Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter, against all odds, falls into some sort of routine. It’s hard. He doesn’t care too much for his new apartment, but it gives him a place to lay his head. He picks up work, and it’s not great either. The job fixing cars in a garage in combination with a few shifts at Delmar’s gives him enough to scrape by on rent. New York’s housing is brutal, but if he keeps his utilities low enough, (lights off, heat off,) and bums a few meals off of FEAST every month, he gets by with a little money to save for indulgences like stopping by the cafe for the terrible coffee MJ makes.

“It can’t be that good,” she had said to him that morning, Ned was in the back reading an old Captain America comic book and waiting patiently for the apple fritter he liked to get on Tuesdays.“Actually, I know it isn’t. I’ve had our coffee. I make it. Yet, here you are again, Mr. Parker.”

Peter knew his shrug and nervous explanation of this is just on my way to work (which is a lie, it's very much out of his way) didn’t convince her. He tries to tell himself that he needs to spend less time moping around, eating stale donuts just because she is the one that hands them to him, but he can’t really convince himself to stop. Seeing her is bad for him. It’s crushing his soul, and every time he sees her face it feels like chunks of him fall off and scatter to the floor. But, at the same time it is so, so nice. Her smile. Her cheeks. Her eyes. Her knowing little eyebrow raise as Peter fumbles around for conversation.

He loves her.

At this point, MJ probably thinks he’s a creep. A stalker at worst, or someone with a big crush and crippling social anxiety at best. Which, really aren't very different things. Peter knows he needs to stop. But, he can’t.

While he had been working today, it had rained. He has nothing against rain, really, but it does make web-slinging a lot harder. The webs don’t always want to adhere to the rain-slick buildings, and the humidity can mess with the way the chemicals interact with the air. Peter has more than a few bad memories of webs failing mid-swing on days like this.

Peter will go on patrol anyways, of course, it’s not like he has anything else to do. Sure, he could sit around in an empty, cold, dark apartment, and study for the GED he’s putting off taking (that he could probably easily pass) .

Peter’s groceries are a little better than usual today. Mr. Delmar makes sure of it, throws in a few extra bags of chips, milk, and packs of ramen. It makes Peter tear up, once he’s out of the store and out of the man’s sight. Mr. Delmar used to do this all the time, even if he didn’t know it.

Peter wonders if he needs to get a new job, one away from all those memories, only a few blocks away from the high school where his name is somewhere lost in their computer system, but he doesn’t. Peter clings to it, starts rebuilding his relationship with the bodega and it’s workers from the ground up and thinks that, at the very least, he still has this. He may not get those best relationships back (Happy and Ned and MJ and May), but he has this much to remember a life he once lived.

His sneakers are thoroughly drenched by the time he gets to his apartment. The dirty, cold rain has even soaked through the bottom of his jeans. He sighs, doing the math in his head about how much the laundromat is going to cost this week. And, not for the first time, he thinks about the simple comforts he used to have. A laundry machine and dryer of his own would be so, so nice.

The button for the intercom is wet with rain when he presses it down. “It’s Parker, buzz me up.”

The fuzzy voice of the doorman comes through, “Parker?”

This doesn't usually happen. He presses it down again, “Apartment 616?”

“Ugh,” the door buzzes and Peter shifts the bags of his groceries to one hand so he can pull it open. “Your crazy friend is upstairs waiting. Get him out of my hallway.”

Peter pauses. He doesn’t exactly have friends right now. He had acquaintances- the men in the shop and the bodega, a few of the people he’d struck up conversations with at FEAST. But, that's it. There is no one that should be visiting him.

He swallows the lump in his throat, and presses the buzzer once more, his foot crammed in the doorway to keep it open, “Do you know who, Mr. Ditkovich?”

“How should I know? He’s your friend. Just get him away from the other tenants before I have to kick him out or call the police.”

Peter ascends the stairs in a flurry, and when he tumbles into the hall he sees the man waiting at his door. He's big. Tall, bulky, and completely covered, head to toe, in dark clothes. Peter can’t see an inch of his skin behind the hoodie, scarf and sunglasses.

“Can I help you?” Peter asks.

Sunglasses turn to him, and Peter isn’t sure what he expects but…

Well.

The excited, bone-crushing hug he is enveloped in is not it.

“Petey!” The man screams, “Wow. Wow. You don’t look a day over twenty. What happened to you? New skincare routine? No. Don’t tell me, age ray? You get baby-fied? That’s a pretty common trope, they love to make people babies for some reason. I personally never really understood the appeal. Although, a baby ray doesn’t explain the whole moving thing. Why’d you move apartments? I liked your old place better, it smelled like homeless men and socks.”

“What?” Peter pushes himself out of the hug, “Who the hell are you?”

The man’s head tilts to the side like a dog, and he hums. Then, as if talking to someone he turns to the side, whispering angrily, “No, no, that’s definitely bambi. Look at him! He’s got the face- it’s a baby face, but it’s the same- Ah, no! Oh!” The man’s hands shoot to Peter’s shoulders, and the man shakes him, “Pete! Don’t tell me your memories went too? Oh we’ve got to get you back. Who did this to you? I’ll make them pay.”

Peter puts his hands up, trying to calm the man down, “Look, look. You’re going to piss my neighbors off. Can you just tell me who you are?”

The man backs off, burying his face in his hands.

“My sweet Peter, he has forgotten me! Peter, baby, please, tell me who did this to you. I’ll kill them and I’ll get you back. I promise.”

Then, out of nowhere, the man reaches into the hood of his jacket, and his hand comes back out holding a… is that a katana?

“Put that away!” Peter yells. “And calm down! My landlord is going to kill me if you keep yelling like this. No one did anything to me, I don’t know you-”

Peter is wrapped back in the man’s embrace, right up against the broad span of his chest, but there’s now a sword in the man’s hand which he is recklessly flailing around the hallway. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix you, you just gotta trust me Spidey-”

Okay, yeah. This has got to be a multiverse thing, doesn’t it? Peter really thought he was done with that. After the whole everyone forgetting him, thing. Man, Dr. Strange is going to be so mad.

Peter wrenches himself free once more, trying to not be too rough and get his eggs smashed in the process. He already has a suspicion that his bread has been squashed flat. He still has to put his groceries away.

“No!” Peter grabs the man’s arm and yanks him down so they’re eye level. “Just- no, okay? Look, uh, just, come inside for a minute, I think I know what’s wrong but you have got to listen to me and not get me kicked out of my apartment. Alright?”

The man stops all of a sudden, like a deer in the headlights. Then he straightens, and nods. Peter can hear him whispering to himself as he wrestles with the key to get the door open, He’s not that angry at us, is he? I didn’t mean to make him mad- though it is kinda cute to see him all pink and-

Peter drags the man inside after him, already thinking about what his neighbors must be telling Mr. Ditkovich right now. His landlord isn’t a particularly big fan of him, probably thinking him some kid on the run from CPS. He looked the part: seventeen, with no high school degree, bumming it in his cheapest, shittiest apartment, and coming home at very odd hours of the night. Well, very early morning.

“Sit,” Peter points to the shitty fold out chairs at his dining table. “I’ve got to,” He lamely hoists his groceries up in front of his face to show the other man, “I’ve got to put these away. Just sit for a moment, let me think.”

“Oh, anything for you Petey-Pie, I do love it when you boss me around. Makes me feel like a dog. Arf arf, you know,” The man plops himself down in the chair, and his legs sprawl out in front of him, “It’s very sexy when you get all commanding.”

“Stop that,” Peter tells him, blushing, “Don’t say shit like that. I don’t- I don’t think I’m your Peter. I think you’re from another universe, and I’m seventeen.”

Peter’s mind reeled as he let his groceries go, piling the bags onto the dining room table. He checks on the eggs- still intact, thankfully.

“Oh,” The man says, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I’m disgusting,” The man says, suddenly curling over his legs, head in his hands once more, “I shouldn’t have- I’m sorry- shut up, no, no, I know, I’m really-”

“It’s fine,” Peter tells him, watching the man grow distressed, “Really.”

“No it’s not. Hey, mini-Peter, can you do me a favor?”

The sword in the man’s hands moves, and the man rests the sharp point of it against his stomach.

“What?” Peter asks, concerned, moving towards the man but not knowing quite what to do.

“Can you look away for a moment?”

Peter furrows his eyebrows, “Um, why?”

“I have brought shame upon myself, I must commit seppuku.”

And this is all the warning Peter gets. He’s picking up a box of crackers to put away when the man sitting in his apartment rips up his hoodie, plunges the katana into his stomach, and pulls.

And Peter screams.

-

“You’re… alive?”

“And kicking!” The man laughs, legs flailing up into the air to show that he can, in fact, kick.

And Peter…

He feels sick. A few minutes ago, the man’s guts had been spilling over his kitchen floor, blood spilling from his lips. He’d been dead, Peter had been absolutely sure of it. Peter had pulled off the scarf and glasses and seen the man spit up blood. The light had faded from his eyes! Peter checked his pulse and found nothing there! There had been no sign of life left, and, for God’s sake, the man’s intestines had been on his floor.

Then, suddenly, as Peter fretted over what he was going to tell the police, the organs on the floor started to snake back into their place inside of the man’s corpse. They moved like they themselves were alive, and burrowed their way back through the slash on his stomach. As soon as they were back in place, the flesh over his abdomen stitched back together like someone was sowing it with a needle and thread.

In a few minutes, the only remaining proof of injury was the pool of blood left behind on the hardwood floors, and then the man came back to life.

Okay, Peter definitely feels sick. It's only surprising that it took so long for it to come up. Bile rises to the top of his throat, and he rushes to the bathroom to let it out. The sandwich Mr. Delmar had let him get half-price for dinner stares back at him from the bowl when he’s done.

His fingers are wet with blood and they fumble trying to flush, leaving red trails behind.

He throws up more, seeing that.

“Oh jeez, sorry Spidey,” a hand lands on his shoulder, soothing it, “I didn’t know I’d make you vomit. No- shut up. Of course I didn’t mean to! Jeez, I’m really fucked up, huh? Hey, do you need anything? When I see something really terrible like that I usually snort some cocaine- not that I have any right now- and also kids shouldn’t do drugs, but-”

“I don’t need coke,” Peter groans, and holds up a hand to shut the other man up. “You do coke? Wait- don’t answer that. I don’t care. Just get me some water, please.”

After one last dry heave, he flushes the toilet.

“Water!” The man yells, scrambling out of the bathroom, “I’ll get you water! Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, little spidey. Your big brother Wade’s going to take care of you.”

“Wade?” Peter asks.

He gets a cheery response from the kitchen, “That’s me! I’m Wade!”

Peter falls back against the wall. A cup of water is pressed into his bloody hands soon enough. He takes it, shaking a little.

“What was that?” Peter asks, “Why did you do that?”

“Punishment,” Wade tells him, like that’s a normal thing to say. He kneels down next to Peter in his tiny shithole of a bathroom. “I shouldn’t have called a seventeen year old sexy.”

Peter looks at the water and then sets it down on the floor instead of taking a sip. He thinks he might throw up again if he does. He looks at the man next to him, taking in his face for the first time since his arrival. It’s a scarred mess, like one large burn mark. Well, that isn’t really any of his business.

“Did- did you know you were going to live? Is that your power?”

“Well, I didn’t live,” Wade says, “I just knew I was going to come back to life. I do that a lot, actually. I’m a super-healer. Like a wolverine on steroids, but none of the claws and the rugged handsomeness. Well, some of the rugged, none of the handsomeness, unless you've got a thing for Frankenstein's monster, maybe.”

Peter nods dumbly disbelief in his voice. “Right. You knew you were going to come back to life. Um, who’s Wolverine?”

Wade gasps, “You don’t know Wolverine?”

Peter shakes his head.

“Well that’s a shame. He’s such a cute little grump, got this whole feral lumberjack thing going on” Wade sighs, wistful. “I’m a little in love with him actually. Oh, hey, mini-Peter, I’m sorry for freaking you out. I did tell you to look away, didn’t I? why didn’t you?”

Peter looks over at the man, the fury that had been staunched by the shock suddenly breaking free. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He demands, “Are you fucking serious? You just killed yourself. You just killed yourself in my apartment. I saw your guts come out of your body! How was I supposed to know that was going to happen? Of course I wasn't ready for that, are you insane?”

Wade leans back, butt settling down on his heels, hands curling around his knees. He watches Peter intently. “Yes, actually. A bit. Well, very. I’m actually quite insanely insane, to be completely honest. But, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Peter stands up, and rushes to the sink, eager to scrub away the blood on his hands. He sighs, “Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you know I’m Spider-Man? You’re not supposed to know who I am. No one is supposed to know that.”

“Well, like I said, I’m Wade. Wade Wilson, to be exact. I also go by Deadpool, daddy, mommy, and, occasionally, Your Worst Nightmare. To answer your other questions: I’m here to see you, and I know you’re Spider-Man because we’ve been best friends for… two years? Maybe three? I’m not sure if that’s right, but it should be close. I do spend a lot of my time dead, or out of my mind on various substances, so time is a little fucked up for me.”

“Best friends?” Peter asks. “No way am I best friends with you in any universe.”

“No, it’s true,” Wade tells him, “Though it did take you a while to come around to it.”

Peter squirts more soap than he needs onto his hands, but he really, really needs to get this blood off. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“So, you said you’re not my Peter, huh?” Wade scratches at his jaw, and then, a panicked expression flashes across his face, he asks “Hey! What happened to my scarf?”

“I took it off, when you were dying,” Peter huffs. “I think it’s still on my living room floor.”

Wade runs out of the bathroom, shoving past him at the sink to get out. He looks frantically around for the scarf, and he wraps it back around his face as soon as he picks it back up. Peter frowns.

“I’ve already seen your face,” Peter says, “You don’t have to do that.”

Wade sighs, “Actually, I do. And if you’ve seen it, then you know why.”

“Cause of the…” Peter motions towards his face, “The scars? I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t, you’re Spider-Man, you’re a little beacon of happiness and holiness and wonderful things, and you would never mind because you’re sweet as a button and cute a sugar cone,” Wade doesn’t take the scarf off. “But I do. I mind. Very much.”

“I won’t make you take it off,” Peter tells him. “Look- there’s more important things to be talking about right now.”

“I’ll say. Have you seen housing prices lately?”

“What- no, that’s not it, listen. I think I know what happened to you. Though, if I’m right then it’s very, very bad that you’re still here. I don’t know why you’re still here.”

“That sounds foreboding,” Wade says. “Very scary.”

“Well…" Peter coughs to clear his throat. "I think you’re in the wrong universe.”

“Oh? is that it? You already said that.”

Peter finally stops scrubbing his hands. They don’t feel clean enough, but it’ll do. “That doesn’t freak you out?”

“No,” Wade says, “It explains a lot actually. Many, many plotholes just got filled. Though, the loopholes are still wide open, those have yet to be explained away.”

Peter wipes his hands dry on a towel. “I think you should be a little more worried about this.”

“Petey,” Wade stresses, “I am a man who dies like three times a week. This is not the weirdest thing that has happened to me. Frankly, I’m a little relieved. I thought I’d just swan dived straight from crazy-town to I’m-not-functioning-human-anymore-ville. Was really, really thinking I was a goner for a while, there. Not that I’m particularly here, right now, but I was like, sure I was completely gone, you know?”

“Well that’s good, I really don’t want to see what you’d be like if you were more unhinged.”

“Me neither,” Wade agrees. “So this is good. Very good, actually.”

“I don’t know how you’re still here, though. Okay, so, there was-" Peter readies himself to tell the story, it wasn't a story he'd had to explain, or could explain, to anyone since it actually happened. "There was a mistake. I made a mistake, a very bad one. And people were being drawn into our universe who knew my identity as Peter Parker in other universes. And don't ask me why that makes sense, it's just magic. So, that’s probably why you’re here. I can't think of any other reason. But, they were all, all the people who came here, they were sent back a long time ago. Months ago. So you shouldn’t be here.”

Wade shrugs. “I guess I’m just special, then.”

Peter sighs, “I don’t think so,” He bites his lip, mind reeling, “How long have you been here?”

“Hmmm,” Wade puts his hands on his hips, “I’m not really sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Wade shrugs, “like I said. Frequently dead or high, it fries some of the brain cells after a while. I know I’ve been here a few weeks, looking for you. Before that… I might’ve been here. I was in pieces for a while though.”

“In pieces?”

“Well I was fighting this dude. His name is Sabertooth- you remember Wolverine? Sabertooth is like his… brother maybe? His cousin? They might be lovers, actually. I’m not sure. They both have those sexy claws, is all I know. Sabertooth is the stinkier, blonder, evil version of Wolverine, and he chopped me into a bunch of little bite-size deadpool pieces. After that… hmmm… well, I eventually came to. Started looking at how to get back, find you.”

Peter blinks. Then he pinches the bridge of his nose, groaning. “Okay. Okay. How did you find me?”

“Well it took me a while.”

“Right.”

Wade motions for the chairs, “You may want to sit while I regale with you the story of my journey here. It’ll take me a minute.”

Peter sighs, but sits anyway, though on his bed instead. Not in the chair where Wade was before. He only had one kitchen chair, and now it was crusting over with blood. The bed isn't much farther away. His apartment isn't exactly big, it's one room, and not particularly long.

“I should start by saying that I wasn’t in New York. Actually, I was sort of in the desert, in Mexico,” Wade starts, “Or, I think it was Mexico? I was in a lot of tiny little pieces, and then I wasn’t. Took me days to regrow like that, actually. And once I had, I set off. And I kept dying because I was getting heat stroke in the desert, or freezing at night time, and then I’d come back to life, and then die again. It was a pretty brutal thing. As it goes when you’re naked and alone and lost in the middle of the desert, you know?.”

No, Peter does not know. Peter is pretty horrified at that, actually.

“Well,” Wade continues, “Eventually, I got picked up by some travelers, and they were actually a traveling drug cartel-”

Peter stops him, “Hold on. You what?”

“I got picked up by a drug cartel, Peter. God, pay attention. Sometimes, it’s like you don’t even hear me. Anyways, I was sort of side-tracked dealing with them and all. They saved me, gave me some clothes, and some food, and some drugs, so I decided to wipe out their competing cartel for them. Well, when that was over, then I needed to get to New York, and they were so grateful for me doing all that, that they got me here. Bought me a plane ticket.”

Peter’s eyes must be bugging out of his head, “Hold on, wait, you wiped them out? Slow down-”

“No, I like the pace I’m going at. Though it's fast, as the whole story is, which makes sense with a character like me, you know? I'm a bit of a loose canon. Unpredictable. Works with a faster pace. Anyways. I got here, and then I found you using a blood ritual. Seeking spell, very ancient.”

“Wait, really?”

Wade laughs, “No. Totally got you, though," Peter rolls his eyes. "I actually just looked you up online using the library computer. You’re kind of a ghost online, though you know that?”

“Well,” Peter chuckles dryly, “There’s kind of a reason for that.”

“I will admit I was very confused as to why all your accounts were gone, but I didn’t think too hard about it. Cause I’m very stupid. Anyways, I found you through your aunt’s facebook. I saw she worked at FEAST, and some of the guys there knew where you were staying. Which isn’t very safe, you know? Why do they know where to find you?”

Peter shrugs, mood worsening at the mention of his aunt, “Not like it matters, there’s no one coming to look for me. I just gave them my address in case they ever needed any help. A lot of people there… they have even less than me.”

Wade springs forward, and launches a noogie upon Peter’s head, Peter squeaks, and Wade coos at the sound.“Oh! You may not be my Peter, but you are just as cute! So helpful and kind and precious. Not sexy, though. Definitely not sexy. Just a cute, chibi Spider-Man. Super young, super adorable, and super-duper super-powered.”

Peter pushes the hand away. “Can you quit that?”

Wade retreats, whining like a kicked dog. “Sorry.”

Peter sighs. “It’s- It’s fine. No, I just… I don’t know you,” Peter thinks about MJ. How, in the weirdest sort of way, this mirrored how he felt for her. Obviously, Wade and this other Spider-Man were close, but whoever he was, that was a different Peter, and he didn’t have any memory of it. “It’s okay, I know it’s hard. I get how you feel. I’m just- I'm not your Peter.”

“Okay, well, not-my-Peter. That’s my whole story. I don’t know why I’d still be here, if everyone else was sent back to their own universes. Maybe I’m just not like other multiverse travelers.”

Peter sighs, resting his chin in his hands. “I don’t know either. But, ah, I might know who does?”

