Wade thought that the tender moment that he shared with Peter would change his whole life. Peter had come to him for comfort (well, he didn't come to him on purpose, they just kind of stumbled into one another, but shut up, let him dream). Peter understood how he really felt and hadn't immediately punched him in the face. Obviously, the beginning of their story book romance had finally taken place.
Not quite.
After Peter confessed to Wade what was going on in his life and Wade had basically confessed his true feelings for Peter, things basically went back to normal.
Peter took a few more days off of work to try and get himself together, but afterward returned to his normal day job. Wade didn't change his routine and continued to show up at the business park for the lunch rush and, when Peter returned to work, continued to serve him tacos for lunch. Wade backed off of the shameless flirting a bit and Peter's smile seemed a little bit more shy than before, but otherwise things remained the same.
It was fucking maddening.
"What should I do?" Wade moaned, face down on the couch in his apartment. The couch sort of smelled like sweat and farts, but he had had it long enough that it was perfectly melded to his body. Once you break a couch in, you can't just get rid of it, no matter what it smells like.
"How the fuck should I know?" Weasel snapped. He was sitting on the floor of Wade's living room with his laptop open on his coffee table. The Golden Girls were playing on the TV. Hulu had recently gotten season 1 - 7, so Wade was binge watching to soothe his aching heart.
"You're, like, my fucking cupid. My matchmaker. You've been a constant source of advice through this whole lovelorn experience. How can you not know?" Wade exclaimed, his rant somewhat muffled by his face pressed into the couch.
"Maybe that's why you're in such deep shit," Weasel muttered. "No one should come to me for romantic advice. Most of my experience is limited to my own hand and an innate sense of determination and ingenuity."
Wade had to snort out a laugh at that. He sat up slowly after it got hard to breath around the stench of nacho dorito farts. On the TV, Rose, Dorothy and Blanche were gathered around the kitchen table discussing their love lives. If only he had some wise friends like them, he was sure they could solve his problem over a cheesecake.
"Are you hungry for cheesecake?" Wade asked, still watching the TV. Rose said something stupid and Dorothy bopped her on the head with a stack of papers.
"Fuck no," Weasel said, wrinkling his nose. "How can you eat sweet shit like that?"
"Maybe I should buy him flowers or something?" Wade muttered, returning back to the problem that had been bothering him. "Maybe I should hide a rose in his tacos!"
"That sounds disgusting. Don't do that," Weasel said flatly.
"I don't hear you coming up with any bright ideas," Wade pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.
Weasel turned away from his laptop for a moment to level Wade with a considering stare. He pushed some of his greasy hair off of his forehead and said in a considering tone, "Why don't you just ask him out? He knows you're serious about it now. If you ask him out and he declines, at least you'll know that he's serious."
"UGH!" Wade groaned, falling back onto the couch face first. "What a lot of help you are!"
Weasel rolled his eyes and returned to his laptop. "Whatever, dude. It's your love life."
Wade continued to dwell on what Weasel had said, even if he brushed it off in the moment. It felt like he had gone through so much and, at the time, he had thought that he had made such a great stride in his historic wooing of Peter Parker. But, in the end, he was back where he was initially. Thinking about asking Peter out on a date and worried that if he did Peter would reject him.
Wade still hadn't decided what he wanted to do when Peter surprised him bye making the first move.
After finishing his tacos for lunch, Peter lingered until most of the lunch crowd cleared out. "Wade, could I talk to you?"
"Yeah, sure!" Wade agreed quickly. He finished up the last few orders he had waiting and then exited out the back of the truck.
Peter was waiting for him, fidgeting with his hands in a way that Wade had only seen him start to do since his aunt got sick. He looked a lot better than he had, his hair clean and soft looking, his clothes washed and pressed. But, he still had bags under his eyes and looked exhausted most days.
"What's up?" Wade asked hesitantly, taking a seat on the back of the truck. Peter fidgeted for another moment before taking a seat on an upside down milk box.
"I was hoping I could ask you for a favor," Peter said stiffly.
"You know that I'll help you with whatever," Wade agreed quickly.
"It's just that," Peter paused, more fidgeting and wringing of hands, "the doctor thinks my aunt is getting better and that it's okay to bring her home."
"That's great!" Wade said probably a bit too loudly. He winced at himself. He didn't even know the old lady, but he had been worried about her for Peter's sake.
