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Peter gets back from patrol at around 3:30 am and stumbles into his bedroom, trying not to wake his roommate. She doesn’t know he’s Spiderman and he can’t think of any way to tell her that doesn’t make him look like a fool. He swings around in Spandex and she writes letters to Congresspeople weekly demanding extra funding for this, that and the other. They are not in the same league. Plus, he’s kind of scared of her. Noone can be that beautiful and not have a threatening aura. She holds too much power.
Michelle has been his roommate since the beginning of term 6 months ago and honestly, he’s barely keeping it together. He hasn’t told her he’s Spiderman because he can hardly look at her and form a cohesive sentence. Ned thinks he has a crush on her, May thinks he wants to marry her and Tony thinks he wants to fu- well it doesn’t matter what Tony thinks. The thing that matters, is that they’re all correct.
Everything she does makes him feel better and he can’t explain why. He’ll be frustrated with a lab report and then she’ll call him a ‘dork’ and he’s on top of the world. He’ll be annoyed at the fact he missed another call from May because he was sleeping and then she’ll surprise him with a cup of tea and he won’t stop smiling. He can stub his toe and immediately feel better because he’ll hear her laugh.
He wants to be around her all of the time, every second of every day. He misses her when she goes to class and when she’s asleep. He thinks about telling her how he feels all the time. When she stretches and he can’t tear his eyes away from her neck; when she chews on a pencil trying to decipher her own writing; when she reaches to rub the paint off her face he finally told her about because she caught him staring. The issue is, she doesn’t feel the same way. He knows she doesn’t, how can she? Have you seen her? She’s the single most brilliant person he’s ever met. And he’s met Black Panther. He’s met May.
So instead he decides her being in his life is fine on its own. It’s perfect. He doesn’t need to kiss her, hold her hand, tuck the stubborn curls that gather in front of her face behind her ear. Do friends hold hands? Probably not. Whatever he’ll probably get over his crush soon. He’s not in love with her or anything.
He changes from his Spidey suit, hides it under his bed and tries to decide if he should shower. Patrol was pretty chill, so he doesn’t feel sweaty or gross and if he showered in the morning, he wouldn’t run this risk of waking Michelle up. He smiles thinking about her, knowing she’s asleep just across the hall, thinks for the nth time how nice it would be to sleep with her. Just in the same bed, not like, not like that. Although - well, nevermind.
He just wants to know her in every possible way. He knows she smiles softer just before she goes to bed, he wants to know how far it goes. He loves her sharp edges and wouldn’t change a thing about her. But he wants to know if she’s softer when she sleeps. Is there a whole side to her only certain people know? He desperately wants to be one of those people. He wants her to want to know those things about him. As if he’s keeping anything worth knowing from her anyway.
He’s brought out of his musings by a sound coming from Michelle’s room, he can’t figure out what it is. Heavy breathing and some sheet rustling. He’s trying to determine whether or not he thinks she needs help, he’s narrowed it down to two possible scenarios. Both don’t entirely need him to intervene. He wants too, in case you know, she’s upset or something. But he’s had his fair share of nightmares so knows they’ll stop soon. And if it’s - he clears his throat to stop his train of thought. Deciding to pull out his headphones because it’s an invasion of privacy.
Just as he goes to turn his sleeping playlist on he hears her say ‘no’ over and over again and he thinks to hell with it. Getting up and throwing on his pyjamas, and as he attempts to make his footsteps louder so if he’s mistaking this she will know he’s awake, he walks to her door. Waiting for a second in case she was awake, he knocks the door when he hears a light sob. It’s insane how badly he wants to help her, he’d do anything for her.
“Michelle?” he says when the sounds don’t stop and she doesn’t appear to have woken up.
“Are you okay?” he says a little louder, a little more desperate.
He hears her gasp and sleepily replies, “Pete? Is - are you outside?”
“Yeah, I thought - sorry I thought you were having a nightmare. Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you -”
“Can you come in, please?” she says as if she’s still half asleep.
Tentatively he opens her door. Her room looks different in the dark, cosier, more like Michelle. He can see some drawings it looks like she was working on while he was out, but he can’t make out what they are. She has the curtains half drawn so the moonlight is streaming through her window and bathing her in a glow and he is so gone for her.
“Hey.” he says, with what sounds like pure adoration, clearing his throat he tries again, “are you okay? Bad dream?”
She hums and he feels his knees buckle at how cute she is at nighttime. She’s always cute, but here, in this lightening, in her room, he is barely keeping it together.
