ii. Denial.

It's late and I'm feeling so tired
Having trouble sleeping.
This constant compromise
Between thinking and breathing.

Could it be I'm suffering
Because I'll never give in?
Won't say that I'm falling in love.

Trouble Sleeping by Corrine Bailey Ray

How Peter Parker gets himself into these situations, he doesn't know. The criminal he is currently fighting isn't backing down and he is a strong, powerful man, towering above Peter by a few inches. His arms are nearly the size of Peter's head (he'll admit, he may be overstating slightly) andwhen Peter punches the man in the chest, it's like hitting a solid brick wall (okay, he's definitely understating here).

Peter had began with hand to hand combat, yet realised fast that that wasn't helping him. So, he has began to move quicker, as he also realised that speed is not this man's forte. Peter moves gracefully, wrists flying in front of him, trapping the man's hands together, yet the criminal snaps the artificial web with ease.

Peter knows he's being a lot sloppier tonight; he's exhausted, as the previous night he had spent rescuing most of the tenants at a burning apartment building, and it's taken its toll on him. Not only that, but his college professor has been busting his ass for turning up late to every seminar and sometimes completely missing all of one. His papers are another story completely.

He's been taking more and more photographs for the Daily Bugle, or more specifically, for the unimpressed J.J Jameson. His pay stresses him, as his pay check can vary depending on what Jameson thinks his photos are worth. Not only that, but now every time Peter places a camera strategically and swings towards it as it snaps a picture, he hears Willa's voice in his head say,

"You know you're just taking some seriously well planned selfies, right? Then selling them? You never fail to amuse me, Parker."

He had shook his head with an amused expression and told her to shut her cake hole, but still, he hears that voice every single time. It's rather distracting when he's trying to take a decent photograph without thinking of it as a 'selfie'.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand.

Peter is exhausted. This criminal is enormous. He really just wants to sleep.

Willa, on the other hand, is lying on her couch under the dim, glowing light of the lamp by her head. She is painting her nails a dark purple whilst glancing at the television screen in her small apartment.

"Rule one about Fight Club," Brad Pitt's character drawls on the screen.

"Don't talk about Fight Club," a voice says across the room and Willa jumps up with a scream, nail polish flying across her leggings and on to the floor.

She shoots her head up towards the corner of the room, to see an unmasked Peter Parker climbing through her window. Damn, she really thought she'd locked that. She was trying to get him to use the door.

Willa clutches her hand to her chest and sighs deeply.

"Look what you did!" she yells at him as he walks closer and peers at what she is referring to. The purple liquid is already drying on her leggings but the damage to her floor still looks fixable.

She sits up off the couch the same time Peter drops to the sofa, the material sagging under his weight, his body molding to fit. It's a damn comfortable couch. He puts his legs up where Willa had previously sat as she grabs a damp cloth from the kitchen with lightning speed and wipes up the nail polish with vigour.

"My bad Wills. Sorry," Peter mumbles, throwing an arm across his eyes. Willa doesn't reply verbally, but rather rolls her eyes and smiles, but he doesn't see due to him blocking his own vision.

As she walks back into the kitchen, she calls out to him. "Parker, you better not be bleeding. I swear if you're bleeding on my couch I'll make you clean it up before I help clean you up." She pauses for a moment, walking back over to him. "Wait. That sounded wrong. You know what I mean."

Peter merely lifts the arm from his eyes and grins. It makes him look about ten years old, Willa thinks. It's adorable.

"It doesn't feel like I'm bleeding. No cuts today, I don't think."

Willa raises an eyebrow regardless and sits on top of his legs. "Sit up and lemme see!"

Peter complies, groggily rolling his upper body from the arm of the couch, leaning an arm behind her head on the back of the couch. "I'm fine Wills. Just super tired. Honestly."

Willa ignores him and checks his hairline for any cuts or bruises. She notices a slight bruise against his temple and brushes against it lightly. Peter hisses lowly from the shock of her cold hand against him and the slight pressure on the bruise.

"'I'm fine' my ass Parker," she says, smiling as he tries to push her hand away and stop her from fussing over him. "I'll get you an ice pack. Do you want some of your clothes to change into? I washed them with fabric softener and everything," Willa adds with a grin, pushing on his legs to stand herself up. Peter just laughs quietly and lies back down.

"Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice," he replies, as she throws her phone at him. If he was Peter Parker before the spider bite, it would have smacked him in the nose. He looks at her questionably.

"Call your Aunt May. Tell her you're here. Make sure she's okay. You can be awfully forgetful sometimes," she says with a wink and walks out of the room, missing the fond look Peter gives her.

After Peter told her the story of the night his uncle died, and how an argument had started because he had forgotten about picking up May, she always reminds him to call May after swinging around the city. As she's right; when he's tired, he's awfully forgetful and he knows it. He appreciates her telling him to call May when he's like this every single time.

Willa, he thinks, truly is his best friend. She's so calming and he wonders if she realises how sweet the things she does and say are. She cares so much for him and May; they had become family to her in such a short space of time. When Willa first met his Aunt, May cried when she left. Not because she thought she was awful or anything like that. No, it was the smile, no the grin on Peter's face that Willa had created. It was like she had turned on a light. It was something May hadn't seen properly for a long time.

Her boy was happy again, finally.

Peter of course, had to assure Aunt May that they were one hundred percent platonic and nothing more. He cared for her like a friend and they just didn't look at each other like that. Aunt May of course, secretly thinks differently, yet won't say that aloud.

After unlocking Willa's phone (her lock screen this week is a photograph she had forced him to take of her and a cat they had seen outside her grandma's place. The cat was wearing a tiny party hat, in case you were wondering. It wasn't questioned at the time), Peter taps on his Aunt's name and the phone begins to ring. After three-no four- seconds, May picks up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Aunt May. It's me," Peter says into the phone. "Just checking in. Making sure you're okay."

"Oh hello sweetheart. I'm fine. Where are you calling from?"

Peter rubs the side of his head, forgetting about the bruise momentarily and holds back another pain induced hiss. He can't believe he hadn't felt this before. The adrenaline must have been real high.

At that moment, Willa walks back into the room with an ice pack in one hand and a pair of jogging bottoms and a t-shirt in the other. She places the clothes on his lap and hands him the ice pack with a smile. She gestures he give her the phone. He does.

"Hi May!" Willa says happily. "He's with me, don't worry. Uh huh. Yep. I'll make sure he eats something, yeah. Oh really...? Was it busy...? Well, that's good then. Don't push yourself with the shifts though... Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. I'll pass you back over. Sleep well, May." Willa hands him back the phone. Peter is not surprised in the slightest. An exchange like this is a regular occurrence.

"Peter sweetheart, I won't be home tomorrow as I'm going to lunch with some friends then I'm on the late shift. I've put left overs in the fridge in case you get hungry," May explains as soon as Peter puts the phone to his ear.

"Okay, don't worry. I have a class, then I'll be with Willa. What time should I come meet you?"

"I finish at 1AM. But really Peter, if you're out with Willa I'll be fine-,"

"-Please don't Aunt May. I'll be there at 1, okay?" he interrupts. "In fact, I'll be there at 12:55." He hears May sigh but knows she won't argue. The streets are way too dangerous for him to let her walk alone. He made that mistake once already.

"Okay sweetheart. Are you coming home tonight?" Peter glanced at the clock on the wall. 12:03AM.

"I'll just crash here. Will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Take care Peter. Sleep well," May says, her voice soft and full of love. "I love you." He smiles.

"I love you too Aunt May. Bye," he says and the call ends.

He only then realises that the ice pack is melting in his hand and he presses it against his temple and groans. Willa hears this, and pops her head around the door of the kitchen. "What's wrong?"

Peter shakes his head, sitting up. "Nothing. My head just hurts."

"What does the other guy-or girl- look like?" She has now moved to lean against the door frame.

"I barely got a scratch on him. He was huge. However I stunned him enough to trap him in a few webs and get him arrested," Peter explains, standing up with a grip on the ice pack and the fresh clothes in his hand. They smell like lavender.

"Girl sure does love her purple," Aunt May always says.

"Nice work, Spider-Man," she says with a proud grin. He grins cheekily back.

"Thanks smart-ass," he answers in a goofy voice, and goes to get changed in her bathroom. When Peter comes back into the room, Willa is lounging on the sofa again with a plastic container full of some amazing smelling pasta in it. He sits down next to her, pulling her legs over his lap as she passes him a fork.

