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Johnny had multiple reasons for leaving his window open at night. For one, he ran hot, and air filtering in from outside tended to help him sleep. For another, Reed had half a dozen security measures implanted into the building, so it wasn’t like he was putting anyone in danger.
And as for the third reason?
Well. It was climbing onto the windowsill right now.
Johnny startled awake at the sound of something rustling outside, something that he couldn’t write off as a tree or a raccoon or something because he was at least thirty stories up in the Baxter Building. He looked over at the clock on his bedside table. 2:34 a.m.
He rubbed his eyes with one hand and lit up the other with a tiny ball of flame. Watched in the faint glow of fire as one gloved hand reached up, followed by another, followed by a whole superhero that flopped onto the floor.
“Spidey,” Johnny greeted sleepily. “Rough night?”
Peter groaned in response.
“How bad is it?” Johnny asked, forcing himself out of bed. With Peter, it was impossible to tell just by looking, and even harder to get a thorough answer out of him. It was always a dismissive hand wave with an added on, It looks worse than it is.
Peter didn’t respond this time; it was possible he had passed out.
“Gotta do everything myself,” Johnny sighed, kneeling down on the carpet next to Peter and poking him until he rolled over. He pulled the mask off and tapped Peter’s cheek gently. “Hey, Pete. You gotta get up so I can see the damage.”
Another groan, and then one brown eye peered out at him. “Not that bad,” Peter muttered.
“Bullet wounds?”
A shake of the head. “Knife.”
“Buddy, that’s not much better,” Johnny said. He tugged at Peter’s shoulders, trying to prop him up to a sitting position. “Come on. To the bathroom.”
Both of Peter’s eyes reluctantly opened this time and he let himself be hauled to his feet. Johnny set him down on the counter next to the sink and flicked the light switch on.
“Where?”
Peter pointed to his abdomen—which Johnny could now see was stained a bit of a darker red than the color of the suit—and then at his left shoulder.
Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Two of them? What happened?”
“Well,” said Peter, “the gaping wound in my stomach kinda caught me off guard. Left my arm exposed. But my shoulder’s almost completely healed now, see?”
Peter twisted so that Johnny could see his shoulder—it had stopped bleeding, and the wound probably looked a lot smaller than it had before. Still needed to be cleaned, though. Johnny rummaged through the cabinet next to the bathroom mirror and pulled out the first aid kit. “Which one of your weird-ass supervillains carries a knife, anyway? Was it Stilt-Man? Oh my god, did Stilt-Man stab you with one of his stilts?”
“No,” Peter said, shifting a little. His shoulder was probably bothering him; it always seemed to hurt the most when healing. “Double D took care of that guy, remember?”
Johnny hummed in response, brandishing a pair of scissors. “I’m gonna need to cut up your suit,” he said.
“Go for it,” Peter said. “I don’t think I can get the bloodstains out, anyway.”
Johnny started cutting. “So. Who was it, then?”
“Just a random mugger. Got a lucky shot, I guess.”
Johnny set aside the scissors. Grabbed a clean washcloth and placed it under the sink tap. He looked at Peter, at the dark circles that stood out under his eyes. Turned off the tap. It felt like the right time to say something. “You need to take a break,” he said, pressing the towel to the wound.
“I’m fine,” Peter said, wincing slightly. “It stopped bleeding a while ago.”
“Not what I meant,” Johnny replied, rinsing out the washcloth and watching the blood swirl down the drain. Red, red, red. “You look exhausted. When’s the last time you slept?”
Peter looked offended. “I slept last night.”
“Yeah? One hour or two?”
He paused. “Two.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Newsflash, that’s not nearly enough.” He reached for the disinfectant. “This is gonna sting,” he warned, just like he always did.
Peter nodded and then hissed in pain, recoiling away slightly. Johnny placed a hand on his shoulder to ground him. It was practically second-nature at this point. Clean the wound, then bandage. Stitches were hardly ever necessary; Peter healed too fast for them. Johnny had done this enough times to know.
“I know I gotta sleep,” said Peter after a while. “I know I do. I just—can’t.”
