CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
( IN LOVE )
NICHOLAS STEVEN BERRY WAS in love with Peter Benjamin Parker, no doubt about it. Nick loves Peter and he knows it, and unlike last time, he wasn't going to cause a dramatic mess because he's scared. He was actually going to do something about it – eventually, whether that's extremely soon or a month later. He had realized he loved Peter a while ago, he didn't exactly know when but he knew nonetheless, and he had just brushed the feelings aside, especially after the breakup, but know he wasn't. Now, he had embraced it.
After their second first date, Nick locked himself in his room, avoiding his dad and the few texts from his mom, both of them asking how the date went, and listened to all of his playlists on Spotify – there were a lot – and picked out any that reminded him of Peter. He could have done it all night, listening to music and making a new playlist, and he did, eventually just picking out twelve of them to put on a cassette tape later on, and around five in the morning he finally fell asleep. Making a mixtape of sorts and a playlist was the only way the teen could get out his feelings properly without actually saying them to Peter. It was all on a whim and something he'd never thought he would do. He didn't regret it, though.
Well, he regretted one thing – staying up so late. At nine in the morning, he was surprised he was even up. With coffee in one hand and phone in the other, Nick just stared at his phone, a text conversation between him, Peter and Ned, a group chat having been made once Peter explained to Nick that Ned knew about Spider-Man. Ned had found out Thursday night, and the group was made just a few minutes ago when Nick had finally woken up. Ned and Peter were attempting to convince Nick to come to Liz's party later that night to aid them with bringing Spider-Man to the party, to be seen as 'cool', or whatever, and Nick being there would help them, considering he was seen as a cool kid at school and people were slowly starting to learn how he was friends with Steve Rogers' cousins.
[santa claus to three musketeers
i would go tonight but i'm people-ed out. also gotta go buy brooklyn rogers some groceries tonight before then bc she doesn't wanna go out & james, mitch & tony are out of town still]
[nedward to three musketeers
brooklyn rogers as in captain america's cousin aka also tony stark's girlfriend/definitely future wife??? tell her i say hello!!]
[yeeter parkour 💓💓 to three musketeers
that's fine babe we'll be ok without u :)]
[yeeter parkour 💓💓 to three musketeers
ned oh my god]
[santa claus to three musketeers
i mean i did mention tony & her kids so yeah, that brooklyn rogers. & i will dw ned]
[yeeter parkour 💓💓 to three musketeers
wait why do u get to call him tony]
[santa claus to three musketeers
it's just easier to type out aka i'm lazy]
[nedward to three musketeers
lmaooo nick is closer to mr stark than spider-man!]
Nick chuckled at their conversation, Peter sending a message in all caps that it wasn't true – that Spider-Man is closer to Tony Stark than Nick is, but really it could be a toss up. Neither were that close to the billionaire; not yet at least. Nick was just close with the twins and their mom, occasionally having dinner with them when he's over, Tony Stark included if he's lucky. As the conversation continued, he locked his phone, not having much else to add to it just yet, and looked up as his dad entered the kitchen, taking a long sip of his coffee.
"Morning, kiddo," Dan half-said, half-yawned.
"Mornin'. Um, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you know how to put music on cassette tapes?"
Dan paused, stopping in his tracks. He turned to look at Nick as he thought, and eventually shrugged. "I used to. Maybe I can figure it out again, though. Why?"
Nick shrugged and watched as his phone lit up from getting a text from Olivia, and then one from Peter, and then one from Marty, and a few from Ned; the group chat that had nearly everyone was starting to come alive already so early in the morning. Nick locked his phone again and put it face down. "I was think of making a mixtape for Peter," he said finally.
Dan smiled as he started making his own coffee. "You really like him, don't you?"
"You could say that."
A blanket of silence fell on them, neither one of them speaking as the coffee maker finally started pouring into Dan's mug. Nick took another sip of his own coffee and checked the group chat, refraining from laughing out loud at some of them. And then, the silence broke as Dan spoke up again.
"Y'know," he started, "after we both wake up a bit more, I don't mind going out to buy some cassette tapes. We can get breakfast somewhere too, if you're hungry."
