Chapter Text
Eight times.
Peter had tried to ask her out eight times and throughout all of his attempts, he barely got as close to reaching the hallway she was lingering at before backing away and deciding against it. His head hammered against his locker door in frustration, actually groaning in pain as he hit his head a little too hard and felt over his forehead to see if there was a bump forming or inflammation on his skin.
He huffed, putting his hand down and reaching into his locker. Grabbing his backpack and holding his skateboard tightly as he slung his backpack across his shoulder. He started to close his locker door, catching a glimpse of the girl he had been fawning over for about a year now. His breath hitched in his throat as he looked away quickly once she turned to take a glimpse at his direction and hid himself with his locker door, pressing his head against it as he sighed.
Make that nine.
Gwen sighed as Peter turned away. She wasn’t completely oblivious; this wasn’t the first time he had done this. In fact, it seemed to be a more prevalent occurrence than not, and Gwen, for one, was tired of it. She always had a curiosity for the photographer, and she wondered if the reason why he didn’t interact with her so much is because he felt similarly. In all truth, Gwen had been developing a crush on him for maybe 6 months while simultaneously knowing little about him. I mean, they were polar opposites; she was the smartest kid on the honour roll and he was the quiet kid who got bullied by the people she had to tutor (Flash), but even through their differences, Gwen had always felt drawn to him in a weird way. She looked back at him as their eyes locked together, and for the first time, neither of them wavered. Just a minute of eye-contact between them felt like an eternity, and it forced both of them to keep all the (small!) composure they had when it came to each other, frozen in the other’s perception.
10?
Peter shut his locker, looking away abruptly and walked away from the situation, hand rubbing his neck as he cursed himself for not doing something when the moment so clearly called for it; as if she wasn’t the only thing he was thinking about, night and day.
Harry should’ve been here, he lamented, jarred by his best friend’s intentional absence. He breathed out harshly as he walked inside his science class, jaw clenching as Flash barged into him intentionally. Dropping his bag onto his table, Peter sat down at his seat and rested his head against it, his board next to it.
——
Gwen walked in a few minutes after Peter, the energy of the room shifting as she did; Flash offered the seat next to him to her, of which she declined. She glanced at Peter, holding her breath as she started to take her bag off and walked over to where he was sitting. She tried to hide her smile as he raised his head to meet her eyes, his own darting across her face and trying to meet hers as quickly as he could.
“Hey, uh, is this seat taken?” Gwen smiled, gesturing to the seat next to Peter as she clutched the books in her hand.
It took Peter a while for him to respond, his mouth opening to try and speak until he just shook his head slowly, starting to laugh a little bit. He looked at her expectantly for her answer, smiling slightly as she sat next to him. He quickly grabbed his board and his bag, putting them below the table as he smiled timidly at her, looking away and taking out his books as the teacher started to go on with the lesson.
Gwen took a few glimpses at him as he worked, lips curving into a soft smile each time she looked over at him. She tilted her head before turning it to face Flash, who noticed that Gwen and Peter were seated together.
“Get up, Parker, you’re in my seat,” Flash called out, getting up as his friends jeered behind him.
“Flash, don’t be a dick,” Gwen furrowed her eyebrows, calling out as his friends instigated the situation.
“Are you deaf? Parker, get up,” He called out, scowling.
Peter looked up at Flash and back at Gwen before blinking abruptly; now, at this moment, Peter must’ve had an aneurysm because somehow, somewhat, he stood up for himself. Albeit, very tentatively. He furrowed his eyebrows at Flash, shaking his head and staring up at him gingerly as he spoke, his voice surprisingly not as shaky as expected.
“It’s not your seat, Flash,” Peter responded, reaching out for his bag.
“Oh yeah?” Flash muttered as he walked up to him, grabbing his shirt and punching him across the face, the entire class erupting with roars of interest and disbelief. “Not my seat, huh?”
“Are you serious?”
The class’ amusement heightened, instigating the situation on a further level as Peter seemed to resist against Flash, pushing the larger boy away and getting up, not without a stumble. The teacher whined at Flash in response to his insolence, and in all actuality, Gwen seemed like the only one actually concerned about him. She grabbed her bag and held Peter’s skateboard for him, helping him up and bringing him to the nurse as Flash’s crowd jeered behind them.
——
Gwen walked through the hallways with him, holding his skateboard close to her chest compared to how loosely he normally would. She tilted her head as she tried to make out how bad his injury was as they walked to the nurse, clearing her throat and trying to break the tension between them; whether platonic, romantic or just plain awkward.
