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Rain drummed against the windows of the Avengers Tower, causing you to sigh. All you wanted to do was head out on a trip to the park with your best friend, Peter Parker. You guys were now stuck inside, though.
As you were lost in thought, you heard a camera click from behind you. You whipped your head around to see the very friend you were thinking of, a camera held up to his face. “Are you taking pictures of me?” you asked, annoyed. Getting your picture taken was not something you welcomed freely.
“Of course not, (Y/N/N), I’m just snapping a picture of the rain,” he mumbled, a goofy grin on his face. You just shook your head at Peter, a small smiling creeping it’s way onto your face.
“So, Mr. Photographer, we really can’t go outside today, what do you want to do?” you ask, leaning over the back of the arm chair you were sat in.
Peter shrugged and innocently said, “I could kick your ass at Mario Kart again.”
A playful rage built up inside of you and you stood up on the chair. “Oh, you are so on!”
Intense gaming ensued, but in the end Peter won… again. You flung yourself back onto the couch and let out a huge sigh. “Unbelievable!” you exclaimed. “Between school and being Spiderman, how do you find time to get so good at the game?” Peter didn’t say anything. “Peter are you…” you were cut off though by yet another camera click.
You look over and there he was, crouched on the floor with camera in hand and pointed at you. “PETER?!” you shout at him.
He looks at you like a deer in headlights. “What’d I do?”
“You keep taking pictures of me! You’ve been doing this for almost a week now! Don’t you have pictures to take for your big photography project?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been getting that done” Peter says in almost a whisper. “I should go work on it. Sorry,” he mumbles before getting up and walking out of the living room.
“Peter!” you call after him. You sigh and rest your head back against the couch. I have to stop yelling at him like that , you think.
That night after dinner with the Avengers, Peter escapes to his room before you can say anything to him. Your shoulders droop and you decide to leave him alone. You had some training to catch up on anyway. Being a prodigy of the Black Widow herself wasn’t going to happen by itself.
After training, you mustered up the courage to go see Peter and apologize to him. You knock softly on his door but there is no response. You open the door and peek your head inside. “Peter?” you say.
Peter is slumped over his desk, back rising and falling with his snores. You smile to yourself and let yourself in. Picking a blanket up off of his bed, you walk over to your sleeping friend. You drape the blanket over his broad shoulders and take a glance at his computer screen. His file folder is open and you see a file titled ‘that.dumb.photo.project.1.1′. You giggle and reach towards the mouse. Curiosity is getting the better of you. Besides, he normally showed you his pictures anyway and you loved seeing them.
You click on the file and a power point presentation pops up entitled ‘Things I Find Beautiful’. These should be interesting , you think. You hit the space bar so that the first image pops up. It’s an image of a fair. You know that fair, and you know that person in the image. It’s you. The image is gorgeous. The Ferris Wheel is large and lit up against the dusk sky with a side profile of you in the foreground.
You click for the next image. Once again, there’s you. You keep clicking through the images. In every single one, there is you. A warm, bubbly feeling begins to well up inside of you. A heat rises to your cheeks and a shy smile creeps along your lips. The last two images of the project are very familiar. One is a shot in front of a rain stained window and the other is you on the couch, smirking at the ceiling as you make fun of your best friend.
The things he finds beautiful is you. Your heart races and you look down at your sleeping friend. This boy you have known for months now, thought you were beautiful. His hair was mussed up and his cheeks flushed with fatigue. His lips were parted slightly as he snored softly. Your smile grew wider and you ran your fingers gently through his soft hair. You bent down and planted a soft kiss to his cheek. “I think you’re beautiful too,” you whisper in his ear. A soft groan escapes his lips and you leave him be to sleep.
The sun shone warmly through the large dining room windows. The morning sunshine cut through the tower’s chill like a knife. You relish in the sunlight as you munch on your cereal. The revelations of last night still left a warm, bubbly sensation in your tummy. Your best friend thought you were beautiful. Your best friend who you never realized you’d been crushing on until last night.
“G’morning,” a familiar, yet husky, voice said from behind you. You jumped a little at the sound of Peter’s voice. Your heart began to flutter.
You looked up into his sleepy eyes and smiled almost shyly. “Good morning, sleepy head. It’s nearly 12 o’clock.”
“I was extremely tired last night. And I was having the best drea…” he stopped abruptly as he looked at you, blushing as red as his supersuit. You could feel your cheeks grow hot as well. Was it about me? Peter quickly turned on his heel and shuffled off to the kitchen. You wondered if you should tell him that you saw the pictures. Would he be mad though? Maybe you were just accidentally in all of the pictures. You began to doubt how he felt about you but you shook your head at yourself. It would be very Peter-like to do something so sweet so it must be true , you thought.
Peter joined you at the dining table without you noticing. “Are you alright?” he said, mouth full of Frosted Flakes.
You snapped your head up at him startled. “Yeah, why?”
“You keep zoning out into your bowl. Something interesting in there?” he said teasingly. You made a face at him but smiled. You didn’t realize that you kept daydreaming as you thought about Peter. “Earth to (Y/N). You’re doing it again.” Peter waved a hand in front of your face.
“S..Sorry. I guess I must be pretty tired” you mumbled in response.
“Go take a nap, then. You don’t want to be tired for Tony’s party tonight. Well, Wanda’s party.”
