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Peter falls into bed at around four in the morning, in full costume. He doesn’t even bother to kick off his shoes or wash the soot, dirt and blood off his face. He knows he’ll regret it in the morning but he’s too damn exhausted to care. He’d been on the brink of finishing an eighteen page paper, mere steps away from finally reaching the end of a long, grueling journey that took three sleepless nights and about twenty cups of coffee to finish when a particularly rowdy, enthusiastic group of rookie super villains started terrorizing Manhattan. He chased them for about ten blocks, stopped a building from crumbling, put out a fire and saved about two dozen people from being flattened by falling billboards.
He burrows under his pillows, groaning at the thought of the literary analysis due on Tuesday he hasn’t even started yet, the hundreds of photos he has to sort through to pick which ones to submit to the Bugle tomorrow and the long overdue grocery run he has to do in a few hours. Why does he have to do so many thiiiings? He just wants to sleep for the next month, or three.
It barely takes him two minutes to black out and start snoring, limbs going slack over the sheets. A small, blissful smile pushes at the corners of his mouth, the kind that only comes with unconsciousness at the end of a long day of a veeery long week. He sighs as the aches and tiredness fade along with awareness. Heaven, it’s absolute heaven. He’s never going to undervalue sleep ever again.
He's so worn out that when something starts tapping him on the shoulder, he doesn’t wake, still doesn't when the tapping turns into slightly forceful jabbing. When a hand closes on his shoulder and starts shaking him though, he groans and attempts to move away. Somewhere, deep in the back of his brain, there’s a voice saying that this scenario is familiar and he should wake up because this means something but Peter vehemently shuts the voice down, mentally yelling SLEEEEEP at it before groaning long and loud and finally managing to roll away from the hand shaking him. The bed dips and suddenly there’s a weight flopping down on top of him none too lightly.
He makes a sound akin to what he thinks a harpooned whale would sound like, eyes popping open as he yelps and flails.
“Oh so you are alive after all. Good to know.”
Peter honest to god wants to cry or at least violently maim the person lounging on his back. Fury went to university too right? He’ll totally understand and bail him out of prison if he tells him why he committed attempted murder. He squeezes his eyes shut, grumbles something even he could barely understand and pointedly thumps his face into his pillow.
Another jab comes, this time to the back of his neck when Peter stays like that, long enough for his uninvited guest to wonder if he’d fallen back asleep or silently asphyxiated.
“Hey webs, seriously, you alive?”
His answer, again, doesn’t try for vowels or consonants but nonetheless, he thinks the exhaustion, grumpiness and subtle promise of bodily harm comes across. A hand swats him on the back of the head. He makes a sharp, irritated noise and manages to scrounge up the will to lift his face away from the pillow to speak.
“Sam, swear t god, Imgna take yr bucket and beat you wi it.”
He hears a loud, put-upon sigh and then the weight on his back is being lifted away.
“Alright, alright grumpy bug. Don’t get your tights in a twist.”
Sam sounds as annoyed as Peter feels but the fingers that card through his hair and lightly scratch at his scalp are painfully gentle and just before Peter drifts off again, he feels a quick kiss pressed into the back of his neck.
When he comes to, the clock on his bedside table reads 6:05. The room is dark, save for the harsh yellow light creeping in from the bottom of his door. Peter stares at it sleepily for about a minute, idly dithering between going back to sleep and getting his bearings together to get up, walk out to the living room and face his guest. Ultimately, the decision is made for him, when a loud, whiny voice calls out to him through the door, accompanied by obnoxious pounding.
“Webs! I want tea!”
The pounding on the door doesn't stop until Peter has cursed his way out of bed and flung it wide open. Sam is leaning against the wall casually, one foot crossed over the other. He gives Peter a smile that belonged on the floor after getting smacked right off his face when he sees him and bats his eyes innocently.
“You can't make your own tea? You're twenty three years old. AND you're in college to be a chef.”
“Yeah, and to say that your kitchen is a disaster would be bigger than Jupiter if it was an understatement. Do you keep your stuff in your floor boards? I don't know where anything is!”
“You've visited like sixty times in the past two months alone!” Peter says, shuffling toward the general direction of the kitchen, blearily squinting against the bright fluorescent lights in the living room. Sam steps away from the wall to follow him and elbows Peter in the arm as they walk.
“Yeah but you keep rearranging everything! Do you have some sort of reverse ataxophobic compulsion or something? Like do you even remember where you put your own stuff or do you just toss everything around and pray you find it someday after you use it?”
“I have a system!” He says defensively. It's as eloquent an argument as he could muster given he's still kind of stumbling around, squinting groggily at everything.
