#tasm!spiderman

you're not thinking about him. you've gotten good at that; at not thinking about him. 

you've built entire routines around the absence of peter parker. you don't watch the news anymore. 

you don't look up when sirens pass. you've deleted every alert from your phone that might tell you something you can't unknow.

you're fine. you're surviving. at least that's what you tell yourself.

and then the train on the parallel track pulls up alongside yours.

just a flash. two layers of scratched, grimy glass. brown hair. a gray hoodie with the hood down despite the cold. shoulders you've mapped with your hands, with your lips, with tears you never wanted him to see.

peter.

your body knows before your mind catches up. your heart doesn't skip — it detonates. a full-body concussion of adrenaline that slams through your chest and leaves your fingers tingling. your spine snaps straight. your hand flies up, palm pressing flat against the cold window. it's involuntary, a reflex you haven't been able to kill even after all these months.

he's thinner. you can tell even through the hoodie. the hollows of his cheeks are sharper. there's a bruise fading along his jaw. his eyes are fixed on something in the middle distance.

that thousand-yard stare he gets when he's replaying every person he couldn't save.

your mouth opens. his name forms on your tongue. it would be so easy. one syllable. peter. you could shout it. you could bang on the glass. you could —

the other train pulls ahead. the tunnel swallows him whole.

and you're left staring at your own reflection. gaunt. exhausted. 

hand still pressed to the window like a child reaching for something they can't have.

the woman next to you shifts away, uncomfortable. you can’t blame her.

your hand drops. your heart is still hammering, but beneath the adrenaline, something else is settling in. something cold and queasy and deeply, profoundly shameful.

relief.

you're relieved he didn't see you.

not because you don't love him. god, you love him. you love him so much it's ruined you for anything else. you love him like a sickness you can't shake, like a scar that won't fade.

but loving peter parker meant watching him die in slow motion. 

every night. every fight. every time he crawled through that window bleeding and laughed it off like his body was a tool he didn't care about breaking. and you were expected to just... hold the bandages. kiss the bruises. pretend it didn't kill you a little bit every single time.

you couldn't do it anymore.

so you left.

and now you see him on a train and your first feeling isn't longing. it's thank god i don't have to watch him bleed tonight.

the train lurches toward your stop. you grab your bag and you walk home on legs that feel like someone else's.

you don't cry until you're in the shower, where the water can wash the evidence away.

the first time you saw him really hurt, really broken, you threw up.

it was four months into the relationship. he'd told you about spider-man early — said he couldn't lie to you, couldn't keep you in the dark. you'd accepted it. you'd thought you understood what you were signing up for.

you didn't understand anything.

he came through the window at two in the morning with his suit shredded at the ribs and blood soaking through the fabric in a spreading dark stain. he was trying to smile, trying to make a joke — "you should see the other guy" — but his voice was thin and reedy and his face was the color of old paper.

you got him to the bathroom. you cut the suit off because he couldn't lift his arms. underneath, his torso was a ruin of purple-black bruises, and along his ribs there was a gash — deep and ugly, edges gaping, blood welling up thick and dark.

"it's not as bad as it looks," he said.

your hands were shaking so hard you dropped the gauze twice. "you need a hospital."

"no hospitals. they ask questions."

"peter—"

"i've had worse. seriously. this is nothing. just— the butterfly strips are in the cabinet, and there's a suture kit under the sink—"

"you have a suture kit."

he had the grace to look sheepish. "for emergencies."

"this is an emergency?"

"this is a tuesday."

you threw up in the sink. right there, while he watched, while blood dripped onto the bathroom tile. you heaved until there was nothing left, and then you rinsed your mouth with shaking hands and turned back to him.

his eyes were wet. not from pain — from guilt. "i'm sorry," he whispered. "i'm sorry, i shouldn't have come here, i should've just—"

"don't." your voice came out like broken glass. "don't you dare apologize for letting me help you. don't you dare."

you stitched him up with hands that steadied through sheer force of will. you cleaned the blood off his skin, gentle where the bruises bloomed. you helped him to bed and lay beside him, listening to his breathing, terrified that if you fell asleep it would stop.

in the morning, he kissed your forehead and said, "see? all better."

the bruises took two weeks to fade.

he was already collecting new ones by day four.

three weeks. maybe four. time has gone slippery since you left.

peter's at a twenty-four-hour supermarket in queens at one in the morning because aunt may needs eggs.

he's wearing sweatpants and the hoodie you used to steal. it still smells like you. or maybe he's imagining it. maybe he's been imagining it for so long that he can't tell the difference anymore.

tonight was bad. not the fighting — the fighting was easy. the fighting was the only part of his life that still made sense. no, tonight was bad because he got hit. a clean shot to the ribs from a guy with a steel pipe and something to prove. peter could have dodged it. he saw it coming. he had time.

he didn't move.

he doesn't know why. or he does know why, and he's not ready to look at it. so he took the hit, and he felt his ribs creak, and he finished the fight, and now he's here buying eggs with a fresh bruise spreading under his hoodie and something loose and rattling inside his chest.

he grabs the eggs. he grabs milk he won't drink. he's stalling. walking the aisles of this aggressively bright supermarket because going home means sitting alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts have teeth.

he turns into the cereal aisle and his heart stops.

you.

twenty feet away. holding a box of cheerios. frowning at the ingredients like they've personally offended you. your hair is different — shorter, he thinks, though he's scared he's forgetting what you looked like before. you're wearing the coat he bought you for your birthday, the blue one with the frayed cuff. there are circles under your eyes so dark they look like bruises.

he did that. he knows he did that. the weight of it settles in his gut like a stone.

his body reacts before his brain can catch up. his pulse kicks into overdrive. his fingers clench around the egg carton — too hard. he feels the shells give, a wet crunch, yolk seeping through cardboard. he doesn't look down.

because you haven't seen him yet, and he has a choice.

he could leave. right now. he could put the broken eggs on a shelf and walk out the automatic doors and let you live your life without the complication of him. that would be the right thing. the good thing. the thing a hero would do.

peter parker has never known how to do the right thing when it comes to you.

his feet move. he doesn't tell them to. they just... carry him forward, down the aisle, closer to you. he's in your peripheral vision now. he sees the shift in your posture, the slight tension in your shoulders, the animal awareness of being watched.

you look up.

your eyes meet his.

and peter parker, who has been thrown through walls and dropped off buildings and beaten within an inch of his life more times than he can count — peter parker feels something inside him crack wide open.

the third fight was the one that ended it.

it was three in the morning. he'd come home — home, your apartment, the one place in the world that still felt safe — with his left arm hanging wrong. dislocated shoulder. he'd popped it back in himself, on a rooftop in hell's kitchen, biting down on his glove to keep from screaming. but something was still wrong with it. it didn't move right. it clicked when he rotated it.

you were awake. of course you were awake. you were always awake now, sitting at the kitchen table with cold coffee and eyes that looked like they'd forgotten how to close.

"what happened." not a question. an exhaustion.

"nothing. i'm fine."

"your arm."

"it's just—"

"don't say it's nothing. don't you dare say it's nothing."

he stopped. he stood in the middle of the living room, still in the suit, mask clutched in his good hand, and he looked at you. really looked. the way you were gripping the edge of the table. the way your jaw was clenched so tight he could see the muscle jumping. the way your eyes were dry, because you'd cried so much over him that there was nothing left.

"okay," he said quietly. "it's not nothing. it's my shoulder. i dislocated it."

"again."

"again."

you stood up. slow, deliberate, like a bomb being defused. "that's the third time this month."

"i heal fast, it's fine—"

"you heal wrong." your voice cracked on the word. "you heal wrong and you don't care. you don't get it checked out, you don't rest, you don't even tape it properly. you just— you keep going. you keep throwing yourself at things that could kill you, and you don't care."

"of course i care—"

"no." the word was a gunshot. "no, peter. you care about other people. you care about the city. you care about strangers on the street. but you don't care about yourself. you treat your body like it's a tool you can just keep using until it breaks, and you don't care what that does to the people who love you."

"i'm fine. i'm always fine."

