Starkly in Love- A Spiderman x Reader

Chapter 6: Peter?!

  My neck was sore, my back was sore, and it was the middle of the night. I had fallen asleep on the rock-hard hotel couch with the tv still casting its artificial light on me. Somehow I had ended up on the late night Disney Channel (you're still never too old) and F.R.I.E.N.D.S was playing.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I reached over to click a lamp on and wobbled over to the small kitchen. Grabbing a random glass I turned the faucet on, but my mind was elsewhere. It can for probably 5 minutes before I jerked back to reality and turned it off. It then took me a few more seconds that I didn't even put any water in the cheap glass. I sighed and actually filled my cup.

  Cup in hand, I walked back to the couch to plop back on it. Mindlessly I threw my hair up into a bun and watched the tv. I found my eyes repeatedly drifting to the window. I didn't know who I was waiting for, Peter or Spiderman. Really, I was waiting for Peter either way, as I had asked Spiderman to find him for me.

  Either way, nothing happened until 2 a.m. I was hanging onto reality by a thread. Fighting a losing battle against sleep, I was pretty sure I was hallucinating when a shadow dropped in through the wind. My body's fight or flight instinct had shut done, so my only reaction was to not react.

  He seemed completely unaware of the fact that I was even present. It was so clear that he felt safe here because as his back was turned towards me, he pulled his mask off. The only thing that really seemed to 'phase' him was the T.V. that was still on. I, on the other hand, I was hyper-aware of everything. The breeze still fluttering through the open window, whatever corny jokes were being cracked on the old T.V. show, how the small amount of water still in my cup swished around as he moved, and how loud my breathing sounded.

  But as I watched him, being as statue-esc as I could, he turned toward me. My breath hitched.

  "Peter..?!" I breathed.

  He seemed to jolt out of a daze and his expression probably mirrored mine. His posture went from relaxed to ready to kill someone. Actually looking at him now, he probably had.

  "Holy crap," I said a little louder, my hand covering my mouth.

  He was even more broken then he had been the previous day. The most drastic parts were shown through large rips in his suit that exposed cuts that looked deep to my semi-trained eye. He was probably a landfill of bruises and cuts judging from what I could see through the tears of his suit, his also bruised face, and cut lip.

  "Oh crap Peter," I snapped out of whatever was going on in my head and hurried over to him, "You swore to me."

  "(Y/N) I can explain-" he started.

  "Oh shut up and let me help you," I started to pull him, gently but firmly, into the small kitchen, "I don't need an explanation right now. I need you to not get infected through who knows how many open wounds you have."

  He obeyed quietly, probably more confused than I about how I was so seemingly calm. I say seemingly because I was imploding and I was coping with it by mothering him. I'd probably mother all my problems away if I could.

  "Take your suit off," I said.

  Peter cocked an eyebrow, but I just shot one right back at him so he complied. He tapped some magical button in the middle of his suit- my dad obviously had a hand in this- and he seemed to deflate off him, allowing him to pull his arms out and expose his chest. It was, of course, marred and bruised to the max. I was surprised that I had never noticed the tiny white scars the freckled even his arms, maybe I had and just never put the puzzle together. Seeing him like this now everything just fell into place, literally everything.

  I heard Peter suck his breath in when I lightly touched his chest with a warm washcloth.

  "Sorry," I murmured," I should have warned you."

  He actually laughed at that. "You should be the last person apologizing today."

  "Peter, it's fine," I replied gently. I was focusing more on cleaning the blood off his arm.

  "No, no it's not," he objected quietly, "I swore to you that I wouldn't do this again, and I went and did it a few hours later."

  "It's not your fault though. I mean look at you-" I gestured at his suit as I straightened up-" you kind of doesn't really have a choice in this situation. You're Spiderman, and-and-and I don't know what I'm saying, but you've saved so many people and I can't just come along and tell you  can't because I'm worried about you."

  "But you didn't know that I was, well, me when you made me promise," Peter pointed out.

  "Just shut up and let me apologize," I waved the washcloth in his face. This made him smile a little.

  "I won't because I need to apologize to you," He shook his head, wincing at what I imagined was a raging headache.

  "No, you don't-" I started.

  "Yes I do and I won't stop trying until you let me."

  "Fine," I sighed.

  "(Y/N), I'm sorry. I never meant to drag you into this when I met you or even now. I knew you already had your dad to worry about constantly and I didn't want to add to your stress. That has, now obviously, backfired and you're now taking care of me when you shouldn't have to, or want to, or need to.  And it sucks that I even need to apologize and it should never have come to this. And I know that you're probably just being a nice person and not yelling at me for not telling you after yesterday because I should have but-" He rambled until I stopped him with a gentle finger on his lips.

  "That was more than enough of an apology than I deserved," I smiled to show him that I was being honest.

  Peter shook his head, wincing again. "That's not true, you deserve an hour-long dialogue apology from me."

  "Enough faltering me now," I blushed a little, "Let me bandage you for the second time in than 36 hours."