Chapter Text
This wasn’t Lara Jean’s usual scene.
Flashing lights, loud music, people flocking around and drinks pouring. She didn’t hate any of those things nor did she hate parties in general. It was just something she didn’t often do, maybe because of her social anxiety or maybe because it was too overstimulating for her.
Either way parties weren’t her style.
So why was she here?
Well it was supposedly the norm to go to a party after a break up or to sob while home eating a tub of ice cream, both perfect ways to forget that you were no longer the female lead of your male lead's life.
Okay, maybe she was being dramatic. Her break up with Peter Kavinsky was anything, but heartbreaking. They just ended up diverging into two different people as time came along, so they cleanly broke it off in their junior year of college. They were still friends with each other and sometimes still talked.
Then still why was she here?
Maybe it was because it was the start of her senior year or maybe it was because she felt lonely, but a party seemed like the way most movie characters cheer up. It wasn’t working, but it wasn’t going to hurt her to try.
Perhaps it was rude to wander in an apartment complex that wasn't hers. Still, she sneaked out to the apartment complex's rooftop, taking in the NYC night sky as the freezing breeze washed over her, making her shiver although she had a jacket on. The view was the usual city night sky, beautiful and bright.
She is startled when she hears a crash behind her. Whipping her head, she sees Spider-Man on the floor clutching his abdomen, hissing in pain.
He seems to be muttering under his breath about "villains nowadays" and "no respect for one-liners."
Which makes Lara Jean accidentally snort, and that makes Spider-Man look over at her so fast she can't help but also feel pain on her neck.
"Hey… Umm… Am I bothering you?" THE Spider-Man asks, gesturing around.
"No, you aren't." Lara Jean huffed a laugh, amused, and smiled. "And even if you were, I am not evil enough to kick an injured superhero to another rooftop."
Spider-Man seems to smile back, although she wasn't sure because of the face mask; he tilted his head in mock offense. "Ouch. Not even a 'No! I would never! You are Spider-Man!'? It's just 'pity for the injured guy'?"
They both chuckle, but it soon ends when Spider-Man groans in pain, holding his side as his shoulder trembles and his breath hitches.
Lara Jean couldn't help herself as she walked closer and crouched, getting on Spider-Man's eye level. "Can I look at it?"
"Sure, but it's not a pretty sight." He said lightly, like he had already gotten so used to not making others worry about him, it had become his coping mechanism to talk in that voice.
Lara Jean hummed and carefully pulled around the ripped fabric on his abdomen. She saw an ugly purple and black bruise climbing up his rib and taking over his abdomen and hip, that was also deeply red mixing with the other two colors, showing clear signs of second-degree burns.
She makes a horrified face. She really couldn't help herself. Before she can even ask, Spider-Man answers playfully. "You won't believe how hot and fast a car engine is… Barely dodged it."
"Well, it looks like you didn't dodge it at all." Lara Jean said, meaner than she intended.
He laughed and hissed in pain immediately. "Fair… I was slightly distracted…"
Lara Jean's brain unhelpfully provided that if Kitty were here, she would be shaking Spider-Man to please take care of his beautiful body. Like the man was hot and fucking jacked.
She sighed at herself for even letting that idea exist. Which Spider-Man takes as annoyance to him instead of her brain.
"Don't worry! I would never let someone get hurt because of me getting distracted."
Lara Jean hummed and smiled. "You should probably also try not to get yourself hurt."
"Hmm… maybe…" He says softly. After a beat, he tries to get himself up.
He stumbles, and Lara Jean quickly stabilizes him, setting him down. "Hold up! What are you even doing?"
"Going home?" Spider-Man said, clearly confused.
"I-" She then sighed, annoyed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "At least let me go get you something cold for the bruising."
Spider-Man seems clearly taken aback and nods slightly. "Umm… Sure…"
Lara Jean nodded, turning around, ready to sneak back to the party. She wasn't sure what was happening to her. Why she even cared about the guy or how she got the guts to even do any of the things that she did.
But still, whatever… A little kindness wouldn't kill her. She wasn't going to see him again.
So walking around the bodies in the party, she got a can of cheap soda that had been in a pool of water that used to be ice. She wasn't even sure if Spider-Man had even stayed; he had no reason to listen to her.
Sliding outside the window and climbing the emergency ladder, she was ready to see an empty rooftop.
But to her surprise, Spider-Man was still there sitting, clutching his side. He raised his head as if feeling her gaze, tilting his head in a quiet question.
Lara Jean couldn't help but feel a warm feeling in her chest. She quickly ignores it as she walks closer, placing the cold can on his bruise.
Spider-Man hissed in pain, but didn't pull away. "Okay… The adrenaline really was making it seem less painful…"
"Sorry…" Lara Jean said, not knowing why.
"Oh no, don't apologize." He said, slightly gritting his teeth. "It's fine… The cold is helping."
She lowers her gaze, feeling unsure. "Umm… what else can I do?"
"Talk about yourself." Spider-Man hums. "It might make me forget about the pain a bit."
"...my name is Lara Jean." She wasn't sure why she hesitated, but she did.
