Work Text:
"I want this done by the end of the week or it's your problem," Hobbes said, and all but slammed his office door in Peter's face.
Peter's lip twitched but he didn't say anything back. Usually when Hobbes got pissy, Peter could brush it off--he was a pigheaded middle aged cis dude who was half jealous of Peter's intelligence for being half his age and trans, and half wrestling with his attraction to Peter. For some reason, Peter continued to stand in front of the door for a few long seconds, his hands fisted at his sides, breathing hard.
Then Peter rolled his eyes and turned around to stalk his way back to his bench. It wasn't his fault none of his experiments were working, it was literally a lot issue with the solutions they had ordered, and there was nothing that he could do until they got a fresh batch. Of course Hobbes didn't want to hear that. He wanted results.
Peter circled around the lab a few times, trying to determine something he could even do that day, but there was nothing. He felt keyed up, restless, his stomach cramping from stress and lack of food and water. He was tired and hot and angry.
Eventually, Peter grabbed his backpack, shoved his laptop inside of it, and barely remembered to throw his lab coat over the back of his chair before he was out the door.
After the longest elevator ride of his life, Peter stomped out into the Stark Tower lobby, through the throngs of people in their perfect suits and perfect hair and perfect shoes who were no doubt judging his bedhead and graphic t-shirt and converse. When he reached the street he expected the fresh air to calm him down marginally, but he still felt violent. Like he needed to tear something in half.
Peter's train ride home almost ended in an international incident when, despite the lower occupancy from traveling outside of rush hour, a couple of loud tourists wouldn't stop falling when the train moved and bumping into him. He snarled, glaring in a way he usually saved for true criminals and not random out-of-towners, and they squealed and moved further down the train car.
Home stood in front of him after 20 minutes. Peter tilted his head back, trying to see into the front window of his and Wade's fifth floor apartment, but the way the sun glinted against the glass hid any movement inside. Peter hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders and stomped his way up the stairs to the fifth floor, and then angrily unlocked the door, almost snapping his key in half.
Wade was home. Peter wanted so badly to feel relieved. Then he caught sight of the pile of dirty laundry outside the washer, where he had left it that morning expecting Wade to do it, and the pile of dishes in the sink, and Wade sitting on the couch in his boxers with his feet up in front of the TV like he didn't have a care in the world.
"What the fuck, Wade," he said, slamming the door shut behind himself.
Wade jumped a bit despite looking at Peter since the moment he came in. "What's wrong, Spidey? Bee in your bonnet?"
Peter wasn't in the mood. "You didn't do one fucking thing I left for you today," he growled. "Why do I always have to come home and do everything for you?"
"Woah, woah, tiger--"
"Don't call me that."
"Peter," Wade said seriously, moving his feet from the coffee table to instead rest on the floor. "What happened?"
After hearing his full name like that, Peter couldn't hold back his anger. "You happened, Wade. Do the fucking laundry and the fucking dishes when I leave."
Wade opened his mouth, and then closed it again, working his jaw. "I can't do this with you right now," he said. He rooted around in the pile of blankets at his side until he found one of his masks, which he pulled on quickly. "I'll go out. When I get back you need to calm down and actually talk to me."
"Do you ever shut the fuck up?" Peter hissed, having stepped out of his shoes and dropped his backpack on the bench near the door. He stalked over to start the laundry so he didn't have to hear whatever Wade had to say in response.
By the time as much laundry as he could fit was in the washer and it was running, Wade had gone into and out of the bedroom and left the apartment with a quiet snickt of the door. Peter gritted his teeth and angrily started on the dishes.
Usually Peter would change into comfortable clothes when he got home and spend a few minutes on the couch, but he had this rage-filled energy coursing through him that kept him moving despite himself.
It only took fifteen minutes to do all of the dishes and wipe down the kitchen counters. Then Peter occupied himself with tiding the living room, folding all the blankets Wade had just left piled up and dumping all the soda cans and chip bags in the trash. Peter was moments from pulling out the vacuum cleaner when his stomach cramped again, almost sending him to his knees.
"God damn it," he sighed to himself. Food, water. Right. He went to the kitchen and ran the faucet into one of the newly cleaned glasses, and then stood at the sink chugging it until it was empty. Food would have to wait--he couldn't have eaten if he tried.
Peter continued to angry clean, making the bed and dusting the tv and scrubbing the bathtub, all in his work clothes, until the water he drank finally caught up to him. He had really been so dehydrated the whole day that this was the first time he had peed in hours, which probably accounted for all the muscle cramping.
He turned off the bedroom light, temporarily satisfied with its cleanliness, and then headed to the bathroom. He lifted the toilet lid--one thing Wade had learned to do right was keep the seat down--and forcefully rucked his pants and underwear down before sitting on the toilet.
And then Peter's face blanched. His white underwear was soaked in blood. When he moved it aside to check, his thankfully black jeans were also soaked through with shiny, stinking blood.
