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ahtsumu · 3 years

Text

long shots ; miya osamu

pairing: miya osamu x f!reader

synopsis: miya osamu is the teacher’s assistant for food chemistry i. you can’t stop thinking about him.

tag(s): college!au, slow burn, TA!miya osamu, grad student!reader, fluff, reader is a go-getter!! ; warning(s): profanity, suggestive themes, talk of insecurities and imposter syndrome ; wc: 5.6k

a/n: happy birthday to @starrysamu! i love u. pls excuse any errors. i’ll weed them out later! btw this fic is not a sugar daddy au LOL

HIS NAME IS Miya Osamu and he always looks like he has it all figured out. Comes in every class with his black hair perfectly tousled, the sleeves of his dark button-up rolled to his elbows, a cup of coffee in one hand and the strap of that black messenger bag in another.

“He drives a BMW, did ya know?” Isla says in your ear one morning. Your only friend in Food Chemistry I gives you a pointed look before sitting back in her chair in the lecture hall with a smirk on her face. “Saw it this morning. Bet he’s loaded.” The two of you watch the subject in question walk across the classroom and settle in his seat at the table in the corner.

“Shut up,” you whisper with wide eyes. A grin–– far from innocent–– makes its way onto your face. “Imagine being Miya Osamu’s sugar baby.”

“He’s not old enough to be a sugar daddy.” Isla looks at her nails disinterestedly. “And that’s too many AUs in one. He’s already the TA, for god’s sake. This isn’t some shitty Wattpad novel.”

A light giggle slips out of your lips. “I can see the title already. My Sugar Daddy is the TA?!”

Now, if anyone had been listening in on your conversation, they would’ve assumed many things about you. The first being that you’re both gold-diggers. This is untrue–– at least, in your case. Isla, you’re not so sure about, given how your friendship only goes back about one month. But she tags you in memes on Instagram so maybe it’s as real as real gets. Their second assumption would be that you have a big fat crush on your TA. That one’s complicated, mostly because it’s true, but only kinda. It all started in the second week of school when Isla caught you staring at Osamu and slipped you a post-it note with both your initials encircled in a heart. And, because you’re shameless with a good sense of humour, you made a show of kissing it while she was looking. And thus began your meaningless but incredibly entertaining, satirical, co-written fantasy about Miya Osamu.

It also didn’t help that on the first essay you got back, Isla’s paper had been marked up with “are you sure?”s and “this is a jump”s, while yours had “excellent reasoning” and “insightful analysis”. You’d even gotten a little comment at the bottom: y/n, fantastic work. you should speak up in class more often. –– OM

But Miya Osamu doesn’t play favourites because the next week you’d gotten another essay back, this time with another comment at the bottom: y/n, not your best work. you could’ve done better by connecting your first paragraph with the second using grant’s reading. conclusion lacked punch, too. all the best. –– OM

Every time you’d read the words scrawled in blue ink, you’d felt a pair of eyes on you. But you chalk it up to Osamu being a careful grader. A good TA. Someone who cares about his students.

Isla calls bullshit on that. You’re not really sure how to feel about her stance.

The classroom door opens and shuts again. You don’t have to look at your phone to know that it’s nine on the dot. Instead, you and Isla straighten your backs, pull out your notebooks, and focus. Your no-nonsense professor says “good morning” in her usual perky manner before jumping right into her keynote presentation.

“Did you all find the reading okay?” Professor Lee asks an hour into the lecture.

A chorus of “yes”s fill the air. You bite your lip, wondering if revealing that you didn’t understand shit will out you as the class idiot. Or maybe your silence is telling enough–– maybe the people in the seats beside you have noticed the grimace on your face and are having thoughts like ‘gee whiz, am I glad I’m not dumb like her’. Heat rushes to your cheeks. Sometimes you really wonder if you’re smart enough to be here. Occurrences like these do nothing to dispel your insecurities.

You vaguely hear her ask something like, “Any thoughts about the reading?” It’s not that you’re actually dumb. It’s just that this class is ridiculously hard for an introductory course, even for a graduate programme. From the start of the semester til now, fifteen people have dropped the class. There’s just twenty of you left. Guess a ridiculously hot TA can’t save a course’s drop-rate.

Before you can make your mind up on what to say, your professor moves on from her question.

As you look off to the side of the room for a break from your thoughts, you find a pair of blue-grey eyes pointed in your direction.

Everything about you, from the expression on your face to the way your muscles tense, makes you look like a deer caught in headlights–– even though he was the one caught staring in the first place. So maybe your shamelessness works on a scale.

Miya Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth.

And as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all, he looks back down at his laptop and continues typing.

The rest of the lecture goes through one ear and out the other.

“Everyone, I believe Osamu has something he wants to say,” Professor Lee says as everyone begins packing their bags.

The raven-haired TA slides out of his seat and sits on top of his desk. “Yeah.” Osamu clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. You notice how the muscles in his arms bulge from the movement.

“Whipped,” Isla mutters, grinning mischievously.

“Him for me,” you whisper back, though your eyes do travel back to his face where they should’ve been all along. Osamu catches your gaze and holds it. And then he looks away again.

“Now, I know you’re all Nobel prizewinners in the making,” he begins, garnering a round of snickers and giggles from your classmates. Most people say that cliques dissolve in college. That there’s no such thing as popularity amongst graduate students. That much, you agree with. But no one ever said anything about popular teacher’s assistants. Especially smart, attractive, witty teacher’s assistants like Miya Osamu. “But in case you didn’t understand the reading or would like to develop a deeper understanding of it, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll try to host a review session all of us can attend.”

Professor Lee smiles appreciatively at Osamu, adding, “That’s a wonderful idea, Osamu. Guys, please take this opportunity if you struggled with the reading. I know eighty pages is a lot, but our next three classes are structured around the concepts in the reading and the mid-term next week will almost exclusively be about it, too.”

Well, shit.

To: [email protected]

Hi Osamu,

I was wondering if I could get some help with the reading from last class. To be frank, I couldn’t make it past page 15 and I’m lost like a snot-faced five-year-old in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Sorry. Thanks in advance!

Regretfully,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: [email protected]

no problem. is 5 pm tomorrow at jack’s okay? we start on the concepts from the reading next class so i want to get you up to speed asap. let me know. thanks.

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

It’s five minutes to five when you pull into the parking lot of Jack’s Diner. The shiny, retrofuturistic eatery is a university favourite but the empty parking lot tells you it’s completely deserted right now (and rightfully so–– who eats dinner before six?). The black BMW parked a few spots from your car, however, says that you’re not alone.

Osamu’s figure comes into view as you reach for the handle to the front door of Jack’s. The twenty-six-year-old sits by himself at one of the bright red tables in the back, typing away on his dark grey laptop.

His head lifts up at the sound of the opening door. Osamu calls out your name and waves you over.

“Hi,” you greet with a smile, sitting down across from him.

“Hey.”