It takes him maybe a bit too long to find the electric kettle in the mess on his counter and even longer to locate the box of chocolate hazelnut tea that Sam likes so much but it's just because he's sleepy alright? That's totally it, no matter how much Sam stands there staring at him judgmentally. He's still standing there, staring at Peter with his eyebrows raised like he's a particularly stupid puppy that he's trying to shame through staring alone even after Peter makes him his dumb tea (in the dumb galaxy mug that Peter got him last Christmas that he pretends not to like, with three tea scoops of sugar and one teaspoon of milk exactly)
“Take the tea before I dump it down your shirt.” Peter grumps at him.
It probably says something about them that that of all things makes the look on Sam's face melt into something soft and fond. A little smirk lingers on his lips that still kind of makes Peter want to slap him but take the tea he does and he sidles closer, smoothly leaning in to press a soft, teasing kiss to the corner of Peter's mouth, deliberate and slow and certainly enough to get Peter's attention.
He wrinkles his nose as he steps back, holding the tea up close to his face .
“You smell like someone set a bag full of sweaty gym socks on fire. Go shower.”
“I'd make a comment about manly stink but I like to think that I'm still above Logan and Wade no matter how much I've been hanging out with them lately.” Peter mumbles through a yawn. He starts to head back to his room slowly and catches Sam off guard when he quickly darts in to press a big, wet kiss to his cheek. Sam yelps and spills tea on his shirt.
Peter webs away to safety, laughing as he swings through his bedroom door with Sam's irritated voice chasing after him.
He scrubs himself down quickly in the shower and stands under freezing cold water for three seconds to wake himself up. When he walks back out into the living room in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, Sam is sitting on the kitchen counter, looking through the stack of photos Peter's been meaning to put up on the walls to make them less bare. His galaxy mug is in the sink and there's a fresh, new cup of tea by his leg, still steaming.
“This for me?” Peter asks, walking over and nodding at the mug.
“No.” Sam says absently, still looking through the photos. Peter picks up the mug anyway and takes a sip, moving in close to peer down at the photos in Sam's hands. He developed them weeks ago but hasn't had the time to deal with them since. They're mostly random shots of things around his apartment and corners of the city that happened to look good from a certain perspective or in just the right light.
Sam stops at a photo and even upside down from his point of view, Peter knows exactly which one it is.
“I knew you were creeping on me.”
Sam turns the photo around so it's facing Peter right side up and Peter lets the memory of that particular morning play out in his head as he looks at it. It's Sam, he has his back turned and he's looking out the window wedged into the corner of Peter's tiny living room. It looks black and white and Sam is little more than a silhouette against the muted gray glow of the early morning light bleeding in through the curtain. The photo cuts off at the small of his back but Peter remembers exactly how the rest of him had looked, wrapped up in Peter's scratchy sheets like some terrible, ridiculous movie cliché. Peter had woken up because of their absence and paused when he found Sam as he is.
He managed to web the camera to the ceiling after the shutter went off and Sam turned around in surprise. Sam knew of course but he seemed content to shrug it off and let it go since neither of them bought it up afterward. Peter had just voiced out his thoughts on the movie cliché sheet wearing, to which Sam argued that Pete's floor was so dirty he was afraid of even picking his clothes up lest he catch fleas or something and they spent the rest of the morning bickering as always, even as they sit down and curl up together on the couch like they have nothing else they'd rather do.
But Peter remembers, he remembers being surprised because he'd slept with a few people before Sam, most of them girls and he's seen them in the morning after wrapped up in towels or blankets or sheets. He suffered his first sexuality crisis pretty early on in high school, but he hadn't actually had much experience with boys though he was mostly sure he was attracted to them. He thought about it a lot, what it would be like with a guy. He thought it would be different but it wasn't. Seeing Sam wrapped up in his sheets had been every bit as soft, sensual and alluring as every single girl he's seen in the same state and that prompted him to take the photo while he had the chance.
“Well, you're kind of attractive when you can't see your face.”
Peter says, pretending to examine the photo. Sam raises an unimpressed brow, he opens his mouth to say something and Peter cuts him off with a kiss. Sam still tries to talk through it so Peter kisses him harder, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him close. When he sucks on Sam's lower lip, he feels him melt against him a little then arms were sliding up around his neck and he's being tugged forward between Sam's knees. Peter sets his tea down on the counter so he could cup a hand around his hip.
“Whatever, you like my face loser.” Sam says softly when they break apart.
“I don't. I really don't.” Peter murmurs, leaning back in for another, shorter kiss.
“So, did you bring me food?” He asks, suddenly remembering. The look Sam gives him this time is even more unimpressed than the last one. He rolls his eyes and points at the sizable foil tray covered in plastic wrap sitting on the coffee table. Peter whoops in delight and bounds over to it, flopping down on the floor, peeling back the cling wrap and stuffing what is probably the tastiest pierogis he's ever eaten into his mouth.
“What? Do you know what I've been eating for the past few weeks?” he says to the look Sam gives him as he eats about seven pierogis in a row.
