Work Text:
Peter doesn’t say he had a bad day.
He doesn’t have to. He comes in, doesn’t take his shoes off, stands in the middle of the living room like he’s waiting for an instruction that never arrives, and then sits down very carefully on the couch, as if gravity might be louder than usual today.
Wade looks up from his phone and clocks it immediately.
“Okay,” he says. “Based on posture and eye focus, you either had to argue with a committee or the lights were too bright at work again.”
Peter makes a small, noncommittal noise and stares at the wall.
“Cool,” Wade says. “No questions. No debrief. Just premium, artisanal, low-demand verbal nonsense.”
He sits down at the other end of the couch and starts talking about something completely unimportant. Something about burritos. Or microwaves. Or a man who tried to return a cactus to IKEA. It doesn’t matter. The content is irrelevant. The cadence is the point.
Peter’s shoulders are still up around his ears. His hands are folded too tightly in his lap, fingers pressed together like he’s trying to keep them from drifting off and doing something without permission.
Wade keeps talking. Not loud. Not quiet. Just… steady.
After a minute, he reaches out and lightly taps Peter’s hand with two fingers. A question, not a grab.
Peter doesn’t look at him. He just shifts his hand a few centimeters closer.
Wade takes that as a yes and laces their fingers together, loose and careful, like he’s holding something fragile and expensive.
Peter’s breathing changes almost immediately. Slower. Deeper. Still shallow, but not panicked.
“Fun fact,” Wade continues, like nothing important just happened, “if you try to microwave a Pop-Tart and a Hot Pocket at the same time, you create a food-based ethical dilemma because one of them will always suffer.”
Peter closes his eyes.
Wade keeps going.
“The Pop-Tart wants speed. The Hot Pocket wants patience. They are fundamentally incompatible philosophies, and yet we force them to coexist on the same rotating glass plate. Society.”
Peter’s thumb makes a small, repetitive movement against Wade’s knuckle. Not fidgeting. Stimming, but quietly, and only because the input is finally predictable enough to allow it.
Wade notices. He adjusts his grip slightly so Peter has a better texture to work with. Doesn’t comment.
He keeps talking. About pigeons. About a guy who tried to teach his dog Italian. About why elevator music is probably composed by a secret council of very tired wizards.
Peter’s brain, which has been stuck in high-gain mode all day, starts to downshift.
No questions.
No decisions.
No eye contact required.
Just voice and pressure and a hand that stays exactly where it’s supposed to be.
After a while, Peter says, quietly, “Can you… do the thing?”
Wade stops scrolling. “The thing where I become a human gravity field?”
Peter nods once. “Weighted blankets help. But you’re… better. Because you adjust.”
“Wow,” Wade says. “I am honored to be your bespoke anxiety management device.”
He shifts closer, slowly, telegraphing every movement. He drapes himself partly over Peter, careful not to trap him, letting Peter set the angle and the amount of weight.
Peter adjusts Wade’s arm by about an inch. Then another inch. Then relaxes into it like his nervous system just found the correct calibration setting.
Wade resumes talking, a little quieter now.
“So anyway, I think pigeons are unionized. Because have you ever seen one in a hurry? No. They’re always like, ‘This is a scheduled crumb break, sir.’”
Peter’s breathing evens out. His fingers stop twitching. The world shrinks to couch, voice, weight, and not needing to perform competence for a while.
“You don’t have to fix anything,” Wade says, still talking about nothing. “You just have to exist at me for a bit. I’ve got the noise covered.”
Peter doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. He just lets his forehead rest against Wade’s shoulder and listens.
Later, he’ll probably say thank you. Or make tea. Or infodump about something with too many details.
Right now, he just lets the inputs stay stable until the system cools down.
And Wade, for once, uses his powers for something very specific and very useful:
being exactly the right amount of weight, and exactly the right amount of sound.
———
2.
Wade has fought gods, monsters, and at least three guys who were definitely on something illegal and homemade, and somehow the most terrifying creature he knows is a twenty-something-year-old scientist who forgets to eat when he’s thinking.
Peter Parker is currently sitting on the floor of his apartment, surrounded by papers, muttering to himself about tensile strength and polymer chains like he’s trying to personally negotiate with the laws of physics.