Peter smiled at Wade. "It is," he agreed, "I'm just kind of," Peter paused again, fidgeted more. Wade had to resist the urge to take Peter's hands in his own to keep them still. He kept pressing his fingernails into the edges of his cuticles and it looked painful. Wade could already see where he had made some of his fingers sore and bloody probably doing the same thing.
Peter finally found his tongue and continued, "It'll be her first time home in months. I want to make sure everything is perfect before I bring her home. But, I, uh, I haven't been home to clean or anything in a while and uh..." Peter trailed off looking incredibly guilty.
Everything clicked in Wade's head pretty quickly. Peter's Aunt May was going to be returning to her little house in Alphabet City soon. Wade imagined that Peter, being the attentive nephew he was, had promised to take care of his aunt's house in her prolonged absence. But, Wade continued to imagine, between worrying about his aunt, his job, and his own problems (hopefully worrying over his gay feelings for Wade) Peter hasn't done as good of a job taking care of Aunt May's house as he said he would. Now it was crunch time and Peter had to get the house spic and span as soon as possible.
Wade was big and beefy. Peter was probably hoping that he would be willing to pull the fridge out or something. It was disappointing, but it was better than nothing.
"Peter, say no more!" Wade exclaimed. "I understand. You need your buff and attractive friend's help to do things like pick up the couch, reach the top shelf, and flex impressively while washing windows," Wade said, flexing in demonstration.
Peter burst out laughing, finally letting go of his own hands in favor of trying to cover his mouth. Still snickering, Peter agreed, "You really read my mind. That's exactly what I need."
"You just name the time and the place," Wade replied with a wink.
Peter did. Saturday morning in front of his Aunt's house.
Wade had spent the entire night previous worrying about what to wear until he realized that he was just going to get dirty anyway. Whatever he wore, it probably wouldn't matter as long as it was tight in the right places.
In the end, he showed up in a tight white t-shirt and some worn jeans. He was glad he ended up picking what he did, because Peter showed up in an old t-shirt with a captain america logo on the front and a stretched out collar. He had pale jeans with ripped knees and hems and an old pair of red converse that looked muddy.
"So, this is your aunt's place?" Wade asked awkwardly, jerking a thumb toward the old house sitting about five feet from the curb. It was cute, the kind of house that inoffensive gay couples fixed up on the home improvement channel. It had gingerbread edges on the roof and was painted a dark purple and puke green combo. The windows all had shutters and lace curtains.
Wade had been staring at the place ever since he showed up fifteen minutes ago, navigating to the address that Peter had given him with his phone's GPS. It was sweet and unassuming. Wade thought Peter had probably had a pretty good childhood there.
"Yep," Peter said with a shrug, also looking a little stiff. He shoved his hands deep into this pockets and started to walk toward the front door. "I sort of haven't been in here since my aunt first got sick, so it might be a little..." Peter trailed off as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. Wade followed after and agreed that Peter didn't really have to finish that sentence. Closed up houses had a particular stank that were hard to replicate.
"So..." Wade said slowly looking around the little front parlor. Nothing looked especially out of place but nothing looked super clean either. "Where to start?"
"Windows," Peter said with a grimace.
With that, both of them got to work. First, they went through the house room by room and threw open all the windows to start airing out the stale air that permeated the building. After opening all the windows, Peter found a dust rag for both himself and Wade and they started dusting all of the picture frames, knick knacks and hard to reach places they could find. There was a lot of dust that had settled throughout the house and Wade found himself glad for the cool breeze wafting in from the windows and hopefully carrying some of the dust away.
After they were done dusting, Peter stripped all the beds and threw the bedding into the washing machine. The bed in Peter's aunt's room was still unmade and some drawers were still open when they entered. Peter froze for a moment, looking stricken by the sight of the upturned covers and clothing hanging partway out of the dresser. Wade had placed a hand on Peter's shoulder, which seemed to shake him from his reverie.
"I'm fine. Thanks," Peter said with a strained smile and a thick voice. He moved to strip the bed quickly and said he would come back later to right the dressers.
They moved quickly after that, moving onto some of the harder cleaning. With all the dust knocked loose, Peter hauled the vacuum cleaner out of it's closet and up the stairs. He vacuumed all the carpet and rugs while Wade swept the floors and wiped down the counters in kitchen. By the time Peter finished vacuuming everything, he went to the kitchen to find Wade eying up the fridge.