Nick looked at him, shocked. "Wait, really?"
The man nodded. "Yeah, of course."
And that's what happened. Once the two woke up a bit more, after finishing breakfast and getting dressed properly, the father and son left the house to buy the cassette tapes and anything else they needed to make a mixtape. It ended up being a lot easier once Nick realized it wasn't that hard, and once he shooed his dad out of his room once the man started suggesting songs. And he ended up making some for his friends, just because he was bored and didn't know what else to do, and the lingering thought of playing piano again was on his mind but the only problem was he still wasn't okay with his mom. Sure, she apologized and accepts him now, but he couldn't help but feel as though her little speech that day was practiced and rehearsed; he didn't have a problem with that, not really, he guesses he was just expecting something that wasn't from memory.
Nick shook his head and sighed, laying on the ground beside everything he had bought with his dad. He sighed and put his face into the carpet. He suddenly feeling a ton of doubt about making the mixtape.
So, he called Marty – the boy who suggested to throw a fruit at Peter, so who knew how helpful he was actually going to be. But, he still called him, sitting up after grabbing his phone and dialing the number. He put it on speaker and set his phone on the ground.
"It's noon, Nick."
Nick made a face. "Okay? And? I want to talk to my best friend."
"It's too early!"
"...It's noon."
Marty groaned and muttered something the other couldn't understand. "Still early in my book."
Nick mocked him in a high voice before laughing, and Marty soon joined in after stating that he was flipping the other boy off. "You know you love me!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Hey, uh- I have a... I need to talk to you. About something."
"Is this like a serious talk? Do I need to come over? Hide a body?"
"No body hiding, I swear. It's just about Peter," Nick said. "Nothing too serious, so you can stay home."
"Okay good. Tell me, young grasshopper."
"Okay, old hag."
"Hey!"
Nick laughed, but it died down quickly. "So, would it be too gay if I made Peter a mix tape? Because I kinda did, but I'm already second guessing giving it to him."
"There's no such thing as 'too gay,' dude," Marty said. "And if it's a love thing, you should definitely give it to him."
"So like, it wouldn't be weird or anything?"
"Weird would be proposing for obvious reasons – we're only teenagers – but that's not what you're doing," Marty told him. "It's just your way of saying 'I love you' to Peter. Music is your language. When you first called us best friends, you played that song from The Fox and the Hound and said 'that's us'."
Nick scratched as his forehead and nodded along as his best friend spoke, distinctly remembering forcing seven year old Marty to sit still so he could properly listen to the song. And then he remembered doing the exact same thing to Anita except saying she was the one of the birds, not Copper or Tod.
"So, like, make the mixtape hella fucking gay, dude, if you haven't already. Oh! Add Over the Rainbow!"
Nick sputtered out a laugh. "I'm not adding that, but thanks for the suggestion."
"Heh, no problem."
+++
It was late into the evening. The sun had set, and Nick was pretty positive that Liz's party was in full swing if the tipsy texts from Olivia were anything to go by. He had gone shopping for Brooklyn Rogers late in the afternoon, having taken an accidental nap on his floor while he listened to Peter's mixtape to make sure it didn't suck. His dad woke him up around four, which then caused Nick to panic and rushed out of the house, running to the Rogers' home even though it was far away. After apologizing profusely he finally went grocery shopping for the woman, and he helped her put everything up. She actually offered him dinner since it ended up being so late and he just took half of a peanut butter and banana sandwich before leaving, declining her other offer of driving him home. He just wanted some alone time, and he knew he wasn't going to get that with the woman, who would have most definitely asked about his mom and the therapy thing, and he didn't want to talk about that stuff at the moment.
So, he texted back Olivia just to let her know that he wasn't ignoring her while walking down the streets of the nice neighborhood. He stopped in his tracks as he got an audio recording from Ned, a frown face being sent right after. Nick played the audio message and Ned's voice was loud as it started playing, a bunch of other loud voices behind his.
