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“Shit,” Peter hissed, doing his best to be quiet as he tumbled through the window. He vaguely remembered that May was home tonight, and probably in bed. Or… had that been yesterday?
A light clicked on outside his door.
So, tonight then. And she wasn’t in bed.
“Shit!” he whispered emphatically, frantically trying to peel his bloody suit off- but it kept sticking- fuck—
“Peter?” a few gentle knocks at the door. “I didn’t hear you get in, are you alright?”
He bit his lip to keep quiet as the top layer of skin came off with the suit, bunching around his legs as he barely avoided tripping over himself while he pulled it off. “Uh-” he said, silently asking g-d to keep her from hearing the rawness of his voice. Fuckfuckfuck—there! “Yeah, I’m here!” He shoved the suit under his bed, slick spandex spilling over his hands as he hid it away.
May must’ve shifted outside, because one of the floorboards by his toes dipped almost imperceptibly. “Do you need some water? You sound…”
“Bad?”
“Dry,” she corrected. “Do you want me to grab you a drink?”
Sprawled on the floor now, leaning against the mattress, Peter grasped at the nick in his side. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t. Peter was just tired. “No, that’s okay!” he called. “I’ve got— I’ve got a bottle in here, it’s okay!”
For a moment, he thought she’d left. Then— “Are you bleeding?” She rattled the doorknob. “Did something happen on the way home?”
How did she figure that one out? What was he supposed to say?? “No, I mean, yeah, there’s a little blood, but it’s all good. Just a papercut!” It was not just a paper cut. It had been a dull knife, courtesy of a mugger. The knife had slashed along his side, slicing through his suit (in a way that would be a nightmare to repair) and his skin in a jagged line. But it was hardly the worst he’d gotten while out as Spider-Man—what’s a dull knife to one sharpened to a deadly point, a sharp knife to a gun, a gun to some wacko with a mechanized scorpion tail? Nothing. A dull knife was nothing.
A little more blood dribbled out over his hand and he clenched his teeth, breath whistling. The swing home had aggravated it, and his supply of web-fluid was low enough that he hadn’t wanted to waste any on wrapping the cut.
Getting to lectures tomorrow was going to suck so hard.
Aunt May rapped at the door again. “Peter, I can smell blood. I’m coming in.”
“No, it’s—”
The room flooded with the light of the hallway, and Peter squinted. “What happened?” May gasped, and the floor thudded under her feet as she came closer. She dropped to the floor beside him, grabbing an old shirt and pressing it to his side firmly.
“May-”
“Hey,” she snapped. “No. G-d, Peter, why didn’t you tell me first thing? I’m your— your aunt, I don’t—I know how to take care of these things. No, no, up-”
“It’s really not that-”
“Oh yes it is,” she said sharply, hoisting his arm over her shoulder and pulling him up, letting the arm on the side of the injury hang limp. She pulled him to the bathroom, and though he knew he was stronger, he let her tug him along. “Why would you even try to hide it?”
Weakly, he cut in; “I didn’t want to worry you-”
“Well I AM worried, Peter!” She pulled the shirt from where she’d pressed it to his side, wetting it in the bathroom sink and replacing it. “How did this happen?”
He tipped his head back, avoiding her gaze. He’d been so careful to keep Spider-Man away from her, and now here he was, stabbed up in the bathroom. His eyes stung almost as bad as the cold water. “Mugger,” he mumbled. It was the truth, after all. He could give that to her.
She shuddered against him, hands pausing from where she’d been pulling rubbing alcohol out from behind the mirror. “A mugger? Oh, lord…”
“I’m okay,” he said softly.
She took a moment and breathed deeply. She peeled back the shirt, looking with a sharp eye at the torn skin. The rubbing alcohol went back in the cabinet, and she turned on the sink again, twisting the knobs to get warm water flowing. Out from under the sink she produced unscented body wash and began rubbing it on her hands.
She was silent the whole time.
“May?”
Her eyes were tired.
Peter hesitated. What was he supposed to say to her? She didn’t know how often he got these kinds of wounds—she didn’t know that this wasn’t that bad.
Soapy hands rubbed over the cut and he gasped. Water poured over his side, drenching the tile and bathmat outside the bathtub. Shit, that stung.
“May?”
Slowly, she stood from where she’d been bent over him and left. Her steps creaked on the stairs, and terror gripped his heart in a burning fist. Oh g-d, she’d figured him out, she knew, and he knew, and he knew how she felt about Spider-Man, what the news said, what the police said—this was it. He was losing his aunt, his last family member to himself, and not a villain like he’d feared.
He sat in the bathroom, staring emptily at the angry red of the stupid cut from that stupid mugger that he’d been stupid enough to land near…
She returned, kneeling down next to him, bandages in hand. “You’re my kid, Peter. You’ll always be my kid; I don’t care how old you are!” Medical tape sealed up the edges of the bandage.
A hand came to his chin, tough from work yet soft with age. “It’s just you and me,” she whispered. Her eyes were shiny in the light, like the tears were held there by surface tension alone. “Peter, please… Please, just come to me when you need help.”
Peter looked down to avoid her beseeching expression. “I love you, Aunt May.”
She let out a dry sob and pulled him close, tucking his head against her shoulder.
They sat together on the cold, wet tile of the bathroom, Peter shirtless and bandages wrapped around his torso and May with her hair undone for the night curtained round her shaking face.
Peter wrapped his arms round her, pushing away the guilt of failing her even in this one promise.