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boymeetsweevil · 4 years

Text

And then there were two

Grouping: Reader x College BF!Mark (NCT)

Word Count: ~3.48k

Warnings/Themes: non-graphic first time, too many friends with too little boundaries

Prompt: “what do u think abt college bf mark and awkward and fumbling first time”

The dorm is suspiciously quiet when Mark enters. There’s no sound of the XBox going, no sound of raucous laughter, no sound of beer bottles clinking. It’s almost as if you’re alone in your dorm. Odd.

“Mark?” You call from the common area shared by you and your suitemates. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

He finds you curled up on the couch, biting at your nails with your computer at your lap.

“Hey. Did you get your test results back yet?”

“I mean, the portal is open. I just haven’t checked it yet.” A sigh ghosts past your lips. “I don’t know if I passed this one. And if I don’t pass, I’ll have to retake the class later.”

“Want me to open it for you?”

“Please.”

Mark makes his way over, arms behind his back as he hides the treasure he brought with him. Once he’s seated you slide your laptop over to him like you can’t get it away fast enough and push yourself back until you’re at the opposite end of the couch. Your toes are the closest thing to him and you wedge them under his thigh while he types in your password from memory.

“Class average was a...64. Yikes,” he reads off that stats from the exam’s page.

“Yeah. It was a doozy.”

“Okay, let’s see. Woah, you got an 83.”

“What,” you shout.

“Nerd.”

Your eyes grow wide and you lunge forward to yank the computer away, hoping that he’s not messing with you. Mark laughs, nose scrunching at you as you take in the actual 83 on your exam’s results screen. The hoarse little shriek you let out is so cute that his heart aches a bit.

“The prof said she was adding a curve for this one. 6 points, she said.”

“Congrats, baby—oof!”

Mark’s back hits the arm of the couch with a thud, taking the brunt of the force from your tackle. It’s a bit awkward but you still manage to get your limbs around him and squeeze. A breathy chuckle floats up from where you bury your face in his neck.

“I was so nervous. I hate Orgo so much.”

“I know, but you work so hard. How could you not do well?”

“Thanks,” you say once you pull back. Your eyes are velvet soft with relief and fondness as you look him over.

You press a soft kiss to his lips and Mark presses back for a moment before pulling back with a jerk. Somehow you’ve ended up in the splayed V of his knees as a pleasant weight in his lap. Not an often occurrence.

“I, uh, I might have brought you something,” he mumbles against the skin of your cheek when you kiss the hinge of his jaw. His eyes and voice go gravelly and dark at your proximity.

“What is it?” You sit back on your heels with a staccato bounce.

“Chicken Haus.”

From the side of the couch he brandishes a large paper bag with a familiar crowing chicken logo printed on the brown surface. The thin paper barrier does nothing to keep the smell from wafting over to you.

“Oh, did you get fries? Let me see!”

“Ah, ah!” He moves the bag out of your reach, causing you to stumble forward. Your glare down at him but all he does is cackle in response. “Say please,” he sing-songs.

“Dude, come on. This isn’t kindergarten!”

“So, I’m ‘dude’ now?” He sniffs and moves to put the chicken back. “Alright, I see how it is.”

“Mark—Mark, wait! Mark, my man. My super capable, handsome man. Please. Let me see the chicken.”

“Nice,” he hands you the bag, trying his hardest not to be flustered by your performance.

There’s a small mountain of your favorites in the bag and you do a little dance before hopping off the couch and making a beeline to the small communal kitchenette.

“Did you eat dinner already?”

“Yeah, I had some stuff at the studio.”

You turn to give him a little disappointed pout. “Still, come sit with me!”

Mark ambles over with a pleased smile on his face. As you look for napkins he admires the straight way you hold your back. The university is notorious for its cutthroat biology major but you’re not the competitive type. So exam weeks are especially hard on you. You always end up stressed and shrunken in on yourself and Mark hates to see it. Few things cheer you back up right away. One of them is the atomic spicy nuggets from Chicken Haus.

“Should we eat in your room,” Mark asks. Your mutual friend Jungwoo, who introduced you and Mark, usually has virtual tutoring at this hour. Mark always feels bad for interrupting him, but normally you’d share some of your congratulatory nuggets with him.

“We don’t have to this time. Jungwoo went home for his mom’s graduation and Doyoung’s at a public health conference.”

“Oh. They didn’t tell me that.”

“Mark,” you let out an incredulous laugh when you finally open the box. “I think you got too many nuggets this time.”