Wade watches from the doorway and does not interrupt.
This is important.
Because Peter, when he’s in this mode, is like one of those deep-sea creatures that only exists at specific pressures. Sudden noise might make him vanish or, worse, apologize.
He’s beautiful like that. Not in the obvious way. Not in the “wow, look at that” billboard sense. In the “this is a rare, high-functioning, extremely specific organism and I should not startle it” sense.
Peter has his sleeves rolled up. There’s ink on his fingers. His hair is doing that thing where it’s clearly been run through about twenty times in frustration. He’s biting the end of a pen like it personally offended him.
Genius. Actual, unfair, statistical-outlier genius.
Also somehow completely unaware that he looks like this.
Wade has seen him walk past mirrors without registering them. Has seen him accept compliments like they’re error messages. Has seen him exist in a body that could cause problems and treat it like a very efficient vehicle for carrying a brain around.
It’s obscene. In a cosmic sense.
Peter looks up, notices Wade, and immediately goes, “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to take up the living room.”
Wade blinks. Slowly.
“Buddy,” he says, “you could be performing open-heart surgery on the space-time continuum in here and you’d still be allowed to take up the living room.”
Peter frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Welcome to me.”
Peter goes back to his notes. He does that thing where his eyebrows pull together and the rest of the world stops existing. Curiosity turns him into a very quiet, very intense machine.
Wade’s brain, which is usually a blender full of bees, goes oddly still when he watches this.
Here is a person who cares. Not performatively. Not for applause. Just… because the question exists, and therefore it deserves an answer.
Here is a person who will absolutely dismantle the universe if it means understanding it better, and then apologize for the mess.
Also, somehow, a person who is still weirdly sheltered.
Peter will debate you on quantum mechanics and then get flustered by a barista flirting with him. He will build something that should not be possible and then ask if it’s rude to correct someone who is objectively wrong.
He is naive in the way only extremely smart people can be naive. Like his brain spec’d into “how reality works” and forgot to put points into “how people work.”
Wade finds this… aggressively charming.
“Hey,” Wade says, just to see what happens.
Peter hums in response. Not looking up.
“You know you’re pretty, right?”
Peter’s pen freezes mid-air. “What?”
“I said, you’re pretty.”
“That’s… not relevant,” Peter says, after a second, and then goes back to writing like Wade just commented on the weather.
Wade stares at him.
This man could walk into traffic and the cars would apologize, and he’s out here treating attractiveness like an off-topic footnote.
Unbelievable.
Wade wanders over and flops down nearby, careful not to touch anything important. Peter doesn’t move away. That’s a good sign. That means Wade is currently classified as “ambient furniture” and not “disruption.”
“You’re like,” Wade says, thoughtfully, “a very intense, very shiny lab gremlin. Do you know that?”
Peter finally looks at him. “That doesn’t sound flattering.”
“It’s extremely flattering. Gremlins are rare. And dangerous. And everyone underestimates them until it’s too late.”
Peter considers this, then goes back to his notes. “You’re being weird.”
“Always,” Wade says. “It’s part of my brand.”
He watches Peter work. Watches the way he gets excited about small breakthroughs. Watches the way he chews on ideas like they’re physical objects. Watches the way he completely forgets that he is, in fact, a whole human being with a face and hands and a body that other people notice.
Wade, unfortunately, notices all of it.
But more than that, he notices the focus. The sincerity. The way Peter treats the world like it’s something you’re supposed to understand and take care of, not conquer.
Beautiful. Curious. Brilliant. Slightly feral in the way only academics get.
And somehow still looking at Wade like Wade is the strange one in the room.
“Baby boy,” Wade says, softer. “You’re allowed to exist outside your brain sometimes.”
Peter blinks at him. “I am. I’m doing it right now.”
Wade smiles, slow and fond and a little dangerous.
“Yeah,” he says. “You are. And you have no idea what that does to people.”
Peter, of course, goes back to his research, completely unaware he just did something devastating by accident.
Wade settles in, ready to provide commentary, snacks, and unnecessary protection from a world that has absolutely no idea what kind of creature it’s dealing with.
——-
3.
Peter does not “casually” get into things.
