By the time the webbing disintegrates, Matt is out.
Peter reaches up and carefully lowers Matt's hands from where they rest at the base of the headboard, where they'd fallen after the hour was up. He picks off what strands remain, as Matt doesn't like the feeling of the residue on his skin, then checks his wrists for chafing and bruising. A little red, a little irritated from all the pulling, but no more injury beyond that. Better than padded handcuffs, if Peter says so himself. He presses a kiss to the thin skin, feeling Matt’s pulse against his lips, calm and steady. It makes him smile, distant and faraway.
That done, he stretches Matt's arms, works his fingers down from each shoulder to work out any possible cramps. Matt had struggled hard this time, muscles and tendons visibly cording in his desire to free himself, and Peter doesn't want him to wake up sore. Well. Sore because of that. He crawls down the bed to repeat the process with his now-free legs, massaging his calves, working his ankles, digging his thumbs into the arches of his feet. Feeling for and focusing on any possible points of tension. There aren’t many. Matt’s a wrung-out dishrag beneath him.
(Good. Good. Peter can do what he wants, now. The only thing he’s wanted to do from the beginning. That was the deal.)
Likewise, there’s no resistance when Peter pulls the plug out of him, no reaction to the drag on his walls or the stretch of his entrance. He places it beside the well-used cock ring on the sheets, watches the trickle of come escape from Matt’s puffy, abused hole. Matt doesn’t like being stopped up like that, too full with Peter’s spend and unable to do anything about it. Absently, Peter revises later plans for a shared shower to a bath, because he doubts Matt is going to be able to stand long enough to get him thoroughly cleaned out. Three loads will do that, Spider-stamina and preternaturally short refractory periods a blessing in this matter. Hopefully his passage isn’t too sore. Peter did fingerfuck him first, over and over, until he was screaming muffled overstimulated invective into his gag.
Speaking of which. Moving back up Matt’s body, Peter tenderly turns his head to unbuckle the gag, easing the mouthguard shiny with saliva from between slack red lips. Matt hates it -- he hates how it blocks off another one of his senses entirely, leaving him unable to taste anything but the sturdy rubber, unable to taste Peter, whether directly on his tongue or just traces of him on the air -- but it’s a necessity whenever Peter takes this hour with him. Besides, Peter fucked his face until he choked before stopping up his mouth. Left him that flavor, as a boon.
There are a few more traces of webbing still clinging to Matt’s mouth, stretched across his jaws and cheeks, but that, on the other hand, was purely for the aesthetic.
(He needed something out of this, during. He can feel the chain around his own ankle, threatening to pull him to earth.)
(It was a mistake, he realized after. Now he has to fix his webshooters too.)
(No. Focus. Matt still needs him.)
Matt’s not asleep, or unconscious, just not present. His eyes are half-open beneath the precious fan of his lashes, rolled up, hazel dark and glassy and gone. The lines of his face are as loose and open as Peter has ever seen him. There are dried tear tracks on his cheeks. Peter traces them with the back of his finger, featherlight, then his mouth. Runs a thumb over his plush lower lip, dips his head for a gentle kiss and to just share his air. Matt’s always handsome but like this, pliant under his hands, gorgeously limp as Peter manipulates his limbs and repositions his body to his whims -- he’s never been more beautiful to him.
No, that’s not accurate. It’s not about beauty. Peter loves it when Matt’s like this because like this, Matt is unable to refuse his care.
(Love is not accurate either.)
(A sudden sob breaks through his reserve. Peter blinks, startled. He swallows it back down, hums, consciously remains floating. Focus. He needs to care for Matt now. Everything else is for later.)
Reaching over the side of the bed, Peter shakes out the towel he placed there earlier and begins wiping down Matt’s body. It’s more reflective than efficient, almost more for his benefit than Matt’s as he takes the time to survey the landscape he’s colored across sculpted musculature. The bite mark around one nipple. Miniature burns from the incense stick, red and still radiating heat under his fingertips. Cruel pinch marks, the oblique angles left by his nails littering Matt’s underarms and behind his knees, hips and pelvis, inner thighs, cock and balls. Scratches, lines of turfed-up skin across Matt’s chest and stomach and down his sides. More bites that drew blood. Fingerprint bruises on his hips and thighs, starting to bloom darker as time slips by.
Peter remembers leaving these, but in the way he remembers reading the events in a book. There was a sequence of events that he was involved in. He doesn’t remember what it felt like to leave them.
(He knows he will remember later. He knows the crash is coming. But it was the only way, the only way Matt would allow him to--)
Matt is the object that was worked upon. Peter is the tool that performed the work. Who, then, is the driving force? Who impels the hand that has painted this picture?
Who benefits, when both of them hate it in different ways--
(“You want to be hurt so badly, I will hurt you.”)
(Such a lie. He knows Matt doesn’t want to be hurt. He doesn’t know if Matt knows that.)