Mark looks down at the party-sized box he handed over a hefty portion of this week’s paycheck for. He supposes it’s a lot for two people to eat, but the dorm is usually overflowing with friends. Tonight he bought a lot out of habit and none of the people he expected to be over are actually present.

“Shit. Are none of the guys coming over?”

“Mm, I don’t know. What’s Johnny up to?”

Mark wracks his brain for his friends’ whereabouts. “Uhh, I think I remember him saying he was gonna go visit his girlfriend at her school. So, I guess he’s not coming.

“Okay,” you sit at one of the stools. “And Taeil and Haechan?”

“Probably, like, playing Fortnite or something.”

“I know Taeyong said he had some work he had to do for his design class, so he’s definitely not coming.” You bite down into a nugget finally and let out a soft moan. “This never gets old.”

Suddenly Mark is hungry again. When he grabs a napkin and a plate you give a gloating smirk.

“I think Yuta’s probably just asleep,” you say after you’ve finished moaning around another chicken nugget.

“That just leaves Jaehyun, I think.”

“I mean, I can text him and invite him over if you want me to.”

Before you can reach for your phone, Mark’s free hand covers yours. You can’t help but laugh a little. Jaehyun and Mark may be good friends, but you know Mark is still a little wary since Jaehyun tried to hit on you the first night you met everyone. There’s no hard feelings, though. According to Mark.

“N-no, you don’t have to. He’s probably just enjoying the night in. Let’s...leave him be.”

“Okay,” you grin and take another bite.

After you finish eating, you make the decision to migrate back to the couch to check out some of the stuff on your DVR. Doyoung has dominated most of the drive space but there’s some shows that you know Mark likes. You tape them on the off chance that he comes over and no one else has something else they want to watch instead.

“Should we watch that zombie series,” Mark asks as he scrolls through the listings.

“I hate their graphics.”

“I know,” he snorts. “But it’s funny how mad you get at their fake blood. Might be fun to watch.”

“If you really wanna watch you can, but I’m not looking. I’m just gonna make myself comfy here, instead.”

You say all this as you proceed to stretch yourself over Mark’s already lounging form. You slot yourself between his thighs before hitching a leg up over his hip. Your head is pillowed by his shoulder and you cage him in with your arms.

“We don’t have to watch it. It’s more fun to watch with Yuta anyway. He always screams so loud, like, I swear he has a 4 octave range sometimes.”

“You’re such a music major,” you wrinkle your nose before peeking up. “Can I hear that project you’ve been working on in the studio?”

Mark’s cheeks flush under the blue light cast by the TV screen. He doesn’t say anything at first, but he does nod. You get up just long enough for him to grab his phone and the pair of over-the-ear headphones he always carries with him.

He takes care to brush your hair out of the way and slip the headphones onto your head gently. He sneaks in a pinch of your cheeks while you wait for him to cue up the song and laughs at the way your eyes crinkle in light annoyance.

The song begins and he alternates between gnawing at his bottom lip and watching your expression unblinkingly. Mark is actually doing super well in his Music Production 401 class and his professor is trying to get him to do an independent study next term. But he’s a perfectionist when it comes to his music. The song’s not finished even though he and Taeyong have been working on it nonstop for the last week and a half.

After a few minutes, you slide the headphones off.

“I like it,” you whisper. “I wish I could tell you something more helpful but I don’t know anything about making music.”

“No, no. Honestly, that’s enough. I feel like you always tell me when you don’t really like what we have, so this is—good.”

“What are you gonna call it?” You grab his free hand and Mark darts his head around to survey the room.

“Tae wants to call it something like “welcome to my playground”. We have to run the name by the other guys in the project. But Professor Seo thinks we should put it online once it’s done.”

“Promise you won’t forget about me when you blow up on SoundCloud.”

Mark tosses his head back and laughs at your teasing, before reaching out for revenge. He grabs at your waist and pulls you down so he can dig his fingers into your sides, knowing exactly where to go so he can torture you.

You let out a gasp and try your hardest to protect your sensitive underarms and the sides of your ribs from him, but it’s too late. Frenzied laughs pour from your mouth and you fight to stay upright. It’s a fight that you lose but not without bringing Mark down with you.

The two of you topple over the edge of the couch in a heap of throw pillows and decorative blankets. You fall first and brace yourself for the impact of Mark’s body. It’s not as painful as you thought it would be and when you crack an eye open you realize it’s because he managed to prop himself up at the last second.

Mark laughs again, but this time it’s small and breathless as he takes in the sight of you underneath him. He yanks himself up so at least his upper half is upright and he looks around again.

