Chapter Text
Peter Parker sits across from Lara Jean Song-Covey in their corner booth once more tonight, not the same one as last time, but close. A different table, a different angle, but still with the same familiar geometry of textbooks spread between them like a barrier. His psych notes lie open, the highlighter in his hand growing warm from his grip, but this time they've actually made quite a bit of progress.
“I'm going to get a refill,” Lara Jean announces, waving her now empty drink. “Do you want anything?”
He shakes his head, trying to ignore the twinge of pain that just the sight of a coffee cup now brings up in him. Peter had spent an entire summer drinking more coffee than he'd ever needed or wanted just so he could see if MJ might recognize him the first-- thirteenth-- thirtieth-- eighty-ninth time she looked him in the eyes and proffered him his order.
All she'd done was think he was one of four to six regulars the shop seemed to rotate through.
Lara Jean returns, sipping yet another sugary monstrosity that he'd teased her for ordering just earlier tonight. She'd told him to stop cosplaying a pretentious New Yorker with such an unbothered, sweet tone, that he'd actually laughed out loud.
Knowing that whenever there's a lull in their homework she tends to ask him personal questions, he decides to go on the offense and ask her one first. "What's your favorite thing about the city so far?"
Lara Jean blinks at the non-sequitur. She sets down her cup, considering the question with the seriousness it probably doesn't deserve. "People don't look at you weird for not driving."
Peter's brow furrows, confused.
"Back in Portland, we had to drive everywhere with how spread out it is," she explains. "If you still took the bus at sixteen and had your driver's license, people thought you were a freak."
"Really?”
"Yeah." She nods, a small smile playing on her lips. "Car culture is a lot different than here.”
Peter considers this. "Huh. Honestly, I wasn't expecting that answer."
She tilts her head, curious. "What did you expect?"
He shrugs, gesturing vaguely at the window. "I don't know. I guess the stereotypical constant sound or terrible smells? Maybe how all our restaurants stay open for hours and hours?"
Lara Jean laughs softly. "Oh, well I'm used to cooking for myself, so I wouldn't really know. My dad is a terrible cook, so my sisters and I took over when I was growing up."
He doesn't mean to ask the next followup question-- God knows he doesn't want her to turn the topic back on him-- but it still slips out before he can stop it. "Are your parents divorced?"
Her expression flickers. A momentary shadow passes over her face before she masks it. "Uh, no." She looks down at her notes, her voice quieter now. "My mom actually died when I was nine."
Peter's stomach drops. He knows what it's like, this delicate dance of answering a question honestly despite knowing it'll bring down the mood. He's had to do it since he was nine, after all, explaining why he was living with his Aunt and Uncle.
He swallows to keep his voice from being rough, hoping she doesn't think it's because of her. "I'm really sorry, Lara Jean."
She deflects with practiced ease, slightly shrugging a shoulder as she says, "It was a long time ago.”
Peter watches her for a moment. He sees the way her fingers tighten around the pen she picks back up, the way her jaw sets just slightly.
God, is this what he looks like when he gives that same line?
"I lost my parents around that age too," he says quietly, surprising himself with his own honesty. The words feel strange in his mouth. He doesn't talk about his biological parents, not ever. First because of the pain, then out of misplaced loyalty to the fact that Aunt May was his mom now.
But now… something about Lara Jean makes him want to admit he isn't just another person who doesn't understand what she's been through. "I used to think the grief goes away with time, but I don't anymore. I think you just get used to living with it.”
Lara Jean looks up, surprise flickering across her features before settling into something softer. "I'm really sorry for you too, Peter."
He tries to smile. It comes out strained, a ghost of the expression it's supposed to be. "Thanks.”
She studies him for a moment, and he can feel her gaze peeling back layers he's spent months constructing. He should ask her how she does it sometime, he thinks Spiderman could benefit from the unintentional interrogation technique. "Were you able to stay within your family?"
The question hits him so hard that his throat constricts; so hard that he wishes he was being thrown around by Scorpion instead. He can feel the walls closing in, the memories pressing at the edges of his consciousness. He'd been so sullen when he'd moved in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May, too young to know how lucky he was to have them in the midst of grief. Only five years later, he and May had lost Uncle Ben. And then three years after that…
"I'd uh--" His voice comes out thick and strangled, forcing him to clear his throat. "I'd rather not talk about it.”
