𑣲 Peter Parker .ᐟ.ᐟ

The bass finds you before the elevator doors even finish opening, something a little filthy, bleeding out from a rooftop that’s already glowing gold and pink against the dark. Someone’s strung fairy lights between two water towers, there’s a folding table doing its best impression of a bar, glass dispensers of something orange and fruity and definitely stronger than it tastes, half a pineapple abandoned next to a few limes... The whole roof smells like citrus, a mix of perfumes and colognes and the particular smell of a New York summer night that hasn’t cooled off yet even though the sun’s long gone.

You’re two, or maybe three?, of those fruity drinks in, and the night has that soft quality where everything is funnier than it should be and the bassline feels like it’s coming from inside your own chest. The city stretches out gold and glittering past the roof’s edge, close enough that Manhattan looks less like a skyline and more like something you could reach out and touch if you leaned far enough, which you are absolutely not going to test tonight, but it’s a nice thought tho.

You don’t totally know how you ended up here. A friend of a friend of a coworker, something like that, it’s the kind of party where nobody actually knows the host but everyone’s decided to have the best night of their lives anyway. Which, frankly, you’re on board with. Your drink is sweet and cold and the condensation is sliding down your wrist, the song currently detonating out of the speaker has the entire roof shouting at the top of their lungs, you’re shouting too, and it feels incredible.

That’s around the time you notice him.

He’s over by the drinks table, half in shadow, half lit gold by the string lights, and he is doing an absolutely terrible job of blending in. Not because he looks out of place, not exactly, his dark curls a little wind messed, a soft grey henley pushed up at the sleeves, broad shoulders that suggest he could probably lift the drinks table itself if someone dared him to… but because everyone else on this roof is being loud, dancing, spilling into each other’s space, yet he’s standing there nursing a plastic cup he doesn’t seem to actually be drinking from, laughing at something someone says and then going quiet again half second too fast, like the laugh was borrowed and he had to give it back.

He looks like he got dragged here, and he also looks like the best looking guy who got dragged here. You’ve hit jackpot tonight, you think to yourself as your eyes examine him. You watch him for a second too long. He’s got this thing where he keeps glancing towards the door like he’s doing math on how long is socially acceptable to stay, and then someone accidentally bumps his elbow and he almost spills his drink, then does this whole flustered little recovery:

sorry, my bad, I got it, all good,

to absolutely nobody who was paying attention, and something about the sheer earnestness of apologizing to no one makes you smile into your cup. What a cutie.

Fine. Fine, okay. I’mma go say something to the pretty awkward stranger. This is a great idea. This is definitely a great idea and not the drinks talking… ugh, shut up head!

You don’t even really get the chance to execute a plan, though, because the universe, or more accurately, somebody’s badly placed extension cord snaking across the roof deck decides to make the decision for you. Your foot catches it right as you’re stepping around a cluster of dancers, and the ground does that horrible tilting thing, and you have just enough time to think oh fuck before—

A hand closes around your arm.

Firm, warm, fast, impossibly fast actually, faster than should be physically reasonable for someone who was standing like three meters away half a second ago, pulling you upright before you graze the concrete. Your drink sloshes, miraculously staying mostly in the cup. You end up standing very close to a chest that smells like mint and clean laundry, staring up into a pair of brown eyes gone wide with alarm. Wow… angels have brown hair…

“Whoa… hey, I got you. I got you, are you—” He blinks, like he’s only just caught up with his own hands. “Sorry, I said ‘I got you’ twice, that’s— I panicked, ignore that.”

You’re still catching your breath, both from the almost fall and from the fact that he is, up close, extremely and unfairly attractive in a way that feels almost like a personal attack. Warm brown eyes, a face that’s clearly used to smiling even when he’s currently doing his best impression of a man having a small crisis, a little furrow between his brows like he’s genuinely worried he broke you…

“You okay? That cord’s a menace, somebody should really—” He stops, and seems to realize he still has a hand wrapped around your arm. He lets go like you’re electric.

“I’m okay,” you manage, and your voice comes out a little breathless in a way that has nothing to do with almost eating the concrete. “That was… whoa… how did you even get here that fast?”

“Adrenaline,” he says way too quickly, and there’s a flicker of something behind his eyes, the smallest, most fleeting oh no, did I— before it smooths back over into easy charm. “Track guy, you know… in high school. Very fast, very committed to not letting people fall on rooftops, it’s kind of my whole thing.”

“Your whole thing,” you repeat, fighting a smile.

“One of like… four things? The others are less impressive.” He runs a hand through his hair, curls falling messier for it, and huffs a laugh at himself. “This is— I’m being weird. I’m Peter, hi, sorry, I skipped the part where I introduce myself before commenting on my own personality.”

“You’re fine,” you tell him, and mean it more than the words probably suggest. “I’m—” and then, because the drinks have made you bold, or maybe brave, or maybe just a little bit reckless in the best way, you tilt your head and let the words catch instead of finishing them, watching the way his eyes track the motion like he’s genuinely curious what comes next. “I’ll tell you later. You have to earn it.”

Something lights up in his face, like you just handed him a puzzle he didn’t know he wanted.

“Earn it,” he repeats. “Okay. Yeah. I can— I’m good at earning things. Allegedly.”

“Allegedly,” you echo, and it startles a laugh out of him, warm and a little too loud, like he hasn’t laughed like that in a while and forgot how much room it takes up. He recovers fast, though, gesturing vaguely at the drinks table like it’s a lifeline.

“Can I get you something? To replace the one you almost sacrificed to the concrete gods.”

“It’s mostly still in the cup.” But he gets you a new drink anyway, insists actually, waving off your protest with a grin, and when he hands it over his fingers brush yours around the cup, just barely. The music shifts into something with even more bass, the crowd around you surging and laughing, and he has to lean in to be heard, close enough that you catch the mint and laundry smell again, close enough that you’re aware of exactly how little space is actually between you.

