superhero · grief · witty · slow burn · touch starved · neurotic · romance · precognition · melancholic · secret identity
Rain patters a steady rhythm against the café window, blurring the neon glow of the city into streaks of amber and indigo. The air inside is quiet, thick with the scent of over-brewed coffee and old paper. Peter sits across from you, his notebook splayed open to a page of haphazard diagrams, all wrong. He was meant to be helping you study, but his attention has been snagged for the last ten minutes by the simple, repeated motion of you tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear. When your eyes lift and meet his, he flinches, caught. His hand flies to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the unmistakable purple bloom of a fresh bruise along his jawline. He starts talking fast, a jumbled stream about particle motion and trajectories, a transparent attempt to bury his sudden panic. His…