"you're not fine!"

the words ripped out of you, raw and ragged, and peter flinched like you'd hit him. you were shaking. your whole body was shaking, vibrating with a fury and a fear and a grief you'd been swallowing for months.

"you're not fine," you said again, quieter but no less devastating. "you come home bleeding and you say it's nothing. you come home with broken ribs and you say it's nothing. you dislocate your shoulder so many times you can't lift your arm above your head anymore and you say it's nothing. you have a suture kit under my sink, peter. you have a suture kit in my apartment. do you understand how insane that is? do you understand what it's like to be me? to love someone who treats their own life like it doesn't matter?"

"it matters," he whispered. "of course it matters."

"then why don't you act like it?"

silence. the refrigerator hummed. outside, a car alarm went off and died.

peter's shoulder was throbbing. his ribs ached where the bruises were still fading from last week. there was a cut on his thigh he'd sealed with superglue because he didn't want you to have to stitch another wound. he thought about telling you that. he thought about showing you the scars, all of them, the map of damage he'd accumulated in the years since a spider bite turned him into something less than human and more than a martyr.

but what would that prove? you were right. of course you were right. he didn't care about himself. he couldn't afford to. caring meant hesitating, and hesitating meant people died. uncle ben died because he hesitated. gwen died because he wasn't fast enough, wasn't good enough, wasn't enough. if he started treating his body like it mattered, like it was precious, like it was worth preserving — he'd slow down. and people would die.

better him than them. better his body broken than another innocent person buried.

he couldn't explain that to you. he'd tried, a hundred times, and the words always came out wrong. they sounded like a death wish when they left his mouth, even though he didn't want to die. he just... didn't care if he did.

and that was worse, wasn't it?

"i don't know how," he said finally. his voice was very small. "i don't know how to stop. i don't know how to care about myself when there are people out there who need me. i know it hurts you. i know. and i hate myself for it. but i don't know how to be different."

you stared at him for a long time. your anger had burned itself out, leaving something worse behind: despair.

"i'm not asking you to stop being spider-man," you said. "i'm asking you to stop trying to die."

"i'm not—"

"you are. maybe not consciously. maybe you don't wake up and think 'i hope tonight is the night.' but you fight like someone who doesn't expect to come home. you take hits you could dodge. you don't rest. you don't heal. you just keep throwing yourself into danger like your life is a currency you're trying to spend before someone takes it from you."

he couldn't meet your eyes.

"i can't watch it anymore," you whispered. "i can't sit in this apartment every night wondering if this is the time you don't get up. i can't keep finding blood in the bathroom sink. i can't keep stitching you up and pretending i'm okay when every single time i feel like i'm dying."

"then don't." the words came out before he could stop them. "don't watch. don't wait. don't stitch me up. i'm not your responsibility."

you recoiled like he'd slapped you. "is that what you think this is? responsibility?"

"i don't know. i don't know what this is anymore. i just know i'm hurting you and i can't stop. i can't be what you need me to be. i'm trying — god, i'm trying — but i'm not... i'm not built for this. i'm not built to be careful. i'm not built to come home safe. every time i try, someone gets hurt. someone dies. i can't—"

his voice broke. he pressed his good hand to his eyes, hard, trying to push the tears back in.

you didn't come to him. you always came to him, before. you'd hold him and tell him it was okay and stroke his hair until the shaking stopped. but this time you just stood there, arms wrapped around yourself, face a mask of grief.

"i love you," you said. "i love you so much it's destroying me. and you don't love yourself enough to stop."

"that's not—"

"prove me wrong." your voice was barely a whisper now. "please, peter. prove me wrong. stay home tonight. rest. let your shoulder heal. just one night. that's all i'm asking. one night where you choose yourself. choose us."

he wanted to. god, he wanted to. he wanted to take off the suit and crawl into bed and hold you until the sun came up. he wanted to be the kind of person who could do that.

but somewhere in the city, a siren wailed. and peter felt it in his bones — the pull, the duty, the sick compulsion. 

someone was in trouble. someone needed him. if he stayed here, if he rested, if he chose himself, and someone died because of it... he wouldn't survive that either.

you saw the answer on his face before he said it. your expression crumbled.

"okay," you said. "okay."

"y/n—"

"no, i understand. i've always understood. that's the problem." you picked up your coffee cup, cold and half-empty, and poured it down the sink.

 "i understand that you will always choose the mask over yourself. and i understand that i will always choose you over me. and one of us has to stop."

"what are you saying?"

"i'm saying i can't do this anymore. i can't love you and watch you die at the same time. it's killing me, peter. you're killing me, and you don't even see it."

he crossed the room. he reached for you with his good arm, and you let him, and he pulled you against his chest — careful of the bruises, always careful of the bruises you could see but never the ones you couldn't. you were crying now, silent and shaking, and he held you like you were the last solid thing in a world that was crumbling.

"i'm sorry," he whispered into your hair. "i'm so sorry."

"i know."

"i love you."

"i know that too."

he left when the siren wailed again. he couldn't not. that was the tragedy of it — he loved you more than he'd ever loved anyone, and it still wasn't enough to override whatever broken thing inside him made his own life feel expendable.

when he came back, hours later, with fresh blood on his knuckles and a new ache in his ribs, the apartment was empty. your keys were on the counter. your closet was bare.

and peter sat on the floor of the living room, still in the suit, and didn't move until the sun came up.

peter doesn't leave the supermarket.

he stands there with yolk dripping through his fingers and a carton of crushed eggs in his hand, and he can't make his legs move in either direction. forward is you — beautiful and tired and alive, so alive, standing right there in the cereal aisle like a miracle he doesn't deserve. backward is the exit, the cold night, the empty apartment, the rest of his life without you in it.

his chest is a riot. every heartbeat slams against his ribs — the bruised ones, the ones that still ache from the pipe he didn't dodge. he thinks about telling you that. he thinks about crossing the distance and lifting his hoodie and showing you the fresh damage, the proof that you were right, that he hasn't changed, that he's still the same self-destructive disaster you walked away from.

see? he imagines saying. see? you made the right choice. i'm still bleeding. i'm still breaking. you got out just in time.

but he doesn't say anything. he just stares at you, and you stare back, and the fluorescent lights buzz overhead like a countdown.

his feet carry him forward. step by step. he rounds the corner of the shelf. he's close enough now to see the details — the chapped skin of your lips, the way you're gripping the cereal box so hard the cardboard is buckling, the tiny scar above your eyebrow from the time he came through the window too fast and knocked over a lamp and you dove to catch it and —

he stops. he's close enough to touch you. he doesn't.

your eyes are locked on his. he watches the emotions cascade across your face like a storm front. shock first — the full-body jolt of it, the way your lips part and your eyes go wide. then recognition, intimate and terrible. then pain, raw and unguarded, the kind of pain he used to see on victims' faces before he learned to look away.

and then the wall.

he watches you build it, brick by brick, in real time. your expression smooths over. your jaw tightens. your eyes go flat and careful, and you look at him like he's a stranger, like you didn't spend a year memorizing every scar on his body, like you didn't once hold him while he sobbed and promised you'd never leave.

you set down the cereal box.

and peter feels his face crumple. he can't stop it. he's spider-man — he's taken punches from people who could crush concrete — and he can't keep his face from falling apart in the cereal aisle of a twenty-four-hour supermarket. the tears come hot and fast, blurring his vision, spilling down his cheeks, dripping off his jaw.

he's not crying because you're leaving. he's crying because you're right to leave. because nothing has changed. because his ribs are still bruised and his shoulder still clicks when he moves and there's a cut on his thigh that he sealed with superglue two hours ago because he didn't want to deal with stitches.

he's still the same. he's still broken. he's still choosing the mask over himself, over you, over everything that might have made his life worth living.

and you deserve better. you've always deserved better. he knew that the day he met you, and he knows it now, watching you turn your head away.

you don't say his name. he doesn't say yours.

you walk toward the checkout. your back is straight. your shoulders are set. you don't look back, not once, and peter watches you go with yolk drying on his fingers and tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face.

you didn't call out my name.

the thought circles his brain. he holds onto it. he holds onto it like a penance.

for you, the walk to the checkout is the longest journey of your life.

