Chapter Text
Peter.
With his beautiful nest of chestnut curls that circled across his head, fell across his brow, trailed behind his ears. With his honey brown eyes, so bright with laughter and so tender with sadness. With his soft features on a boyish face that was outlined by a strong brow and muscle.
Peter.
With cuts and scrapes on his cheeks, two tiny pieces of tape peeled over the corner of his eyebrow or at the base of his cheekbone. With bruises and rough gravel marks across his shoulders, his chest, and his legs from when he skidded across hard New York cement. With violets and their stems in bruises that emerged from his flesh, tender to the touch whenever he moved or rolled in bed.
Peter
With the kindest spirit you’d ever known, yet he had a row of bruised knuckles that you kissed softly when he was asleep. With the gentlest smile known to man that was creased by a cut lip. With the softest way of handling you as the tendons in his arms strained, the veins popping, and yet he reset his wrist like it was nothing-no more than a grimace as he did it.
Peter
Who didn’t deserve a fraction of the damage done to his body.
And yet, the sound of his groans in discomfort, the tough look of the bandage tape on his face, the demonstration of strength on his knuckles. It all made something in you stir.
It was an inner torment for you-how much a part of you personally enjoyed seeing your boyfriend beaten bloody when he came through your window. The blood pooling at the corner of his lips when he peeled off his mask, dripping like pomegranate juice. The smudge of rust coloured blood, like paint, across his jaw. The furrow of his brow darkened and shaped by skin that burst open from a hit. Sometimes, it all looked so good on him.
Of course, your first instinct was worry. Always and forever. You loved your boyfriend-you didn't want him to be in pain.
You always jumped up off the bed, and ran over to him to assess the damage. You would peel the mask off if you had to. Just to trace your fingers over his features and advocate for every cut, graze or scruff. You would hurry him over to the bed, even when he insisted he was fine, and make sure he sat down. He would watch you with a soft, content smile on his face (somehow, even with whatever extent of injuries he’d acquired) as you fussed over him continuously. When you worried over the tears and destruction in his suit, which meant large lesions and lacerations across his shoulders, his scapula, or his stomach. The large indents, Chunks you always worried, on his torso, thighs, his lower back.
He sat and bore it as you grabbed a first aid kit and disinfected everything, letting the warmth of your body overtake him and sooth him while his body began to heal. There was nothing better, after a night of fighting crime, than his girlfriend’s touch and care. After spending so long isolated and alone, he relished it. So, he bore it when you stitched him up, when you put large patches of hospital level band aids on his elbows, or wrapped his waist so he looked like a mummy. He may laugh whenever you have insisted that even the small cuts on his fingers need their own cartoon band aids but let you put them on none the less. He watched with fascination as you rolled them around his thick digits with extreme concentration, a focused look in your eyes with not even a glance at his face.
And yet, a heat in your stomach always pulsed when you tended to him while he smiled at you with bloody lips. There was just something about the way his puppy dog eyes looked up at you when he hissed in pain, or he grimaced. Two round moons that darkened dangerously, you’d seen it, and the currents made your blood roll, your pulse skip a beat.
Maybe it was becuase the extent he was willing to go to protect you was physically littered in evidence over his body. Perhaps that was why you loved the look of him roughed up a bit. Perhaps that’s what this was. Because you knew, deep down, that Peter would throw everything he could, including his own body, in front of something if it meant protecting or saving you. Had anyone you’d known been willing to give up so much for you before? You don’t think you knew another single person who would do such a thing.
So nights when he was insecure, hysteria taking over him when he feared he’d failed, when he was too burdensome, when he felt he’d put you in danger and he babbled with his head in your lap, aren’t you tired of patching me up? You would shake your head, kissing his cuts, letting the iron taste coat your tongue as it passed onto your lips, and run your hand through his curls upon curls, relishing the grasp of them in your hands and loving the way you could trace over his sadness and need, his want to protect you. His ability to do so. Having a superhero somehow fulfilled the fantasy of a tough guy with a slight hint of danger while getting this lovable teddy bear all at once.
But you still felt bad.