Chapter Text

Peter debates whether to come in costume for a while, and eventually decides against it. He doesn’t want to see the headlines the Bugle will come up with if they saw Spider-Man swinging around with Wade on his back.

Spider-Menace Kidnaps Schizophrenic Homeless Veteran!

Or something like that. Peter may not like the Bugle, but even he had to admit that they were creative. The lies they told about Spidey weren’t just completely off base, but they were frequently absurd as well.

And, yeah, Wade is a veteran, apparently. This is a new fact the teenager picks up on their cab ride over, where Wade talks animatedly with the driver about something. Peter doesn’t pick up all the details, his brain is elsewhere, thinking about how he was going to deliver the news of Wade’s presence to Dr. Strange without the man strangling him, but Peter, even drifting in and out as he is, does catch the mention of a dishonorable discharge from service.

They take a cab because Peter doesn’t have a car (and couldn’t drive even if he did have one, he’d never learned), and public transport seemed like a bad idea when being accompanied by a katana-happy psychopath who had been fully willing to gut himself like a fish on Peter’s living room floor.

Peter winces thinking of that. He had tried to get the stain out before they headed out to see Strange. He hadn’t succeeded. Tried everything he had on hand short of bleaching the carpet, which he wasn’t allowed to do, and eventually gave up. He thought about leaving something on it to sit but didn’t know when he’d be back. The stain would be a problem for the future. There were other pressing matters right now. This wasn’t the first time he’d had trouble scrubbing out bloodstains, and it wouldn’t be the last, and it was really the least of his worries.

“Right here,” Peter says, pointing to their destination out the window. “You can let us out here.”

“Thank you Mr. Driver man, sir!” Wade digs a large roll of cash out of… (out of where? Peter isn’t entirely sure) somewhere and jerks his hand through the divider. “You’re the backbone of New York, you know that? Cab drivers are the glue holding this city together. So treat yourself. Buy yourself something nice, on me, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, Mr. Deadpool,” The driver says, eyes widening, hands practically shaking as he unfurls the thick wad of money, “You’re a saint.”

Right, there was that too. Wade’s alias, and preferred name, apparently, was Deadpool, which set alarm bells ringing in Peter’s head. It’s not exactly a superhero-sounding name.

The more Peter hears about Wade, the more he casually discusses the murder and evisceration of people he doesn’t like, Peter has to start wondering Wade is actually a hero at all. Well, no, Peter is pretty sure he isn't a hero at this point. At first, Peter had assumed the man wasn’t a supervillain, given that Wade hadn’t immediately come at Peter trying to kill him, and had claimed that they were friends in another universe. But, Peter hadn’t actually asked what side of the law the man was on, and the man didn’t seem to have much of any moral compass. Wade seemed friendly, but…

Norman had seemed friendly at first, too. And Wade was possibly more unstable than that.

Peter tells himself it’s fine, but he stays wary of the other man. At least they’re where they should be if Wade does choose to show his true colors and they’re ugly. Strange would probably help him (even if he doesn’t know him) while they’re in the wizard’s home base.

“Oh, I know. I’ve been told. Did I tell you-” Wade elbows Peter, “Peter, hey, stop providing a narrative with your thoughts and listen to me. Did I tell you yet that I came out of my mother’s womb glowing? It’s true, I was a golden baby of light. Like a little ray of sunshine.”

“For some reason, I doubt that,” Peter pushes open the cab door and hops out.

Wade comes out after him, toppling onto the sidewalk in a heap. “It’s true! You know, I didn’t come out looking like Putin’s inverted asshole.”

Peter turns to him on his way to the door, “That's gross. You don’t even look like that now. Just- do you ever shut up?”

Wade, for the first time since Peter has met him, besides in death, is silent.

Peter knocks twice on the sanctum doors (behind him, Wade chirps in: “Knock Knock! Who’s there? ”) and steps back from the door, nervously rubbing a hand along the scratchy surface of his jeans.

The door opens. It’s Wong, not Strange.

Wong looks at the mismatched pair who have arrived at ten at night.

Peter is still in his soggy clothes, with a bit of blood smeared on the front, his hair has barely finished drying from the rain and has curled up into an unruly mass of humid frizz, and, he realizes a little too late, his apron from Delmar's is still tied around his waist.

Wade stands next to him, looking something like an abnormally large, homeless man on his way to rob a bank. Peter had not been able to replace Wade’s abhorrent choice of clothes, not having anything near big enough to fit the larger man, and he hadn’t been able to convince him of leaving behind the scarf and sunglasses either.

“No,” Wong tells them simply and goes to slam the door shut.

Wade jerks forward, sticking his fingers in the way of the door’s trajectory. They get slammed between the door and the frame with a sickening crack, but they do stop it from closing all the way.

“What are you doing?” Wong jerks the door back open, “Are you crazy?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Peter flinches when Wade jiggles his boneless fingers in the air. They move wet and loose and wrong, and Peter averts his eyes from the sight.

Wade then straightens the appendages out with his other hand, snapping them back into place. Wong’s jaw drops almost comically at the sight. “That was a bit rude of you, Aren’t you supposed to invite us in? Make us tea?” Wade sidesteps the flabbergasted Wong, stepping into the sanctum. “If not for me, then for Petey, here? I mean- look at that face. Can you tell that face no? It’s like a little puppy dog. Would you turn away a little orphan puppy dog if it came to your door?”

Peter shakes his head, “They don’t know me, Wade,” He turns to the wizard, pleading, “Look- uh, Wong. And, yes, I know your name, but I promise I have a good reason for that. I’m not evil, and I’m not a creep. I just know your name. And, I’m sorry about him- I think he just likes to do that.”

Wong stares at him incredulously, “He likes to break his fingers?”

“I guess? He seems to like freaking people out,” Peter tries for a humored smile. He doesn’t think it works. “Can I come in? I’ve really got to talk to Dr. Strange. It’s important.”

Wong narrows his eyes.

“Please,” Peter begs. “I mean it when I say it’s important. Like, multi-verse potentially collapsing in on us because of it, important.”

“And that’s important!” Wade yells. “Like Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards, important.”

“And you’re looking for Strange?”

“Yes.”

“I’m actually the Sorcerer Supreme, you know,” Wong says, looking a bit annoyed.

Peter scoffs, “Only on a technicality.”

Wong pauses, words dying on his lips. “I am,” He looks at Peter with disbelief. “But you shouldn’t know that.”

“I can explain that later,” Peter tells him, “It’s a very long story, but, basically, uh, you know me and I know you. You just don’t remember, okay? As I said, this is all some life-saving multi-verse tearing apart and needing fixing stuff, and I thought we were over it a couple of months ago, but apparently, we’re not, so me and this guy are here. I can give you the long version in a bit if you really want to know, but for right now can I just come inside?”

After a tense moment, Wong steps away from the entrance, the doors magically staying open long enough for Peter to come in after him.

“Hey Wong!” Peter tries as the wizard ascends the stairs, “I didn’t mean to insult you by the way- I mean, you’re a fine wizard. More of a wizard than I will ever be, so. I don’t really know much about wizarding and what Sorcerer Supreme actually means but you’re probably super, uh, really great.”

“Uh-huh,” Wong huffs, turning away. “Save it.”

“Sorcerer Supreme sounds like a combo meal at a DND-themed drive-thru window. Oooo, or a weird male striper.” Wade says, and his voice is farther away than Peter expects it to be. Peter looks over at him, but it takes a minute to find him. When Peter does, he sees him all the way across the room and turning around the corner to head down the hall.

“Wade, Wait!” Peter’s eyes go wide, “You’re supposed to stay here. They don’t like it when you go further in without permission. Mystical secrets and artifacts and stuff.”

Wade waves him off. “Oh, boo. Take a note from Lesley Gore, nobody owns me-”

“Wade!” Peter looks around, hoping that Strange and Wong don’t see this. Peter groans, internally debating himself for a moment before he scampers after him. Peter darts around the corner, catches the sight of the man who is skipping down the hallway, and hisses, “Get back here!”

Wade puts his hands on his hips, turning around to face Peter as dramatically as he can, “Or what? You’ll make me?”

“He won’t make you,” Dr. Strange says from behind Wade, already twirling his finger around so a portal begins to open up beneath the man, “I will.’

Wade falls through.

Strange stares at the teenager at the end of the hall. Peter swallows a lump in his throat that had formed before he could even think about it. This doesn’t help, he still can’t speak. It is hard enough to distance himself from his life when he is far, far away from the people he used to know. It is so much harder when they are thrown in his face like this.

This was his choice. Maybe he should just go back home. Maybe this was a stupid idea from the beginning. Well, no, this was the only way to figure out what was going on with Wade. But, still, did Peter have to come? Of course.

“Do I know you?” Strange asks. His eyes narrow. For a moment, Peter is hopeful that something has clicked, but it hasn’t. Strange isn’t looking at him with too much outward hostility, but it’s nothing knowing, nothing familiar, either.

The hope is squashed just as quickly. He internally admonishes himself for that brief second of gullible thinking. Of course, Strange wouldn’t remember.

Peter shuffles his feet awkwardly. How was one supposed to explain a situation like this? There was a lot to say and not much time for him before Strange probably kicked him out or assumed he was insane. “Um, kind of?”

“Kind of?”

There’s the sound of a portal opening near the main staircase, it is followed by a dull thud.

“Kind of?” Wade repeats from somewhere out of sight. “What? I wanted to be in on the joke.”

“Yeah, you kind of know me,” Peter says more firmly.

Strange stalks past him, resting a hand on his shoulder as he does and dragging him along into the main room where Wade is now waiting for them sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor.

“Mind explaining that a little further?”

Peter readies himself. He knows he needs to speak quickly, to get as much of his words out as fast as he can. “Well, like I told Wong, I know you. You don’t know me. You used to, but you don’t anymore. You kind of had to make everyone forget who I am because doing so saved the universe. I wasn’t going to, uh, tell you about it. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it, but then Wade here showed up-”

“Hold on,” Strange’s expression pinches, and he tries to slow the kid’s ranting, asking: “I made everyone forget who you are to save the universe?”

“Well, when you say it like that it sounds a little unbelievable.”

“It is unbelievable!” Wade pipes up, “But don’t worry Peter, I believe you, sweetie, you’re doing great. I’m very proud of you,” Wade points a finger at him, “I see you, and you’re doing great.”

“You were trying to do something nice for me at first,” Peter explains to Strange, ignoring Wade’s babbling, which continues on in the background (Isn’t he doing great? He’s communicating just like my therapist says I should!) “I’m… my identity became public knowledge, and my life was kinda ruined because of it, and you tried to cast these, uh, runes of awful-”

Dr. Strange looks on with even more disbelief. “The Runes of Kauf-Kall?”

“Yes! Yes, those! Those were the ones,” Peter nods, snapping and pointing at the wizard, and feeling like maybe this won’t be as hard to explain as he thought,” And they got all unstable, cause I fucked up, and you had to keep recasting it, and then, uh,” Peter motions with his hands a little wildly, “things got messy. Messier. A bunch of bad guys showed up and you had me putting them in the wizard dungeon and-”

Wade gasps. “I want to be put in the wizard dungeon!”

“Wait, hold on,” Strange glances at him warily, “Why did it matter that your identity became public?”

“Oh,” Peter laughs nervously, “Funny story. Right. Sorry, I’m really not good at telling stories, to be honest. I should’ve probably led with this, huh? Uh, well,” Peter sheepishly scratches at the back of his neck, “I’m Spider-Man.”

Strange breathes through his nose, frustrated. “Right. So, the teenager in my foyer is the unhinged streetlighting vigilante Spider-Man.”

(“Unhinged?” Peter squeaks.)

“Foyer?” Wade asks, “Really? Your foyer?”

“And who’s this?” Strange asks him.

“Oh, that’s Wade, he’s from another universe.”

Wade shoots up from his sitting position, back going straight, and a hand suddenly at attention on his forehead, “Yes sir, Mr. Hot Gandalf, sir. It is I, your new good friend, and possible love interest (??), Wade Woodrow Wilson, reporting for duty. In your foyer.”

“Your middle name is Woodrow?” Peter asks, “Woodrow Wilson, like… the president?”

“Actually, no,” Wade does that exaggerated head tilt thing Peter has seen him do a couple of times now. “I was just trying something new. There’s a president named Woodrow Wilson? That's a shit name.”

-

Strange isn’t as angry as Peter thought he would be. He just looks at the two of them, now sat down on a couch in a room Peter hasn’t seen before, with a mix of exasperation, and a bit of muted horror. Peter tells him as much as he can, and he gets most of the story out, though he purposefully skims over any details where Peter stole the box with the spell in it and fought him in the mirror dimension,

Adamantly not helping through the process is Wade. He seems to be trying his best to derail the conversation into any number of random tangents. “Oh goodie,” Wade is now messing with some gadget on the table in front of them. “You’ve caught Harry Potter up, and the time skip is over. I can talk again.”

“You haven’t stopped talking since you got here,” Peter points out.

The thing Wade has picked up is some sort of box with a string on the top. He pulls at the string, and a burst of light escapes, followed by a shrieking sound.

Strange twists to face him with a stern look. With a flick of his wrist, a golden rope lashes out at Wade’s fingers, and the man yelps, dropping the object. The screaming stops as the string recedes back inside. More ropes wind themselves around Wade’s wrists and hands, trapping them. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch anything?” He asks.

“Yeah, but you did it in the break between scenes, so it doesn’t count,” Wade says. He tugs on his bindings. “Hey, this is kind of kinky. I’m really digging the whole BDSM wizard angle. Didn’t I say Sorcerer Supreme would make a great stripper name? Hey, do you think you could wrap one of these around-”

Another rope winds around Wade’s mouth, silencing him. Peter can hear a pleasured little noise Wade makes in the back of his throat while he squirms in his seat. Peter scoots farther down the couch, and then, deciding that’s not really enough to get away from him, just stands.

“What do you think, sir?” Peter asks, and motions to the man on the couch, whose legs are kicking wildly, but making no move to stand. He calls Strange sir because he figures a full memory wipe is enough to have lost him Stephen privileges. “Do you think something went wrong with the spell?”

“I don’t know, Mr. P-” Strange cuts himself short, “Peter. But it is strange-” (Peter hears an amused snort from Wade) “If something is wrong, I should’ve been the first to know. Accidental multi-verse travelers who are over-extending their stay shouldn’t exactly make a small splash in the cosmos.”

“More like a cannonball?” Peter offers as a metaphor.

“More like a crack in the bottom of the pool,” Strange tells him. The man jerks his hand, and Wade is raised off the couch. “But I am not yet sure how dire it actually is, it doesn’t seem to be as pressing as what you described happening before, considering the world isn’t imploding yet and it’s an isolated incident. Right now, I’m just going to focus on running some diagnostic spells.”

“Diagnostic spells meaning what?”

“I will be attempting to figure out the reason for this mishap, and how to rectify it. I will do… ugh, him first,” Strange makes a disgusted face at having to mention Wade, whose legs go like jelly when the man looks at him. Wade makes another noise, like a whine, and Strange looks uncomfortable. The ropes tighten.

“So, I…”

“Wait here,” Strange tells him, “And don’t touch anything.”

Peter nods, and Strange is off, the ropes drag Wade behind him much rougher than is necessary.

So then, Peter is alone in the room.

It’s a living room of sorts. Two of the walls house towering shelves containing many kinds of mystical-looking objects, anything from dusty books, to crystal balls, to beat up teddy bears, to a golden bonsai tree that is crammed in one corner. In the middle of the room, there’s a large red couch, and two accompanying chairs all facing a currently dormant fireplace. A portrait of some women in robes similar to Strange’s hangs above it. On the other end of the room, parallel to the fireplace, are large windows that reveal a beautiful courtyard.

Which was impossible, of course. Peter had found the sanctum on Google Maps when he was curious once. It wasn’t exactly hidden. It was, in fact, in the middle of Greenwich Village, and commonly known to be something superhero-related (But people still stayed away from it, for no apparent reason. It was probably some sort of magical ward). And, as grand as the building was, it was still deceptive, because there is no way it is as big on the outside as it is inside, and there is certainly no courtyard on the satellite image.

Peter pulls his phone out of his back pocket and checks it. There are no new messages except for an email from National Geographic, which reminds him his deal for a subscription is fading fast. This is not a surprise, there’s no one who would be texting him.

The time on his phone, almost eleven o’clock, which tells him that he has been at the sanctum for a little less than an hour, and Peter wonders how much longer this all is going to take. He wouldn’t be able to patrol tonight, that much he knew. At some point, though, he is going to have to get back to his apartment and get some sleep so he can go to work in the morning.

At this point, he is both eager to return to his apartment, and dreadful just imagining it.

Eager, for it meant that he could once again get away from the temptation of asking Dr. Strange to please, please, bring everyone’s memories back, which he had been fighting for months. Eager because collapsing in his bed now meant he might actually go to work and not have his head feel like it was stuffed full of cotton balls for hours.

Dreadful for, well, so many obvious reasons. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to him for a while. Somebody, even if it was Wade Wilson, knew his name. Knew at least some version of him, and, because of it, for just a moment, his world was looking a little less lonely. On a night like this, he’d usually be swinging around, thinking about how much of his food budget was going to have to go into ingredients for his web fluid, chafing some in a wet costume, and punching people’s faces in.

Peter didn’t want to have to return to the life he was living right now. He wasn’t living a good life right now, and he knew it. He was barely living. It was more of a survival thing- he just had to keep going, until, maybe, it got a little easier. He would have to just go until whenever MJ and Ned leave for MIT (which wasn’t that far away now), and then he could maybe move on. He wasn’t looking to find anyone new to get close with, but maybe he could pick up some casual companions to fill the social void in his life. Keep him from going crazy.

Maybe then it would get easier. But, for now, everything is just so hard. He takes every day like a breath, and can’t wait until he releases it, only to have to take another. It’s tiring, being like this. Alone, and poor, and usually at least a little bit cold and hungry.

Peter paces from one end of the room to the other a few times, he almost goes to touch the golden bonsai tree, to try and dust off the pot to read something that has been inscribed onto a plaque, but then remembers Strange’s words and holds himself back. He pauses over by the window and looks outside to the courtyard.

It looks like that square of garden isn’t even connected to the rest of the sanctum. The colors are different, the architecture is different, the columns, and tile mosaics along the walls don’t look like the rest of the building. Where the New York sanctum was all Baroque and warm colors, outside consisted of marble columns, and swaths of blue tile.

It’s brighter, too, the gentle, dusky light of early morning, and clear, unlike outside in New York which was dark and still, according to the weather app on his phone which he checks just to make sure, quite rainy.

And it’s cool that the courtyard exists, yeah, magic is amazing. Peter can readily admit that. Magic is fascinating, even. When Strange swoops into battle, his red cape billowing behind him all majestic like, and conjures portals and shields and amazing spells of light, Peter finds himself entranced.

And, yet, he also hates magic so much.

He finds himself having to tear his eyes away from the courtyard, as it is such a blatant display of the mystic arts. He is now thinking too much of MJ, and it isn't good for him when he does this.

When Peter looks back outside, he is surprised to see a man there. He's levitating a hose, and watering the plants with it. When the man catches sight of Peter, he seems just as surprised to have company. Peter, not knowing what else to do, waves.

He gets a wave in return, and then the man returns to watering the plants.

Strange returns. Peter hears him before he sees him, or, rather, he hears Wade saying something from down the hall -that Peter will never repeat- then Strange casts something in Latin. This silences Wade’s babbling, and then a portal opens by the fireplace. Wade is spat out, head first, on the hard floor.

“He’s in Greece.” Strange tells Peter, noticing him looking at the window. “The man outside. The whole garden is. All the places that serve as refuges for us are connected. Certain rooms of ours are in other places as well.”

“Wow,” Peter says. “So if I went out there I could just… be in Greece?”

Strange nods. “If you ever have a burning need to vacation in the Mediterranean, let me know. I understand plane tickets can be expensive.”

“Really?” Peter is taken aback a bit by the offer. It’s… kind. Something he didn’t think Strange would offer the Peter he doesn’t really know. Actually, Peter didn’t think Strange would offer this even if he still retained his memories. So, why was he offering it now?“I doubt a plane ticket was ever expensive for you. Weren’t you, like, super rich? Didn’t you own multiple Lamborghinis?”

“I wasn’t always a surgeon. And medical school is very expensive.”

Peter nods, knowing just how much that was true. He had spent no small amount of time researching the cost of college, of undergrad, and masters, and PHDs, and wondering if he was ever going to get to actually go to college. Which he had dreamed of for so, so many years. He had decided, somewhere along falling down that rabbit hole, that he would need to stop looking if he wanted to stay away from anywhere near a mental breakdown.