Lara Jean doesn't push. Doesn't judge. She just nods patiently, her expression calm and accepting. "Okay."
A beat of silence passes between them. Then she unconsciously twirls her pen, a small smile playing at her lips. "Do you want another newbie New Yorker opinion?"
Peter snorts, his lips curling despite himself. The tension in his chest eases as she lets him off the look, even if just a fraction. It's something he finds only people in the dead parents club understand. They don't need to ask how each other's parents died-- people only ask that when they're afraid it might happen to theirs. They don't need anything more than to be seen for a split second.
Ignoring his gratitude to tease, he dryly informs her, "If you've been here less than five years, you're still a tourist."
Lara Jean’s eyes go wide with mock offense. "That's so harsh!"
He shrugs, an amused smirk spreading across his lips. "I don't make the rules."
She narrows her eyes, but he can see the smile she's trying to hide. "Can I at least be differentiated from the people who are only here for the weekend?"
He pretends to consider this, tapping the table thoughtfully with his fingers. "How about seasoned tourist?"
"That's not any better and you know it." She scoffs, fighting off a laugh now instead of only a smile.
"Chronic tourist?" he offers.
She adopts an expression of faux superiority, lifting her chin. "I didn't think you'd secretly be so mean, Peter Parker."
A quiet laugh escapes him that feels… foreign. He's laughed several times lately with that sort of bitter, dry humor that survivors get. This though… This is the kind of laugh caused by human connection between friends instead of a trauma response, and he's not sure what to do with that.
"It's a New Yorker thing." He shrugs. "You know how that one saying goes? East Coasters are kind but not nice, West Coasters nice but not kind'?”
Lara Jean's expression shifts. The playfulness fades, replaced by something perceptive, soft, and serious. "I don't know." She holds his gaze. "I think you're one of the rare people who are both nice and kind.”
Peter doesn't know how to accept compliments… he never has. Especially lately, they feel like the prelude to someone ready to point out all the ways he doesn't deserve them. He shifts in his seat.
"You're just projecting," he retorts.
She raises an eyebrow, her tone dry. "I'm projecting a compliment?"
He pretends it makes perfect sense, even though it doesn't. "...Yep. I mean you're West Coast right? Portland? But you're kinder than I am."
Lara Jean is quiet for a long moment. Then, with that earnestness that seems so natural to her, she quietly says, "I'm sorry you don't feel comfortable accepting it, Peter, but I did mean it."
He feels caught by her acknowledgment, perceived in a way that makes him want to crawl out of his skin. He rubs the back of his neck, a nervous habit he can't seem to shake, and mutters, “Thanks” only so they can move back to homework.
The autumn sun hangs low over the Manhattan skyline, casting long shadows across the streets. Peter swings through the city on autopilot, his body moving through the familiar rhythm of patrol while his mind drifts somewhere else. He's been distracted all week… thinking about MJ and Ned, like always. He's never not thinking about them anymore. But now he's also thinking about Lara Jean's words, about the way she looked at him like she could see through every wall he's built in a way he hasn't experienced since MJ.
Maybe more than MJ, a secret part of himself admits, thinking back to their shared grief.
He buries the thought.
He lands on a fire escape near campus, scanning the streets below. He's not supposed to be here. He's supposed to be patrolling downtown, watching for trouble. But something keeps pulling him back to this neighborhood, and he decides to trust his instinct even if his “spidey senses” as the other Peters had called it aren't fully activated yet.
When his senses *do* activate, he's both vindicated (he'd fought with EV about the choice to wait for untold danger) and terrified.
At first, it's a flash of pastel pink that catches his eye. A soft cardigan that stands out like a watercolor painting against the gray concrete and steel of the city. Lara Jean emerges from one of the city bookstors, her arms overflowing with books, her bag slipping precariously off one shoulder. She's frazzled, her hair escaping from a messy bun, her cheeks flushed from the effort of carrying too much. She's muttering to herself, probably running through a mental checklist of everything she needs to do. A light breeze catches her hair, and she blows an errant strand out of her face with an impatient puff.