Guilt pooled in your stomach when you rolled over the next day with him in bed, a strong arm tossed over your body mindlessly, and he shot you a charming smile that made your stomach flip just because his lip was bitten red already. Just because he looked like a boxer or a gangster who’d survived a gunfight the night before and survived to tell the table. That New Yorker accent would roll off his tongue, and you’d want to grab him just to hear him groan and hiss as your fingers pressed the bruises from the night before. As the two of you rolled in bed, you wondered what he looked like in the moment with the action. With sweat dripping off bunches of hair, twining in curls so tenderly and unruly, falling looser and looser with every punch he gave and vibration he took. It would be even hotter your thoughts hissed shamelessly.
But you never actually got to see him like that
Until one night you did. But it wasn’t as Spider-Man which somehow made it more attractive. Something you bit your lip to, running the plush pillow of skin between your teeth, whenever you thought about it.
It happened when the two of you were walking home from a party. Even in the evening, the New York streets still glittered and marveled so bright, hot summer air thick on your skin, when an unwelcome stranger approached you both. You felt Peter stiffen before he appeared, the arm around your shoulders tightening just so and you looked over at him in question. A look of concentration and suspicion had crossed his face, sensing something, and he immediately tried to pick up the pace, but it was too late. A hooded figure stepped out from a grimy alley, lit orange and yellow from traffic signals. A small pocket knife glinted in his hand. He was clearly agitated when he gruffly demanded cash and valuables. You felt your arms grip Peter’s tighter, curdling fear sickening your belly. In moments like these, it was almost like you forgot the crime your boyfriend fought every night. No matter how many times you’d been swooped through New York or saved from an angry villain or even seen him punch someone high into the air, you still worried that a small pocketknife would stab him and take him down.
But Peter was Spider-Man. Sure, he couldn’t use his webs and reveal himself right there and then. However, he immediately knew what to do instead. With a calm voice, he tried to level out the guy, and calm him down. He pushed you behind him, broad shoulders blocking you from view. Yet, this action made the man sneer, maybe envy or maybe just rage in his eyes. The man stepped forward and you gasped, cried out, in shock when he struck Peter with a closed fist, knuckles busting against the lines of his face. Peter’s head snapped to the side, corded muscle in his neck snapping back slightly, his hair flying in bunches through the air. It was almost like slow motion, the point of impact, and startled, you immediately grabbed his shoulders in an attempt to stabilize him even if he didn’t need it.
Then, you saw the spark of anger in Peter’s eyes, his nostrils flaring, eyes sharpening. A glint was caught in them that made your breath catch, and before you knew it, he was out of your arms and lunging at the man. He didn’t punch him. (In truth, when angry, Peter could have easily shattered the man’s jaw into a million pieces). But he did quickly twist the man's wrist, his tight grip making the threat cry out and drop the knife. Peter’s muscles bulged under his jacket, moving hypnotically as he manhandled the man to the wall, flipping him around so he could subdue him from behind.
You watched, mute, as Peter harshly warned the guy off before shoving him away. The man stumbled, and then rushed away quickly, unzipped sweater flapping as he ran. Peter quickly turned to you, eyes wide with concern. The gentle press of his mouth and crinkle of his eyes was back, but your eyes instantly caught on the red mark at the corner of his lip, the small cut on the bridge of his nose, the tender swelling of the underside of his face. He was roughed up, from protecting you, and guiltily-now that the danger was gone and everything was calm again, you felt your cheeks colour with heat embarrassingly fast.
"Hey" he’d whispered, "you okay?"
You felt yourself stumble over the words, tripping up with eyes averted. "Y-yeah, of course. I’m fine. What about you, Peter? You actually took the hit."
You reached out and brushed the small flecks of blood protruding the mark left on his nose. His shoulders bunched in laughter, and he tilted his head, curls tossing, and lazily smiled,
"Well, yeah I’m fine. That’s an ordinary Tuesday. The guy wasn’t even strong."
The words, the posture, the cockiness-the coil inside you tightened, your thighs wanting to clench together. You didn't catch yourself in time though, and you could tell Peter noticed how your finger stilled at your words, before retreating.
You held out your hand, still shyly avoiding his gaze. You couldn’t keep looking at him when he was in that state with that smile. "Let’s go home, then, shall we?"
