Work Text:
You stare down at the booklet lying in front of you, the pages neatly spread apart over your bedroom desk. Pens, pencils, scrunched up pieces of paper and textbooks litter the now not so empty spaces of your room. You take in a breath and realise the air is quite stale, how long has it been since you started?
You get up from your desk chair, still eyeing the booklet as you make your way over to the window, and then slide the window upwards to let in some fresh air. You feel like a mess. A total, crying, blubbering mess. Your eyes are still red from the almost breakdown you had earlier, and every time you make eye contact with your homework you feel it bubbling up inside you again; a sense of helplessness.
You stretch for a moment before sighing and plodding yourself back into the squeaky desk chair. You spin around, tempted to just turn on your laptop instead and watch Netflix… but you know you have to try again otherwise you’ll just panic in the middle of the test – that’s the absolute last thing you want to happen.
You slide closer to the desk and open up a textbook while looking through the topic that you’re stuck on. You don’t understand why you just don’t get it, everyone else in your class seems to be doing okay with it. And you’re not usually one to struggle with something for this long, usually you figure it out before any real damage can be done. But it’s the last night before the test and you haven’t gotten anywhere all weekend.
Your phone buzzes, and while you usually have it on silent, you notice the lit up screen tells you that you’ve received a message from Peter, one of your close friends from school.
Parker: You at home?
You look away from the text and get back into reading the chapter you started, it’s probably somewhat rude of you to ignore a text from Peter but you’re pretty sure he would understand. Especially since he does the same thing most of the time.
Parker: Hello?
You look at your mobile once again and frown, honestly, he should know better. You pick up the phone, turn it on silent, and then shove it deep into one of your desk drawers. You shake your head as you try to find your place when a sudden voice from behind you makes you jump.
“Don’t put me in a drawer!”
You spin around and find Peter staring back at you, his Spiderman mask clutched in his hand, his mobile phone in the other, and his brown eyes looking at you with utter shock.
You widen your eyes, “Peter?” You slide along the floor in your roller chair towards the window sill where he sits. You grab onto his hand before pulling him into your room as you slide back towards your desk, “You should probably change before coming to my window. People might start asking me questions about Spiderman, and I don’t want to have to deal with that.”
He blushes and you let go of his hand, “Sorry… I was just caught up in texting you that I forgot I was even in my suit.”
You cross your arms over your chest, “So, why are you here?”
Peter places his mask down beside a mountain of textbooks and collapses onto your bed, you fight the urge to blush at his sudden comfort in your own bedroom. He’s been here before… but only briefly. You mostly hang out at his house because your apartment is rather small, and living on your own means you rarely have enough food to feed more than one person.
He sighs, “Y/N, you’ve been… hiding away in here all weekend. I was wondering if you were even alive.”
You laugh, “Of course I’m alive…” You bite your lip at the total mess of your room and nervously start tidying up as best as you can. You bend down to the floor to pick up your dirty laundry before heaving them over into a wash basket. “I’ve just been cramming for this stupid test.”
Peter tilts his head, “Oh…” he frowns, hopping off your bed and then falls into your desk chair. He pulls himself up to the desk and flitters through your notes and the study guide, “Surely this hasn’t taken up all of your time?” He turns to you, pure innocence reflecting back, but what he says is like a stab to your heart. Peter sometimes just doesn’t get that not everyone can do tests and homework like he can… you look away, embarrassed.
He tries to find your eyes but you avoid looking at him, and then you continue cleaning up your room as you find that you have nothing to say back to him. It’s stuck in your throat, and admitting you need help with studying is almost too painful to say, especially to someone like Peter. He seems to have it all together most of the time, and somehow manages to be Spiderman on the side… it seems impossible, but he makes it work.
“Y/N?” He gets up from your chair, and suddenly his hand is on your arm, “I’ve seen you studying this stuff before, you’ve been doing fine with it…”
You shake your head, your back still turned and your eyes on the floor. “Not this time Peter… I just…” You sigh and shrug him off before pushing past him towards your desk again, straightening up the piles of books and other homework you have waiting.
“You just?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m pretty sure it does, especially when whatever it is forces you to miss out on our weekly pancake date.”
Suddenly you turn around to face him, your eyes wide again and your heart filled with guilt. “I missed our pancake hang out?” You scan his eyes for confirmation, and you find it; you look to your watch and realise that its way past 2pm when you usually go together.
Peter smiles sadly, “Yeah… I mean, it’s okay, I probably would have forgotten too if I had a test coming up.”
Your shoulders droop, “That’s not true Peter, you would never miss any of our plans.” You smack the palm of your hand to your forehead, “I’m such an idiot!”
He takes a step towards you, “Clearly you’ve just had something else going on, so why not just tell me? Maybe I can help you.”
You hide your face with your hands, and mumble, “You’re offering to help me even though I flaked on you?”
He slowly but surely pulls your hands away from your embarrassed self, “Y/N, you’re my friend, and I’m pretty sure there have been countless of times where I’ve had to go and suit up when we’re hanging out.”
“Yeah but you’re Spiderman, you’ve got an actual reason. I’m just…”
He tilts his head again, and the adoring puppy eye look he gives you pulls at your heartstrings, “You’re just?”
You sigh out of frustration, “I’m just stupid.”
He raises his eyebrows and brushes the hair from his eyes, “You are not stupid!”
