'til kingdom come - tasm!peter parker x fem!reader
the evolution of your relationship with peter parker.
a/n: my entry for the April TFC Writing Challenge! it was for a fic based on a song, (til kingdom come by coldplay - off the soundtrack!) I happened to watch The Amazing Spider-Man and No Way Home in the same weekend, and well, here we are. enjoy! 🤍 (just for the record - this would be no way home era tasm!peter parker, so at least a 5-6 years older than at the end of tasm 2!)
word count: 4.4k
warnings: mentions of car accidents, hospital stays, broken bones, fluff, not completely explicit but still explicit smut, this was INCREDIBLY self-indulgent and I regret nothing
✨@friskito-library for updates on new works!✨
You’re used to him disappearing, at this point.
To waking in the middle of the night to an empty half of the bed, the pillow still warm, the only sign that he was here at all your scattered clothes on the ground, the ghost of a kiss on your mouth, and the satisfied hum in your bloodstream. It’s routine, to a degree, and has you burying your face in his pillow, chasing whatever remnants you can until he comes back.
And he always comes back.
+
It started as some kind of strange, electric current that ran beneath your skin when this doe-eyed scrap of a man paused in the doorway of your hospital room. He heard you crying, walked in, concern in that chocolate-coloured gaze and asked you if you were alright. Given the circumstance, your leg casted six ways to Sunday and a painful crick in your neck, you blubbered out a no, but then he introduced himself - “Peter Parker, I’m…I’m Peter.” - as he handed you a tissue, and then all of a sudden he was sinking into the chair at your bedside, distracting you from the pain.
“You don’t even know me,” you protested, shaking your head.
He’d just lifted a shoulder, dragging the chair a little closer. He handed you another tissue, asked if you wanted some water. “If you told me your name, then I would.” His grin was infectious. “Besides, when I heard you crying, I couldn’t just keep walking.”
You talked for hours. Until the nurse came in and declared visiting hours over, your evening round of pain meds in your hand. Peter hovered as she pushed the syringe into your IV, and your vision swirled at the edges. Ah, morphine. “Say your goodbyes,” the nurse prompted, giving him a pointed glare. “Boyfriend can come back in the morning.”
“He’s not my…” you trailed off, the meds kicking in fast, making your words slur. Your hand flopped off the edge of the bed, and Peter could resist the urge to squeeze his fingers around yours.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he grinned, and you were out cold by the time he reached the door to your room.
You saw him the next day. And the next day. The day after that, and the day after that. He became a permanent fixture in the chair at your bedside, distracting you with anecdotes and cheesy jokes while your leg healed. He never showed up at the same time each day, but learned the visiting hours window quickly, and was good with his timing, always showing up within it. Your nurse still had to kick him out when he showed up later in the day, your visits often trailing well past the end of visiting hours, but she let him stay longer more than once.
He was there the day they discharged you, and helped you into the taxi to take you back to your apartment. He was patient, helping you up the steps and into the elevator, carrying your bags. At that point, you knew each other supremely well, and there was something so comforting about being around Peter, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it.
“You hungry?” he asked, setting you up on your couch, propping your leg up the way the nurse had instructed. “I’m no chef, but I make a mean boxed mac and cheese.”
“Everything in my fridge has probably gone bad,” you pouted, wincing as you adjusted slightly. “It’s been weeks since I’ve been home.”
“Shit. Right.”
“Pizza?”
He grinned, nodding in agreement. “Pizza.”
And so you spent the day together on your couch, watching old movies and eating pizza. Peter made sure you had water close by, doled out the meds the hospital had given you, fluffed your pillows.
You forgot about the pain, and it wasn’t the drugs.
And before long, you were half asleep, as you were most nights when he visited you in the hospital. Except now, your head lolled on his shoulder, his t-shirt covered chest rising and falling beneath your hand. “I should go,” he mumbled into your hair. “Let you get some rest.”
“I can sleep here,” you mumbled back. “You can take my bed, if you want. You don’t have to go.” You hummed, your voice drenched with sleep, and then you were out like a light.
You woke some time later in your bed, your leg propped up on pillows, blankets pulled to your chin. There was a note on your nightstand, scrawled in a hasty hand.