Peter watches from above, a small smile tugging at his lips. She's so alive. So present. So real and grounded in a way that makes him feel like he's been sleepwalking through his own life. The way she's dressed in soft pastels, delicate patterns, like she stepped out of a different era: all make her look ethereal against the harsh backdrop of the city.
Then he sees the car.
It's a black sedan, running a red light at fifty miles per hour, somehow not impeded by usual NYC traffic. The driver isn't watching the road, his phone in hand and eyes down. The car hurtles toward the intersection where Lara Jean is about to step off the curb.
Peter's heart stops.
No. No, no, no.
He moves before he can think, dropping from the fire escape, his web shooting out to slow the car's momentum. It's not enough. The car is too fast and too close.
Peter lands on the street, grabs Lara Jean around the waist, and pulls her into his chest, swinging them both up onto the building's roof and away from the spinning vehicle as she lets out a startled scream.
The sedan crashes into a lamppost behind them, metal crumpling with a deafening screech.
Peter holds her tight, his heart pounding against his ribs. She's trembling violently in his arms, her entire body shaking with the force of her shock. Her face is pressed into his chest in a clear attempt to avoid seeing anything like their height, her fingers clutching the fabric of his suit with a desperate, white-knuckled grip. He can feel her breath, ragged and uneven, against his neck. She's making small, choked sounds-- half gasps, half sobs-- that she's clearly trying to suppress.
For a moment, the world goes quiet. The screech of twisted metal fades. The shouts of pedestrians blur into background noise. All Peter can hear is her breathing, all he can feel is the way she's shaking against him before she all at once steps back.
Lara Jean. He just saved Lara Jean.
Between this and the names of their exes, the irony is practically cosmic at this point. He'd been saving strangers for *years* before he ever needed to save his friends, let alone the world. Faceless civilians he'd never see again. Needing to save the only person who's made him laugh in the past three months in the most cliche superhero way possible seems like pushing it.
Then again, all he did was pull her out of the path of a car, and if he'd been a second slower--
"I'm sorry." The words tumble out before he can stop them, desperate and pained. "I should have been faster. I should have seen the car sooner. I should have--"
"Don't." Her voice cracks, but there's something fierce underneath the fear. "Don't apologize. You saved my life.”
He stares at her, his chest aching with an emotion he can't name. She's crying. She's crying and she's telling him not to apologize. She's the one who almost died, and she's comforting him.
"Are you okay?" he asks, his voice rougher than he means it to be with fear, his own words, raw and unguarded. "Are you hurt? Did anything--”
This wasn’t Spider-Man saving a civilian in the same way that it's Peter Parker, terrified that he could have just lost one of only two people who know he exists as a human being.
"No." She shakes her head, sniffling. "I'm fine. I just..." She trails off, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm just shaken.”
He nods, his attention staying on her longer than necessary. He should be checking if the distracted driver is okay, probably. But even if he weren't furious with them, Lara Jean still seems unsteady. "You should sit down. You're in shock."
She laughs, a wet and broken sound. "Yeah. I think I am.”
She sits down on a small generator box here on the roof. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, her cheeks are tear-streaked, and she's trembling so hard he can still see it. "You're… Spider-Man," she says, only now seeming to realize this fact now that she's able to see his entire body at once.
He almost laughs. "Yeah. I get that a lot."
She studies him, her head tilted. For a moment, he's certain she's going to see through the mask. That she's going to say his name, his real name, and everything will come crashing down around him all over again.
But then the moment passes as the other parts of the situation crash onto her. "I was-- I was just walking. I was thinking about class, and then--"
"Hey." His voice is softer now, gentler. "You're safe now. You're okay.”
She looks up at him again, her eyes searching his mask. For another second, he's terrified she's recognized his voice. But her gaze is too unfocused, too flooded with adrenaline and shock.
"Thank you," she whispers. "I mean it. Thank you.”
He nods, unable to speak. His chest is tight, his throat constricted. He just saved her life, but if he'd been somewhere across the city he wouldn't have. And now he has to leave her, shaking and crying, while he swings away like it's just another day on patrol.
