Peter Parker Imagines Book

What He Won't Know Won't Hurt - Part 3

Sorry for the late update! My internet went out

You needed to punch something.

It wasn't like you to try and solve your problems with your fists, but you were almost drowning in the emotions you were feeling, and fighting seemed like the only option viable to you through the deprecation. 

You were hasty as you suited up. For the first time since you had donned the first Spider-Woman costume, you hated the way it felt. You took a deep breath as the material of the Stark suit compressed around you, feeling like it was too tight. Too clingy. Like it was hard to breathe. But you ignored the feeling as you slammed your window up. You barely gave Karen the time the A.I. needed to calibrate before you were swinging away from your home. 

Pain shot through your arm as you used the damaged muscles, irritating the bruise, but you didn't care about that either. The only thing running through your brain was the voice telling you how stupid you've been. So you tuned out the pain, your driving intent anger and the want to forget about your mistakes for a while. 

Going on patrol the way you felt was irrational. That was something you were acutely aware of, despite the fact that you were breaking the promise you made to yourself that you wouldn't make an appearance as Spider-Woman until you were fit to fight without any hindrances--namely, your arm. It would have back to normal in a day or so if you hadn't interrupted the healing process. If things hadn't happened the way they did. 

But here you were, swinging away from your house as fast as your surroundings would let you. Your voice was rough and low from the sobs you'd shed earlier as you commanded Karen to open the hack that allowed you to listen in to the police channels. You wanted something big. Something you could use as a distraction. 

It's been hours since you let Peter leave. Since you let him wait outside your doorstep for his uncle to pick him up. Since you sat on the ground to your back to the front door, the boy doing the same on the opposite side. Your tears fell in rhythm. 

He didn't tell you. Peter didn't have to. You knew he was secretly waiting for you to open the door. To pull him back in and tell him everything. But you didn't. You couldn't.

In the time it took for Ben's car to roll into the driveway, you had tried to find the right words to piece together. A way to tell Peter exactly what was going on. The real reason why you were hiding things from him. Hiding Spider-Woman. But every scenario ended with him being more hurt than he already was as you played them out in your head, and you didn't know if you could take any more heartbreak. Peter didn't deserve it.

You had listened as Peter sniffed and wiped his eyes before trudging to his uncle's car. Ben had asked him what was wrong, but Peter stayed silent. The car kept still and running for the entirety of three minutes as Ben waited to be sure, giving the boy a chance to speak. You knew it had to be obvious something had happened between the two of you, and you wouldn't be surprised if the man wanted to try to help your relationship before it was beyond saving. 

You've always liked Ben. He was a good man. 

Then the tires had crunched on the gravel, the car engine rumbling as they pulled away. Silent. The farther they went, you could feel Peter slipping from you in more ways than one. Feel the wedge that was splitting the two of you apart in the first place being hammered down even further, creating more cracks that spidered through the structure of your friendship. 

You were losing him. And it was your fault. 

That night, you ignored your uncle as you entered the house again around midnight. You were in regular clothes, your suit in a backpack you kept hidden outside in case of emergencies to hide your identity from him. Even though at this point, you weren't exactly hiding your identity either, you sporting enough clues for a suspecting person to put two and two together. You didn't hide the redness of your knuckles or the bruise blossoming across your jaw, or the way you limped as you stomped up the stairs to your room. You just let his voice fade in with the others in your head that were screaming rationality at you. The ones that were telling you the way you were acting would only continue to hurt yourself, but more importantly, the others close to you.