Chapter Text
For a Sunday, today was especially boring. Gwen had the day off and she hadn’t planned anything. Both her roommates were busy. Betty was off at some family event while Miles had locked himself away to focus on college homework. The thought of calling Hobie or Em jay and Glory did pass Gwen’s mind but a chill ‘me’ day sounded too good to pass up.
After a late morning, Gwen had spent most of the day cleaning up the apartment. She found cleaning kind of relaxing, but really there were just a lot of overdue tasks that needed to be done. With college back in gear and their band picking up attention, simple things like cleaning got left behind. Their place was small, so it made each task pretty quick. Finishing off the kitchen, Gwen was left wondering was how they let the inside of the microwave get so bad.
As Gwen brought her basket of dirty clothes to the laundry machines, she spotted Miles’s university sweatshirt draped on the back of a bar chair. Gwen paused. Miles was amazing at many things. Drawing. Physics. Cooking. But remembering to wash his jackets was not one of them. Gwen’s attention turned to the cracked door of Miles’s room. He had barely come out unless it was to grab food or use the bathroom today. Whatever he was working on had his full attention. Gwen understood the pain. She had tried the whole ‘go to college routine’ before realizing she didn’t like chemistry as much as she thought she did. She didn’t envy the wave of stress Miles went through every month.
Looking back at the hoodie, Gwen couldn’t think of any reason Miles would need his Uni hoodie. Miles wasn’t going anywhere. She tossed the hoodie into her basket. Gwen doubted her boyfriend would mind anyways.
After fixing up the living area, Gwen decided she was done for the day. Now she was lounging out on their old, plaid couch, scrolling through Netflix. Nothing was really piquing her interest. Maybe she should just put on the DnD movie again.
“Gwen?” Miles called as he stepped out of his room.
“Here,” Gwen answered as she sat up. Something was wrong. She could hear that nervous twang in his voice. And now that she could see him, she could definitely see that something was stressing him out.
“Oh hey.” Miles slid over to the back of the couch. He leaned on the couch like he wanted something firm to hold on to. “You haven’t by chance seen my sweatshirt? My Uni one?”
Aw shit. “Um… Yeah, I threw it into the washing machine earlier. Were you trying to go out somewhere?” Gwen asked, reaching for Miles’s hand.
Miles reciprocated her touch, shifting to hold her hand. “I see.” Miles bit his lip. His look turned distant. “How long ago?”
“Not long. Like half an hour ago? If you need a jacket to head out, I know you left your puffer jacket in my room.”
“No, No. I’m not trying to go out. I was just wondering where my sweatshirt went,” Miles answered, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. He brought their linked hand to his lip. His face looked like it was deep in thought, like his brain was running a mile a min.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Gwen tried.
Miles snapped out of his trance. It was though the question itself brought him back to earth. “It’s nothing. Just college stuff,” Miles dodged.
“As a former college student, I know college stuff can be some very heavy stuff,“ Gwen said lightly as she guided him to her side of the couch. “And I also know from therapy that talking about your problems can help alleviate stress. Do you want to try?”
Miles sat like he had 50-pound weights on his shoulders. He was still holding her hand in his. His thumb rubbed the back of her knuckles like he was feeling each and every groove.
“It’s just some coding homework I’m stuck on… I should have started it earlier, but I put it off and now I’m in a bit of a time pinch. It’s not due for a couple days, but I don’t even know where to start. The problems are nothing like the ones we went over in class. It’s the first homework assignment, so you think it would be easy but no. I’ve been at my computer for hours and I can’t get anything to work,” Miles vented. He collapsed into Gwen’s lap. “I’m so sick of coding. I hate it when my math class makes me code.”
“They really manage to slip coding into every class nowadays don’t they,” Gwen grimaced.
“It makes sense to a certain degree. I don’t have to do all those ugly math problems by hand, but sometimes I think that would be easier if we just wrote it out.”
“Do they have dropped assignments?”
“Not sure. I’m going to try going to office hours tomorrow to see if I can get something to work. Something is better than nothing…”
“See! You’re already thinking about solutions. It’s only one assignment, right? You can start early and do better on the next one,” Gwen tried to help.
Looking down, Gwen could still see the tension in Miles’s body. It was a feeling Gwen knew all too well. Even when you have everything planned, the anxiety of a situation you can’t solve immediately can still linger. Miles was probably thinking through every bad scenario, coming up with a plan for any eventuality. Gwen loved his beautiful brain, but it had a bad habit of catastrophizing.
“You know, maybe we should-“ Gwen started.
The ring of the washer machine finishing grabbed Miles’s attention. He immediately left. Gwen was quick to join him. She watched as he moved pieces of clothes from the washer to the dryer. Miles only paused when he had found his Uni hoodie. His fingers thoughtfully played with the fabric like he was in deep thought. In the end, he threw the hoody with the rest of the clothes and moved the rest to start the dryer.
Before she could even ask, Miles started, “It’s kind of become my comfort hoody. Whenever I feel stressed out, I put it on. It just makes me feel a little more secure.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. Oh, she really messed up. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. I should have asked.”
“It’s fine. You didn’t know. If you had asked me earlier, I probably would have said it was fine anyways,” Miles chuckled. It was a pained laugh.
If Gwen could make time move faster, she would in an instant. But as it was, that hoody had a good 40 more minutes to go. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Gwen asked anyway.
“Hangout with me? I think I’m going to call it quits for the day,” Miles sighed.
“Always. I’m sure going to office hours is going to help work things out. You’re a smart guy. Don’t let those Professors make you feel otherwise.”
“Yeah, worse comes to worse and I tank this class, it won’t really matter. I’ve done well enough in my other classes that it won’t affect me too badly,” Miles added. Although it sounded more like he was talking to himself than anyone else.
“I doubt it’ll come to that. But jobs don’t care about grades anyways. You’ll get through this stupid math class and then you’ll never have to look at code again.”
“As long as none of my future classes try to slip it in. I can’t wait to be done with college.”
“That’s future you’s problem. Present you is going to come join me on the couch. Do you want to watch TMNT?” Gwen started to guide Miles back to the living area.
“Sure, which one?”
“The new live action one,” Gwen said with a coy smile. Miles raised an eyebrow. “I’m just playing,” Gwen teased. “You pick.”
A small smile graced his lips as the tension loosened in his posture. Miles pulled Gwen back so that he could wrap his arm around her waist. Resting his head on hers, he asked, “Why don’t we make some Pizza too? Eat some Pizza and watch some TMNT.”
“See, I love the way you think.”
Some hours later, Betty came back late into the night. Back in her apartment and the first sight she sees is her two roommates out cold on the couch. Gwen was snuggled against Miles. His larger body practically swallowed Gwen.
Betty sighed and shook her head. Cute, but really the worst place to sleep. The back pain was going to be killer. She could wake them… or she could let them firsthand learn the consequence of their actions. She liked the second one better. Betty draped a cover over them and turned off the lights as she left.
She really thought she was done walking into couples’ stuff when Glory and Em Jay moved out.