Peter POV
The first thing I notice is the warmth.
Not the heavy blankets tucked around me or the patch of sunlight creeping across the end of my bed.
Something else.
Something sitting quietly in my chest.It's unfamiliar.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I wake up without my heart racing. No panic. No desperate scramble to remember where I am or why I can't breathe. Just warmth.I let myself sink into it for a second, eyes still closed, listening to the quiet apartment around me. The soft hum of the refrigerator reaches my room, joined by the occasional groan of old pipes hidden behind the walls.
Somewhere outside, a car rolls slowly down the street before fading into the distance.
Everything is still.
Everything is calm.Then I remember.The nightmare.Mr. Stark.The hug.The words I'd never meant to say out loud.My eyes fly open.
Morning light spills through the curtains in thin golden strips, stretching across the worn wooden floor until they reach the edge of my bed. Tiny specks of dust drift lazily through the beams, swirling whenever the heater rattles to life. I stare up at the ceiling, willing myself to believe I'd imagined all of it.I had to have.Because there's no way Tony Stark sat beside my bed while I cried like a little kid.Except...
He did.
Slowly, I push myself upright. Every muscle feels heavy, like I'd run for miles the day before. My shoulder aches with a dull reminder every time I move, and my eyes sting with the leftover exhaustion from crying myself to sleep.The blankets slide into my lap.Heat rushes into my face so quickly it almost hurts.
"Oh my God..."
The words barely leave my lips.I actually cried.
On Tony Stark.A groan escapes before I can stop it. I fall backwards again, throwing an arm across my eyes as if hiding from my own bedroom might somehow erase the memory.I told him everything.Or enough.
Enough that he knew.Enough that he stayed.I drag both hands down my face with another quiet groan.I'm never leaving this room again.
Ever.
A faint buzz prickles at the edge of my senses.Spider-sense.Not the sharp, electric warning that comes with danger.Just...
Awareness.
Someone's close.
I turn my head towards the bedroom door.
It's still closed.
Holding my breath, I listen.The apartment is slowly waking up.A cupboard door opens with a familiar creak.
YOU ARE READING
Bruised But Not Broken - Irondad/spiderson
FanfictionPeter Parker is tired. Tired of scraping by, of pretending he's fine, of enduring a school bully while carrying struggles no one knows about. Living in a cramped apartment with his aunt, Peter learns how to disappear - how to survive quietly. A scho...
