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Peter Parker is an artist, he draws and does oil painting and charcoal. And designs his tattoos. He just doesn't tell anyone. His team has only ever seen one tattoo on him. Ben’s death date in small print on his right forearm and in the same print but italicized, With great power comes great responsibility. He has a couple more on his arms and wrists and a very good concealer collection. Yes, he’s only 17 and has around 7 tattoos littering his body and plans on more, but he’s almost 18. It’s close enough.
This is why Peter never fights without a shirt, it's harder to cover the big ones. Like the white rose stained red with blood splatter trailing at the top of his spine, between his shoulder blades. Or the Avengers ‘A’ sitting in glowing blue ink on the left side of his lower back The red and blue spider crawling over his right shoulder. And his favorite one. Alice from Wonderland sat atop a pile of books, her nose buried in her own. Her hair was spread around her. This sat on his right hip.
MJ liked that one too, she traced the outline with her finger on chill days or in Physics when she slipped her hand under his shirt and spread her palm over it. MJ liked all his tattoos. The first time she saw the rose was when he showed up at his apartment, half bleeding to death and she was snoozing in his bed. She woke up immediately and helped him out of the suit. She caught sight of the tattoo and admired it for a bit longer, causing the blood on the floor to pool a bit more. After she had stitches him up, she begged him to get a tattoo with her. So now there’s a small inked bouquet of red and orange carnations on his left bicep and a single black dahlia on her right bicep.
But no one else really knows about them. Ned knows about them and May knows about them but that’s it. And he tries to keep it that way.
It’s hard to keep it that way when you don’t know where you’re going.
Peter has gotten shot, to put it lightly. A normal Tuesday night and he was ready to swing back to the tower and get into bed and cuddle with MJ, (who was staying at the tower with him currently) after stitching himself up. FRIDAY is programmed to open any window he’s closest to when he’s in a rush and it seems urgent he gets in the building. So the window closest to him opens up when he’s crawled up to a floor that’s probably his and he slips inside. He almost collapses on the floor in pain, his vision going white. But he doesn’t want to wake up MJ so he clenches his fist and groans a bit. He opens the top drawer under the sink, the one that holds the gauze and thread. But he only finds tubes of mascara and red lipstick. Shit. This has to be Wanda’s bathroom, seeing as there is a red leather jacket crumpled on the floor in front of the shower and a picture of Wanda and Vision, cuddled up together, smiling at the camera placed on the sink.
He moves around a bit, trying to get a good feel of his surroundings and lets out a groan at the pain. It seems to have woken Wanda because soon after he has keeled over on the floor, biting his fist to stop any sound, she appears in the doorway, clad in striped pajama pants and a retro looking Scarlet Witch t-shirt. Her fists glow red and she’s looking careful into the bathroom. The red disappears when she notices Peter curled up on the ground. She rushes over to him and rips off the mask.
“Holy shit! Peter! Are you ok? What happened?” She rapid fires her questions, searching him over and stopping when her fingers run over the hole on his right 3rd rib. “You got shot?”
“Just some mugger on 34th. Don’t worry.” He rasps out.
“Peter, I’m going to have to take off the suit, are you ok with that?”
Peter nods slightly and pressed the emblem in the middle, releasing the pressure in the suit and letting it fall around him. Revealing the tattoos. She gasps at the sight of Alice and her books, the spider on his shoulder and the carnations on his bicep.
“How many tattoos do you have?” She asks, running a delicate hand over the spider.
“I think 6. No, seven. There’s a sun with a face on my inner right ankle. When MJ turns 18 and doesn’t need a signature to get a tattoo she’s going to get a moon with a face on her outer left ankle.”
“Couple goals.” Wanda squeals.
“Sure, just help me get this out and stitched up, please. I’ll be out of your hair soon. You can’t tell anyone about the tattoos though.”
Wanda nods and starts moving towards cabinets, grabbing pliers and a needle and thread.
“Why can’t I tell anyone about them?” She asks, opening the wound with magic, starting to dig the bullet out.
“They’re secret. I have a lot of good concealer and I’ve been lucky with standing on the ceiling. Tony will flip if he knows. I’ll reveal it eventually. I’m trusting you though.” He winces, breath shallowing.
“You trust me with a bullet hole and not your tattoo secret?” Wanda smirks.
The bullet is almost out now and Peter and clenching his teeth so hard he might break them.
“Tell me something.”
“What?” Peter questions, gasping.
“Get your mind off the literal hole in your torso. Tell me something.”
“Uhh, I’m going to get a new tattoo this week.”
“Awesome! What’s the design?”
“I’m adding to the carnations on my arm, some small sunflowers and baby’s breath mixed in. Maybe a poppy or two.”
“That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I’ll show you before I start having to cover it up. I’m planning to add to it once a year or something until my whole arm is covered in flowers.”
“Anything else?”
“MJ got a 36 on her ACT.”
“I don’t know the grading system very well, but that sounds like a horrible grade.”
Wanda starts stitching.
“I forget you weren’t schooled. You’re super intelligent for having like, almost no formal education.”
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome. Anyways, 36 is the highest score you can get, I only got a 33, which is still really good but I could’ve done better. I was recovering from a bruised rib that day so that was annoying.”
“I’m sorry Peter, that must suck.”
“Yeah it kind of did, but it was a pretty good grade still so it's not a big deal, just mean that I’ll probably be salutatorian and not valedictorian.”
Wanda nods at this, albeit confused at the meaning of the words.
He whines a bit more, wincing.
She finishes up the last stitch.
“Alright, done, you’re good to go!”
“Thanks Wanda.” He sounds relieved and releases some breaths. Wanda helps him up carefully and sends him on his way. He limps down the hallway and Wanda looks after him, making sure he gets to his room safely.
She sits back on her bed and opens her laptop, and searches for tattoo shops in her area.
She comes back to the tower a week later with a tattoo on her left wrist of the Sokovia flag with the words ‘I am home’ wrapping the border.