All at once, Peter's anger drained out of him. He just felt tired, now, and embarrassed to have blown up at Wade like that. There was no reason he should have chased Wade out of his own home. It was barely noon, it wasn't like Peter came home after a full day out and nothing was done. And Wade loved to play the part of housewife, he was probably going to do everything Peter did and more in just a few hours if Peter hadn't burst into their home and started screaming at him.
Peter rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. He slipped his feet out of his pants and underwear and wiped himself with a wet wipe as best he could with blood continuing to pour out from between his legs. Then he waddled to the sink to look through the cabinets for some kind of tampon or pad he had lying around.
I thought the whole point of an IUD was to stop this, Peter thought wryly. Apparently that was wrong. They were just to experience a pretty damn invasive surgery and hopefully, maybe not get pregnant.
Thankfully there was a box of tampons hidden at the back of the cabinet, totally dry and sealed. Peter pulled out the whole box and waddled back to the toilet, setting it on top of the toilet tank. He used one inside himself as well, and then pulled out the applicator with bloody fingers.
"Gross," he sighed, standing up from the toilet again. He washed his hands, and then ran the tub with a few inches of cold water to throw his underwear and jeans into. After the fact he searched his jeans pockets for anything important, but they were thankfully empty.
Well. Now that Peter had thoroughly stepped in it and chased away the one person who could cheer him up at this time, all that was left to do was change into his Period Suit and curl up on the couch until Wade came back.
The Period Suit in question was just an oversized black sweatsuit with a hood, so Peter could curl up every part of his body into it if he wanted to. It was originally Wade's, of course, but when they first started dating Peter had basically stolen it out from under him. He still kept it with Wade's clothes so it could absorb his musky gunpowder-y smell until Peter needed it again.
Fully dressed and protected now, Peter thought again about food. His stomach cramping was only getting worse and he wasn't hungry at all. No use making himself sick forcing food into his stomach.
Peter laid out on the couch under one of the blankets he had just folded and turned the TV back on. Wade had been watching The Nanny, his favorite show for the past few months, and had paused and turned the TV off right when Fran Drescher was coming down the stairs in one of her classic overdressed outfits.
Peter flipped the TV to YouTube instead. He would watch some nature documentaries about spiders until he fell asleep, and by the time he woke up hopefully Wade would be home.
He didn't even get a chance to fall asleep an hour into the first documentary before the front door opened, revealing Wade in his civvies.
Wade looked really, really sad. He wasn't standing as tall and broad as Peter knew he could, instead basically curved in on himself, making himself small. Seeing his boyfriend so cowed by his insults made Peter's heart thump painfully in his chest.
"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.
"No, wait," Peter interrupted before Wade could continue, sitting up on the couch with his legs still spread across the other seats. "I am really sorry, Wade. I shouldn't have said any of those things to you. I was angry but that didn't give me an excuse to treat you that way. I wasn't angry with you at all, it was... just, everything about today boiled over. But still, I shouldn't have said that."
Wade nodded. "Period Suit," was all he said at first. Peter looked down at himself and back up at Wade. "Don't you have an IUD?"
"They're worth fuck all, apparently. No ovulation but I can still get... this. It was just PMS and rudeness, Wade, I didn't mean--"
"Peter, it's fine." Wade took off his mask, then, and Peter could have cried at the expression on his face. "I wasn't just going to leave the house fucked up like that, by the way. You were home early."
Peter was already nodding before Wade stopped talking. "I know, I only realized later. I only thought of it later. I went to the bathroom and it was a bloodbath, I didn't know before I had already... yelled at you." He swallowed hard, fisting his hands in his blanket. "Please come sit with me, Wade?"
Wade smiled, then, and it looked genuine. "Sure," he said easily. "Let me move the laundry to the dryer and start the next load."
Peter let him do the rest of the chores, lying back and closing his eyes and just listening to Wade hum and mutter to himself. This was Wade in his home-element. Peter should have trusted him more, and not let his boss and his cramps and his PMS get to him.
Eventually, he felt Wade lift his feet and sit down beneath them, and then place his feet in his lap. "Water," he said, and Peter opened his eyes to a bottle with a sport top being handed to him.
"Thanks." He took it and took a few sips while still lying down. "I was dehydrated today. Didn't eat anything either."
Wade tsked and started to rub the arch of Peter's right foot in the perfect way. "We'll get you something soon. Just relax." Wade was how Peter liked him, in his Spider-Man boxers and a black tank top that accentuated his big arms and broad chest, and matched Peter's current suit as well. He wasn't wearing his mask, thank God, and his pretty blue eyes were amused as they watched Peter sink further and further into the couch cushions.
"Thank you."
"You already said that, honey bunch."
"I mean it, Wade. And I'm still very sorry." Peter capped the water bottle and tucked it into his arm for safekeeping. "We can't exactly have wild, violent make-up sex right now but I'll totally suck your dick."
Wade laughed out loud, kicking his own feet up onto the coffee table again and switching his perfect foot rub to Peter's left foot. "I'll take you up on that later, Pete," he teased. It only took a few more minutes of the drone of the TV and Wade's magic hands for Peter to fall completely asleep.