“So,” he says, near your ear, “what’s the deal with the rooftop? You know the host?”

“Not even a little,” you admit. “Friend of a friend of a… coworker. You?”

“Coworker,” he says. “She’s very committed to me, and I quote, ‘having a life outside of work,’ which is fair, honestly, I’ve been kind of a hermit lately.” Something flickers across his face when he says it, quick and complicated but gone before you can fully catch it. “So she dragged me here. I told her I’d stay an hour.”

“How long’s it been?”

He checks a nonexistent watch, then actually pulls out his phone, squints at it and winces. “Two hours and forty minutes.”

“Impressive.”

“I know I know, what can I say?” He pockets the phone, and something about the way he does it makes you wonder, just briefly, what exactly he does for a living. You don’t ask. Not yet... well maybe yes yet.

“What do you do? When you’re not being a rooftop hermit.”

“Photographer,” he says, and there’s something proud and self-deprecating both in the way he says it. “Freelance. Very glamorous. Mostly bridges, sunsets, occasionally some breaking news stuff if I’m around when something happens, which—“ he laughs, short, like there’s a joke in there he’s not telling you. “Happens more than you’d think, honestly.”

“Occupational hazard?”

“You have no idea,” he says, and grins. “What about you? And don’t say I have to earn that too, that’s just cruel.”

“Mm,” you take a slow sip of your new drink, watching his eyes track the motion, watching him watch you like it’s genuinely the most interesting and hot thing happening on this entire rooftop. “That’s a third date question.”

“But we’re not even on a first date.”

“Exactly. You’re really behind.”

He laughs and shakes his head, and there’s something almost helpless about the way he’s looking at you now.

“Okay,” he starts. “Okay, fine. Mystery it is. I respect it. And you’re both laughing now, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off him even through the sticky summer air, close enough that when the crowd jostles someone into your back and you sway a half step into his space, he doesn’t step away. His hand comes up automatically, just hovering near your waist, a question more than a touch, and you don’t step back either.

For a second neither of you says anything.

“Do you want to—” He clears his throat, nodding vaguely towards the quieter edge of the roof, where the crowd thins out near the ledge and the skyline opens up wide and gold. “Away from the extension cords. For… safety reasons.”

“For safety reasons,” you agree, and let him lead you there, his hand settling at the small of your back for exactly as long as it takes to navigate the crowd and not one second longer, like he’s counting.

The ledge is quieter. Not quiet exactly, but quieter, private in the way a rooftop at night can feel private even in a city of eight million people. The skyline stretches out gold and endless, a plane blinking red somewhere far off, and Peter braces his forearms on the ledge and looks out at it like he’s trying to find something specific in all that light.

“Can I tell you something kind of embarrassing?” he asks, not looking at you.

“Please do.”

“I almost didn’t come tonight.” He huffs a laugh at himself. “Like, actively almost bailed, texted my friend an excuse and everything, deleted it, texted a different excuse, deleted that one too. I don’t— I haven’t really been doing stuff. Lately. Just, like, showing up to things.”

“Why not?” He’s quiet for a second, jaw working like he’s deciding how much to say.

“It’s been a weird year,” he says finally, and there’s a whole world of complicated behind those five words that you don’t push on, because something about the way he said it tells you he’s not ready to hand you all of it yet. “Like— you ever have people who used to know everything about you? And then they just… don’t, anymore. Not because anything bad happened between you, just—” He shakes his head. “Sorry. That’s a lot for a rooftop. Ignore me.”

“I’m not going to ignore you,” you say, and mean it, and something about the way he looks at you then, surprised, a little raw, like he expected you to change the subject and is thrown that you didn’t makes the air between you feel suddenly very charged.

“Yeah?” His voice has gone quieter. More intimate.

“Yeah.” You lean your forearms on the ledge too, close enough now that your shoulder is almost against his. “For what it’s worth, I don’t know anything about you. Which means you’re required to tell me things now. New rule.” And he’s smiling again, some of the weight easing off his shoulders, and when he looks at you this time it’s different.

“Okay,” he says. “New game since apparently we’re doing this. One question each. Real answer, no dodging— well, you’re allowed one dodge, because you’ve got a whole mystery thing going and I don’t want to be the guy who ruins it.”

“What a gentleman.”

“I’m a generous guy.” He turns so he’s facing you properly now, back against the ledge, arms crossed loose over his chest, and there’s something genuinely nervous under the playfulness, like this matters more to him than the joking tone lets on. “You first. Ask me anything.”

You consider him for a second, the tired eyes under the charm, the way he flinched at his own mention of a weird year, the reflexes that got him across a rooftop faster than any human has business moving. There are about four questions competing for space in your mouth. You pick the safest one, mostly because the party’s made you brave but not that brave, not yet.

“Best thing that’s happened to you all week?”

Something shifts in his face, surprised and then, slowly, warm.

“This,” he says, simply. “Right now. Tonight.” He huffs, embarrassed at himself, looking away towards the skyline. “That’s cheesy. I’m sorry, that was so cheesy, I don’t even know you—”

“I liked it,” you say, before you can second guess it, and he looks back at you like the words physically landed somewhere.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Your heart’s doing something complicated and fast. “My turn to get asked.”

“Right.” He straightens up a little, like he’s steadying himself. “Okay. Um.” His eyes drop briefly to your mouth, and come back up like he didn’t mean for them to go there, like he’s annoyed at himself for it, and the air between you goes thick and electric in a way that has nothing to do with the bass thumping through the concrete under your feet. “What are you doing after this?”

It’s not the question you expected. It’s even better.