Chapter Text
He does actually take you out to eat the next day. It’s nice, you're already familiar with the place, a small diner you guys usually go to after classes every other Friday, and the owners are still as sweet as he remembers. It felt safe, just normal back and forth between you two as you ate, but there was an undercurrent of something, and Mark knew for a fact that it wasn’t there before.
The only problem is he doesn’t know if you feel it too. Or maybe he’s just going crazy. So now he sits in his room trying to fix an impact web shooter that got snapped in half (not his fault, getting thrown through a wall isn’t really something he planned on doing) trying to ignore the fact you are only two rooms away, and he can’t stop thinking about you, and what you said last night.
It was infinitesimal, a small splash in the ocean of your friendship, spoken words to a man bleeding in a shared bathroom. But to Mark they were everything.
Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth it
Could you mean that about anything more? He’s been nervously running over the phrase over and over again in his mind, desperate to find out if you felt even half of what he did when you said it. Did you really mean it? Was he worth it? Worth everything that he knows you did for him, and probably the countless things you’ve done and refuse to tell him, deserving of credit and yet taking none.
He groans, setting down the soldering iron and putting his face in his hands. He hates how difficult this is, somehow fighting superpowered evil criminal masterminds is easier than figuring out if the girl you’ve liked since sophomore year feels the same way about you. But it feels like last night changed something.
Of course nothing changed in the way you acted around each other, this morning before school was just as normal as dinner later, you guys thankfully got one of the first days to schedule your second semester classes, so you have the pleasure of getting a few more blissful hours of sleep than usual before you’d eventually pack up to head to your museum internship and head to classes in the afternoon.
The first and only time he tried teasing you for it you almost fell out of your seat laughing. “Okay Oscorp Intern of the Week you’re one to talk.” It had taken every ounce of self control he had not to look disgustingly fond as you grabbed his hand to help steady you.
He thinks it changed in the atmosphere, like a forecast of rain that neither of you cared to look at until it was pouring. He didn’t shy away from staring at you as you ordered the same burger you get every time. He allows himself to be selfish, to truly take the time to look at you, and he doesn’t back away anymore. He even thinks sometimes he might have caught you looking at him too. Or maybe he’s just hoping he did.
He hates the doubt that seeps into him as he sits and wonders if you feel the same. There are signs of course, little hints to something deeper that he covets like precious jewels.
He shows you parts of being Spider-Man that aren’t normal. He shows you the parts that are ugly and rotting.
You helped him count how many people were in the diner today, an anxious habit picked up through his hero work. He now has this itch to know how many he might need to grab or how many casualties there might be if something inevitably goes wrong, just one rogue villain or catastrophic disaster away.
You stay with him when the nightmares arrive, masses of scales or robotic arms, sometimes just bodies hitting concrete floors and suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder rubbing soothing circles as he hurls himself into your bathroom to throw up. There are so many people who depend on him in New York. So many people who need him to save them, who need his help, and this dependence is a burden he’s hopeless to carry. He has to save them, because if he doesn’t then nobody else will, and he does this because he likes to help people, but sometimes the pressure becomes suffocating. Sometimes he thinks about the fact he’s twenty-two and has watched a woman plummet from the 45th floor to the 1st. Then he doesn’t want to think anymore.
Mark Lee is in his senior year of a chemistry major that he wants to go to graduate school for, juggling a part-time job at not one but two cafés, an internship at Oscorp, and in between these responsibilities he also has a hobby fighting New York's most dangerous criminals who could kill him or anyone he cares about at any point if they ever discover his identity. It’s safe to say he gets overwhelmed just a little sometimes.
And yet you take it in stride. You pick him back up and dust him off with nothing but an exasperated look in your eyes and a smile on your face, and you make him feel normal . He wants to give you that same feeling, that same warmth of familiarity and joy. He wants to feel like home, in the same way you do for him. He pulls out his chair, spinning himself from the array of tools and technology he’s managed to “borrow” from Oscorp over the course of a few months to face the door, almost taunting him to open it and just talk to you.