He turns to go, but something makes him pause. He looks back at her and the tear-stains on her cheeks, at the way she wraps her arms around herself like she's trying to hold herself together.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asks, the question slipping out before he can stop it.
She manages a weak smile. "I will be. Thanks to you.”
He nods, and then he's gone, swinging away before she can ask any more questions.
But the image of her, frazzled and trembling, still clutching the books she'd almost dropped, her pastel cardigan bright against the gray street, stays with him the whole way home.
The café hums with its usual evening energy, the dinner crowd thinning out, the barista wiping down the espresso machine with practiced efficiency. Peter and Lara Jean have been working on their joint psych project for the third night and it lies scattered across the table along with highlighters, notecards, a half-empty bag of pretzels she'd brought and promptly forgotten about.
Peter watches Lara Jean as she scribbles notes on a notecard, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her pastel pink cardigan is draped over the back of her chair and she's wearing a soft lavender sweater instead. She's so focused that she doesn't notice him staring.
"Okay," Lara Jean says, setting down her pen. "I think I've got the first section down. Can you look over my notes?"
Peter pulls her notebook toward him, scanning her handwriting. It's neat and precise, unlike the chaos of his own notes. "This is really good," he says, genuinely impressed. "You're way ahead of me."
She beams at the compliment. "Thanks. I've been working on it all week." She pauses, checking her phone, and her face falls. "Oh no."
Peter looks up. "What?"
"I completely forgot. I'm supposed to meet Gen-- my friend from back home? She goes to this school too but I promised I'd meet her at the movies like an hour ago. I completely lost track of time."
Peter's stomach sinks, but he keeps his expression neutral. "You should go," he says. "We can pick this up later."
"Are you sure?" She asks desperately. "I feel so bad. We were making such good progress."
"Seriously, it's fine." He means it, even though a selfish part of him wishes she'd stay. "Go see your friend."
She hesitates, clearly torn, then sighs in resignation as she frantically gathers her things, haphazardly stuffing things into her bookbag with frantic energy.
"You're a lifesaver, you know that?" She tells him, uninformed of the irony, and slings her bag over her shoulder, already backing away from the table. "I'll text you, okay? We can reschedule."
He nods. "Sounds good.”
He's still sitting there, staring at the door where she disappeared, when he notices something on the floor. An envelope, half-hidden under her side of the booth notebook. She must have dropped it when she was packing up in such a hurry.
He picks it up, intending to text her about it until he sees the name on the front.
To: Spider-Man
His heart stops.
He stares at it, the world around him fading into static. This is hers. This is Lara Jean's letter. Except it's to him and she doesn't even know it.
His fingers trace the careful handwriting, the way she's written his name in a tidy, deliberate script. He should give it back. He should text her, tell her she forgot something, hand it over tomorrow like it's not addressed to him in ways she isn't aware of.
He doesn't.
Instead, he tucks the envelope into his jacket pocket, pays for their food with the small money he's made off the Bugle last week, and walks out of the café into the cool autumn night. His heart is still pounding, and he can feel the weight of the letter against his chest.
He can't stop himself from wondering what she's written. Does she somehow know he's Spiderman? Is this a trap he's falling into? Not just an ethical one, but some larger plan that he's just not seeing?
He doubts it. He's done enough social media stalking to know that Lara Jean seems to genuinely be just a nice girl from Portland.
But she might have somehow figured him out.
So… he'll read it, because he has to. For security reasons.
And… it's not like it's not literally addressed to him.
The loft is dark when Peter arrives, the only light coming from the city skyline beyond the window. He drops onto his worn-out bed, exhausted from the morning of patrolling, school, and all the other things in between. He should sleep. Even if Peter Parker was able to work through sleep exhaustion, Spiderman was better with rest.
Then he remembers the letter.
His hand moves to his jacket pocket, pulling out the envelope he'd picked up earlier. He tries to debate the ethics of this for only another moment before giving in with shaky hands.
It's addressed to him.
Dear Spider-Man,
Thank you for saving my life.
