Chapter Text
Peter’s web-line, tangled desperately between numb fingers, holds as he slams into glass. Air punches from his lungs, but the pane stays intact. He fumbles for his footing, slipping in the smears of scarlet left from his meeting with the window, then begins the slow miserable climb to the ninth floor. His abdomen burns. His head pounds.
He’s not going to pass out. He’s not going to pass out. He’s…
He’s so fired. The pizzas he was supposed to deliver are long gone by now, whether he can remember where he stashed them or not. His boss is going to be furious with him for flaking on his deliveries again. He may have attempted the tried and true ‘It’s not my fault, Mr. Leonetti, I was mugged,’ routine if it wasn’t for all of the cell phones that recorded Spider-Man getting stabbed not two doors down from the pizza shop. He can’t risk anyone making the connection between Spider-Man and Peter Parker.
What was he supposed to do? Not drop everything and strip down to his suit to stop the bodega from being robbed? Not web the clerk out of the way of the stray bullet? Not take the lucky stab between his ribs during his distraction?
Actually, he could have done without that last one. Ned has enough on his plate without having his mess of a childhood best friend slithering through his window every other day with life-threatening injuries.
He breathes a sigh of relief as his fingers curl over Ned’s window sill. His Friend of Spider-Man sense must be tingling because it’s wide open. A strange choice for February, but you won’t hear him whining about his unprecedented change in luck.
He pushes the screen until it pops free of the frame then rolls into the apartment. He lands with a thud on gray carpet and groans as the impact aggravates his stab wound. It’s not until the haze of pain clears enough to see the unfamiliar light fixture above him that he considers how unlike Ned it is to have the window open on a day that’s threatening snow.
Ned hates winter. He hates leaving the window open even a crack and often compromises by stuffing a towel in the crack to keep the draft out because, as much as he hates winter, he loves his best friend more.
As he blinks at the rest of the room, dazed from blood loss, he slowly puts together that this is not Ned’s apartment. It smells wrong for one thing. Like burnt bread and blood (the latter of which, yes, he realizes is his fault), but also there’s a distinct lack of life in this place that’s so contradictory to Ned’s merch and memorabilia-stuffed apartment that for a moment he thinks maybe this one is vacant. No shoes by the door. No pillows on the couch. No DVDs next to the TV. No takeout containers. No books. Nothing.
Other than a mason jar that’s half-filled with odd little trinkets on an otherwise barren bookshelf, the place is lifeless.
Well, nearly lifeless.
In the same moment he decides he ought to haul his broken body out the window and try for the correct window, a tall blond someone wearing a knit sweater and jeans that have been worn soft over time steps into the room waving a towel at the smoke lingering near the ceiling.
The man freezes as they lock eyes.
Oh, mother fudger.
A tall blond familiar someone. A tall blond familiar someone he wishes wasn’t so familiar.
This guy. He’s everywhere on campus. Every time he turns around, there he is, watching him. Peter doesn’t get it. The first few times they accidentally made eye contact he wrote it off as a fluke. But then, last semester, there were a few weeks when the guy kept trying to start a conversation. Thankfully, he stopped because Peter was tired of running away. He doesn’t need help being late to class thank you very much.
How bad is his luck that he’s running into the guy off-campus now too?
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with him, not that he knows of at least, and certainly not physically. He’s drop-dead gorgeous with his southern drawl and toned forearms that he accentuates by rolling the sleeves of his flannels to his elbows. Or he did, back when the weather was nicer. Now he never sees him not bundled up to his neck in a bulky winter coat.
But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have time for whatever it is Mr. Tall Blond Someone thinks could happen between them. He doesn’t have time for anything that isn’t school, work, or his internship at Stark Industries. His friendships are already suffering.
Yet, despite everything, some nights when he’s lying in bed too exhausted to sleep, he takes out the sketch MJ gave him last semester and wonders what this guy sees in him. No one has ever looked at him the way Mr. Tall Blond Someone did that first day—all wonder and awe, starstruck—but he knows better than to question MJ’s artistic renderings. She’s been sketching people in moments of crisis for as long as he’s known her and she has only improved her craft over the years.