Your eyes got wide. You had completely forgot about Tony’s party. It was Wanda’s birthday. Everyone is going to be there. Well, everyone who wasn’t in hiding. Perhaps this party was just what you needed though. Feelings were always confessed in party scenes. Maybe this would give Peter the courage, or give you courage. “Honestly, go back to bed. If you zone out on me one more time, I’m going to blame it on drugs or the fact that you’ve finally gone insane” Peter said, bringing you out of your thoughts once again.
Your face felt like it was on fire and you nodded, dumping your bowl in the sink and heading off to your bedroom. You were probably more afraid of your feelings towards Peter than he was. You fell back onto you bed and stared at the ceiling, a dumb grin on your face as you thought of telling Peter about your feelings for him. Him kissing you gently. His big hands on your waist. You slowly slipped back to sleep.
You were awoken by loud knocking on your bedroom door. “Yo, (Y/L/N), are you coming down?” Tony shouted from the other side.
As you regained control of your senses, you noticed you could hear the faint drumming of bass from downstairs. The party had started and you were sleeping. “Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute!” you shouted back. You quickly put on some fresh jeans and a red tee shirt. Running your hands through you hair, you smiled at your reflection. You had dreamed that Peter confessed his feelings to you. It may have been a dream but if shy Peter Parker could share his feelings, you could do it.
You rode the elevator down to the living room impatiently, bouncing from foot to foot. The doors slid open and you pushed into the mass of Avengers and close friends. As you made your way through the crowd, you kept on the look out for Peter.
You finally saw him. He was in jeans and a tighter than usual black shirt. The sleeves clung to his defined arms and you could see his muscles move under his shirt as his shoulders bounced with nervous laughter. He was in a heated discussion with Tony. His face was bright red and he was ringing his hands. As Tony talked, he drank in every word with intense concentration. You figured it was about the work he was doing for Tony so you stayed put, waiting for them to finish.
“Wade. Wade Wilson. But you probably already knew that, gorgeous,” you turned to face the voice behind you. A man in a red and black suit was standing there, his hand extended. As you turned, however, he brought his hands to his face and gasped. “You’re (Y/N)!,” he seemed to look over your shoulder as he said, “I’ll dip out of this fanfiction. Peter already had his eyes on this one.” He then winked and walked away. At least you’re pretty sure he winked. And what on Earth was he talking about and to who?
You shrugged it off and turned back to look at Peter and Tony. Peter was looking at you, his face still red. He looked away as you caught his eye. You could feel a heat rise in your cheeks as Peter started to walk towards you. “Hey Peter. Having fun?” you asked, a bit nervously.
He nodded nervously before opening his mouth and saying, “Did it hurt?”
You looked at him puzzled and figured he was talking about the bruise on your arm from yesterday’s training session. “Well, kinda but not too…”
“Because you’re the only Tennessee… Wait, no that’s not right. Shit.” he said as he looked down at the ground, his face as red as a tomato.
Did he just try to use a pick-up line on you? You stood there with your mouth slightly open. As you processed what had happened, you began to giggle uncontrollably. You placed a hand over your mouth as you stared up at your best friend, still giggling. A smile spread across his face and rubbed the back of his neck with one of his hands. “That didn’t quite go as planned, huh?” you giggled.
He shook his head no and quickly took your hand and pulled you out onto the balcony, catching you off guard. You stopped giggling and stared up into his eyes. The stars were beginning to come out and the sun was just barely above the horizon. The air was cool but slightly warmed by the sun. Peter had a crooked smile on his face as he looked down at you. Was he always so tall? Your heart pounded in your chest. “(Y/N)…” he said deeply.
“Yes Peter?” you replied, blood pounding in your ears.
“Could we take a selfie?”
You stood there once again stunned. “Um, yeah, sure.”
He grinned wide and pulled out his phone. He wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you in close as he held the phone out in front of you two. You smiled big for the picture and so did he. His arm around your waist had that bubbly feeling welling up inside of you again. He pulled away and you looked at the sunset, a little sad about the absence of his arm. “Beautiful…” you heard him whisper.
You nodded in agreement and said, “Yes, the sky is always so beautiful at this time.” As you looked over at Peter, however, he wasn’t looking at the sky. He was staring at you. Your face flushed red and you couldn’t help but smile.
“Not as beautiful as you are all of the time,” he said, obviously finding his courage. “(Y/N), you are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes on and I want you to know that. No, I need you to know that. That is why I’ve been taking so many pictures. The project was to capture everything you think is beautiful in this world and the only thing I could think of was you.” He let out a shaky breath as he finished. You hadn’t even realized that he had taken your hands in his. You hung on to every word he had said.
Your head buzzed but you could only think of one thing to do. You leaned up on your tip-toes and pressed your lips against his. He leaned into the kiss and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his neck and smiled into the kiss, but so was he. His lips were softer than you had imagined and you never realized how much he smelt like peppermint.
“The pick-up lines worked, huh?” Tony said from the door of the tower, a big smile on his face.
You and Peter pulled apart and began to laugh. You looked up into Peter’s eyes and said, “I think you’re beautiful too, Peter Parker.” He grinned and leaned his forehead against yours.
He softly kissed your cheek before whispering, “Don’t sneak in my room while I’m sleeping.” He grinned cheekily down at you and you giggled happily.