I Miss the Way the Night Comes
It all starts with Gwen changing her schedule.
She says something about wanting to get bio chem over with earlier in the morning and how it’ll fit better with afternoon lab. Either way, she switches from Professor Connor to Professor Parker’s morning lecture. Things just snowball from there.
The thing about Gwen is that she’s a lot bolder than him. Peter has always known and loved this about her. Where he mumbles and sheepishly gives half answers, she is unapologetic, driven, and blunt in a way that feels wholly honest rather than assholeish. She consistently encourages him to be better, calls him out on his bullshit, and accepts his humanity in a way very few people ever could. And then she has the absolutegall to be totally humble about it: well, I’m a woman, she said, the one time he pointed that out.
In short, she is brilliant and magnetic which is why Peter is comfortable living his life following her lead. It’s a lot easier to let himself be taken in by her tide, going along with her flow, than to risk drifting unmoored.
That’s why he completes his class transfer form a day after hers and excitedly plops down next to her in the lecture hall, fully not caring that the transfer hasn’t technically been made official or that Gwen’s way too close to the front row of the auditorium.
“Miss me?” He whispers with a waggle of his eyebrows, leaning over the desk attached to his chair to take a peek at her notes.
She rolls her eyes, wholly unsurprised that he would transfer just to keep their schedule more or less the same. “Never,” she lies, eyes full of mirth.
He’s halfway through some dramatic retort, hand on his chest in fake shock and everything, when he sees him.
In strides the most beautiful man Peter has ever seen. He’s not very tall, not particularly well built, and he honestly looks a little disheveled in his dark blue button down and unironed slacks. He would be almost painfully average, to the point of blending in, if he didn’t walk with such confidence down the lecture hall’s carpeted steps. It doesn’t hurt that he also has the most perfect face Peter thinks he’s ever seen — with bright blue eyes, a sharp jaw covered by a delicious smattering of dark stubble, alabaster-like skin, and a nose with the cutest little indentation down the middle. He feels the wind knocked out of him and it’s like a jolt to his core. Who the actual fuck is this guy?
“Sorry for being late. We’re going to pick up where we left off yesterday…” The mystery man takes command of the room and immediately starts writing equations on the blackboard, not missing a beat despite being late.
“Wait, is that the prof?” Peter whisper-hisses to Gwen while praying to some higher being that it’s just a TA because he’s not quite sure he can handle lusting after his professor for a whole semester.
“Mhmm.” Gwen only half pays attention to him, meticulously copying what’s on the board. “Professor Parker — he’s new.”
“Okay, professors aren’t supposed to look like that.” He whispers even more quietly, fully knowing he would never recover from the humiliation if anyone overheard him.
That’s enough to stop Gwen’s pen. She turns to him, mischievous glint in her eyes, “Look at you — Peter Parker with the hots for teach.” She teases him quietly with a toothy grin as she returns her gaze to Professor Parker. “I don’t blame you though, he’s got a nice butt.”
Against his will, Peter gives a snort and disguises it with a cough, but it’s too late. Professor Parker turns to look at the pair with a quick furrow of his dark brows. He tilts his head as if about to say something but instead coolly lifts an eyebrow and quirks his mouth into a little smirk. For a brief second, Peter feels their eyes lock and the blood rushes to his face.
Fuck.
***
“Wait, you seriously didn’t know his name was also Peter Parker?” Gwen looks equal parts incredulous and dumbfounded at his sheer obliviousness. Her hair is almost white in the sun as they sit on the south lawn to catch the last of the summer rays. Peter only half listens as he knots together the long, skinny stems of the white clovers that surround them to transform them into a flower crown.
Peter, used to receiving that particular look, brushes off her comment with a shrug. “Look, it’s not like I was particularly interested in his name. I was distracted by something else…”
“Oh reallllyyyy,” Gwen stretches out the word, a sure sign that she’s about to start teasing him. “I wonder what that was. Well, since you obviously didn’t do your homework on him, I’ll give you the highlights: 1) this is his first year teaching here and he's technically an assistant professor 2) he actually went here for undergrad and co-authored a paper with Doctor Octavius and 3) he’s married.”
“Ugh, of course he’s married. He’s stupid hot.” Peter sulks momentarily before finishing his final knot in the crown and places it upon Gwen’s too bright hair. The green bits stand in stark contrast to her platinum blond head. “Whatever, I can still look.”