every step feels like wading through water. every instinct in your body is screaming at you to turn around, to run back, to throw yourself into his arms and say i don't care, i don't care if you break yourself, just let me be there when you do.

but you can't. you can't. because you do care. that's the whole problem. you care so much it's carved out something essential inside you, left you hollow and aching and barely functional. you can't go back to the sleepless nights and the blood in the sink and the constant, crushing terror of waiting for a phone call that might never come.

you saw him. you saw the bruise on his jaw. you saw how thin he's gotten. you saw the tears streaming down his face, and god help you, you wanted to wipe them away.

but you also saw that nothing had changed. he was still in the suit. he was still throwing himself at danger. he was still treating his body like a sacrifice, and you couldn't be the person who held the knife anymore.

you pay for your groceries with hands that only shake a little. you push through the automatic doors into the cold night air. the street is empty, glittering with frost under the streetlights.

you make it three steps before your legs give out.

you catch yourself on a lamppost, bags swinging, and you press your forehead to the cold metal and you sob. the ugly kind — gasping and heaving and snotty, the kind you've been holding in for months. you cry for the boy who was too good for this world and too cruel to himself. you cry for the girl who loved him and couldn't save him. you cry for everything you had and everything you lost and everything that could have been if he'd only learned to value his own life half as much as you did.

then you wipe your face, and you pick up your bags, and you walk home alone.

inside the supermarket, peter hasn't moved.

an employee approaches him — a teenager with acne and a name tag that says josh. "uh, sir? are you okay? do you need me to call someone?"

peter looks at him. the kid can't be more than seventeen. he looks terrified. peter realizes, distantly, that he must look insane — a grown man crying in the cereal aisle, holding a carton of crushed eggs, probably bleeding through his hoodie from the wound he didn't bother to stitch properly.

"i'm fine," he says.

the kid doesn't look convinced.

peter sets the eggs on a random shelf. he wipes his hands on his sweatpants. he walks out of the supermarket with his head down and his hood up and his chest a hollow cavity where something vital used to be.

outside, the city is loud and bright and profoundly indifferent to his suffering. he leans against the brick wall and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees stars.

she didn't call out my name.

he doesn't blame you. he's never blamed you. you did the thing he can't do — you chose yourself. 

you chose survival. 

you got out before he dragged you down with him.

he slides down the wall until he's sitting on the cold concrete. his ribs are screaming. his shoulder is a dull, persistent ache. the cut on his thigh has probably reopened; he can feel something wet against his skin. he should go home. he should clean the wound properly, use actual bandages, maybe rest for once in his goddamn life.

a siren wails in the distance. east side. maybe a fire, maybe a robbery, maybe just someone having the worst night of their life.

peter lifts his head.

his face is wet. his body is broken. every rational part of his brain is telling him to go home, to rest, to take care of himself for once.

he gets to his feet.

he pulls his mask from his pocket.

and he swings toward the siren.

because that's what he does. that's the tragedy. that's the whole damn problem.

later; hours later, days later, lifetimes later, you'll both be lying awake in separate beds in separate corners of the same sleepless city.

you'll replay the supermarket. the look on his face. the tears. the way he didn't call out your name either. you'll wonder if that was respect or cowardice or just the same exhaustion you felt. you'll wonder if he's still bleeding somewhere, if he's patched himself up or if he's just letting the wounds close on their own like he always did. you'll want to call him. you'll pick up your phone and put it down again seventeen times before dawn.

and peter, bleeding into sheets he hasn't washed in weeks, will stare at the ceiling and feel every bruise, every ache, every piece of damage he's accumulated. he'll think about what you said — you don't love yourself enough to stop — and he'll wonder if you were right. 

he'll wonder if there's something fundamentally broken in him, something the spider bite couldn't fix. he'll wonder if he'll ever learn to value his own life, or if he'll just keep throwing it away until one day there's nothing left to throw.

neither of you will sleep.

neither of you will call.

and somewhere in the dark, a boy who gave up everything to be a hero will close his eyes and see your face, and he will whisper your name into the silence, and the silence will give him nothing back.

but his hand will drift to his ribs, pressing against the fresh bruise there — pressing hard, harder than necessary — and he'll think, distantly, that the pain is almost comforting.

at least he can still feel something.

at least the broken parts still work.

at least he knows he's still alive.

and somewhere across the city, you'll hug your pillow to your chest and remember the way his arms felt around you — careful, always so careful with you, even when he was so careless with himself. 

and you'll cry, not for the breakup, but for the simple, devastating truth that you couldn't love him into loving himself.

that was always his fight.

and he's still losing.

Three weeks since he stopped sitting next to you in lecture. Three weeks since he stopped coming to your apartment after patrol, bleeding and apologetic, waiting for you to patch him up on your bathroom floor. Three weeks since he stopped answering your texts—not all at once, but slowly, like a faucet dripping dry. Can't make lunch. Rain check. Maybe next week. Then nothing.

You pass the tailor shop on 19th. The one with the old Italian man who always waves at you through the window. You remember the first time you walked past it with Peter, years ago, and you'd stopped to look at the sewing machines in the window. "I could do that," you'd said, meaning the careful stitching, the steady hands. And then, months later, you did—sitting on your bedroom floor at three in the morning, sewing his first Spider-Man suit by hand because he'd shown up at your window with a sketch on notebook paper and a desperate look in his eyes. Your fingers had bled from the needle. He'd apologized a hundred times. You'd told him to shut up and hold the fabric steady.

The Parker house appears at the end of the block. Porch light on. Garden overgrown the way it's been since Uncle Ben died—the rose bushes still blooming every summer even though no one tends them anymore. Flowers in the window boxes. Purple mums that refuse to die even as November closes in.

You stop at the bottom of the porch steps. Your hand goes to your pocket.

Family doesn't have to knock.

May had pressed the key into your palm with both hands, her fingers warm and dry. You'd cried. Peter had found you in the kitchen afterward and pulled you into a hug without saying anything. Held on until you stopped shaking.

The key turns in the lock.

The house is dark. May's knitting on the armchair—a half-finished scarf in deep blue wool. Peter's textbooks on the coffee table. A mug of cold coffee on the side table, half-drunk, abandoned. He always does that. Makes coffee, drinks half, gets distracted by something—a news alert, a text from Ned, an idea for a web fluid improvement—and forgets to finish it.

"Peter?"

Nothing.

You climb the stairs. The fourth step creaks—it's always creaked. You remember the first time you stayed over, years ago, and Peter warned you about it so you wouldn't wake May. You'd stepped on it anyway. May had called out, "Is that you, Y/N?" and you'd frozen like a deer in headlights, and Peter had laughed so hard he nearly fell down the stairs.

Photographs on the wall. Peter as a baby, gap-toothed and grinning. Peter and Uncle Ben on a fishing trip, both sunburned and happy. Peter at graduation, cap slightly askew, May beaming beside him with tears in her eyes.

There's a photo of you, too. Sixteen years old, at the science fair, holding the second-place trophy. His arm around your shoulders. Your arm around his waist. You look happy. You were happy.

His door is closed. You push it open.

The room is exactly the same. Textbooks piled on the desk. Periodic Table poster slightly crooked—it fell down last year and neither of you could find the tape. The science fair trophy still dusty on the bookshelf. You keep meaning to dust it. You keep not doing it.

The photo on his nightstand: you and him, sixteen, grinning.

You sit on the edge of his bed. The mattress dips under your weight, familiar and creaking.

You've sat here a hundred times. While he ranted about exams—gesturing wildly, nearly knocking over his lamp. While he stressed about patrol—some new villain, some close call, some innocent person he couldn't save. While he grieved Uncle Ben, and you held his hand in the dark, and you didn't say anything because there was nothing to say.

While he talked about Gwen—nervous at first, fumbling over his words, asking you if you thought she might like him back. Then later, excited, telling you about their first date, their first kiss. You'd smiled. You'd been supportive. You'd pretended your heart wasn't breaking, because that's what best friends did. They showed up. They were happy for each other. Even when it hurt.

Now you sit here alone, in the dark, waiting for someone who might not want to be found.

The anger rises. Hot and sharp. You've been carrying it for three weeks, letting it simmer, and now it's bubbling over.

