Wade Wilson's Guide to Studying Your Spider

Chapter 6: Dial Tone

It's quiet for a few minutes, but just before he continues, he hears another noise of pain, this one louder. Wade presses his ear to the bedroom door. "Peter?" He whispers. "Are you okay?"

A sob.

"Peter? I don't want to disturb you, but you're not sounding too hot in there." This time he hears his name called, so softly but so wrecked his heart pangs. "I'm coming in."

It takes everything he has not to throw the door open. He wedges his head inside and the sight that greets him has him hustling into the room. Peter is breathing hard with his head pressed to the floor, knees to his chest, and hands clamped over his ears. Tears run down his cheeks, followed by an occasional, wheezing whine that escapes his rapidly rising and falling chest. More lumps of his exoskeleton had been peeled away, revealing large, cherry-red swaths of skin that look more like open wounds.

"Peter?" He says it too loud and Peter gasps, pressing his hands so hard over his ears they go white. "Sorry," Wade drops his voice, but it's a hard thing. His first instinct is to turn Peter over and assess for injury, but even getting this close has Peter scrambling away. Or at least trying to.

Wade falters, hands frozen in midair.

"Loud," Peter gasps. "Everything is loud. Too much. I - I feel...god, Wade, it won't stop."

Sensory overload hell, indeed. How does Dare Devil handle it? Maybe Wade should give him a call and ask for tips. He needs Dare Devils' number first, of course, which he doesn't have, nor does he have the time to track it down. He'll just have to make do with what he knows.

The window is open a crack, so Wade closes it, even though the sound of the street are far below. He closes the curtains and stuffs shirts along the seam, for good measure, and then does the same to the door. The near-silent ticking of Peter's alarm clock has its batteries removed, and Wade silences any technology that gives off so much as a hum. By the time he's done, Peter is noticeably more relaxed. His left eye still twitches though, and Wade searches the room for noise until he spots a fly on the wall barely moving its wings at all.

He murmurs a quick warning before smacking it with a shoe and Peter flinches as if he'd been the one to get smacked. But he comes down slowly, his breaths evening out and his body unclenching until he rasps, "Thank you."

"No flies will be bugging you today," Wade says, nodding. "Pun intended." He inches to the door. "Let me know if you need anything else."

"Wade?"

Wade turns back.

"Can you stay?"

"But I thought you could hear all my body junk."

"I can, but..." whatever Peter wants to say catches in his throat. Wade could've pried, but he's worked with Spider-Man long enough to pick up the signs. Wade isn't a patient man, but he'd find Medusa's head and turn himself into a statue if that's what he needed to do. He lowers himself to the floor, preparing for hours of immobility and silence.

The voices, for once, are quiet.

Pieces of Peter's exoskeleton litter the floor, and he'd gotten rid of most of his clothes—Wade isn't going to ogle, he's a gentleman. Ogling is for happy, healthy individuals only. He's a goddamn adult.

"I can hear your heartbeat," Peter murmurs, forehead pressed against the musty wood floor.

"Sorry, I can't really do anything about that. Well, I can, actually. Do you want me to do something about it? It'll be quiet."

Peter shakes his head. "No. I...I like it. It's a nice sound."

"Ah shucks," Wade says, waving him off, "no one's ever said that to me before, you sweet-talker."