He nodded. "I used to know a girl with that name… It's quite pretty."
"Thank you." Lara Jean hummed, thinking of anything else to say about herself. "I am a literature major at NYU."
"NYU? That's cool." He chuckles softly, then hisses. "I was planning on going to MIT, but ended up not even going to college after all."
Lara Jean knew when not to pry, so she just changed the topic. "So you are a STEM kind of guy?"
"Yeah, and you are a humanities type of gal," Spider-Man said. He seemed less tense. She wasn't sure if it was the pain lessening or not.
They stayed like that, talking with each other, until the can of soda was room temperature and Spider-Man's bruise was no longer that red. He finally gets up and mock salutes her with two fingers before swinging away.
Lara Jean is standing there with a fluttering heart and sighs. She most likely got a tiny little crush on New York's favorite hero.
It was fine.
She was going to be fine.
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She was NOT fine.
It had been a few weeks since that fateful meet-cute with THE Spider-Man, and Lara Jean was screaming in her pillow. She thought it would be harmless to watch videos of the guy here and there. Then she started reading some articles about the guy. Then she started liking every post with a pic of him or talking about him. Then she may or may not have started reading fic and following fan art accounts.
Now she is here with a wall full of Spider-Man pics that she had taken, by following the vigilante in her free time. (Thank you, Spidey Tracker, for making it possible.) And she had a weird pile of most probably very unauthorized Spidey merch. (Was Spider-Man's brand even trademarked? Most likely not.)
Still, it was nice to have a crush. Lara Jean loved love, and as a hopeless romantic, she was so chalant about it. It had been a while since she had had a crush so big as this one.
So she did the only thing that she always knew.
She wrote about it.
Or she was going to.
She was still trying to find where she had put her good stationery and card stuff she brought back from home all those years ago.
Yes, she still had some of her stuff in moving boxes.
She was just too busy with living in New York and college to truly unpack everything, plus she hadn't seen the need to write a love letter since she was still dating Kavinsky at the time.
Searching the deepest corner of her closet, she finally found the box where she used to put her love letters. Opening it, she found just a pair of pens, scissors, tape, paper, and other stationery. Getting up, holding the box half haphazardly, she sees something slip out. Confused, she picks it up. It was a letter. She was now even more puzzled, taking the things that she was searching for and the letter.
She sets it all on her study table.
"To Peter Benjamin Parker…" Lara Jean frowns, but continues reading the address. "20 Ingram Street, Forest Hills, Queens, New York…"
That was weird. She didn't remember writing to a Peter Parker. Especially a guy named Peter Parker that she used to have a crush on given that the letter had been in her love letter box.
Lara Jean knew that she had written to specifically five guys. Even if she had forgotten about one, she shouldn't have the letter because Kitty should have sent all of them back in the day.
She paused and looked at her love letter box and glanced at the inside of the lid. It was slightly peeling so the letter could have been hiding there. She sighed and frowned, thinking.
"Peter Kavinsky, Josh Sanderson, John Ambrose McClaren, Lucas James, Kenny Donati…" Lara Jean muttered under her breath multiple times.
Yeah. She only remembered five guys…
Who was Peter Parker? Why couldn't she remember him?
So Lara Jean did the most obvious course of action and opened the letter. Like all her letters, it started with her love declaration, but this time it was different. Kavinsky was supposed to be her first actual relationship. She said "supposed to" because the letter stated that she and that guy, Peter Parker, used to be dating in middle school.
As she continued reading, it was slowly becoming more puzzling than before. Apparently they would sit together at lunch and sometimes hold hands. Also, they would randomly break up for stupid reasons, then get back together. She wrote about a specific fight over him spending "too much time" with his best friend instead of walking her to class, something that felt embarrassingly small even reading it as an adult. There was a mention of him giving her his hoodie once when she was cold on a school trip and never asking for it back. And technically they were still together, since they never formally broke it off when Peter moved to Queens. The letter said their last real conversation had been over text, him promising he'd visit, her saying it was fine if he didn't, neither of them following up after that.
It was weird reading this love? goodbye? wish-for-a-second-chance? letter and not remembering any of the anecdotes in it. There wasn't even a spark of recognition, and Lara Jean always remembered every time she fell in love. She could still recite the exact color of Josh's eyes and the way John Ambrose smelled like laundry detergent, and don’t even get her started on Peter Kavinsky, but this Peter Parker was a complete blank. No face, no voice, nothing. This felt more like reading a book or a story, not something hers, like she was intruding on a stranger's memories instead of retrieving her own.
Now she wasn't sure what to feel. She apparently forgot a big part of her middle school years, but it also was just a simple middle school "relationship," so it was not a big deal. Except it was strange, wasn't it, to forget a person entirely, not just fuzzy details but the whole shape of him. She'd forgotten plenty of small things from middle school. She had never forgotten a person.
She sighed and put the letter back into the envelope, moving it to the side. That was something for her to deal with later, when it bit her in the ass. For now, she was doing what she was planning on doing since the beginning.
She started writing a secret love letter to Spider-Man.