She smiled slightly, looking at him as they stopped just in front of the nurse’s office. “I think your nose is broken,”
“I’m sorry that you, uh, got in the middle of that, Flash just picks on me— it wasn’t because of you or anything,” Peter rambled, trying to stop the blood coming out of his nose through a tissue, the paper soaking crimson.
“I know,” She nodded, letting go of the skateboard and holding it loosely, glancing at the various illustrations he made across the back, her smile broadening as her eyes traced against more of his work. “I didn’t know you did all these equations on your board,”
Peter laughed, scratching his neck gingerly as he flushed red of embarrassment, tossing the tissue in the trash. “I mean, not a lot of people know, I don’t really talk to anyone outside of school,”
She tilted her head, looking over his skateboard for a little while longer before turning her gaze to him and grabbing a tissue to press it against his nose so it would absorb the blood again. “I know, I’ve seen… you’re Peter, right? Peter Parker?”
He stared at her for a moment, trying to comprehend if he was actually talking to her before nodding, his head moving up quickly as he spoke. “Yeah, I’m Peter— Parker, Peter Parker, and you’re—”
“Gwen Stacy,” She spoke before him, smiling softly as she handed him his skateboard. “You, uh, you did my photos for debate, I know you did because of your camera, it’s— it’s pretty cool! It looks vintage, was it passed down or something?”
“That’s a very nice way to say it’s old and, uh, yeah, it was my mom’s,” He smiled, adjusting the camera around his neck.
She beamed, shaking her head as he spoke and trying to justify herself. “I didn’t mean old! It looks nice, it suits your, uh, your vibe? Is that the right word?”
“It’s the right word, yeah,” He smiled, nodding as she spoke. He tilted his head, throwing away the tissue Gwen was holding as he turned back to look at her warmly.
She smiled, folding her arms. “Can I ask you something?”
Nodding quickly, Peter perked up. “You can ask me anything,”
She nodded tentatively, her movements a little apprehensive as she muttered. “Are we cool? You don’t seem to really like me, you avoid me sometimes, it just seems like you don’t like to be around me,”
Peter furrowed his eyebrows as she spoke, growing more and more confused with each word she said which probably gave her the impression that he was offended by everything she was saying. He shook his head as he spoke. “Of course we’re cool, I’m sorry that it didn’t seem like that— we’re cool, we’re better than cool,”
She nodded, tilting her head as she tested her waters with him. “Better than cool?”
Peter held his breath, nodding his head quickly. “Yeah,”
They were both interrupted by the nurse opening her door, Peter glancing at Gwen as she nodded for him to go ahead, sitting down. Peter smiled slightly in gratitude before walking in, getting treated by the nurse quickly before he was pretty much the same condition as he was before Flash had punched him. He walked out to meet Gwen rising from her chair, midway through one of her books.
She smiled as she closed the book on the page she was reading at, handing him his skateboard. Briefly, her eyes lingered over his features for a while just to familiarise herself with the way he looked up close. “You look good— better,”
“Yeah, I think so too,” He smiled back at her, holding his board loosely and adjusting his camera as they walked.
Gwen studied his face in interest, her eyes narrowing slightly as she noticed a healing bruise on the side of his cheek. Her eyebrows knitted together as she debated on whether or not it was her place to say anything, but finally, she let her curiosity get the better of her, her naïveté not jumping to conclusions sooner enough. “Peter, where did you get that bruise?”
Peter’s eyebrows flashed up in concern, furrowing quickly and blinking as he tried to explain himself. “I, uh, I tripped, and fell— obviously I fell, but I got this because of it, basically,”
“Peter,” She muttered, leaning over to see a cut on his jaw. “You have a cut, right there,”
“Do I?” He furrowed his eyebrows, feeling over his jaw. “I don’t feel it,”
She held the side of his face as she felt over his jaw for him, rubbing softly against the cut. “You feel that?”
He nodded quickly, blinking out of nerves. He held Gwen’s hand that was cupped over his cheek for a movement before moving it off, a mutual feeling coursing through both of them as their hands touched. “Yeah, I feel it,”
“I know that definitely wasn’t from Flash, what’s happening with you?” Gwen muttered, eyebrows furrowing as she tried to ignore the rising feeling in her stomach; she couldn’t tell if it was dread or the flurry of feelings that she felt in the moment.
“I cut myself— shaving, I cut myself shaving,” He rambled a little, pointing to the cut as he tried to explain himself, blinking a little erratically.