“Why are you acting so suspicious? You’ve been acting like you have a dirty secret all night.” You sit up too then, pulling your knees to yourself.

“Ah, really? I dunno.”

But he does know.

Mark is a man of many good traits. He’d like to think, based on what others have told him, that he’s reliable. Hardworking, nice. Maybe even a little handsome if he listens to his mom. But most of all he is incredibly patient.

The last 2 months that you have been dating have consisted of being cockblocked at every turn. And the same thing happened when he was trying to find a good moment to confess to you after realizing that he liked you. Because he and you shared too many friends. Well-meaning but stupid friends.

“I mean—like, I guess I just got so used to us being interrupted by the guys that it’s a habit. Sorry.”

“We’re alone now, though.”

“Ha, right,” he tugs on the collar of his hoodie. “Yeah.”

“So...do you still want to watch the DVR on the couch?”

“Uh, we don’t have to. We could do something else.”

“What do you want to do,” you ask as your fingers crawl up his torso. With a gentle press to his hoodie-clad chest, Mark‘s back hits the seat of the couch.

“Wuh—we could listen to the new SuperK album.”

You shake your head and slink into his lap. You fiddle with the zipper on the front of his hoodie, enjoying the way he fails to keep his cool in the moment.

He looks up at you then, eyes round. “We could... watch that movie Cloud Break. It’s supposed to be really romantic—”

You shake your head again and lean in. “Saw it ages ago,” you murmur against the skin of his neck.

He huffs out a laugh, partly because of the tickle from your lips planting light kisses on his throat and partly because your answer is ridiculous.

“It premiered in theaters two days ago, dude.”

“I have connections,” is all you say before switching to kisses on the corner of his mouth.

Rarely do moments like this ever arise. With your friend group, someone is always in your dorm, or in Mark’s, or texting one of you to let you know you’ll be interrupted soon. One too many traumatic occasions where he didn’t heed the warning taught Mark to be hypervigilant of how he interacted with you.

Honestly, he’s not even sure what to do first now. You’ve already unzipped his hoodie to splay your palms over his chest. He’s certain you can feel the fluttering dance his heart is doing under your hands. His own palms itch with inactivity. But laying them on the bare skin of your waist under the fabric of your shirt feels a bit like a balm against his clammy skin.

It’s like a switch is flipped. Like you’ve both realized how long you’ve been waiting for this moment. Suddenly everything is wandering hands and soft gasps. Time behaves funny in the privacy of the little universe being created on the floor by the couch. First it’s the quick, rough pass of your shirt over your head, getting tangled along overeager elbows along the way. Then it’s the slow and gentle brush of Mark’s knuckles against the skin of your abdomen as he attempts to unbutton your pants with shaking hands. You ask him if he’s scared while thumbing at the plush swell of his lips which are pursed in concentration. He tells you he’s just excited with an equally-shaky chuckle.

That’s what you love about Mark. Probably one of the things everyone loves about Mark. He’s thorough, admirably so. Just like he took his time with his confession,!l and his time with your jeans, he takes time appraising every inch of exposed skin. Some moments are moments of familiarity and he nips at the skin like it’s an old greeting. Some moments are moments of discovery, for both of you. He’s gentler then, drawing a new version of you out from yourself in the form of drawn out gasps or curses.

Many are moments of reciprocity. There are times when you hope his touch leaves fingerprints behind, something that you can keep long after your sweat has dried. And every touch he gives is matched with one you return. The feel of your palm on him, over him, around him draws his muscles taut. When you finally slot together, of course it’s like two puzzle pieces. It’s just right and the breath Mark releases then is almost like a sigh of relief.

Often relief is a quiet, calm thing. Not always, certainly not now. You and Mark chase this relief panting and sometimes clawing at one another. He’s jerky as he moves over you. With arms shaking on either side of his head and this jaw grit tight, he tries his best to make it to the end with you. The way you moan and lock your thighs around him to pull him closer and deeper are the things that push him off the edge. He spills into you with a choked off groan that tapers off when he pulls away finally.

He’s exhausted, but still attentive in his aftermath. Mark whispers sweet nothings into your ear as he beckons you closer to your own orgasm with his hand. The feeling of working over you through the slick of his cum awakens something in the corners of his mind, but he puts that back. For another day, he reasons. Another one of those rare days when he can get you alone. Next time he won’t hesitate.

“You feel good,” he nuzzles the tip of his nose by the base of your ear.

Your breath hitches wetly and you reach down to grip his still twisting wrist. The touch grounds you only slightly because he changes the angle and suddenly you’re floating towards white light once more. Mark watches your hips raise in little broken motions to reach your own high.