“Oh wow, I wonder what a little Stephen looked like. You in college is a weird image. It’s hard to think of you being my age.”

Strange offers him a smile, “Well, I can already tell that I wasn’t like you.”

“What?” Peter sticks his hands into his pockets. “Oh, yeah, I’ll bet. You were probably the farthest thing possible from a high school dropout and a vigilante. What, were you part of the chess club? No- no, let me guess, debate.”

“Both, actually. And valedictorian, among other things,” Strange concedes. “But that wasn’t what I meant. Now, come on, let’s get out of here before that thing,” he curls his lip up at Wade on the floor who… who hadn’t moved. Peter looks over and sees the man knocked out. “Wakes up.”

Peter follows Strange as he leaves. “What did even you do to him?”

“It’s just a small curse,” Strange tells him. “He’ll be fine. Eventually.”

Peter snorts.“Of course.”

The room Strange brings him to is one Peter already knows, but doesn’t really want to. The wide, open chambers of the spell-casting room bring Peter back to a memory he does not wish to relive. Of a spell burning circles around him. Each one further cementing his fate as the sorcerer cast it. Each one further destabilizing an already risky spell, just so Peter could selfishly try and have his friends, his family, and his two, separate lives, all at once.

The spell that would ultimately fail, and come back to destroy him.

Without thinking, Peter’s arms come up around himself. Hands digging into his elbows. He feels cold. Hurt. The room brings back that burning desire to say please, please, just MJ and Ned, maybe Happy, that’s all I need. No one else. Just three, and you can do that, can’t you?

But Peter holds himself back from asking because he is already too sure the answer will be no. Regardless of whether it will be no or not. He is too scared of giving in, finding himself once again willing to endanger the people he cares about, and then being rejected anyways. This way, if he never asks, Peter will never put them in danger. And there will always be the possibility of someday bringing them back into his life sitting unused. He is too scared to lose it.

“Are you alright?” Strange asks him. He looks concerned, and Peter suddenly realizes how he looks, his arms pressed tight across his chest, his eyes closed in thought. He has been bitting his lip hard without noticing, teeth on the brink of drawing blood.

He forces himself to relax. “I’m fine,” Change the subject. Change the subject. “I meant to ask. Did you figure out anything when you were with Wade? What were you looking for, anyway?”

“I was looking for energy,” Strange answers. “It’s like a signature. Every universe leaves its own imprint of energy upon those that are from it. I was trying to figure out where the charming,” Strange’s sarcasm is heavy on the word, “Mr. Wilson is from. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t. Actually, the signature of energy inside Mr. Wilson is the same as our universe’s. And from what I understand, that can only mean one thing.”

“That he’s from our universe?” Peter tries.

“Indeed,” Strange waves Peter forward with his hand, and the boy follows him out further into the room. “But what I am looking for in you will be different. Since the spell that supposedly caused all of this is for you, it is connected to you. Your soul. I can see there if anything has gone wrong with the spell..”

“Okay,” Peter takes a deep breath, as he comes to stand right in front of Strange. “What do I need to do?”

“Nothing, really,” Stephen lifts his hands, and his fingers press to either side of Peter’s temple. A pulse of warmth flows out of them. “You just need to stand very still.”

Chapter Text

Peter is looking at himself.

It’s an odd thing. He is aware of this, the oddness of this fact, as he is aware of himself. Yet, he is also aware of another, different consciousness inhabiting the space of a mind with him and running alongside his own. One that is separate, and not freaked out by seeing Peter’s face staring back at it.

Peter’s doppelganger looks like shit. His unmasked face reveals a developing bruise along his jaw, and dark, tired bags under his eyes. A line of blood has run underneath his nose, been wiped at with a hand, and dried into a dark smear across his cheek.

Peter doesn’t look down at his feet (Can’t, his eyes are not his to command). But he doesn’t need to. He knows that down below them is the blue stone of Lady Liberty’s outstretched hand. He could never forget this moment.

All around them the sky is breaking open. Fissures form and extend as souls push along the cracks, and attempt to pull them wider, trying to get to the world they’ve been called into. Strange- Stephen, he tries his best. He throws up every enchantment he can think of, but it can only hold off their inevitable rush. Eventually they will break through.

Peter watches his own face, and it hurts seeing the flicker of emotions play about it. He remembers how he had felt then, there was a kind of aching in the lines that constructed his past self’s body. Peter had already won at that point. He had done the right thing, he had saved everyone, and, still, the fight wasn’t over.

He remembers the way his brain had kept repeating Aunt May’s words like a mantra in his head, until they sounded fake. The sounds had no longer made sense by the time he realized what he needed to do, they just were.

With great power, and great responsibility, the realization turns to resolve in the set of his look-alike’s jaw. Peter sees it waver a moment, eyes flick downwards towards MJ and Ned standing down by the Liberty’s podium, then it shakily returns for the same reasons it had hesitated.

“Make everyone forget me.” Peter from the past says. The Peter that lives somewhere in his memory, that keeps him up at night while he tries to decide if he’d truly done the right thing. If it was worth it.

Then Peter, the one he is now in the present, knows whose eyes he’s watching this from. Alongside his own, Strange’s brain thrums like a well-oiled machine, and then it starts to work.

He can feel the quickness of Strange’s mind. It pulls together information, organizes it, processes it, and comes to a response with frightening speed. Peter can feel the thoughts rushing like blood, quicker than blood, quicker than the electricity they should be traveling upon. Peter wonders if this is what it was always like to live in Strange’s head.

Peter was smart, but Strange was smarter. Older, and more experienced, too. Strange was wiser. His thinking was trained, and efficient, in a way one had to be for the roles he had picked up in his life. A neuro-surgeon, a sorcerer, they both needed the benefits of a quick, good judgment, and an even better reaction time.

And yet, for a genius, for the man who runs through every possibility in his head without blinking like a computer simulation, his response is not terribly eloquent. He has better ones on the edge of his lips, but all that comes out is:

“No.”

And it is this way because Stephen knows, right at that moment, that what Peter proposed was the only solution, and the words get stuck inside of him when horror makes itself known. The guilt of this realization tears upwards through Stephen, reminds him of all the other guilt he keeps buried, but never forgets. The memories of people he had wronged, who he hurt, and who he could not save.

Peter feels the memories, feels them press alongside his brain, and into it. A whirlwind of feelings attached to the memories flash by, and they are not his own-

A young girl lies face down in a pool. Stephen hadn’t heard a thing, had been busy doing… What? What had he been doing while Donna was out here? It didn’t matter. There was nothing that would have justified not seeing his little sister slip out the door, and into the water. Victor tugs him into his chest, and Strange lets himself be pulled in.

The doctors say Donna’s leg had cramped mid-kick. The skating accident, they said, (the one months ago, where they had seen nothing wrong. They had said there was nothing wrong,) unseen damage, they said.

Strange promises that he will be a better doctor, that he will not let-

The sounds of a hospital: gloves snapping, wheels turning, an HRM is beeping slower, and slower, and then it is gone. This happens again. This happens until the bodies pile up, and, somewhere along the line, his heart shuts itself off to them. Eventually, they lose their faces. They become numbers. Alive or dead, they become a tally on a board in his head, reduced to a number. His compassion starts to wear, and they become steps to money, to fame-

Christine tells him he’s worth more than his hands. That he breaks her heart. Stephen suddenly remembers seeing her for the first time. They were younger, fresh out of grad school, and she sat next to him in the cafeteria, trying to make her first friend among the new residents. He’d been an asshole to her then, and he was one now. She has always forgiven him, but this time she doesn't. Strange is too serious, too loud and mean, and he pushes too far.

Her face steels itself, she picks up her purse off the table, and she leaves. And it’s better for her that she does.

He is filled with a self-hatred so hot it feels like it will boil him alive. That is, if he doesn’t strangle himself with these useless, shaking hands first. He plans to never see her again, and he’s sure that she plans the same-

Tony Stark looks at him with eyes that don’t fit his face. He looks lost, confused. There’s a streak of red dust across his cheek, a gaping hole in his stomach, and Stephen reads the question in his face before he opens his mouth. Stephen can not explain that he will be leading him to his death-

Peter Parker makes the sacrifice Stephen himself is not sure he would give. Stephen respects him, but there is guilt more than anything. The most humbling moment of his life. To realize he can still make mistakes. It is his fault-

Peter tears himself away.

It feels wrong to be here. These are not his memories to see.

-

“Wakey wakey, spidey and bakey. Oh, that’d be fun. Hey Spidey, have you ever smoked weed? That’s a kid-friendly drug, kinda, you could do that one. You think the wizards have any? Wong looks like he smokes.”

There’s something soft beneath him. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a gentle light trickling in through a set of red curtains.

Light, which means it’s the morning.

“Shit!” Peter scrambles upwards. He’s on a bed he doesn’t remember getting into. It’s too comfortable, and he’d slept for far too long. He digs in his pockets for his phone. “What time is it? Shit, where’s my phone?”

Wade is around the bed in a second. He points to the object on the end table, right next to his wallet and keys. “Sleeping beauty awakens without a kiss from a prince. This is a win for the feminists. Wait, does that joke work when you’re a dude?”

It’s already past the time he should be off to make it into work. But luckily, he would only be a little late. He could chock it up to a late train, or something. Greenwich village wasn’t that much farther away than midtown, and he could swing with a little extra pep. But to make it on time he would need to leave fast.

“Fuck,” Peter mutters, he gets up and starts for the door immediately. The room passes by in a blur, gold and red, and dark wood floors, it’s obvious he’s still in the sanctum. He looks down, “Where are my shoes? I have to get to work.”

“Oh, don’t worry about work.”

Peter turns to Wade, who is now stretching out across a nice antique chair by the window. “Don’t-” he blinks, “Don’t worry about it?”

“I called in for you.”

“You what?”

-

After Peter calls his boss he is surprised to find the man oddly willing to give him the day off. Tells him No, no you take all the time, okay? Come in by Monday, and I won’t say anything. I won’t even count it in your sick days alright. Take half pay for today, and take care of yourself.

Peter’s job is a very unofficial thing. His boss, Rufus, has no reason to keep him, other than pity, and the fact that Peter is a slightly above average worker who is weirdly good at picking up heavy objects for his size, but, ultimately, quite replaceable. Peter almost tells his boss this. Almost tells him to keep his money, because Peter hadn’t earned it. But then Peter feels the tightening of his stomach- empty from never getting dinner last night- and knows that he needs the money. No matter how much he didn’t want to take it for nothing.

Peter would only be out for a day, anyways. Only a day. This would be fine. Peter just couldn’t afford to get nothing for a whole day, and it would only be a day, this would be okay. “Thank you, sir. I might come in late,” he says into the phone. His boss assures him once more that it’s fine.

Peter hangs up a moment later. The guilt lingers.

Peter drags a hand down his face, “What did you even tell him?”

Wade brings his finger up to his lips. Or, where his lips would be if Peter could see them. “It’s a secret. But, it was a very good story. Like a Roman tragedy. Romeo and Juliet level shit.”

“Shakespeare wasn’t Roman,” Peter sighs. He finds his shoes next to the door, and slips them on. “Why did you do that? And how did you even get into my phone.”

“Your passcode is the same as my Peter’s. And Kublai Khan said you might be out for a good while, so I took some liberties, being your best friend and all, to call in for you.”

Peter’s anger dissipates rapidly. It was actually kind of a nice thing. Once Peter thinks about it, he realizes that Wade had actually kind of saved him.

“Oh,” Peter ducks his head, “Well. Thanks. But whatever you told him was too much. You should have just said I was sick.”

“Not as fun!”

Peter makes the sheets on the bed. As he does this, he thinks of his Aunt May- how she would’ve made sure he left everything in the room exactly as it was before. She had ingrained manners into him for years, and now he didn’t even think about it. He finishes by fluffing up the pillow where his head had been and setting it back to stand up against the headboard.

“What happened to me last night?” He asks. “I can’t remember.”

Wade shrugs. “You should ask Mr. Cheekbones. Which, please tell me you noticed them, those things could cut grass.”

“So you don’t know what happened?”

“Nope. Just came back with you knocked out and swaddled in his cloak like am abnormally large baby.”

“Okay,” that’s actually kind of a funny image in his head. “And what happened after that?”

“Magical wizard fun times,” Wade informs him cheerily. “Sorry, you had to be there.”

Peter had figured he wouldn’t be much help- but it’s actually insane how little information Wade manages to offer. Like he would be physically pained to give a real, serious answer.

“Did you… sleep in here?” Peter asks.

“I tried. The wizard wouldn’t let me,” Wade drops his voice to a whisper, but it’s not actually very quiet. “I’m not supposed to be here right now, either, but, see, I’m a rebel, you know. I think rules are all meant to be broken.”

“That’s the opposite of what rules are meant to do,” Peter says.

Wade snorts. Peter’s oddly happy that he got a reaction.

Wade doesn’t give him anything better than magical wizard fun times. So, instead of trying to ask him more questions to get possibly worse answers, Peter takes his suggestion and goes to find Dr. Strange instead.

It doesn’t take Peter too long to find him. The wizard is just down the hall, and a set of stairs.

(Wade isn’t any help in searching for the right room. Peter has to drag him away from a few unmarked doors and tell him to knock instead of barging in. Peter isn’t even surprised by the behavior at this point. It’s not too bad, it’s like having to coral a child… if that child was two-hundred something pounds.)

Strange greets them, sitting at the head of a dining room table. He’s already clean, dressed, and very awake. His cape is holding up a cup of coffee somewhere to the right of his head. Upon Peter’s arrival, he sets down a book next to an empty plate. Peter suddenly feels a little embarrassed about his own appearance. His hair had only gotten worse during the night, his clothes were still stained, and were now also wrinkled from being slept in. He is fighting off grogginess and eye bags and losing miserably. He hasn’t looked in a mirror yet, but he feels that if he did his embarrassment would only worsen.

“Peter,” Strange nods.

Peter gives him a lame wave. “Good morning.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Strange asks, motioning for Peter to sit down at the table across from him.

“Is that the kitchen?” Wade asks. “I’m so hungry I could eat a diseased hippopotamus right now.”

Strange scowls, “Don’t touch anything.”

Wade doesn’t seem to care, and takes that as his answer. He disappears into the kitchen a moment later. The clattering of pans can be heard, Strange pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I feel fine,” Peter answers to Strange’s earlier question. “I just can’t remember what happened.”

“No headaches? You’re sure?” Peter shakes his head, then shakes it again. Strange asks him a few more questions about any possible aches and pains before he finally seems satisfied. Strange seems relieved. “What do you remember, Peter?”

“Not a whole lot,” Peter thinks of the last thing he was awake for. The memories are fuzzy around the edges. “You told me to stand still. Then you put your hands on my forehead,” Peter lifts his own hands and presses them where Strange had put his to demonstrate, “They got all glowy, and that’s it.”

“Good, I was afraid something might have gone wrong when you didn’t wake up,” Strange says. “You were out as soon as I cast anything. There were… unforeseen consequences in trying to look at the runes. I had not thought about the fact that it would be a conundrum for me to see them, when I was not supposed to know of their existence. When I tried to look they acted out against me.”

Peter feels his heart skip a beat. “Does that- did it- did something happen, then? With the spell? Did it come undone at all?”

Strange shakes his head. “Not to my knowledge, no. I just added an exception, so I could see it.”

Peter calms down, puts a hand to his chest to abate the panic that had risen far too quickly. “An exception?”

Strange pauses. The look he shoots to the teenager is fond, and a little pained. It’s familiar, in a way it hadn’t been the night before. ”The only way for me to see the spell was to remember you.”

Peter looks at him. He suddenly recalls the dream he’d had the night before. Had that been because of the magic? It was a faded thing now that he’d woken up, but he remembers, in those memories, people he hadn’t seen before. A glimmer of hope sparks in his chest. “So you remember? Everything?”

“Not much. Just enough to be able to see it. I remember casting the spell, and I remember casting it again. It was enough to know about you and our relationship,” Strange says. “Sorry. That was misleading.”

Peter’s face falls. “Oh.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to remember more. But I can’t do so without risking the integrity of the spell.”

Peter clears his throat. “It’s- that’s okay. I understand. And all that means is nothing has changed.”

Peter justifies it as this: If Stephen had remembered everything, there would be something gained, but, because Peter has grown used to the loss of everyone’s memories now (as used to it as one can be), there’s nothing lost because he doesn’t. He really needs to stop getting his hopes up. Michelle had always said: expect less, and you won’t be disappointed.

A flash of that guilt only shows in Strange’s eyes. He keeps the rest of his face schooled. “I did get to check the spell. But, when I did, Peter, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. There’s nothing to explain the circumstances of this Wade’s arrival, nor his memory of you from another universe.”

Peter nods.

Of course, having no explanation took the situation from pretty-average levels of weirdness (average for him. Him, being a superhero who had gone to space, and fought aliens, and met himself from other universes) to what the fuck was going on. But there was nothing for Peter to do other than nod, and go along with the absurdity. The time for freaking out about new, strange characters invading his life was long gone.

Seriously, Peter had met Tony Stark. Peter met some cyborg alien girl. Had met some bug alien girl. He had met Thor, the literal god (okay, the literal alien that humans once thought was a god). Peter had met himself from other universes twice over. Peter could deal with some random masochistic psychopath and his weapons that seem to spawn from thin air.

But it’s still troubling. There’s no rhyme or reason as to how, or why Wade had suddenly decided to show up at his doorstep. Maybe Peter had been too quick to trust him. Had been. Even if Wade wasn’t evil, Peter should really be more cautious by now. One would think Peter learned his lesson after Beck and Norman, and everything, but Peter wanted to believe in the best of people. May would have wanted him to as well. Well, he didn’t trust Wade, exactly, but he didn’t regard him with the suspicion he probably should’ve.

But, it’s not like there’s any logic behind why Wade would lie like this. Peter has nothing to offer someone conning their way into his life. Peter has no intel, since the Avengers were all either dead, doing their own thing, and/or actively ghosting him because they thought he was some dangerous vigilante who had refused to ever show his face. He has no money. He’s just some poor high school dropout who won’t even get much of anything out of May’s meager will (If he’s still in it, he didn’t want to even think about being written out of there as well,) when he turns 18 in August.

If Wade had wanted him for his powers, or something from Spider-Man, there were much, much easier ways to weasel into his trust. Wade could meet him at work, or FEAST, or something. Peter wasn’t easy to approach, but he was a nice guy and, he can admit it to himself, a little gullible. Especially at FEAST.

He trusts easily in normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be that hard.

It could be a revenge plot. But that would mean someone worse, and someone who has it out for him, knew his identity, because Peter didn’t recognize Wade. Not that he would, if the last time he’d seen Wade was scar-less. But, physical appearance was just one part of recognition. Wade was memorable for reasons far beyond that and they were reasons that Peter would remember a man that never dies, and acts as crazy as he does.

Revenge meant that Peter would have other people to worry about, someone pulling Wade’s strings. But Peter couldn’t think of anyone who wasn’t in jail, or dead, who would want to hurt him in that way. Both Toomes’ gang and Beck’s were all behind bars and no longer knew his civilian identity. Peter had put away a lot of other criminals, many of whom could be out now- Peter didn’t check up on every single person he stopped (just a lot of them). The list of people who hated Spider-Man was a mile long: muggers, dealers, sex traffickers, car-jackers, bike thieves, bank robbers. But, while it wasn’t an easy list to narrow down, none of them jumped out at him as the type to want to participate in this strange kind of manipulation. Most of the people that Peter had put away would probably just shoot him, or kick him around, if they ever got the chance to enact revenge. They wouldn’t concoct this whole complicated story.

Peter taps his fingers on the table, a nervous tick. “So what now then?” Peter asks. “Where’s Wade going to go?”

“With you!” Wade announces. He skips back into the dining room with a spatula brandished in his hand, which he then points towards Peter. “Obviously. Now, how many pancakes do you guys want?”

“No.”

Peter and Strange say it in unison. Peter watches Wade deflate. Not seeing his face makes every action of his body that much more pronounced. His arms flop down by his sides, spatula clattering to the floor, his shoulders and head droop.

“Why?” Wade whines. “Come on, Spidey. I’m a great roommate.”

“You’re not going with him,” Strange says. “I’m sure whatever park bench he’s staying on at night doesn’t have enough room for two people.”

“But he’s not on a park bench. He’s a big boy, with a whole apartment.”

Well, that’s true. He’s not staying on a park bench… anymore.