You know he eyed you at the time, but let it go and took your hand. The rest of the evening went by just fine. Even if the both of you dissolved into kisses and heavy breathing when you got inside your apartment doors. Hot and heavy as your hands roved over those thick biceps, and he gripped your waist, and the both of you fell into a soft embrace in the sheets as you thanked him, pleasurably, for standing up for both of you.
That must have been the night Peter started to figure it out. From the purse of your lips to the nervous flit of your eyes, Peter had watched you as much as you’d watched him and he could decipher the puzzle of your features just as easily. A tell-tale sign of pleasure was drawn throughout you, even if you tried to hide it and bury it down deep.
And Peter was smart. Efficient. Always looking to please.
So, of course he’d figure it out at some point. Even if you’d hoped he never knew that deep, evil part inside of you.
It was another night of him swinging through your window. A shallow rip in his suit across the front of his stomach which thankfully hadn't resulted in the skin beneath being cut. Yet, blood splattered his face as he yanked off the mask. You watched it stretch off. His hair was messy, ruffled attractively, with a dark mark on his forehead above his left eye and a bright red lesion on the right side of his face where blush would go. His entire face was just slightly inflamed in a manageable way, and you could see that he was tired, but not exhausted in the way he held himself. You quickly scurried over, following the same routine as normal. You led him to the bed, and there was nothing you could do but disinfect the small injuries on his face, until you saw an intense deep slash on his wrist. Getting your suture kit out, you started to knit the needle and thread through his flesh carefully, even when he grimaced. But, just as you had gotten good at stitches, he’d improved at bearing it.
He watched you steadily, as your eyes flickered up to his face, and back down.
“Won’t you ever get tired of this? Patching me up? I swear others would be exhausted that their partner is injured so much.”
You shrugged, “I know you can handle yourself. I wouldn’t have signed up for this if I didn’t want the package deal.”
His laugh came off like a scoff, a self-condescending ploy, “no one wants to look at the ugly face of their loved one’s beat up face.”
Your eyes shot up to his face defensively, “you don’t look bad, Peter.”
“Oh, come on. My face is constantly marked with some reminiscence of a fight or a scramble. I look like I beat up people for a living.”
You giggle as you softly knot the suture, pulling the string and snapping it with a small pair of silver scissors. “You do beat up people for a living.”
He groaned in good humour, “you know what I mean.”
You shook your head gently, pressing a gentle kiss to his wrist. He was still in the suit, body sculpted by it, and you said, “it’s not always a bad thing. That’s all. It’s not like I hate the way you look with a scrape or two.” The words are out instinctively to comfort him, but you quickly freeze at their weight.
He stops too, wheels in his head turning, when he exclaims, “wait! Is that what this all is about? Do you like the way I look after a scrap?."
You nervously shake your head, adamantly denying it. You try to cover your face with your hands, but he grabs both your wrists gently to see your face.
“I’ve always known there’s been something that gets you going, I just haven’t been able to figure it out. You’re so shy and secretive about it.”
“It’s not something I should be feeling.” You protested, but the words caught in your throat when you saw his face. It was not one of horror or disgust, as you imagined countlessly. It was one of wonder and amazement. Maybe hope and admiration?
“What, baby?” He said softly, eyes locked to yours, “tell me.”
You wreck your lip between your teeth endlessly, before a gloved finger gently unlatches it. “When I know you’re fine, and your not actively dying of course, seeing you a little roughed up…it’s attractive.”
“I see.” His face was dead serious, then, as he took in this information.
“I’m sorry” you sputtered, guilt-ridden and embarrassed. Ashamed of this fact. Who would be so corrupted that they liked to see their boyfriend hurt?
You were interrupted, however, when his laugh trickled through the air again. Darker and more cocky than many of his other laughs before as he lowered his face to your jaw, his face becoming partially hidden within your neck.
“Oh baby,” he said, a rougher scratch to his tone that brought that boil back. He peeled the tape band-aids off his fingers, let them scatter like stars, and tilted his head to show off the scrapes just under his eye and the tape patched above it.
“We’re going to have so much fun.”