As they eat the pasta together (which is chicken and bacon, by the way) and sip lemonade (the only beverage Willa had in her fridge unless they drank water all night), Peter tells her about his day, and briefly explains his night. He doesn't want her to worry. Willa in fact, does the exact same; however, she is much more interested in what he's been up to the past few hours and it is blatantly obvious how much he is shortening the story down.

As it gets late into the night (or morning, if you wanna be specific), their conversation gets sleepy and quiet, as they discuss things closer to their hearts; science and art. Willa tells Peter about this gallery opening she's excited about and a new artist she has discovered, how she is dying to start using their work as inspiration for her own; that's what artists do.

Peter in turn adds comparisons to photography and how he has been taking a lot more photos recently. Willa rambles on about philosophy, another great interest of hers and a new novel she found at a second-hand book store about the Cosmological Argument.

Peter, in turn, tells her about the paper he's writing for his physics class, and even answers her questions about the science side of the Cosmological Argument, which leads them to talking about the universe and the stars and just general astronomy, Peter explaining with enthusiasm, simpling things down slightly when Willa gives him her 'say what now?' look.

However, as they struggle to keep their eyes open, Willa pats Peter on the chest and pulls herself from the sofa, sliding her legs from his lap. She gathers various blankets and pillows from an airing cupboard and they pull out the sofa to turn it into a bed, moving the table as they do.

When the bed is hazardously yet comfortably cosy, Peter immediately throws himself into the midst of it, climbing under the covers and rubbing his eyes. Willa shuts off all the lights, locks the windows and checks the door, before walking over to the made up bed where her best friend is about to fall into slumber.

"Night night Parker," she whispers in the dark and plants an exaggerated kiss on top of his head. "Don't let the bed bugs bite," she adds, ruffling his hair as he laughs lightly, shoving his face into the pillow.

"Night Smart-Ass," he mumbles and he hears her chuckle, her feet padding against the carpet as she walks. "Love you!" Peter whisper-shouts, in an amused sort of way, so quick that it was like a well known reflex.

He hears her footsteps halt though, only the sound of her breathing through the darkness. He wonders if he'd gone too far, that maybe she'd find it strange. Willa is usually the one who jokingly adds a 'love ya!' to the end of a phone conversation or when they say goodbye. He knows she means it in a best friend affectionate kind of way. But he's never said it to her; he's always felt- in a wrong sort of way- guilty. He shouldn't- because he didn't mean it like that, right?- but he did.

Finally, breaking him from his mini internal crisis, she answers, in true Willa style.

"I love you too, weirdo."

Because she does. Willa does love Peter. Peter loves Willa. They're best friends. They should love each other. They don't need to be romantically involved to love one another. Completely platonic. Platonic, affectionate kind of love.

They're not in love with one another.

They just love each other.

Well, that's what Willa whispers to herself as she sits on the edge of her bed, in the dark, in complete silence, as said best friend sleeps in the other room.

"I'm not in love with him. I just love him," she whispers, then shakes her head and slaps the side of it lightly for good measure. "Get a grip Willa," she adds, before slamming her head down on her pillow, and throws the comforter over her body

It's almost as though she's trying to convince herself.

In the living room, Peter Parker is having the exact same internal meltdown. It's different for him though; it's a different kind of guilt. He knows Gwen would kill him if she were here and knows he is only feeling bad over potential feelings for another woman (he's not saying he has them, just merely pondering the thought).

Then there's always the guilt of having potential feelings for Willa and completely ruining a friendship that is basically one of his lifelines.

I'm not in love with her. I just love her, he's saying over and over in his head until the words blur into nothing. He will not ruin their friendship. It's just easier to pretend.

Deny, deny, deny.

It's almost as though he's definitely trying to convince himself.

A/N:

This is short I know, considering how long ago I actually uploaded this series of encounters between Peter and Willa. But I wrote this one evening when inspiration struck. Remember these are one shots/short stories between my OC and Peter and it is not a continuous. Just random scenes that I write when I feel inspired. So you can request me to write a scene for them or even give me a little idea/prompt for a scene.

I've been given a couple of prompts and requests for my OC and Peter already, one which I will be uploading very soon. Thank you for reading!

xox