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“Pssst, Ned- Hey, Ned, wake up.”
Ned grumbles. He can just tell, without even opening his eyes, that this is far too early in the morning to wake up. Far too early in the morning for anyone to be up, especially nine year old's who spent all of last night secretly watching Star Wars for the upteenth time.
“Neeeeed-”
He buries deeper into his sleeping bag, becoming the cocoon he has always mean to truly be. Cocoons don’t have to deal with obnoxious morning people who try to drag you from your well deserved slumber. Cocoons are lucky: they have no idea how good they have it.
“Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned-”
He blinks tired eyes open, sees the inside of his sleeping bag, grumbles, before slowly, slowly, poking his head out of his hidey hole. He only opens one eye, and just a crack, just in case there’s the remote possibility he’ll be allowed to fall back asleep.
“What?”
Peter grins down at him. His hair looks like a rat’s nest and is flying up in every which direction, his glasses are doing their usual job of making his eyes seem far too big for his head, and the glint of his braces can just be caught from the light reflecting on the nightlight in the wall behind them.
“You gotta wake up: I have something I want to show you.”
Ned creaks his head marginally so that he can peer out the window, and then creaks his head back so that he can give Peter a stink eye with his one available eyeball, still keeping his other one stubbornly shut.
“Peter,” he says, in the long suffering tone of night owls to their morning lark friends everywhere, “it’s still dark out.”
But his friend just shakes his head.
“Not for long. It’s almost sunrise. Which means that you have to get up! C’mon, c;mon, c’mon-”
Ned closes his eyes. He grumbles. For one blissful second more, he closes both eyes and pretends that his wonderful and warm sleeping bag will get to stay tucked around him forever, and he can fall back into the wonderful arms of sleep.
Then Peter starts poking him impatiently in the head, and the illusion is ruined.
“I’m up, I’m up-”
And once Ned is up, he is actually up, and the whole thing stops feeling less like a curse thrown down from the heavens and more like the fun cool adventure that its meant to be. He and Peter sneak out of the bedroom, blankets thrown over their shoulders like capes and shared grins being traded between them like a secret. They tiptoe down to the kitchen, where they grab apples and heat up hot chocolate in the microwave, wincing at every loud rumble the old kitchen appliance gave off and sending furtive glances towards Peter’s uncle and aunt’s bedroom down the hall.
And then, goods in hand, they creep outside of the apartment, Peter nudging Ned forward with cold toes and excited grins, and maybe Ned has misgivings about leaving without an adult but he is also young and excited and this is an adventure, and so he goes along with it.
They take the elevator to the top floor, and then Peter nudges open a different door just to the left, hikes up a short flight of stairs, and then-
And then-
And then they’re on top of the roof, and the early morning is just starting to reach that grey colour that warns of oncoming sunshine, and they are so, so high up.
It’s breathtaking. It’s terrifying. Something tells him that this is something Peter has done more than once.
Together the two of them clamber up on top of a small storage shed, tin roof only creaking slightly under their weight, and they wait, munching on apples and sipping at a shared thermos of hot chocolate, and it’s too quiet and too early to really disrupt the silence but there is its own certain kind of joy in sharing company in quiet.
The air is crisp and clear in his throat, and Peter’s anticipatory grin makes a smile of Ned’s own come to his face, and from this spot there is the perfect viewpoint to watch the sunrise over New York City, stretching out its golden glow and bringing everything alight.
Later, later, they will go back to the Parker's small crammed apartment and eat waffles, Uncle Ben shooting them knowing grins and allowing them to splurge on strawberries. Later, later, they will build lego sets and ponder schoolwork and groan over chores. Later, there will be superheroes and saving the world, and small moments tucked away just for them.
And these two boys, they don’t yet know the trials they will face, the battles and the tears and the shuttered broken heartbeats. But they know this, this companionship, this friendship, this bright brilliant friendship between them that is not everything but will always be theirs.
The world wakes up all around them, and Ned breathes, and he smiles, and he lives.