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The clock flickers to 2:37 and Wade wants to go home. Except home is three hours on a bus or hijacking a plane away, and so he knows that he might as well set up camp in a dirty motel. Because maybe Wade hasn’t ever been the most hygienic, or far from it more accurately, but he wouldn’t mind stripping off the spandex and laying out in front of Real Housewives for a bit.
He’s got a wad of money in his pocket and less ammo in his gun. It’s easier for him to do this when he’s away from Peter, when he can separate himself from the irritating thoughts that itch at his brain because Peter is more of an influence than he knows. And Wade partially works on a reward-punishment system, where the disappointed expression that falls on the younger’s face is just enough to make him think twice.
The voices in his head insist that it really is crowded enough up there, that Peter’s conscience needs to stop leaking into his brain because they’re getting a bit claustrophobic and good intentions won’t pay the mental rent.
Wade has never been a saint, but he’s not the bad guy. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole, but Peter makes him just a little less of a monster.
He checks into the nearest place he can find off an interstate and the lady at the counter looks too tired to respond to his quip about her hair and the bags under her eyes. So he rolls his eyes and grabs the keys, the ridges biting into his palm as he finds his room. It smells like stale air and cigarettes with the subtle stench of sex when he opens the door.
He can’t help but wrinkle his nose before one of the boxes comments, “Someone’s been domesticated. And spoilt.”
"Can you blame me?" Wade mutters, falling back onto the hard mattress. He thinks about the soft bed in New York with a warm body in it now, the one that smells like cleaner and comfort, the scent of Peter pressing his face into his neck, wrapping his limbs around him.
And it’s a bit terrifying at the same time, ever since they’ve decided to stop the occasional run ins and stolen kisses, ever since Peter’s apartment had been stripped of its label and been renamed home. And that Wade has unintentionally carved a place so deep into the threshold that he hadn’t realized that he had a place to go home to for the first time in years until he had found himself craving it.
Wade rolls over and grabs for his phone, blinking as the cracked screen blares at him and maybe he should take better care of this thing. Either way, it still works, unless it can no longer count. In which case, Wade wonders if it is broken because otherwise he has seven missed calls from Peter. They’re scattered through the last six hours, but it’s still surprising.
Peter is probably asleep by now, but he calls anyways if anything to be directed to the voicemail where Peter stumbles over his words and shushes Wade in the background before it cuts off.
“Wade?” The voice on the other line is hurried, and even from here, Wade can detect the worry rooted in his tone.
“Yeah,” Wade says, propping the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he repositions himself, “You called me like a million times. What happened? Green Goblin? Tentacle monster?”
“You aren’t home,” Peter says like that’s explanation enough, “I got worried. You’re not hurt are you?”
Wade snorts and actually has to hold back a laugh. It’s as though Peter forgets that he can’t die sometimes. “I got paid extra to take out the minions, took a couple hours more so I’m crashing at a motel. I’ll be home tomorrow.” The word still feels foreign rolling off his tongue; it tickles, like something both strange and exciting.
“I didn’t know that, what if you were dead?” Peter’s voice is softer, and god that’s genuine concern and feelings and Wade honestly doesn’t know what to do with that. He hasn’t ever had anyone concerned about his wellbeing, not the way that Peter is. Peter who makes him eat foods other than Taco Bell and take out and calls him to make sure he isn’t dead when he knows that Wade can’t die.
The fact that it’s irrational worry—from Peter, Peter who is brash and cocky in a suit but still the rational voice—makes it so damn endearing that it hurts a little. Because that means he cares enough to be irrational.
“Unfortunately I’m safe and sound,” Wade says wistfully, even though he knows that Peter doesn’t exactly approve of his starcrossed love affair with death. Wade pretends that its jealousy of the personified force, because the other implications about attachments and this being something that concrete are too much for him to process in one go.
“How did it go?” Peter asks, voice sluggish with sleep. It’s as if now that he knows that Wade is safe, the exhaustion is catching up. Wade doubts that he’s slept, and he has class tomorrow, what is he doing? He can’t just stay up for him when he has classes to go to and a better life to start. Peter has so much potential, so much that he can be, Wade doesn’t to get in the way.
Except he’s too selfish to really ever leave, even when that would be best.
“Good, I got paid a bunch and didn’t even have to kill the hostage this time,” Wade informs him pleasantly, and he feels a bit like a kid reporting their day at school. The kids that leave out being put in time out for pulling hair and pushing the other kids on the playground. Peter doesn’t need to know the gory details.
Peter murmurs something unintelligible and Wade tells him to go to sleep. There’s no answer, but that’s okay because the kid needs sleep. He hangs up the phone and decides that he’ll crank up the volume on his ringtone just in case.
Wade had been about to quote some TV show or another on opening the door to the apartment—and it’s nice, really, really nice to have the warm, familiar scents and fresh air wrap around him instead—but finds that he’s cut off by the arms sliding around his torso, Peter squeezing the life out of him. And Wade doesn’t know how to respond for a moment, elbows out over Peter’s head before finally settling his arms around his shoulders.
“You are way clingier than anyone gives you credit for,” Wade murmurs, patting his shoulder awkwardly.
Peter’s voice his muffled by his shoulder, “I told you, I was worried. Deal with it.”
“Did you jump over the couch to tackle me?”
“No,” Peter says quickly and Wade grins because he’s totally lying.
“You did so.”
“Maybe.”
Wade laughs, and he still doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand why Peter cares so much, why his well-being means anything to him when he’s involved with the one person who needs it the least. And it’s really just selfishness, but he secretly enjoys that Peter cares too much. And feelings aren’t Wade’s strong suit, because when he tries to articulate them he just runs his mouth and hides them with dark humor and references to pop culture.
So Wade just kisses him and doesn’t tell him not to worry so much because he knows that if Peter didn’t worry about Wade, that no one else would—himself included. And despite that they’re team ups are awesome and they kick some serious ass together, that he’s saved Peter countless times, that Peter is the one keeping him together the most.