Couldn’t leave you on the couch. Quite the first date, if you ask me. Hope you slept well - Peter x
Your eyes lingered on the words first date, and you tried to ignore the thump in your chest, but no matter what you did, it wouldn’t go away.
+
About a month later, after your cast was removed, the first few rounds of physical therapy done, and you were feeling good.
Good enough to call Peter out.
You’d finally gone back to work, and perched at your desk, staring out the window on your lunch break, you dialed his number. You’d seen each other a few times since you’d been discharged, the odd cup of coffee when you were both free. But the note he’d left at your bedside still lingered in the back of your mind. You needed to know.
“Hello?” he answered with a grunt, and it sounded windy as hell wherever he was. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” you said quickly, spine prickling at the concern in his voice. “Everything’s fine, I’m just…”
“You’re what?” he questioned, almost heaving a breath on the other line.
“Is this a bad time?”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He grunted, and there was a sound like he almost dropped the phone. “You’re what?”
“You called it a first date,” you spewed out, the words tumbling out of your mouth. “The day I came home from the hospital, when you stayed with me.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess I did.” You could almost see the blush in his cheeks. “Is that okay with you?”
“It is,” you said slowly, ignoring the whip of wind on his end of the line. “But you realize that calling it a first date implies that there’s gonna be a second date.”
“Does it?”
“It does.”
“Then how about I pick you up at seven?”
+
“I wasn’t gonna do this,” you breathed out against his mouth. His hands - god, his hands - were on your hips, pulling you against him while his lips ghosted over yours. He’d spent the elevator ride mapping out the curve of your jaw, making your pulse jump beneath your skin as he roamed your neck. “I was gonna make you wait, I was gonna-”
“Shut up,” he mumbled back, and his hands jumped from your hips to your mouth, pulling you more firmly against him, his lips claiming yours. “Fuck, you’re pretty.”
He’d knocked on your door at almost half past seven, and as you yanked the door open, some chastising comment about him being late, he’d pushed a semi-crushed bouquet of flowers into your hands, leaning forward and pecking your cheek as he murmured, “You look nice.” And the comment died on your tongue.
Dinner was great. The conversation passed between you as easily as ever. You talked about work; your journalism gig was busy as ever, and when you told him you had Spider-Man to thank for your latest front page article. “Your pictures worked perfectly,” you said over the rim of your wine glass, not missing the way his ears turned red. “It was the perfect cover shot.”
“I’m glad.”
A few hours of conversation, a brief tussle over who would pay the bill - Peter won, claiming that it was your article that put his photo on the cover, so he owed you one - and you were walking back to your apartment. You had to stop a few times, rubbing at a rogue pain in your leg, and after the second time, Peter tugged on your hand until you were behind him, then gestured for you to hop up.
“Are you insane? Peter, I’m not light, you can’t-”
“I carried you to bed on our first date,” he quipped, dropping his hands and turning around. He watched the puzzle pieces fit together in your expression, the details sussing themselves out. It formed a little dip between your brows, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and smoothing his thumb over it.
“You did, didn’t y-”
And then he kissed you. Right there on the street, lamplight pouring over the both of you, the slight pain in your leg forgotten.
You were speechless when he pulled back, and a moment later, you were on his back, the pair of you striding towards your apartment.
He’d kissed you again in the lobby as he set you back on your feet. Again as you waited for the elevator. When it was blessedly empty, he crowded you into the corner and pushed his face into your neck, teeth scraping your pulse. When your breath hitched, he did it again. Again and again and again.
Then, inside your apartment, he pushed you against the wall, quieting your words, drinking them down with his hands on your face. Your blood thumped in your ears, heat flaring between your legs as he pushed his tongue between your teeth.
Fuck waiting.
He was careful. Gentle, even, as he snaked his hands back down your body, glancing around the curve of your ass before he was gripping behind your knees, lifting you up and against him. You squeaked at his strength, wrapping your arms around his neck as he carried you down the hall to your bedroom. You undressed each other slowly, lips never far apart as clothes scattered across the floor.
Something like panic flared in your eyes when you saw the bruises along his ribs, the scratch at his collar, but he kissed you again, silencing your worries when he snuck his hand down your front, fingertips licking at your nerves, pulling sensations to the surface of your body you hadn’t felt in a while.
