Tom Holland

Tom had gotten good at answering this question.

He should have, considering some version of it had followed the two of you through practically every press tour since you were teenagers.

“So,” the interviewer said, grinning as they glanced between you, “your characters’ relationship is obviously a much bigger part of this movie. You two have always had incredible chemistry, but this time it feels different. Did anything change?”

Tom laughed immediately.

Not because it was particularly funny.

Mostly because laughing gave him a few extra seconds to figure out what the hell he was supposed to say.

Beside him, your knee was pressed against his beneath the little interview table. Neither of you had bothered moving it. You’d been sitting like that for the last ten minutes.

“Did anything change?” Tom repeated, looking at you.

There it was again.

That stupid little hitch somewhere in his chest.

He’d spent most of his young adult life with you.

Table reads and rehearsals. Seventeen-hour shooting days. Hotel rooms on press tours. Birthdays celebrated thousands of miles from home. Inside jokes no one else understood anymore. Your head on his shoulder between takes. His arm around your waist because the director had yelled cut five minutes ago and somehow neither of you had noticed.

Growing up together had made physical closeness second nature.

At least, that was what Tom kept telling himself.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, Peter had fallen in love with your character.

And suddenly Tom’s job involved looking at you like he loved you.

Touching you like he loved you.

Kissing you like he loved you.

Then somebody yelled cut, and Tom was supposed to know exactly which feelings belonged to Peter Parker and which belonged to him.

Lately, the distinction had become embarrassingly difficult to find.

“Nah,” Tom finally said, the familiar teasing smile appearing as he nudged your knee with his. “I’ve always been brilliant. They’ve just finally started keeping up.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you said, laughing.

Tom grinned.

Easy.

That was what everyone always called the two of you.

Easy chemistry.

There were thousands of edits online documenting every lingering glance. Entire accounts dedicated to proving the two of you were secretly together. Interview compilations. Red carpet photos. Slow-motion videos accompanied by songs Tom absolutely refused to admit he’d watched.

Normally, you both found it funny.

Recently, Tom had stopped laughing quite as hard.

The interviewer laughed along with you before leaning forward.

“But genuinely—after knowing each other this long, is it strange filming romantic scenes together?”

Tom opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

He looked at you. His cheeks blushed.

The set had gone quiet in that strange way it always did right before a take.

Crew members hovered just outside the frame. Lights washed the fake New York rooftop in cold blue. Somewhere below, someone was adjusting a fan meant to make the skyline feel windier than it actually was.

Tom stood across from you in the Spider-Man suit, mask bunched in one hand.

He’d done scenes with you like this for years.

That was supposed to make it easier.

Instead, lately, it seemed to make everything worse.

The scene was simple enough on paper. Peter had spent the first half of the film watching your character from afar. He had made the world forget Peter Parker. But now the characters were on your rooftop. He was about to reveal the truth of your shared past and his unending love.

Tom had read it dozens of times.

He knew every line.

What he didn’t know was why, every time he looked at you, his stomach felt like he was about to step off an actual building.

“You good?” you asked.

“Yeah. Course.”

The answer came too quickly.

Tom rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the script pages folded on a nearby crate, despite having absolutely no need to check them.

It hadn’t always been like this.

You’d practically grown up together on these sets. Back when everything was new, the two of you had been kids trying not to laugh through takes, sneaking snacks from craft services and complaining together about harnesses, early call times, and interviews asking whether you were dating.

The dating questions had been funny then.

Mostly.

Now there were entire corners of the internet dedicated to the two of you. Clips from interviews. Red carpet photos. Slow-motion edits of every time Tom looked at you for longer than apparently socially acceptable.

He’d learned not to look.

At the edits, anyway.

Looking at you was proving considerably harder.

The director called for places.

Tom stepped toward his mark.

You stepped toward yours.

Too close.

Or exactly as close as the scene required.

That distinction had become annoyingly important to him.

“Okay,” the director called. “Remember, this is the first time Peter lets himself actually say it. Don’t rush the moment.”

Tom nodded.

Right.

Peter.

This was Peter.

The cameras started rolling.

“Action.”

Tom looked at you.

And everything he’d rehearsed disappeared.

For one long second, he didn’t see the lights or cameras or fifty crew members watching from behind monitors.

He just saw you.

Years of you.

Your first screen test together. Your hand squeezed around his before a premiere. Falling asleep against each other on planes. Laughing until neither of you could get through a scene. Every stupid private joke that had somehow survived growing up in public.

Then his line came.

“I love you.”

It landed differently than it ever had in rehearsal.

Tom felt it immediately.

So did you, judging by the tiny shift in your expression.

There was a beat of silence.

The script said Peter was supposed to kiss you now.

Tom didn’t move.

“Cut.”

Reality crashed back in.

Tom blinked, immediately looking toward the director.

“Sorry. Sorry, that’s me.”

A few crew members reset around you.

Tom exhaled and ran a hand through his hair.

Tom knew he should leave.

That had been the plan.

Five minutes, maybe ten. Stop by your trailer after wrap, talk through tomorrow’s scene, then go back to the hotel before anybody started wondering where he was.

Instead, nearly an hour had passed.

The set outside had gone mostly quiet. Crew trucks were pulling away one by one, leaving the little row of trailers washed in the yellow glow of security lights. Inside yours, Tom sat beside you on the narrow couch, still half in costume, his phone facedown on the table.

He hadn’t looked at it in twenty minutes.

He didn’t need to.

He knew whose messages were waiting.

Zendaya.

The thought twisted something ugly in his stomach.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

You and Tom had been close for years. Too close, maybe. The kind of friendship people online dissected frame by frame, turning every laugh and lingering look into proof of something neither of you had ever admitted.

For a long time, Tom had rolled his eyes at it.

Then came the new film.

Peter and your character had gotten closer. Romantic scenes. Long rehearsals. Hands lingering after the director called cut. Kisses that were supposed to belong to fictional people.

Somewhere along the way, pretending had stopped feeling like pretending.

The first time Tom kissed you when there wasn’t a camera rolling, he’d spent the entire night afterward telling himself it could never happen again.

Then it did.

And again.

Now there were rules.

Never at the hotel.

Never in public.

Never text anything that couldn’t be explained away.

Never stay too long.

That last one wasn’t going particularly well.

Tom looked over at you.

“You know we’re terrible at this, right?”

There was a faint smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

His phone buzzed against the table.

Neither of you moved.

Another buzz.

Tom stared at it for a second before rubbing both hands over his face.

“Jesus.”

He leaned back against the couch, head tipping toward the ceiling.

“I keep saying I’m going to fix this.”

His voice was quieter now.

“Then I get five minutes alone with you and apparently every moral conviction I’ve ever had just... disappears.”

Finally, he looked at you again.

The guilt was there.

So was everything else.

And somehow that was worse.

“You should tell me to go.”