You look around before leaning forward on the table. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” Osamu sits back in his seat. “I thought about hosting one big group, but then I realised that it’d probably be stressful for the staff here.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. “And I had a hunch that everyone would have different questions. Forcing everyone to review concepts they already know is a waste of time.”

At first, you nod. That makes sense. But then you furrow your brows. “So how long have you been here?”

Osamu blinks. He hadn’t expected you to ask about him. “Hmm? Oh.” He taps his phone to check the time. “Just a while.”

Quirking a brow, you ask, “And how long is ‘a while’ to you?”

“Seven hours,” he admits, chuckling lightly when he sees your jaw drop. “A lot of people had questions. They just don’t act like they do. Anyway, time flies. Really, it does.” Quickly, he clears his throat and sits forward. “So, about your email.” He grins. “Not sure if you meant it to be funny, but it was.”

“I’m glad my distress was entertaining for you. Do you TA just to watch grad students suffer?”

“Perks of the job,” Osamu says. His grin widens when you giggle. He’s never heard you laugh before and he realises at that moment that it’s really nice. And then that same grin falters. Gracefully, of course, and imperceptibly to you. But not to him. Is it okay for him to be… thinking things like that? About a student? But you’re not really his student since he’s just the TA. Right? Osamu ignores the weird feeling that comes over him and clasps his hands together at the edge of his laptop. “Back to your email. Can ya tell me what you’re confused about?”

Three hours and two Impossible Burgers later, you suddenly understand everything about food molecules so well that you wonder why you’d even been confused in the first place. But besides that, you’ve also picked up things about Osamu. As a person and not an idea. Not that you’d been actively searching for fun facts about your TA. But they’d stuck to your brain like gum at the bottom of a desk. He likes to slip sarcastic quips into a conversation every now and then. Eats burgers upside down (“The right way,” as he’d said, smirking). Is friendlier than he looks.

“You’re really good at explaining things,” you comment as Osamu shuts his laptop closed.

“Well, I kinda have to be,” he says. And maybe it’s the mental fatigue catching up on him or the fact that he’s real fond of the reason why he can break big concepts down into morsels but suddenly, the rest of his thoughts spill out his mouth like wine. “I have a twin brother with potato salad for brains.”

“Oh?”

And before he can stop himself, he tells you about Miya Atsumu, the pro-athlete you’ve definitely heard of but never gave too much thought. And then you hold onto the fact that they were both on the volleyball team and you ask of which school, so then he tells you about Inarizaki, the high school he attended, and then his decision not to go pro to go to college, and then––

“Sorry,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you say–– and you mean it. “Your life is interesting.”

Osamu leans back in his chair. “Well, I’m sure yours is, too.” He holds your gaze like it’s the key to your presence. It’s an invitation. The kind that comes from people who don’t really know if they want you around but also don’t want you gone.

You take it.

Osamu shouldn’t–– he really shouldn’t–– but he wonders about the things you didn’t tell him the entire drive home.

Isla laughs when you tell her about what happened at Jack’s. You lay in bed with your phone next to you on speaker, your face turned on your pillow so that you’re staring out the window at the city below.

“He wants you,” she sings.

“Or he was just being nice.”

“Methinks not!” Isla giggles. “He’s intrigued, girl! You’re like that cute little new mystery in his life and he just wants to get to know you.”

“I think he was just being polite.”

“Or he’s crushing on you!”

“In your dreams.”

“You mean yours? Boo, you’re no fun today. Usually, you go along with the jokes.” Isla’s tone is playful on the surface but full of implications.

A few silent seconds pass. Yeah, you think, agreeing. I do.

“Girl,” Isla drags out the word in a high pitch, saying it like a scientist says ‘eureka’. “You’re not playing along anymore because it’s real now. You're actually catching feelings!”

“Am not!” you laugh.

“The Y/N I knew would’ve said ‘nah, bitch, he’s catching feelings’ and I think that says all there is to say.”

“Okay, I think he’s cute but it’s not a crush,” you concede, grinning. “And he’s the TA, Isles. It’d never happen.”

“Not while he’s still a TA in a class you take.”

“Isla.”

“Ask him out once this semester ends! Unless you’re chicken.”

“I’m not asking him out.”

“Knew you were––”

“Have you seen me? He’s asking me out.”

Miya Osamu walks through the door at eight-fifty as usual that next morning, dressed in his usual button-up, holding his usual cup of coffee. But this time, as the rest of his tall frame passes through the doorway, Osamu’s eyes subtly scan the faces in the lecture hall, lingering for just a while over yours. The corners of your lips turn up. You hope he saw that.

“Bitch!” Isla whisper-screams. The students sitting around you turn around at the noise and grin at each other when they realise it’s just Isla being… well, Isla. She shoos them away jokingly.

“What?” you whisper back.

“Care to explain why our TA was literally eye-fucking you?”

“That was hardly eye-fucking,” you retort. “Maybe like an eye-handshake.”

“Yeah, a naked eye-handshake where his thang is handshaking your––”

He does it again the next class.

And the next.

And then he doesn’t. Miya Osamu walks through the door to Food Chemistry I at eight-fifty in the morning in a navy blue button-up with a cup of coffee in his hand and looks through the rows of seats in the lecture hall for your face, only to find it missing.

He debates pressing the matter.

To: [email protected]

hey osamu,

i wasn’t in class today because i’ve been sick with the flu (no big deal, just feel like i’m dying). a classmate sent me pictures of the slides from today so i think i should be fine, but is it okay if i email you with any questions? thank you very much!

miserably,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: [email protected]

y/n,

of course. sorry to hear that you’re sick. let me know if i can do anything to help you. the midterm is next week. get well soon.

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

“You writing that the midterm is next week did not offer me any peace of mind, by the way,” you say, spinning around in your chair as Miya Osamu enters your pod in the library.

He offers you a wry grin. “Hello to ya, too.”

“Was that an accent?” You thought you’d heard one at Jack’s, but you couldn’t be sure because it’d been so spotty.

Osamu slips into the seat beside yours and pulls out the laptop in his messenger bag. You catch a whiff of his cologne–– something spicy and woody, but clean. It suits him. “Nice catch. Yeah, I speak a regional dialect. Took me a while to smooth it over but it still resurfaces every now and then.”

“Why?”

“It just didn’t seem fitting for a PhD candidate, I guess,” Osamu explains, opening the slides from the class you missed. A day after your initial exchange, you’d emailed him again (with a much clearer mind) and asked if he could go over the slides with you in person.

i literally feel like i’ve been given the homework from russian lit, you’d written. except the russian has been translated to hieroglyphs and my task is to choreograph an interpretive dance based on the hieroglyphs.

Osamu had snickered when he saw your email. that doesn’t even make sense. must be the fever talking, he’d been tempted to write. But that strange feeling had come over him again, the one that’d screamed at him to keep it professional, goddamnit, so he’d played it safe instead and sent is eight pm at the main library okay? He hates that you’re getting a watered-down version of his personality. Osamu swears he’s a lot more interesting when he’s not, well, a TA.