Last night changed things, and he knows he doesn’t want things to just go back to the way they were, to forget the moment when it seemed like you weren’t just talking about being his friend. He wants to change it. He wants to make it so much more.
Mark Lee doesn’t think he fell for you.
Falling for someone always sounds scary, unsure and unpleasant. It's spoken of like a curse, a plague bestowed upon those only so unlucky as to have it’s claws wrap around your rib cage. It’s the uncertainty of it that has so many people afraid of what might lie below.
But Mark has never thought of the relationship between you two as falling. He’s never looked at the vast expanse of the unknown with nothing other than excitement, and maybe a bit of nerves. Because no matter what’s down there, no matter how uncertain it might be: It’ll be with you.
So no, Mark Lee did not fall for you.
He dived.
_____________________________
He doesn’t end up telling you before patrol.
A mistake he starts regretting the minute he throws himself out of your window sill, feeling the momentum of his fall build as he reaches the second story of your apartment complex before shooting off a web and starting his nightly routine. A mistake that other people start noticing, and taking full advantage of. The night starts out fine, flying in and out of city streets and alleyways, it’s routine by this point, and the constant swinging calms him down as he begins to mentally plan out his route for the night, trying to push away thoughts of you to focus on the task at hand.
He’s in control when he takes down an easy mugging around fifteen blocks from your apartment, and he’s in control as he slams the broken ATM machine against the three men who somehow thought that dyed banknotes could still be worth enough to try and take them. He starts slipping up when he hears the tell tale chime of an alert, and quickly pulls himself forward to land on top of a building. His face drops.
He keeps slipping as he feels the familiar metal wrapping around his throat about forty blocks from your apartment, lungs screaming in response as he tries to pry the claw from his neck.
“You’re a little slow today spider, something on your mind?” It’s taunting, meant to goad him into distraction, and Mark has fought Doc Ock enough times that ignoring it is second nature.
“No, just a bit tired of having to see you every night, you know? Don’t you have any hobbies?” He smiles at the growl it gets from him, finally snapping the pincer open as he drops to the floor, barely managing to catch his fall, and he curses the recognition that crosses Doc Ock’s face.
“So you are off your game.” He sounds disgustingly smug, hardly disguising his amusement, and Mark’s eyes narrow underneath the mask. “Got some issues at home? I can fix them for you.” He doesn’t remember throwing the punch. All he can feel is the shattering impact of Doc Ock’s nose cracking against his knuckles.
“Say that shit again. I dare you.” It’s said so quietly yet it roars all the same, echoing through the quickly emptying street. He’s angry. Angry at the fact he had to race to Oscorp to stop this robbery in the first place, angry that it’s almost one o’clock in the morning and he still doesn’t get to go home, and most of all, furious at the fact that Doctor Octavius thought it would be a good idea to indirectly threaten you.
It’s going to be a long patrol.
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He gets home at 4:24.
You’re not at the window. Now usually this would be fine, you would leave the window open on the rare nights he managed to stay out long enough for patrol that you couldn’t help but fall asleep, and he had sent you a text once he got the alert that he wouldn’t be home till later. It makes sense that you’d be asleep. The only issue is you weren’t in your bed either.
Paranoia grips him, eases into his body with dagger-like accuracy, and it knocks the breath out of him as he races out of your room to find you, hear you, see you -
You’re passed out on the couch, sleeping peacefully with half a blanket managing to get up to your stomach before falling off onto the floor, the coffee table scattered with what looks like history notes. He lets out an almost hysterical laugh, tugging off his mask and gripping his hair like a lifeline. You’re safe. He knows it’s impossible for Doc Ock to have known about you, to know where he lives and especially who his roommate might be, but just thinking about it ever being a possibility was more than enough to crack something inside of Mark.