You don't get to disappear. You don't get to decide I'm not worth an explanation. I've cleaned blood off your skin and sewn up your suits. I've lied for you. Covered for you. Stayed up until dawn waiting for you to come home.

I've earned more than your silence.

Peter is so fucked when he gets home.

And then the window explodes.

Glass shattering. Wood splintering. The heavy, sickening thud of a body hitting the floor—books rattling on the shelves, trophy wobbling, the photo on his nightstand toppling over.

You're on your feet before you can think.

His suit is shredded. Not torn—shredded. Red and blue fabric hanging in ribbons, soaked through with blood that looks black in the dim light. The spider emblem on his chest barely visible anymore. His mask is gone. His face is a mess of bruises—one eye swollen nearly shut, skin purple and black. A gash across his forehead still bleeding, blood dripping into his eye. His lip split and swollen. Blood dripping off his chin onto the floor, mixing with shattered glass.

His ribs are exposed where the suit has been ripped away—dark purple bruises spreading like spilled wine. His chest is a mess of cuts and scrapes and deeper wounds. One shoulder sits wrong. Dislocated. The joint angled in a way that makes your stomach turn. His hands are scraped raw, knuckles bloody and swollen, fingers trembling.

He tries to stand. Gets to his knees. Collapses. Catches himself on the edge of his desk, knocking over textbooks. The half-empty mug shatters on the floor.

He looks up. Sees you.

His face drops.

"What are you—you shouldn't be here."

You don't answer. Every rehearsed speech—gone. Nothing in your head but static.

You grab the first aid kit from under his bed.

You put it there years ago. After the third time he showed up at your window with injuries he'd tried to hide. A black eye from "falling down the stairs." A knife wound from "a broken bottle." You'd seen through every lie. Stocked the kit yourself—gauze, medical tape, antiseptic, sutures, painkillers, bandages in three sizes. Made him promise to use it.

The kit is still full. He hasn't touched it. He is an idiot who hasn't taken any care of himself.

Your hands shake. You don't let them stop.

"Y/N, stop. You need to leave. You shouldn't be here—"

You ignore him. Antiseptic. Gauze. Tape. Lined up on his nightstand with the precision of someone who's done this a hundred times.

"—it's not safe, if someone saw you come here, if they followed you—"

You haul him up. He's heavier than he looks—all that muscle and spider-strength, and he can barely support his own weight. You get him to the edge of the bed. Push him down.

"—please, I can handle this myself—"

"You can't even fucking stand."

You cut away what's left of his suit. The fabric comes away in strips, stiff with dried blood. His chest is a mess—fresh bruises, a gash along his side still bleeding, older scars you've memorized over years of patching him up. The one on his ribs you stitched two years ago. The burn on his shoulder. The thin white line on his forearm from his first year as Spider-Man.

There's too much blood. Too much dirt. You can't see what you're doing.

"You need a bath." you mumble.

"What?"

"You're covered in blood. I can't see the wounds. You need to get in the bath."

"I'm fine—"

"You're not fine. You're the opposite of fine." You grab his good arm and sling it over your shoulder. He's heavier than he looks—all that muscle and spider-strength, and he can barely support his own weight. His skin is slick with blood and sweat, and his fingers grip your shoulder with a desperation that tells you he's in more pain than he's letting on. "Can you walk?"

"...Maybe."

"That's not a yes."

"It's not a no either."

"Peter."

"I can walk. Just—just go slow."

You guide him down the hall. It's slow going—his legs are unsteady, and every few steps he falters, his weight pressing into your side. You can feel the heat of his body through your clothes, the damp of blood soaking into your sleeve. You don't care. You've had his blood on you before. You'll have it on you again.

The bathroom is small—pink tile from the 1950s, a clawfoot tub that's probably older than Aunt May, lavender soap on the sink that she buys from the organic market on 19th. You lower him onto the closed toilet seat. He sits heavily, his head drooping, his breath coming in shallow gasps.

"You with me?"

"...Yeah. Yeah, I'm—I'm here."

"Don't pass out."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"mhm I doubt it."

You turn on the tap. The pipes groan—they always groan, this old house, nothing works the way it should—and then water thunders into the tub. Steam rises, fogging the mirror, filling the small room with warmth. You test the temperature with your wrist the way May taught you years ago. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right for damaged skin.

"Arms up."

He obeys, wincing as he lifts his good arm. His bad arm doesn't move at all—the dislocated shoulder keeps it pinned to his side. You peel the rest of the ruined suit off him. The fabric sticks to his skin, glued there by dried blood, and you have to work it loose with careful fingers. Down his arms. Over his chest. You have to kneel to get it past his hips, down his legs, over his feet. The suit comes away in pieces, leaving dark red stains on your hands.

He's in nothing but his boxers now.

You don't look. You're not looking. You're focused on the wounds—the gash on his side that's still oozing blood, the way his breathing is too shallow, the way he's shivering even though the bathroom is warm with steam. You catalog each injury with clinical precision. The laceration on his ribs. The bruising across his abdomen. The swelling around his eye. The dislocated shoulder. You've done this a hundred times. You know how to shut off the part of your brain that sees Peter and turn on the part that sees a patient.

But it's harder tonight. It's always been hard, but tonight it's harder.

"Get in the tub."

He pushes himself up with his good arm. His legs shake. You take his elbow—steady him—and he steps into the water. One foot, then the other. Then he sinks down, slowly, painfully, his body disappearing beneath the surface. The water turns pink immediately, then red, then a deep, murky crimson. He hisses as the heat hits his wounds, his jaw clenching, his good hand gripping the edge of the tub.

"Breathe," you say.

"I'm breathing."

"Breathe slower."

"I'm—" He takes a shaky breath. Lets it out. "I'm trying."

His head falls back against the rim of the tub. His throat is exposed—long and pale and vulnerable. You can see his pulse beating there, too fast, a frantic rhythm under his skin. His eyes close. His chest rises and falls. The water ripples with each breath.

You kneel beside the tub. The tile is cold and hard against your knees. You grab a washcloth from the rack—one of the soft ones, the ones May keeps for guests—and dip it in the water.

Start with his face.

Gentle here. Gentler than you've been all night. You dab at the cut on his forehead, wiping away the dried blood, revealing the wound underneath. It's not as deep as it looked. Head wounds always bleed more than they should. You clean it carefully, your touch feather-light, and he doesn't open his eyes but his breathing steadies. His jaw unclenches. The tension in his shoulders—the good one, at least—starts to ease.

You move the washcloth down his cheek. Wipe away the blood that dripped from his forehead. Clean the swelling around his eye—careful, so careful, because the skin there is tender and purple and painful-looking. The washcloth comes away red. You rinse it in the water. The water swirls with color.

"How long," you ask quietly, "since you took care of yourself?"

He doesn't answer. You didn't expect him to.

You move to his chest. The washcloth trails over his collarbone, dipping into the hollow at the base of his throat where his pulse still flutters too fast. Over his shoulders—the good one, then the bad one, as gently as you can manage. Down the planes of his chest, through the smears of dried blood and dirt and sweat. You're thorough. Methodical. You've done this before.

But you've never done it like this. You've never done it in a clawfoot tub in the Parker house with steam fogging the mirror and his breath the only sound in the room. You've never done it after three weeks of silence. You've never done it with your heart in your throat and your hands trembling and his blood still drying under your fingernails.

You're not thinking about his body. You're not thinking about the way his muscles shift under your hands, the way his skin feels warm and slick and alive. You're not thinking about the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath the waterline, or the way his stomach tenses when your fingers brush a particularly sensitive bruise.

You're not.

"Sorry," you murmur, as he flinches.

"Don't—don't apologize." His voice is rough. "You shouldn't even be here."

"And you should be letting me help."

"I was trying—"

"Lean forward."

He hesitates. Then he obeys, shifting in the water, his back emerging from the pink-tinged surface. You move the washcloth across his shoulder blades, and your breath catches in your throat.

His back is worse than his chest. Deep purple bruises spread across his shoulder blades like spilled ink. A long scrape runs from his spine to his ribs—not deep enough for stitches, but painful-looking. The muscles are knotted with tension, even now, even when he's supposed to be relaxing. You've seen him shirtless before. You've seen him injured before. But you've never seen him like this—bared and vulnerable and completely, utterly still under your hands.