“I think it’s fine,” you say, smiling. “I like it. It’s you.” And suddenly, you’re wondering if it’s okay to be complimenting your TA. If it’s okay to say that you like things about him, or if that crosses some grey, unclear line. Is it weird to treat your TAs like they’re your friends? It’s not like TAs are real teachers. Right?

A grin–– wide and genuine and almost excited–– grows on Osamu’s face. He rubs the back of his neck as his eyes flit over to the laptop screen. “Thanks. Really.”

You nod. But you feel like there’s more that he might want to say, so you wait.

“I got a lot of shit for it when I came here for my master’s, y’know. Not to my face, of course, but people would refer to me as ‘the guy with the accent’. A professor once said it made me seem crass. Said it’d hold me back in my career.”

“So you changed.”

“Adapted,” Osamu corrects. “It’s hard to admit but conforming is sometimes all you can do when you don’t have the power to change the system. Can’t really make everyone suddenly respect a dialect.”

“And after you’re finished with your PhD, you’ll go back to speaking in that dialect?”

Osamu looks out the window and smiles, probably imagining the plans he’s already made about the future. “Yeah.”

“What if you have to speak the standard language at your job? Like, your boss is all, ‘hey man, if you don’t speak––”’

“I’ll be the boss.”

“Oh?”

And with a little more prodding, Miya Osamu tells you about the restaurant chain he plans on opening after graduation, the slides about food additives left completely untouched.

The librarian knocks on your pod a few minutes before eleven to tell you they’re closing.

“Shit,” Osamu murmurs, running his hands through his hair. You’re still laughing about something he’d said before the librarian interrupted him–– one of his stories from high school–– and he thinks that you’ve completely forgotten that the reason you came to the library was to catch up on the material you were already behind on. And now you’re behind on that. But you look so carefree right now and, actually, you’re very pretty and you’ve got such a good heart and it’s a lot for him to process but he knows he just wants to see you happy a while longer. So Osamu just slumps back in his chair and laughs along with you.

He says your name as his chuckles grow softer. “It’s pretty late. How’re you getting home?”

“I’ve a bike,” you reply. It’s good for the environment and is a pretty solid form of exercise if you do say so yourself. Sometimes you just don’t feel like driving.

Osamu presses his lips in a thin line. Would it be too much to offer you a ride? “I can drive you home. It’s really not safe for you to be alone outside, especially near midnight. You can get your bike tomorrow. Or I’ll get it for you.”

He drives fast. Not the unsafe fast that speed demons drive at, but the kind of fast where you know he’s got some edge to his character. You bring it up to him–– especially since it’s nighttime, for god’s sake, he could hit something–– and all he does is remind you how there are lamps as bright as the sun lining the entire road to your dorm. And the fact that you live in the least accessible dorm on campus.

“A twenty-minute drive?” he’d exclaimed when he saw the GPS monitor.

“A bunch of roads are closed for construction. It’s a ten-minute bike-ride because I can cut through campus.” And suddenly feeling a little burdensome, you’d added, “Sorry. I can still bike––”

“No.” He’d held his hand out in front of you, gesturing for you to stay in the passenger’s seat. “It’s not a bother at all.” Because it wasn’t. Osamu was… happy. Not that he’d admit that.

“So this BMW,” you start in a teasing tone.

Osamu smirks. “A gift.”

“Can I guess from who?”

“Sure.”

“Atsumu.”

His brows rise. “Colour me impressed.” He hadn’t expected you to remember anything he’d said about Atsumu. Or maybe he had but told himself otherwise to lower his hopes.

“I’m smart like that.”

He snorts. “Not if you keep distracting me and using your review time to…” hang out with me, get to know me, tell me things about you… “…goof off.”

You grimace. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Osamu makes a turn down a familiar street. It dawns upon you that you're ten minutes away from your dorm and suddenly you wish he’d just make the wrong turn at the next intersection so that you could talk to him some more. It can even be about the health benefits of fish or the molecular makeup of kale–– you don’t mind. You just want to be around him longer.

“I think you’re really smart,” Osamu says quietly. “I think you’re not processing the readings because you’re distracted, or just not fully applying yourself. Obviously, last class’s slides are a different thing, since you were absent. But you really are smart. I’ve seen your papers.”

You bite your lip to hide your grin, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. “Thank you.” You look out the window, too jacked on dopamine to think straight. “I think I still need you, though.”

And that innocuous little sentence floats right out your mouth into the air, settling between you like a little wedge before either of you even realise it. Neither of you says anything. You marinate in the awkwardness before stuttering out a clarification. “To, um, to explain things. Y’know, since you’re, uh, so good at… explaining things.”

Osamu clears his throat and chuckles stiffly. There’s a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, looking straight ahead. He can’t even look at you. Fuck. It’s so awkward. “I’ll try to keep… explaining things.” Fuck. What does that even mean?

A few uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. The night can’t end like this, you think. It can’t when everything else had gone so well. You still have to see him for a few more months. “Did you know,” you start, catching Osamu’s attention, “that Jack’s Diner has a location in Italy?”

“Oh?” he asks, making the final turn to the street where your dorm is. He actually hadn’t.

“Yeah. I asked the owner about the chain a while back. Have you ever been to Italy?”

Osamu shakes his head. “I’ve been to Paris, though. To see a friend. He’s a chocolatier.”

Now, if Osamu had been your friend, you would’ve said something like well, let’s go to Italy together, except he’s not. He’s your TA and you’ve been reminded that enough tonight. So instead, you say, “When you open that restaurant of yours in Italy, let me know.”

“That’s gonna take a while,” he laughs. He appreciates how you said ‘when’, though. And he tucks that little bit of confidence you have in him somewhere deep in his mind so that it doesn’t get lost.

“Isn’t that just seven hours?” you shrug, grinning. Osamu’s BMW pulls up outside your dorm and parks as he marvels at what you just said. You’re amazing. You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to face your driver.

“Thank you for driving me,” you say, offering him a smile.

“Yeah,” he replies.

You stretch out your hand. With a puzzled look on his face, Osamu grabs it and shakes it. Firmly. You can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Calloused for sure, but they feel nice.

“Goodnight, Osamu.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

He watches you jog into the building before driving away. And it’s like you’ve possessed his car or something because the smell of your shampoo and perfume is everywhere and it’s too much but it’s also not enough at the same time and he can feel your palm against his as he spins the steering wheel to make a turn and for the first time in his life he doesn’t turn on the radio to fill the silence in his car. Osamu replays everything you said in his head.

But he especially thinks about that part where you said you need him.

Weeks melt into months. You turn in essays after essays for Food Chemistry I, each coming back with detailed commentary in an all-too-familiar blue scrawl. All your other classes go well–– extremely well, actually. You might just end the semester with a 4.0 if Food Chem doesn’t fuck you over. Isla still tags you in memes on Instagram. You still tell her about everything that happens with Osamu.

Speaking of.