Immediately, you pull him back in. He’s confident in the way he follows this time. He swoops in over you, kissing you like the sex had merely whetted his appetite.

“Is there still chicken?”

The sound of Jungwoo’s voice drives you two apart so fast your joints crack. You shriek and pull the closest piece of clothing you can find over your lap and torso. It just so happens to be Mark’s sweatpants, leaving him defenseless and bare.

Jungwoo pokes his head out from behind his bedroom door, headphones hanging around his neck with music oozing softly from the ears. Whatever he sees must be appropriate enough, because he nods to himself then and strolls toward the kitchen. The leftover Chicken Haus sits neatly packaged away thanks to Mark’s previous care.

“Bro, what the hell,” Mark whines from behind the safety of the couch. Just his head peeks over the cushions, making him look tiny. Like a tiger cub woken prematurely. Jungwoo laughs.

“I thought you said you bought enough to share. There’s no way you guys were gonna finish all this on your own.”

“That’s not—” Mark sighs, “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

“We’re kind of doing something here.” He jerks his chin down to where you’re hidden from view still. Neither of them can see your grimace.

“Oh, yeah, we know.”

“We?”

Your head and naked shoulders pop up then. Mark shifts his arm subtly in front you to preserve what’s left of your modesty. It doesn’t do much.

“Yeah, me and the others were in my room. We heard you did good on the test from our friend Lucas—you know the one who TAs for orgo? We were gonna surprise you, so we all got here early.”

“How early,” Mark’s voice is steady, eerily so.

Jungwoo picks up another nugget and chews thoughtfully while he picks the right things to say. Johnny is the one who is known for being scary when angry, but Mark’s silent fury is frightening in its own right. A tiger cub is still a tiger, after all.

“Early,” he finally says.

“Fuck,” Mark covers his eyes with his hands. His cheeks bloom over rapidly. “Are you kidding me? Like for real?”

“Jungwoo,” Taeyong’s stage whisper cuts through the outburst. “Are they done yet?”

“You think he’s just standing out there talking to himself while they’re still doing it,” Doyoung’s voice enters next.

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t stop to watch a little on the way back,” Yuta scoffs.

“Guys, stop, this is so weird. That’s Mark we’re talking about.” The sound of Johnny’s internal crisis is almost as loud as his distressed non-whisper.

Jungwoo snorts before piling a plate high with more chicken. “You sound like such a mom, John.”

“Hey, wait is there still chicken?” Taeil’s sleepy voice is followed by Haechan giving an affirmative.

The guys stream out of Jungwoo’s tiny suite like a swarm of ants making a line towards the kitchen. Some of them hop onto the counter while Doyoung distributes plates. Others grab up the remaining stools and continue to discuss Mark’s new lack of virginity while serving up fries and nuggets. None of them seem to be concerned about yours or Mark’s presence with their backs turned towards you.

As the others continue to bicker amongst themselves, you turn to Mark. With a knowing look, he gestures for you to pass him his sweats. In silence, you both dress yourselves before making a break to your room. You enter first, diving head first into your bed out of mortification. Mark makes sure to close the door as soundlessly as possible before turning to you.

“We need new friends,” the two of you say in unison.

#nct scenarios #nct smut #nct fanfic #nct imagines

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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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gilrael · 7 years

Text

I’ve been thinking about how fucked up teacher training is at my university’s chem department. Not that the situation is perfect in the other departments. The English department has its own share of idiotic mindsets and horrible didactics lecturers, but there’s something about the chem department here in Freiburg that makes me want to eventually write and publish an open letter to them once I have my state exam and won’t have to worry about offending the profs that are going to decide whether or not I will pass my state exam. Meanwhile, I’m just gonna publish a relatively anonymous rant on my Tumblr, because I need to get some of these things off my chest.

(continued under the cut)

The first thing I want to get out of the way: I am suffering from depression and my therapist is 90% sure that studying chemistry is one of the main causes of my mental health issues. "Why" you may ask? Because of all the stress it puts on me.

My profs expect me to learn things that I will forget as soon as I am out of university. I agree with my profs when they say that I need to know more than what I need to teach my students, but we disagree on where to draw the line.