You clean the bruises gently. Your fingers trace the curve of his spine, checking for injuries you might have missed, feeling each vertebra, each rib, each shift of muscle under skin. The water laps against his waist. The steam curls around your face.

He shivers.

"Cold?" you ask.

"No."

"Then what?"

"...Nothing. I don't—nothing."

You don't push. You work your way down his back, then his arms—the good one first, then the bad one, as carefully as you can manage with the shoulder still out of place. The water has gone lukewarm now, the heat fading. The blood has washed away, revealing the full extent of the damage—bruises spreading like watercolor across his ribs, the edges already fading from purple to green as his accelerated healing kicks in. Cuts that are already starting to close. Scrapes that will be gone by morning.

He'll be fine. He's always fine. That's the problem.

"Time to get out."

He stands. Water sluices off his body, running in rivulets down his chest, his stomach, his thighs. His boxers cling to him, soaked through, leaving nothing to the imagination. You grab a towel from the rack—the biggest one you can find, soft and worn from years of use—and wrap it around his shoulders.

Your fingers brush his chest. Accidentally. Barely a graze of knuckles against damp skin.

His breath catches.

Your eyes meet. Just for a fraction of a second. Just long enough to see something flicker in his gaze—something raw and unguarded and terrified.

You look away first.

"Bedroom," you say. "Now."

He limps back, leaning on you, his good arm slung over your shoulders, his weight pressing into your side with every unsteady step. The hallway seems longer than it used to be—or maybe that's just the exhaustion, the adrenaline fading, the three weeks of silence and the past hour of chaos catching up with you both at once. His bare feet drag on the floor. His breath is warm against your hair. You can feel his pulse through his skin where his arm rests against your neck—still too fast, still racing from the fight and the pain and whatever he's not saying.

You lower him onto the mattress. He sinks into it with a grunt, his good hand gripping the edge of the bed, his bad arm hanging useless at his side. The sheets are still tangled from this morning—or yesterday morning, or whenever he last slept in this bed. You don't know. You weren't here. You haven't been here for three weeks.

The sheets will get bloody. You don't care. You've washed blood out of his sheets before—more times than you can count, actually. There's a bottle of hydrogen peroxide under the bathroom sink specifically for that purpose. You're the one who put it there.

You start wrapping his ribs.

Your arms reach around him, passing the bandage from hand to hand, your knuckles brushing his back with every rotation. The bandage is white against his skin, stark and clean, and you wrap it tight—tight enough to support, loose enough to let him breathe. You've done this before. You know the right tension by heart.

He's warm. He's solid. He's so close you can smell the lavender soap from the bath, the faint metallic tang of blood that still lingers, the something-else that's just him—the scent you've never been able to name but have always recognized. His breath is warm on your neck every time you lean close, and it hitches slightly every time your fingers brush bare skin. You can feel his eye on you, tracking your movements, watching your face. Neither of you speaks.

This is when you notice it.

Now that the blood is gone. Now that the dirt and grime have been washed away. Now that you know he's going to be okay—that the cuts are already closing, that the bruises are already fading at the edges, that he's not going to bleed out on his bedroom floor. Now that the fear has subsided and the adrenaline has faded and you're just a girl wrapping bandages around a boy she's known for seven years.

Now you notice.

The way his shoulders taper to his waist. The lean definition of muscle in his arms—even bruised, even battered, even with one shoulder still sitting wrong. The way his stomach tenses under your hands every time you tighten the bandage, the muscles shifting beneath his skin. The trail of dark hair that disappears beneath the towel still wrapped around his hips. The way his jaw looks in profile—sharp and strong and dusted with stubble he hasn't shaved in days.

You've seen him a thousand times. You've patched him up more times than you can count. You've seen him shirtless and bleeding and broken. But you've never let yourself really look before. You've never let yourself notice the way your pulse picks up when you're close to him. You've never let yourself acknowledge that the heat pooling in your stomach isn't just concern.

You look now.

You can't help it. After everything—the fight, the fear, the three weeks of silence, the confession that's still hanging in the air between you—you can't keep pretending you don't see him. All of him. The way you've always seen him.

He catches you.

His eye meets yours. His gaze is steady, unblinking, even with the other eye swollen nearly shut. There's something in his expression—something raw and unguarded and a little bit terrified. Like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't. Like he's seeing you see him, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

"...What?"

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

"I'm checking your bandages."

"You've been checking the same bandage for like a minute." His voice is rough, but there's something underneath it—something almost teasing, almost familiar. Almost like the Peter you knew before he disappeared.

"I'm being thorough."

"You're blushing."

"I'm not."

"You are. Your ears are doing that thing."

"My ears don't do a thing."

"They do. They always have." He shifts on the bed, wincing as the movement pulls at his ribs, but his eye doesn't leave your face. "They go all pink. First the tips, then the whole ear. It's how I know you're lying. They've done it since we were 17. Remember that time you told Smith you'd finished your essay on Shakespeare and your ears gave you away?"

"That was one time."

"It was at least four times. I kept count."

"Of course you did."

"I remember things." His voice softens. "About you. I always have."

The air between you shifts. Charged. Heavy. You're still holding the bandage. Your hands are still resting against his ribs. You can feel his heartbeat under your palm—steady now, no longer racing.

"Focus on your injuries," you say.

"I'd rather focus on—"

"Peter I will slap you."

"Sorry."

You finish wrapping his ribs in silence. Your movements are efficient, practiced, but your hands are trembling slightly. You hope he doesn't notice. He notices everything but maybe, for once, he'll pretend he doesn't.

The gash on his side is clean and closed. The bandages are secure. All that's left is the shoulder.

You step back. Take a breath. Look at him—really look at him—sitting on the edge of his bed with his ribs wrapped and his arm hanging useless and his one good eye fixed on your face.

"It's dislocated."

"...Yeah."

"I'm putting it back."

"...Do it."

"Just like that? Do it?"

"What do you want me to say?" His voice rises, frustration bleeding through. "What do you want? I'm trying—I've been trying all night—I don't know what you want from me."

"Anything! Something! You've been silent for three weeks, and now you're just—just sitting there like—"

"Like what?"

"Like this is normal! Like you crashing through windows and bleeding everywhere and pushing me away is just something I should accept!"

"I'm not asking you to accept it." He stands up—too fast, his ribs protesting, his face going pale. He sways on his feet but doesn't sit back down. "I'm asking you to reset my shoulder. That's all. Just—reset my shoulder, and then you can yell at me all you want."

"You think this is about yelling at you?"

"I think you're angry, and you have every right to be. So be angry. Shout. Throw things. I don't care." He gestures at his shoulder, frustration twisting his features. "But I can't—I can't think straight with this thing. I can't give you what you want when I can barely stand up."

"What I want is for you to stop running."

"I'm not running. I'm right here."

"For now. What about tomorrow? What about next week? What about the next time some villain decides to use me to get to you?"

"I don't—"

"You don't know. That's the problem. You don't know, and instead of figuring it out together, you just—you left. You decided for both of us."

"Because I was scared!"

"You keep saying that! You keep saying you were scared, like that makes it okay!"

"It doesn't make it okay! Nothing about this is okay!" He's shouting now, his voice cracking, his whole body trembling. "I know it's not okay. I've known it's not okay since the moment I stopped answering your texts. But I didn't know what else to do. I still don't know what else to do. Every time I try to—to let someone in—"

"You push them away first."

"...Yes."

"That's not protection. That's cowardice."

"I know." His voice drops. "I know what it is. I've always known."

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

"Because I don't know how to stop!" He turns away from you—stumbles, really, his bad shoulder throwing off his balance—and braces his good hand against the wall. His back is to you now. You can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his spine is rigid, the way his head is bowed. "I don't know how to stop being scared. I've been scared since the day I got bitten. Scared of what I can do. Scared of what I can't do. Scared of losing people. And you—you're the person I'm most scared of losing. So I thought—I thought if I pushed you away first, it would hurt less. If I was the one who left, I wouldn't have to watch you leave."

