home. | p.p. x reader | book three.

ᴏɴᴇ

It's strange how normal things can feel after your life is completely turned upside down.
For five years all I knew was a bleak world covered in gray, grieving men and women wandering through empty streets desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of loved ones. And once hope let itself creep in, it was replaced by grief, longing, and some weird sense of relief.

Now, I had some sort of normalcy back. Sure, flying around on streams of pure electricity wasn't particularly normal, but it was the best I could get. School was back in session, I was able to hang out with my friends again, and my homework load was at an all time high. Most of my nights were either spent crime fighting with Peter, studying with Peter, watching movies with Peter, or training with Peter. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time with Peter.

Now that we seemed to have all the time in the world to spend together, we weren't wasting a single second of it. We'd opted to keep the relationship secret from anyone outside of our immediate family, mainly because the more people that knew, the more dangerous it became if anyone figured out our secret identities. If Peter were ever to be revealed as Spider-Man, it wouldn't be hard to figure out that his girlfriend was his crime fighting partner Haywire, and vice versa. Even though we kept it a secret while out in public for the most part, we still found ways to make up for lost time behind closed doors.

Once the masks came on, however, we really became ourselves. It was almost freeing, not having to hide what lurked so far beneath the thin facades we put on around everyone else. We could let loose, fly through the air for as long as we wanted to, stay out until 2 am, dance in the rain and lay under the stars until we got so tired one of us passed out and had to carry the other home. After five long years of shutting that part of me out, it felt so good to be able to let it all out again.

The only unfortunate thing was trying to balance both lives at once. Keeping up with school was hard enough, but adding the time I spent crime fighting to that gave new meaning to the phrase "stressed out". Luckily I was able to manage fine, since I had learned decent time management over the years, but Peter wasn't so lucky. He was learning, but he tends to not take the advice he's being given and skip out on studying anyway.
We'd found a way to coordinate our schedules well. I had started a new job working at a small music store after school most days, so Peter took over the patrol load those afternoons. Once I was off, I met up with him wherever was most convenient, thanking whatever god was above for the slow days where I could get homework done during my shift. Whenever I had time off, I took over the patrol load while Peter finally took his time to study, and weekends were spent doing whatever felt important.

Being together with Peter after all of these years felt like a breath of fresh air. When we had gotten together before for that brief few weeks, we had been inexperienced and trying to rush things with no concept of balancing two different lives. Now, we had some sort of idea on how to make it work, and we were doing a pretty damn good job of it.

"Didn't any of those guys ever get told not to hit women?"
"One, you hit them first and two, they're criminals, I don't think they really care, sweetheart."

Tonight, me and Peter found ourselves falling into the same routine we had been for the past 8 months. It was the night before our last day of school so we'd let ourselves go a little longer than we normally would, some sort of messed up celebration for suffering through another year of endless torture, not to mention bad reminders of what had happened. I think both of us were using crime fighting as a way to run away from the memories and bad reminders. Now it was 3 am, the two of us sitting on my bed while Peter patched up my various wounds from tonight's escapades.

"Yeah, but still. They didn't have to hit me so hard." Peter only laughed in response. He stopped doing his inspection of my body once he was satisfied that he had seen all of the cuts and bruises, now picking up a bottle of antiseptic and drenching the corner of a cloth with it.
"You don't see me complaining about it after getting hit with a metal baseball bat in the back of the head."
"Yeah, well, because you decided to get hit in the head I had to pick up your slack while you were unconscious, so what I believe I deserve is a thank you."
Peter let out another laugh before leaning up to give me a soft kiss, letting his lips linger against mine for a bit longer than necessary.
"Thank you, Y/N."
"Mmhm, you're welcome."

I connected my lips to his soon after parting, Peter's hands resting on my waist as he leaned closer to me. My own hands found their way into his hair, only parting to take a breath. It was only when his hands ran over one of my bruised ribs did I finally pull away with a wince.

"Shit, sorry."
"It's okay. Maybe we should just...not do that while my bruises are still fresh."
Another laugh that filled my stomach with butterflies. Peter just grabbed the antiseptic cloth again, running it over the cuts on my stomach, chest, shoulders and neck, before finding some bandages to put over the bigger ones. The patch-up job was finally done once he'd help me wrap my ribs in the hopes that it would stabilize them enough to heal properly. I got to work on patching up Peter next, although his wounds were fairly minimal compared to mine. While I worked, we talked about the last day of school tomorrow, as well as our plans for the Europe trip in a few days. Once I was done, I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"Do you think we'll actually be able to get a break on this trip?"
"I hope so. Just once I want something to go the way we plan it to." Peter moved to lay down on his back next to me, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Me too." I moved over slightly so my head could rest on his chest. "Are you doing...okay?"
"You want the honest answer or the answer I tell everyone when they ask me?"
"If you're honest with me, I'll be honest with you."
"No, I'm not okay." He took a deep breath. "I'm still trying to figure out what to do without him here. On top of that there's all this pressure because everyone seems to be looking to me to step in and I just...I can't do that."
"After Nat died I...didn't know what to do. She was there for me no matter what I was going through, helped me grow, helped me heal. And now with Tony and Steve gone too, I don't think I can fill the void that they left, and I really don't think I can live up to their expectations."
"I guess neither of us can really step into the roles people seem to assign us, huh?"

Our laughter was strained, not the same kind of light and airy laughter that had filled the room a little while ago. It was forced and unamused, some sad attempt at coping through the pain that had been seated in both of us for over half a year. Both of us just layed there for a second, my head on his chest, staring at the ceiling. After a few minutes he moved his arm to wrap around my back with his hand resting on my shoulder. I could feel almost 12 hours of exhaustion creeping in on me, practically forcing my eyes shut.

"It's getting late, and you need to get some sleep." Peter moved to get up off the bed, but I grabbed his wrist before he could shimmy out from under me. Looking up at him with tired eyes, I gave him the tone of voice I knew he couldn't resist.
"Please, stay? My dad won't mind."

He hesitated for only a second before laying back down, moving the covers aside so he could lay down in a more comfortable position. I moved my body so that my head was resting comfortably on his chest again, the sides of our bodies touching, my arm draped over his waist and his across my back. I could hear his heartbeat from where my ear was, adding to the various sounds in the room that threatened to lull me to sleep for days.  The warmth of his bare skin against mine was calming; if anyone were to walk in, the sight would surely be incriminating, considering I was still wearing my sports bra and shorts I usually had on under my suit and he was shirtless with a pair of sweatpants. Despite the somewhat compromising position, I still found myself drifting off without a care in the world.

"Goodnight, sweetheart. I'll see you in the morning."