“Oh! I can see it now — homewrecker Peter Parker. You know, if you were to get married at least you wouldn’t have to change your name.” Gwen laughs loudly, giving an honest to god snort as if the thought of Peter getting with their professor is that absurd.
Peter rolls his eyes, knowing full well that he would never even dare to try anything with their Professor. Hell, the chances of him even speaking to Professor Parker are slim as he’s not entirely sure he can get a single coherent thought out without getting distracted by the man’s unfairly handsome face. “Ha ha, very funny Gwen.”
The sarcasm in his voice is enough to stop her laughter before she perks up again, remembering something important. “By the way, have you talked to your Aunt May recently? She talked to my mom and asked how you were doing.”
Peter squirms a little under Gwen’s soft questioning eyes and makes a big show of picking at a clover before responding with a nonchalant, “I forgot to call her last weekend… I’ll do it later.”
“Hmmm…” Gwen purses her lips and gives him a firm look, as if ready to press him on it. She narrows her eyes, but thinks better of it and instead gives him a soft smile and reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. “She just misses you, you know? You should talk to her about Ben-”
Peter feels his throat constrict and a wave of panic crash in. “I’ll call her later, okay.” It comes out sharper than he intends, but Gwen, perceptive as always, catches the shift in his mood.
“Okay, just remember to do it. I told my mom to tell her you had a huge test last weekend and spent the whole time holed up in the library, down in the stacks where there wasn’t any service.” Gwen flops on the lawn and squints up at him, trying to shield her eyes from the bright sun. “I mean that wasn’t too far off — we did spend it in a basement with practically no service.”
He laughs, the weight on his chest fluttering away as he remembers their antics from the previous weekend. “Yeah, that’s quite the euphemism for we went clubbing across Brooklyn and Peter spent Sunday hungover.”
“God, you were insufferable ,” Gwen laughs. “Oh, Gwen, I don't feel so good. Oh no, Gwen I threw up on the bouncer’s shoes. You’re such a lightweight, you know?” She mocks him, doing an oddly good impression.
“Hey, I am not! I’ll have you know I also took that edible, the entire thing by the way, before someone told me I was only supposed to take a quarter of it.” Peter raises his eyebrows in a semi-accusatory way towards Gwen. “Remember, one of us is supposed to be the responsible one.”
Gwen just gives him an unapologetic look. “Whatever — you still had a good time. By the way, my lab partner invited us out to another club, out in Bushwick, this weekend.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s apparently really good and he lives close to it. We should go!”
“Sure, whatever.” Peter gives a noncommittal shrug but hums in appreciation as he lifts up his face in an effort to catch as much vitamin D to get him through another frigid and gray New York winter. A warm feeling settles in his chest — he’s got the best friend in whole world, a hot Professor to crush on from a distance, and plans to get stupid drunk and dance his worries away on the weekend.
***
The nice thing about New York is that there’s always some place to go. Even late at night, when it feels like everything is asleep, there are still pockets throughout the city that are wide awake and ready to take in an insomniac.
Peter’s never been one to sit still, but after the incident he finds himself with odd bursts of energy that seem to spring out of nowhere at 11 p.m.
He knows that it worries Gwen. She hears him slip out of their apartment at 9 or 10 p.m. and sometimes catches him coming back home as she begins her morning routine at 6 a.m. She doesn’t pry (not that she would have to, if he were doing anything remotely interesting he wouldn’t even be able to keep it a secret), but instead hands him a cup of coffee and asks that he send her a text so that she knows if she has to pick him up from a ditch or the police station.
In moments like those, he feels especially guilty and wishes he weren’t such a shitty and cagey roommate. He wishes he could be a better friend and actually communicate like an adult about the thoughts that keep him up at night. He wishes he could tell her about his grief and guilt over Ben and-
“Hey, I’m going to be going to Professor Parker’s office hours before work today. Do you want to come with?” Gwen munches on a piece of toast as she writes a little to-do list on a sticky note and places it on her notebook.
“Sure,” He yawns, figuring he can ask a few questions about the last problem set. “By the way, are we going out this weekend?”
“Oh, yeah. You remember Harry from a few weeks ago? He’s ready to host before going to another club — it’ll still be in Bushwick so not a long train ride for us.”