"I wasn't going to leave."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." You step closer—close enough to touch him, but you don't. Not yet. "I've been here for years, Peter. Through everything. Through the bite, through Ben, through Gwen, through every disaster this city has thrown at you. I've never left. I've never even thought about leaving."

"That doesn't mean you won't."

"It does, actually. It means exactly that." Your voice softens. "I'm not going anywhere. I've never been going anywhere. But you have to let me stay. You have to stop making decisions for me. You have to trust me enough to let me choose."

He turns. His eye meets yours. His expression is cracked open, raw and vulnerable and terrified.

"How?" he whispers. "How do I do that?"

"I don't know. But we figure it out together. That's the point."

Silence.

"Your shoulder," you say. "Sit down. Let me fix it."

He hesitates. Then he nods—just once—and lowers himself back onto the bed. You move to stand in front of him, positioning your hands on his shoulder. The joint is swollen and wrong under your palms, the bones misaligned. You've read about how to do this. You've never actually done it before.

You pause. Look at him.

"I helped you sew your first suit."

He looks up, confused. "What?"

"We stayed up until four in the morning. My fingers were bleeding from the needle. You kept apologizing, and I kept telling you to shut up." You hold his gaze. "Did you really think I didn't know what I was choosing?"

His expression cracks. His hand comes up—hesitates for just a moment—then rests on your hip. His fingers are warm through the fabric of your jeans. "...No. I guess I didn't."

"On three. One—"

You do it on two.

The joint slides back into place with a sickening pop. He cries out—a raw, broken sound that tears from his throat before he can stop it—and his hand tightens on your hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. His forehead drops to your stomach. His whole body shakes. His breath comes in ragged gasps, hot through the fabric of your shirt.

"Fuck," he breathes.

"It's done."

"That—" He takes a shaky breath. Another. "That hurt more than the fight."

"Deserved."

He laughs—wet, broken, muffled against your shirt. It's not a happy sound. It's the sound of someone who's been holding everything in for too long and has finally run out of strength to keep doing it. His hand is still on your hip. His forehead is still pressed against your stomach. You can feel his breath through the fabric, warm and ragged, and the faint tremor that runs through his body every few seconds.

"You're still holding onto me," you say.

"...Yeah."

"Are you going to let go?"

"...I don't want to."

His hand tightens. His thumb traces a small circle on the fabric of your jeans—an absent, unconscious gesture, like he doesn't even realize he's doing it. Neither of you speaks. The silence is different now. Less angry. Less charged. Something softer.

"I love you," he says. His voice is muffled against your shirt, barely audible.

He lifts his head. His eye meets yours. And despite everything—the blood, the bruises, the broken window, the three weeks of silence, the argument that's still echoing off the walls—he smiles. A real smile. The one that crinkles the corners of his eyes and makes him look younger. The one you've loved since you were fifteen years old, even when you couldn't admit it to yourself.

He's still holding onto your hip. You're still standing between his legs, close enough to feel the heat of his body, close enough to count his eyelashes. The room is quiet. The broken window lets in the cold night air and the distant sounds of the city—a siren, a car horn, the rumble of the subway. The photo on his nightstand is still toppled over. The glass is still swept into a pile in the corner.

None of it matters.

"I love you too" you say. "In case that wasn't clear."

"It was clear. It was very clear."

He kisses you.

It's not gentle. It's not careful. It's not the kind of kiss you imagine when you let yourself imagine this—which you have, God, you have, more times than you'd ever admit. Those imaginary kisses were soft. Tentative. The kind of first kiss that happens after a confession, after years of waiting, after everything finally falls into place.

This is not that.

This is desperate. This is his good hand fisting in the fabric of your shirt, yanking you closer, like he's afraid you'll disappear if he doesn't hold on tight enough. This is his split lip catching on yours, rough and swollen, and the faint copper taste of blood on his mouth. This is his breath—ragged, uneven, half a sob caught in his throat—mixing with yours.

He kisses like he's drowning. Like you're air. Like he's been holding his breath for three weeks—for years—and he's finally, finally letting himself breathe.

His hand slides from your shirt to your jaw, his fingers trembling. They're cold. They're always cold after a fight, after the adrenaline fades and his body remembers it's supposed to be in shock. But his palm is warm against your cheek, and his thumb traces the line of your cheekbone like he's memorizing it, like he's been wanting to do this for so long he doesn't know where to start.

You lean into him, careful—so careful—of his ribs, his shoulder, the bruises spreading across his chest like spilled watercolor. Your hands find his face, your fingers brushing the edge of his swollen eye, the cut on his forehead, the stubble along his jaw. He flinches—not from pain, but from the gentleness. Like he doesn't know what to do with it. Like no one's ever touched him like this before.

His forehead presses against yours. His breath is warm on your lips. His hand is still on your jaw, still trembling.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—"

"Stop."

"I can't—"

"Stop apologizing."

"I don't know how else to—"

"Then don't. Just—" You kiss him again. Softer this time. Slower. Your lips brush his, and you feel him exhale—a shaky, broken sound—and his hand slides into your hair, and he kisses you back like you're the only thing holding him together.

An hour has passed.

You've swept up the broken glass. Found an old board in the garage to cover the window—you'll fix it properly tomorrow. You've made tea, your hands moving on autopilot, reaching for the mugs you've always used. The blue one with the chip in the handle is yours. Peter's is the red one with Minnie Mouse on it.

Peter is in bed. His ribs are wrapped. His shoulder is back in place. The bruises are already fading to yellow-green. He's been watching you move around the room.

"You should sleep," he says.

"I'm not tired."

"You've been up all night."

"So have you."

"I have accelerated healing. What's your excuse?"

"Do I really need one?"

You set down your mug. Walk over to the bed. He shifts to make room for you, wincing, and you climb in beside him. His head finds the curve of your shoulder. His arm drapes across your waist. His fingers find the sleeve of your hoodie—the one he left at your apartment last year, the one you never gave back.

"You kept it," he murmurs.

"Of course I kept it."

"It's been like a year."

"It smells like you."

"...That's either really sweet or really creepy."

"Shut up."

"Much more creepy than it is sweet though"

You laugh, and he laughs with you, and the sound fills the quiet room. The sun is starting to rise outside the broken window—pale grey light creeping over the rooftops of Queens.

"I love you," he says, already half-asleep.

"I know."

"The fuck is 'I know'? you have to say it back."

"I love you too, maybe" you smirk

"...Good. I can work with a maybe temporarily."

His eyes close. His breathing evens out. His hand relaxes on your sleeve.

"Still here," you murmur. "Not going anywhere."

His brow smooths. His grip relaxes.

You stay exactly where you are.

You shrug. There's enough light coming in from the windows for you to see with. "I didn't feel like turning anything on."

"How long have you been up?"

"Just a few minutes." Peter nods, twirling a fork before bringing it to his mouth. You don't know what compels you to go on. "I had a dream."

He frowns. "A bad dream?" he asks through a mouthful.

Heat flushes through you. "Not really."

You woke with your heart in your throat and an urgent ache between your legs, blurred recollections of brown eyes and your name uttered by a familiar voice already fading.  You wanted to fall back asleep and see if you could find your way back to the dream. You forced yourself to get up and find a glass of water instead to cool you down.

The corporeal Peter is looking at you strangely, so you try to clarify. "It was just…weird."

He hums. You feel it like a frisson through you, and take another sip of your water.

"So, um, why did you decide to go on a run now?"

Peter shrugs, the corners of his mouth lifting self-deprecatingly. "It's cooler at night."

"More dangerous, too."

"Well, I've been told a key quality in any real runner is masochism."

You laugh. Peter's smile widens in response, but you see it flicker at the edges when his gaze drops lower. You follow it, and stiffen. Your nipples are raised and showing through the tank top you wore to bed.

"Who was in your dream?"

You blink, your breath catching. "Huh?"

Peter smiles, but there's something behind it. "I'm just wondering. You don't have to tell me."

You think he knows. And the thing is, you can't even say he's arrogant for having guessed. Something has shifted between you and Peter lately. You don't know how, but you know you've both noticed it. It can't just be you. It's too obvious.

