The city hummed below the rooftop, a soft neon glow painting both your textbooks and the breeze-tossed curls of the boy sitting across from you.
Your best friend. Your Spider-Man. (Not that anyone else knew that.)
He sat with one knee up, pencil between his teeth, hoodie half-zipped from his rushed patrol earlier. His physics notes lay scattered, wind-fluttered and messy—exactly like him.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking up, voice low, teasing.
You rolled your eyes. “I’m staring at how you somehow fit ‘save three people from a collapsing fire escape’ between third and fourth period and still managed to forget what a variable is.”
He finally looked at you, eyes shining in that way they always did when he was trying not to smile. “I know what a variable is.”
“Uh-huh. Then solve the equation.”
He glanced down at the problem, hesitated, then muttered, “I literally fight crime. Why is math my villain arc?”
You snorted, leaning back on your palms, the night air cool against your skin. “Because swinging off buildings doesn’t teach you algebra.”
“That’s debatable.”
For a few minutes, you both pretended to study. You highlighted. He doodled in the margins. You checked your notes. He watched you check your notes.
“You’re doing it again,” you said softly.
He blinked. “Doing what?”
“Looking at me like I’m the answer to the question you don’t understand.”
His hand froze mid-doodle.
The truth was cruelly simple: You’d been the first person to talk to him freshman year, when he was quiet and new and totally lost. You showed him around school. Introduced him to people. Learned who he was — who he really was — before he even learned it himself.
You knew everything about each other. Except the one thing that mattered.
He rubbed the back of his neck, the movement familiar, nervous, painfully cute. “I wasn’t… I mean—I didn’t—okay, maybe I was looking. A little.”
“A little?” Your brow arched. Dangerously.
He laughed once, short and embarrassed. “Don’t do that eyebrow thing. It makes me forget English.”
You smiled, sitting closer. “It’s just a study date. Chill.”
He froze again. “…Date?”
You almost choked. “I meant— I mean— study session. Don’t get weird.”
“Me? Weird?” He scoffed, playing it off. “I’m totally not weird. I’m—”
His Spider-Sense crackled — you could see it in the way he tensed, shoulders tight.
You lowered your voice. “Is it something dangerous?”
He listened for a moment, then relaxed. “No. Just someone on the fire escape below us.”
Your inhale was shaky. Every time something like that happened — every time he snapped into hero mode — you remembered why your heart hurt around him.
He saved people. He saved you, once, long before he ever told you the truth.
“You should go if you need to,” you whispered.
His eyes softened — that look he always gave you when he wished he didn’t have to leave.
But this time, he didn’t move.
“Not yet,” he said.
You blinked. “Why not?”
He swallowed hard. Pressed his palm to the rooftop beside yours—close enough to touch, but not touching.
“Because… it’s nice up here. With you.”
Your breath caught.
“You always make everything feel less…” He struggled for the word. “…complicated.”
You tried to laugh, but it sounded too small. “Dude. It’s math homework.”
“No.” He shook his head, eyes locked on yours now. “I mean everything. You’re the only one I don’t have to hide anything from.”
The wind picked up, rustling pages, lifting the edge of his hoodie. He didn’t fix it. He didn’t look away.
You were the first to move — only barely — your hand shifting toward his.
His fingers twitched.
Almost touching.
Almost.
“Hey,” he whispered, voice warm, terrified, hopeful. “If this was a date… would that be bad?”
Your chest tightened.