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When Peter and Wade got together, within the first year, Peter found out some very important things.
One of them was that Wade should never be allowed to go to bed at anything less than his best. That horrifying night where Peter woke up to a gunshot and Wade’s brain matter staining the far wall and blood pooling on the floor would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Apparently the boxes weren’t very friendly and it was even worse if he and Wade got into a fight, so Peter made sure to have them both go to bed happy and comfortable with each other, all arguments resolved.
Surprisingly enough, Wade was pretty complacent in arguments.
He also made sure to wrap himself around Wade like an octopus for good measure.
Another one was that most actions of love or devotion would have Wade close to tears in mere seconds.
It was saddening to think that such a simple thing as putting on his favorite movie would make Wade tear up and cling to him and never want to let go.
Then there was that Wade really hated spring cleaning.
Originally Peter had thought that it was just because Wade didn’t like cleaning, but it turned out that—although it was a bit because of that—it was also because of the chemicals in the cleaning products.
Wade’s skin was extremely sensitive and the chemicals only irritated his skin and put him through more pain than he was already in on a daily basis.
Peter remembered the week he spent looking on the internet for the products with the least amount of chemicals so as to cause less harm to Wade.
When he had shown Wade, he had been subjected to an amazing hour of long, deep kisses and a much needed blow job. Wade had a good mouth—it wasn’t Peter’s fault that he felt the need to be in it at least once a day.
Seriously—it was like a vacuum in there; wet, warm, and soft with just the right amount of suction and a wicked tongue that loved to play.
It was so not his fault.
But whenever spring cleaning rolled around, Wade would help out in the kitchen, cook them something to eat, maybe do the groceries; he never helped with polishing or cleaning the bathroom or mopping the floor. He simply couldn’t and that was fine by Peter.
He understood.
He supposed that was more than Wade was used to.
It was time for spring cleaning again, though, and Peter was hard at work in their room, windows open and doors ajar. Their room was always the first room he cleaned since he wanted Wade to be able to sleep there that night with minimal discomforts—none at all, if he was lucky.
Wade was out getting groceries and some fast food, neither one of them in the mood to cook. Cleaning just took all the energy out of you.
Finishing sweeping the floor, dust piled in the dust pan and then promptly disposed of; he set the broom aside before getting on his knees. Underneath their bed is where everything unwanted fell, where Wade sometimes dropped his weapons accidentally or where Peter’s papers sometimes disappeared to. He had even sometimes found a spare web-shooter under there.
Peeking under, he sighed at the sight of all the aforementioned things, using one hand to lift the bed up, the other reaching out to pull out everything out. Straightening, he webbed the bed to the wall for the moment, grabbing the broom and sweeping away all the dust and dirt that had accumulated underneath.
Setting Wade’s weapons in the bag he always had for the things Wade needed to look over and setting his own papers on the bedside of the table, Peter found himself smiling once all the dust was gone. He ran the mop over the floor of the room twice quickly, but thoroughly; perching himself on the ceiling as he waited for it to dry.
He was lucky it tended to dry really fast with all the windows open.
When he moved to let the bed down, though, he stopped, brow furrowing. In the corner of the frame of the bed was a square piece of paper just poking out; it looked a bit old. Reaching out with long fingers, he gently pulled it from its place, turning it over in his hands as he lowered the bed back down to its regular position.
On the other side was a picture, one that made his brain stall and his mouth gape in surprise. Peter would recognize those bright eyes and the large grin anywhere, the small crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
That was Wade.
But it wasn’t the Wade he knew.
His skin was smooth, like Peter’s, no sign of the scars that covered his skin anywhere. He looked healthy, no sign of the cancer either. Hell—he had hair! The blonde locks Wade always said he missed.
“It gets kind of cold up here without a glorious mane.”
He looked vibrant, healthy, happy in a way Wade only started to show when he and Peter got together officially. It was shocking and he found himself falling to sit on the bed, staring down at the picture.
This was Wade before and after everything—before the cancer, before Weapon X, after losing his mother, after finally getting out of a severely abusive home. A Wade before life decided that he had lived it good for a bit too long.
He knew Wade was always just waiting for the other shoe to drop, even with him. Like after everything, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that things could go well just because, no ulterior motives.
“Honey, I’m home!” Wade called as he skipped into the apartment, strategically staying away from where he saw all the cleaning products piled. As little of chemicals as Peter tried to use, he supposed it was better safe than being in agonizing pain later, or so he told himself.
He didn’t want to subject Peter to another panicked hour of Wade writhing on the floor in complete agony, nails raking across his skin in an attempt to find some sort of relief, any relief.
Peter walked out of their room, looking a little bit dazed, eyes focused on a piece of paper he had gripped between two fingers. He looked so surprised and yet confused; which just made Wade confused because what was he looking at that made him wear such an expression.
“Watcha holding there, Petey?”
Coming around to stop next to the arachnid, he looked down and felt his heart drop out of his chest and to his feet.
“This was you,” Peter whispered, voice in awe and Wade could feel the pinpricks of discomfort starting in his arms and legs, making him feel awkward and ashamed in his own skin, a feeling he was used to yet had forgotten whenever he was with Peter. It was like it limbs were too big, awkward and disproportionate, his chest heavy with a foreign weight, his head too big for his shoulder.
He wanted to hide, cover himself up; to lock himself away in a closet like his father used to when he didn’t want to see Wade. His fingers twitched, itched to tear away the picture, to burn it and hide all evidence of himself before the cancer, before Weapon X.
“You look so different.”
“Yeah, well, cancer isn’t exactly a walk in the park,” Wade commented back drily and Peter finally looked up from the picture to take in Wade’s expression, the defensive stance of his body, arms crossed over his chest, muscles tight. His mouth was set in a hard line, eyes narrowed and hard, the skin where his eyebrows should have been pulled towards the middle.
“That’s, that’s not what I meant, Wade,” Peter whispered, reaching out to lightly touch Wade’s arm, letting his fingers gently rub until Wade relaxed, shoulders slumping and arms loosening. The tightness in his jaw faded and his gaze softened.
He looked vulnerable and scared, terrified of what Peter was going to say, what he was going to think. Like he would run away from him after simply seeing a picture of what he looked like before the scars.
“I just,” Peter sighed, looking down at the picture, the hand on Wade’s arm sliding over to take Wade’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together. “I look at this picture, and you just have so much confidence. It’s like you’re completely sure of yourself; with your appearance.”
“Of course I was; look at me,” Wade spat and he looked so angry with himself, like it was somehow his fault that he no longer looked like that and it broke Peter’s heart to see him so frustrated with himself for the scars on his body, grotesque and permanent, never going away.
“But you’re still the same man, Wade,” he said, turning his body towards Wade’s and urging those blue eyes to meet his own. “You are the same man in this picture,” he murmured, arms coming up to drag Wade down into a soft kiss, pulling back just slightly and letting their foreheads rest together, “and you have nothing to be ashamed of. Trust me.”
Wade looked at him, eyes wide and disbelieving, and Peter gave him a soft smile, pecking Wade’s slightly parted lips repeatedly. “You are gorgeous, then and now. Nothing and no one can convince me otherwise,” Peter assured, and even if Wade didn’t seem to believe him, wasn’t one hundred percent convinced, Peter meant what he said and would spend his entire life if he had to trying to convince him of it.
What he was and what he is now is the man Peter fell in love with and he was determined to make Wade believe in that, at least—to believe in them.