Peter doesn’t mention this to the other men in the room. He had an apartment now. And, yeah, it wasn’t great. He had gone over to FEAST for a few nights when the heater kept breaking and the months eeked into winter, making the temperature genuinely unbearable without it running. But, perfect or not, Peter had an apartment. He had a job. He was a kind of self-sustaining almost adult, and if he had to he could take Wade. He just didn’t want to.

“I do,” Peter agrees. “But even if I knew you, Wade, and was okay with you staying, you can’t. Strange is right, I don’t have the space. I don’t even have a couch.”

“If it’s space, I can buy you a new apartment. And a couch!” Wade says. “I’m kind of rich, you know. Cartel money. If I can remember where I stashed it.”

Strange’s eyebrow rises.

“But honestly,” Wade continues, “I’ll sleep on the floor. I can sleep on or in or around anything. I’ll be fine, I haven’t had back pain in years. It heals itself every morning.”

“I mean…” Peter feels his resolve break as Wade’s voice hinges on pleading. “I mean I could. I could take you, if- if I had to.”

Strange saves him. “You can stay here, Mr. Wilson. Where there’s actually enough room for you, and I can work on getting you back to where you belong, instead of having to drag you away from harassing a teenager.”

“Really?” Peter feels a relief wash over him. “You’ll take him?”

(“He does sound awfully happy about that doesn’t he?” Wade asks someone only he can see.)

Strange doesn’t look happy about this. But he also looks like he desperately wants to drag Peter away from Wade. Stephen grits out a yes.

“Huh,” Wade says. “Not where I expected the writer to take this, honestly. I thought the plot of me bumming it at your place would be too tempting. Forces us to interact more for the sake of the plot. But, I guess this makes more sense,” He pauses. “Hey, do you smell something burning?”

Peter sniffs the air. He’s surprised to find Wade is right, there is the smell of something burning. “What is that?”

Wade gasps, hands flying up to either side of his face in horror.

“My pancakes!”

He sprints to the kitchen.

-

Wade doesn’t let him leave until Peter eats some breakfast. The man tries in vain to convince Strange to let him use the kitchen, but he does not give in. In the end, they order breakfast from a nearby diner. Peter offers to pay, but Strange will not let him. Deadpool, however, is forced to pay for his food.

After they’re done, and Peter readies to leave, Strange hands Peter a tupperware full of pastry and explains, “It’s from the Greek sanctum,” And then, like he’s scared of seeming too nice, his tone goes flat. “We have extras. Bring the tupperware back when you’re done.”

Wade and Strange bicker the entire time Peter walks to the foyer.

Peter finds his coat and bag where he’d left them hung by the front door last night. He tries, in vain, to smooth his hair into something presentable. He checks his pockets one last time. His wallet, his keys, and his phone are all there. He… holds off as long as he can, but eventually, to the sound of two grown men fighting like school kids, and Wade being flung across the room, Peter tightens his grip on the plastic container in his hand, and he slips out of the door.

The weather is much nicer today. The rain has broken, cast aside for a clear sky. It’s an uncommon thing in New York, and even less so in the winter. But it is February, and the weather has been getting better, slowly, as they creep towards Spring.

When he gets back, his apartment feels more quiet than usual.

He had planned to just stop there, get ready, and head into work. But, then, he just doesn’t.

Peter has stuff to do that isn’t work, and he rarely gets a chance to do anything else. First things first, there’s a blood stain to clean out of his carpet, so he’ll leave some hydrogen peroxide on it for a couple hours, and maybe clean the rest of the place up in the meantime- dust it off, which he hasn’t done for weeks. He was glad Wade hadn’t said anything about the state of his apartment, he never had company, and never prepared for it.

After that, well, it'll be the first time in ages that he’s gotten the chance to be Spider-Man before noon, and it would be so nice to see New York while it’s still light out.

Maybe… Maybe for lunch he’ll stop on a rooftop somewhere. That one with the vegetable garden on top of a nice apartment building, not far from where the street vendor gives him free hot dogs. Maybe Peter will sit there and feel the sun on his skin for a little while.

That would be nice.

Chapter Text

Peter sees her through the window first. He hesitates a moment before walking inside. The day has yet to warm up, and his breath clouds the air in front of him, obscuring his view, but he doesn’t even have to see her clearly to feel that pang of longing inside his chest.

MJ has rolled up the sleeves of her uniform and set herself into cleaning the counters. Her hair is gathered loosely at the bottom of her neck. She looks bored, tired, and a little sweaty. Peter thinks that she’s as beautiful as always. There isn’t much she could do that would make him think otherwise.

The bell rings as he opens the door, and she calls out in an un-excited voice, probably not happy that her slow shift is about to start picking up with the morning rush: “Be there in a minute!”

Peter is happy that MJ is still as set to defy Tony who had told her time and time again that she always had to smile, that it made the customers like her more. Customers liked pretty, smiling girls. (Though Tony only mentioned the pretty thing once, because MJ had gotten mad and said right, and that makes me more valuable. Say that again and I quit. Peter hadn’t been there, but MJ had told him after. They’d been sitting in his room, alone because May was at work. Peter’s back had been to her chest, her jaw pressed in the divot between his shoulder and neck, and her legs bent at either side of him. Peter was bigger, but she was taller, and her long limbs could wrap all the way around him. They fit together easily. Everything had always been comfortable with MJ.)

“Take your time,” Peter says. His eyes dart to the donut case. He can really only afford either a coffee or a donut today. Although, he could also go with some real food… not that the eggs here were great, but Peter couldn’t remember the last time he’d had something of much nutritional value. For the last two days he’d focused on polishing off the leftover pastries from Strange and that was about it. An egg sandwich may make him a little less tired.

He doesn’t like ordering them as much. They’re more fussy than getting a donut out of the case or a simple coffee with cream and sugar. Peter doesn’t want to be a nuisance to MJ who is obviously the only one who really works the front of the shop. Tony yells, but not much else. Sasha can usually be found outside smoking. There are others who work there, but the prep guys, and the bakers all work in the back out of sight, and the other people working the counters weren’t often here during MJ’s shifts.

Peter only comes when MJ is here.

MJ’s head whips over to him. “It’s you,” she says, time stops for a moment while they make eye contact across the room, “Parker.”

Time speeds up again at the unfamiliar name.

“That’s me.”

Could he sound more pathetic? He sticks his hands in pockets and looks down at his feet. Seeing her does this to him every time.

She wrings out the rag she’s using and drops it into a bucket down on the floor, and wipes her hands down on her uniform. She points to the back and drops out of sight for a moment to wash her hands. When she returns a second later, there’s a smile on her face.

“Let me guess: coffee with four sugars and cream, and a double chocolate donut.”

He smiles back at her. Any plans to order something else goes out the window. “You know me so well.”

What he says is ironic. She doesn’t get the joke, but it wouldn’t be a joke if she did.

She makes an odd face at him. Something a mix of annoyance, and curiosity and Peter shies away from it. “Um, yeah. That’ll be it, thanks,” Peter feels stupid. When doesn’t he while he’s standing here? He always feels like this when he’s here. She reads off the price and Peter remembers his cut pay for the week. “No, wait, just uh- just the coffee today.”

She raises an eyebrow. She looks like she wants to say something- but she bites it back. Peter doesn’t dare to imagine what it is. Instead, she says, “You know for someone who drinks so much coffee, one would think you’d have better taste.”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t really like coffee.”

“Of course you don’t,” she rolls her eyes. “You just order it every day.”

She reads off the adjusted price, and Peter forks over a ten, waiting patiently for his change. She hands it back, and her hand lingers over his for a moment too long after dropping the money.

Once she notices what she’s doing, she pulls it away quickly. Peter doesn’t dare, doesn’t dare to imagine what might be going on in her head. The way her eyes move up and away, and her teeth worry at her bottom lip. What is she so clearly stopping herself from asking?

“Are you staying today?” she asks. She shuts the cash register with her hip. Her expression doesn’t change, so she had not asked the question she really wanted to. Whatever it is that’s bothering her.

Peter was planning to, originally. He had his laptop packed in his bag, ready to go. He’d pretend to study, or look at jobs, or apartments, or colleges, but he’d watch MJ at the corner of his eye and be too distracted to make progress on any of the things he needed to do. But now…

It’s dramatic, it’s sad, and, above all, it’s pathetic. Her hand had stayed a moment too long- she bit something back without saying it. She looks like she knows something she shouldn’t, and Peter is scared of that. He’s pathetic.

“No, I’ve gotta get to work.”

It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either.

She looks disappointed. Peter drops his loose change and an extra dollar in the tip jar when her back is turned. She gives the coffee to him, and he goes to leave.

“Hey, wait a second.”

Peter turns, she takes a chocolate donut out of the case and holds it out over the counter. She tries her best to seem disinterested, her face schooled into looking like this wasn't completely out of character for her.

"On the house,” she says.

Peter numbly takes it. It's soft, still fresh. He can smell chocolate and grease wafting from it, and with the scent coming to him, his stomach lets itself be known. It growls loud enough for them to hear. Embarrassed, and shocked, the only thing he can say is: “Wow, uh, thanks.”

She brushes him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Will this get you in trouble?” He asks.

She rolls her eyes again. “Just take it, man."

-

Over the past few months, FEAST has become a safe space for Peter. For a few hours, he could go and help there, and everything else could slip out his mind. Of course he would think of May. How could he not, when this place had been so important to her.

But while he’s there May isn’t a bad thought, just a fond one. He could think of her and the time they spent together, and it didn’t hurt. FEAST brought up the good feelings.

In the few years before the blip, FEAST had seen rapid improvement under Martin Li’s leadership. Li had taken an organization that was falling apart without volunteers, without resources, and without a future, and had built it up into a real community center. It has become more than a place for a bed or a warm meal (though it’s still that too, of course). People coming there now have help finding jobs and housing, or help applying for welfare programs. There are even frequent opportunities for STD testing, career training, and other kinds of workshops.

Peter’s favorite part is the outdoors. Behind the building, and to the left a garden spreads out, and gives everyone who views it an impression of something bigger. Peter knows it's smaller than it looks, he's seen it from up above, but they've used the space effectively and stacked the plants high on top of each other, so when standing on the ground it looks big, lush and homey. Kids have decorated the plant racks, and made the colorful little picks that label each plant.

To the right, a basketball court is always open to anyone who wants it, and the people actively staying at FEAST can rent out sports equipment to use there for free. It was fundraised for and largely built by a team of particularly ambitious girl scouts, and when the rented sports equipment eventually gets too beat up, or goes missing, it's usually the same troop that helps them host a donation drive to replace it.

Peter surveys it all for a moment before heading back inside. It's good to do that sometimes, to pause and become a little more aware of his surroundings. Not in a judgmental way, like he does when he tries to assess his feelings, or a suspicious way, like he does on patrol, but a soft, observant one. He only does it when he feels calm. Which means almost never. He probably hadn’t done it outside the walls of this facility for a long time.

Right now, the air is filled with the sound of shoes scuffing, and the repetitive tapping of basketballs hitting the court once or twice, and either hitting the net or missing and hitting something else- the rim, the backboard. A line of boys, younger than him, but not by that much, practice their throws one by one. The youngest of the group aims a shot and misses completely, the ball bouncing off the chain link fence. The kid’s buddies all gather around to tease him, but it's not mean enough to be serious, and he goes bright pink.

Peter smiles at that, misses when he and Ned would be able to banter like that, and he heads inside.

A few voices greet him as he does so, one is louder than the others: "Heya Pete, where you been?"

Peter flicks his eyes over to a group of men crowding around a table near the kitchen. They're idly playing cards, mostly focused on watching the news playing in the corner- and this is the second of its kind to be broken into in the last couple months- and finishing up the last of their dinner. Peter is happy to see they aren't playing poker. Poker certainly isn't the worst thing the people could do here, but drugs, alcohol, and gambling were kept outside the doors of FEAST for a reason.

Bad things have happened before here. Not with this particular group, and not really while Peter was around, luckily, but he’d heard about a few particularly nasty things that had happened at FEAST from May. Though, to be fair, all of the stories had a happy ending, or at least not a bad ending- they strayed from the usual tragedy, and they were told mostly to show him how Martin Li handled conflict so well, and how FEAST became a homeless shelter a lot of homeless people actually felt safe coming to.

There were still a lot of people that don’t feel safe here, though. Peter doesn’t blame them. There are reasons people stay far, far away. Ones both in people’s control, and far, far out of it. Peter just wishes he could do something. But when he starts to think about all the people outside of his reach, the problems start to become scary and insurmountable. So, he does what he can. It’s just so, so hard to be one, small person. Because like this, there are so many people Peter can’t help- even though he tries.

God, does he try.

"Oh hey guys! Hey Louie, Jeremy, Richard. Glad to see you around again, Hank," Peter gets a tired wave from Hank. "Sorry I haven't been over for a couple weeks. I've been real busy- gotta work if I wanna eat, you know?"

"Hey, he remembers all our names," Jeremy says, "what a fuckin saint. Hey Peter."

“Well you guys have names, I should use them.”

Hank looks like he'd been tossed in a dryer at full speed- and was just starting to recover from being tossed around. He has lost some weight since Peter had seen him two-ish months ago, and there's a new scar along the side of his face. Peter knows better than to ask what happened around all of these people. Peter decides he would pull him aside the first chance he gets, and make sure he’s okay.

Louie, the one who had called him over originally nods, "Hey no need to apologize for needing to pay the bills. I get that."

Now all of the men nod and start to place their cards down on the table, they all seem to abandon their game. Peter feels bad, he hadnt meant to interrupt. Richards clicks his tongue, "You’re fuckin tellin me. Food's more expensive by the fucking day. You seen prices lately?”

“SNAP goes up with inflation my ass,” Jeremy shakes his head.

“Yeah, and what the fuck do they think we’re buying that we can live off that shit? Rice? SNAP sure ain’t made for homeless people. I don’t have a kitchen to cook that shit in.”

"Hey, but you will soon, right?" Peter asks.

Richard gives him a dry smile. But, a more genuine one shimmers deep, deep beneath it. Maybe because his friend is actually considering letting him split an apartment with him over in Jamaica, or maybe it's because he wants Peter to feel better. Whatever it is, it’s something. "Sure, kid."

Peter doesn't like the sarcasm, but he isn't offended by it. It's something he has grown used to. Peter has spent enough time here to know not to take things personally, and not to push. The sarcasm on their part seems to pop up in opposition to Peter's optimism. Which, yeah, fair.

But that optimism is something Peter won't change. He likes to show the people here that he cares, and hopes for them. That’s what May always did.

While some of the people, the chronically homeless, couldn't be helped (beyond keeping them alive and generally safe, which Peter was happy to do), most of them could be. Peter knew that homelessness wasn't permanent in most cases, even if it sometimes lasted months, or even years, like it has for these men. And anyways, regardless of how likely they were to not become homeless, they deserved some kind of affection. Homelessness happened for all sorts of people in all sorts of situations, and it was scary. May had been homeless more than once, Peter had been too. When May lost the nice apartment in the wake of Ben's death, and for a few weeks in-between Strange's spell, and Peter being able to face the world again. There's a huge assortment of reasons people end up here, and they all deserve someone to believe in them.

Peter will believe that Richards could be helped, and things would get better for him, regardless of what had happened in the past, and what will really happen in the future.

"So who's winning?" Peter asks them.

Their eyes return to the cards, Louie smirks, "Me. We're Just about to start another round if you want to join."

Peter shakes his head politely. "I'm meeting some friends in a bit so I can't. I was just coming in to help with dinner tonight and got roped into helping organize the shed."

"Oh he's got friends now, huh. I see how it is, you're moving past us homeless old men. Moving on in the world."

Peter thinks about Wade: A man both homeless- dimensionless actually- and at least somewhere in his thirties. "No, no. Not at all."

"No, you should. That'd be good for you, it's pretty pathetic for a kid like you to spend all this time here. Leave the volunteering to the old and the guilty, Pete."

"Well that's what we did,” Jeremy adds, “and look at us,"

They all laugh. Peter fights down the anxious urge to laugh because they are. It isn't funny, really. "Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna head out now," Peter tells them, "But I think I'll be back tomorrow. Or at least by Friday."

Peter had to, he had said he'd help update their website by the week's end. Apparently their old tech guy, whoever he was (Peter), who they couldn't recall the name of (it was Peter), had quit a while ago and they needed someone to fill the void and get rid of some nasty malware that attacked their filles. Peter offered to take on his old job and though they were hesitant at first, they were happy to give him the job once he showed results.

The men tease him as he walks off, telling him he should be picking up girls and partying, not giving a shit, and Peter waves them off. He wouldn't be doing that even if he hadn't been suddenly thrust into being alone, and carrying the responsibility of taking care of himself, and paying for his own apartment. Now, he doesn't really think of things like having a relationship, or having fun.

Peter goes to the front of the building, gathering his bookbag and jacket out of a locker, and leaving the key in it for the next person.

A locker shuts somewhere next to him. Without thinking enough of it to look over, Peter heads to the front to sign out at the volunteer log.

A hand lands on his shoulder.

"Hey, it's Peter right?"

Peter recognizes the hand and voice immediately. "H-" he stops himself from saying Happy, "Oh, uh, Mr. Hogan, hey, what are you doing here?"

"Volunteering," Happy says.

"Right, of course. What else would you be doing?" Peter knows he sounds more nervous than he needs to be but he hasn't seen Happy for a while. He occasionally stalked out the guy's apartment to make sure he was okay, but the last time he actually spoke to him was running into him at May's grave for an awkward third time. Peter had learned since then to keep an eye out for Happy's car anywhere near the cemetery.

Peter doesn’t really know what to say here. At least with MJ he always prepared himself with things to talk about in case they went beyond the pleasantries of him placing an order. He had time to work through different conversations in his head, to look at the news and file away possible topics for later. He wanted to seem casual and friendly, kind of cool, but not creepy, and he put effort into keeping away from letting the truth spill out.

But Happy he hadn't seen coming, and isn't ready for him. Peter knew the man volunteered here, but they kept very different hours, and when Happy is here Peter usually managed to avoid him pretty well. What would Happy want to talk about anyways? To the man's knowledge, the only thing they share between them is his dead girlfriend, who’d been trying to break up with him right before she died.

“You’re here a lot, right?” Happy asks.

Peter nods.

“Thought so. I see your name on the volunteer list a ton.”

“Look, um, Happy,” Peter says, “I’m sorry, I’m about to go. Uh, sorry. Did you need me for something?”

Happy shakes his head, he looks sad, a little concerned, “Nah kid, just saying’ hi. Checking in. You leave her a lot of flowers.”

May. He is thinking about May. Of course, Peter kind of already knew that May is one of the only reasons Happy is still coming here. And other people here knew May… but they aren’t leaving flowers on her grave every week. Happy had known May for months, and he had never met Peter. That must be confusing. Maybe this is simply an effort to gain someone to talk to about her- to someone else that knew her.

But, even though Peter can figure that much out, he isn’t sure what Happy hopes to gain from this exact conversation.

“She always liked them,” Peter slings his bag over his shoulders.

“She did,” Happy smiles fondly, “Once I found that out, I brought her a lot of flowers.”

“I-” he doesn’t say I know, “I’m sure she liked that. You know, she always wanted a garden.”

Happy’s face seems to light up, thinking about her. Peter hadn’t expected to ever see this soft side of the man again. It had taken so long to get to it before. Maybe he and May were closer than Peter had even realized. Or maybe Happy was stuck dealing with that heartbreak, and this was proof of how much it hurt. “She talked about that sometimes.”

“She always told me she wanted to plant a hawthorn tree somewhere. But I guess she couldn’t get out of New York, and it was too expensive to buy,” Peter knows that’s partially his fault. That if he hadn’t been around, Ben and May could’ve moved without the fear of uprooting his childhood, “It was her favorite, cause it’s, like, the flower for the month of May.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Happy seems to remember that, “And the other one-”

“The lily of the valley.”

“Yeah, I wanted to bring her those, but they were always expensive-” Happy sniffles, but he’s not crying. He looks like he might do it sometime tonight, but it wouldn’t be here. Not in front of other people. “Well, thanks for bringing her the flowers.”

Peter fixes his backpack strap once more. Suddenly, he doesn’t really want to leave. Not that he wants to avoid the whole Wade Wilson thing, but because this is the first time he’s been able to talk with anyone about May since her death. “Well, it’s more for me than anything. I miss her.”

“I miss her too.”