You throw your hands up in the air as the anger, at yourself, comes undone, “But like you said, usually I’m fine with this stuff; I just can’t get this topic! The information goes into my head but it just doesn’t process! I have no idea what I’m reading half the time, and the questions don’t even make sense, how am I going to sit tomorrow’s test? It starts at like 8:45 in the morning! I’ll have no time to study before—
“Y/N!” He abruptly cuts you off midsentence, probably because you’re doing that thing again where your anxiety takes over your talking and you can’t help but ramble on about everything that’s stressing you out. “Calm. Down.”
You take in a long breath and then let it out again as you follow Peter’s words, “Okay. I’m calm.”
He comes closer to you in a matter of seconds, and soon you find yourself being pushed out of your bedroom into your kitchen. Peter drops your incredible pile of textbooks and pens and papers onto the table in the centre of the room. You lean against the table as you watch him stumble around in the kitchen.
“Peter?”
He looks up at you with his arms cradling a bunch of ingredients you forgot you had, you must have gone to the store recently. Sometimes when you get stressed like this, you forget to eat, or the stress takes away your hunger. His hold tightens around them and he blinks his brown eyes, “Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
He stares down at himself for a moment and then looks back up to you, “Well, firstly, you need a change in environment. So getting out of your room was the first step.”
You raise an eyebrow, “And the next step?”
He puts the ingredients down on the kitchen bench in front of him and smiles grandly at you, “Make some pancakes!” He stares down at his hands, like he’s noticing his Spiderman suit for the very first time, and frowns, “But uh—I should probably change first.”
You set to your study while you wait for Peter to change, you place the books and questions out neatly hoping that somehow you’ll manage to overcome this problem before tonight ends. Your room opens and Peter walks out wearing a hoodie and jeans, his before messy brown hair neatly pushed back into more of a Peter Parker style.
He comes up beside you and you get a whiff of his shampoo, or deodorant, and he leans in closer over your shoulder to inspect what you have to do and what you’re currently doing wrong. “I see…” he mumbles to himself quietly, and you watch as the wheels in his mind spin and his eyes skim over the information in front of you. You sometimes forget how smart he can be, and when you’re reminded you’re also reminded of how very proud you are of him.
When he notices you staring at him he smiles softly and chuckles, you turn away as you blush; feeling the heat of red spread across the tops of your cheeks. “I see where you’re stuck, and I can see why. It is quite tricky.”
You scrunch up your face, “You better not be saying that to just make me feel better…”
His hand rests on your back as he looks down at you, “I promise I’m not.” You suddenly realise how much you love the way Peter randomly touches you occasionally, and your heart flutters. He bends down closer to the table and sketches out a step-by-step guide for you to read, he pushes the pad of paper towards you when he’s finished, “Try and use this, and if it doesn’t help you let me know and I’ll try something else.”
You touch the notepad gently and read his scribbles, and you hear him wander off behind the kitchen counter again. You turn to face him, “You’re really going to make pancakes?”
He pauses with a carton of milk in his hands, “Of course, we always have pancakes on Sunday, I won’t let our tradition be missed because of study!”
You smile at this, and continue to watch him for a little bit when his back is turned towards the frying pan. The sizzling of oil and the smell of newly frying pancakes almost makes your mouth water, and you suddenly realise how hungry you actually are. You watch as he attempts to flip a pancake in the pan, and when it flips over half of the pancake hangs over the edge, almost slipping out of the pan. You cry out in warning and Peter turns to you with surprise written all over his face, and when your eyes meet you both laugh hysterically.
“You almost lost the whole pancake, Peter!”
He pushes it back into the pan with a great big cheesy smile on his face, “Almost!” He puts the pan back over the flame, “By the way, I think you’re supposed to be studying, not judging how I flip my pancakes.”
You poke your tongue out at him as he turns around again, and you’re both back into a fit of laughter.
By the time Peter finishes frying up a great big stack of pancakes, and after many crucial attempts and helpful comments from Peter, you manage to finally grasp this whole concept and realise what you’ve been doing wrong and how to do it better.
“Peter!” You shout, standing up from your seat in a burst of energy, “I’ve got it! I’ve really got it!”
He places the plate down on the table and jumps up excitedly alongside you, “I knew you’d get it!”
You practically pounce onto Peter and wrap your arms around him, “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I wouldn’t have understood it without you!”
He squeezes you tightly, and then you both pull back from each other as the smell of pancakes becomes too hard to handle. You and Peter swoop into the stack of pancakes, and while you eat you talk about Peter’s most recent Spiderman adventures, and soon the whole stack is eaten and your bellies are full.
Once you’ve finished going through your study guide, and are confident about tomorrow’s test, you retire to the couch along with Peter and look for a movie or two to watch together. He huddles up close to you, your arms touching, and as the movie plays you end up practically cuddling. The rhythmic sound and movement of his breathing comforts you, and his arms around you warm you up.
“Peter?”
He looks down at you, “Yeah?”
“Thanks for today, you know, coming over to see if I was okay. And helping me… and making pancakes.”
“That’s alright, you know I’m always around to help, right? I know I’m much busier these days… but I will always have time for you.”
“I know. Thank you.”
He squeezes you for a moment, “Now, how good were those pancakes?” You both laugh together and then he says, “I’ll promise to better my pancake flipping skills for next time, even though I think they’re pretty fantastic anyway.”
You shake your head, “You may be a web-slinging, crime fighting superhero but your pancake flipping skills definitely need a lot of work.”
“Noted,” and then the laughter breaks out again.