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Peter, despite being one of the older members of the team, wasn’t exactly experienced when it came to things like socializing. Or dating.
He’d gone on one date. One. One date with Kurt.
Peter didn’t even know how that had even happened; if Kurt hadn’t overheard him complaining to Wanda and made a joke, he never would’ve found the courage to actually ask him out.
Not for a lack of want, or anything. There was plenty of that, of want, to go around. But Kurt was actually Peter’s friend . That in itself seemed like a fucking miracle, so the possibility of them being anything more…? Not something he ever thought could happen to him. Not to Pietro “Peter” Maximoff, twenty something basement-dwelling loser.
But, somehow.
One date.
What was supposed to be after that…?
Peter had brought his phone out, and started to type a message:
[I like you]
He just stared at it, nearly wincing. I like you? It seemed so. Lame. Juvenile. Not enough. He chewed the corner of his lip, backspaced, and tried again:
[I like the blue you the best]
Again, although true, this wasn’t exactly what he pictured would win him a second date. Part of Peter still felt he had only gotten the first one because Kurt felt bad for him or something. That would make much more sense than Kurt actually wanting to be his boyfriend, wouldn’t it?
He had promised Kurt he’d find somewhere they could go, though. Where he wouldn’t have to wear the inducer and could just be himself.
Suddenly, Peter’s brow was furrowed, and he was typing the letters as fast as the phone could register them:
[It makes me so pissed there’s people out there that make it so you can’t be yourself. If I ever hear them say anything to you, they’ll never even see me coming, haha]
Again, all true. He has added the “ha ha” to make it seem like just a joke, but it was anything but.
But it was a bit too honest, definitely over sharing, and probably the exact thing to send if he wanted to make Kurt come to his senses and realize Peter was not boyfriend material.
But by then, the thoughts, the darker ones he spent a lot of time burying deep down, were hard to stop. The more he thought about Kurt, and how wonderful he was, it just made him angrier that anyone would be blind to that, just because they couldn’t handle his physical appearance. That in itself was batshit: Kurt was gorgeous. Perfect. Peter knew what it was like to be hated just because of who you were. He was a gay mutant Roma, a bastard son of a Jewish gadje. People could pick and choose which one of those to hate him for. But he also knew that however bad things had been for him, it must’ve been ten times worse for Kurt, who’s identity and differences were always on display for the world to see and judge.
He could feel the rage taking over, pulling his thoughts even deeper into that dark place.
Suddenly, he was typing again:
[If I ever see someone treat you less than you deserve, I don’t know what I’d do. Everyone thinks I’m this guy, happy go lucky, no worries. Nothing like my dad, right? But the thing is, I’m just like him. The anger, the violence. It’s in me, too. I got expelled from middle school, because I almost killed someone who was bullying my sister. I’m stronger and faster than I was then. And so fucking angry that this world makes us hide who we are. But if someone treated you like that, I don’t know what I would do. Or maybe I know exactly what I would do. I’d fucking kill them. ]
There was no fucking way he was sending that trashfire his fingers had just barfed out. He stared down at the words, embarrassed, ashamed, and just. So acutely aware that Kurt deserved so much more than a loser like Peter could ever hope to be.
He deleted it all, only to replace it with other words, as true as the others had been:
[You deserve someone so much better than me. You deserve the world]
Peter tossed his phone to the side, leaving the message as unsent, and pushed his face deep into his pillow, so it’d muffle his groan. He was such a fucking idiot.
He was still deep in that dark pit, when he had felt the rumble and chime of an incoming message come in. He was in deep enough that it was an uninvited interruption he was happy to ignore.
But by the second alert he had managed to peek up enough to look at it, and just enough to see the sender’s name: it was from Kurt.
Before his face could even start the smile that automatically wanted to be there, he felt a cold panic start to rise in his chest. He hadn’t actually deleted that last message, just left it sitting there. There was a panic scramble of limbs, as Peter snatched up his phone to make sure he hadn’t screwed himself. To make sure he hadn’t accidentally sent that text when he had tossed his phone aside.
The message was still there, unsent.
Another fucking miracle.
But what was this…? Peter couldn’t make sense of the other words on his screen, the ones that he had been sent.
[Do you have a Band-Aid? I just scraped my knee falling for you.]
[Are those space pants? Because your ass is out of this world!]
A third came in while he was staring down, wondering if somehow his Contacts had gotten messed up or—
[Hello. Cupid called. He says to tell you that he needs my heart back.]
These were coming in too fast to be from Kurt. The words too—English. Was someone helping him with this…? Anytime the blueberry got flustered, he defaulted to German. Not that he could even picture a flustered Kurt sending these—
[I think there’s something wrong with my eyes…I can’t take them off of you.]
Aaand there came another one. Now Peter was smiling, although his concern remained.
[How was heaven when you left it?]
And another. How was this happening?
[I need your picture so that I can let Santa know exactly what I want for Christmas.]
Okay. Wow.
[Your legs must be tired because you’ve been running through my mind all day.]
Wowwwwww.
Okay. He needed a moment. A laugh, and a good deep breath.
Okay.
Peter sat up, brushed a hand through his hair, and decided right then to go on an elf hunt. He typed a message, sent it, and then was on the move.
[Heyyyyyy ;)]
He still wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, but he had a hunch he’d find himself one very flustered, very blue, and very much flustered boyfriend at the end of the trail.
Well.
Knowing Kurt.
If he was half as flustered as Peter imagined, there was a good chance he’d see The Incredible Nightcrawler gone a little purple .