Quantum mechanics is the bane of my existence and as soon as I am confronted with Schrödinger’s equation and all the other fancy mathematics behind physical chemistry, my brain goes blank and all the greek letters and variables just become a blurry mess. This does not mean that I don’t understand the basic concepts behind chemistry. Molecular orbitals are amazing and I can draw the diagrams for many different compounds. I know how inharmonic oscillators work in theory (and let’s be honest, half of my phys chem lectures on quantum mechanics were about inharmonic oscillators in one way or another). I know more about physical chemistry than I will ever have to teach at any kind of secondary school you will find in Germany. The same goes for other fields of chemistry. I know so many reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry, but I will only have to teach one or two of them (and I will only have to teach them should I end up teaching at a vocational school, because reaction mechanisms are not part of the regular curriculum and only show up in the curriculum for vocational schools). I know how to qualitative inorganic analysis in a lab setting, but chances are that I will not have to teach that either (unless I end up teaching a class of lab technicians in training, which is not that likely, considering that there are very few vocational schools in my state that have courses like that).

What I am trying to say is this: I already know more about chemistry than I will ever have to teach and yet my profs don’t seem to be satisfied with that. They keep trying to cram more and more knowledge about chemistry into my brain while completely ignoring that by doing so, they will make it harder for me to step down onto the level of my students. They themselves aren’t very good at taking their students’ perspectives into account. I have heard the sentences "This is trivial, so we are going to skip it” so often and it’s never been “trivial”. There’s nothing trivial about chemistry and I do not want to become like my profs and forget about how complicated all of this is when you are learning about it for the first time. I do not want my students to be frustrated and give up on chemistry because I failed to break it down into small enough chunks for them to process. Just because it seems trivial to me doesn’t mean it’s trivial to them.

Now comes my next complaint with the chem department. We only have three didactics classes -- one seminar and two labs. The seminar is okay-ish. The lecturer (who is an actual teacher who teaches secondary school chemistry like all the people involved with didactics at my chem department) is nice and enthusiastic about his job. He wants future teachers to put thought into how they structure their lessons and he tries his best to give insights into didactics. But at the same time, this seminar is everything but challenging. He didn’t teach me anything that I didn’t already know through observing my own teachers. Which is kinda sad. He is also in charge with one of the two labs, which I haven’t taken yet, but from what I’ve heard it’s probably the most useful class for teachers in the entire chem department. It is designed to make you think about how to present experiments to students and to ebend these experiments into detailed lesson plans. And then there’s the other lab, which was an utter waste of time. Both of the teachers who are in charge of it fail at their jobs (not just as lecturers but also at being secondary school teachers). They just throw experiments at you that you probably won’t be able to recreate in your own lessons because 1) you will not have the proper equipment to do them, 2) some of them take over an hour and lessons at school are 45mins (90mins if you are lucky) and 3) some of the experiments you are not allowed to do at school anymore because they have been deemed to be too dangerous.

Meanwhile, in the English department, I have four didactics requirements. There are the Didactics I and II seminars. Didactics I is just a general introduction to ESL teaching. For your Didactics II seminar, you can choose between different topics like grammar, literature and cultural studies. Then there’s a lecture called “English in the classroom -- linguistics” which is all about linguistic studies on ESL teaching. And last but not least, we have to take a seminar in either linguistics or literary/cultural studies that relates to school in one way or another (next semester I will hopefully take part in a seminar called “Transcultural Literature and Islamophobia in the EFL Classroom“). See the difference? First of all, the English department offers us some choices. Are you not comfortable with teaching grammar? Go choose a Didactics II seminar on teaching grammar! Do you want to know more about the science behind ESL teaching? We got you covered with our lecture, but you can also take a linguistics seminar in addition to the lecture! Most importantly, though, they acknowledge that we are teachers first and linguists/literary analysts second. Even in classes that are not designed specifically for teaching students, our needs are acknowledged. I took part in a seminar on tense and aspect for my linguistics requirement and when the lecturer found out that most of the students in attendance were future teachers, she changed up her reading list to include articles about grammar teaching. This would never happen in a chem lecture. Nobody fucking cares about the teaching students in the chem department. Most of the time it feels like we’re a nuisance, like we are not wanted at the lectures. They treat me like garbage but at the same time, they expect me to perform in the same way the regular chemistry students do. Add to that the blatant misogyny of many male professors and you have a pretty good explanation for why I struggle to get out of bed and attend my 8 am chem classes.

So this is ridiculously long, so let me give you a short little conclusion that also serves as a TL;DR version of this rant:

I can never be good enough for my chemistry profs because what they want me to be is a chemist first and a teacher second. But that’s never going to happen. I am a teacher, not a chemist.

#personal #gilrael complains about uni #mental health #education #i actually spend 2hrs writing this #but now i feel better lol

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