Sam just blinks at him slowly and shakes his head. After a few seconds, he clears his throat and gives Peter a pointed look.
“Thanks bucket head, you're awesome.”
“I know right?”
“Okay, not that awesome.” Peter says, pointing at him with a half eaten pierogi. They argue from opposite sides of the room until they get bored of insulting each other then they just talk about what they've been up to and how they've been, staying right where they are. It's nice and familiar.
They do this a couple of times a month. Sam would fly all the way from Arizona to visit, always with a tray or big Tupperware of something. Usually it's the things he gets to make in class and take home with him but sometimes, he just brings portions of his own dinner and flies it over to New York for Peter to eat and the two of them would hang out.
Eventually, Sam hops off the counter and Peter doesn't bat an eye, just keeps the talk going as Sam walks across the room and slides into his lap in the middle of a conversation about MJ's choice to get streaks in her hair. They keep talking like nothing is out of the ordinary and it doesn't take long before the words run out and the talking turns into kissing.
This too, they do a couple times a month, almost every time Sam visits.
Here's the thing, they aren't dating. They haven't talked about it, hadn't agreed on what they're doing or not doing, they just do as they do, with an unspoken agreement that maybe putting a label on whatever the hell they are might not be the best thing for now with Sam several states away and the both of them busy with college and crime fighting and occasional world saving.
Peter has to admit, the longer they do this though, the harder it gets to see this as something they just do that doesn't mean anything.
In the beginning, he thought that it was just because Sam was lonely. Ava is off in New Jersey, studying criminology at Princeton. Danny is long gone, having gone back to rule K'un Lun as promised after his given year. He left right before they all went their separate ways to go to college, not a day after they finished their training at the SHIELD academy. Luke is in who knows which corner of the world. He went to work for SHIELD full time with his folks after the academy and for all they knew he's in a different continent every other week, executing missions and living the hero life 24/7. They try to keep in contact of course but it's hard. Peter is so busy these days, juggling university, a job and web slinging that he either doesn't have time to call or text anyone, or he's too tired to do so. He gets so sick of it sometimes, it hurts so he was more than a little grateful when Sam started dropping in, felt it completely natural that they moved to touches and kisses and even sex as easily as they did.
They're two young, lonely guys in their twenties who trust each other and don't have time for the real thing so they settled for what they have. It's completely understandable.
Except now, Peter's starting to think that maybe it's more than that. He's starting to like this, the soft, easy kisses and the talks and light, stupid arguments more than he should. 'The real thing', whatever that is, he's pretty sure, has started to apply to this but only from his side and that's kind of really not okay.
He abruptly breaks the kiss and Sam pulls back a little, startled. Peter doesn't know what he sees in his face but it makes him tilt his head, eyebrows furrowing in concern so he quickly schools his expression into something he hopes looks neutral.
“What? What's wrong?”
“Nothing, just uhh, remembered something.” Peter lies lamely. He pretends to rub at his eye to avoid having to look at Sam but he feels the suspicious, wary look that Sam gives him anyway. He starts to shift, intending to get up but Sam stays right where he is, settled firmly, unmoving on Peter's lap. He deliberates for a second, literally just a second. He doesn't want to ask Sam to get off because that would probably set him off even more so before he could think better of it, he slips his arms under Sam's legs and around his back, cradling him bridal style as he stands.
Sam crosses his arms, glancing down at the floor before turning to Peter, still with that suspicious look but the concern in it is gone, replaced by slight annoyance. “What are you gonna do, toss me in the trash?”
“Well, there's an idea. You're definitely small enough to fit in my bin.” Peter says, moving forward a few steps.
Sam tries to drop them both to the floor, pulling a tackle that Captain America himself taught them at the academy. He catches Peter off guard and succeeded in at least almost making Peter drop him but he catches him at the last second, easily maneuvering him in his arms so that he's holding Sam against him upright, like a particularly squirmy, displeased bag of groceries.
He watches Sam try to struggle his way out of his grip, an amused smile on his face. It grows wider when Sam inevitably gives up against his strenght with an irritated huff and glares at him. “Put me down you weirdo.”
“But you're so cute and tiny and cuddly. Like a kitty.” He says in an obnoxiously annoying cutesy voice, moving his hands to grip either side of Sam's waist and lifting him up at arms length above his head like a baby. Sam knees him in the gut, hard enough to make him double over a little.
“Oww, alright, alright.” He says, dropping Sam to his feet. They wrestle a little, hurling insults and grappling until they end up on the floor, Sam's arm around Peter's neck in a headlock.
“Okay, I'm getting bored of this now.” Sam says after only about half a minute, sliding away from Peter to sit next to him, cross-legged on the floor. Peter stays on his back, looking up at the ceiling contemplatively. He knows Sam is watching him but he doesn't say anything. Sam reaches out to prod at his ribs.