Johnny paused. He set down the gauze and leaned forward, arms on either side of Peter. “What really happened tonight?” he asked, maintaining steady eye contact. “And don’t feed me that ‘lucky shot’ bullshit. There’s more to the story.”
Peter swallowed. “There was—there was a robbery. Someone got hurt, and then I got distracted because of that, and here we are.”
Johnny tilted his head to meet Peter’s eyes, and when that didn’t work, he nudged Peter’s chin to face him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No, I—I know that. There was nothing I could’ve done better, I’ve replayed it enough times in my head to know that. I just—I’m so fucking sick of this.”
“Sick of being Spider-Man?” Johnny questioned. “Or of not being able to save everyone?”
“Can’t it be both?”
It could. Johnny had a feeling it wasn’t, though. He busied himself with the gauze.
“I’m tired,” Peter said.
“I know,” Johnny said. “Almost done.” He finished placing gauze on the last of Peter’s wounds, and then packed all the supplies back into the first aid kit. Then he held out a hand to Peter. “Come on,” he said. “You can try watching me sleep, at least.”
Peter huffed a small laugh and took his hand, using it to help himself off of the bathroom counter. Johnny walked over to his bed and collapsed on the mattress, scooting over to the right side and leaving room on the left. He listened as Peter stumbled his way over to the bed, and then winced as he heard a thud, followed by a muttered curse.
“Jesus,” said Johnny, lighting up one hand to illuminate the room. “Just get over here.”
Peter lowered himself down onto the left side of the bed, and in the firelight, Johnny could see his pinched brow and pursed lips. Peter looked at him. “Stubbed my toe,” he said unnecessarily.
“I know. I heard it.”
Peter frowned. “It hurts.”
“More than the stab wound?” Johnny asked, eyebrows raised.
Peter considered it. “No.”
“Then go the fuck to sleep,” Johnny said, extinguishing the flame and closing his eyes.
Half an hour later, Peter was still awake and somehow his inability to sleep had managed to transfer over to Johnny. After another few minutes of trying to find a cool portion of the pillow to lay his head on—despite the fact that he couldn’t even really feel the temperature changes—he sat up. “I swear to god, your insomnia is contagious,” he complained.
“I know,” Peter sighed. “Gwen always said she couldn’t sleep while I was awake.”
Johnny stilled. It was rare for Peter to bring Gwen up, these days. Johnny wasn’t sure he talked to anyone about her, really.
In the dregs of moonlight that filtered in from the window, he could barely make out the outline of Peter, but it felt wrong to ignite his hand in flame now. Not when the darkness might be the only reason Peter was opening up.
“Is that why you can’t sleep?” Johnny asked cautiously. “Thinking of her?”
Peter shrugged, something that seemed a little difficult from where he was laying down. “A little bit.”
Johnny stayed silent for what—in his opinion—was a reasonable amount of time before saying, “And the rest?”
A deep breath. “It feels like,” Peter started. He turned onto his side so that they were face-to-face. “It feels like things are catching up to me.”
Johnny tilted his head.
“Like—when I first started, I thought I was untouchable. And I was, kind of. But now it’s like I’m running and running and I’m not—I’m never fast enough. There are so many people I haven’t been able to save.”
“There are so many people you have,” Johnny reminded him.
“It doesn’t—it doesn’t feel like enough.”
Johnny didn’t know what to say. He felt that too, of course, they all did, but Peter was on the ground every day, saving people. He wasn’t paid by the government to keep aliens from taking over the world. No, he did that and more of some twisted sense of responsibility and misplaced guilt that all vigilantes seemed to have. He did it of his own volition, and he lost pieces of himself every day.
Johnny didn’t know what to say, and maybe there was nothing he could say, nothing that would make this better, so instead he reached over to pull Peter closer, because they all needed a fucking hug these days. Johnny wished his powers extended into making someone feel warm on the inside, too. He wished he could smooth over the eye bags, could make it so that Peter slept through the night and woke up in the morning with pillow creases on his face.
He couldn’t, of course.
But he could stay here and he could stay up all night, and maybe when the sun rose, Peter would nod off. Maybe things would be better in the morning. Maybe they would be worse. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
“Thank you,” Peter whispered.
Some things could only be said in the dark.
“Good night,” Johnny whispered back.