“That’s the wrong equation,” he says behind your ear as he settles in the seat beside you. The sound of his low voice so close to your ear sends a small shiver down your spine. “You gotta switch the hydrogens.” Osamu knocks on your skull lightly. “What’s goin’ on up in there? Ya got somethin’ on your mind?”

You laugh and elbow him in the side. “Shut up, ‘Samu.” He’d told you during one of his office hours that he’d gone by that nickname because he had a teammate with a foreign name in high school. It sounded so cool, he’d said, grinning.

I think Osamu sounds pretty cool already, you’d teased.

And he’d replied, Let’s trade. I like yours, you like mine, why not share?

You teeter on the line between friends and less-than-friends and, oddly enough, more-than-friends. Sometimes you still play it safe. Sometimes he pauses between texts and real-time conversations, no doubt to scrap an instinctive reply for something more “professional”. Sometimes you say things that make him look at you with the ghost of a smile at the corners of his lips. Sometimes he calls Atsumu to scream about you.

“S’not a no,” Osamu points out. He’s dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers today. You’re suddenly reminded of how the weather’s been getting colder when someone opens the door to the university café and lets in a gust of chilly autumn air.

“Okay,” you admit, setting down the pencil. “I just… don’t really feel prepared for this next test.”

Osamu frowns and looks down at your worksheet. “Your process is correct, though.”

“Right, but… I don’t know. I’ve just not been feeling great about myself lately,” you laugh, looking down at your feet. “Food Chem’s the toughest class I’ve ever taken. And remember how I completely embarrassed myself in that class discussion last week? It’s not really making me feel like I belong here.”

“Imposter syndrome,” Osamu remarks.

“Correct-o.”

He says your name softly and puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Maybe you’re not the smartest, but you’re definitely smart. And you belong here. I’ve seen your papers. They’re just as great as anyone else’s and I don’t hand out compliments for nothin’. You’re gonna do some great things but ya can’t improve if you ever give up.” Osamu searches your eyes for a sign of your understanding.

There’re a lot of things you want to say but you don’t know how to put them into words. “Can I hug you?” you finally ask.

Osamu doesn’t even think about it. “Of course.”

He feels you smile against his chest and wonders if you can feel his heart beat faster.

Isla camps out in your dorm as finals come around the corner.

“I don’t understand shit!” she wails, throwing her notebook into the air.

“Isles, it’s okay,” you laugh, slipping out of your chair and walking over to her nest in the corner. “You gotta chill, dude.”

“Not fair! I didn’t have a hunk holding my hand through this course all semester,” she retorts, humour glittering in her dark eyes. “I had the Organic Chemistry Tutor and his accent’s cute enough but, girl, you had Miya Fucking Osamu!”

“You’re literally the worst.” You giggle and sit down beside her. “Tell me what you’re confused about. I’ll try to explain it to you.” The way Osamu does.

You text him that you’d channelled his brains later that night.

His reply comes seconds later. all you, einstein.

From: osamu

good luck on the exam

you’re going to kill it

To: osamu

would u like to divulge any… information about it? 😏 😏 😏

From: osamu

bye

To: osamu

i was kidding :(

From: osamu

fine. tip #1: write your name

To: osamu

not very helpful. 0/10

From: osamu

keep running your mouth and 0/10 is what your score’s going to be

i’m kidding

you got this, y/n

“Holy fuck,” Isla groans as you cross the street to head to lunch at Jack’s. “If you don’t see me next semester it’s because I’ve gotten my grade back and decided to drop out.”

“What would you do?” you ask, amused.

“Maybe move to New Zealand. Raise some sheep. Marry a hot, blond shepherd and fuck off to a cliffside cottage.”

“Solid plan.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“What about me?”

“Remember that conversation we had at the start of the year? About your man?” The two of you reach another red light for pedestrians.

“We’re friends. He’s not my man,” you laugh. Though it pains you to. Something about being Miya Osamu’s friend doesn’t really sit right with you, but you don’t know how to not be his friend. You don’t know how to move out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into.

“But you wish he were! And now you can finally hit him with that ‘Hey, Osamu, I’ve been madly in love with you since the start of the semester, wanna fuck like rabbits and then open that store in Italy?’ and he’ll be all––”

A throat clears behind you. With wide eyes, the two of you turn around.

Holy fuck.

Miya Osamu stands behind you with his hands in his pockets and an enormous smirk on his face.

“He’ll be all what?” he asks, eyes fixed on you.

Isla murmurs an excuse and starts walking on her own to Jack’s.

“Um.” You swallow nervously and shrink in your coat. “You heard all of that, right?”

“Yep.” Osamu grins. He grins. He’s grinning. He’s smiling like he’s won the fucking lottery and you honestly don’t know what to do with that information.

“So, like,” you look down at the sidewalk and kick at a pebble, “what are your thoughts about that?” God, you could die. “‘Cause I know you’re a TA and it’d probably look pretty bad and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because I like you and it’s cool if we just…”

Osamu interrupts you with a laugh. “My thoughts,” he says, “are that I want to kiss you.” His fingers lift your chin up. “What are your thoughts about that?”

Well, shit. “I think that’s pretty cool, yeah,” you breathe, eyelids fluttering shut as his face comes closer to yours.

He tastes like mint. And his lips move softly, slowly against yours like he’s savouring the moment. And then you feel his hands snake around your waist to pull you closer–– closer because you both are tired of forcing the distance between bodies that want to be near each other, closer because he’s thought about kissing you just like this for so long, closer because you remember the last time he’d touched you was three days ago and it was just a brush of his fingers against your arm and that feeling of wanting more haunted you for the entire night. But holy shit, Miya Osamu is kissing you. He’s kissing you.

And then he pulls away. His dark eyes flit over yours. “I,” he breathes, “I need your course load next semester.”

“What?” you ask, disbelief written all over your features, chest rising and falling as you try to steady your breathing. You just kissed, for God's sake, and he's––

“I need to know which courses not to apply to TA for,” he grins, cupping your face in his hands. “Can’t be teachin’ in a class with my girlfriend as a student.”

“So we’re official?” you ask, beaming.

“If you want,” Osamu replies with a smirk.

You grab the front of his coat and tug him down for another kiss. “Hell yeah, I want to be official.”

#miya osamu #miya osamu x reader #miya osamu scenarios #miya osamu imagines

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cali-holland · 4 years

Text

The Talk- Harry Holland One Shot

Pairing: Harry Holland X Osterfield!Reader

Requested by Anon: Hey!! Could I please request one where Harry is dating Harrison’s sister and living in the house with them all and the whole dynamic between her and the boys? You’re my fave Holland/Osterfield writer 🤩

Prompt: Your older brother, Harrison, tries to give you the sex talk.