"Are you hungry...?" Peter asked slowly, finding the behavior somewhat odd.
Wade jumped, not having noticed Peter before that moment. "Oh, Petey! Do you want me to move the fridge so we can clean behind it?"
Peter grimaced and shook his head. "No, that's okay. I don't think Aunt May has cleaned behind the fridge since, ah, since my Uncle Ben died," Peter explained. Wade didn't miss how he stumbled over talking about his uncle. "I'm sure she's not expecting me, ah, I mean, she won't look there," Peter explained, looking guilty.
"But!" Wade exclaimed, scrambling in his own mind for an excuse to flex the biceps his mother gave him. "Wouldn't it be such a nice thing to do for her? Especially if she hasn't been able to do it for a while?" Wade asked, trying to hold back the begging voice.
Peter squinted at Wade. "Wade, do you want to move the refrigerator?" he asked slowly.
"Yes, very much," Wade answered earnestly. "And the stove."
"Maybe not the stove," Peter replied doubtfully.
"For what reason do I cultivate these," Wade flexed one bulging bicep until he could kiss it "swoll ass muscles, if not to impress the lads?"
Peter tried hard to hold his laughter in, but he just ended up snorting before succumbing. Wade smiled at Peter with a pleased expression as he curled up with one arm wrapped around his shaking stomach and the other braced on his thigh.
"Yeah," Peter gasped when he finally started to get himself under control. "Yeah, okay. The fridge."
"And the stove," Wade added.
"We'll see," Peter said with a put on suspicious look.
"Good enough!" Wade sang as he approached the fridge. He squared off with the squat appliance, squinting at it like it was a long time rival and enemy. "Okay, stand back!" Wade announced, throwing his arms out wide and nearly clocking Peter in the face. "I don't want any civilians getting hurt, so please give me some space!" Peter moved back, if only to prevent himself from being decked while Wade made exaggerated hand movements.
After being satisfied with Peter's distance, Wade flexed his arms in the too small t-shirt a few times and rolled his neck. He stepped up to the fridge and widened his stance before wrapping his arms around the sides and with one loud grunt picking it up.
"Holy shit," Peter breathed.
"Yep," Wade said through clenched teeth and he hesitantly took a step backward. "I'm pretty impressive," he continued to grunt as he took three painful looking steps backward before letting the fridge slowly come to sit back down on the kitchen linoleum.
Peter stepped lightly around Wade, who was still huffing and puffing and bracing most of his weight on the fridge to see what they had uncovered.
"Holy bejeesus," Peter breathed and then had to gag a little bit.
"What?" Wade asked, still out of breath.
"That's disgusting," Peter said, still staring into the space that had been opened up behind the fridge.
"What?" Wade asked again, sounding less out of breath and more interested.
"I think that's the mold growing experiment I did back in high school. Except, my mold wasn't shaped like an old sandwich that appears to be ... breathing?" Peter said.
"Shut up, there is not a breathing sandwich," Wade started to say, circling behind Peter to look down onto the space behind the fridge. "Holy shit that is a fucking living sandwich. Do you think it's developed sentience yet?"
"If it has, do you think it's got feelings are for that gray cheeto in the corner?"
"I know if I was sentient piece of mold I would be eyeing up that onion growing in that crack there."
"Yeah, I mean. At least it's organic."
"Peter, this is gross."
"I know, Wade."
"Do you think I should just put the fridge back where I found it?"
"That's probably for the best."
Wade stepped carefully around to the front of the fridge as if not wanting to disturb the fragile ecosystem they had just uncovered and hefted the large appliance back into its previous position. The two young men stared warily at the fridge for a moment before Wade turned to Peter with a thoughtful expression.
"Are you sort of hungry for pizza?" he asked
Peter's green face and incredulous expression answered for him.
"I'm a growing boy!" Wade argued, even though Peter didn't say anything.
Peter huffed out an uncertain laugh. "Okay, whatever. It is dinner time. We can walk to the pizzeria a few blocks down. Maybe my appetite will return by then."
Thirty minutes and a brief walk saw Peter and Wade seated at an old wooden booth at a local pizzeria. Wade had ordered a medium pizza with everything on it while Peter made do with two slices of pepperoni and a side salad.
"Man, how do they call this an everything pizza and not put anchovies on it?" Wade grumbled around a mouth full of food.
