I got carried away with this, just a little, but this was really fun to do and kind of long to respond with in my ask box, so here you are, 5 head-canons as asked for by @ironspiderling. They’re totally random, but things I’ve thought about more than once:
He keeps an old shoe box under his bed filled with things that are special to him. In it are things like: postcards from Ned and the exotic places he sometimes goes to with his dad on holidays. He has a little collection of rocks, pocketed momentos from good days; Central Park with May and Ben on the first day of spring from weeks before he’d died, the day he’d gone with Ned and his dad upstate for the weekend to hike and camp out in the Adirondacks, a chunk of cement from Germany, a pitted stone worn down from the ocean that you’d placed in his palm the first time he’d heard your laugh mix with the gulls and crashing waves. There were birthday cards from you, Ned, May, and Ben. His most cherished is nearly a decade old, edges worn, paper tearing in the middle with how many times he’d opened it up to look at his mother’s handwriting, to finger over the fading ink; to look at the picture of his parents tucked in between. There’s a picture of you laughing. He keeps a pair of his Uncle’s glasses wrapped up in one of Ben’s old socks; design colorful, with little UFOs and men in space helmets woven into the knit.
Peter Parker smells like warmth and comfort: apple pie, honey, cinnamon, wet earth, and peppers. Kind of the way a crisp Autumn morning smells; when the chilly air coats your insides and renews you, clears your mind, makes you smile, and tingles at your cheeks. He smells the way red and orange leaves smell when they swirl around your head as they fall from branches, as they settle on the ground and mix with each other, the Earth.
Peter is shy about singing, only ever letting loose when he’s got the apartment to himself or messing around with Ned. Sometimes he hums; when he’s got you wrapped up in his arms and the feel of you, the way it burns and how you melt into the places your bodies meet lighting him up, the record player in his heart spinning, happiness spilling from his insides in a melodious way. Spider-man, however, is not afraid to sing out loud. Beneath his mask, he can be who he wants to be, unafraid and confident in a way Peter hadn’t yet realized was still there without his suit. Bystanders around Queens talk about the web-head with the surprisingly good singing voice; people on the side walk below occasionally catching a few notes as they swing on the air above their heads; children laughing when he wove lyrics from silly, funny songs for little ears.
He is absolutely the type to brush his teeth in the shower. And it’s spearmint toothpaste. He’s bad at flossing.
On Sunday mornings, (he is home for the early hours of this day every weekend, mandatory family breakfast made law by May,) he always puts a towel in the dryer for her while she showers, leaving it for her on the bathroom counter to use when she gets out. Like the hot chocolate Ben used to make for the three of them, he had done this for her, too; Ben had always given May warmth in all things, and so he would continue to do this for her until he couldn’t anymore.