This is where, if Happy still knew him, a comforting hand would probably land on his back. Or, maybe, Happy would drop the whole act and bring him in for a hug. Peter misses being hugged. Misses it from Ned, and MJ and Happy. They were all good huggers. At least, Peter had always thought so. He really, really wanted someone to hug right now.

He hopes that, in some alternate universe, where they found another solution, Happy was hugging him right now..

“Happy-”

Peter almost does it. Almost offers up his number, offers his support. He should. He does it for everyone else in here. Happy might be one of the only people regularly at FEAST who doesn’t have his number, or some way to contact him. But Peter can’t do it.

“I’ll see you around.”

Happy nods. “See you around, kid.”

-

Peter pulls his jacket tighter around himself and knocks. Wong answers the door to the sanctum.

“Hi,” Peter says.

A moment passes. Wong doesn’t say anything. “Do I need a secret password or something?” Peter asks. “Cause I’m afraid I missed the memo on that. Can I come in?”

Wong lets him in, and as the doors part Peter whispers under his breath: open sesame. And as they shut: close sesame. Somehow, even though Peter can’t see his face, as Wong is walking away from him, he can imagine the judgemental look that is being cast his way. Though it might be vaguely amused, too. Peter sure hopes it’s amused. He’s an amusing person, and as such he kinda deserves an amused reaction.

It would do him some good to have one right now. It has been a hard week, and a harder day. The encounters with MJ and Happy were particularly draining, even if he’s doing his best to absolutely not think about them, and he isn't sure if he's eaten anything besides the donut and his brain feels foggy with the lack of sustenance.

He is unsure of whether he's supposed to follow Wong or not, but after a pointed stare is thrown back his way from the top of the staircase, Peter hurries to catch up with the other man. He opts to hop up to the second floor, instead of taking all the stairs, and lands with ease on the other side of the railing.

Wong scoffs at the show of his powers, but continues walking.

Wong leads him to the library. Which is probably the biggest room in the place, from what Peter has seen, and that’s saying something. Peter talks the entire time they walk, and as they come around the bookshelves, Peter babbles on about getting lost inside of it and never being able to find his way out.

“It’s possible,” Wong tells him.

“Really?” Peter’s eyes widen, he stops and looks behind him. Where was the door to this place?

“But it’s highly unlikely.”

Wong chuckles to himself as Peter’s panicked expression falls away.

“Oh,” Peter smiles, “You’re funny.”

Stephen Strange is doing… well he’s doing something when they find him. Peter doesn’t pretend that he understands magic, or that he ever will. Even as a guy with superpowers from a spider, he lives quite happily in the realm of science and reality and other generally explainable things. In his opinion, the natural world is crazy enough as it is, and is still largely confusing, without the addition of spells. Every time he passes by the sanctum, a small little scientist screams and holds their head inside of him, because things like mirror realms shouldn’t exist. But, Peter has learned to ignore it.

Strange is meditating, or something like it.

His body is floating several feet off the ground, and it reminds Peter of being on Vormir. Although, it’s significantly less intense than when Strange had speed-run looking into all their possible futures. His head doesn’t jerk around. On the contrary, he looks so still that, if Peter didn’t know better, he might think the man is sleeping.

Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons magic isn’t for him. Peter would never be able to concentrate on something this long. Focusing has never exactly been his strong suit. He misses when adderall actually used to work for him, when he didn’t burn through it before it could even start to help him with his homework. Honestly, he misses when he is able to afford it. He can’t even buy painkillers that are strong enough to help him now.

“Should we even disturb him?” Peter asks, “He looks pretty into it.”

Wong shrugs, and with a flick of his fingers a small orange spark flies from them and lashes out, smacking across Strange’s knee. The wizard’s eyes snap open, his expression immediately tense. Two golden eyes flicker down to the two of them standing below, and he softens. With his concentration broken, his cape seems to take on the role of lifting him, instead of his magic, and it flutters around him as he touches back down on the ground.

Strange gives Wong a look, The other wizard responds with a shrug, seemingly satisfied.

When Wong leaves, conjuring a portal to somewhere that didn’t look like it was anywhere in America and stepping through, Strange sighs. “He’s been like that all week.”

“What, sassy?”

Strange almost laughs. Almost. But he doesn’t. Peter will have to keep working on that. “Not the word I would pick, but yes. I believe he’s upset with me.”

Peter remembers purple cracks spreading across the skies of Manhattan. “Why?.”

“Oh, who knows. He might just be grumpy because there are a lot of disturbances in the realm right now. But, it's probably because I cast the spell to help you without his permission,” Strange deadpans, Peter can’t help but feel a bit guilty because of that. “Or because your... friend is here.”

“Right. Where is Wade, by the way?” Peter hasn’t seen him at all. Or heard him, and Wade seemed to be always talking, and talking loudly, so that’s kind of strange.

“I’ll get him," Strange says, grimacing.

Strange opens a portal farther up in the air than he has to, and Wade comes tumbling through it. He hits the ground with a smack.

The mercenary is significantly less grungy looking (and smelling) than before. He looks showered, and now he’s wearing a shirt and sweatpants that actually fit him, instead of the layers of baggy clothing. It also looks like Strange made Wade lose all the stuff that had been covering up his face.

Wade wriggles on the ground for a moment. “Ouchie,” He pouts, “Was that really necessary? And you didn’t even knock, for all you know I could’ve totally been jacking off.”

Strange doesn’t dignify him with a reply.

When Wade catches sight of Peter, the man quickly scrambles off the floor, and sends himself flying at the teenager. Peter catches him on instinct more than anything. The taller man dwarfs him, bending over to give him a hug.

“Finally!” The man cries, “A friendly face! Peter, you don’t even know the kind of horrors I have had to endure. I thought it would be like a sleepover- it was not a sleepover. He has done terrible things to me- those spindly wizard hands have been where no man’s hands should be-”

“Woah. Hey, slow down,” Peter says. He wonders if Wade is ever someone you get used to. It doesn’t seem likely. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Strange says, “that I figured out why he’s still here.”

-

When Wade woke up for the first time in this new universe, he was in the desert, alone, starved, dehydrated, and in more pain than he had felt in… well, at least two weeks.

(However, before we continue with this part of the story, Wade wants to let the readers know to please not worry about him. Which, of course, you’re doing because you love and adore him and want him to be safe, but you don’t actually have to do that- thank you, though- because this is only a flashback. To remind you that this has already happened, and not to grow sick with worry, the flashback nature of this scene will be shown throughout this section by the use of italics and past tense.)

The thing is, Wade didn’t care. Wade Wilson will, for however long as he lives, continue to find himself in strange, and dangerous scenarios, without knowing why or how he’s getting involved in them.That’s what happens when you’re an immortal ex-hit-man turned antihero and have a tendency towards killing people. When that’s your life, it’s bound to be complicated.

When he woke up that time, every inch of his nerves writhed, the hot air and the sand rubbed against him in all the wrong ways. It felt the same as the time he had been skinned alive… He wouldn’t really put it past Sabertooth to do something like that.The guy was psycho, and for Wade to think someone was psycho was saying something.

The last thing before this moment that Wade could recall, although the memory was very hard to conjure when his brain was laden with exhaustion and hunger, were sabertooth’s eyes, and the glint of his claws-

And then there was nothing. Which was really a pretty common thing for him. It wasn’t even the first time Magneto and his eugenicist lackeys had offed him. It was just a little more tortuous than usual because Sabertooth was a cruel, murderous lunatic who decided Wade should be diced, not sliced.

The thing was, though, that being left dead in the desert was not a common thing for the happy-go-lucky X-Men to do to him.

“Which is real fucking shitty-”

His voice is awful. Scratchy and dry, it cracks from disuse, and his throat seems stretched thin without any moisture. He coughs mid-sentence, and sand comes flying out of his lips.

“That’s a new one,” he says, ignoring the pain shooting through his neck. It isn’t everyday that he gets a new kind of injury, or pain, though. Really, he has felt them all: various forms of blunt trauma, gunshots, being struck by an arrow, literally caner, poison, overdose, laceration, burning, drowning- and honestly, the list gets a bit too specific and gruesome for readers- but he has never coughed up sand. How did it even get in there?

Well, anyways, that was something to figure out for another time.

But at that moment? (Well, at that moment in the past.) He just wanted to sleep.

-

What he didn’t know at the time was, in another universe, another Wade Wilson was waking up as well.

“I mean, how am I- is it he? We? How are we supposed to know? it’s not like I’m omniscient,” Wade says, much to the bewilderment of the X-Men crowded around him, “Just funny.”

“Wade,” Colossus says, wrapping the man into a tight hug, “You came back!”

-

“So your guess-”

“Theory,” Strange corrects Peter.

“Is that because he was in multiple pieces… not all of them got sent back.”

Strange nods.

“And so now, he’s just here?”

“And now,” Wade says, sounding a little smug, he props his feet up on the table, “It’s like I’m officially a part of this universe. Well, it was bound to happen soon enough with the whole Fox merger anyways.”

Peter furrows his eyebrows, “What-”

“Don’t ask him about it,” Strange warns him quickly, “He’ll spout off more nonsense.”

Peter looks over at Wade. The man seems happier than before. Not that he ever seemed unhappy, really. The artificially cheery tone, raunchy jokes, and loud body language would never let it show. But this time, Wade is a little more subdued. Maybe it’s the fact that Peter can actually see his face, and therefore the emotion playing across it, but the happiness seems more genuine. Peter wonders why that is.

Wade meets his eyes, and he lights up. “Oh hey, Pete, now that all that flashback business is out of the way- let's go back to last chapter, do you want to be roomies? I've been going around looking at apartments, got a real estate agent. Just saw this beautiful two bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A bathtub actually in the bathroom as opposed to that abomination you've got-”

“What, is being with Strange that bad?” Peter asks. He doesn't acknowledge the dig at his living room/bedroom/kitchen/dining room shower. It's not like it's some astute observation on Wade's part, it's very obvious that Peter's living conditions are cramped. He didn't even have 400 square feet.

“Yes" Wade whines, “It’s awful. This man, here, this Sherlock looking bitch, he did some weird fucked up shit with my brain-”

“I read his memories,” Strange interrupts him.

“Huh,” Peter wonders, his brain immediately latching onto the new topic, and derailing from the old one. He doesn’t do this on purpose, but it is nice to move on from the roommate subject again. “Nice. Hey, does being a neuro-surgeon help with that kind of stuff? Like do you have to… navigate through the brain?”

Strange looks happily surprised by the question. A little proud, too. “It does, actually.”

“Ignore me, then. Ignore me. Fine, but I’m starving. Peter,” Wade’s voice gets desperate, “They have been starving me. Did you know that most wizards are vegans. Peter I can’t live off of that. I need street meat in me at least once a day- if you know what I mean.”

“Never say that again,” Peter tells Wade, making a disgusted face. Did Wade really have to make everything weird? “But, uh, I’m pretty hungry too."

"I could order food again," Strange offers.

"Oh but only when Peter does it, huh?" Wade says. He's ignored.

Peter perks up, "that'd be nice. If you do though, just tell me how much I have to pay you back."

Strange suddenly makes a face, like something has clicked into place. "Hold on," he says.

His hand proceeds to disappear into a small portal, and as it returns, Peter sees a tall stack of tupperware balanced on top of it. Strange drops it on the table in front of Peter. “I believe these are for you. From Greece. They dropped it off earlier and said somebody coming along would need it.”

Peter’s eyes widen.

And it is times like these, where magic is amazing, and kind, that Peter actually loved it. Because whoever had done this, a person living across an entire ocean, and could see into the future, had decided to be a nice person and make him dinner, and through it could get to him, homemade and fresh.

“I couldn’t possibly,” Peter says, “That’s too much. I’m not going to just steal your food again- Oh, yeah, that’s right, I have the tupperware from last time. Sorry about that. I’ll go get it,” Peter stands from his chair in jerky movements.

Strange sighs, “No one is going to force you to take it Peter. But, trust me, we have plenty of food here,” A discerning look is cast his way, “And you wouldn’t want to waste it, would you?”

Peter stops short. Damn wizards. Damn smart old wizard men who figure out your weakness and target it. Peter hated wasting food. “Okay, fine. i’ll take it.”

“Oh, I think they also left that for you,” Strange points down the table to a red vase sitting at the center of it. Peter hadn’t noticed it before, and had assumed it was another mystical object- his eyes tend to get lost in them usually. “I didn’t understand it myself. Any significance?”

He recognizes the flowers in it immediately. It would have taken him longer, if he hadn’t had a conversation about them less than five hours ago.

The small white buds of lily of the valley spill over the edge of the red glass.

Huh.

Chapter Text

Wade Wilson would again like the reader to note the use of italics, and past tense.

Fair warning though, the past is ugly.

Not the one where he woke up on a plane, surrounded by the X-Men. Where they had found him in the spot where he’d vanished in a spark of golden light the day before. Where he returned to his regularly scheduled program of life.

No, the one where he woke up again, still naked, none the wiser as to where he was, or how he got to be in the butt-fuck-middle of nowhere, but at least healed to a point where his skin wasn’t screaming out in agony every time he moved. It was his second time waking up there, and now there was a flock of vultures staring down at him. A particularly nasty one was camped out on his chest, snapping his beak at his buddies, and looking hungrily at Wade’s eyes in their sockets.

It was still day time, but the sun had moved from the last time he’d seen it. Wade didn’t guess at how much time had passed- could’ve been a few hours, or a few days. Wade flexed his hand and his fingers moved easily enough, if a bit stunted- something that happened when he had to regrow so many nerves all at once. Everything felt functional.

The vultures looked shocked that the corpse they found was moving, and Wade smirked at them.

Yeah, yeah, scare those feathery bastards!

“Boo!”

When he sat up, they exploded in a flurry of feathers, and took off. Vultures don’t screech like other birds, but they can still make noise. Something guttural and scratchy made its way out of their throats as they took off in a panic, and it’s a noise Wade doesn’t forget. They didn’t leave him alone after that, just returned to the empty desert sky, and circled there. Waited for the next time Wade would fall asleep.

It was comical, and it would be more funny, if it wasn’t so depressing, and if they hadn’t obviously torn at parts of his dead body. Wade wanted to laugh, and go back to sleep, but his throat was not yet capable of it, and Peter (his Peter) would most definitely be upset with him if he gave up there.

After all, who, if not Wade, would help his broke ass pay the rent on their apartment?

And Wade, as one has to when they have no idea where to go, just stood up, and started to walk.

-

Wade seemed to lost a lot of time. In between when walking and when he found himself waking up on the ground, peeling his eyes open and waving away the vultures, there was only a dark space in his fucked up brain. He also seemed to lose little chunks of himself to the beaks of said birds when he slept. They'd been eating him. It healed and all, but it still wasn't fun to think about.

But also kind of fun to think about. Did he taste good? Probably not. He probably tasted like cancer and mistakes. He wondered if vultures even had a sense of taste. They did like to eat rotting meat.

I bet you taste like rainbows

You probably taste like overcooked chicken.

Yeah, probably. He did look like a bit like s chicken breast that had been in an oven too long. The sun had transformed what was already angry, blistered skin, into something, somehow, even worse. He finally understood how Joe felt in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Which was a good movie, Clint Eastwood was totally smoking hot in that movie.

Oh yeah he was

Not the time. But yeah, he was.

Young Clint Eastwood could do the good, the bad, and the ugly to Wade anytime.

Still, on top of the sunburn, and the continual deterioration of his organs, there was something wrong. His atoms felt displaced, his body felt wrong in a way he had never experienced before. He couldn’t quite place it, and didn’t have the brain power to expend on it to try and understand it.

Night came, and so did its own brand of danger- the sun was replaced with an impassive night sky. The stars were brilliant, but seemed to mock him. The cold was just as bad as the heat, if not worse.

Wade collapsed again, and again, succumbing to the weather. More time disappeared in the median between walking and dying. Gone forever.

And every time he fell, the birds descended.

-

It was a week into Wade’s trek across nothingness, that he came across a road. At least, it had been a week of conscious time, and that didn’t count the time it took to come back to life from all those itty bitty pieces, or the time he has spent dead from all the other shit. He had been feeling more and more like a walking corpse than usual. He looked shriveled, and burnt, like a raisin- surely, his healing factor must end somewhere?

Villains and heroes alike had been jealous of his mutation in the past. How he could face death and not have to worry about it. To them it seemed like he could get off from any bad situation scot-free, and continue to be his awful self the next morning. Every time they went out into the field to do their righteous jacking off, they had to face the uncertainty of being around the next day. Wade was unburdened by the laws of mortality they had to follow.

The thing that nobody seemed to get, though, was that it was a curse more than a gift. Wade didn’t care much for being alive. Not anymore. Life lost value, when you didn’t need to save it. Or, when you hated yourself.

And his mutation fucking hurt. It was a constant pain, dying and being rebuilt with every passing second. The cancer was still there inside of him, perpetually eating away at a body that would never stop existing. He was doomed to a miserable, oxymoronic existence. And though he could get injured, and heal from it, being stabbed or shot or whatever was still being stabbed and shot.

It fucking hurt.

All the time.

Case in point: He should’ve been dead multiple times over. But he was still alive, and he shouldn’t be. He was running on nothing but a demented, impossible, superpower.

Most of the time Wade wanted to die. His brain was filled with the thought of death. His death, other people’s death. No one would hear about this, of course- he had a million other things to prattle on about instead, but the truth wasn’t meant to be shared. His truth was meant to be hidden. That’s what his father did, and Wade didn’t want to be like him, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t know any other way to be.

There weren’t many things that kept him going throughout that time. The voices mostly tried to stop him, to make him give up.

Think about it, you could totally be a mummy. Come to life in a couple hundred years or something. Freak out some archaeologists.

Yeah, honestly, I’d give up if I were you. And I am you. So you should probably give up.

There were reasons: Chimichangas would definitely not be a thing in a couple hundred years- once the vegans overthrew all the world governments. Or party buses, those would surely be labeled a public safety hazard and banned forever, and Wade really liked party buses. If he died here and had to wait for someone to find him, he might wake up to some sort of future world where aliens and robots took over and he would be their immortal slave/court jester. Which would be kind of cool actually…

But, Peter. There was Peter to keep going for. And some others: Domino, Colossus, the edgy lesbian teenage warhead, and Peter.

Peter.

Ooooo, Wade I think you have a crush. I think you like him.

As if he’d ever like you back.

“Shut up.”

Wade and Peter sittin’ in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

A week and a few hours into waking up in this universe, Wade had found his way to a city- stole some clothes off a laundry line like Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and wore them about as terribly. From there, he didn’t seek out the cartel. They found him.

And he thought, staring down the barrels of their guns, agreeing to help them out for a bit, well, as long as it gets me to Peter.

And he kept thinking about Peter,

Ugh. Your feelings are fucking disgusting. Mop thas shit up.

-

Multiple times in his life, Wade has believed himself to be a man built only for killing. Somewhere in his brain he knows this isn’t true. Of course he has another inner life outside of all the mercenary shit. He lives, laughs, and loves with all the other idiot people on this godforsaken green earth. Sometimes, though, he’ll be slicing and dicing a few too many heads off necks, and he’ll realize, somewhere in that, that killing is the thing he is best at.

Of course it is

He had that thought when his mother died. He had that thought when his father died. He had that thought when he was in the military- when he killed and killed and killed, and eventually tried to kill himself.

He had that thought when Vanessa died- and with her, all his hopes of a family.

He had that thought as he clambered up a large electric fence, not caring about the way the electricity ran up and through his arms, reached the top, and tumbled into the big, fancy pool of the rival cartel leader on the other side. Not his rival- but the rival of the other guys that picked him up (in a place he never learns the name of) and chocked him full of cocaine and booze and a lot of other unnamed substances that rid his brain of any resistance.

Wade is good at it. He’s strong, fast, and efficient. He can wield almost any weapon. His time in the military, and, of course, his lovely father, taught him about everything that required pulling a trigger- all the M-somethings and AK-somethings, and every kind of bomb that might explode under his feet and send chunks of him flying.

He was strapped to the teeth since he was sixteen and he was shooting his dead father’s belongings through the scope of a rifle and wishing to be anywhere else but some rural shithole in the Yukon.

He learned to deal with it. Made it his job. Made it his life.

And what a life!

That night, the cartel had fitted him with all sorts of weapons. Wade didn’t hesitate to use them. He’s wielded worse: bazookas, and flamethrowers and shrapnel bombs. Those were just guns. Particularly deadly ones, but guns can only be so exciting unless you add another element. An ice ray, that would be something.

He burst from the top of the pool like a creature rising from the depths, and swung two heavy guns around him, releasing a ring of bullets and driving everyone back inside the house.

