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It’s cold, god it’s so cold, and his suit is tattered and torn, and he’s bruised but not bleeding, and he curses himself for not putting on his thermal suit. He doesn’t know where else to go, so he goes to Matt’s. It’s late, half past three in the morning, but Peter is aching so badly, and Matt’s apartment is closer than his and probably has better heating, anyways. He started to lose feeling in his fingers five blocks ago, and he slips on his webline twice before he makes it to Matt’s apartment building.
There’s music nearly blaring when he reaches the fire escape at Matt’s window, and he can only guess that it’s Matt trying to drown out the noise of the rest of the city, and he’s infinitely sure that Matt’s neighbors appreciate the soundproofing. Peter’s tired, too tired, he thinks, the fog in his head comes on too soon and he leans his forehead against the window with a light thud, his hand next to it. He’s convinced that it only stays where it is because of his spider-powers.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers something he was told in high school biology, “Arachnids are coldblooded invertebrates. They will still completely in cold environments and will not move in an attempt to adapt.” He thinks he wants to curse, but his mind is too fuzzy, and he finds he soon has too little control of his body to even continue his sniffling. He wonders if his heartbeat will slow and soften, too, if this is actually a spider thing, and not just him dying. His mind is too hazy to continue the thought, and soon his consciousness blinks out.
Matt finds him almost twenty minutes later. At first he’s rigid because he doesn’t recognize the heartbeat, but soon realizes it’s too slow to be healthy, and quickly jams up the icy window, and the figure doesn’t even react with all the jostling, it just crumples in on itself, and Matt recognizes the scent of spandex and fast food and cheap shampoo and—“Dammit, Peter.”
He hooks his arms under the smaller man’s, and god, he’s stiff and he’s cold— it’s almost like he’s dead. He gets the resistant body to the edge of his bed. “Hey.” There’s nothing, not even the slightest movement or sound to signal that Peter’s registered Matt’s voice. “Hey.” He waits a quick moment before popping him in the face, anything to get Peter to respond, and realizes now that the boy’s suit is wet from the snow, and tattered. He heaves a sigh before picking him up again—and no response, not a single one. Quiet Peter is disarming. This? This far away, unresponsive, unmoving Peter is nearly terrifying.
Matt peels off Peter’s suit and tosses it in the laundry, and quickly gets the brunet in a bathtub full of lukewarm water. Matt sighs and kneels aside the lip of the tub. He tilts Peter’s head back, rolling up his sleeves and dipping his hands into the water, and then lets the water cupped in his palms run onto the top of Peter’s head, slicking down the boy’s mess of brown locks. He splashes some water onto Peter’s cheeks, careful not to get it up his nose, before hesitantly wetting a rag with hot water under the tap of the tub. He knows it’s procedure to keep a potential hypothermia patient in lukewarm temperatures to keep from shocking their system, but he supposes it won’t hurt to gradually increase the temperature of the water, either, so he lets the hot water run for a small bit before shutting it off again.
He presses the hot rag to Peter’s cheek, his forehead, his other cheek, his chest, the places he’d press a cold rag if the boy had a fever. Except he doesn’t, and Matt knows how to deal with those, and they’ve barely gotten past the friends part of knowing each other, and yet here Peter is, completely unresponsive and unconscious in his bathtub, Matt trying his best to tend to him, even though he’s not even entirely sure what’s going on. There’s a small lapse in time and Matt lets the ticking of a clock in an apartment four floors down feed his worry.
“You can’t check out on us now,” he mutters, and dips the rag in the warm water before pressing it to Peter’s skin again. He does this six, eight, twelve times before he hears the slow picking up of Peter’s heartbeat, and soon enough a small, watery sniffle, and Peter’s gaining consciousness again and thank god.
“Cold,” he whispers, and it’s hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in months, but the relief the scratchy sound brings Matt is uncanny. Peter slowly, slowly opens his eyes, and his vision is too blurry to make anything out of the haze. “Where—?”
“Matt’s,” Matt responds calmly, and backs off, going to grab the largest, fluffiest towel he has, and asks, “Can you stand?”
Peter seems completely glazed over, and Matt momentarily pushes down his worry to pull Peter out of his tub, and sets him on the toilet, wrapping the blanket around him. He slumps and mutters, “Cold.”
“Yes, you already said that.” Peter doesn’t respond—and that’s getting irritating and beyond worrying—and Matt sighs. “I’m going to get you some clothes. Stay here.” He doesn’t honestly think Peter’s going to move any time soon, but it’s too quiet, and Peter’s here, and it shouldn’t be this still, and he’s simply just filling the silence. While Matt’s gathering clothes, Peter’s sniffling picks up and becomes more regular, and although Matt doesn’t particularly enjoy the sound, he does think it’s an improvement.
He struggles with getting Peter into a tee shirt of his own, and then a sweatshirt with Columbia Law’s logo stamped on the front, and Peter swims in it. Next are boxers and matching Columbia sweatpants. He towel dries Peter’s hair, and he supposes it’s almost like having a young child, if the child was comatose. Peter’s still sniffling, and if he was lucid enough, Matt would’ve made him blow by now, but Peter’s yet to really be responsive.
By the time Matt gets Peter under the blankets of his bed and tossed another spare or two over them, he’s shivering and curling in on himself, and again, not normally a good sign, but it’s an improvement. Moments later, Peter asks again, “Where—?”