I'm sure you have a million people telling you thank you, and at least hundreds probably sending you fanmail, so I'm sorry if this is just another letter you have to read. I just think it's polite to formally say thank you to people who save your life, even if they'll never read it, you know? I don't want to be the kind of person that doesn't try, anyway.
Peter's breath catches. The words are simple, but they feel deeper than they are, somehow. She'd gone home after almost dying, sat down, and wrote a thank-you letter to some guy who had only been doing his job as far as she knew.
Also, you don't know this, but growing up I wrote letters to people all the time. It's kinda my own tradition at this point. At the time I was only writing love letters to boys that I had crushes on because I was a hopeless romantic, but--
Wait. Just so you know, I'm not writing to you because you're a guy. I'm over that phase of crushing on every boy I meet. Not to mention, you could be gay.
A snort escapes him. She's teasing him. She's teasing Spider-Man like he's a normal person, like he's someone she can joke with.
(One of the guys I sent a letter to ended up being gay and I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.)
Plus, who knows what you look like under that mask?
Peter actually laughs out loud. The sound echoes through the empty loft, startling him. He's alone. He's always alone. But for a moment, he's not. For a moment, she's right here with him, her awkward, self-deprecating humor filling the silence.
((That's a joke, sorry. I think anyone as kind as someone who spends their life sacrificing for others is attractive, no matter what they look like.))
The laughter fades. His throat tightens.
Kind.
She called him kind, again. This time without even realizing it.
Regardless, I'm still in love with my ex-boyfriend. He's five thousand miles away and as much as we tried over and over last year to make it work, we couldn't. Or at least… he couldn't.
Not in a way that was his fault, I guess.
Peter's smile fades. He knows who she's talking about. Her Peter. The high school boyfriend who she'd thought was her soulmate, who had made her think that maybe high-school romances don't last forever in a way that had left Peter feeling naive.
I'd never admit this to someone I know, but… I'm kinda angry at him? We were supposed to be soulmates. We were in love with each other. I'm even still in love with him. But… a tiny part of me feels like if we couldn't overcome this, maybe he didn't actually love me as much as I thought.
I know that's really unfair. I'm the one who chose the furthest college. I'm the one who made the decision to risk everything. I can't blame him for not being able to adapt to my choice any more than I can blame this university for being so much better than the college I was going to follow him to.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just mad at the universe and blaming Peter is easier, you know?
Peter sets the letter down. He stares at the wall, his mind racing despite the way his stomach isn't done sinking.
He's spent three months telling himself that all he had to do was be patient. That love would eventually conquer even magic, no matter the spell. That he shouldn't have to give a letter that explained why MJ didn't remember him, because her heart would remember.
It hasn't.
And maybe, even though he also will never admit it out loud, he's subconsciously been angry at his ex too, and not just Strange. Not just the universe and how Peter Parker doesn't get to choose if his heart gets broken as long as he's Spiderman.
… I really hope you don't read this. I'll be really sad if Spiderman thinks I'm a bad person.
Peter's breath catches.
Lara Jean, the most earnest and honest person he's ever met, is somehow still terrified that if someone really knows her-- all of her-- they'll think she's bad.
As if she isn't one of the best people he's known.
All because of her ex.
Sincerely,
Lara Jean
He folds the letter almost reverently, holding it in his hands, feeling the weight of her confession.
And something inside him cracks.
Peter stands up, walking over to his desk and lays this letter side by side with the one for MJ he always carries in his pocket; two confessions from two people who are terrified of being seen. He reads Lara Jean's words again:
We were supposed to be soulmates. We were in love with each other. I'm even still in love with him. But… a tiny part of me feels like if we couldn't overcome this, maybe he didn't actually love me as much as I thought.
Then he looks at his own:
I hope that deep down, something inside you remembers you love me too.
Peter stares at the two letters, side by side, and he feels the weight of it pressing down on his chest. The weight of his anger. The weight of his guilt. The weight of a truth he's been running from for months.
He's been carrying this belief his whole life, that love is the most powerful force in the universe. That if you love someone enough, if you fight hard enough, if you sacrifice enough, it'll always be enough. That's what Aunt May had taught him.
