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Peter is bleeding out on a couch. Admittedly, this is not the first time he has laid on this couch bleeding, but this was not the plan for the day. He didn’t even do any work as Spider-Man today. Wade had a job in Detroit and he needed someone to watch Ellie for him after his normal sitter canceled on him, and Peter has been trying to take at least one day off a week, so he was free.
When he picked up Ellie this morning she was her normal bundle of energy, bouncing off the walls, ricocheting between Wade and Peter like a ping pong ball.
“Petey’s here! Petey’s here! Daddy, look Petey is here!” She flung herself at Peter at full speed, and the only reason he caught her before she hit the floor was because of his Spidey Sense.
“I see him, Ells, I’m right here, also looking at him.,” Wade shook his head as he walked toward the front door, a large duffel slung over his shoulder, “You good? There’s leftovers in the fridge, and White is prattling about the Captain America toy under the sink, so when she starts asking that's where it went…anything I'm forgetting?”
“No Wade, you know I’ve got it. Get back safe will ya?” Peter smiled up at him, ignoring Ellie attempting to climb his leg. She was not succeeding.
“Don’t you worry baby boy, I’ll be back before bed time” Wade smiled, and with one last hug and, “I love you, be good for Petey,” for Ellie, he was out the door.
After he clicked the deadlock behind him, Peter turned to Ellie with a smile on his face.
“Wanna build a blanket fort?”
After the blanket fort had been constructed, Princess Ellie crowned, the evil dragon Petey defeated, and the goldfish gold treasure found, Princess Ellie decided she wanted to go to the park.
After making her put on a jacket - “I don’t wannaaa Petey!” “Ellie, you will catch a cold, then I will catch a cold, and then Aunt May will catch a cold. Do you want Aunt May to have a cold?” “..no.” - they headed off to the park that was a few blocks away from Wade's apartment. Ellie, having recovered from the indignity of a jacket, was skipping down the sidewalk from Peter and back, bringing back whatever she found interesting. This list, Peter discovered, included very round pebbles, an early spring flower in the crack of the sidewalk, a beetle - “Please put it back” -, a button, a leaf, a roach - “Ellie, no more bugs”, a very not round rock, what was decidedly not a rock, and a rat - “Ellie when I say no more bugs rodents are not a replacement”.
At the park, Ellie makes an immediate beeline for the large grove of trees in the center of the park. Peter knows that she is doing this because one of these trees has branches low enough for her to climb onto, and if she manages to get up there before Wade can stop her, she gets to watch him try to climb the tree. Turns out that one of the most feared mercenaries of the world is terrible at climbing trees, he has called Peter to retrieve his child at least five times.
Peter watches her scramble up, settling on a branch that would be just out of reach of Wade. She pulls off her Hello Kitty backpack and pulls out her Captain America and Spider-Man toys, content to play for the moment. Peter nods to himself, and takes a seat at the bottom of a tree a few feet away, keeping Ellie in his line of sight, before pulling up his phone and scrolling.
Ellie eventually bores herself with the tree, and climbs down to join Peter on the ground.
“Petey.”
“Yes Ellie?”
“I'm hungry.”
“What are you hungry for?
“Food.”
“What kind of food?”
“Yummy food!”
“That tells me nothing kiddo. More detail please.”
“Daddy’s yummy food!”
“You want Mexican don't you?”
“Yeah!”
“Alright up you get,” Peter stood up and after getting her backpack back on her, picked up Ellie and started heading towards the Mexican place he knew was nearby. When Wade took full custody of Ellie he spent weeks looking for an apartment he deemed appropriate for her, which included factors such as the park they were in now, a nearby Mexican place, no accessible vantage points to any windows of their house, a good neighborhood, and a whole laundry list of other things. How he ended up settling on a place Peter still isn't sure, it seemed he was looking for the perfect apartment.
Ellie got impatient with Peter’s quiet walking, and got to rambling about unicorns. Turns out, all of their magic is kept in their horns. Peter did not know that. For the rest of the walk he nodded when appropriate, until he stopped in front of the restaurant.
“And here we are Princess Ellie, your feast awaits you,” He made a grand gesture inside with the arm not holding her, and she giggled as they walked in.
After they got seated with their drinks, Ellie started going over the menu. Peter adored Ellie, but Ellie was five, and could hardly get through simple English sentences, much less the completely Spanish menu. In reality, Ellie was looking at the pictures of the food.
“Do you know what you want?” Peter set his menu aside as Ellie set hers in the middle of the table to point at what she wanted, a quesadilla with shredded chicken and bell peppers. Peter nodded at her, and as he raised his hand to wave at the waiter, he felt every hair on his neck stand up.
Time seemed like it slowed down, it always does when his Spider Sense goes off. Just as he registered the crashing glass and gunshot, he had pulled Ellie out from the booth across from him and next to him, keeping her head down and shielding her with his body.
“Everybody stay down! This does not need to get ugly, we don’t want to hurt anyone. We just need this nice lady here,” The goon, Peter decided to name him Crusty in his head, waved the gun at the waitress, “to give all the money in the register.”
She started to unlock the till, but from behind him Ellie grabbed at the back of his shirt. He turned around a little, but the second goon pointed his gun at him, “Hold it! Who are you hiding back there? Aw, a wittle girl,” The man marched towards Peter. He straightened in front of her, or at least he thought he did, but in his adjusting he must have leaned too much because next second Peter looks there is a gun next to Ellie’s head.
“Now then, don't move,” Peter makes a point to hold as still as possible as the man leads Ellie from behind him to the center of the restaurant, “anyone moves, anyone tries to stop us, the kid gets it. Got it?”
Silence.