The carefulness continued, both of you bathed in the darkness, the only source of light the slit in your curtains. Peter moved differently in the dark, somehow anticipating every move you made, as you explored each other. He pulled noises from you you didn’t think yourself capable of, making you cum hard once on his tongue before he was crawling over you on the bed, the ends of his hair tickling your skin as he made his way up to your lips once more.
There was that moment of realness, that pause of trepidation that filled the space between you when you fished a condom out of your nightstand. He hissed when you moved your hand over him, following his movements, tracing his outlines.
When he pushed into you, your good leg wrapped around his hip, his hands braced around your head, his face buried in your collar, you lost what little breath you had left. He managed to find every last nerve you needed touched, and it wasn’t long before you were losing it again, your head thrown back on the pillow, fingers buried in his wayward hard.
You fell asleep shortly after, curled on your side, Peter glued to your back.
But when you woke up, he was gone.
+
Peter avoided you as long as he could.
He felt bad about it, obviously, the guilt tugging at his insides anytime he saw something that reminded him of you, caught a scent in the air that smelled suspiciously like your shampoo.
He hadn’t wanted to leave. Truthfully, he could have stayed there in your bed all night, even if sleep evaded him. He would have watched you for hours, committed every inch of you to memory as you slept, maybe woke you up once or twice with his mouth or his hands or a combination, just to hear those sweet noises of yours again.
But then his senses had prickled, the scream of alarms outside reaching his ears. You stayed soundly asleep, your brow furrowing again. Despite everything in him yelling that he needed to go, Peter reached out, swiped his thumb across the dip in your skin yet again. It hadn’t disappeared when he’d kissed you hours ago, his movements taking you slightly by surprise, but then, your lashes fluttering with dreams, it smoothed out beneath his touch, and he smiled.
He didn’t want to leave.
He was falling for y-
The thought cut short. He shook his head, snuck out the fire escape and climbed to the roof of the building, pulling his gear out of his bag and disappearing across the city, his senses chasing the alarms.
The thought, and the feeling that accompanied it, wouldn’t leave him alone. Even when he went back home, Aunt May chiding him to eat him something when he appeared in the kitchen the next morning, his mind wandered back to you. You would have woken up alone, the only evidence he was there in the first place being the condom in your garbage can.
And the sucked bruise he’d left on the inside of your thigh.
He was a mix of longing and guilt, heat and despair. His body begged him to go back to you, to apologize as many times as it took for you to let him kiss you again. But his mind said no, told him it was too soon, that his past was too fresh.
But could you really put a timeline on grief?
He’d never forget Gwen, never forget the way he’d held her that night, the way life had so cruelly ripped her away from him. She was a part of him, forever. No amount of time would change that.
Aunt May’s voice echoed in his mind. What she’d said when he found her packing Uncle Ben’s things into boxes.
You’re throwing his stuff away?
No, god, no. I couldn’t do that. It’s part of me. I’m just finding a better place for it. I’m gonna take one last look, and I’m gonna put it where it belongs.
For years now, he wasn’t sure what to do with everything he felt for Gwen. It still loomed around his heart, clutching at him like a vise, sneaking up on him at the most inopportune of moments. The love he’d had for her, it had nowhere else to go, so it sat in him, brewing like oversteeped tea, making him feel sour for what he’d lost.
Finding a better place for it.
Put it where it belongs.
He intended to call you that day. He was running late for an appointment, rushing through the city streets, when he collided with someone, a cup of coffee falling to the sidewalk at his feet. He narrowly avoided the hot liquid, cursing under his breath, and then he caught the scent of your shampoo, forcing himself to ignore the way it twisted his gut.
But then he took a deeper breath, and realized it wasn’t just the smell of your hair.
It was you.
“Oh my god,” he whispered, shame and guilt washing his cheeks rosy. “I’m so sorry, I’m-”
“It’s okay, Peter,” you said, rising to your feet, now-empty coffee cup in hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
He pulled you to the side, avoiding the coffee spill, dragging you into a doorway a few steps up from the sidewalk. You went willingly, but he could see the hesitation in your eyes, and he couldn’t blame you. Your eyes darted anywhere but his face, leaning back against the doorway, chewing at your lip.
“I screwed up,” he said bluntly, and that had your eyes zipping to his. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak out on you, or avoid you, or any of it. I just…I’m sorry.”
Your brow lifted slowly. “You keep saying that.”