He gives a content little hum, already feeling the thrill of the weekend as he wraps his hands around a cup of coffee before glancing at Gwen’s list. “Oh, what internship are you applying for?” He racks his brain to check if she’s mentioned it already and he’s just being (as per usual) a bad friend.
“It’s a research internship for the summer.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, looking uncharacteristically shy and uncertain. “It’s really competitive though, so I’m not getting my hopes up.”
“What — are you kidding? You’re, like, the smartest person I know! You’re 1000% going to get it.” Peter sets his cup down and gives Gwen’s head and shoulders a hug from behind. Now this, hyping up his best friend, is something he’s really good at and he’s glad he can give Gwen even a fraction of the support she gives him. “And if they reject you, I’ll pop their tires or something.”
She rolls her eyes, “Come on, just get your shit together so we can see Professor Parker.”
“Wait, we’re going now?”
“Yeah. I said I was going before work. What — do you need to put on a cuter outfit?”
“I-” Peter shifts from foot to foot and struggles to think of an excuse because yeah, he actually does want to change into something that looks a little less like human-dumpster-fire-with-insomnia but doesn’t want to give Gwen another opportunity to tease him about his crush. “No, but I just came in. Look, just let me brush my teeth or put on deodorant. It’ll take like two seconds!”
“Oh my god, Peter Parker,” Gwen’s grin is wolfish as she senses the blush about to spread over Peter’s cheeks. “You want to look nice for Professor Parker.” She places an extra emphasis on his name, serenading him with some ooooos as he ducks into their bathroom to wash last night’s grime off.
“Shut up, Gwen.” He yells around his toothbrush, but smiles at the thought of seeing their handsome professor.
***
Sometimes, Peter isn’t sure if Gwen is actually his friend. Sure, she’s always there to lend a comforting shoulder, sing along to musicals with him, and to spot him the odd dollar here and there when he forgets his wallet. But sometimes she’s a downright menace.
They’re sitting on a bench in the science building, waiting outside of Professor Parker’s office for his office hours to begin, when she gets an “urgent” text from her lab partner with an SOS on their experiment. He has half a mind to think that she’s doing this on purpose — she’s always trying to push him out of his comfort zone and leaving him alone with a hot professor wouldn’t be too out of character.
“Sorry Peter!” She yells running down the hall before he can accuse her of anything, her boots clacking a loud staccato. “Ask about problem 5 for me!”
“I don’t think I need to…I’m pretty sure the whole building just heard that.” Peter grumbles to himself, trying to decide if he should take a nap in the library with the extra hour he suddenly has.
Before he can make a choice, however, the door to Professor Parker’s office opens and he pokes his head out, dark eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Was that Gwen Stacy?” He asks a startled Peter, tilting his head. “Peter Parker? Are you here for office hours?”
“Uh, yeah.” Peter manages to respond semi-intelligently even though his brain may have short circuited at the sight of his Professor. “Yeah, that was Gwen. She had a science emergency.”
“Yeah, I’ve had my fair share of those.” Professor Parker shakes his head with a fond smile. Peter’s heart leaps to his throat. “Do you want to come in?”
It takes Peter an extra second for his mind to register the invitation and before he can talk himself out of it, he hears himself mumble.“Sure.”
Professor Parker’s office is nice and much cozier than many of the other professors’ offices he’s been in. He has a keen eye for details — rejecting the overhead fluorescent lights in favor of a soft lamp that gives the room a warm amber glow. Along the wall, he has a tall bookshelf filled with books, a coffee table with science magazines and a hot water kettle, and most importantly, a lumpy and comfortable looking gray couch. Peter tries not to imagine him moving the couch into the space all by himself, all sweaty and-
“Do you want some tea or coffee?”
“Um,” Peter hopes he doesn’t look like a deer in headlights; he totally wasn’t imagining his professor all hot and sweaty, wha t? He nods a little too enthusiastically and remembers to actually respond. “Yeah, coffee.”
Professor Parker gives him a lopsided smile, one that highlights just how deep and blue his eyes are, and it makes Peter’s stomach flip flop. “You’re in luck! I just brewed a pot. Cream or sugar?”
“Neither. I’m a plain cup of joe kind of guy.” Peter tries to give his words a jaunty little lilt to ease his anxiety, but finds himself quickly regretting it. He’s not exactly a bubbly and perky person and the words seem entirely wrong coming out of him. Come on Peter, pull yourself together, man.