Word Count: 1600

Featured song: I Just Had Sex by Lonely Island (linked Julianne Hough’s Lip Sync Battle because that was the true inspo)

Masterlist Harry Holland Masterlist

*Not my gif*

Warnings: swearing, conversations about sex/condoms/pregnancy...

~~~

“Asshole, stop cheating!” You groaned, kicking your brother’s calf as you sat on the floor and he stood in front of you.

“I’m not cheating. You’re screen peeking!” Harrison argued. He lifted his foot and stretched it backwards towards your face.

“Oh my god.” You gagged as you moved away from the terrorizing foot.

“Ah, sounds like Mario Kart.” Harry laughed, coming into the room.

“Yeah and Y/N won’t stop screen peeking.” Your brother sidestepped to stand in your way again. You groaned, getting up while you kept your eyes intently focused on the screen.

“Hi, Harry.” You acknowledged your boyfriend’s presence. He pressed a quick kiss to your cheek, leaving you to fight out the last lap of Mario Kart with your older brother. “How was the shoot?”

“It was good. I take it you had fun this afternoon?” He laughed, laying down on his side on the couch as he watched you and Harrison elbow each other while trying to play.

Harrison was your older brother and best friend; when you had no one else, you always had him. And then he introduced you to Tom, who then introduced you to Harry. Sparks flew instantly between the two of you, but it wasn’t until six months ago that you started dating Harry and wasn’t until recently that you started staying at his place, which was technically also Harrison’s place and Tom’s and Tuwaine’s- and sometimes Sam’s. Like any protective older brother though, Harrison wasn’t a fan of you staying the night, but like any good younger sister, you still spent most of your nights with Harry. In your defense, their house was a lot closer to campus than your apartment.

“Well, I finished my research project early and then this div challenged me to Rainbow Road.” You explained. Knowing you were too far in the lead, Harrison licked his finger and stuck it in your ear, making you shriek in surprise. He and Harry both burst out in laughter. As you crossed the finish line in first, you hit your brother with the controller. “Fuck you, I won!”

“You get so heated over Mario Kart.” Harry chuckled.

“Loser cleans up!” You declared and Harrison shook his head.

“Ah, no. I set it up. You clean it up.” He argued. Your boyfriend sighed from the couch, clicking the remote to turn off the TV.

“There.” He said, and you smiled, laying down with him on the couch. He draped an arm over your waist while you brought him in for a kiss.

“Ok, ok, I get it. I’m not wanted anymore.” Harrison scoffed playfully, rolling his eyes at the two of you borderline making out in front of him. He quickly left the room, and you pulled back from Harry with a giggle.

“I thought he’d never leave.” You joked, feeling his fingers play with the hem of your shirt.

“I missed you today.” Harry mumbled, his lips gliding over yours as he spoke. He’d only been gone a couple hours, doing a photoshoot for the Brothers Trust, but his words still brought a warm smile to your face.

“I missed you, too.” You replied before capturing his lips with yours for a little lazy makeout session. You both knew only Harrison was home so neither of you were exactly worried about someone walking in, since your brother liked to stay clear of when you and your boyfriend were alone.

A couple days later, somehow you and Harrison were left alone again in the house, and you spent your time working on essays in the home office Harry and Tom had “made”.

“Hey, Y/N, can we, uh, can we talk?” Harrison asked, clearing his throat as he stepped into the room. You knew immediately those were the words of your brother, not your best friend or housemate.

“Yeah, what’s up?” You turned to face him as he sat on the nearby couch. He fiddled with his fingers nervously, before running a hand through his hair.

“Well, I know that you kind of live here at this point, and it’s been a month since you started staying over. And- and I know, that I told you it was okay, but you’re still my baby sister, you know?” He started nervously and you narrowed your eyes at him, trying to decide what he was getting at exactly. “I get that you’re 21, you can make your own choices, and you know I’m completely for you being your own independent woman. I’m concerned that- well, I know, Harry’s a good guy and I trust him, but he’s a guy-“

“Haz, are you trying to give me the sex talk?” You asked with a laugh of disbelief. Your brother’s cheeks turned bright red. Part of you wondered if he knew for sure that you and Harry had had sex before, but there was no way for Harrison to absolutely know since you two only ever did it when the house was empty.

“It’s an important thing to discuss!” He insisted as he attempted to regain some composure. “Look, Y/N, Harry’s your first serious relationship, but you aren’t his. I’m just trying to look out for you, make sure you know that you don’t have to do anything with him if you’re not ready for it- and really you shouldn’t be ready yet. It’s a painful experience for a lot of women.”

“Oh my god.” You hid your face in your hands, wishing he’d just end it there. “I went through sex ed, Haz, please stop.”

“Okay, so then you know to use protection. You can never be too safe. I don’t know about Harry, but never let a guy tell you that condoms are uncomf-“

“Stop!” You whined.

“If you need to go on the pill or get an implant, I’ll be fully supportive of that too.” Harrison continued on.

“Thanks. Are you done now?” You asked, still refusing to look at him.

“Not quite.” He replied, making you let out a groan. The humor of his awkward bluntness was gone and the torture was endless, “Now, if something happens-“

“You mean if I get pregnant?”

“Yes. If that happens, I’ll do everything to help you because you’re still my sister, no matter what. And if Harry leaves you, I’ll beat him up for you.”

“How nice.” You replied sarcastically as you rolled your eyes.

“I just say all this because Tom told me Harry bought condoms the other day.” Harrison admitted, and you bit back a groan. Of course your boyfriend wouldn’t think twice about the implications of buying condoms in front of his brother, a.k.a. your brother’s best friend. By your reaction, your brother immediately knew what that meant. With wide eyes, he asked, “You’ve done it before?”

“Uh,” You trailed off, not really knowing what to say. You two were close, but that didn’t mean you wanted to go into detail about your sex life with your brother.

“You have! Oh my god, Y/N, you’re too young. What the hell?” He raised his voice, standing up from the couch.

“Too young? You were younger than me when you lost yours!” You shot back, “Look, I love Harry and he loves me. And at least you know we’re being safe about it!”

He paused, shaking his head like he was trying to get rid of the thought. He let out a sigh, turning to leave the room, “It’s fine, just forget about it.”

“Hey Haz?” You called back to him, making him turn to face you one last time in the doorway. “Thanks for looking out for me. I appreciate it.”

Harrison offered you a weak smile before he left the room. You let out a small sigh, you definitely needed to talk to Harry when he got home. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that Harry returned home from an event with Tom, and by that point, you were lounging on Harry’s bed, waiting for him.

“Hi, lovebug. How was your day?” Harry asked, laying down beside you on the bed almost immediately after he had taken off his shoes.

“I had a very, um, interesting conversation with Haz.” You joked, and he furrowed his eyebrows skeptically at you. Laughing, you explained, “Babe, maybe you shouldn’t have bought condoms in front of the biggest loudmouth we know.”

“Fuck, Tom said he wasn’t going to tell anyone.” He sighed.

“Well, he told Harrison, so I had to sit through the ever lovely sex talk.” You said sarcastically, and Harry pulled you in for an apologetic kiss.

“If it makes you feel any better, Tom tried giving me the talk, too, but I tuned him out.” He laughed, making you roll your eyes at him.

“Lucky you.”

“So, is Harrison going to beat me up now?” Harry asked with a chuckle as you pushed his curls out of his face, cuddling in closer to him.

“I hope not. I love this pretty face too much.” You pressed a kiss to his nose, softly cupping his cheeks in your hands. You gave him a proper kiss, lightly swiping your tongue over his lips and he smiled into it.

“Wait, I have an idea.” You said, pulling away from him momentarily to get your phone out. You connected your phone to the living room speaker, pulling up Youtube.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, trying to look over your phone.

“Sometimes, something beautiful happens in this world,” The song started, and Harry laughed, immediately recognizing Andy Samberg’s voice.

“Wait for it.” You teased.

“You don’t know how to express yourself so, you just gotta sing,” The song continued. “I just had sex, and it felt so good,”

You and Harry laughed as you heard a loud crash from downstairs, followed up by Harrison screaming, “What the fuck?”