He researches them.
It starts because Wade mentions, offhandedly, that some of his scars regenerate “weird.” Not worse. Just… differently. Thicker. Tighter. Like the skin forgot what it was supposed to be doing and made an executive decision without consulting anyone.
Peter pauses. “That’s not how it should settle.”
Wade shrugs. “Buddy, my entire body is a series of bad executive decisions.”
Peter does not laugh. He files it away.
Three days later, Wade notices the bathroom has acquired:
• three new shelves
• twelve bottles with labels like “barrier repair,” “occlusive,” and “ceramide complex”
• and a notebook full of handwriting that looks suspiciously like Peter is trying to personally argue with dermatology.
“What happened to my apartment?” Wade asks.
“I needed more space,” Peter says. “Your scar tissue is regenerating fast, but the surface layer isn’t organizing properly. It’s probably a lipid barrier issue compounded by inflammation and… a few other things.”
Wade blinks. “You turned my face into homework.”
“Yes.”
Peter sits on the edge of the tub and starts explaining skin like it’s a physics problem.
Structure. Layers. Turnover cycles. Hydration gradients. The way scar tissue behaves differently under constant regeneration. The way Wade’s healing factor fixes damage but doesn’t necessarily optimize quality.
“It’s like,” Peter says, flipping a page in his notebook, “you have a perfect repair system, but no finishing process. It closes the hole, but it doesn’t polish the surface.”
Wade stares at him. “You’re telling me my body needs… buffing.”
“I’m telling you it needs support,” Peter says, and underlines something three times.
Thus begins The Project.
Peter starts reading papers. Medical journals. Cosmetic chemistry. Burn treatment protocols. Barrier repair studies. He makes spreadsheets. He color-codes them. He starts muttering things like “If we combine humectants with a stable occlusive matrix, we can reduce transepidermal water loss without interfering with regeneration.”
Wade brings him snacks and tries not to touch anything.
A week later, Peter presents a small, unassuming jar.
“I made this,” he says. “It’s a prototype. It should help your skin organize better while it’s healing. Less tightness. Less… pulling.”
Wade opens it, sniffs. “Wow. Unscented. You’re really committing to the ‘sexy hospital’ aesthetic.”
“It’s not cosmetic,” Peter says immediately. “It’s functional. Fragrance can irritate healing tissue.”
Wade scoops a bit onto his finger. It’s smooth. Very smooth.
“…This feels like lube,” he says, reflexively.
Peter’s head snaps up. “It is not. It’s a high-slip emollient because scar tissue has reduced elasticity and higher friction coefficients. If it’s thick or sticky, it will mechanically stress the surface during movement.”
Wade blinks. Then raises both hands. “Okay. Okay. Science lube. Not for sins. Got it. I will be mature about this.”
Peter narrows his eyes. “If you make it weird, I’m taking it back and you can go back to being itchy.”
Wade, very carefully, applies it to one of the worse scars on his arm.
He waits.
“…Huh,” he says, after a moment. “That actually feels… better. Like my skin isn’t arguing with itself.”
“That’s the occlusive layer reducing water loss and the humectants improving surface hydration,” Peter says, immediately. “It should also help the collagen lay down more evenly over time.”
Wade looks at him. “You are terrifying when you care about things.”
Peter shrugs. “Your healing factor does the hard part. I’m just… improving the interface.”
Over the next few weeks, it becomes a routine.
Peter tweaks the formula. Adjusts ratios. Takes notes on how different areas respond. He gets deep into it. Starts talking about skin like it’s a living composite material with very specific failure modes.
Wade becomes the world’s most obedient test subject, mostly because:
1. it actually helps
2. Peter looks weirdly, intensely satisfied every time something works
3. and Peter is absolutely serious about this in a way that makes jokes feel… out of place
One night, Wade catches him labeling jars with dates and batch numbers.
“You know,” Wade says, “most people just slap some lotion on and call it a day.”
Peter doesn’t look up. “Most people don’t have a partner whose cells are in a constant arms race with reality.”
“…Partner, huh.”
Peter freezes for half a second. Then keeps writing. “Test subject,” he corrects, a little too quickly.
Wade smiles but doesn’t push it.