"So, like, Peter kinda ditched me? And he was gonna show up as Spidey- but... Just listen." Ned stopped talking and Nick could hear clearly as Flash and a crowed chanted 'Penis Parker' over and over again. It faded, and Nick guessed Ned was walking away from it. "You probably want to find Peter. I dunno where he went, but I'll try calling him soon and tell him not to come back."
Nick sighed and texted the boy back, telling him he was in the neighborhood, only a few streets away, and that he'll at least call his boyfriend and attempt to find him. And just hit luck, as he looked up, a familiar red and gold suit flew by in the sky with an all too familiar red and blue suit in its arms.
Nick hummed. "Well," he muttered, "that was easy."
He took his time walking, having a feeling that if Mr. Stark was using a suit while out of town, then it was serious business between them two. By the time he spotted them again, the suit was flying away and Peter was hopping down from a jungle dome in a playground with his mask off.
"Got scolded by Mr. Stark?" Nick asked as he walked up, making Peter turn and look at him.
Peter grinned at seeing Nick, and shook his head as he walked up to him. "No. Well, kinda, but...yeah." He paused, suddenly looking serious. "Have you ever gotten scolded by him?"
Nick shrugged. "Yeah, but it was just because Mitch and I played a prank on him by putting some whipped cream in his, like, six hundred dollar dollar shoes. We were like...four and five."
Peter's jaw dropped. "And you came out of that alive?"
"I mean, he just got firm and stuff, sounded like a typical adult getting onto a kid," Nick said with a careless shrug. It wasn't a big deal. The big deal was when James had hijacked one of Tony's cars last summer and took Nick and Mitch on a two day long road trip because 'fuck adults'. They all got grounded. It was fun, though, and despite getting into big trouble with not only his parents, but the twins' as well and getting a disapproving look from Steve Rogers, he didn't regret riding in an expensive car to King's Island and spending a day and a half there.
"The more I find out about your relationship with them, the more out of my league you become," Peter said, slipping back on the Spider-Man mask as they started walking.
Nick chuckled. "I'm not out of your league Pete. You're the superhero here, not me."
Another smile spread across the brunet's features, and even though Nick couldn't see it he knew it was there. They walked in silence for a bit, at some point talking about why Nick was there in the first place until Peter remembered their text messages.
"Want me to walk you home?" Peter asked. "I'm headed back to Liz's party, but I can just give Ned a call and tell him what I'm doing."
Nick winced. "Um, yeah sure, but you might not want to go back to the party," he told him.
His head tilted and the white eyes changed shapes a bit, confused. "Why not?"
"Ned sent me an audio message. Flash was chanting Penis Parker. Ned said he's gonna call you soo, so..." He trailed off, subconsciously swinging his arms back and forth slightly, which caused Peter's arm to do the same since their hands had found each other during the time they were walking.
"Oh- wait, what's that?"
Nick's brows knitted together, and tried to hide any disappointment as Peter's hand left his as the masked vigilante walked over to a purple glow. Nick followed him closely and watched as Peter knelt down to pick the thing up, a purple gem type of thing with metal and wires around it.
"Well that doesn't look good."
***
A/N— Hello this chapter sucks ass, but for the life of me I can't get it any better, it's been like this for a month now, so I decided to just write shitty end so we can get a move on with things.
So, as you all most likely know, Cameron Boyce (my face claim for Nick) died, and it was very shocking and still doesn't feel real if I'm being honest. It's a bit jarring and extremely shocking, but yeah. And a few of you guys messaged me about it and never in a million years did I think someone would think of me when hearing about a celebrity death, yet here we are; so, like, thank you to those who messaged me, it was a bit heartwarming to say the least. But the main point about this is: I have no idea how often updates are going to be now. I'm definitely not going to abandon or quit this book because I'm determined as hell to finish it, but updates are for sure going to be slowed down. It's not going to be easy for me to finish, I'll give you that, but I will eventually. It's just going to take more time, and it doesn't help that when I get to the end of a story my writing slows down anyway.
So yeah, updates are going to be hella slow, but just know that this story is continuing. I hope you guys liked this crappy chapter, and thanks for reading!! xx