Mark doesn’t fear the unknown in his feelings for you, but he’s horrified at the thought of your name being just another in a long list of those he was too slow to save. And today that fear got a little too close for comfort.
He stays there for a moment, eyes wide and shaking as he sees the steady rise and fall of your chest, and centers himself enough that he can leave the room and get changed without glancing over his shoulder to look at you every step of the way. He takes off his suit and throws it into some corner of his room, the adrenaline he felt before in his panic wearing off and leaving him sluggish with exhaustion. By the time he’s finished showering and changed clothes he’s practically dragging himself back to the couch.
You’ve woken up a little now, probably from the sound of the shower, and he tries his best to pick himself up and offer a smile to you as he walks over. “Sorry for waking you up. You're gonna head to your actual bed now, or stay here?” It’s meant to come out teasing but it sounds hollow even to his own ears, almost wincing at the grating sound.
“That depends,” Your voice is crackling, raspy as you move to stand, blanket crumbling to the floor as you blink the sleep from your eyes. He’s always liked seeing how comfortable you are around him, and if he was in a better headspace he might’ve called your sleepiness cute. “On how your patrol went.”
There were nights when patrols went south and you would camp out on the couch with him, listening to him and lifting the weight off his chest, even if only for a little while. He does the same for you, on nights when homework gets to be too much or your nerves have gotten the best of you, he’s almost frantic to provide the same comfort you give him.
He’s silent for a moment, hands twitching as he swallows. “It wasn’t okay. But I don’t really know how to describe it.” He’s not even sure he wants to think about it anymore for tonight, any hint of discussion came crashing down the moment he thought you might be gone.
“Hey, that’s all good, but make sure you get some sleep, okay? We can talk about it in the morning if you’re comfortable with it.” You step towards your room, and Mark’s arm shoots out in an instant, hand wrapping your wrist in a loose grip. He loses his composure again, feeling your skin against his, feeling your pulse against his thumb, another reassurance that you’re alive, that you’re here, with him.
“Can you…. Can you stay with me, please?”
He watches you melt, eyes and posture softening as you twist your wrist out of his hold, replacing it with your hand instead, soft and warm and real against his own. It’s a lifeline he desperately needs.
“Of course.”
You move to sit down but he keeps still, focusing on the movement of your thumb sweeping gentle circles across his hand.
“It was Doc Ock again. He mentioned hurting you.” He blurts it out and immediately regrets it, hearing your breath hitch in your throat, and he’s quick to continue, "He doesn’t know who we are. He just insinuated hurting someone who lived with me. He was just trying to get to me, that’s all.”
He truly didn’t want to talk about it, to burden you with anything else, but the feeling of your skin against his is distracting, and exhaustion makes his lips looser.
“It’s just I’m terrified that you might get hurt because of me, that being close with you might get you killed ,” His voice shatters at the thought of it, you dying all because he wasn’t good enough to stop it, because he was selfish and wanted more. He swallows and continues, "all because I fight people who wouldn’t hesitate to use you to get to me.”
You don’t say anything, because what is there to say? That you won’t ever get hurt? That no one will ever find out that Mark Lee is Spiderman? Because you can’t say that for certain, all you can provide is the reassurance that you’re here, and for Mark that’s more than enough.
“I’m here for the long haul, no matter if I get a couple scrapes and bruises along the way, Mark. I know the risks and I’m still here.” He wants to ask how you can be so sure. That you can just dismiss any threat with a simple shrug of your shoulder, but he’s too busy pressing himself into your side, drunk off the feeling of your warmth against him that he forgets to verbalize his thoughts, settling for a hum instead. It draws a chuckle out of you as he’s guided onto the couch.
“Now c’mon Bugboy, you save everyone all the time, maybe let somebody else save you for a change. Even if it’s only from sleep deprivation.”
His brain almost short circuits as you finally get him to lie down, and he has to stop himself from complaining as you dislocate yourself from him to grab the blanket on the floor, but he pauses. His mind trails back to what you just said, and he finds his voice again.
