Peter Parker

Peter had been on the opposite rooftop when he noticed you.

That was normal.

Noticing you had become something of a habit.

What wasn’t normal was the man standing beside you.

Peter stayed crouched near the edge of the roof, watching the two of you outside a small corner store below.

The stranger was obviously flirting.

Peter could tell from the way he kept leaning closer, the smile that never seemed to leave his face, and the way his attention remained completely fixed on you.

Peter hated him almost immediately.

Which was ridiculous.

The man hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

Then he made you laugh.

Peter’s jaw tightened beneath the mask.

That bothered him more than it should have.

He stayed there another minute, pretending he was simply making sure everything was safe.

Then the man touched your arm.

Peter was off the rooftop before he could talk himself out of it.

He landed beside you with considerably more force than necessary.

You looked surprised.

The man looked confused.

Peter looked completely casual. Or at least, he thought he did.

He positioned himself slightly closer to you than usual and barely acknowledged the stranger.

The conversation didn’t last much longer after Spider-Man suddenly appeared.

Eventually, the man walked away after exchanging numbers with you.

Peter watched him disappear down the sidewalk.

His shoulders were tense.

You noticed immediately.

“You’re jealous.”

Peter looked at you.

“No.”

The answer came much too quickly.

Peter immediately looked away.

For the next several minutes, he became unusually quiet.

He followed you toward the rooftops, keeping close despite pretending he wasn’t bothered.

The truth was painfully simple.

Peter knew you could talk to whoever you wanted.

He knew you didn’t owe him anything.

But watching someone else look at you with the same fascination Peter carried around every single day had made something unpleasant twist in his chest.

Peter had a problem.

A pretty serious one, actually.

He was in love with his best friend.

Not some manageable little crush, either. It had gotten embarrassingly bad.

You’d left his apartment an hour ago, and Peter was already lying across his bed scrolling through your Instagram like he hadn’t seen every picture before.

He knew which posts were his favorites. Knew which ones he’d taken himself. Knew you always deleted pictures if they didn’t get enough likes within the first hour.

His thumb hovered over a photo of you smiling at the camera.

God.

Peter tossed his phone onto the mattress.

“This is pathetic.”

Two minutes later, it was back in his hand.

When you were actually around, he could almost pretend everything was normal. You’d steal food from his plate, fall asleep against him during movies, wear his hoodies without asking. Normal best-friend stuff.

It was when you left that Peter became hopeless.

He rolled onto his side, catching the faint smell of your perfume.

Peter paused.

His shirt.

You’d spent half the evening curled against him on the couch, and apparently your perfume had transferred onto the fabric.

He lifted the collar toward his face almost unconsciously.

There it was.

You.

Peter closed his eyes and breathed it in again before immediately realizing what he was doing.

“Oh my God.”

He dropped the shirt.

“This is getting weird.”

His phone buzzed.

Peter grabbed it instantly.

You: left my charger at your place 😭 coming back

His heart jumped.

Peter shot upright.

Suddenly he was fixing his hair, kicking laundry beneath his bed, closing Instagram like you’d somehow know he’d been staring at your pictures.

A knock came barely five minutes later.

Peter opened the door.

And there you were.

The same perfume immediately filled the space between you.

Peter forgot every single word in the English language.

You raised an eyebrow.

“...You okay?”

“Yep.”

His voice cracked.

Peter cleared his throat.

“Totally. Why?”

You stared at him for another second before walking past.

Peter closed the door behind you and watched you search around his apartment.

His best friend.

His favorite person.

The person whose texts he answered embarrassingly fast, whose pictures he stared at when he missed them, whose perfume was currently stuck to the shirt he was wearing.

And you had absolutely no idea.

Peter leaned against the door and watched you.

He was so screwed.

Peter had been watching the same guy flirt with you for twenty-three minutes.

Not that he was counting.

He was just... aware.

Painfully aware.

The party was crowded enough that Peter could’ve gone anywhere. Instead, he’d spent most of the night hovering within a suspicious ten-foot radius of you.

Every time the guy leaned closer, Peter’s jaw tightened.

Every time you laughed, Peter took another sip from his cup.

Every time the guy touched your arm, Peter suddenly found something extremely interesting to stare at across the room.

This was ridiculous.

Peter knew that.

You were his best friend, not his girlfriend.

You could flirt with whoever you wanted.

Unfortunately, someone had apparently forgotten to explain that to the horrible little knot forming in Peter’s stomach.

The guy whispered something into your ear.

Peter’s expression dropped.

Okay.

That was enough.

He crossed the room.

You barely noticed him approaching until an arm casually slipped around your shoulders.

Peter.

It was natural enough. He’d touched you a thousand times before.

Except tonight, his hand remained resting against your shoulder.

“Hey.”

You glanced up.

Peter smiled down at you before looking toward the guy.

The smile became noticeably less enthusiastic.

The conversation continued.

So did Peter.

He stayed glued to your side.

When you moved, Peter moved.

When you went to grab another drink, somehow Peter needed one too.

When you sat on the couch, Peter dropped into the spot beside you before anybody else could.

His knee rested against yours.

His arm stretched behind you.

Completely casual.

Completely platonic.

Completely unbearable for him.

Eventually, the guy disappeared to find his friends.

Peter visibly relaxed.

You noticed.