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Peter woke to the sounds of his window creaking open. It was still pitch black outside, or as dark as it ever got in New York City, anyway, and a cold gust of wind blew in through the opened window. And while someone was creeping into his room in the middle of the night, Peter’s Spider-sense wasn’t going off. So the likelihood that something dangerous was coming his way was slim.
Blinking his eyes open, Peter saw Tim’s lithe silhouette slipping into his bedroom. He shut the window behind himself and crept quietly towards Peter’s bed, very silent in the pale moonlight.
“Hey beautiful,” Peter said sleepily. “What time is it?”
“I have no idea,” Tim admitted and his voice sounded tense and strained. A huge contrast to his usual playful, teasing tones. His movements were stiff and unsteady as he made his way across Peter’s room in the darkness.
Peter sat up in bed and focused on Tim, who was pulling off his uniform and tossing pieces of it to the floor of Peter’s bedroom. His shoulders were hunched in a way that could be from cold or fear or stress. Or pain.
Worry washed through him as he blinked to focus his eyes better in the darkened room.
“You ok?” he asked as Tim pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed next to him. Tim didn’t answer, he just slotted his body in against Peter’s and tugged the blankets up over them with a shiver. Tim’s skin was cold to the touch and Peter could feel him fighting the urge to shiver. He pressed his chilled face into Peter’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around him.
Peter went to pull him closer in an effort to help him warm up, but as he skated his hands up Tim’s sides and back, his fingers brushed over thick bandages. Fighting down his over-protective instincts, Peter didn’t say anything. He just tried to offer comfort and warmth.
“Tough night?” Peter asked, trying to keep his voice steady and even. He knew Tim probably didn’t want to be interrogated just then, but worry had flooded Peter’s system. While he never really thought of himself as a vindictive person, his instinct was to find whoever had hurt Tim and give them back some of the pain they had caused.
“Tough everything,” Tim admitted, his voice muffled by Peter’s shoulder.
“Well, I’m here now,” Peter said. “I’ll keep all the bad guys away so you can get some sleep.”
“Yeah?” Tim asked and Peter could feel him smiling slightly against his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Pete promised. “Turns out, I am absolutely terrifying. I make monsters shiver in fear, demons cower, and super-villains swear to reform the minute they catch sight of my mask.”
“Oh yeah? Is that what Dr. Octopus is up to these days,” Tim teased. “True reformation?”
“I hear he’s been working at Arby's and volunteering with a youth tennis league,” Pete joked. “You know, putting all those extra limbs to work.”
Tim huffed out a soundless laugh that Peter felt more than heard, but after a brief moment the movement was cut off and Tim hissed in a pained breath. He went very still in Peter’s arms in a way that was heartbreaking and very familiar. He was holding himself steady as the pain passed. Something Peter had done hundreds of times in his life.
Peter pressed a kiss to Tim’s temple which was still cool but now damp with sweat from the pain. He made soft, soothing noises, hoping to ease Tim’s pain as much as he could.
“Sorry, took a hit to the ribs and it hurts to laugh,” Tim gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Peter assured him. “Did someone look you over? Make sure nothing serious happened to you?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tim said dismissively. “I’m just tired.”
Peter hummed in acknowledgment and ran a hand comfortingly over Tim’s, hopefully uninjured, shoulder.
While Peter had been a chatterbox his whole life, he fully understood that it took Tim time to think about and process what he was feeling. While he desperately wanted to know what had happened, who had hurt Tim, and what had provoked him to leave his entire universe just to climb through Peter’s window and into his bed that night, he knew better than to press.
“Yeah,” Peter said, his voice cracking on the single syllable. “I’ve been beat too. Work has been brutal lately and there’s been this string of robberies. No matter what, I can’t seem to get to them in time to catch the perps. I’m starting to think they must have some sort of powers to help them get in and out of places undetected.”
Tim made soft sounds of interest while Peter recounted several workplace dramas and his attempts at tracking down the robbers. As he spoke, Tim relaxed more and more into his arms until his body became slack and languid against Pete’s. His breathing deepened as he fell deeply asleep in Peter’s arms.
Peter pressed another soft kiss to his temple. His skin had warmed as he lay in Peter’s bed and the small shivers he had been fighting had gradually faded away. And Peter barely dared to move for fear of waking him up.
Every time Tim came to him, Peter cherished each moment. Talking to Tim and laughing with him was the highlight of Peter’s day. Making love to him was both fun and profound in ways Peter had never really experienced before. And when Tim fell asleep in his arms, it was almost like a gift, to hold him close while he was lax and unguarded.
But moments like this made Peter so aware of every scar and injury that littered Tim’s body. Each bruise made him wince, each cut made him fight back waves of anger and over-protectiveness.
Whenever they were on the streets or in the lab together, Tim never had any trouble keeping up with Peter. While he wasn’t as strong, he was still fast and smart with quick reflexes and a brilliant mind.
The bandages and the wincing and the injuries were such a stark reminder how much more dangerous this life was for Tim than it was for Peter. While he collected his fair share of injuries and trauma, it was never as bad as it was for Tim. It took Peter a year to rack up the number of cuts and bruises Tim seemed to acquire in a week.
It was hard to see and even harder not to overreact.
Part of what Peter loved so much about Tim was just how much they had in common. The masks, and the labs, and the dark rooms, it made it all so easy to talk to Tim about everything. And Tim understood everything.
Though times like these made Peter wish he understood a little less.
It made him wish he was with Tim all the time so he could keep him safer. It made him hate Tim’s family a little because they didn’t do enough to protect him. It made him desperately wish he could figure out how to invent something that would heal every injury and erase every scar that littered Tim’s perfect skin.
It made him irrational and over-protective and while he had been doing a good job keeping that in check so far, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it up.
Taking in a deep, calming breath, Peter lightly skated his hands down Tim’s bare back, gently running his fingers over the edges of bandages, scabbing cuts, and hot bruises. He wouldn’t be able to judge the full extent of Tim’s injuries until he could see them in the light the next morning. But they seemed worse than usual. Larger swaths of cotton bandage, more flicking butterfly stitches, longer scraps and distended bruises. Whatever had happened that night had been brutal.
He had to swallow hard to fight down the wave of fear and worry that washed over him.
Everything about what Tim and Peter had was this frustrating morass of logistical difficulty at odds with spiritual compatibility. Every minute he was with Tim felt so easy. Every minute they spent apart, they felt so far away. And these pieces in the middle, the pain and the worry and the fear and the uncertainty were agonizing as a result.
How could loving someone be so easy and so hard all at the same time? How could the universe finally give him his soulmate, only for that person to be the only one he couldn’t protect?
When Peter’s fear finally faded enough to allow exhaustion to creep back over him, he gently pulled Tim closer to him, twining their legs together as they both lay in Peter’s tiny bed. As he drifted off, Peter focused on how good it felt to have Tim in his arms. He knew, at least for that night, Tim would be safe from harm. Peter would see to that.
Everything else they could face in the morning.