@thwipsthrown asked: you've got a lot of people counting on you to come home every night. (gwen and peter in earth-17?)
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This was exactly why he hadn't wanted them to find out. Any of them. Not Gwen, or MJ, or Harry. This fear and worry, that realization that the person swinging around in the mask every day, every night, was really him. That Spider-Man was really Peter. That was where the bruises would come from, the cut lips, the scrapes on his arms or his back, why he was always so tired in the mornings. It was him being thrown through windows and into the pavement, being grabbed by the throat or shot at, on the bridge trying to pull the car up by a web before it could crash into the river, swinging away from a scene clutching his side as the police finished up. Peter didn't want them to have that kind of fear for him, to watch the news and have the sickening knowledge of who was really on the screen.
He hated that Gwen knew now as much as he was relieved that she did. That he didn't have to explain why he hadn't moved in with any of them yet and stayed in his crummy apartment, why he was tired, where he had been. It was a relief to not have to hide it from her anymore, sometimes. Until he barely had a chance to wash up and change before she was there, and he wondered how much of the fight she'd seen. How scared she would have been if she had seen any of it. Of course he'd let her come inside, of course he'd say through her seeing the scrapes and the bruises and the cut to the side of his face. It was just that he hated that she knew to worry now.
Three people counted on him coming home every night, two of them didn't even realize it and Peter hated seeing that Gwen did, "I know." he said, reaching over for her hand to hold it and trying to ignore the way that his shoulder burned and hurt with the movement. The ice pack was sitting next to him forgotten, "I know and I did, Gwen. I came back, I'm home and I'm okay."