Later, when Wade is half-healed and less tight and his skin doesn’t feel like it’s pulling itself apart at the seams anymore, he says, quietly, “Hey. Thanks.”
Peter looks at him. “For what?”
“For taking something that sucks and turning it into… a solvable problem.”
Peter considers that. “That’s just what you do when you care about a system,” he says. “You don’t accept bad defaults.”
Wade looks at the jar in his hand. Then at Peter. Then decides, for once, not to make a joke.
“Yeah,” he says. “I noticed.”
And Peter goes back to his notes, already thinking about version 2.0, because now that he’s made Wade’s skin functional, obviously the next step is making it optimal.
——-
4.
Peter used to think “relaxing” was just a different kind of productivity.
Like: reorganizing his workspace.
Or reading papers that were “not strictly necessary but interesting.”
Or optimizing a recipe so it had better macro ratios.
This is not what Wade means by relaxing.
It starts with pizza.
Not the good kind. Not the artisanal, thin-crust, “I researched this place” kind. The kind that comes in a box that is mostly grease and regret.
Peter stares at it like it might be a trick.
“You know,” he says carefully, “we could make something with better nutritional density in about thirty minutes.”
Wade, already sitting on the couch, says, “Or we could eat this in five and watch a movie where a man fights a shark-tornado.”
“That doesn’t sound… good.”
“It sounds perfect.”
Peter eats one slice. Then another. Then realizes he’s stopped thinking about whether he should be eating it.
That’s new.
Movies come next.
Peter keeps trying to pick things with good reviews. Or educational value. Or at least coherent internal logic.
Wade keeps vetoing them.
“No thinking movies,” Wade says. “Tonight is for dumb joy. We’re watching something where physics is optional.”
Peter sits there, tense at first, like he’s waiting to be quizzed. Or corrected. Or required to have an opinion.
But Wade just… talks over the movie. Makes bad commentary. Explains the plot wrong on purpose. Throws popcorn at the screen when something particularly stupid happens.
And Peter, without quite realizing when it happened, starts laughing.
Not the polite, controlled kind. The snorty, “that was actually ridiculous” kind.
Ice cream happens on a Tuesday.
Peter has had ice cream before. Obviously. But it’s usually been:
• a planned thing
• a portion-controlled thing
• a “this is fine, back to work” thing
Wade gets three flavors, none of which go together, and hands Peter a spoon like it’s not a big deal.
“You don’t have to optimize dessert,” Wade says. “You’re allowed to just… like it.”
Peter frowns. “That’s inefficient.”
“Yes,” Wade says. “That’s the point.”
They sit on the curb outside the shop. Peter’s hands get sticky. He hates that. Then he notices he’s not in a hurry to fix it.
Another new thing.
Over weeks, it keeps happening.
Peter starts leaving work on time because Wade is waiting with something stupid planned.
He starts associating evenings with “done” instead of “could do more.”
He starts watching movies without pausing them to check details.
He starts eating things without turning them into a spreadsheet in his head.
One night, after a long day, he catches himself saying, “Do you want to get pizza and watch something dumb?”
He freezes.
Wade slowly turns to look at him. “Who are you and what have you done with my anxious science gremlin.”
Peter blinks. “I just… thought it would be… nice.”
Wade’s grin is immediate and dangerous. “Wow. Look at you. Developing hobbies.”
“It’s not a hobby. It’s… a low-effort activity with predictable positive outcomes.”
“Adorable.”
They end up on the couch, pizza box between them, some loud, deeply stupid movie on the screen.
Peter leans back. For once, he’s not holding himself like there’s something he’s forgetting.
Halfway through, he realizes he’s not thinking about work. Or deadlines. Or what he should be doing next.
He’s just… there.
He says it out loud, a little confused. “I’m not… stressed.”
Wade glances at him. “Yeah. That happens when you stop treating rest like a side quest.”
Peter considers that. Then, very carefully, puts his head on Wade’s shoulder like he’s testing a new variable.
It works.
“Don’t get used to it,” Peter says.
Wade snorts. “Buddy, you already are.”
And that’s the thing.
Dating Wade doesn’t make Peter less serious. Or less brilliant. Or less driven.