So the expression on Mr. Tall Blond Someone’s face when he first clapped eyes on Peter Parker (after nearly ruining a four hundred dollar textbook with a twenty-five cent cup of coffee) is immortalized on cheap recycled notebook paper thanks to MJ’s expert eye and quick pencil. He’s not sure if he should thank her or resent her.
Knowing he has the likeness of this guy stashed in his bedroom adds another layer of complication to whatever it is that’s not happening between them. He should throw it away but… It’s the way he looked at him. There’s a gravity to his gaze that carries through despite the quality of the paper and the grit of the lead. He looked at him like he’s important. Like he was seeing him all the way through to his core. Sort of like the way he’s looking at him right now.
“Spider-Man?” Tall Blond Someone sputters.
Oh. Right. He’s him.
“‘Sup,” he gasps.
Tall Blond Someone gawks. “What’re you doing—,”
“Sightseeing,” Peter grunts. He forces a hand under himself and gets to his knees. No way is he having this conversation bleeding on the floor. Using the window sill, he levers himself up, biting back a groan as his abdomen screams and his vision swims. He gets his feet under him anyway and pushes upright.
“Woah, are you—?”
His legs buckle. He sticks a hand to the window to keep from face-planting as black spots dance around the room. Maybe standing wasn’t such a good idea.
“Easy!” Mr. Tall Blond Someone is suddenly in front of him and catches him under the elbows.
His lungs go tight at the sudden proximity, at the heat of his hands through the suit, but there’s little he can do but allow him to lead him to the couch.
“Okay. It’s okay,” Mr. Tall Blond Someone says, almost to himself. “I’m gonna help you.”
“Gonna ruin your couch,” he croaks, hyper-aware of the arm that snakes around his waist and the hand that rests on his hip near the tickle of blood fleeing his stab wound.
“Don’t worry about it.” He sounds distracted. “Came with the apartment.”
He thinks there should be an argument for the money it’ll cost to replace it because the landlord is going to pitch a fit if they try to leave behind blood-stained furniture, but he doesn’t get a chance to make it before he’s deposited on the caramel cushions then pressed back by a firm hand on his chest until he’s fully horizontal.
He hisses as the stab wound pulls. “Hey now,” he chokes through the pain, “don’t get any ideas. ‘M not that kinda girl.”
Mr. Tall Blond Someone’s lips twitch. “Your virtue is safe with me,” he says dryly. “Don’t sit up. I’ll be right back with the kit. Hold still.”
He leaves the room and Peter tracks his footsteps as he disappears down the hall. He’s gotta get out of here. He can’t be too far off from Ned’s. He was lured in by the open window. Anybody would make that mistake. He’ll just—
“What’re you doin’?” Once again he is pressed back into the couch by a hand against his chest. “Stay still. I’m going to have to cut your suit a bit.”
He blinks hard, but the box of medical supplies Mr. Tall Blond Someone cracks open on the floor doesn’t get any smaller.
“Are you a doctor?” he asks dumbly. He’s a college student, an mechanical engineering major if Peter’s not mistaken. Of course, he’s not a doctor. He’s no good at guessing ages but he’s gotta be around the same age as him.
“Yeah, I’m a doctor,” he drawls in that accent.
That was sarcasm. He’s ninety percent sure that was sarcasm. Eighty percent. Seventy-five at the lowest.
He eyes the scissors that approach his suit warily. “You’re not going to Dirty Dancing me, are you doc?”
Dr. Cowboy pauses, scissors hovering over his stomach, and looks at him quizzically. “What?”
“Dirty Dancing?” Peter prompts. “The movie? It’s— There’s a botched abortion thing?” Oh man. It’s never good when he has to explain a joke.
“Oh.” He refocuses on the tear in Peter’s suit. “Haven’t seen it.”
“What? It’s a classic!”
A wide palm presses down on his hip. “Hold still, idiot. D’you want me to cut the suit or you?”
Peter lays back against the couch and frowns petulantly at the ceiling as the snip of scissors cuts through the silence. The silence lasts until Dr. Cowboy snaps on a pair of gloves.
“You don’t have a latex allergy, do you?”
“Not anymore,” he dismisses. “How have you not seen Dirty Dancing?”