“Good”
Ellie let out a small sob, and the man - Dusty - pressed the muzzle into her forehead, “That goes for you to brat, I don’t want to hear any sniveling.”
The final robber - Musty - was standing by the door, and he was starting to look antsy. When Dusty turned his back on Peter to check the status of Crusty and the waitress, Peter slipped his webshooters from his hoodie sleeves and equipped them. Dusty glanced in Peter’s direction again and he froze, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. When he turned to check on Musty by the door, Peter took his chance.
In an instant he shot out with both webshooters, disarming Dusty first and Crusty immediately after. As soon as the first two guns are at his feet he flings himself at Musty. As he flies, a gunshot goes off, but he ignores it, pulling the final gun from him and throwing it into the pile. He picks the man up by the back of his shirt and sends him flying at the other two, knocking them all over like bowling pins. He follows just to make sure they are all unconscious, then he webs their hands and feet before webbing the guns out of range in plain sight.
After he is done he looks around the restaurant. They were the only customers, so the only people who saw his little display were the staff, who saw Deadpool on the regular. Peter shrugged to himself and turned to Ellie.
He scooped her up in his arms, she was now openly sobbing, and began rocking her back and forth.
“I gotcha Els, it's ok, I got rid of the bad guys. I will never let anyone hurt you, I promise sweetheart,” He keeps murmuring comforting words to her as he rocks her, until she eventually falls asleep, probably from the adrenaline crash. He stands and grabs her backpack before walking out of the restaurant, and that's when he notices the blood on the front of his shirt, the pain in his stomach.
Peter heard the gun Musty had go off before he took it. Son of a bitch. The adrenaline in his system was going to fade even faster than Ellies with his metabolism, and he wouldn't be able to get them home if he didnt hurry.
He rushed out the door, and did a light jog the two blocks back to Wade's apartment, Ellie held tight in his arms. He skipped the elevator and just went up the stairs, skipping every other stair on the way up. By the time he got to the door he felt like he was about to fall over, and what was once a distant pain in his stomach now truly felt like a gunshot wound. He unlocked the door and stumbled inside, and after dropping the backpack and fumbling her jacket off her, Peter laid Ellie down on her bed. Then, he went to lay down on the couch.
Even though he tried not to, he couldn’t help the slow pull of sleep.
“Pete. Peter. Petey. I’m tryna be gentle wakin you up but I need to know why there's blood on the couch. Peeeete. Pete.” Peter wanted the annoying bird to go away. He tried to hit the bird, but his hand was grabbed. That made him wake up.
“Wade. Wade why, go away.” He pulled his hand away and tried to hit the man again, once again losing his hitting privileges.
“Peter there is more blood on the couch than I remember leaving on it. The last big puddle was on that cushion. That's the blood cushion, you should know this.”
Peter finally sat up, the drowsiness starting to fade as he started to remember the day, “Oh shit Ellie! Is she okay? I laid her down but I haven’t checked since.”
“She’s just fine Pete, fast asleep in her bed. Right now the question is you and the puddle of blood.”
“Ah yes, this blood puddle, pretty proud of this one,” Peter catches Wade up on the past eight hours, and after convincing the man to not go murder the men who dared to lay a single finger on his daughter and ‘His Petey’, finally gets around to telling Wade about the gunshot wound.
“You got shot.” Wade looks dead into Peter’s eyes.
“Yes.” Peter looks back.
“Did not call anyone.”
“I feel like the truth is the wrong answer here.”
“Take the shirt of Pete, I'm going to have to dig out the bullet.”
“I hate when you do that.”
“Then don’t super heal over bullets stupid.”
Peter peels the blood encrusted shirt off, and chucks it into a corner of the room. He pulls his legs off the couch and sets his feet on the floor. Wade walks over and moves the coffee table closer to the couch, then sits directly in front of Peter. As Wade reaches for a first aid kit next to him on the table, Peter leans back and spreads his legs slightly, giving Wade room to work.
Wade settles in, and after pulling out the tools he needs and pulling medical gloves over his scarred hands, grabs the scalpel and gently cuts the already healing bullet hole in Peter’s gut, his elbow resting on Peter's thigh for stability.
Peter grits his teeth to hold back a scream as he feels his freshly healed skin be cut apart, and whimpers a bit when Wade starts to poke around in the reopened hole for the bullet. Having heard the whimper, Wade reaches behind him and grabs the leather glove of his suit, holding it up to Peter’s mouth. Peter clamps down on it, and immediately screams when he feels Wade start to pull the tweezers out.
“Fuck. I’m sorry Pete, this is gonna be harder than I thought. Asshole used a hollow point, the thing fragmented in you. There's at least three, maybe four more pieces. Hold on for me, okay baby boy?” Wade looked up at Peter, waiting for a confirmation. Peter could only nod
The next hour was agonizing. The process of pulling out each fragment of the bullet was a slow one, as each time Wade would think he found one, Peter’s wound would get healed enough he couldn't move the tweezers, and he had to cut it back open. Peter is pretty sure he blacked out at one point, and when he woke up Wade was right there, a glass of water in hand and a “Almost done Petey, only one more” ready on his lips.
When it was finally over, Peter was exhausted, and about ready to pass out again any second. But first.
“Thank you Wade, it means a lot to me.”
“Of course Petey, any time. Really, anytime, don't leave it next time.” Peter could only smile and nod as Wade wrapped the bandages around his stomach, having Peter take a few deep breaths to make sure they were not too tight. Once that was done, Wade moved him back into a reclining position on the couch. Peter was drowsy and delirious at this point, and decided he wanted to tell Wade something.
“You know I love you, right Wade?
As he fell asleep, he thought he heard a surprised, “I love you too Petey,” but he may have imagined it. He could find out in the morning.