“Seriously, what's your deal?”
“Nothin. What makes you think I have a deal?” Peter says, shrugging. Has he always been this bad at deflecting or did his lying skills just drastically erode in the past couple of months along with his social life?
Sam prods him again. “Come on, how many years have I known you?”
“Too many probably.”
Sam snorts. “Damn straight.” he mutters and goes silent for long enough that Peter looks over at him curiously. He's staring at a spot on the floor like he's expecting it to spontaneously combust or something and Peter sits up. Before he could speak, Sam looks at him again, takes a deep breath as if bracing himself and asks.
“Are you seeing someone?”
Peter blinks. “What? No.”
Sam just looks at him, a tiny frown on his lips, like he's trying to figure out if Peter is telling the truth or not.
“Why would you ask me that?”
Sam shrugs eyes flitting to the side. “I thought maybe you wanted me to get lost but you weren't sure how to tell me.”
“What?” Peter asks again. “No. That's not, no. I just...Are you seeing anyone?”
The look Sam gives him this time is very familiar; the slant of his brows and the downward curve of his lips are cues that Peter have long ago taken to mean that Sam is wondering if Peter got hit in the head a bit too hard earlier that day while fighting a villain in the streets or if he's just being plain old stupid.
“I asked you first.”
Peter mirrors the look Sam is giving him. “It's a simple question.”
“So answer it!”
Remarkable. Clearly, they're mature, well-adjusted adults.
“I did! I said no! Now it's your turn.”
Sam glares at him for a few seconds. Peter glares back until Sam heaves an exasperated sigh and leans back on his hands. He aggressively focuses on everything that isn't Peter as he answers.
“No. I've kind of been preoccupied in the last few months.”
“With what?” Peter asks.
He gets Sam looking at him like he isn't sure if he's concussed or outstandingly dumb again in response. Only this time, Sam seems a little more sure that he's the latter.
“Oh.”
Silence stretches between them for an uncomfortably long time as Peter frantically tries to decide what the best course of action is. He's pretty sure he's reading the situation right, which means he should either kiss Sam or at least say something.
“I just want to be sure, you mean me right?”
Sam looks like he's very narrowly resisting the urge to take Peter's hand and smack him in the face with it because clearly, Sam's own arm isn't capable of inflicting the force that Peter's face deserves. When is he ever going to learn that clearly the choice to make in a do or speak situation for him is never speak?
“No I meant my helmet. Because apparently even without a head in it, it has more brains than you.”
Knowing him, he'd probably screw up anyway but hey, he's lived through every single stupid risk he's ever taken, wouldn't have gotten where he is now if not for some of them and right now seems to be as good a time as any to test if doing really does work better for him than speaking.
Before Sam could say anything else, Peter grabs him by the head and tugs him in for a kiss. It starts off zealous and hungry, too much teeth and tongue and Peter slows it down immediately, realizing that what he's trying to convey would be better understood with slow, languid strokes of lips on lips. Sam follows his lead smoothly and Peter sighs as their lips catch and cling over and over.
“Mmm, not how I expected this to happen.” Sam says when they eventually pull away. Neither of them move too far, hovering in each other's space, close enough that their foreheads are almost touching. Peter makes a curious sound and leans forward that last little bit to lean his head against Sam's.
“Still, probably way better than what would've happened if we decided to talk it out.”
Peter laughs. “Agreed.”
“Sooo, what happens now?” Sam asks, leaning back far enough to look at Peter's face.
“That, is a good question.”
Peter tries to think of what it is that people do when they get themselves a boyfriend and perhaps in the corniest moment of his life, realizes that every answer he comes up with are things he's already done or does with Sam on a regular basis. His pulse thrums at the thought and he shakes his head at himself a little, thinking that this all would have happened a lot sooner if he just noticed that it was kind of obvious he wasn't the only one wanting this. He reaches for Sam's hand and weaves their fingers together, content to let the silence go on for just a little bit longer and bask in the fact that...yeah, this. He doesn't even care how dumb that sounds, words are overrated and hard and it's way too early in the morning to be using them anyway. But who the hell cares?
“Wanna go play Dragon Age and then have sex? What??” Sam says and asks at the look Peter gives him in response.
“It's as good a suggestion as any. You were probably going to say let's talk about our feelings or something. I just saved us both the humiliation.”
Peter puts his other hand to his face and shakes his head, turning away a little to hide the traitorous, upward twitch of his lips.
“Alright fine. We are going to be the most unromantic couple ever.”
“Whatever, I'm using the PC this time. Your laptop sucks.” Sam says, standing up and moving towards Peter's room, sauntering through the apartment like he belongs in the space, which Peter supposes, now he does. He really does. The thought, as well as the fact that Sam doesn't deny it makes him lose the battle against the smile he's trying to hold back and he follows Sam to his room, grinning the whole time.