“Would you give me another chance?” he asked, the words still pouring out of him. “Please?”
Your chest lifted as you inhaled deeply. “I don’t hear from you for weeks, you come out of nowhere and spill my coffee, and you ask me for a third date?” Your tone was almost flat, but there was a quirk at the corner of your mouth you couldn’t hide.
Daringly, Peter took a step forward, crowding into your space. His hand hovered for a moment before he lifted it, curling his fingers and letting his knuckles trail down your cheek. Your eyes fluttered and he took another step.
“Yes,” he breathed, leaning down until his forehead was pressed to yours. His knuckles caressed your cheek again. “Please.”
Your next inhale was sharp and you tilted your head back, the tip of your nose moving along the curve of his. “I swear to god, Peter Parker, if you disappear on me again, I won’t-”
He was too busy kissing you to hear the end of the sentence.
+
Three days later, you had him in your bed again. It was an interesting evening, to say the least.
You made him wait this time. Sort of. It was your fourth date now, technically - you’d held out after the dinner he’d taken you to after your collison on th street - but the way he’d kissed you goodnight after this one had you saying fuck it to waiting yet again. There was something different about him, something less haunted in those dark eyes, something less hurried behind his movements.
Your kisses lingered in the elevator, the doorway, the hallway. You drank glasses of water in the kitchen, and Peter was distracted, his eyes catching on the drafts of your latest articles, spread out on the countertop. “No more Spider-Man?”
You lifted a shoulder. “No one’s seen him around in a while,” you answered, stepping close to him. “Plus, my favourite photographer disappeared on me.”
He cracked a smile. “Well, he won’t do that again, I’ve got it on good authority.”
Your smile echoed his. “Good.”
But then just as quickly as it had appeared, the smile faded. “Listen,” he started, his brow going hard, rubbing his hand up the back of his neck. “I promised myself I’d be honest with you, and there’s…there’s something I gotta tell you.”
“Okay,” you said slowly, tilting your head to the side as you set your glass down. “So tell me.”
He braced both hands on the sink, pressing his lips together for a long moment before his head turned in your direction. “It was me that saved you that night. The car accident, when you broke your leg.”
Your brows pulled down, instantly confused. “No, it wasn’t. Peter, we didn’t even know each other back then, it was-”
The cops had told you who it was, your nurse repeating the story with the tiniest bit of disdain. It was what had inspired your front page piece, when you finally went back to work. A thank you, of sorts. It was-
“Spider-Man,” Peter says, his jaw hard enough to cut glass. Your head is spinning. “That’s me. I’m Spider-Man.”
You started laughing. Giggling like mad, nearly bent in half. “What are you-”
Without a word, Peter stepped away from you, one hand held palm up, and jumped. The ceilings in your apartment were low, but it was still a good three feet above your head. His bare hand connected with the ceiling…
…and stuck.
He swung slightly, staring down at you, his lips still pressed together.
“You…saved me?” you murmured out, your voice dropping as he did, his feet back on your kitchen tile. You weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Your memories of the accident were hazy; you’d spun out, your car diving off the edge of the bridge and into the river below. You remember being filled with fear as soon as the car hit the water, but the impact knocked you out. You woke up in the hospital later on, and the cops filled you in, told you that Spider-Man had carried you into the emergency department.
Peter just nodded. His shoulder lifted. “It’s kind of what I do.”
“But then you…?” you trailed off, your brow scrunching again.
He closed the distance between you, his thumb smoothing between your brows, something of a habit of his that you were already growing used to. “Then I came to see you in the hospital. I had to. I had to make sure you were okay.”
“You…You’re Spider-Man.”
He smiled as his hand moved around the outline of your face, his thumb now riding the curve of your lower lip. “I’m Spider-Man.”
“I’m having sex with Spider-Man?”
“I thought we were dating, too.”
You pushed at his chest, curling your fingers in the collar of his t-shirt and tugging him close. “I’m having sex with Spider-Man.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, and you kissed the grin off his mouth. He moved faster than your eyes could track, grabbing you up into his arms, carrying you down the hall to your bedroom.
+
You lay sprawled in your bed hours later, the sun long gone. Peter is stretched out, his arm tucked behind his head, while you are laid on his chest, your chin resting on your hand. You’d only stayed quiet when he’d had his mouth on yours, your questions deterred while he was busy having his fill of you, making those sweet noises echo off the walls of your bedroom. He wasn’t sated, not by a long shot, but he could see the questions on your face as you both came down, chests heaving.