In his defense, though, he ended up killing only the worst of them. He’s not a good guy, of course, and he still kills someone because there’d be no point otherwise. But, he doesn’t kill everyone, which is what he really wanted to do. He only offed a few, the ones he found in the master bedroom, cowering in their bedroom, and sending out orders to their henchmen (Who even has henchmen anymore? That’s so last year).

Then he does the same to the cartel who gave him the guns in the first place. Because, equality.

Yeah Wilson, you’re so fucking reformed.

And then he steals their car.

Road trip!!

And a lot of their drugs

And all of their money.

-

And then the present comes crashing into the story out of nowhere.

Wade finds himself in a place where Peter isn’t Peter. And Wade isn’t really where he’s supposed to be. He’s still Wade, but he also isn’t. A week from showing up at Peter’s doorstep, the doctor has his spindly little wizard hands all up in Wade’s brain junk, and he confirms that Wade has no way to get home, and no reason to do so. The theory is that since he had been julienned like an apple, some pieces of him were left behind, and they, using his strange mutant powers, simply spawned a new Wade here. Like a starfish when it loses a limb.

He’s the lizard tail. Somehow alive and kicking, without being connected to the main body anymore. Some weird clone, borne out of the smallest piece left behind in the dust.

Haha, lizard tail.

You’re a freak.

Wade is both horrified by this, and also, weirdly, relieved. Maybe he has lost the few friendships he had, and has been placed in some strange alternate universe without the love of his life. But, at least he now knows that Peter won’t be out there, somewhere, missing him-

Wait, fuck that, he’s jealous as hell. There’s now some other Wade out there with his man. Why does he have to be the one to deal with this bullshit?

(“So there’s no way home?”

“No way home,” Strange confirmed

Wade chuckled. Strange gave him an inquisitive (which is a nice big word for Wade to use, it feels nice) look.

“Sorry, you wouldn’t get it.”)

But he’s happy, sort of. It’s a relative thing. He’s happier than when he’d arrived at Peter’s apartment, thinking something must’ve gone very, very wrong for the X-Men to abandon him like that, and for Peter’s social media to have dropped off the face of the earth. It was there that he found out that he’s the one out of place, and hurt, and it then it wasn’t such a bad thing, because Wade can take it. If Peter truly had been wiped of his memories, then Wade would be tearing up New York brick by brick. But he seems fine, if a little lost, and alone, and sad. But that, as much as it worried Wade, he could work on without planning out any mass-murder.

It’s better this way. That Wade is the one hurt, he is used to pain after all.

Maybe he’s not happy. Happy is the wrong word for it. He’s neutral about it all. He is letting it wash over him like he does the rest of his stupid tragic life, and, anyways, nihilism has made Wade its bitch. So he’s here, and he can’t bring himself to really, really care. Which probably means he needs therapy, but the last time he tried that was when Vanessa was in his life- and even with her by his side, he wasn’t able to take it seriously, so he doubted he had the capability to do that now. He’d just mock the whole thing.

He’s a mocker, you know. He mocks. It’s what he does

Wade slowly… starts to grow used to the new universe. That feeling of being misplaced in his very atoms gradually dissipates, even if the cancer, and the pain, and the memories don’t. His body fights off that cancer a few times over, the tumor grows and shrinks, he keeps molting a new skin, and eventually it’s like he was made in this universe to begin with. Like he has shed his old body, and found himself something new. Something naturalized to this universe’s signature.

Freak.

It’s fine. All good, even.

Yes, he does shoot himself in the wake of the news- but shooting himself isn’t the same for other people as it is for him. Sure, the action and the result are the same. He gets hurt, and he dies. But Wade comes back to life afterwards, and the scar fades so quickly into the rest, and he is used to this kind of pain. Anyways, he only does it to test if this is all real.

It is. He wakes up afterwards, and he is being stared at by a horrified looking Wong.

Wong, who still kind of wanted him to be put in the dungeons. Wade didn’t blame him. Wade wanted to be there too, but he was starting to get the impression that he wasn’t Strange’s type, and he would never get to see the wizard sex dungeons no matter how much he asked (read: begged). Maybe it was all the exasperated glares, bordering on disgusted that gave Wade the idea, but Strange didn’t seem to be that into him.

He dies, but he returns, and this is his life now. It’s fine. He’s been through worse. And even now, he’ll keep going. It’s not like there’s anything else to do.

And if he closes his eyes, and he dreams of vultures circling above him, it’s only one more nightmare on top of the rest. It joins a list, and as far as trauma goes it's not very high up on said list.

He has a lot of nightmares.

Chapter Text

Martin Li looks at the new website appraisingly. He is leaned over the office chair where Peter is sitting. “This is impressive, Peter.”

Peter smiles at that. Li was the kind of man who gave praise genuinely, with a practiced sort of warmth, but still an honest one, that made anyone at the other end of it feel good. Peter felt honored to be at the other end of it- he had seen plenty of it before, months ago, when Li and May were friends and the man actually remembered who he was. Since then, he’d mostly stayed out of the man’s way- as much as he could, when he was here almost every week.

“Thank you, sir,” Peter says,casting his eyes down towards the keyboard. His cheeks are a bit pink with the attention. He really needs more human interaction- his shut-in life means he’s losing the tiny bit of social skills he had actually developed in the past couple years. Social skills he desperately needed.

“No, really,” Li says, and a hand lands up at the top of his back, “Good job. I’m not looking forward to having to replace you, too.”

“Replace me?”

“Because we’ll be losing you to university soon, won’t we? Or… did I guess wrong?”

“Ah, no, I’m not- I’m not going to college. I’ll be around.” Peter gets sad at the mention of it. The dreams of Ned and Mj and him lazing out on MIT’s campus green are still fresh in his mind.

Li frowns, but doesn’t ask any questions (After all, working at a place like this he has definitely seen plenty of kids, all qualified, never make it all the way to college) and just says. “Well then, I’m looking forward to keeping you around.”

Then Happy, for the second time this week, manages to sneak up on a distracted Peter. Peter is actually… kind of embarrassingly easy to sneak up on when he’s not on patrol. He wasn’t an aware person before the bite, and his spider-sense only helps him in situations with immediate, physical danger. Plus, he has grown used to drowning out his enhanced senses so that he doesn’t go insane with the stimulation, so those actually work against him when he’s out as Peter Parker.

“Oh,” Happy says, looking over at the computer, “So you’re the genius, huh?”

“I’m not a genius,” Peter says.

“Yeah, whatever. Go tell that to Maria.”

Peter feels himself shying away even more with the attention, if that’s possible. Li’s hand has departed from his back and Peter wishes it was still there. He is reminded again that he is pathetic and touch-starved and probably needs to start making some new friends if he wants to stop feeling like this.

Although, he kind of is making new friends, already, if Wade counts. Wade, who is currently out apartment hunting, according to an annoyed Dr. Strange called him that morning and told him to keep an eye out on the news.

And sure, Peter didn’t ask Wade to look for a place- had told him not to a few times, actually- but he also didn’t stop him, either. He still isn’t sure what he’ll say if Wade actually finds a place and asks Peter to stay with him. He fully plans to turn the offer down but…

Well, he’s lonely. Not desperate, yet, but this crushing loneliness is hard.

“Maria’s computer didn’t take a genius to fix,” Peter says, “She just picked up a bunch of nasty viruses- facebook ads will do that to everyone.”

“It’s what he did to our software that’s actually impressive,” Li says, “He organized it better than any professional. All of the people at the help desks thank you for it, Peter.”

“Oh,” Peter shrugs, “That was nothing.”

Happy casts him an odd look. “You’re in college?”

And, there’s the question, for the second time today. He bites down his lip, and readies himself to disappoint yet another adult. Happy doesn’t look disappointed, but concerned, and that’s a bit worse.

“Really?” Happy asks. Peter nods. “You know, Stark industries has a program for kids like you.”

Peter knows. Peter knows because he was the reason it was ever even started. Pepper made it, in the wake of Tony’s death, to honor his relationship with the teenager. Peter had been invited to several events concerning it- fundraising galas, and all that icky PR stuff. He always turned them down, he'd felt too overwhelmed by it all.

Now he regrets turning them down. It would’ve meant spending more time with Pepper and Morgan, before he lost the choice to do so.

Peter isn’t sure what to say, he awkwardly taps his fingers against the table in front of him. “I know, sir.”

“A lot of people have a program for kids like him,” Li says, saving him. “Peter’s a bright young man, I’m sure he’s aware.”

“Hey, it’s just a thought,” Happy tells him. “I could put in a good word for you.” He starts to leave, he looks a little awkward. And Peter gets it, Happy had only been trying to be nice which wasn’t his default personality by any means. “But, I’ll back off and leave you guys alone."

“Thanks,” Peter says, “I mean, for the offer. Not the- yeah, I’ll think about it.”

Happy leaves, groaning about laundry duty.

Li heads off as well. Peter isn't surprised, Li has plenty of other, more important things to do. A business to run, a non-profit to organize, a rich inner life of (what was it again?) art collection. Before he goes he gives the computer one last glance, and tells Peter to keep up the good work.

Peter, flattered with the praise, goes back to it.

Peter didn't used to be so good with tech. Up until meeting Mr. Stark, he had fawned over biology and chemistry and genetics and stayed far away from computers, besides the a decent working knowledge required of him as a nerd. His parent's work, and their extensive collection of academic publications on said subjects had branded him a chemist from birth. But, when he was occasionally under the personal tutelage of the country's leading engineer, how could Peter not pick up his legacy.

Not that anyone knew he had picked it up.

When Peter finally finishes up with the website, and their online filing system, it's late. He hadn't meant to spend so long on the computer, but he'd gotten fixated upon the task. No one had bothered him either, meaning it had been easy for time to pass without his notice. The time, meant he wouldn't be going out as Spider-Man tonight. He could patrol, but he'd just as soon have to end it, and it was raining again anyways.

He walks to the lockers, and then he stops.

Happy is there. He's not doing anything but poking at his phone and occasionally lifting his head to search the room. He looks like he's waiting for someone. Peter knows there's not many volunteers here at this hour, maybe none besides the two of them and that means he's probably waiting for Peter which is… yeah Peter will process that fact in a minute He creeps backwards, and silently heads away from the front of the building.

He decides to wait a bit before leaving. He heads away from the beds of course, where people are sleeping, and instead, like a super mature person does, ducks into the kitchen to hide.

F.E.A.S.T. is quiet this time of night. The kitchen more so, the only sounds being that of the appliances softly running. Peter sighs.

Happy was looking for him. Waiting for him. At least, Peter thinks that's the case, and if he's right about that then Happy had waited for him long enough that it was now, Peter checks his phone, almost twelve o'clock.

Was there something wrong with Stephen's spell? Or was this something else? Peter still doesn't know why Happy had started approaching him all of a sudden, and he wonders if their initial conversation by the lockers had really been an accidental run in.

Peter checks the news, and finds that it had been a fairly quiet night in New York. At least, from what was reported. The most interesting piece of news is that Oscorp is testing out some new cancer treatments, and thinking of expanding their company. Oscorp which is like… a thing in this universe, apparently. Peter has kept a close eye on them since the whole alternate universe Osborn was his crazy goblin arch-nemesis thing, but they've shown no indication of producing any superpowered psychos anytime soon.

They weren't even based in New York anymore, the company had moved to San Francisco years ago. Plus, once he found out Norman wasn't even alive here, he hadn't paid them much attention besides a cursory search every now and then. Norman had died with his wife in a car crash a couple years ago, and since then his son had taken ownership of the company. While Norman had some controversy follow him, the details of which were hazy, and kind of lost to time, Harry Osborn seemed perfectly clean. The worst of the gossip surrounding the guy was a bit of partying and sleeping around, but Peter didn't really care about that.

The guy seemed pretty nice, actually. He donated a lot of money, and made public appearances that the news seemed to love. He wasn't a big celebrity, but had enough of a following to be known. The media certainly gobbled him up- Peter could see why, he was perfect for them. Casually handsome in a carefully manufactured kind of way. Young, tall, wide chest, perfectly messy hair, strong jaw, good features, lips that were just slightly crooked. He was charismatic, too. He reminded Peter of a younger Tony Stark. From what Peter had seen, the guy seemed about as cocky, just a lot less rude.

Time ticks by slowly. After he exhausts the news, he plays games on his phone for a few minutes, but quickly grows bored. He groans and closes Tetris when it becomes too repititive, and then notices It has only been ten minutes since he came into the kitchen. It takes him five more minutes, and a couple mediocre rounds of scrabble, before he caves, and decides to see if Happy is still there.

He opens the kitchen door opens right into Martin Li.

The man looks surprised to see him, but quickly schools the expression into something softer.

An amused eyebrow raises on the man's face. "Peter," he says, calmly, "What are you doing here?"

The teenager stands in the doorway, looking dumbly at the man in front of him.

"Oh, hi Mr. Li," Peter says, a bit of awkward panic welling up in his chest, "I'm uh, just heading out, actually."

"From the kitchen?" Li asks.

Peter nods.

"You know, we keep the food locked up at night," Li says.

Peter's eyes widen, "Oh, no, I know, I'm not- I wasn't stealing food. Or even trying to. I would never."

Li looks at him with an expression of disbelief. "Peter, it's okay, you know. That's why the food is here," he says kindly.

A hand lands on his shoulder and slowly guides him back into the kitchen, Li steps in after him, turns on the lights, and pulls out a ring of keys from his pocket. "You just need to ask."

"No, no, really," Peter tries, embarrassed, "that's not it. I promise."

"Then, what was it?"

Peter's brain runs fast, excuses come to his mind and then get thrown out a moment later. Nothing sounds good, or right, and he can't say he was avoiding Happy, can he? That would be a weird thing to admit. Li has no knowledge of Peter's relationship to Happy, he doesn't even know Peter's related to May.

Li looks at him expectantly, then shakes his head when Peter fails to come up with something. He goes to unlock the fridge door. "It's okay you know," Li says, he swipes his thumb across the lock to input a code, and then sticks the key in. "I'm not angry, I'm not upset. I won't make you tell me what your situation is, unless you want to share. I know what it's like to be without a place to go, or food to eat."

"I have a place," Peter tries, weakly. "An apartment."

"Which is good," Li says, "But is it really a place of refuge?"

Peter looks away, "It's good enough."

The lock pops free. Li pulls open the fridge door. "I am glad that you have an apartment. I'm guessing you pay for it yourself, which is impressive. I know that must be hard," an abashed looking Peter seems to confirm the man's guess. "But a place of refuge is different. Do you have a place you feel safe? With people to come back to?"

Peter stays silent. The conversation is making him uncomfortable and jittery.

"You're a good person," Li pulls out a few containers of leftovers and sets them on the counters. Peter realizes now he had missed dinner when he'd been doing the work on the computer. "I can tell that You're kind, you spend a lot of time here, you learn people's names, you work extremely hard, you're very smart and use your talents to help us. And even if you didn't do so much, I wouldn't mind helping you. And, Peter?"

"Yes?" Peter asks. Watching as the man takes two plates out of a cabinet.

"You may always think of FEAST as a place to come. If you find yourself in need, you can ask me for help."

After letting the words sink in for a moment into a silent Peter, Li tells him to grab a couple of spoons and bring them over. Peter follows his instructions numbly. The words slowly settle in his chest, warm and fuzzy.

Li pulls off the shrink wrap from the containers, and begins to partition the food onto two plates. "You're in luck tonight," the man says, "I'm quite hungry myself. I've been very busy lately, and I forget to eat because of it. Do you do that?"

It's weird. As kind as Li was, Peter never expected to see him like this. He usually seemed to have an air of refinement about him, even if he was still approachable. He seemed like the kind of man with a similarly refined palette. But here he was: slopping two big piles of pasta salad onto paper plates at midnight in FEAST's kitchen.

"Yeah, I kinda did it tonight. But, hey, your website is slick as hell, now, totally professional looking and everything," Peter tells him. "I also fixed some bugs in the job pairing to people system thing, so that should run a lot faster now."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," Li says. "You're one of the best people we have on the team, you know. You do a lot here. I meant it when I said it would be a shame to lose you."

Peter is sent to the grab the plastic wrap, and when he gives it to the man, Li methodically wraps everything carefully and returns it to its place in the fridge. A plate is handed to Peter, stacked high with a hodge podge of meals from the last few days. It's not good food, necessarily, it's meant to be cheap and feed a crowd, but a couple of sandwiches pulled from the fridge accompany portions of potatoes, pasta salad, rice and beans, and some green beans that had been stewed to mush. At the promise of the meal, Peter feels good stomach roll in anticipation. He's hungrier than he thought.

"Thank you," Peter says, and his voice breaks a little bit.

He starts to eat.

"I've actually been worried about you for a while," Li admits, "I know I said I will not pry, and I won't, but I would like to know if you're okay. You see, this… unsavory man came in here a while ago, looking for you. I only learned after the fact, and I know somebody gave him your information. Did something happen?"

Peter raises an eyebrow. He's already halfway through his food, and he pauses, thinking about what Li is saying. An unsavory man?

Then he remembers.

"Oh!" Peter doesn't know how he didn't remember immediately, that was a day in his life he wouldn't soon forget. He had never seen someone's internal organs before, and he never wanted to again. "That's Wade. He's a… friend, I guess. It's kind of complicated, but it's all good. He needed a place to stay. I put him up with someone."

Li seems relieved by his answer, though there's still a little pinch in between his eyebrows that doesn't go away. Peter isn't sure how else he could explain it, to ease the man's worries. Frankly, it's a worrying situation to any adult. If May were here, she'd definitely be fretting over him- she would have told Wade to stay far, far away. Might've done it the way she always did when she got protective, her hand on her hip and a steely fire in her eyes. She could get very scary when Peter was threatened.

Li and Peter end up moving on to different topics of conversation as they eat, their hushed voices, kept quiet so no one can hear, the only thing breaking the stillness of the room. Li is nice, and easy to talk to, so Peter finds himself opening up. The man is smart, too, and about things that Peter isn't. The man ends up teaching him about silk worms, a subject he had done a thesis on years ago, as well as techniques for art preservation (it was an art history degree, then). Peter returns it with knowledge about computers, which Li seems impressed by.

"Yeah," Peter sighs fondly, "I used to be at midtown high. I just never graduated. I'm working on getting my GED right now, and I'm thinking about an AA sometime in the future. But I'm… putting it off."

Li nods. "May I ask why you dropped out?" He asks, tone careful, "answer only if you're comfortable with sharing."

"Uh, well," Peter doesn't want to lie, Li seems like he would see right through it- and Peter doesn't want to betray his trust- but he can't tell the truth either. Not answering, even if Li gives him an out doesn't seem right either. "It's kind of hard to explain. I guess… I guess I sort of lost all the people who really knew me, and cared about me all at once. I didn't really have a reason to go anymore, and with everyone gone, I had to support myself. I can't go to school full time and have enough money to live off of, you know?"

Li nods solemnly. His face twists in thought. "No CPS?"

Peter shrugs, "No. I guess I just kind of flew under the radar, and it's better that way, I think. Less complicated," Peter says. He turns to Li, warily, "You're not going to call them, are you? I'm almost eighteen."

The man raises his hand to calm him, "Not if you don't want me to."

"Thanks," Peter says again.

"Of course," Li says.

When Peter returns to the lockers, Happy is gone. Peter feels guilty about avoiding the man, but he told himself it was easier this way.

Li follows him out the door. He checks with a few people as he goes, confirming they're ready for the night shift. He holds a hand on Peter's shoulder as they walk, leading him through the hallways. (It reminds him of Tony, this particular kind of affection.) Peter has never been at FEAST this late before. He's never thought about who watches the place at night.

The night air is chilly, and Peter quickly pulls on a jacket to fight off the cold.

"Where are you going?" Li asks, stopping him before he can start walking.

"Oh, uh, Midtown," Peter tells him.

Li pulls out a set of keys, and unlocks a car parked on the curb. It's a nice car. More practical than a Tony Stark car, but almost as nice."I'm headed into Manhattan. I could give you a ride," Li offers. "It would be on the way."

Peter shakes his head. "You've done enough," he says, declining.

"If you're sure, the streets are not safe this time of night," Li tries again. "I do not want to push you into accepting, but it's really not a problem for me. Wherever you need to go, I don't mind driving."

Well, with him offering like that, Peter almost feels guilty not accepting. Like he'd be stressing the man out too much if he decided to decline. Peter knows he has the ability to turn the offer down, but Li's kindness is hard to deny. Peter is quick to give into it.