With great power comes great responsibility.
The responsibility to love. The responsibility to fight. The responsibility to sacrifice.
But it hasn't been enough.
He'd loved MJ with everything he had. He loved her enough to let her go. He loved her enough to erase himself from her memory. He loved her enough to watch her walk right past him on the street, to see her fall in love with someone else, to smile and nod and pretend it didn't destroy him.
And she still doesn't remember.
In the quiet stillness of his dark, bare apartment, he finally lets himself admit that he's angry. So angry. At MJ for not loving him hard enough to remember. At Ned for not recognizing him either. At Strange for making the spell in the first place. At himself for being the one who asked for it.
But mostly, he's angry at the universe. At the cruel, indifferent universe that doesn't care how much he loves, how much he sacrifices, how much he bleeds. The universe he seems to be in where love doesn't conquer all. Where it barely conquers anything.
And Lara Jean knows that too.
They both chose something over love. They both sacrificed their relationships for something they knew was more important.
He folds both letters carefully and places them in his desk drawer. He stares at the closed drawer for a long moment, the truth settling into his bones, heavy and permanent.
He doesn't know how to let her in. He doesn't know how to stop hiding. But for the first time in three months, he feels like he's met someone who truly understands him.
The café is quieter than usual. A late afternoon lull settles over the space, the lunch rush long over, the dinner crowd not yet arrived. Peter sits across from Lara Jean, watching her stir her tea with a distracted expression.
"I can't believe I lost that letter," she says, shaking her head. "Whoever reads it is going to think I'm so cringey."
Peter's heart leaps into his throat. He forces his expression to remain neutral, confused. "What? Why?"
She gives him a judgmental look. "It was to Spiderman."
"So?" The word comes out too quickly, too defensive. He tries to recover. "What's wrong with that?"
She sighs, stirring her tea again. "So… I already probably would have overshared with him and now someone else out there knows my secrets."
Peter's stomach twists. "Maybe they threw it away?" he offers, hating himself for the lie.
Lara Jean gives him a pessimistic look. "Yeah, I doubt that."
He doesn't know how to respond. He wants to tell her, wants to confess and unburden himself, but he can't. Not yet. Not like this. Not when she might send another one that can help him dissect his own feelings without needing a therapist.
"Are you going to try and send another one?"
"No way." She shakes her head firmly. "I can't risk losing it again."
The words are out before he can stop them. "I can always give it to him, if you want."
Her head snaps up, her eyes wide with shock. "I'm sorry, what?"
He immediately has to fumble for an explanation. "Spiderman? If-- if you don't want to, uh, send them through the mail, I mean."
Her brow furrows. "You know him?"
"Uh, yeah." He nods, his voice luckily casual now. "I take pictures for the Daily Bugle, remember?"
"Pictures of Spiderman?" Lara Jean asks, still incredulous.
Peter can't help the small smile that tugs at his lips. "Glad to know you haven't bothered to check out my work."
She blinks, and a faint blush appears on her cheeks as she shakes her head, clearly flustered. "No, I'm sorry, I just--wow." She pauses, then adds, "And no. Absolutely not. If he gets my letter from someone he knows, he might actually read it.”
Peter watches her with confusion, trying desperately to suppress his own guilt. "Why address or send it if you don't want him to read it?"
She looks away, her gaze distant. "Because I'll never actually meet him for real."
"What are you talking about?” Peter asks, even more lost. Careful, he points out, “You said you did."
"I mean, I met him." She gestures vaguely. "But I didn't meet him, meet him."
Oh.
Lara Jean pauses, her eyes growing distant. "Everyone has a mask they're wearing, superhero or not."
The words hit his chest with brunt force, the kind he usually only has to deal with while being physically assaulted by a villain. He feels exposed, seen in a way he didn't expect. He forces himself to stay still, to keep his voice steady.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I guess you're right."
She sighs dramatically, a playful tilt to her lips. "At least he'll never put my name to my face if he somehow ends up with it."
He tries to laugh. It comes out as a nervous chuckle. He nods, half-hearted, the lie sticking in his throat.
He can't say it.
He can't tell her the truth.
Not yet.