You look at the takeout container in his hand and do your best to ignore the self-conscious prickle going down your neck. "I don't mean to dream about anyone," you mumble.

"Hey, I know." Peter's voice drops into a more sympathetic register. "I get that. It's not like you do it on purpose." He drops his finished takeout in the trash, leaning against the counter next to you. "It's the unconscious mind, you can't help it."

"It's still embarrassing."

"That depends on who it's about," he says lightly.

You lift your eyes, giving Peter a despairing look. His expression sobers. "Don't make me say it."

"Okay," he murmurs, gently now. "It's okay."

His hand finds your arm, squeezing up the length of it to your shoulder. You burn silently. You think maybe Peter’s cheeks deepen in color, but he doesn't look away. And so neither do you, letting him bare witness to your shame.

You watch as brown eyes, even lovelier when you're awake, soften in the low light. Peter is so close you think an inhale could close the distance.

"Hey," he says, nose nearly to your cheek.

Your heart beats in your mouth. "Yeah?"

"It's okay." His breath tickles your skin. "It really is. Was it a good dream?"

"Yeah." You can hardly hear yourself, but Peter seems to.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it was nice."

"That's good. Nice, I mean. I'm glad." His lips tick, an almost self-conscious smile. "I think about you too, you know."

You inhale, and he's there, a whisper from you.

"This okay?" Peter whispers.

You nod, and he closes the distance.

It's a soft press of a kiss. Warm enough to melt into, but not hurried. Peter coaxes you to relax into him with nice, inviting kisses, stepping in front of you to hold you steady.

You reach behind you to set your glass of water on the counter. As soon as you're done, his hands are under your thighs, lifting you up beside it.

"Yeah?" he mumbles.

You exhale into his mouth, "Yeah."

Things heat slowly. You have the half-dizzy thought that you might keep from waking up longer if you draw it out, and whatever Peter's motives are he seems to be in agreement. You kiss until you've committed the shape of Peter's mouth to memory and you're beginning to think you really are going to fall asleep, and then Peter diverts his attention elsewhere.

You come instantly more awake as he puts his mouth to one of your nipples, sucking through the material of your tank top. Your legs clench around his waist. One of Peter's hands drops to your thigh, keeping it there.

"Jesus," you hiss.

"Nope, still me." The damp of his saliva begins seeping into your top. "I'm flattered, though."

You hold onto Peter's shoulders as he licks and teases at the bud, devoting himself thoroughly to one before moving to the other. It's then that you grow impatient, but when you start to pull up your top Peter pushes your hands away.

"Okay, okay," he says, like you're really in a hurry. "I've got it."

He says that, but then he doesn't do it quickly. Your tank top moves up inch by inch, Peter kissing every bare swatch of skin that gets revealed as he goes. Your chest is falling in discordant rhythm by the time he makes it back to where he started, a trail of spit going all the way down your abdomen. Peter bunches the fabric above your breasts with a look like Happy? and takes one into his mouth.

It's a thousand times worse than the dream. Everything is sharper, up to and including the ache between your legs, where Peter has nestled so comfortably you think it can't be half the torment for him that it is for you. He rubs up and down your thigh like he means to console you, only stoking the heat.

"God—" you keen.

"Still no."

"—Peter—"

"There you go."

You shift your hips against him, and Peter moans, sucking you deeper into the wet heat of his mouth. When his teeth press into your flesh, you think you whimper.

You're not wearing the mask (a lucky thing, otherwise this might have proven a pretty sexually confusing experiment) so Peter sees every ounce of mischief in your eyes when you tilt your head and smile. "Can I try the web shooters, too?"

"Totally." Peter flicks his wrists, latching onto your hips on either side. When he pulls tight, you have no choice but to stumble towards him, laughing as you fall into his lap. "Another time."

"Why not now?"

"Too much power."

You grin at him, positively impish as your legs shift to straddle him more fully. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. Sorry, you've got to go through orientation first."

You set yourself down in his lap. Peter's hands travel from your hips down your legs, meandering, but your bravado slips when you hear a ripping sound.

"Oh, no." You twist your neck to see your backside. You arch toward him a bit in the process, which Peter is not mad about. "I'm sorry—"

"It's fine," he says. "I'll fix it."

You still look guilty. "I didn't think it would tear."

"I tear it all the time. Trust me, this is not the worst tear this thing has seen." Peter touches your jaw, angling you for a kiss. "Anyway, it looks good on you. Worth it."

You soften. "You think?"

You let Peter kiss you a while longer. Your fingers cup his face and curl in the hair at the back of his head. He knew the material of his suit was slippery, obviously, but he never really considered how that might feel for you until he experiences the sensation of you moving smoothly over the material of his jeans. He can feel your body heat through the spandex.

"Are you super sure I can't try the web shooters?" you murmur near his ear after a while.

"Hmm…huh?"

"I just think it would be fun."

You say no—you’ve never needed help with it before and can’t figure why you would now—but Peter hovers, taking some pajamas out for you while you dry off and then corralling you with him into the kitchen. He raises his eyebrows when you settle with your hip leant on the counter next to him. 

“You want to come here?” he asks. 

Is that what you would do?

You step closer, letting Peter tuck you against his front, and lean on him instead. The pancake batter bubbles and browns in the pan. 

“Sorry,” you say at some point, “I feel weird.” 

Peter makes a soft sound, his arm around your stomach tightening. “That’s okay.” You feel the faint pressure of his chin on your head. “It was a big day, huh?” 

It was, you’re pretty sure. Not just for you. It’ll be on the evening news, how Spider-Man managed to sling an active explosive so that it went off over the city instead of in it, just in the nick of time, and no one died as a result. You thought you were going to die, though you didn’t even know there was a bomb until the thunderclap of its detonation folded you onto the sidewalk and shattered every window between 33rd and 40th. It seemed like the prelude to something world-ending, but then that was it. Peter showed up shortly after the ambulances, like kismet, to see that you were okay. 

You eat together on the couch. Peter takes his arm from around you when he needs both to eat, but you’re still close to his side, to his pleasant warmth, your legs criss-crossed so that your knee rests atop his leg. You’ve been watching Lost, lately, so he puts that on. No sooner do you clean your plates than Peter has his arm around you again, his hand rubbing up and down on your arm. 

“Are you tired?” he asks, a faint tension around his eyes. He looks worried, you realize. This strikes you as something you would have noticed earlier, normally, which makes a feeling of distinct unease echo back at you. 

You try to make your voice gentle. To find the answer that will comfort him. “I could stay up for a while.” 

“Yeah?” You don’t think Peter’s really asking, confirmed when he tucks you back up against him and kisses your head. “Okay, sweet girl.” 

The warmth of him permeates you. You get nearly stifled by it, but you don’t want to pull away. Peter smells like laundry detergent, coffee, and the olfactory sense of safety. You sink deeper into his side. 

Your chest pinches with anxiety as you realize you may not have turned off the stove. 

It feels like coming up from underwater, all the sounds of the world clearer and more comprehensible than they were a moment before. Your anxiety is eclipsed by a sharp sense of relief. 

“Did we turn off the stove?” you ask Peter. 

He turns, brows furrowed with surprise. “Yeah. I checked.” 

You breathe out. “Okay.” 

“Hey.” He squeezes your shoulder. “You okay?” 

You nod, resting your forehead on his bicep. Peter’s holding onto you like you’ll float away if he’s not careful. “Yeah. I feel better. Sorry.” 

“Shut up, don’t be sorry.” The unkind words are punctuated with a heartfelt mushing of Peter’s cheek to the top of your head. “I’m glad, bub. You’re okay?” 

“Mhm.” You close your eyes. “I’m not gonna go to sleep, I’m just gonna lie here for a bit, m’kay?” 

“Yeah, right. You just want me to carry you to bed.” 

Though you’re tired (from what, you have no idea), it reassures you to feel the tug of a smile in your cheeks. “That’s half of it.” 

You rouse enough to hiss when Peter brings a wet washcloth between your thighs. 

“Hey,” you say, almost scolding. It makes a laugh bubble up in Peter’s chest, which he generously swallows. 

“Sorry.” He tucks his grin inside your knee, kissing softly. “I’ll be quick.” 