“You cut yourself shaving?” She tilted her head as she spoke, nodding along as she smiled at his timidness, her eyes tracing over his face.
“Yeah— I’m trying really hard to focus right now,” He looked down at her, eyes locked on hers in a trance.
“Am I a distraction?” Gwen quipped, questioning him as she smiled.
“No— no, you’re just, uh.. I can’t say it,” Peter fumbled on his words, laughing nervously and rubbing his neck, smiling. “But it’s not a distraction, it’s the opposite, honestly,”
“Traction?” She raised her eyebrows, smiling and walking out of the school building with him.
“I’m not gonna answer that,” He tried to hide his smile, breathing out before gripping his board, breathing in harshly as he tried to compose himself. He wasn’t going to make it 11. “Are you free today? Right now, I mean,”
“I’m free, yeah,” She nodded. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, we could just.. walk? Or we could bike, go on the bus, subway but I don’t wanna take you to the subway—”
“Walking sounds nice,” She smiled as they crossed the street together, interrupting his tangent.
Peter smiled as Gwen walked alongside him, sometimes glancing at her while they were strolling just to make sure that she was actually there and that she wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. Of course, it took him getting punched to get there, but that was all about to be worth it compared to how being with her felt; it was a feeling completely foreign to him. It was the type of feeling that made you giddy inside, that made every aspect of your body feel different, altered, in a way. It was the thumping of his heart against his ribcage, the tingling sensation he felt all over his body, the way his heartbeat quickened at the acknowledgement of Gwen being beside him.
Gwen, although less obvious than Peter, was definitely no better. She could feel Peter’s gaze occasionally, but she chalked this up to him glancing in her direction. When she was sure he wasn’t looking, she glanced up at him, trying to catch glimpses of him as he spoke. She could barely control herself and she was barely keeping it together; her eyes could never lie due to their expressivity. She kept her eyes on him, her gaze unwavering from where he was standing until they walked into a bakery, almost getting hit with the door. She looked down and laughed it off as she looked back at Peter, looking away quickly. “So, do you come here often?”
“As often as I can, to be honest— what do you, uh, what do you want from here? My treat,” Peter added with a dorkish smile, looking back at her.
“Do they sell cinnabons?” Gwen questioned, cheeks reddening as they maintained eye-contact.
He nodded, ordering two for Gwen and two for himself before grabbing the bag full of the pastries and paying the worker, walking out with her. “They’re a solid 6, I think,”
She reached in the bag and took out a cinnabon as they were walking, taking a bite and widening her eyes at him as he spoke. “As in 6/10? Peter!”
“What? Come on, it’s overrated,” Peter smiled softly, relaxing in her presence as he took a bite out of his croissant.
“And that isn’t? It looks like the most generic pastry I’ve ever seen,” She poked fun at him, smiling.
“We can put that to the test, Gwendy,” He quipped back, his face starting to hurt now from smiling too much.
“Gwendy?” She laughed before taking a bite out of his croissant, pausing for a moment before responding. “It’s still not better than a cinnabon,”
“That’s a lie and you know it!” He pointed out, laughing at her reaction as he turned away from her.
“It is not a lie and I know nothing, actually,” She smiled, turning him back he was facing her again, looking at him with an expectant expression.
Peter’s breath caught in his throat. He looked back at her, his eyes staring blankly as if he was a deer in headlights. His eyes travelled over her face and then over her outfit, blinking harshly as he tried to do something quite unexpected. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t exactly come out the way he wanted it to.
“Have I told you that you look great? Because you, uh— you do, seriously,” His eyebrows knit together, his words spilling out as he turned away from her again, his heart racing.
“No, you haven’t, thank you,” Gwen smiled, tilting her head a little as she tried to make eye-contact with Peter.
“Your dad’s a, uh, police captain, right? Captain Stacy?” Peter turned to look at her, rambling a little as he tried to change the topic. “The one that hates Spider-Man,”
“That’s an interesting way to describe him but, yeah— he doesn’t really hate him, he just thinks of him as a hindrance, I think,” Gwen responded well to the change in context, trying to move on.
“And you? What do you think about him, Spider-Man?” Peter was particularly observant of her answer here, something that Gwen found both interesting and curious.
“I think he’s nice, protecting everyone from bad guys like that.. but of course, it’s not like we’ll personally ever know who’s under the mask,” Gwen responded, interested in seeing Peter’s reaction.