Peter smiled wryly at him across the table. "I think most people don't like anchovies."
"Well, most people fucking suck," Wade grumbled.
Peter smiled again, but the smile looked a little sad.
"I'm just glad to know you eat something other than mexican," Peter commented, trying to lighten the mood.
"What can I say, you can't live the taco life twenty-four seven. That's how you get scurvy," Wade replied, winning a genuine laugh from the man across from him.
"How did you come to, um, making tacos full time?" Peter asked awkwardly.
Wade laughed a little awkwardly. "It's kind of a boring story," he said.
"I'm interested though!" Peter said with a tilted grin. He sat his half eaten pizza slice back on its paper plate and gave Wade his full attention, which was a little more than Wade felt he could handle.
"Well, okay," Wade said hesitantly, suddenly feeling bashful. Peter was a successful scientist, even if he rarely talked about it. Wade owned and ran a taco truck. How the hell was he going to make this interesting? The answer was that he probably wouldn't be able to. Well, whatever, he had warned Peter it was a boring story.
"So, I worked at this greasy spoon ever since I was like 14, right?" Peter nodded along. "I started as a busboy, then I was a dish washer, then a prep cook and then when I turned 18 they made me a line cook and I started working full time." Peter smiled and nodded again. "I didn't really like school and I didn't have any plans for what to do after, so I was just working at the diner and hanging out with my friends in my free time. Eventually the old guy who was the head cook somehow upended a barrel of oil and turkeys on himself-"
"What?" Peter yelped, his mouth stretching into an amazed grin.
"That, my friend, is a story for another time. But, the owner was like, 'That's the last straw, you fat fuck!' and fired him right on the spot, turkey grease and all. Then he turned to the rest of us and was like, 'Get back to work! Wade's in charge!' And, I sort of think he always meant to actually go hire someone else, but no turkeys were spilt while I was on the job, so he just kind of forgot about it."
"Dude, that's ridiculous," Peter laughed, shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth.
"Dude, that's my life. Also, that's pretty much the most interesting part of the story." Peter quirked an eyebrow like he didn't believe him. Wade protested, "No, really! I was the head cook for a couple of years, but it doesn't take long of making the same five meals over and over again for it to get boring. I would do specials and stuff that were fun for me, but they didn't always sell well and the owner didn't really care for me to get too creative.
Eventually, a friend of mine from high school was trying to sell an old box truck and I had been reading up on how to renovate them into a food truck, so I bought it. I worked on it for months until it was ready and then I started to drive her around on the weekends. After a while I started to make enough on the weekends that I could quit my shitty fry cook job and, voila, you get the hunky piece of man meat that you see before you."
"Wow, that's actually," Peter flushed a little and ran a hand over his cheek, "kind of amazing."
Wade felt a blush coming on that he knew definitively he was too old to pull off. "Hey, you don't have to be nice. I told you it was a boring story."
"It wasn't boring!" Peter argued. "And, it's for real amazing. You worked for years at one place until you were able to get the top position in the kitchen. Then, when you weren't getting what you needed from that job, you were brave enough to pick up a second job. You were able to work at that job until you were successful enough that you could do it full time. Wade, that's super impressive! I don't think I could do something like that."
Wade rubbed a calloused hand roughly across the back of his neck, trying to disperse the heat he felt there. "It's not that amazing," Wade mumbled. "You're smart and talented, Peter. I'm sure you can do whatever you put your mind to."
Peter flushed across the table from him and looked away. They were both probably sufficiently embarrassed at that point to prevent much conversation, so Wade proceeded to try and shove the rest of his pizza into his mouth to save himself from talking.
"Thanks again for helping me clean my aunt's house," Peter said hesitantly, still not quite able to make eye contact. Instead, he stared somewhere slightly above Wade's right shoulder.
"Mo mwobem" Wade tried to say around a mouth full of green peppers, pizza dough and marinara sauce.
A fond smile flashed across Peter's face before he shoved the rest of his pepperoni pizza in his mouth to cover it up.
Authoress' Note: Hope you liked it! I'm planning roughly four chapters, but don't quote me on that. Probably about this same length.
Also, that story about the guy spilling a 5 gallon bucket of turkeys and oil on himself is a true story.
Anyway, if you want to make any special requests or chat or see sneak peeks of what I'm working on, please follow me at ipicklethings on tumblr!
And, thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting! I'm so surprised you guys liked my story so much!