#it's also interwebs instead of parkner!! bc i love interwebs and need to write more than the same ship over and over again dfjgokdfand

[thompsborn]

Hot, trip, and/or source for the wip word guessing game

hot - from a super angsty post endgame one shot i've been writing slowly where tony lives and no one really knows how to adapt back into peter being there after five years of him being gone

Peter drops his bags on the floor, sits heavily on the bed, and misses when it was easier. Misses lab days and sleepovers at the tower and Lego sets and movie marathons and being happy, being whole. He misses the bad nights when May would lay with him, or when Tony would make hot chocolate, or he would be able to send a simple text and get an immediate call in response, just to check on him, to make sure. Any wince was always met with a concerned question. Any denial for food was met with worry. Any sign that Peter might be upset, or hurt, or unwell—they made sure he was okay. They always did. They paid attention and they reacted accordingly and they assured him they did so because they wanted to.

But they don’t seem to want to anymore. They haven’t tried. He isn’t sure if they ever will again.

trip - also from the angsty one shot

He raises his hand, curls into a fist, and brings it forward to—

—fall through the air and back to his side as the door swings open before he’s able to properly knock. For a moment, he just blinks, confused, before looking down, down, down—until his eyes land on a little girl, peering up at him curiously, her head titled, hair braided back, a Monsters Inc dress on. “Uh.”

“You’re…” the little girl trails off, her features scrunching up in deep thought, before she brightens suddenly and beams. “You’re Peter! Daddy said you’d be here! He’s showed me pictures of you!”

Confusion clouds Peter’s mind, sudden and overwhelming. “I—I, um—”

The girl grabs his hand and pulls him into the house. “C’mon! Daddy and Harley are makin’ lunch!”

“I don’t—” Peter trips over himself, stumbles after her as she excitedly pulls him along. He has no clue what’s going on right now, doesn’t know who this is, doesn’t recognize the name Harley, doesn’t have a single idea about what’s happening or how to handle it. He just follows her, tries to keep from falling in the process (his balance has been a bit wonky, too, since coming back; it’s like his abilities have been put on slow mode, not gone, per se, but not as prominent or as helpful as they used to be). “Where are—?”

source - again from the one shot lmao oops

Peter breathes. It’s hard to do it right, he finds, but he doesn’t worry about that. Just inhales, holds it, and lets it out—once, then twice, then a third time, again and again until Morgan appears in the doorway, looking at him with wide eyes that look just like Tony’s before saying, “Lunch is ready!” and vanishing.

His legs feel weak, but he stands anyway, makes his way out of the room and down the hall, taking the stairs one at a time, cautious for a reason he can’t really explain. There are voices, and laughter, and the smell of grilled cheese wafting in the air, mixing with tomato soup—pleasant, by all counts of logic, yet making Peter want to turn around, to walk away, to run, run, run. He doesn’t know what to do, but he just keeps going forward, ambling out into the living room with trepidation, following the source of the sound.

Within twenty minutes, he wishes he never agreed to come here.

He wishes he never came back. Never left at all. Never returned. Was always here, or never was. Maybe he was better off as a memory, as someone to think back on fondly and not have to worry about in the present, not have to be a burden or take up space in a house he doesn’t belong in. He wishes he didn’t have to be in this room, right here and right now, watching the way that Tony so effortlessly talks with Morgan, so seamlessly and happily jokes with Harley, and yet still stutters whenever his eyes fall on Peter, as if forgetting and remembering every time. He wishes he wasn’t a hiccup in their usual routine.

He wishes he wasn’t the odd one out. The resurrected outlier. The reminder. Remainder. Outsider.

There are many words, labels, phrases more fitting. Simply put, someone who belongs isn’t one of them.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co