Peter Parker Imagines Book

Countdown

Post-NWH angst. What do you expect from me, really? No actual spoilers though. If you've seen the movie, it'll hurt more. If you haven't, only a fraction less. If you want more hurt, listen to Happier by Marshmello and Bastille. It didn't inspire this one, but it came on halfway through me writing this and just caused more pain :)

Warning(s): angst, obviously. mayhaps there be a small anxiety attack. 

Your skin blanched as the running water from the kitchen tap had completely changed in its initial temperature. You don't know when you had ventured under the stream, but your mind rarely even thought about it now, even when the freezing water and shaking of your hands had brought the realization forward. All you had were those thoughts. All you heard was that sound.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It had begun as a distraction. The first light of the day had filtered through the open window of your bedroom, and you had awoken to a tangled mess of sheets and an empty space on the bed beside you. Not that it had come as a surprise as you reached over a tentative hand in your groggy state, feeling nothing but the crinkle of the sheets and cold pillowcase under your palm. You couldn't even admit that you had been expecting to feel the warmth of Peter's skin to blossom under your fingertips. To feel where the planes of his body transitioned from soft and smooth to rough and battle worn. To feel his hair tickling the underside of your neck, ear pressed against your chest just over your heart, and the steady puffs of breath billow from his mouth as he cuddled into what used to be his favorite place to sleep.

You couldn't feel that disappointment when you opened your eyes to see the nothingness that you had already felt. It was hard to miss something that was so regularly gone.

Goosebumps raised upon your skin, and you had sat up with a shiver. Something pressed down in your chest that morning like a clamp on your heart that you couldn't quite place yet. Something solemn that left a bittersweet taste on your tongue and your limbs difficult to move as you forced sleep from your eyes. Something had seemed different, seemed off, from the moment you had gained consciousness that morning. The metal frame of the bed creaked under the shifting of your weight as you lifted the covers off your lap and placed your feet on the ground - an action that elicited cold like a jolt of electricity to crawl up your body.

You didn't check the time. You knew it was early. So early that the sunlight that lit up the bedroom you had to remind yourself you shared still had an orange glow from the first signs of daybreak. So early that you knew you had no business being up other than your mind's command. It was a Friday morning, and you had no classes until Monday. No alarms had been set. You had no plans. There was no reason fighting against why you shouldn't tuck yourself back into bed. Why you shouldn't pull the blanket up to your shoulders and squeeze your eyes shut as you imagined being somewhere else. With someone else. Why you shouldn't let your mind give you the comfort of past memories of having Peter in your arms, hearing his laugh as he held you against him. Why you shouldn't just pretend that he was here and that you were in fact still sleeping. And when you opened your eyes again, there he would be: A smile on his face as he watched you slept, waiting for you to wake up and join him so he could pull you into a suffocating comfort and convince you to spend a lazy day in bed until he had to go to make it to campus on time.

Your fists had tightened by your sides, gathering the material of the bedsheets in your grip, before they relaxed once more. No. You were awake now. And you didn't have to try to know that you wouldn't have been able to get back to sleep. You knew for certain you wouldn't be able to. It was silent in the room, in the apartment, spare for the sound of your breathing. Of the muffled sound of cars and people beeping and talking below. But most of all, it was silent except for a single noise you heard that always seemed louder than all the others. Something that wasn't new, but familiar. Not in the way that was comforting, but in the one that brought a sense of normality into your routine.