“You’ve saved me from a lot more than just sleep deprivation you know. You’ve saved me from…” It takes his brain a moment to get the list he keeps of every time you’ve helped him that he can remember, every moment you chose to stay. “Stab wounds have been the trend, but you’ve taken care of a fractured elbow, gunshot grazings, or even claw marks.” He stops for a moment, closes his eyes, and thinks harder. “You saved me from being alone. I think that counts for something.”
He feels you settle next to him, and wraps an arm around your waist to pull you closer.
“Mark, I-” He doesn’t let you finish. He refuses to think you might downplay how much you’ve done for him. How you’re just “being a good friend” or “being a nice roommate”. A good friend asks if you’re okay and tries to help when they can. You are sleeping with him on a couch tonight because he can’t make it to his room but doesn’t want to be alone. That’s not just something a friend does, or a roommate does, and you both know that. So he decides to stop talking like just a friend too, and rationalizes that if it doesn’t work out he can just pretend it was the exhaustion tomorrow.
“You’re so strong , and you never talk about it, and maybe you’ve had to be strong for a really long time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” It’s spoken in hushed murmurs against your skin, and his nose brushes against your collarbone. It’s spoken like he’s in awe. “You amaze me. Everyday, in everything you do.”
“And even if our relationship never goes past this, I’m just happy that I got the chance to finally tell you. You deserve someone telling you everyday.” He takes a breath, steadying himself. “Even if that someone isn’t me.”
“Mark. Are you being serious right now?” He smiles, sinking further into the couch and slowly inching one of his hands up from your waist to the hand splayed across his chest in a silent question. You lace your fingers together, and his smile widens.
“Do you want me to say it again? I’ll say it as many times as you need, I wouldn’t complain about doing it every day, actually. I can even say more if you’d like?” He laughs under his breath and leans an inch closer, testing the waters of your friendship just a little more before it becomes something else entirely, and he tumbles through that unspoken line that has always held him back.
A line made of the nervous, fluttering thought that maybe things won’t feel different than just being best friends. That it might be better to stay that way then in a relationship. He looks at it and tries to remember why it ever scared him in the first place. Because he knows that even if it fails, or even if it doesn’t work out, it’ll be with you. So Mark does what he does best. He dives.
“I have been in love with you for the past two years of my life, and if I don’t tell you it might kill me.”
You still, he can feel it through your hands, slightly shaking as you release the breath you were holding. You tighten your grip on his hand as the other comes to cup the side of his face, tracing shapes across his skin laced with all the softness he has ever felt. He sees your eyes drop from his down to a bit lower, and he can’t stop the shudder that passes through him, electricity crackling across each nerve. He leans into your hand.
“It might just kill me too.”
He can’t move. There’s no spidey-sense of danger, no jittering warning banging through his brain calling him to act, and yet it feels as though you just punched him in the stomach. Annihilated with just a sentence, crippled with just six words, he struggles to try and articulate himself beyond a frantic nod of his head as you slowly tug your hand out of his grip to grasp the other side of his cheek and tilt his head down to-
“Wait. No,” he swallows harshly, finally finding his voice again, and rushes to keep using it to finish his sentence when he feels you start to pull away from him. “Don’t kiss me yet , kiss me in the morning. I know I’m going to wake up and think I was dreaming, and I need to know this is real.” It shoots your eyebrows up, and he wants to slap himself once he realizes what he said, but it’s too late as he watches a smile creep along your face.
“Do you dream about this that often? That you would believe it’s not real?”
He rolls onto his back, pulling away from your body (which isn’t much, there’s only so far he can go when the left half of his body is hanging off now that he even tried to put any distance) and putting an arm over his eyes as he laughs, and he knows you can still see the red creeping from underneath.
“Um, yeah? I’ve dreamt about you and a lot of things.” He groans and turns on his side now, fully on the couch but away from you, desperate to dissolve into the furniture one size too small for two people, and he can feel your hands wrap around his shoulders and you laugh against him.