-

Spring brings gradually warmer temperatures, meaning Peter no longer has to layer under his suit quite so much. Activity picks up along with it. Downtown was busy during the colder months, but even flooded with tourists visiting for the winter, (particularly for the hell that was Christmas and New Years) it still wasn't as hectic as the outpouring of people spurred on by the spring.

But Peter was used to it. This was his first time experiencing it in Midtown, but Queens was an even bigger change. It tended to grow docile in the winter, besides necessary movement like commuting to work. Queens was more residential than the neighboring Manhattan, and families left the city as much as they flew in to spend time with each other. Even when the holidays were over, the cold and the gray sky tended to keep people indoors- there was less going out when you had to face wind chill. But when spring came, Queens flourished. It never got as busy as downtown, but the change was even more noticeable.

All of the people out gives Peter more to do. Peter likes that, even though it isn’t necessarily a good thing when he’s supposed to be fighting crime. He’s eager for things that feel rewarding these days.

The beginning of his night is calm. After a shift at Delmar's he stays in Queens for a while and gives his old neighborhood a few once-overs, people wave at him from the street, and cheer as he swings overhead. Patrolling in Queens means patrolling where JJ Jameson has yet to corrupt the minds of the public into labeling him a public enemy, and it means focusing on more little things.

He helps two families move some furniture up the stairs, stops a string of muggings in forest hill, and fixes someone's broken down car. A bicyclist gets side-swiped, and Peter gives him some quick medical attention, and luckily nothing is broken, nor are there are any signs of head trauma (wear your helmets, kids!). He also catches the speeding car before it can get away and make it a hit and run. He helps a pizza man get a delivery to a house on time, so the price of the delivery isn't taken out of his paycheck.

Peter manages to stay busy the entire time he's there, running errands for busy new yorkers like they're side quests in a video game. It's good work, the kind of thing his aunt and uncle would be happy about. They were always proponents of the unsung hero: the friendly neighbor who helps old ladies cross the street, volunteers at soup kitchens, signs every petition, speaks up at community meetings, makes a small steady change, and doesn't brag about it.

Peter can't do everything on the list, of course. He's surprisingly ignorant of politics for someone who goes out on the streets and fights crime. The news liked to guess at his views sometimes. People everywhere tried to figure out his motivation for vigilantism, but they usually ascribe something a lot more logical and well thought-out than Peter’s actual reasoning. He just wants to do the right thing. He can not draw on a piece of paper what that is, and he certainly couldn’t write it down. He is unsure of where the lines of his morals really lie. But he knows that they are there, and he doesn’t like hurting people, or seeing people get hurt. .

It’s a good patrol, Peter does good things and helps people and Peter rides that high all the way into the night. Right up until he camps out on top of an apartment building, finally checks his phone for the first time in the better part of an hour, and then he sees the news alert he had set up has gone off.

A blurry image of Wade Wilson cuts across his twitter feed. It’s barely recognizable as him. He’s once again covered head to toe, but Peter doesn’t think there’s anyone else he knows that might have two katanas strapped across their back, and a touristy looking Greenwich village duffel bag with the scope of a rifle sticking out where the zipper couldn’t close all the way.

The Super Super-Fan
@Supergeekin

Spotted in hell’s kitchen: Def not Daredevil…Anybody got info?

A shaky video follows. It’s shot from up above, presumably from the refuge of someone’s apartment. Wade is dressed up differently than Peter has ever seen him- but it’s definitely him, and he’s brandishing a gun to a man’s head.

This rids Peter of any doubts. Wade’s voice, and his ability to never shut up, surpassing Peter’s own, is unmistakable.

Janet Whorlee
@JWhirl22

I’m freaking out rn!!

Miracle Price
@Can’tpriceme

@Can’tpriceme girl pls that’s fucking terrifying, praying for u, pls update

Peter doesn’t need to see anymore. He heads for Hell’s Kitchen.

He grimaces at the amount of webs he uses to get there, lately he has to be careful with them. He has a decent amount stocked up, and he could get more, but showing up at Stark’s labs to make them was very different now. It was awkward at best, and Peter really hated doing it under the scrutiny of Rhodey. All his best memories with Stark employees, and the sometimes present avengers, were out of his suit.

Funny how having a secret identity changes the way people look at you.

When he does get there, Peter realizes he has no idea where to go, so he just continues moving across rooftops in a hurry, but not in the big movements of web-slinging. He clambers across buildings, and over walls with an inhuman speed he rarely shows otherwise, moving through different off-road corridors, his eyes scan the road as he passes overhead.

Peter tries to listen in for anything particularly alarming, but it's hard to hear anything. A police siren wails nearby, but there's enough of those that Peter doesn't know if it's even relevant.

He continues his search without avail. Every alleyway he surveys comes up empty, besides some particularly cute cats rummaging through the trash that Peter almost thinks are Wade buried in a dumpster.

Shit,” Peter mutters, “Where did he go?”

Hopping across rooftops, it takes a lot longer than Peter wants to find Wade. Longer than it should have. By the time Peter actually finds him, the man has made his way across Hell’s Kitchen and to the warehouses lining the water. He knows which one Wade is in because there’s pulled of unconscious men all around the premises. Peter doesn't stop to look at them very thoroughly, but he does notice their masks, they were black and white and looked like demon masks- Chinese or Japanese, or something else, Peter wasn't sure.

Away from the scene, but close by, Peter finally catches sight of Wade. He grimaces when he sees another figure standing there, and his expression under his mask worsens when he hears them arguing.

Peter liked Daredevil, but the sentiment was not mutual. The first time Peter had found his way into Hell’s Kitchen, the vigilante had promptly told him he wasn’t old enough, and not welcome in his turf. Any time since then that Peter had found his way into the neighborhood, Daredevil was quick to greet him, and kick him out.

Daredevil’s head turns to him. Peter can not see under the mask, but somehow he knows the eyes underneath are full of hatred.

“Is he your friend?” Daredevil asks, angry.

Wade, not having noticed Peter up to this point looks confused. He whips his head around towards Peter crawling up in the rafters.

“Oh, hi Spidey!” Wade yells, excitedly. “DD doesn’t know me in this universe either, isn’t that crazy?”

“DD?” Peter asks.

Wade points to the vigilante. Daredevil seems more than irked by the nickname.

“Look, Daredevil,” Peter says, pleading, “I’m so, so sorry about him. He’s not… from around here.”

“I don’t care who he is,” Daredevil says, his tone is dangerous, “Both of you. Out. This is my territory.”

“Matty, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not Batman, even if you’re just as terrifyingly buff and sexy-” Wade starts.

Daredevil moves quicker than Peter thought he could. A foot swipes at Wade’s feet and makes him lose balance, long enough for Daredevil to grab him by the collar of his jacket, yanking him forward. “How do you know that name?” Daredevil asks, his voice cold.

“You told me. Well, Spidey told me, actually,” Wade answers.

Daredevil’s face snaps towards him. Peter’s hands fly up. “Woah! Woah! I did no such thing. I don’t even know who Matt is. Well, I guess that’s you. But I don’t know who you are, there’s a lot of Matts in the world, and I actually don’t personally really know any Matts, actually. I’m sorry, please don’t kill me and I will just get him out of here-”

“Spider-Man. explain.”

Peter does.

He does the best he can. He omits any insignificant, personal or hard to explain details, which means most of the story isn’t there. Not that Daredevil (Matt?) needs to know it anyways. Peter doesn’t get into the why of Wade’s presence, but he does get briefly into the how, and at the mention of Dr. Strange, and magic, Daredevil scoffs. Peter takes this to mean that the man doesn’t particularly care for magic.

Which, valid. Peter didn't expect that, anyways. Daredevil didn't seem like the type- he's more of a practical superhero. He's just some guy with a really good right hook.

“You’re telling the truth,” Daredevil says. It doesn’t sound like a question. A moment of silence stretches out between the three of them. Daredevil's sigh breaks it.

The vigilantes releases Wade, who, still off-balance, goes stumbling backwards. A baton flicks out and presses into the middle of Wade’s chest.

“And you know who I am?” Daredevil asks. “In this alternate universe.”

Wade nods, enthusiastically. “Oh, a lot more than that.”

“Then keep your mouth shut,” Daredevil warns. He lowers the baton and looks over at Peter. “Kid, tell the wizard to keep this magic shit away from Hell’s Kitchen, alright?”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter bristles at the nickname. “And you can’t just claim a city district against other superheroes, alright? You’re not Batman.”

“You’re seventeen, you're a total baby,” Wade pipes up, oh-so-helpfully. Daredevil frowns.

Peter sighs, and sends a web out. It shuts Wade up.

“Thank you, for that” Daredevil says, begrudgingly, but no more happy or forgiving, “Now get out, kid.”

Peter doesn't see a point in arguing about it. There's quite a few police sirens closing in on them anyways.

-

At the sanctum, Wong doesn’t stall at the door. Peter gives him a nervous smile, but the wizard does not return it. Something about him seems even more grumpy than usual.

Wong also does not take him anywhere this time, either. Peter is not greeted by Strange, who Wong says is busy with something much more important- something explained only to be none of his business. Wong lets him in, tells him to stay out of the way, and promptly disappears into another room.

It seems all the wizards are busy, and all the wizards are in New York as well. People who Peter has never seen before run around in all directions, wearing robes of various colors- though mostly earth tones, deep reds and browns- and speaking different languages. They all look concerned, and their anxious voices overlap with each other into one big indecipherable mess, bouncing around the wide halls of the sanctum. Peter recognizes some Chinese as a group of people in orange robes hurry through the dining room.

Peter has never seen this many people here before, which means something must have happened. His spider-sense itches along the back of his neck, but he writes it off as nerves, and that feeling of overwhelmed he usually gets around this many people and this much noise.

Before Peter can leave, Wade drags him into the dining room to look at real estate information packets.

“Get this- saw this beautiful place up in the Bronx. My agent told me it's a great value. Three bed, two bath, and a cool attic we could totally transform into a spider-deadpool-cave (we’ll work on the name later)type of thing,” Wade says and moves expressively, hands arching in big motions across his vision.

“And you’ll afford this, how?” Peter asks.

“We’ll make it work,” Wade says.

Peter buries his face in his hands. “Do you even know how buying a house works?”

“Do you?” Wade retorts.

“No,” Peter says, “There’s a very good reason I rent. Well, actually, there are several good reasons.”

Wade pouts. “It can’t be that hard. HGTV makes it look very, very easy. You know I bet we could totally be put up on one of those shows, I've always wanted to be on TV."

They get some odd looks from the passing wizards, but for the most part they seem preoccupied with whatever they're doing to even acknowledge Peter and Wade. When the wizards do acknowledge them, their eyes glaze over the Spider-Man suit and move on.

"Look, Wade, I really gotta go," Peter tells him after checking the time. "I'm not stopping you from buying a house but to do that you kind of need money, and usually you need to exist. I don't think they give mortgages to people not from this dimension very often.

"What part of just making it work do you not get, Petey?" Wade asks.

"I don't know," Peter huffs. "All of it."

Wade chatters on about money buried in the desert, and how easy it is to get a fake identity. The name Weasel gets thrown around a few times, but Peter doesn't feel like asking about it. It's funny how none of the conversations he means to have with Wade are being had. Maybe it's because Peter is just tired, or that they aren't really important in the end. Maybe it's because Wade is spectacularly good at keeping his brain off track.

But he doesn't ask about the video he saw on Twitter, or about the warehouse, or the men with the masks, and he doesn't ask why Wade was even out there in the first place. Peter just makes a tired guess at it - that it's Wade's need to just do something- and leaves it alone because it's a feeling he understands. Peter doesn't tell him not to go back out, either. What Daredevil (Matt, apparently, but calling him Matt feels wrong) didn't know was that Wade wasn't going home anytime soon, and Peter certainly wasn't his keeper. He wasn't going to tell a grown man, who he didn't even know very well, what to do.

Peter checks the time again, he's lost five more minutes of precious sleep to the conversation. His body can feel the strain of sleep deprivation weighing it down, and he's not looking forward to tomorrow morning. It's not that Peter even did much today, but looking for Wade and wrestling him back to the sanctum had taken him all night. Maybe next time he sees something, he just shouldn't get involved.

Like he said, he isn't the man's keeper. He barely even knows him. Still, he can't help but feel some sort of responsibility for the man's actions. It had been Peter's mess that caused his presence here anyways, Peter had gotten a man stranded and alone in the world because he'd just wanted to live two lives. Peter had wanted the best of two worlds, and had ruined Wade's life. His own too, but his didn't matter as much. He could pay for his own mistakes.

"Wade," Peter interrupts him, "I'm going to go now. Please, just... don't cause too much trouble. And stay away from Daredevil, that guy hates me. I think he hates everyone."

Wade snorts. "Matt doesn't hate you," he tells Peter.

"Don't call him Matt," Peter warns, "I'm not supposed to know his name- I don't know if we're friends in your universe but we aren't here, okay?"

Peter eventually frees himself from Wade, but it takes just standing up and leaving quickly while the man is distracted mid-rant. Peter's (as MJ liked to call it) tingle still worries at the back of his brain, but it doesn't get any worse.

There's no Strange around to ask what it might be from.

Peter steps outside, and thanks God (or whatever omnipotent magical being is watching over him tonight) that Greenwich isn't far from his apartment. He clicks his web-shooters and, yeah, there's nothing. He expected as much.

He sighs, and readies himself to walk home.

"Hey wait, stay a minute!" A voice calls out. The accent is one Peter doesn't recognize. Peter does, however, vaguely recognize the man who has spoken to him. He's not sure from where, though.

The stranger has a cigarette dangling from his fingers, as do the two women standing next to him, leaning against the walls of the sanctum. He offers one to Peter, but the boy declines.

"They call you Spider-Man, right?" The man asks. "Sorry, we call you another name in Greece. It is nice to meet you, I am a big fan."

"Oh," Peter says, realizing that the man before him is the same one he'd seen standing in the garden, "then it's nice to meet you."

One of the women speaks to her companion and she translates, "Did you like the food?" She asks, her accent is heavier, "Georgie wants to know."

"Oh my gosh, that was you," Peter's eyes bug out under his mask. The pastries, the fresh pita bread. Everything. This was the woman who had been feeding him? And she recognized him? Peter supposes that makes some sense- she knew him through some sort of magic anyways, his suit couldn't hide that from her "Uh, it was delicious, really good," he tells her, "Thank you."

The woman translates Peter's words and Georgie smiles. She takes a puff of her cigarette and says, "Good."

"Oh! you're…" The man nods, his voice drops to a whisper, "the boy, the sad looking one. Huh, I always thought you would be taller, older."

Peter shrugs, and brushes off being called the sad looking one, "Sorry to disappoint, I guess?"

"No, no, no disappointment," the man assures him, "Just surprise. Where are you going now, Spider-Man?"

"Home," Peter says.

"Going to swing?" The guy asks, he mimicks the way Peter holds his hands to shoot a web, "It's very cool how you do that."

"Nah, I'm gonna walk. I'm out of webs," Peter says. He taps his shooters again to show them.

The man hums, he turns to his friends and says something in Greek. Georgie flashes her grin again and replies.

"We can get you there," the man says, Georgie moves her hand and a portal flickers to the left of Peter. When he looks through it, he's surprised to see his bedroom on the other side.

The friend speaks again, "Georgie wants you to know you can come to Greece at anytime."

"Oh yas," the man says, sounding excited, "Well, whenever this whole thing ends. You should come over, we'll show you around. Don't tell the sorcerer supreme, but Greece is the best sanctum."

"When what thing ends?" Peter asks.

They all quiet and share looks between each other. "Well I'm afraid we can't tell you," the man says apologetically, "But we will come and tell you when it's over, okay? Then you visit?"

Peter blushes under his mask. People were being so nice to him lately, it was kind of hard to take. "Sure," Peter says.

He steps through the portal and they all wave goodbye to the teenager as he does so. "That is a promise now, you must visit!" The Greek man says behind Peter as the portal begins to close. Georgie nods. The portal closes the whole way, and then Peter is left alone in his room.

He checks the clock once more. He is not looking forward to work in the morning.

Chapter Text

March becomes April. April gets hotter, and the weather becomes less predictable. Working in the garage becomes more grueling, his boss refuses to crank up the AC, and quite often Peter feels himself growing faint as the gasoline fumes and the heat clog up his brain. Delmar's is fine, but customers pick up and get crankier. MJ's graduation is approaching faster with every day that passes. Spring is in full swing now, and then summer will happen in a flash, and Peter may not see her if she decides to travel instead of stay and work, and then fall will whisk her away to university hundreds of miles away.

Soon, Peter will have to sever his ties and stop being so pathetic.

Wade Wilson shows up on the news- Peter doesn't see him for a while, and catches only as many glances of him as JJ does, and speculation spreads quickly about who the new vigilante- although no one, not even Peter, is sure if vigilante is the right word for it. Peter doesn't go to gather him a second time. Wade was an adult, and capable of making his own decisions, and Peter was busy.

Wade comes to him first. Peter is dragging some drunk men off of each other, trying to stop their lame, clumsy attempts at fighting, and Wade shows up, his sword clashes with a metal pipe a man was aiming at Peter's head.

"Dinner?" Wade asks, as soon as they've called some cabs and sent everyone home in them.

Peter nods. He's hungry, and in a sour mood, and if someone else will pay for it, Peter will take it.

A few minutes later, Wade Wilson clambers up to a rooftop with two hefty bags of Mexican take out with him. Peter hears him on his way up. The new suit he's wearing is particularly noisy- it squeaks every time he moves.

"And I return, victorious," Wade chirps, his hands brace on either side of the roof and the man proceeds, with great effort, ("but not that much effort, okay," Wade huffs,) to heft himself into it.

"Wade?" Peter asks as soon as he's done. "Where did you even get that?"

The teenager gestures towards the man. The suit is red and black, and looks like it's made completely out of leather- Peter idly wonders how hot it must get inside of there during the summer. His swords are strapped across his back again, but with the rest of the outfit it looks a bit less ridiculous.

"Oh yeah, Strange have it to me- totally a bribe to get me out of his luscious, swoopy hair. This suit is way better than my last one- I mean wizards are fucking crazy, and they're such a good excuse for writers everywhere to get around characters actually making shit the hard way," Wade says. He does a little twirl, and strikes a few poses at the end of it. "Do you think it makes my butt look fat?"

Peter shakes his head. "It looks great. Kind of looks like…" Peter clears his throat, "Mine. Did you steal my suit design?"

Wade gasps, horrified. "Well, excuse me," Wade sounds offended, "This suit is all my own intellectual property. Copyright Wade Wilson and whoever draws me in the comics. Come on Spidey, this suit is so different from yours, are you kidding me? I can't believe you would think me so low as to plagiarize."

"I'm just asking," Peter says, "'Thought it might be inspired. Cause we're friends in your universe?"

Wade calms. "Oh."

"Yeah."

At the mention of this, an awkward silence ensues.

After a moment, Wade hefts up the bags of Mexican, and tosses one to Peter, "They might've gotten a little tousled, but, you know, I think that chimichangas are sort of an inherently tousled food already, they come that way. Adds character."

"Yeah," Peter says, dryly, he peels open the bag and finds sauce splattered along most of the inside. "And I really want my food to have character."

They end on the ledge together, their feet dangle over the side, and they watch the city below while they eat. Peter keeps his ear out, ready to be on the move, but he also enjoys the moment of calm in his patrol, just taking in the city and all its people. From up above, people's interactions become more entertaining. The small debates between cars trying to maneuver around each other, and get ahead on the road, become doubly so. There's a chunk of this particular road taken up by construction, and many cars try to merge at the last second where the lane ends, only to find a long line of unforgiving people who actually waited their turn. Of course, Peter also hopes there's no accidents- or drivers that get too angry.

Peter is almost envious of Wade's ability to fill the space between them. Peter can talk for a long time, and he has had many people point out just how much he talks on multiple occasions- but Wade puts him to shame. Plus, Peter still feels awkward maneuvering around encounters with the older man. He isn't sure what to say. Maybe Wade was just good at it because interacting with Peter was like interacting with his other self.

"I have a job now, officially employed, one of the working drones of society, a capitalist whore," Wade says. "Weasel didn't know me when I showed up, so either I really don't exist here or I died some time ago, but he definitely knows me now."

"You mentioned him before," Peter notes.

"Me and Weasies are totally hashtag BFF-sies," Wade explains. "He owns a bar. Also helps dish out jobs to a lot of bloodthirsty mercenaries from said bar. Makes really good strawberry daiquiris."