~~~

Tag List: @viagracex @theamazingtomholland @Hellomoveonby @heyitsshrez @harrisonosterfieldhazmyheart @joyleenl @t-o-m-holland @lonikje

Harry Tag List: @tomkindholland

#Harry Holland #harry holland imagine #harry holland x you #harry holland x y/n #harry holland one shot #harry holland x reader #harrison osterfield

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astronomyparkers · 7 years

Text

The Upside of Falling Down

Warnings: Language

Pairing: University!Peter Parker x reader

Word count: 4.3k

A/N: Hey guys!!! I’m so excited to finally be able to post my next series!!! Skyline received so much positive response and I really really hope you guys like this next story as much. It’s going to be pretty different, but I hope you enjoy it. Also, while I have you, let’s just cover some housekeeping stuff: I do not have a tags list, so please please please stop spamming me with requests to tag!!! I appreciate how much you like my writing, but I have it in my bio and put it on almost every update. I try my best to respond to every message I get, and sorting through all those messages just makes it harder!! Secondly, I don’t think I am going to be opening up requests. I’m going back to school in a week, and I have eight classes as well as three jobs. I’m going to do my best to update once a week, but I really just want to focus on the longer stories that I love, so I can give you guys the quality you deserve. I’ll make a longer post about this all later. Let me know what you think about this story!!! I would love to hear some feedback.

{masterlist}

You never expected university to be easy.

When you walked up the steps of Columbia University for the first time freshman year, you had known that the path ahead of you would be hard. Extremely difficult, even. But nothing had prepared you for the hurricane that would be your life for the next ten months. Between the all night cram sessions, endless term papers, lab studies, and regular class hours, you were emotionally, mentally, and even physically drained by the time you finished your final exams. As you packed up your freshman dorm, you remembered how excited you had been while decorating it for the first time, and shook your head at how naïve you had been. Freshman year left you beaten, bruised, and with permanent bags under your eyes, but at least it was done.

Now, walking into your sophomore year, you knew what to expect. You knew what had to be done to manage your time and your life. You knew what study methods worked for you, and what didn’t. You knew when it was wise to go to a party and when to stay in to finish your English literature essay. You knew which friends to avoid during exam week so they wouldn’t whisk you off to a frat kegger, and which friends would hold up flashcards to help you study. You knew what profs gave retests, where the best snack places were on campus, the best study corrals in the library. You knew the name of the librarian that would spend his time helping you find all the resources you needed for your chemistry write up, and the emails of every TA for every one of your classes. Unlike last year, you were prepared. You were ready.

But you weren’t ready, however, for the biology fieldtrip to Thatcher State Park, the fall you were about to have, and the unexpected consequences that would follow. There was no way to study up on how to keep a secret. There were no flashcards on what to do if one of your classmates entrusts you with their life. There was no way to prepare for Peter Parker.

Preparing for someone you barely knew was like cramming for an exam on a subject you’ve never studied. Before your sophomore year, Peter was only someone you knew by sight. You were both biochemistry majors, which meant that you had a lot of the same classes, but Columbia was a big school; mostly you’d seen him across a lecture hall of three hundred students. Until the trip to Thatcher State Park, you had only spoken to him once, when he had bumped into you on your way into General Chemistry I last year. Until the trip, you could count the things you knew about Peter Parker on one hand, and one of those things wasn’t even his first name (a professor had addressed him as Mr. Parker last semester when he was late to a class, causing him to redden and mutter an apology as he hastened to his seat). Until the trip, you believed that he would never be someone you would ever be more than school acquaintances with, or even someone you would ever cross paths with. But fate was a funny thing, and coincidence even more so, and although you barely knew each other until the trip, you would know too much after.

Dr. McClain had assigned partners for the fieldtrip by drawing names out of a hat (you had to admire her dedication to leaving decisions up to chance—there were over two hundred students in your biology class), and she drew your name right after “Parker, Peter”. You had scanned the room to see a brown haired boy with his hand up on the other side of the lecture hall, and you waved back. He didn’t approach you after class, and you had no inclination to seek him out. The assignment for the fieldtrip was to try to locate fossils in the cliffs of the trails, and to take note of different types of flora and fauna throughout the park; you didn’t need to be best friends with Peter to accomplish the tasks.

When the morning of the fieldtrip rolled around a week later, you still hadn’t spoken to him. As you walked onto the bus with Peter tailing behind you, it crossed your mind that this may not have been a smart move. The bus ride would be an awkward two and a half hours even if you were acquainted with your partner; you couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be because you weren’t.

You made your way to the back of the bus, slipping into the first empty row you found. Pulling your backpack off your shoulders, you settled into the seat next to the window as Peter followed your suit and sat down next to you.

The first half hour of the bus ride passed without incident. The two of you sat in silence, headphones in and walls up as the bus rolled out of the city. Despite trying your best to distract yourself by looking out the window, you were acutely aware of the boy sitting next to you. This was the longest you’d ever been around Peter, as well as the closest; he kept an inch of space between you at all times, but, somehow, you could still feel him next to you. You stole quick glances out of the corner of your eye while Peter wasn’t looking, trying to evaluate the person you would be spending the day with. He was shorter than he had appeared on the few occasions you had seen him from afar—maybe 5’10. His hair was long, a little curly towards the ends, and messy, like he spent the majority of his free time running his hands through it. He had a habit of biting his lip, you had noticed, and fidgeting with his hands as he stared towards the floor. On a few occasions, you caught him stealing glances towards you as well. You pretended not to notice.

Around an hour into the ride, the bus hit a bump, jolting everyone inside. You involuntarily slid to the left and onto Peter’s lap; the startled boy caught you, one hand gripping your shoulder while the other grasped your waist. When his hands touched you, it felt like fire raced from the contact points into your veins, coursing through your entire body.

You gasped a bit, looking up into the brown eyes that belonged to the boy you barely knew.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked with concern. Everyone else around you was back in their original positions, but you were still half-laying across Peter’s lap.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” You gave a small smile. “Thanks for the save.”

“Anytime,” Peter smiled back at you, then glanced down at where his hand was positioned. He reddened slightly, and helped you sit back up properly.

A beat passed between the two of you before someone spoke again.