There are other marks, too. He caresses a yellowing bruise splashed over Matt's lower left rib cage, a cut on his hip, another on his thigh. Not his, not something left by him. One thing Peter refused to do was hit him, hands or canes or whips, unsure of controlling his strength in this context. The other thing was blades, not knowing enough to cut him safely. Whereas Matt’s only stipulations were nothing visible outside of his clothes, nothing that would keep him from work the next day. Given what he knows Matt has limped into the office with after a night as Daredevil, that’s not exactly the restriction one might assume it’d be.
It could have been much worse. Peter just hadn’t felt like it.
(Peter never wanted to hurt him.)
(But it was the only way he'd let--)
He wipes down Matt’s belly and spent dick and stained thighs, nudges his legs further apart to sop up the mess between them with the towel. The thing is, all of this isn’t even sexual for Matt. This is absolutely not about getting off. It’s not even, really, about the pain. But Matt gets one hour, and Peter knows this will fuck him up, mind wanting to stop, body wanting to keep going, so he includes it, because that was the deal. Whatever Peter wants. To Matt, it’s just more of the same in the end.
Matt really is a mess.
There was already a towel beneath his hips to begin with but Peter had used lube, lots of it, and it had spilled out around his fingers. Tingling, the kind that made Matt howl as he rubbed it mercilessly into him, coated his sensitive walls and slathered his nipples and smeared it over his weeping cock until Matt’s hips twisted like he was being electrocuted and he kicked out and he thrashed and he sobbed incoherently for it to stop.
There’s a reason Matt was gagged. And it still could have been worse. Matt has no hot sauce or ginger in his fridge. Maybe next time, Peter thinks distractedly. He needs to do more research. Though that might actually make Matt pass out. It’d be typical of the man to only discover his hard limits by slamming face-first into them. It’s not like he’ll ever safeword out.
(Is that trust? It feels like trust. It also feels like being taken advantage of.)
(Peter chokes on bright grief. Forces himself to breathe through it. It’s all right. It’s all right. He can take care of Matt now. Gentle handling instead of detached cruelty. He’s allowed to take care of Matt now. Focus. Focus.)
Rising, Peter gathers up the towels and sex toys and the bowl from the nightstand -- one half-melted ice cube remaining in a small puddle along with the extinguished incense stick -- and pads out of the bedroom, avoiding his broken webshooters along the way. Deposits the towel in the bathroom hamper, the toys in the sink, and the bowl in the kitchen. Retrieves a granola bar and a bottle of water and the first aid kit. Matt doesn’t require much medical attention but the burns still need aloe and bandaging and he wants to get antibiotic ointment on some of those scratches. Arnica on the bruises. Matt would call it overkill, unnecessary. Matt is still not calling the shots. That was the deal.
(“You get one hour. Until the webs dissolve. After that, I get to take care of you.”)
Though topical treatments will have to wait until after the bath, of course. Back in the bedroom, Peter sets his supplies aside and considers the still, serene form. It’d be simple enough to pick Matt up and carry him to the tub, arms under his legs and shoulders bridal-style, his dark head tucked safely into the crook of his neck. In terms of Spider-strength, Matt weighs nothing. In terms of everything else, Atlas never supported such a precious burden.
Peter hums, aimless, running his fingers affectionately through Matt’s sweat-damp hair. The bath can wait for a moment, he decides. He wants Matt to have returned far enough to be aware of Peter’s ministrations. To respond to them, to him. But he thinks about it, his next steps. How he’ll wash Matt carefully, reverently, propping him up out of the water as he runs his hands over his damaged skin. Work shampoo into his hair, pour clean water over him, massage his scalp, knead his shoulders and the nape of his neck. How he’ll press kisses to his temple, the corner of his eye, the cheekbone bruised from an errant punch on the streets. Run the soaped-up washcloth down his limbs and body, soft and kind and devoted. Make sure he’s clean. Make sure he’s cleansed.
He’ll rinse him off, wrap him in one of his sinfully soft towels. He’ll take him back to the bedroom, ensure he’s steady on his feet before he changes the bedding, then lay him down like a treasure, a saint, a beloved martyr. He’ll treat Matt’s wounds, both from Peter and from Daredevil (from Peter first, even though the Devil might have taken worse. Always from Peter first.). Make sure he eats and drinks something, indulge himself and feed him from his fingers. Maybe work on his hands; for all the padding in his gloves, Matt’s hands take just as much of a beating as the ones he uses them to dish out. He could benefit from a good hand massage. Then get him dressed, if he wants. Pick up the clothes lying around the bedroom, his webshooters from where they fell in a crumpled mess after he tore them off and convulsively hurled them away from himself. Make sure there’s nothing for Matt to trip on as he regains his equilibrium.
Straightforward, simple steps. But simple is not the same as easy. What is ever easy with the two of them?
(And the worst part is, after everything, Matt will thank him, and Peter will scream inside his head.)
Still, he wants Matt responsive. Wants him to know what he’s doing. If he’s lucky, Matt will seek his touch. If he’s lucky, Matt will let him love him.
(That was not the deal.)
(Peter loves him anyway.)
(Focus. Everything else is for later.)
(It’s later enough.)
Matt stirs.
Peter shatters.