee and help out my boss.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs with a laugh, “If that’s true, then there must be pigs flying in Central Park.”

You counter, “Are you insinuating I’m not a good employee?”

“No. Good help like you is hard to come by these days, and everyone in Queens knows I’d be the first in line to praise your workmanship. I’m actually just expressing a nagging concern I have with you notoriously being late and then, in the blink of an eye, turning up here before I can even fit the key in the door. Now, either something’s real wrong or something’s real right. Which one is it?”

Experience with Hal and his prying questions over the last three years taught you how to lie tactfully. Always start with a full lie, then go with a half-truth to throw him off your trail. “I finally got more than four hours of sleep.”

“Great!” Hal beams, clapping his hands together. “Now, why’s that?”

You sigh exasperatedly, “For the love of—Can’t good news just be good news, Hal? Must there be an explanation?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll back off.” He pushes his glasses back up, harrumphing, “Just know that truth is too damn narcissistic to be kept in the dark. It always finds a way to be seen.”

With that, Hal grabs a tattered dishrag and a bottle of cleaning solution off the nearest counter and leaves you in the kitchen, heading out to the dining area to give the booth tables one more wipe down, grumbling about buying new upholstery for the seats.

Try as he might, Hal doesn't have a hope of scaring you into telling him the whole truth. You’re not rolling over that easily. No one in this diner is ever going to find out that you met your Soulmate, and if you’re lucky, it’ll stay a secret until literal pigs are flying in Central Park.

Somehow, someway, you’re going to figure out how to escape whatever this connection is because there must be some cosmic loophole for those who simply don’t want their destiny. There’s no way you’re the only person on this planet who’s ever decided to break from their Soulmate.

If there is any sliver of a connection between you and Peter, he’d understand why you can’t stay. He’d understand, and he’d move on.

You hold onto this hope throughout the rest of the workday. Hal doesn’t badger you again as the diner opens and the Sunday crowd comes bustling in, hungry for syrup-saturated French toast sticks and freshly brewed coffee.

Every time the welcoming bell at the entrance jangled, your eyes fearfully snapped to the door, expecting chestnut hair and a boyishly thousand-watt smile. And every time it wasn’t him, an obnoxious pebble of dismay sank to the pit of your stomach. Between serving customer after customer and watching the door, time slipped away from you, and before you even registered the difference, the warm afternoon sun streamed directly into the diner, and the last ten minutes of your shift approached.

Chris is dragging out a goodbye with a dazzled mother and her teenage son, inadvertently milking more tips out of them with a hilarious story about his favorite ketchup stain on his apron, while Wendy mops over the same black and white tiles for the seventh time, blinking in and out and stifling yawns. You set down two plates of grilled cheeses and steak fries for a young couple, smiling with your plastic smile and brightly telling them to enjoy their meals and to call for you if they need anything else.

As soon as you turn around to check up on the regulars sitting at the stools, the bell jingles, and there in the entrance stands Peter, cheerfully greeted with a perfectly timed, “Welcome to Hal’s, dude!” from Chris.

Your heart stutter-stops, then bursts into a full-on sprint, and before you even understand what you’re doing, you duck down, scurrying behind the bar. Two regulars on the stools, a middle-aged biker nicknamed Spikes and his buddy Garrick, lean over the counter with querying stares. Hastily, you mouth, I’m not here, and they curtly nod in unison, sitting back down.

On the other side of the bar, you hear Chris seat Peter in a booth that sounds dangerously close to your hiding spot, so you squinch down as far as you can go, balling yourself up in a position your knees and back will hate you for later.

“My name’s Chris, and I shall be your server this fine afternoon. Anything I can start you off with…?”

“Peter,” Peter fills in, then answers, “And a slice of Banana Cream Pie would be great.”

You intently listen to the scratch of pen against paper as Chris scribbles down the order. “Sweet, dude. I’ll bring that out to you as soon as possible.”

“Thanks. And, hey, um… does a girl named Y/N work here?”

Your eyes bulge.

“Yeah! Do you want me to get her?” asks Chris helpfully while you internally scream, adding, “I think she might be in the back. Could have sworn she was out here a second ago.”

The best scenario out of this situation would be if Chris miraculously misses your hiding spot, walks into the back and sees you’re not there, then comes back out, missing you again, and informs Peter that you must’ve gone home early. The absolute worst being Chris trips over you and nearly breaks his neck.

By the way things are shaping up, you might as well give yourself away.

“Y’all talking about the little miss with the bun in her hair?” Spikes gruffly interjects. “Cause you just missed her.”

You almost puff out a sigh as relief washes over you like a tidal wave. Spikes has got free burgers and milkshakes coming his way for a month.

“Huh… thought she was here.” Chris stays quiet only for a second, probably questioning the efficacy of his eyesight, before speaking to Peter again. “Sorry about that, man. Still want that pie?”

Just like that, your heart kicks into high gear. Please don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes.

Again, to your utter relief, Peter says, “No, thanks, I actually gotta get going. Mind if I borrow your pen and paper real fast?” You hold in a tense breath as Chris rips off a piece of pad paper and hands it to him. More pen scratches against paper, then Peter speaks up, “Can you make sure this reaches her?”

“Definitely. Have a good rest of your day, and come back anytime, dude.”

You don’t uncoil yourself from behind the bar until the door jingles again and a good five minutes pass. Your muscles and joints achingly cry out from the mistreatment as you warily stand to your full height, and Spikes and Garrick give you a confirmational thumbs-up when you smile at them gratefully.

Chris, spotting you out of the corner of his eye, swivels around and gapes, “Where’d you just come from?”

“The back.” Not entirely a lie.

Chris frowns, “But Spikes just said—”

“I was leaving,” you hurriedly cut in. “But I—I, um, I forgot to…” Your eyes rove around the diner and land on the couple you recently served. You hit your head with your palm in an oops manner and nervously chuckle, “I forgot to give those guys their check. So, I’m just… gonna go and… do that.”

You skirt around Chris’s inquisitively raised eyebrow and head over to the cash register to tabulate the couple’s bill. That was a way too close call. And by the way Chris is still staring at you, it looks as if you’re far from being out of the woods.

Once you hand the couple their check, rush to the back and clock out for the day, and come back out in the dining area to leave, Chris is waiting by the door, holding up the triangled piece of paper Peter left for you.

“Some guy named Peter came by to see you. You know him?” A flash in his eyes dares you to deny it, as if he caught onto your game.

You defiantly square your jaw. “I might. Did he leave that for me?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “Wanna tell me who he is?”

“No, I don’t think I will,” you winningly grin as you snatch the paper from his hand.

Chris wears the same winning smile. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll ask him when he comes back tomorrow.”

You blanch, “Wh-what—what makes you think he’s coming back tomorrow?”

“All my customers come back. Always,” he promises. Chris never seemed like the type to issue positive threats, but here he is, threatening you with that friendly smile lighting his jovial face.

The promising threat rings in your ears as you walk out the door and head to your apartment. Halfway there, you remember the crumpled piece of paper grasped in your balled-up fist. You move out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, lean against the brick façade of a mini-mart, and unfold the paper.

Peter’s straight-forward scrawl reads: Sorry I missed you. Be back earlier tomorrow :) – Peter P., and at the bottom of the note is a phone number with an arrow pointing to it, saying, My cell #.

A small, itty-bitty smile flits across your lips as your eyes linger on Peter’s smiley face, and for the briefest moment, you’re transported back to the roof, losing your breath all over again as he smiles that innocently beautiful smile.

Avoiding him is going to be tougher than you thought.

...

Part IV