Matt’s brows furrow. “You’re at Matt’s,” he reiterates, and kneels beside the small ball under the covers. Peter’s face is hidden, but he mumbles,
“M’cold.” It’s one more syllable, at least, but Matt doesn’t have any more blankets, and he hesitates. It’s cliché, terribly so, but he really can’t force himself to care much at this point, so he slips under the covers with Peter, slings an arm around the smaller man’s stomach and pulls him to his chest. Peter doesn’t unravel himself in the least, instead curling further into himself, and Matt didn’t think that was possible, but it is, and Peter’s tucked so far into himself that Matt’s about to have a black hole on his hands. “Th’nks,” he slurs, and Matt’s eyes soften.
Peter sleeps, and it’s actual sleep, not that state he was in before, but Matt stays awake for the rest of the night. He won’t say it, but it’s most definitely because he’d much rather make sure there’s no lasting repercussions to this—although he supposes that Peter’s likely to catch something now, because he is aware that the boy’s immune system is spotty at best, but there’s really not much he can do about that at this point. Peter stops sniffling in his sleep, and Matt’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to acknowledge the reason why.
During the night, Peter slowly overheats, and Matt peels back the blankets one by one until Peter seems to be cool enough to sleep peacefully, and, yes, there’re boundaries that are being crossed, but he’s honestly too tired to care. When Peter finally rouses, his eyes flutter open slowly, and he makes a drowsy sound, hands coming up to rub at his eyes tiredly. Soon enough he realizes this isn’t his home, and that there’s someone pressed against his back and he tenses.
“It’s me,” Matt says, and removes his arm from around Peter’s waist.
Peter relaxes and turns over. “What am I doing here?”
“You don’t remember coming here?”
“No...” Peter says, and his brows furrow, and Matt can’t say that he’s surprised.
“You were practically comatose. How long did you spend out in the cold?” Matt asks.
Peter’s face scrunches up like he’s confused, but tired memories slowly come back to him, and he remembers up to the point where he passed out on Matt’s fire escape. “Aw hell,” he mutters. “You let me stay here?”
“You weren’t even lucid. I couldn’t have done anything else with you.” Matt sighs, but pulls the covers back and slips out of his bed. “You hungry?”
“Always,” Peter responds, sitting up, blankets pooling at his waist. He looks down at what he’s wearing and smiles to himself. He hesitates, before asking tentatively, “Did we...? Uh?”
Matt raises a brow at Peter. “I’m not even going to entertain what you mean by that.”
Peter’s head bobs in a nod, and he’s relieved, he is, but also slightly disappointed and, no, he doesn’t think he wants to entertain that, either.
Peter shuffles out of Matt’s room and finds him in the kitchen, and he wonders if Matt cooking is really a safe thing, but he supposes he’s been keeping himself alive for long enough now, that the thought really shouldn’t cross Peter’s mind. He settles himself at the kitchen island and lies his head down, pillowed by his arms, and watches Matt cook. He thinks he drifts off because he’s startled when a hot mug of something is placed in front of his face.
“Drink that,” Matt says, and Peter sits up and frowns down at the mug. The steam smells like leaves and grass and it’s completely earthy. He makes a face.
“What is this?” Peter asks.
“It’s tea.” Matt sounds exasperated.
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
Matt sighs, rolls his eyes as he turns towards a cabinet and opens it. “It’s herbal. It’ll make sure you won’t get sick.” He places a bottle of honey in front of Peter. “Load it up with honey.”
Peter does, and Matt drops a spoon into the mug before he can ask for one, then returns to making whatever he’s making. It looks like omelets, and Peter realizes just how hungry he really is as he mindlessly stirs his drink. He takes a tentative sip and gags, despite the absurd amount of honey the drink has in it. “Oh my god,” Peter chokes out, and Matt seems entirely unimpressed. Peter dumps some more honey in his mug.
“You’re going to use that whole jar, aren’t you?” Matt sighs out.
“It’s likely.”
“You are the worst guest.”
“Thanks. I’ll makes sure to come over again soon,” Peter quips, and grins when he’s successfully sweetened the drink beyond recognition. He slowly sips at the drink until Matt’s finished with breakfast, and then downs it completely. He scoops out the remaining honey in the cup with a finger, and Matt grunts, shaking his head. “What? Honey’s good!”
“You’re eating it straight.”
“So?”
Matt shakes his head. “Eat.” Peter gladly accepts invitation, but after a while, his chewing slows, and he looks up at Matt. “...Why are you doing this?”
“Because New York needs Spiderman,” Matt responds, and it’s simple, and it shouldn’t hurt but it does, and Peter nods before finishing up his meal. Not long after, he’s getting ready to head out of Matt’s apartment—he has no real reason to stay, after all—and finds himself almost wanting a reason to come back again. Matt stops him before he leaves, though, and hands him a pretty large mug with, not herbal tea this time, but hot chocolate made with milk and those tiny marshmallows Peter actually really loves to death. “Bring it back when you can,” Matt says, and Peter smiles with a nod. “With the clothes, too, if you don’t mind.” Matt’s tone is a little teasing, and Peter realizes that he’s actually still in Matt’s warmer clothes.
“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Thanks.” And then Peter leaves, but not without his excuse to come back.