“Oh? A lot of things? Well come on now, I just have to hear more about these dreams you’ve had about me.”
“This isn’t really how I pictured this going if I’m being honest with you.”
“Really? Confessing at the crack of dawn, after you almost bled out in the bathroom last night? I wouldn’t have it any other way Mark” He can feel your breath against his ear as you lean in. “Besides, you act like I haven’t dreamt about you too, I just don’t admit it after confessing my love for you like an idiot.” It’s whispered against his skin, and he can still feel your laughter rumble through your chest to his. Fondness and the most perfect kind of heartache shared between just you two.
“You know you still haven’t said it back.” He says it like a joke, phrased as another witty comment in an eternal back and forth, but he knows you’ll see it for what it is. The last chance to back out. He would give it to you, let you realize you don’t want to spend your days waiting at a window, possibly in danger from people who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, to maim you because he wants to save everyone. To get up and change the lease, move in with a roommate whose chances of dying aren’t in the high double digits, and move on to achieve everything he knows you’re capable of. He is instead foolishly surprised as you do what you always do. Take it in stride.
You twist him back around to face you, grasp his hands and squeeze them, and feel each of the calluses and scars scrawling stories from the tips of his fingers to the bottom of his wrists. He can feel your thumb rub so gently on his pulse point that he almost wants to cry.
“I love you Mark Lee.” Mark loved being Spiderman. Despite every bad memory or person lost, he loves that he has the ability to help people, that he can go out and make the world a better place one person at a time. But this was the first time Mark loved being Mark Lee. Because you didn’t love Spiderman. You loved him.
So despite the crick he’s certain will form in his back tomorrow from lying on this couch, he has never been happier than this moment, smile blooming across his face as he stares at you, incandescent and tired as he prays that when he wakes up it’s real and he can do this all over again tomorrow, and hold you even closer.
That is what couples do after all. And that is what you guys will start doing, and the thought of getting to stay with you every night, not just in the same apartment but truly with you, maybe even in a bed big enough that his leg won’t be hanging off the side and you’ll have a blanket that’s big enough to actually cover you, blindsides him, dunks his head underwater as he forgets and almost reaches for your face.
“I’m so sorry but could you please turn around?” The confusion on your face is palpable as you scrunch your nose at him, and Mark has to smother the urge to just -
“Why?” If he wasn’t still riding the high that you love him to, he might be embarrassed, but all he can muster and give you is a small bashful smile instead of any more theatrical embarrassment.
“Because I don’t think I can handle looking at you without kissing you right now.”
“Oh,” You scoff, “and whose fault is that?”
“Still you actually, with”, He raises a hand to wave it around you before settling it to shield his eyes, “all of that you have going on all the time.” It gets the laugh out of you he was searched for, beaming with pride as you grab his hand to pull it down along with the rest of his body.
“Okay you really need to go to sleep if that is all you can do to describe me.” His head spins when he tries to get up to defend himself, and begrudgingly accepts being tugged back down yet again to finally start getting comfortable to go to sleep.
“No no I can definitely describe you, it's just, you’re so amazing it’s going to take me a minute to remember it all.”
“Why don’t you try remembering in the morning.” It’s enough to settle him completely, with the promise of tomorrow holding so much more than anything he could have dreamed of, bringing you closer with whispered words of goodnight, so comforting in it’s notes of fond exasperation as you repeat the same to him.
“Good night Mark.”
“Kiss me in the morning?”
“I said good night Mark.”
It’s the best sleep he’s gotten in two years.
_____________________________
When he wakes up he can still feel the warmth you left behind on the couch, and he shoves the pillow you put as a substitute (a very lackluster one, he might add, it has nothing on the original) in his arms to the side as he tries his best to gain enough consciousness to stand up and go searching for you.