Dr. Cowboy rolls his eyes and presses the kitchen towel from earlier against the stab wound hard enough to draw a wince. “There’s a lot of movies I ain’t seen. This is gonna need stitches. You cool with that?”
“You got any examples of your work? I have a mean cross-stitch mysel—,”
He nearly swallows his tongue as Dr. Cowboy lifts his shirt with one hand and points a blue-gloved finger at his rib while keeping his other hand pressed firmly against the towel.
“See that scar?”
It’s new. Pink and bubbled but it looks like it’s healing well. “What happened?”
“Brought fists to a knife fight.” He releases his shirt and Peter finds he can breathe. “I stitched it myself so my sister wouldn’t tear me a new asshole. You New Yorkers don’t screw around, I’ll give you that.”
“Dude, are you a criminal?” he demands. “You’re legally obligated to tell me if you are.”
A dark eyebrow quirks over a blue-eyed stare. “If I was a criminal, I wouldn’t care about legality.”
Against his will, Peter’s lips twitch into a smile. “You got me there. You should tell me anyway though. Just for fun. Like it’s a sleepover and we’re sharing secret crushes, only yours is whether you have a crush on crime while mine is about how I put the crush on crime.”
Dr. Cowboy eyes him balefully long enough that Peter nearly gets up to leave. Tough crowd, yeesh.
“Some guy was messing around this poor schmuck who was waiting for a ride and I convinced him to stop. That’s all.” He shrugs.
Peter relaxes into the couch but says, “You should leave that stuff to the cops.”
“Right, like you do, you mean.” Dr. Cowboy doesn’t wait for a response, which is good because Peter doesn’t have one. “You gonna let me stitch this or do I have to wait until you pass out? I may be new to the Big Apple but even I know not to let the city’s favorite vigilante bleed out on my couch.”
Peter snorts. “You are new. I’m no one’s favorite. I’m a menace.”
Dr. Cowboy cocks his head and looks him in the eyes, or rather, the mask. “Cities are made of people, not journalists and cops, and the people here would do anything for you.” He holds his gaze with that grave penetrating stare and Peter says nothing, his throat strangely raw. Dr. Cowboy looks away first, checking under the towel. “Hold still. The bleeding’s slowed enough we can stitch this puppy up.”
Peter stares at him as he digs through the medical kit. “Fine, but then I want to circle back to why you haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.”
Dr. Cowboy rolls his eyes as he readies a suture kit one-handed with a practiced ease that should probably alarm him. “Can’t believe you’re still fixed on that. We moved a lot growing up, okay? End of story. I’m giving you a local anesthetic.”
“Ohh, fancy.” He winces through the prick of the needle. “Not end of story. What does moving have to do with anything?”
“No space for hauling around DVDs,” he says shortly as he sets aside the spent syringe.
“So? What about renting or digital?”
Dr. Cowboy peels back the towel and peers at the wound underneath. “Dad hated it when the TV woke him up from his drunken stupor before he was good and ready,” he says, distracted as he carefully cleans the wound. “After he split, we were too hard up for cash to afford enough food to fill us up let alone splurge on movies of all things.” He goes tense and looks up with a strange expression on his face.
“What?” Peter demands, craning to look at the wound without moving too much. “I’m not bleeding green again, am I?” That was an eventful afternoon he has no interest in reliving.
“Huh? No, you’re fine. I just…” He looks at him, eyes jumping from one oversized white lens to the other. “I dunno why I’m tellin’ you this. I never talk about…” He trails off.
“Oh, it’s the mask. It’s therapist shaped.”
Dr. Cowboy huffs an aborted laugh and picks up the needle and suture thread. “You get lots of folks spilling their troubles to you?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I suppose that’s where the ‘friendly’ part of the title comes from.”
“I like to think it’s my dazzling personality and boyish good looks.”
Dr. Cowboy smiles and pokes a finger against his side. “You feel that?”
“A bit. Probably as good as it’s going to get. My metabolism will eat through that anesthetic in another minute or two.”
He clicks his tongue. “You hero types are so complicated.”
“Dude, you have no idea. What about when you had your own income?”
“What?”
“Movies, focus up. When you got older and got a job, didn’t you ever go to the movies with friends?”
