Work Text:
It was really fucking late already and that job had definitely taken a lot longer than he thought it would take, but how the hell was he supposed to know there were more than twice as many people as when he last checked? It ended up working out anyway because he was fucking awesome, but he was very much ready to just call it a day. He was about to drag his ass home and wash all the blood off his suit when he noticed someone sitting on the roof of the building across from him. Now, Deadpool may not have known much about what was considered "normal", but that was definitely not a normal thing to do at 4 AM.
His curiosity ended up getting the better of him and not much later he found himself climbing up the fire escape to the roof. As he got closer he noticed that the person in question was still very young, maybe 19 or 20, and from what he could see of his face, he looked like he just saw a puppy get kicked to death.
"Mind if I sit here with you?" He asked, thinking it was the least he could do. The kid barely flinched when he heard Deadpool's voice, so either he had seen him coming, or he was used to being approached by strangers on rooftops at ass o'clock in the morning.
He shrugged. "I don't see why not." He mumbled, not looking up from where he was staring at the streets beneath them. It was quite a drop. Deadpool sat down.
"What's your name?" He ended up saying, just to fill the awkward silence between them.
"Peter."
"So Peter, what're you doing up here at this time?" He asked, hoping the kid was just really into star gazing. Admittedly it was kind of far-fetched, considering there were approximately zero stars visible tonight. Peter just shrugged again.
"Isn't it obvious?" He asked, voice sounding a little too shaky for Deadpool's liking.
More silence followed. Deadpool had no idea how to deal with this, he had never had to deal with this before. If Spidey had been there maybe it would've been easier, somehow he always knew the right thing to say, all that spider wisdom or whatever. Wade ended up voicing his thoughts and Peter laughed, almost bitterly.
"Yeah, well Spiderman isn't here right now." There was a sharp edge to his voice that made Wade raise his eyebrows slightly.
"Jeez, someone's not a fan of the friendly neighborhood Spiderman."
Peter laughed again. It was not a good laugh. "He's not a real hero. He just likes to pretend." He spat out, hands shaking slightly where he had them clasped tightly in his lap.
"Hey kid, don't you dare talk shit about him, just because you're not fond of him doesn't mean he's not a hero." He didn't get a reply this time, Peter kept staring down into the abyss beneath them.
Shit.
Had he fucked up?
"You haven't jumped yet." Okay maybe not the best thing to say when he was looking like that, but there was some truth to it. Peter hadn't jumped yet, so something was keeping him from doing it.
"Would you like me to?" He sounded empty and broken and oh fuck he had to fix this before the kid was actually going to go through with it.
"That's not what I meant." Deadpool paused for a few seconds. "I meant... Something has to be keeping you from jumping, right?"
"I... I don't know..." He whispered, barely audible over the sound of a few cars rushing by. "Maybe it's the guilt... That I don't want to hurt the people I care about any more than I already have." Good, this was good, he had to keep him talking, talking meant not jumping and not jumping was, in fact, a very good thing.
For a moment Deadpool had to rethink how the hell he got here, sitting on top of a building at 4 AM, talking a stranger out of offing himself. He didn't want to think about what would've happened if he had not been there, though.
"But I don't know if that's possible..." He added softly. "Everyone around me always seems to get hurt and it's always my fault. I... I don't want to put anyone through that again. They'd be better off without me." Oof, okay, this was definitely going in the wrong direction. "How am I supposed to help people when I can't even help myself? When I... When I feel like this all the time. It's not fair to make them put up with my problems, especially when they become the victim of them."
"I think if you jumped right now you'd be hurting those people more than you realize." Deadpool suggested carefully.
"They'll forget about me eventually, it'll pass."
"And you think that the way you feel right now, that won't pass?"
That got Peter to look up at him, finally, and Deadpool had to take a moment to look at him. He would probably be incredibly attractive, like, almost offensively attractive, if he didn't look like a total mess. His cheeks were stained with tears and there were dark bags under his eyes, betraying that he most likely hadn't slept in a while. He was quiet, though, so Wade decided to take the opportunity to keep talking.
"As much as you may think you don't matter, it's not true, there are people who love you." God, what was he doing, preaching about love to some kid he didn't even know. He was probably the last person who should be doing this right now, but he was doing it anyway.
"I don't want people to love me. People who love me get hurt and I don't want that anymore, I don't want to live with the guilt of knowing how many times I've hurt the people I love. I don't want to give myself the chance to continue hurting them in the future. Maybe if nobody loved me then I would've had the courage to just jump already and then everyone would be better off." Peter inhaled deeply and his exhale turned into a sob, his entire body was shaking now, not just his hands.
"I don't know much about you, Peter, but I do now that this feeling won't last forever. And I don't think you should lose your entire future over something that's just temporary." Goddamn, where did he get all this wisdom from? Maybe Spidey had rubbed off on him more than he thought.
He sobbed again, hands clutching the edge of the roof so tight his knuckles turned white. Deadpool was half tempted to wrap an arm around him to comfort him, but that would probably be a little less than comforting coming from a masked mercenary.
Peter was full on crying by now, tears streaming down his face and shoulders heaving. "what if I can't do it?" he whispered between sobs.
"Well, you won't know if you don't try." He put his hand on Peter's shoulder, Peter didn't flinch. "Now how about you and I go grab something to eat and after that you can decide how you feel, okay? I know this great place that's not too far away from here." He suggested.
"H-how do I know I can trust you? y-you're still a stranger." He said, voice hiccuping slightly, his face wet with tears.
"Baby boy, if I wanted to hurt you I would've done that already, now c'mon, let's go." He got up from where he was sitting and held out his hand, half ready to catch Peter in case he decided to change his mind and jump anyway.
Peter took his hand.