Never Sleeps [COMPLETED]

Never Sleeps (One Shot)

The pitter patter of rain on the window sill could usually lull her to sleep in an instant as she laid beneath her comforter, and if that couldn't do it, the traffic from the New York streets below had become a comforting background noise from her childhood that sealed the deal with her subconscious, but tonight was a different story. She laid wide awake, staring at the white ceiling of her bedroom. The red glow from her clock read out a painful 1:27am as she breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself enough to at least get a few hours of shut eye, but to no avail. Her mind was all over the city, looking for him. He had left her house at 8:15pm and promised to be back "in an hour, tops". Now it had been over five hours with no text, no call, and worst of all, no insurance that he was safe.

Every time he lept out her window into the dull light of the city that never sleeps, the worry would creep into her mind. She knew he had special abilities that gave him good chances of surviving whatever was lurking around the pavement jungle, but what if someone had greater abilities? What if he had finally met his match and she'd never see him again?

She had seen him beaten and bloody more times that she would care to remember therefore she didn't obtain the allusion that he was invincible. She knew he wasn't. His soft brown eyes and kind heart were the only things keeping her from telling him how she really felt. She wanted to not worry anymore. She wanted to feel safe in her own mind and live without the fear that she was going to lose her first love suddenly and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

But how could she tell him that? He loved saving people and she knew that he believed in using his powers for good.

"When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you."

He lived by these words and he has done incredible amounts of good in the past couple years that he has had his powers, but the cost of being a hero might be too much for a high school girl to handle, especially when she isn't the one with super strength.

Her sore eyes closed for a moment, perhaps finally giving into the fatigue that her body was feeling, but were forced open again when she heard the latch on her window slide to the unlocked position. She snapped up, her bottom half still underneath her white blanket as she watched the glass slide up, revealing Peter, wet from the rain and seemingly okay.

She stood up from the warmth of her sheets, relief flooding over her, but also anger.

"Where the hell did you go?" She whispered, afraid to wake her parents who were asleep down the hall. Her hands rested on her hips as she waited for his response.

Peter closed the window behind him before pulling his mask off and dropping it on the floor by his feet.

A gasp left her as the soft street lights illuminated his skin. He was beat up pretty bad this time and she could now see the rips in his suit across his torso and the dried blood that littered the blue parts of the fabric.

"Oh, Pete," she sighed, walking up to him and letting him lean on her as she led him to her bed. She sat him down lightly before retreating to her desk where she now kept a first aid kit for when Peter came in her window like this.

She crossed the room again with the white box, setting it down beside Peter on the bed while she kneeled in front of him. His lip was bleeding, along with his nose and a dark bruise was making itself apparent under his left eye.

He didn't speak as she took an antiseptic wipe to his face, removing the dirt and the blood from his pale skin, and he was having a hard time reading her as she did so.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Peter said softly, his voice laced with the dull pain that radiated through his body at that moment.

She took a deep breath in as her fingers grazed the cut that was sketched onto his lower lip and he flinched as the alcohol cleaned the wound. Her eyes focused on what she was doing and Peter only focused on her. He could see her hiding her anger and frustration as she nursed him and he just wanted her to talk to him.

"Y/N, talk to me, are you really that mad at me," he tested the waters with that comment, and it could go one of two ways. She could say she wasn't angry at all or she could come out with it and just say what's bothering her. He hoped for the latter.

Her gaze came up and focused on his brown eyes as she searched her own mind for how she wanted to bring up how hurt and scared he had made her, not only this time, but every time he went out there to fight god only knows who. Her eyes left his as she took in the bloody cloth that laid on her lap and she decided that it was time that he considered her feelings as much as she considered his.

"I-I can't do this anymore Peter," she winced as the words left her mouth, her gaze still pointed down towards the floor of her bedroom. Her hands were shaking as she tossed the used wipe in the trash can a few feet away.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked, hoping that this wasn't the start of that dreaded conversation he had imagined so many times.

"I can't watch you keep hurting yourself. One day," she paused, feeling herself getting choked up at even the thought of him being killed. "One day, you're going to be hurt so bad that I won't be able to do anything. I want to protect you, Peter, but there is nothing I can do when you keep putting yourself in harms way," she was still whispering, but she knew that he could hear her.

His spider-sense allowed him to hear her heartbeat as she spoke, and he swore he could hear it breaking, or maybe that was his own.He wasn't speaking, he was only listening her talk and hoping that there was a 'but' coming soon.

"I am always scared when I'm not with you. I can't sleep, Peter. I have nightmares of you not coming back or worse, me finding you dead in an alley somewhere. I can't do it anymore, Pete. I-," she suppressed the urge she had to just break down right there, but he needed to hear this and she needed to say it. "I love you, but I can't handle it anymore," she finished, only now, daring to look up at the injured boy in front of her. His eyes were glossed over and she wasn't sure if it was the pain or her words that caused one tear to slip down his cheek.