“Hailey,” Peter whined, “why?”
Hailey only snickered and slunk off with her two giggling protégés. Peter sighed and looked down at his soaking wet clothes. He hated being victim to their pranks, but he did -literally- walk right into this one. The only problem, he though as he shivered, was they used ice water and he doesn’t thermoregulate anymore.
Peter slunk off to Ned’s room where he had a change of clothes in his bag. It was First Friday and Peter always slept over at the Leed’s apartment to help with clean up from the restaurant and to have movie night with Ned.
After changing, Peter made his way to the bathroom to wring out his clothes and leave them to dry. However, he was still ice cold , and shivering, causing him to maybe-kinda-sorta-accidentally rip his shirt in half.
“Dammit,” he muttered, voice shaking with his chattering jaw. “That was my only restaurant shirt left.”
Forcing back any emotions, Peter hung his jeans to dry without ringing them out and threw away the shirt. The bathroom, he decided, was much too cold for him at the moment, and so was the hallway. He made his way back to Ned’s room and grabbed for the first hoodie he could find. It may have swamped him, but it was warm from sitting on top of the computer fan (something that Ned really should know better than to do). Still trying to warm up, and starting to feel very sleepy, Peter crawled into the mound of blankets at the end of Ned’s bed.
Some time later, when he was still half-asleep, he felt a hand nudge at his shoulder.
“Peter, Peter, come on dude, wake up.” The hand moved to cup his face and pulled away in shock at the cold skin. Peter wailed at the loss of the warm hand and reached a sweater paw hand out for the warmth. He cried more when it seemed like whoever it was was going to take away his blankets, but sighed when something warm settled under the blankets with him. He cuddled closer and soon fell back asleep to fingers carding through his still damp hair.
Whispers woke Peter from a dream of escaping from a burning ice cream factory.
“Ned? Have you seen Peter?”
“Shhh, yeah. He’s right here.” Peter felt the soft rumble from his best friend’s voice. “He was cold as ice when I found him. I have a feeling Hailstorm and her apprentices forgot one of the only rules in our prank war.”
“Oh, is he okay?”
“He‘ll be fine as soon as he warms up enough, which should be soon.” Peter’s pillow heaved a sigh and Peter cuddled closer, ready to fall back to sleep as fingers began carding through his hair again.
“You know-”
“Mom, no.”
“You should really tell him how you feel.”
“I can’t lose my best friend, mom. Besides he’s not even into me. Why would he be?”
“Edward Leeds, are you degrading my favorite oldest son?”
“Mom, I’m your only eldest son.”
“Ned.”
“Mom.”
There was the sound of footsteps and some ruffling as the bed dipped. Peter grumbled a whine and shifted against his pillow, just wanting to go back to his normal dream, not this weird one.
“Ned, you’re amazing. No- listen to me. I may be biased as your mother, but there’s so much to love about you. You’re kind, you’re funny, you’re so, so smart. When you love something you don’t do halves, and you’re passionate about so many things. Even if Peter doesn’t feel the same way, you’re not gonna lose him as your best friend. But I doubt he’ll reject you, because the little eavesdropper looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky. Now, I expect you both to be downstairs in the next hour to help with clean-up, so don’t hold up here much longer, got it?”
There was a loud smacking noise followed by a small complaint before Peter felt a soft kiss on his forehead and heard a whisper in his ear. “Break my boys heart, and not even your being Spider-man can save you.”
Peter furrowed his brow and decided he’d had enough of this dream and nosed his way closer to his pillow, squeezing it tight, wishing it was Ned.
“Pete, Peter, can’t- breathe.”
Peter jumped away and took in his surroundings. “Shit, shit, sorry, I-”
“Peter, it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to squeeze my ribs. He’ll, you probably didn’t even know you were hugging me. That’s my bad, I thought the easiest way to help you warm up would be body heat.”
“Oh,” Peter slumped, grabbing the sweater around him and pulling it closer. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make y-”
“Peter, it’s fine, dude. What happened anyway?”
“I, uh, walked into an ice bucket trap, got doused, and then got more buckets of ice water thrown at me?”
“I’m gonna kill Hailey. One rule,” he mutters as he begins to shuffle off his bed. “I gave them one rule for the prank war-”
Peter grabbed for Ned’s arm. “I thought there were no rules for the prank war? We literally the named it the AFI-LAW prank war.”
Ned turned away blushing, but not before Peter saw.
“Ned?”
“I told them they couldn’t do anything to make you super cold.”
“Why? It’s not gonna kill me if they do. I just might have to sleep for a bit til I warm up.”
“BecausetheyknowthatIlikeyouandthatyourecuddlywhenyourecoldandtheyshipustogethereventhoughItoldthemthatImnotgonnaforcemyfeelingsonyou-“
“Dude, breathe.”
“Sorry.”
They sat in silence for another minute before Peter sat up straight. “Wait, that conversation between you and your mom- that wasn’t a dream?”
“No, I’m sorry I can leave you alone if you need to think about-”
“So if that wasn’t a dream- Ned did you tell your family I’m Spider-man?”
“No! I may be horrible at keeping secrets but I didn’t tell them, man!”
“Well shit, they know anyway. Wait- hold on, back up. Why would you leave me alone to think about the conversation between you and your mom?”
“Because we talked about how I like you?”
“Well, yeah dude, I like you too.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, you’re my best bud.” I wish you were more than that.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They lapsed into silence.
“We should probably get down-”
“FOR THE LOVE OF LOKI, IF YALL DONT ADMIT YOU WANNA DATE I WILL SHAVE YOUR HEADS.”
Peter and Ned stared in shock at the door that was rebounding back towards Hailey, only stopped from hitting her face by her foot still being held in the air from kicking open the door.
“I-? What? Why would Ned wanna date me?”
“Please, you guys ask each other out on dates every week , but you refuse to admit it. So, please, get a clue, because the twins are already deciding how short to make your hair.”
Peter looked at Ned who resolutely looked away. How to get him to turn around? “Ned?”
“Yeah, wassup?”
“Do you wanna hang out on Monday?”
“Sure, we can watch Star Wars ag-oomf.” Peter tackled Ned as soon as he could see his face. Peter squished his cheeks and stared him in the eyes, a slight tilt to his lips.
“Ned, do you wanna go on a date with me on Monday?”
“FINALLY! MINIONS! PUT AWAY THE SHAVE KIT!”
“I- Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”