“I’m Peter, by the way.” The boy extended a hand to you. “Peter Parker.”

“Y/N,” You shook his hand (the fire coursed through you again) and smoothed your sweater.

Peter smiled again and looked back down at the floor. Unsure of what else to say, you fixed your headphone that had dislodged in the jolt and went back to staring out the window.

For the next hour, you kept your gaze on the scenery outside your window, not even daring to glance at Peter. Part of you felt guilty, like he would think you were rude or didn’t like him. Really, you just wanted the fieldtrip to be easy. The reality of the fact was that laying across Peter’s lap felt so much better than it should have, and that was too much for you to even consider thinking about. You couldn’t let fire ignite every one of your nerves and flow through your veins, and you couldn’t let Peter’s touch be the catalyst to you. Or anyone’s touch, for that matter. You had worked hard for your place at Columbia, working all though high school and still achieving grades high enough for a scholarship. You put your education first, and you valued getting your degree above everything. It wasn’t always easy, but you barely had time to hang out with friends, let alone time to invest in a romantic life. Peter may be cute, but a diploma and a six figure income was cuter, and you would rather be icy cold than be burned by fire.

You were pulled from your reverie as the bus lurched to a stop, causing your head to hit the window you were leaning against.

“Oh, fuck,” You groaned, rubbing your forehead with your hand. You squeezed your eyes shut as your head began to throb.

“Are you okay?” Peter turned towards you with concern.

“I’m fine,” You brushed off Peter’s question as you grabbed your backpack from the ground. “Come on, I need off this bus.”

Peter slid out from the seat and you followed suit, making your way off the bus and into the circle of students that was gathered around your professor.

Dr. McClain passed out sheets of paper to every pair, explaining the task for the day. Each group was to hike the Indian Ladder Trail (“I know the name sucks, guys. But the view is beautiful, if you ignore the fact that we stole it from Native Americans.”), and was to take pictures and make notes on any plants or anything else you found that seemed interesting.

“And there’s some fossils in the cliff faces along the trail as well,” Dr. McClain informed your class. “Try to find as many as you can! And please, no wandering off into the caves along the trail. This class holds some of the brightest minds of tomorrow, and we need you to fix the hot mess that my generation is leaving behind for you.”

The class began to split up, heading in different directions. Dr. McClain had given you four hours to complete the hike, but it was only supposed to take about two and a half. Your professor claimed it was because she wanted you to have time to explore, and to not have the trail crammed full of two hundred university students, but you suspected she enjoyed having the day off from her other lectures. Whatever the reason was, most of your class seemed to be choosing to make a leisurely start, as they went off exploring other paths. However, you wanted to get a head start and get a chance to find everything that you could, so you took off towards the trail, with Peter following behind you.

You walked in silence for the first few minutes as you descended the steps at the beginning of the trail. The silence was almost mandatory, as the first section of the hike was under a shelf of rock that left a space of around four feet clear for hikers to walk under. You and Peter both crouched, still brushing the ceiling as you scanned the rocky walls for anything interesting or worth noting.

The silence was an awkward but a necessary evil in your eyes; was there anything more uncomfortable than small talk with someone you weren’t friends with?

Peter, apparently, thought not, as the moment you two had made it through the small passage and down the next set of steps, he began asking questions.

“So, um, where are you from?” He said in between snapping pictures of the scenery with the camera slung around his neck.

“Uh, Seattle,” You answered as you carefully made your way down the steps (it was still fairly early in the morning, and dew clung to the metal steps). “Washington.”

“That’s a long way from New York.” Peter let the camera hand around his neck as he tightened a grip on the railing.

You bounced off the last step and continued your way down the trail, pausing for a moment to look at the waterfall ahead of you.

“The waterfall is smaller than I imagined, but I think it’s because it’s the fall,” You tilted your head up to glance at the top of the cliff. “It’s probably more powerful in the springtime.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Peter stopped next to you.

“You didn’t ask one.” You shot back.

Peter bit back a grin and continued walking, with you falling in step next to him. “Touché—let me rephrase. How did you end up at Columbia?”

“It’s one of the best schools in the country,” You shrugged your shoulders and glanced down at the ground, careful of your steps. “And I plan on being one of the best biochemists in the world, so it was an obvious choice. And the scholarship I got didn’t hurt, either.”

“Scholarship, huh?” Peter lifted the camera again and took a few more pictures. “That’s awesome. I don’t know how you can stand being so far from home, though. I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

“You’re from New York?” Asking questions back seemed like the polite thing to do, so you tried your best to make conversation as you scanned the trail for anything interesting.

“Queens,” Peter replied. “I wanted to stay close to my aunt, and my, uh, internship requires me to be close to our—home base. And the internship helps pay for my schooling, so. It all worked out for everyone.”

“What’s the internship?” You were genuinely interested in the answer. You had done quite a bit of interning, mostly unpaid; if there was a company that offered a full ride to an Ivy League university, you wanted to know.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, blowing out a breath. It was still cold enough that you could see his exhale. “Stark Industries.”

Your eyes widened in shock. “Damn, Parker. That’s impressive. How’d you find that?”

“You could say it found me,” Peter cracked a small smile. “It’s definitely kept me busy for the past few years.”

“I’ll bet,” You murmured, pausing to lean down and examine some of the rock faces you were passing. There were definitely shapes in them, but whether they were fossils or just carvings from teen vandals, you couldn’t tell. Nevertheless, you pointed them out to Peter and he took a few quick snaps of them before continuing on your way.

Discussion ceased for a while as you two focused on the assignment, quickly making your way along the trail. You crossed over bridges and stopped only to examine various interesting markings and plants and to take a few pictures; you were so far ahead of everyone else in your class that you hadn’t even seen them for the entirety of your hike.

You were fairly close to the end by the time Peter spoke up again.

“I think we got some really good shots,” Peter flipped through the photos on his camera. “We make a good team, Y/N.”

“Hey, Parker,” You ignored his comment in favour of a topic more interesting to you. “What do you think is up there?”

You pointed up at the cliff face above you. A few feet up and to the right was a small opening, like the beginning of a cavern. From your point of view, you estimated that it was about five feet tall and three feet wide.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Peter twisted the lens cap back on his camera. “Come on, Y/N, the end of the trail is this way.”

“I think we can climb up to it…” You ran a hand over the rock structure and found a crevice that you could grab onto. Pulling yourself up, you moved your foot over the rock until you found a ledge that jutted out enough to support your weight.

“What are you doing?” Peter nervously walked over to you.

“Exploring,” You continued your way up the few feet, resting your arms on the ledge of the cave opening.

“This isn’t a good idea, Y/N,” Peter glanced around, but there was still no signs of your classmates. “Dr. McClain specifically said not to wander off into caves.”

“You’re not curious as to what’s in there?” You peered over your shoulder as you pulled yourself up. The cave in front of you was dark, with the sunlight only illuminating a few feet ahead. “There could be more fossils!”

