Work Text:
After the fourth night in a row of finding Peter tapping quietly on the glass of your small apartment window, bloodied and bruised from fighting bad guys at night, you knew it was time to intervene.
It had been a particularly rough week for the students of Midtown High, with finals coming up and teachers rushing to complete their final unit before it was time to study for said finals. Peter was a naturally intelligent kid, and thanks to frequent study sessions with the boy you’ve come to call your boyfriend, your grades were not too shabby if you did say so yourself. But even the natural smarts of Peter paired with your steadfast dedication to your schoolwork was no match for the seemingly unending stream of assignments flooding in for each and every student and forcing many all-nighters.
Thanks to that, you were still awake when you heard the tell-tale tap of Spider-Man asking for permission to come into your room at 2 am. You pushed away from your desk and almost completed homework to check the hallway of the small apartment your family currently occupied. After checking to ensure that everyone was asleep you returned to your room and opened your window to let the masked boy in.
Typically, Peter would greet you with a soft, “Hi babe,” or any pet name of his choosing, but today he was barely able to mutter out a, “Hey, I-“ before all but collapsing onto you as soon as you opened the window.
“Peter?!” You hissed as his full weight fell on you.
You carefully guided the weak boy over to your bed and sat him down. After shutting your bedroom window you turned back to see Peter had removed his mask to reveal a face you never wished to see so beat up.
Bruises healing from the nights before were accompanied by red marks that you already knew would be freshly blue and purple in the morning. On top of that the split lip that had been healing from his first night this week of patrolling was now once again open and bleeding.
“I can’t let Aunt May see me like this,” Peter looked up at you with sorry eyes and you sighed. It hurt you to see him like this, abused by the dangers of the outside world, it reminded you of just how much danger he truly put himself into each and every night.
With a quiet, “Wait here,” you rushed to your kitchen and grabbed a bag of frozen corn from the freezer, making sure to swipe the first aid kit from the bathroom as you returned to your room. As you set to work with a wet wipe cleaning the bits of dirt and grime from his face he sat quietly, letting you focus on fixing him up. After pressing to his lip in an effort to stop the bleeding finally worked, you let him rest against the frame of your bed, frozen corn pressed against the worst of the bruising.
“Thanks,” Peter sighed, “You know I hate it when you see me like this, but if Aunt May saw me she’d make me stop patrolling.”
You couldn’t argue with that, his Aunt May was the most protective mother-figure a teenage superhero could possibly have, and while it was overbearing at times, seeing Peter in this state you couldn’t help but feel like her over-protectiveness was well deserved. The basic schedule of nights like these consisted of Peter coming to your room, bruised from fighting bad guys, and you, consequently taking care of the aftermath, and typically ended with the two of you cuddling and dancing around the topic of his escapades, usually preferring to talk about school, or some meme you’d both found on social media. But tonight was worse, you knew you still had at least an hour or so of work to do but Peter’s wounds made you want to swaddle him up in your arms and never let go.
“You should really take a break from patrolling if you’re gonna keep getting hurt,” You sighed again, moving to sit next to him on your bed, taking his free hand in yours. He instantly reciprocated and intertwined your fingers.
“It’s dangerous for you to go out fighting if you’re still healing from another encounter.”
Peter’s eyes went from scanning your room, taking note of the relative cleanliness despite the hot mess of school work laid out unfinished on your desk, to meeting yours as he saw the effect this was having on you. The dark creases under your eyes appeared even darker under the light of your bedroom lamp and your eyebrows were twisted up in concern.
“(Y/N) you know I-,“
“When you told me about your powers I knew it meant you got hurt sometimes but this,” You motioned up and down his tired form with your free hand, finally letting it rest against his collar as you met his eyes again, “It scares me.”
Peter looked down and exhaled, letting his thumb brush against your hand. He’d heard this lecture before and it rarely ended with you both content.
“(Y/N) you know I feel responsible for the people in New York. If people like me don’t fight to make things better, then I feel like I’m to blame when things go wrong.”
“You can’t seriously ask yourself to defend all of New York every night Peter, you’re one guy.
“It’s my responsibility.” He explained, shifting the frozen corn onto the other side of his face both to see you better and to ease the pain on the other side of his face.
“It’s ok to take a break from that, if only for a little bit,” Your eyes filling to the brim with tears at the thought of what could happen to Peter if he didn’t slow down.
“But it’s my job to look out for the little guy,” Peter implored.
“Peter sometimes you are the little guy,” You exclaimed, “Look out for yourself for once instead of killing yourself trying to look out for someone else!”
Peter froze, watching a single tear roll down your cheek before dropping the corn onto the bed and wrapping you in a big hug, letting you cling to him as you cried.
“I-I’m sorry,” He choked out, closing his eyes and holding tightly onto you, “I should have been thinking about how you felt.”
After holding each other for a while, you finally let go and pulled back to look Peter in the eyes. You intertwined fingers and brought your heads foreword to rest against each other.
“I just want you to focus on staying safe,” You breathed out, “I care about you, a lot, and just… It hurts me when you’re in pain.”
“I know I know,” Peter groaned, “Fuck I’m sorry.”
He brought his head up to look you in the eyes and you brought your hand up to softly caress his cheek, pushing a soft brown curl behind his ear.
“It’s ok, I just want you to be ok.”
“I will. I promise. Tomorrow I’ll only patrol for three hours, tops. And then we can study together,” He pulled you into another hug and let your head rest against his chest.
“Will you really?” You asked, hugging him back, happy to feel the warmth of his body against your cheek.
“For you, I’ll do anything.”