Dr. Cowboy ties the suture thread through the needle with sure fingers then shoots him a look. “You’re a nosy little shit.”
“Since you’re going to be stabbing me and stuff, I think I deserve the distraction.”
He shakes his head then starts the first stitch. It tugs uncomfortably as the thread pulls through his flesh, but the anesthetic does its job and that’s all he feels. He can’t see Dr. Cowboy’s work on the wound. Instead, he watches his face, his eyes, focused and analytical as he drawls, “There ain’t much more to it. By the time I was old enough to help with bills, I didn’t care much about movies.”
“And now you’re a well-rounded member of society that brings fists to knife fights and stitches himself back together after?”
A grin steals Dr. Cowboy’s lips but he doesn’t look away from his task. “I got some jagged edges that ain’t as smooth as I’d like, but…” He shrugs a shoulder. “I think I turned out okay considering. You done evaluating my place in society, Mr. Vigilante?”
“Touché. So what movies have you seen?”
“Why’re you so obsessed with movies?”
“Movies are great! I’ve never met someone who doesn’t like them.”
“I never said I don’t like ‘em. Just that I don’t go out of my way to watch any.”
“Tomato potato, tomato potato,” he says flippantly.
Dr. Cowboy doesn’t bother to look at him as he says, “If you’re referencing something you’re wasting your breath, sweetheart.”
His breath hitches at the unexpected term of endearment, but if Dr. Cowboy notices, he doesn’t react. He simply ties off another stitch.
“No Megamind? No wonder you’re so maladjusted.”
Dr. Cowboy hums. “So what’s your excuse?”
“Nice try, but you have to achieve level ten friendship to unlock this tragic backstory.”
“Saving your life doesn’t count for anything?”
“You’re exaggerating. I was doing fine on my own.”
Dr. Cowboy looks up at him from under the fringe of his hair but doesn’t contradict his statement. “Uh-huh. So what’s the exchange rate on tragic backstories these days? I’m a little outta touch with the trauma community but I feel like sharing my damage should get me something.”
Peter sighs. “Okay, fine. I’m an only child and I’m desperate for attention.”
Dr. Cowboy’s face twitches like he’s surprised and then he throws his head back and laughs.
Peter can’t look away. His entire being lights up as he laughs—bright like a camera flash through closed eyelids and over just as fast. He’s still blinking away the afterimage as Dr. Cowboy, still grinning, ties off the final stitch.
“You’re full of shit, Spider-Man.”
Oh. Right. He’s him.
He was so distracted, first, by nearly passing out and then by the effortless banter, that he forgot. He forgot to be awkward. He forgot who he was talking to. He forgot that Dr. Cowboy has no idea who he is.
Would they get along this well without the mask between them? No. No, they wouldn’t because the mask makes him free. He can be himself without consequence because Spider-Man is allowed to take up space. Spider-Man is allowed to be irritating and bossy and aggressive. He doesn’t need to worry what people will think of him because no matter what he does Jameson will print papers smearing his reputation, the cops will try to arrest him any time he stays still long enough, and the good people of New York will need someone to step up and take the harm that would otherwise come their way.
Under the mask, he becomes bigger than Peter Parker.
Having finished placing a bandage over his neat row of stitches, Dr. Cowboy snaps his medical kit shut and rises to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
Again, Peter follows the sound of his footsteps down the hall. When the faucet turns on he eases off the couch and retakes his feet. The black spots don’t return, so with mixed feelings, he checks his web-shooters and slips out the still-open window.
Maybe now that Dr. Cowboy has gotten a taste of Spider-Man he’ll forget about Peter Parker. Maybe the pizzas will be where he left them. Maybe Jameson will shave off his awful little mustache and maybe pigs will fly.
~*~
He slams his bedroom door and hurls his backpack against the wall with as much strength as he dares.
He knew this job wouldn’t last long but getting fired never gets easier. To make things worse, he’s got a dozen unread messages from Ned and MJ in their group chat. He was supposed to meet them at the campus library an hour ago for their study group but of course, he got on the subway after getting chewed out by his former employer and didn’t think to check his phone until he was turning down his street in Queens.
“Peter?” May’s voice carries up the stairs. “Did you bring home milk like I asked?”
He closes his eyes and lets his head thump back against the door.