“Y/N—”

“Come on, Parker,” You turned around and looked down at the boy below you. “I know you’re not dumb. You have an internship with Stark Industries, right? Did you get it by playing safe and sticking to the rules, or did you get it by pushing yourself to be the best?”

Peter sighed, running a hand through his hair. With one last glance over his shoulder, he secured his camera under his arm and began climbing after you.

You grinned and extended a hand down to your partner, helping pull him onto the ledge (you elected to ignore the fact that touching his hands caused your blood to become fire all over again). Once Peter was standing next to you, you let go of his hand and pulled your phone from your pocket, turning on the flashlight feature. Peter followed your lead, and the two of you began walking into the cave.

As far as you could tell, it was a typical cave. A little creepy, a few unexplained noises that sounded like wind, kind of damp smelling. You and Peter walked slowly, one hand on the right wall at all times so that you could find your way back.

After a few minutes, Peter stopped walking. You looked over at him in confusion, a question on your lips, but he lifted a hand up and silenced you.

“Do you hear that?” He whispered, tilting his head to the left. A puzzled look came over his face.

“Hear what?” You whispered back. You strained your ears, but you failed to pick up any new sounds.

“Rushing,” Peter closed his eyes for a moment. “Like…water rushing. Are we close to the waterfall still?”

“We shouldn’t be,” You thought back to the trail. “We passed that at least an hour ago. Where are you hearing it?”

Peter pointed to the left. Walking a few feet forward, you flashed your light in the direction if his gesture.

It appeared that the cave split into a fork, with two tunnels diverging with one to the left and the other to the right. You walked forward a bit more, slowly, as if you were expecting something to jump out at you.

“Maybe we should turn back,” When you turned around to look at him, Peter’s gaze was unfocused. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Really?” You grinned in the darkness. “I have a curious feeling about this.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, Y/N.”

“And satisfaction brought it back.” You walked forward again. “You know what’s really curious? Why people cut phrases like that so much. It’s like that ‘blood is thicker than water thing’—the real phrase is ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’. Which, in my opinion, is a much better saying.”

With a sigh that sounded more like a groan, Peter began to follow you. “Is this what you usually think about? Is this what it’s like being in your head?”

“What else should I think about?” You asked as Peter fell into step beside you.

“I don’t know,” The boy gave a small shake of his head. “Maybe ways not to rush into the most obvious path of danger?”

“I don’t—hey,” You paused. “I can hear the water now! Guess you’re not crazy after all, Parker.”

“That makes one of us,” Peter muttered as you sped up your walking pace to a jog. “Hey, Y/N, wait—”

“Holy shit.” You froze as the passage came to an abrupt end, becoming just a ledge.

A ledge that, you discovered as you shined your flashlight from left to right, over looked a giant hidden cavern. To your left was the source of the rushing water sound; a waterfall cascaded from an opening in the rock, dropping down all the way into the crystal clear lake below you. The water looked so inviting that you almost wanted to jump in, except it seemed to be at least a fifty foot drop. And even if you made it all the way down unharmed, there was the matter of getting out; you couldn’t find any exit points. There had to be one, you reasoned, because the entire cavern would be filled up with water if there wasn’t, but wherever the exit was, it seemed to be hidden under the water.

Not the ideal location for a relaxing dip.

“Y/N,” Peter’s voice broke through your internal monologue. “Let’s go. I’m getting bad vibes from this place and it’s freaking me out.”

“I wonder if I can—” You took another step forward, right to the edge of the rock that supported you. You raised your flashlight, trying to make out more details from the other side of the room.

“I’m serious, Y/N,” Peter called to you from his position near the cavern entrance. “Please! Get away from the edge and let’s just go!”

You could hear the pleading in Peter’s voice, the worry that something was about to happen. As much as you wanted to stay and explore more, you felt bad for making him so anxious. You blinked your eyes once, twice, and gave your head a quick shake before turning back around to face your partner, whose face was white and eyes full of panic. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go. Sorry, I—I didn’t mean—”

As you turned around, your foot caught a crack in the rock, and you stumbled back. Your feet landed on the crumbled edge of the platform, your weight pulled you back, gravity took hold, and you fell off the ledge.

“Y/N!” Peter yelled as you dropped farther and farther down. You screamed as the wind whipped your hair around your face, and you couldn’t seem to close your eyes as you watched Peter’s face grow smaller and smaller.

You sucked in a harsh breath as you braced for your back to hit the water, finally able to close your eyes. But instead of the freezing depths of the lake that you were expecting, you felt impossible heat encase your entire body, wrapping you in an inferno and not letting go.

Your eyes remained squeezed shut. Why were you still falling? Should it really take this long? Had you already hit and been killed instantly, and this was what the afterlife was like?

A thousand thoughts flew around your already crowded mind until you realized that the air wasn’t rushing past you anymore; instead, you were rushing into it.

Your eyes flew open.

Peter’s arms were wrapped around you as he pulled the two of you up onto the ledge, one hand tight around you as the other was extended into the air, holding onto something. A white wire? A rope?

You took gasping breaths as your partner crouched and set you down on the ground, gently cradling your head in his lap.

“Y/N?” Peter asked, pushing your hair out of your face. “Y/N, are you okay?”

“I—” You brought a hand up and rubbed your eyes. The fire was concentrated in your head, making your thoughts burn like flash paper, fast and bright. “How did you do that?”

“I don’t know—do what?” Peter’s eyes closed themselves off, and he looked away from you.

“How did you swing down and catch me?” You rephrased your question, sitting up on the backs of your arms. Peter’s hands fell from your face. “You were standing at the cavern entrance, and then you were at the ledge, and then you caught me. How did you do that?”

“I didn’t swing anywhere,” Peter still wouldn’t meet your gaze. “I grabbed your arm and pulled you up just before you fell completely.

“No, you didn’t,” You struggled to sit up more, still a little dazed.

“Y/N—”

“This isn’t fucking Twilight, Parker, I know what I saw!” You looked around the cavern. “There was a rope, or something, and you used it to swing down and—oh, it’s here—”

“Y/N, no—” Peter dove for the scrap white rope sitting on the ledge, but you grabbed it first, standing up after you did so.

“Why is it so sticky?” You frowned, turning the rope over in your hands. “It’s almost like a spider’s web. Where did you—?”

Your gaze flew up to Peter’s face as his eyes widened with fear.

“Y/N, I can explain.” Peter took a deep breath, and the thousand thoughts racing in your head multiplied to a million as you stared at the boy in front of you.

Peter Parker, who was from Queens. Peter Parker, who had an internship at Stark Industries. Peter Parker, who had the only internship at Stark Industries. Peter Parker, who had a full ride to university from that internship, who had senses much more powerful than yours, who hadn’t needed a flashlight to see in the dim and dark cave, who was able to swing down and grab you and save you from certain death.

Peter Parker, who wasn’t only Peter Parker.

“You’re the Spider-Man.” The words left your mouth in a whisper, like if you let them be any louder, they would be dangerous.

And with the way Peter was looking at you, you had a bad feeling that they were.

{part II}

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