He finds you in the kitchen, hands poised to crack an egg over the pan you had already buttered, and he knows he’s most likely overslept for his Wednesday TA class. It doesn’t stop him from hitting the top of the entryway as he walks in to let you know he’s there, almost nervous enough for his hand to stick to the doorframe if he wasn’t careful. You immediately drop the egg, turn off the fire, and turn around.
There’s a beat, a moment of uncertainty that flickers between you two, a moment of doubt seeping out onto linoleum floors. And then your face blooms, smiling at him as you slowly pad over to him. He was right last night, as you slide your hands over his shoulders to pull him closer. He would’ve believed this was a dream if he had kissed you then. To be honest, he might think he’s still dreaming if he kisses you now. But your smile inches closer, and he’s looking down at you as that smile slowly turns into a grin.
“So? Can you kiss me now or do you have to wait until the afternoon-”
He lets himself go, and tastes the sweetness off your lips. It wasn’t a lightning strike. The world didn’t stop turning, nothing changed or suddenly clicked and that’s when he knows it’s real, because it's what he has always wanted. It’s just you.
You tasted like your smile, like light and kindness and every good thing this crumpled world had to offer them, was placed in the curves of your lips and offered like a prayer. He gladly took its accession. This made everything worth it. The late nights, the broken ribs, everything. It’s a small price to pay when he gains the incalculable wealth of your arms wrapped around him at 10:35 in the morning, late to his organic chemistry class which started at 10:20.
It fills him with an overwhelming amount of joy as he laughs against your lips, unable to kiss you but refusing to pull away. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.” You grin and nudge his nose with yours, desperate to feel his lips against yours again, to feel that feeling of simplicity and joy and coming home all at once, but not desperate enough to give up the look on his face as he giggles at you.
“I know, I really had to lower my standards for this to happen.” His head throws back as he laughs now, hands quickly raking across your waist to pull you closer, always closer, because Mark Lee has waited two years imagining what holding you might feel like, and yet it’s still somehow more addictive and sweet than the honey-coated dreams he allowed himself to have.
He tries to kiss you again, it can barely be called a kiss really, laughing against each other as he stumbles back and leans against the countertop of your tiny excuse for a kitchen.
You pull away again and he chases you, head leaning forward and you have to use every ounce of your strength to stop yourself from falling back in all over again. “Mark. You’ve got to get to your chemistry class.”
“Fuck chemistry,” It’s said with such unrestrained joy, a laugh still on the edge of coming through as he grins at you, "Who gives a shit about titrations anyways? I’m not the only TA. Johnny can handle it. I have waited two years to kiss you,” he says it breathlessly, like even he can’t believe how long he’s waited to feel you against him, “and I don’t give a shit about teaching some kids who can’t tell chemical and physical reactions apart.”
“Well then you’ve got to text Johnny to let him know you won’t be showing up today.” He can see you swallow down the reaction you have to his words, and he desperately wants to ask how long you felt the same way, how much your relationship could’ve been if only he hadn’t been so scared. How he could’ve held you like this so much sooner if he realized you look at him the same way he looks at you.
“I’ll tell him after I take you on a date. A real date, not some lunch where I pay you back for saving my life in a stupid bathroom.” His hands tighten around you, and he’s waiting for that spark in your eye, that little glimmer of agreement that he can latch onto and milk for all it’s worth until you concede, but instead all he sees is a smug smile as you twist yourself out of his grasp and walk towards the front door, where he spots your bookbag sitting.
“I think you’re going to have to tell him now, and plan that date for later, because I have an exhibit presentation to give, and you,” He watches you make a show out of pulling your phone from your back pocket and checking the time, and if he wasn’t still reeling from the fact he really did just kiss you, or the offense he feels at the fact you are leaving, he might’ve cracked a smile at your theatrics, "are now thirty minutes late to your Organic Chemistry class.”
With a flourish you open the door and he manages to catch your words as he watches your grin disappear from behind the cheap wood of the door.
“This is for making me wait a whole night to kiss you.”