He sweeps the cloth through your folds, and you hiss again, one leg coming up protectively as though you can’t help it. Now, Peter frowns. 

“Is it really that sensitive?” he asks you. 

He guesses he couldn’t blame you. You and Peter spent more time teasing each other tonight than you have in a while, and you weren’t exactly begging him to go easy on you. Your labia are as kiss-swollen as your mouth, maybe more.

The look you give him says you know he knows. “Yeah.” You heave a sigh, like speech is exhausting, your eyes drifting shut again. “I’m sore all over. Aren't you?” 

Peter is, but he also spends his free time doing acrobatics and heaving himself around by his arms. If he twinged a bit walking to the bathroom and back, he bets you’re feeling worse. 

He rubs over your hip consolingly. “Wanna take a bath?” 

You think on it for a while. You’re tempted, Peter can tell. “I don’t feel like getting up.” 

“I’ll carry you.” 

You hum somnolently. “Thanks, but you…” You fumble for Peter’s hand. When you find it, you squeeze his fingers, his sweetheart. Peter squeezes back. “You have to get up early for work.” 

“Yeah, but I don’t mind.” He catches his voice softening, as if he’s trying not to disturb your sleep when really he’s trying to keep you awake. He doesn’t do anything to correct it. “I’ll have coffee either way. Let me give you a bath, pretty girl.” 

It’s a visible effort to open your eyes. You look at Peter like he hung the moon. “Sure?” 

He grins. “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

“You’d do that?” 

Peter groans, his head dropping to your leg. He lets his voice buzz against your skin. “Are you serious? God, I know you’re tired, but let’s use our brains for a second.” 

He picks his head up to take yours between his hands. You look slightly more awake than you were a moment ago. 

“I would do anything for you,” he says. “Got it?” 

Peter watches your surprise meld into a more startled kind of pleasure. He kisses it right off your lips. 

“Dramatic,” you accuse, settling back into your pillow as Peter stands to start your bath. 

“Oh. Yeah, yeah.” He smiles, and you nod, encouraging. “I don’t know, I’m not saying she’s not a real New Yorker, because she is, for sure. But she hasn’t lived in the city in decades, and you forget what that’s like, you know? So she wasn’t really impressed by my, like, four hundred square feet of—hey, are you cold?” 

You glance over to find Peter watching you, a sweet concern scrunched up in his brow. He hesitates at the confusion in your look. 

“I just realized it’s kind of cold out. I don’t want to make you walk around if you’re, like, freezing. We could go somewhere inside.” 

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep your smile in check. “Like where?” 

You watch as Peter’s gaze darts in the direction of where you know his apartment to be. You’ve only been wandering around, walking the streets as an excuse to keep talking after your waiter passive-aggressively hustled you out of the restaurant where you had dinner, but Peter happened to mention the part of town he lives in. You aren’t far from it now.

“Uh, like a—coffee shop?” he manages. 

You do smile at him now, a soft one. “We can if you want, but I’m not really cold. Are you?” 

“A little. I guess I figured if I am, you must be.” 

You shake your head. “Actually,” you draw him to a stop in the alcove of a storefront, “it’s probably because you’re wearing your hat like you’ve never seen a winter before.” You step in front of him, reaching up to tug his beanie gently down over his ears. Some of his hair wings out from the sides, and you tuck the strands in. “Is that better?” 

Peter’s grinning at you. “I’ve seen a few winters,” he says, somewhere between defensive and amused. 

You give him a mock stern look. “Frostbite isn’t cool, Parker.” 

“It’s not cold enough for frostbite. And I’m not—” He laughs. “I’m not trying to be cool.”

“No?” You look at him through your lashes. A light flush blooms across Peter’s cheeks. “Could have fooled me.” 

“You think I’m cool?” he teases. 

You only hum. You watch, almost in slow motion, as he realizes how close you’re standing. How you haven’t dropped your hands from his shoulders, where they’ve rested since you let go of his hat. Peter’s gaze flickers to your mouth. His flush deepens.

You let your lips curve slightly. “What?” you murmur, playing dumb. 

He blinks, head giving a little shake as his eyes stay glued to yours. “I—nothing.” 

“Nothing?” you repeat, the word hardly a puff of breath that crystallizes in the air between you. 

Peter bites his lips. He laughs, a soft exhale. “You know what you’re doing,” he says. “You do, don’t you?” 

“What am I doing?” 

Peter’s grin is a winsome, infectious thing. Your lips twitch tellingly. “You know,” he insists.

“Maybe,” you admit. “Hey, Peter?” 

He narrows his eyes at you. “What?” 

“Do you always get this nervous for a second date?” 

Peter laughs again. It turns to a groan partway through, his head lolling back like he can’t stand to look at you. It’s nefarious, but you enjoy his flustering; it’s a heady little power trip. “No. No, I don’t think so, actually. I think it’s just a you thing.” 

“Usually you’re pretty cool, huh?” 

“I am cool,” he says, still grinning like he can’t decide whether to kiss you or kill you. “But yeah, it doesn’t—it doesn’t usually go like this.” 

You look up at him coyly. “I guess I should be flattered then.” 

Peter shakes his head. “God, you’re—” He takes your face between his hands, and you smile, delighted. “You’re mean. This is mean. I’m gonna get you back for this someday.” 

“How are you gonna do that?” you ask. 

He lowers his voice to a near whisper, his face a breath away from yours. “You’ll never see it coming.” 

“Ooh, now I’m scared.” 

He laughs. “Hey, I had to take Rhetoric 101 to graduate, too.” 

“Totally different. Everyone needs to learn to write—there is no everyday scenario in which I’m going to need to calculate the mass of an atom based on protons and…” You lean over to try and see your laptop screen. “...quarks?” 

Peter really does look sympathetic now. “Quarks make up protons, baby.” 

You release a pitiable sound. “Help me,” you plead. 

“Okay, let’s see.” Peter stands from his spot on the floor, coming to sit down beside you on the couch and pulling you against his side. He positions your laptop between you. “Do you know what this means?” He points to a line of your notes. 

“Not a clue.” 

“It’s all about root words. Protons are positive, so p for positive, right?” That’s not what a root word is, but whatever; you’re in no position to correct him. You start typing it up. “And neutrons are neutral. That’s pretty easy to remember, right?” 

“It is,” you admit. “So, is this kind of how you’d explain it to a kindergartener?” 

“Nah.” Peter kisses your head indulgently. “Kindergarteners aren’t learning about neutrons yet. You’re way ahead of them.” 

“I don’t know.” You try not to sound too bitter. “They’ll probably catch up to me pretty soon.” 

“Hey.” You receive a reprimanding pinch at your waist. It drives you further into Peter’s side, which you suspect was his aim. “Be nice. This isn’t your thing, you don’t have to know all about it.” 

“Yeah,” you mumble. 

“Do you think I could pass a quiz on the ending of that book you were reading for class last week?” 

“What, The Road?” 

Peter makes a face. “I think so?” 

“There’d be no wrong answers. You just have to decide whether you think the boy’s version of reality is more or less accurate than the man’s, and then based on that whether he gets a real happy ending or if it’s a depiction of heaven and he’s dead. Or if he’s already a symbol for something beyond humanity, how that plays in…” It’s Peter’s slow blink that makes you realize you’re rambling. “Sorry.” 

“That’s exactly it.” He points at you with his free hand. “I could not wrap my head around that in a million years.” 

You frown. “No?” 

Peter laughs. “No, baby,” he says, pushing his lips into your hair. Unbothered by his lack of understanding for what seems to you a very simple concept. “Metaphors and god children and all that, that’s your thing. Quarks and amus are mine. It doesn’t make you less smart to not be good at something you haven’t put time into, you know?” 

“I still don’t know what amus are,” you say sheepishly. 

“We’ll get to them.” Peter tugs you more snugly against his side. You let him, feeling more content than you have since you first faced your notes. “So, protons and neutrons, those are made up of quarks.” He kisses your cheek. “There are up quarks” —kiss to your chin— “and down quarks.” A kiss to your lower lip. 

“I’m never going to retain anything this way,” you say. 

“No? I thought positive reinforcement would help.”