“Go ahead,” he prompts you, tugging you close. “Ask me.”
He tells you everything. He fields every question, tells you as much truth as he could bear. He doesn’t hold anything back, his words spilling out faster with every question on your lips. Soon enough, you’re kissing the words out of each other’s mouths, tangling in the sheets once again.
And then you have a secret of your own to share.
“I’m in love with you.”
His heart stalls in his chest. Every feeling he’d battled over the last few months brought back to the surface. “I…” His eyes search yours, so full of emotion - so full of truth - he feels guilt crawl up his throat.
He’s told you about Gwen. You know what happened, you know the story. And you hadn’t pressed him for details, when he first brought it up. You were in the hospital still, laid out in that bed, him perched in the chair beside you. Your fingers had curled through his when he first brought it up, your eyes shining back at him. “It’s okay, Peter. I…I lost someone too. A long time ago. I get it.”
He wants to. He wants to tell you the same. He wants to admit it - to you, and to himself, finally.
But…
“I can’t,” he says, the words feeling like lead weights on his tongue. “I just-”
“It’s okay, Peter,” you reply, an echo of what you’d said when he’d first told you. “I get it, I just-”
He grabs your forearm, pulling you further up his chest, until he can bury his hand in your hair, his kiss cutting off your sentence. “Can you trust that I want to? That I want to say it, I just…need time? I’m not gonna ask you to wait for me, but if you-”
It’s your turn to cut him off, your mouth lingering on his. “I can wait, Peter. I will wait.”
+
And so it’s continued. More dates, more nights spent in your apartment. Walks through Central Park, dinners at Aunt May’s. May is in love with you from your very first meeting, which Peter predicted, and it’s all too easy to fall into the patterns, to become an even steadier part of each other’s lives.
Every time he has to go, his senses pulling him to another corner of the city, he sees the concern in your eyes. “Be careful,” you beg him, kissing him soundly. “Come back to me.”
“Always will,” he grins, returning the kiss, ducking out the window.
And he always does.
But now, he’s been gone for hours. You’ve been checking the news like a crazy person, scrolling on your phone, refreshing your best sources every few minutes. But nothing. You even go so far as to call the hospitals, making sure he hasn’t turned up in an emergency department somewhere. You can’t tell May; you can’t worry her like this.
Hours turn into days. You deter May’s worried calls with a white lie that Peter has food poisoning and has been sleeping it off at your place. Almost two days, and your worry is at an all time high. This is different. Something feels different, something you can’t quite put your finger on.
All you can do is wait. You told him you would.
+
The weird tingling from Dr. Strange’s spell fades, the brightness clouding his vision fading away, and Peter finds himself standing in your living room. A glance at the kitchen clock tells him it’s very early, and as the exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours starts to set in, already making his limbs heavy, he heads for your bedroom, stripping out of the suit as he goes.
By the time he steps through the doorway, he tosses the suit in the direction of your laundry bin. His mind is still spinning, churning with everything he’s witnessed in the last few days. He doesn’t really know how to make sense of it all, but there’s one thing he has to do.
“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching out and covering your shoulder with his hand, shaking gently as he pulls the blankets back with his other hand.
You grumble for a moment, your eyes cracking open, but when you see it’s him, you surge upwards, throwing your arms around his neck. “Peter!”
“Hi, baby,” he mumbles into your neck, dropping the blanket and wrapping his arm around your waist, the other finding a home in your hair. “Sorry I disappeared on you.”
“What happened?” you cry, pulling back, taking his face in your hands, your eyes instantly inspecting him. “You were gone for two whole days, I didn’t know what to-”
He kisses you hard, wrapping your hair around his knuckles. You return the affection, holding him as tightly as he’s holding you. “I wanna tell you what happened, but I don’t totally know myself? All I know is that I’m exhausted, and there’s something that I do have to tell you.”
You pull him down into bed, instantly fitting yourself against his side, pulling the blankets over you both. Puzzle pieces falling into place. Your brown furrows, and he moves his thumb over the dip. “What is it, Peter? Tell me.”
He drags his knuckles down your cheek. “I’m in love with you, too.”
THE END.
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