“You think he’s nice?” He glanced at her, his tone showing interest as he cleared his throat. “But uh, yeah, I guess we won’t see who’s under that mask,”
“You never know, maybe it’s you,” She smiled, taking a bite out of her cinnamon bun. She paused as she observed Peter’s reaction, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
“Me? Spider-Man? Come on, I just— well, it’s impossible, we’re just— I’m not Spider-Man, okay?” He laughed nervously, shaking his head erratically as he spoke to her.
“You’re Spider-Man,” Gwen looked at him knowingly, her expression relaxing as she got the confirmation she was testing from his reaction. But as her expression relaxed, her eyes widened at the truth of it— her eyebrows furrowed as she questioned him, moving away from him slightly. “You’re Spider-Man?”
“Gwen!” He whisper-yelled, shaking his head at her as he looked around to check if anyone heard, huffing. “Listen, nobody else can know, especially your dad considering how much he hates me,”
“I didn’t think you actually were— oh my god, how long have you been lying about this? Who else knows?” She spluttered as she tried not to overwhelm him, asking him a few questions to make context.
“6 months,” He muttered, looking back at her hesitantly. He breathed in, looking away from her. “Just— nobody else knows, okay? And I especially didn’t wanna tell you,”
“Why, because I’d tell my father?” She questioned, a little offended by Peter's misconception for her.
“Gwen, you have to promise to tell nobody, alright? Peter paused in the middle of his sentence, suddenly more alert of his surroundings as his body tingled. His spidey sense was in full effect. His eyes flashed around his surroundings before noticing a group of criminals following each other into an alley, pulling his backpack off his shoulders.
She looked in the direction he was staring in, before grabbing his backpack from his hands and holding his skateboard. “Be careful, okay?”
He nodded, zipping down his hoodie which slightly revealed his Spider-Man suit.
“Please,” Gwen sighed as he nodded to her statement, starting to follow them into the alley and changing into his suit.
——
The posse had seemed to travel into an alleyway a few blocks away from where Peter had left Gwen. Unaware that the vigilante was anticipating their next moves, Peter remained silent, his movements deliberate as he neared the group, trying to remain cautious of his surroundings.
Letting his guard down, Peter focused on the man who looked to be the main assailant instead of focusing on the rest of the group, and a few audible mistakes rendered them the realisation that somebody was on their trail.
He groaned as one of the criminals threw him up against the wall, punching him in the face as he moved his jaw and kneed the criminal in the stomach, forcing him to let go as he doubled over in pain. One of them pulled out a gun and aimed for Peter, which he was able to quickly dodge with a tear in his costume, webbing the guy’s hand to the wall and the rest of his body. He held a guy’s arm as he tried to hit him, quickly disarming him but not paying attention to his surroundings, the guy he kneed in the stomach hitting him to the ground. He kicked his stomach before grabbing his suit, scowling at him as Peter grimaced, turning away. “Can you brush your teeth once in a while?”
The guy scoffed before kicking him in the stomach harder this time, grinning as he heard a loud groan of pain. “You really thought you could stop us, eh, Spidey?”
He took the advantage of the guy getting caught off guard to get up (as gingerly as he did so), holding his stomach in pain as he punched him across the face, knocking him out. Without looking up, he webbed up the guy that tried to hit him and made sure he was secure before webbing up the guy who had kicked him in the stomach repeatedly. “Thought I could? I don’t know why you people underestimate me,” He scoffed before using his webs to get away, travelling across the city.
Gwen was simple; her evenings compiled of studying, attending debate practises or interning for her boss, Dr. Connors at Oscorp, and considering she still had Peter’s things, she decided to opt to study instead of spending the night at Oscorp (she had no debate practice for the day) and focused on her work, despite the distraction she was facing with Peter. In all honesty, she couldn’t believe it was that easy to guess his real identity; was he that bad of a liar?
Maybe it was the suddenness of the question, she decided, a little unconvinced with her own theory as her brothers broke her train of thought, letting her know that dinner was ready. After finishing her food, she spoke with her family for a bit and helped clean up with the dishes, ignoring a few snide remarks for her mom and getting back to her room. She closed the door behind her and sat down, shifting on her mattress as she tried to get into the same position as she was in before, her focus yet again wavered from her books as she heard a light tap at her window. Averting her eyes from the text in front of her, she glanced at it, narrowing her eyes as she made out a dark figure, the recognition fawning on her.
Gwen got up quickly and opened the window, pausing as the figure pulled off his mask. “Peter?”