“Can you come here, please?” she says, voice the quietest he’s ever heard it, lifting the edge of her duvet and his eyes widen tenfold and he knows he’s gaping at her. He swears he sees a flash of red and blue on her top but the duvet dips back down.
“I had a nightmare and I just need to know you’re real and safe, but it’s so cosy and warm in here and I don’t want to move,” she says turning onto her side and flashing him a small smile. “Come be warm and cosy with me.”
Walking over to her bed he tries to calm his heart down, it always beats a little faster when she’s around. He slips in next to her and lays on his side, trying to keep his limbs away from her. He runs colder than your average person and he doesn’t want her to kick him out, or to figure out he’s Spiderman, but the kicking out thing first.
She leans towards him and moves her arm over him to place the duvet back down and rests¹ her forearm on his ribcage and he’s about to combust. He’s trying his hardest to regulate his breathing but then she pulls back and she’s so close to him that he can count the freckles he never knew she had from here.
“Hi. You’re okay,” she says sleepily and cups her hand to his cheek, running her thumb back and forward. He’s too dumbstruck that she’s touching him to ask why he wouldn’t be okay. His brain is about to figure it out, but she shifts slightly and her toes touch his and he inhales like he’s just run a marathon. She giggles in response and he’s not sure how he’s surviving when she’s allowing him to see her like this.
The eye contact is too much for him, he’s going to tell her everything, and he can’t do that right now. Not before he tells her about Spiderman. He wants to be truthful from the start. If there ever is a start. He hopes there is. So he moves his gaze around, her hand dropping from his check and tries to land on anything that isn’t her face. Her very beautiful face. His eyes drift down and he gapes at her, missing the way her eyes light up in humour.
“Michelle. Are - are you wearing Spiderman pyjamas?” his eyes flit back up to hers, and she’s biting her lip and truly nothing has ever been this difficult. He looks away again.
“Mmm, he’s my favourite. Also, does it count as pyjamas if it’s an old top? I don’t think so.”
“So you’re still sarcastic when you’re sleepy, huh?” he says to her top.
“What, were you expecting me to turn it off because it’s after midnight? Trying to give me advice on ways to improve my personality, Parker?” What? No, oh no, this is the last time he tries to flirt with her. His eyes snap back up and he starts rambling out an apology about how he’d never want to change her, and then he catches her gaze and oh -
“You’re messing with me? Michelle” he says nowhere close to a whine.
“You make it so easy, now turn over it’s 4 am you savage,” she says pushing his chest down and yawning “Some of us need our beauty sleep.”
Not you, he thinks. But he lays on his back anyway, feeling the tiredness seep in and he closes his eyes.
A few minutes later, after he thinks she’s fallen asleep he hears,
“Hmmm, you think I’m pretty?” and goddammit, why does he say everything out loud. He can’t decipher her tone, he’s pretty sure she’s joking, but is there an undercurrent of something else?
“Michelle, you being pretty is just a fact.” he’s pretty proud he said it without stuttering, it’s a joke that he’s smoother when he’s half asleep. Utterly rude.
“A fact like, ‘pizza is the best’ or a fact like ‘Peter Parker is Spiderman’?” Welp.
He lets out a deep breath, “All three of those things are true.”
“Okay,” she says and she curls up towards him, resting her head next to his ribs. “I’m glad you’re okay.” In his new brazen, sleep-deprived confidence, he reaches his arm under her waist and pulls her to his chest.
“Finally,” she says moulding herself to him, bringing her arm to clutch around his waist.
“Finally?!”
“What? You can’t think you hid your crush well, Pete.” he’s about to stutter out some kind of defence, despite the fact she’s correct, obviously. But then he moves his hands down her back to grip one of her legs and Jesus, he groans when his hand meets her bare thigh.
“I told you it was just a top,” she says moving her head up to look at him, a barely-there smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.
He leans towards her, lips brushing hers, “You’re an arsehole.” She grips the back of his neck, spins so she’s laying down and pulls him on top of her, making a space for him between her legs. He’s looking down at her and he swears she managed to get more beautiful in the time it took for him to blink. She kisses him quickly and then pulls back.
“I am an arsehole. But you like me anyway.” she half states half asks, playing with the collar of his T-shirt. He wants to be jokey back, wants half the confidence Michelle has, but he needs her to know the truth. That this isn’t just a one-time thing for him. That he wants her. That whatever they do here, he wants it to be something.
“Yeah, Em. I do. I really like you.”
“I really like you too” she replies. He can’t tell if it’s shy because she’s sleepy, or because she’s vulnerable, but he can’t wait to spend however long she wants him, figuring it out.