It just teaches him that:
• not every moment has to be optimized
• not every choice has to be justified
• and sometimes the correct setting is off
Pizza. Ice cream. Bad movies. A couch. Someone who doesn’t let his brain run forever.
Peter still loves his work.
He just finally learns how to stop.
——
5.
They’ve been on exactly two dates, which means Peter’s brain has decided this is a High-Stakes Social Event and is treating it like a qualifying exam he forgot to study for.
Tonight is supposed to be “just hanging out.” Wade’s words. Peter does not trust those words.
He shows up ten minutes early, then waits in the hallway because knocking early feels incorrect and knocking exactly on time feels aggressive and knocking late feels like failure. By the time Wade opens the door, Peter is standing there with the posture of someone about to defend a thesis.
“Wow,” Wade says, looking him up and down. “You look like you’re about to apologize to a plant.”
“I— I just— hi,” Peter says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean— I mean, I did mean to be here, just not— not like this.”
Wade steps aside. “Come in before your brain files a missing persons report on itself.”
Peter goes in. He sits on the edge of the couch like it’s a formal interview surface. His hands are folded. His shoulders are up. He is trying very hard to be normal.
Wade clocks all of this in about three seconds.
“Okay,” he says, dropping onto the other end of the couch. “New rule: you don’t have to perform. This is not a job. No one is grading you. There will be no pop quiz.”
Peter nods. Too fast. “Right. Yes. I know that. I just— sometimes it takes a while for my body to… believe it.”
“Cool. We can wait out your body. I have words. So many words.”
And then Wade starts talking.
Not about Peter. Not about dating. Not about anything that requires a response.
He talks about how he saw a guy on the subway who was absolutely convinced his parrot was judging him. About how pizza slices are structurally the most dishonest shape. About a conspiracy theory involving raccoons and municipal trash schedules.
It’s complete nonsense. On purpose.
Peter sits there, tense, for a minute. Then two. Then he realizes something important:
Wade is not waiting for him to say anything.
There are no conversational traps.
No social tests.
No “your turn” cues.
Just… sound. Low-stakes. Safe.
His shoulders drop by about an inch.
Wade keeps going, adjusting his volume and speed without making a big deal out of it.
“And then there’s this movie where the villain’s entire plan hinges on nobody noticing a man carrying a full-sized shark in a trench coat, which, frankly, is optimistic.”
Peter snorts.
He freezes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to your own laugh,” Wade says. “That’s rude.”
Peter presses his lips together, trying not to smile. It doesn’t work.
Another minute passes. Wade is now explaining why time travel movies should come with warning labels. Peter’s breathing evens out. His hands unclench. He shifts closer to the back of the couch without realizing he’s doing it.
“You’re… doing this on purpose,” Peter says, a little quieter.
“Absolutely,” Wade says. “Your brain is in ‘new situation, initiate panic protocol’ mode. I am providing… narrative bubble wrap.”
“That’s… actually helpful.”
“Shocking, I know.”
They sit like that. Wade talking. Peter listening. The space between them stops feeling loud.
After a while, Peter says, “You can… you can keep going. If you want.”
“Oh, I was never going to stop.”
Wade keeps yapping about something involving ducks and a crime syndicate. Peter leans back. Then, very carefully, like he’s testing a new rule, he lets his shoulder rest against Wade’s arm.
Wade does not comment. He just keeps talking.
Peter’s brain finally, blessedly, shifts out of emergency mode.
“I’m not good at… this part,” Peter admits. “The beginning. Where everything feels… loud.”
“Yeah,” Wade says, softer, still talking about nonsense but leaving more space between the words. “That’s okay. We can do quiet together. Or loud. Or stupid. Or all three in rotation.”
Peter smiles. Small. Real.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For… making it easier to be here.”
Wade grins. “Buddy, if your nervous system is a very anxious cat, I am a box. You were always going to sit eventually.”
Peter huffs a laugh and, this time, doesn’t apologize for it.
They’re still new. Still awkward. Still figuring out where their hands go and how close is okay.
But for now, Peter is relaxed, Wade is talking about something completely useless, and the world feels… manageable.
Which, for a first few weeks of dating, is more than enough.