The professor hands him a chipped blue mug before gesturing to the couch. “Did I hear Gwen say something about question 5 on the problem set?”
“Ah, yeah,” Peter gulps the hot coffee a little too quickly, eager to do something to dispel the one sided awkwardness. “She, um, we, I guess, were having trouble with it.”
“Alright, well let’s talk it out. You want to show me your thought process so far on the board?” The older man gestures to the white board that takes up the other wall.
Peter braces himself because he hasn’t exactly gotten this far in the problem set and he’s already terrified of looking like an idiot in front of his professor. He rummages through his backpack, suddenly grateful with Gwen because she had the foresight to slip her homework in with his at some point in the morning. What an evil genius.
He starts off shakily: he’s confident he’s got the right products for each substrate and is ready to start working out binding energies when he realizes something is wrong. The math isn’t mathing in Gwen’s work and he feels a wicked sort of glee — he knows something Gwen doesn’t!
He turns to Professor Parker, a triumphant smile on his face, “I think I got it!” He lets out a chuckle because trust his over-caffeinated brain to suddenly work when faced with the pressure of messing up in front of his handsome professor.
Professor Parker looks over his work and gives him an equally radiant smile. “That’s perfect! Do you want to keep going? I’m curious to see how you approach the next part.”
If Peter were a betting man, he would know to quit while he was ahead. However, he feels an intense need to show off for his Professor, to prove how smart and deserving of praise he is. “Sure! Let’s see…activation barriers…activation barriers.” His mind blinks back to last week’s lesson and he hesitantly starts his calculations.
He gets through most of them when he gets the same feeling that something is wrong and takes a step back. Almost on autopilot, he begins biting his nail as his mind whirs in circles trying to figure out where he went wrong.
“Here, let me.” He hears Professor Parker shift behind him and momentarily feels his hand on the small of his back and then on his bicep as he moves around him to get to the board. “See this — this is where you went wrong.” He circles Peter’s numbers and begins writing around them, explaining his reasoning while Peter only half listens, skin still tingling from his professor’s hands.
There’s something remarkable about seeing Professor Parker enthusiastically explain substrates and Michaelis–Menten kinetics just to him. Peter feels a certain tenderness at seeing Professor Parker’s unabashed love for biochemistry in full display.
Professor Parker seems to realize that he’s pretty much finished the rest of the problem for Peter and turns back around, a bashful blush spreading over his pale cheeks. “Sorry about that, I just…got carried away I suppose.”
“No, no — I think that’s neat.” Peter reassures him, smiling at the sparkle in the older Peter Parker’s eyes.
“Thank you.” Professor Parker holds his gaze for a second longer than he needs before gesturing to the couch again and sitting on the edge of his desk to look at Peter with gentle eyes. “Before you go, I wanted to ask how you were doing? I don’t want to intrude but I-” He looks up, as if struggling for the words, “I’m good friends with your advisor and he, uh…mentioned that you were in a rough place last year.”
Peter feels his blood run cold. He nods slowly, feeling a little like a cornered dog. Suddenly, the warm feeling he had earlier is replaced by a cold clamminess. He thinks back to the previous semester — the smell of gunpowder, hoarse yelling, and horrid feeling of warm blood between his fingers — before breathing slowly and coming back to Professor Parker’s office.
“Again, I don’t mean to pry or anything, but I just wanted to offer my support. I know that things are…difficult and I went through something similar when I was your age.” Despite the uncertain tone, Professor Parker’s eyes are full of genuine concern and understanding which makes it difficult for Peter to push out a snappy retort. He’s used to the fake sympathy and the walking on eggshells from his professors, but there’s something sincere in this man’s voice.
“Thank you.” He whispers, tightening his jaw and nodding absentmindedly.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” Professor Parker says quietly and plays with his hands. The gesture looks wrong on him; it’s a rare departure from the calm confidence he always exudes and Peter follows the curve of his fingers as his wedding ring glints softly. “I wanted to meet the student who shares my name. It’s silly — it’s not like Peter Parker is particularly unique — but still. You’re one of a kind.”
The compliment lights a tiny fire within Peter and he gives a shy smile to Professor Parker who returns it back. “I hope you come back for office hours. My door’s always open for you, Peter.”