Peter blanches, "Mercenaries…" Peter hesitates to ask, "Are you, uh, bad, then? Are you like killing people, because you can't-"

Wade cuts him off. "No, no, okay maybe some occasional killing," Wade says,("What?" Peter squawks), "I mostly just hurt very, very bad people. I basically do what you do, but meaner, and I get paid for my efforts. Cause I know how to market my labor. You know… you could-"

It's Peter's turn to cut him off. "Absolutely not," Peter tells him firmly.

"I was going to say join a union, but, okay. You obviously don't believe in worker's rights," Wade shrugs and shoves more chimichanga into his mouth. This was his fifth one. Bulking season was what he told Peter. Apparently being stranded in the desert for weeks had done… not great things to his body.

"So what the job means," Wade continues from before, "Is that I have a semi-steady flow of income and therefore can totally afford to get a house."

Peter sighs, "I already told you, man. No one is stopping you from buying anything for yourself. If you can get around not having a social security number, and the price of real estate in New York, just go for it."

Wade groans, but Peter ignores what he says next, in favor of listening in as some people nearby conspire to rob a laundromat. (A weird location to target, but at least it wasn't a gas station this time, Peter could only take so much of the gas station hold up trope before he grew tired of it. Why did criminals have to be so cliche all the time?)

Super hearing was a curse, sometimes. In his civilian life, it made focusing, which was already a daunting task for Peter's overactive mind, extremely difficult. Plus, Peter had heard a lot of things he never wanted to hear, and definitely wasn't supposed to hear. However, super hearing was also… maybe not a blessing, but useful, and it helped to guide Peter's activities on patrol. Today it's useful. Peter can craft a loose plan in his head before he even sets out. There's just two men, Peter can already hear the click of their gun's safety releasing, and they talk out every move they plan to make to get away.

"Wade," Peter says, and raises a finger to shush the other man in the middle of whatever rant he's on. "Hush. There's some robbers over…" He listens intently for a moment, then moves his finger to point in the right direction "There. I'll be right back."

Peter doesn't waste time, he stands and flicks out a web across the street, and then he falls into the swing.

The robbers are easy to sneak up on. They're inexperienced, and Peter can hear the nervousness in their voices, the speed of their heartbeats. They don't even notice as Peter approaches the Laundromat, despite the fact that the entire front wall is glass- and Peter is very, very clearly walking in their direction. He yanks the door open, breaking the lock the robbers had clicked shut when they walked in. It's better than breaking the glass. They had been planning to head out back.

Two heads turn towards him, where they've got the attendant emptying a machine into a bag. They don't look happy to see him.. The attendant's relief is palpable, and his hands still.

"I don't get it," Peter says, before they can say anything. "A laundromat? It's like the stupidest place to rob. Everyone can see you do it, and how are you going to run away with bags full of quarters?"

Two guns aim towards Peter and fire. Peter dodges it easily enough. One of their bullets ricochets off a machine and is sent through the windows. Peter grimaces when the glass shatters with the impact.

"I was trying to avoid that," Peter says, "I'm trying to cause less, you know, reckless damage. JJ has been beating my ass about it. Maybe you could do me a favor and not break anything else?"

Another shot, Peter moves around it.

"Come on. What did I just say?" Peter mutters.

Both hands release a web. The two strings connect to both of the men's guns and Peter uses them to yanks the weapons out of their grip. When the guns land in Peter's hands, he crushes them.

Peter webs the two men up before they can blink, they are sent into a wall of dryers with a thud, and stay there. Peter sends the attendant to call the police.

Suddenly, Peter can hear a somewhat distant call for Spider-Man. He hadn't heard it a moment ago, too focused on the task at hand on subduing the robbers.

Peter groans, "I thought I told him to wait."

"Who's that?" One of the men asks, surprising Peter.

"A…" Peter sighs, and falls back on the explanation he just keeps using, "A friend. Kind of."

Wade rounds the corner a few minutes later. His leather squeaking the whole way. The man is out of breath, and he wheezes trying to catch it. "You-" Wade sucks in a big gulp of air, he presses his hands down on his knees, "Stealing money- no-" a wheeze, "Bad."

Peter raises an eyebrow, "You good there…" He hesitates, trying to recall the alias Wade had told him the first time they met. What was it? Dead...something. "Dead pool?"

"It's one word," Wade says, still panting but a little less so, now. One hand has moved to grip into the fabric over his chest, "Deadpool."

"That's what I just said," Peter sighs, "Dead pool."

"No. It's Deadpool."

Peter throws his hands up. "Okay. Whatever. You missed the robbers anyways."

"But they're right there," Wade points out.

"It's over. We're all good. The police are on the way," Peter tells him. You could've just waited on the roof."

Wade crosses his arms over his chest, "I didn't wanna."

"You-" Peter sighs. "Okay. Why?"

"Obviously, I want to fight the bad guys."

"Well you could've said that, I would've swung you over-"

"You didn't give me a chance, though, totally just ran away," Wade whines. "Aw, it's like you don't even know me."

"Well, actually, I kind of don't," Peter reminds him. It's a joke, even though it does have a small bit of sincerity to it. Wade… Wade doesn't seem to take it as a joke.

Wade scoffs, "Oh please, you're my Spidey-Pal, now. We're best buddies, crime fighting vigilantes in a pod."

"Well, I usually work this small stuff alone," Peter says, honestly. Though nowadays it's not just the small stuff, he does everything alone."Not that I don't appreciate the offer-"

"Oh come on!" One of the robbers speaks up all of a sudden, surprising Peter. "Spider-Man, this dude is just trying to be your friend, and it sounds like you abandoned him. That lone wolf shit is so overrated. I thought you were supposed to be like super nice."

"Yeah man," The other robber agrees, nodding, "It's a stupid cliche."

"Aw, thanks guys," Wade says. "See, Spidey. Even they agree with me."

"Look Deadpool, you're cool and all. We can be friends, even. I'm not trying to be mean, but I do like to patrol alone. I appreciate the offer and all. But, I'm good," Peter tries, holding back a mean remark about how the robbers were working together and look where that got them.

"Spidey-" Wade says. "Come on."

Suddenly, the attendant comes out, and tells them the police are on the way.

Peter starts walking out after that, satisfied that his work is done, the broken door hangs open and he steps past Wade and through it. "Do you want a swing back?" Peter offers Wade.

"No," Wade says, he sounds upset. "Uh, because I am upset! I was totally looking forward to a day of bro-superheroing. I mean could be a total crime-fighting duo- I mean I was thinking Starsky and Hutch, Batman and Robin, Shawn and Gus-"

"Deadpool," Peter says again, more firmly, "I said I appreciate the offer, okay? Drop it. I can handle stuff on my own. This is just small time."

The robber calls out somewhere behind him: "Just be his friend!"

"I didn't even turn him down!" Peter shouts back over his shoulder.

"But you're totally turning me down," Wade says.

Peter huffs, suddenly angry at Wade's pushiness. Was he being this annoying on purpose? "I don't know. I never said yes. And right now you're just kind of here acting like we're really good friends-"

"But we are!"

"But we aren't."

Wade goes silent.

"So now you're turning me down," Wade says, Peter can hear the pout in his voice.

Frustrated now, Peter growls. "I don't know, maybe I am."

Peter doesn't know the expression Wade is making but it's probably bad. But Peter didn't really care. What was the man trying to do, anyways? Wade was trying to insert himself into Peter's life and in so many ways Peter appreciated it, sure, but not right now. Not like this. It was embarrassing to be bickering in public like this, and Peter hadn't done anything wrong. Peter was on patrol, and he left to handle something by himself. He always handled stuff by himself.

"How do you feel seeing the broken pieces of my heart on the sidewalk right here?" Wade asks, his hands gesture to the ground. There's only broken glass, and a cigarette. "I'm hurt."

"Deadpool," Peter growls. "You're being an asshole right now."

"I'm just trying to offer company and companionship which you desperately need-"

"Woah! Okay, it isn't your place to decide that!" Peter interrupts him

"Okay, rude. There's no need to yell," Wade says.

"I'm not your Spider-Man," Peter bites out. "Okay? I barely know you. I'm not going to just automatically swing you along on my patrols like we're old pals. You're totally picking a fight right now."

"It's an indicative thing," Wade says, and doesn't explain further. He ends with a sort of humph that makes the whole thing that much more infuriating. The man was just so immature, and none of Peter's words seemed to get through. Wade turns his head away, nose up in the air.

"You are so childish," Peter says. "What is wrong with you?"

A hand is brought up to Wade's face as he gasps. "Me? Childish? I just used the word indicative, and you're seventeen.

"And a lot more mature than you, apparently," Peter tells him, ignoring the confused noises of the robbers, and the attendants muttered really? Seventeen? "What is this? You're acting like you've got some place in my life-"

"Well I do," Wade says.

Peter sighs. He stops for a moment to gather himself. "You do," he agrees, his voice comes out much quieter than it had been a minute ago. When had he gotten to be so loud? When was the last time he yelled like this?

Ever since Mysterio had outed him on the news, he had been so numb. Every day of actually attending senior year had been so overwhelming, so much, that Peter had just shut down. The time passed like nothing over him. He was angry a lot, but in a muted way, angry at the dead Mysterio, angry at the colleges and their letters, and their stupid image they wanted to maintain that they thought Peter wouldn't uphold. He'd be a bit happy around his friends and aunt, and he had the hope that everything would pass, but it was a happiness that was barely there, and he clung onto it so desperately it collapsed underneath him. MIT had swiped that happiness away. The only break in that nothingness was-

Norman. That was a racing anger, a fury pounding in his chest, breaking loose. His fists on the man's face again and again, thinking about May's face and the reflection of firelight in her eyes-

"Wade," Peter says, "I'm leaving."

"Fine," the man huffs.

Peter balls up his hand into a fist, and holds back that frustration.

"I'll see you," Peter says.

"Maybe you will, maybe you won't," Wade tells him, flippantly. "Just go, then, Spider-Kid, don't accept my help. I'll just break the page here and totally move on from this scenery. I'll totally emotionally recover from this in no time."

Wade sniffles softly.

"Oh, quit it," Peter says, "I'm telling you we can talk about this another time-"

Wade puts his hands on either side of his head, where his ears must be under his mask. "Not listening to you!" He says, "Just breaking the page!"

-

Peter doesn't see Wade for almost a week. This is probably a good thing, the time allows him to mull back over their fight. A fight that wasn't even a proper fight, although most conflict, unless it's a supervillain trying to kill thousands of people, usually isn't clear cut. Their argument was just some large knot of miscommunication and sudden defensiveness. Peter tries to unravel the whole thing in his head, pull it apart, but it's stubborn, and stays tangled, and at some point he kind of gives up. Peter ends up distracting himself with stuff that's easier than figuring it out- working on cars in the workshop, grocery lists, MJ, patrol.

("You," MJ says, sliding something across the counter towards him.

It's a small piece of paper from her notebook. Peter flips it over, and finds a drawing of his face on the other side. It's a good drawing, better than the last one she'd done of him. She is always improving at art. Peter knew she could only get better, and she was already so good, and that he wouldn't be around to see it happen.

In the drawing, his face is skinnier than it should be, the bags under his eyes look like bruises. He looks-

"You look gloomy," MJ says.

"Right. Thanks," He says. She smirks. "And you like drawing people in crisis."

MJ quirks an eyebrow. "Are you in crisis?" She asks.

"Sometimes," Peter says.

She tops off his mug of coffee. "Aren't we all?" She says, dryly.)

Peter has calmed down since the fight, which clears his head some and makes it easier to see in hindsight, but it was still hard to understand arguments when you were one of the people in them and Peter isn't sure what he's supposed to do now. He isn't sure if he wants to fix it. He doesn't know where his responsibility there begins and ends. Wade was right in that he was a part of Peter's life, now. But Peter… Peter was so angry at him right now. So angry that there was some stubborn, immature man in his life that Peter was supposed to… What? Take care of? Forgive? Apologize to? Wade doesn't seem eager to apologize to him, and Peter is pretty sure Wade is the one that actually needs to say he's sorry.

(Peter stays again. He orders scrambled eggs and bacon.

MJ looks over at his open computer as she passes by. Peter is catching up on the news. Noting where there's been upticks in crime in his head, planning to go and patrol them later. The weather will continue to be erratic, and especially bad in the next coming weeks. A bad rain storm is just on the horizon. The warehouse bust Wade and Daredevil made the other weekend is kept under wraps by the police- it's an ongoing investigation, apparently. Pepper Potts has taken on the newest batch of brightest interns. Morgan Stark has built some sort of robot, just as her father did when he was the same age.Oscorp hasn't released the newest location their expanding to yet.

"Oscorp, huh?" MJ asks.

"Oh, yeah. Just doing some research," Peter tells her.

"Interesting research," MJ remarks.

Peter shrugs, "It's a personal project."

"Interesting project."

They get to talking about other things. MJ says she's been thinking about journalism more seriously lately. She isn't sure how she wants to do it, but she says she wants to reveal the truth about a lot of things. Peter is not surprised by this development, but he acts like he is. He's not supposed to know the things about her that make such a career the obvious choice for her.

Her political knowledge, courage to stand up for what's right, and sharp, creative mind that would work well with the careful correction of information required of good prose and news-writing alike. She could be anything.

"And fuck the Bugle, man. We need news- not wild accusations."

"Yeah," Peter laughs. It's a surprisingly familiar sounding conversation. How many times had they commiserated over the lack of journalistic integrity. Peter wonders if part of MJ recognizes him. If not all of her then some specific part of her brain… he scraps the thought. 'Fuck the Bugle."

"Did you see what they wrote this morning?"

Apparently, according to some random laundromat attendant, Spider-Man is seventeen.)

Peter still isn't sure if he'd done anything wrong with Wade. He's not sure now if that even matters.

It's a downpour today. The kind of rain that might cause flooding.

At FEAST, Peter immediately gets put to work. First thing he does, is to help unload a truck full of food supplies, which has been donated by one of the local grocery stores. He runs back and forth from the truck to the kitchen, and repeats the process for the better part of an hour. One of the other volunteers offers him a poncho and he wears it the whole time. He grows sweaty and hot underneath the plastic, and he's still pretty wet after the constant exposure, but it helps, and he does his best to keep everything dry as he transports it.

They seem stretched thin for volunteers today. Less people come in to help on days like this, but FEAST is so much busier- the worse the weather, the more people need shelter.

It doesn't help that Peter's spider-sense is still going off somewhere in the back of his brain. It had been a mild thing ever since he'd gone to the sanctum. He thinks there must be something wrong with him, and he isn't sure what it could be, because he can't see anything following him, and nothing bad has actually happened. Perhaps Strange could help, but Peter hasn't returned to ask since then because…

Well.

It's not a big deal. He's sure it will fade eventually.

Peter leans up against the wall, resting for the first time that day, really, and watches through the window as the truck starts and pulls away, driving slowly on the wet roads and not speeding up. He hopes it's not a long drive, and that they get home safe.

One of the volunteer coordinators dishes out a few commands to a group of people working in the kitchen. Peter takes this as his cue, and he straightens to standing again.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur, Peter finishes one task, and finds another. The work doesn't seem to stop. At some point, his hair dries, and the air, thick with humidity and the charge of lightning somewhere in the air, turns it into a mass of frizz. Peter hasn't seen it yet, but he can feel it, when he tries to comb his hand through it doesn't stay down and he ends up getting stuck on a particularly bad knot.

He gets waves and greetings as he runs around, but he doesn't stop to talk. They set up extra cots, as well as rice bags by the doors, just in case the weather worsens. The kitchen is a constant flurry of activity for most of the night. More people than usual meant more cooking and more dishes. The showers and laundry room stay full for hours, and the kids that would normally be outside run around the building, eager for something fun to do.

It's late when things finally start to wind down. Dinner ends, the dishes are all washed, and the kitchen is locked up. As people start to fall asleep, FEAST finally starts to quiet. The showers shut off, so it's just the washers and dryers that keep running, clothes thumping methodically against the metal basins, and the sound of the rain battering on the walls. Peter still keeps working, but the pace of it slows.

He's sweeping, now making idle chatter with people as he goes. There's a lot of familiar faces, as well as new ones. The men in the corner playing cards are the usual crowd. (Peter runs their names over in his head: Louie, Jeremy, Richards, Hank. He does this with everyone as he moves through the rooms, and he occasionally introduces himself to those he doesn't know, and he doesn't look like he'll be bothering too much with his presence. Peter has learned that a lot of people like to just be acknowledged and spoken to, but, as with anything, it varies. Everyone was different, and Peter didn't want to be a nuisance.)

"Did you get dinner?" Li says, suddenly directly behind him.

Peter swivels, startled. He pulls the broom close across his chest like it will protect him. "Mr. Li!" Peter says, relieved, he lets his shoulders, which had just tightened with surprise, loosen. "You snuck up on me."

He must have been more distracted than he thought, because Peter could usually tell when people were walking towards him. Even when they were trying to be quiet, or he wasn't paying much attention. Somehow, Li had caught him unaware.

"Sorry about that," Li smiles at him, he sounds apologetic but he also seems a bit amused by Peter's reaction.

Peter ducks his head, shyly. "You're fine."

"I'll try not to do it again," Li tells him. And he asks his original question again, "Have you eaten?"

Peter tightens his grip on the broom. He debates his answer. His mistake is making eye contact with Li, because as soon as he does, he breaks. Peter shakes his head.

Li offers food and Peter, like any hungry kid, accepts. They go to the now empty kitchen again- away from everyone else. One or two people pop in to talk to Li, but they don't say anything about Peter being there, or about the full plate of food in front of him. Li offers him two sandwiches this time, and when Peter looks at them a little too long, a large helping of pasta with red sauce follows. Lunch and dinner from that day.

Peter thanks him profusely. He'd be embarrassed if he wasn't so hungry, and if Li wasn't so good at making him feel welcome instead. They talk less this time, perhaps because Li has already said his whole piece about FEAST being a place of refuge, but the quiet isn't awkward, and his presence is still comforting.

Charisma like that was hard to get. Peter had certainly never had it. The best he had was a bumbling, awkward, kindness that people either begrudgingly appreciated or got annoyed by. He might, on occasion, be charming. But he wasn't charismatic, most of the time he was almost the opposite- people never really seemed to listen to him, or even take him very seriously.

Li seemed like he never had that problem. Like people just listened to him automatically. Trusted him.

"Do you need… more?" Li asks, when Peter is finished. He sounds surprised by Peter's appetite.

"Oh, no, I'm-" Peter tries to decline but is cut off by the sound of his own stomach growling. He blushes, mortified.

Li gets him more pasta even though Peter tries to say no. Peter polishes his second helping off as well. Li seems happy about that.

People seemed to like feeding him lately, and though it was a welcome development, Peter was trying not to grow used to it. He knew it was one that would go away soon. Surely, people and their charity would move on.

"You seem upset," Li observes.

"You're not the first one to say that to me," Peter says, he picks up his paper plate to dispose of it. "Someone the other day told me I look gloomy."

"They were right," Li says.

"I guess," Peter says. He drops the paper plate in the trash and closes the lid harder than he needs to. He comes back to his seat.

Li's hand lands on his shoulder. His spidey-sense quiets, his fried nerves suddenly feel calm.

A feeling of safety.

"What happened?" Li asks.

It's like a dam breaking. Peter can not hold it back.

The truth just spills out of him. Something about Li breaks his guard down so easily. It's like Peter almost can't help it. "It's… I had a fight with someone. Kind of. It was really stupid. You remember Wade? The guy we talked about the other night?" Peter asks. Li Nods. "Yeah. He's… I don't know, maybe I said something that set him off. I think he just sees me as someone I'm not- and he got really just… pushy all of a sudden. We fought about it. But also about other stuff. I don't know."

Li takes this in for a moment. "You seem confused more than anything," He says.

"I am!" Peter says, he throws his arms up, "I'm really confused, actually. I don't know why it happened! But I'm also really frustrated. And I don't want to be angry, but I am angry, I'm really, really angry about it, you know?"

"I understand," Li tells him, another wave of comfort follows his words. Peter can feel his hold on those angry emotions loosen, just a bit. "That sounds frustrating."

"It is," Peter agrees. He just keeps talking, the words feel better coming out. "And it's worse because, I don't know, I want to- to be his friend. I almost have a responsibility to be his friend. I was trying to be nice to him, but he made it so hard all of a sudden, for no reason. And he never apologized, and I don't know what- what to do- I-"

"Peter," A wave of calm washes over him again. That anger in him chips away some more. "You're okay. Just breathe."

"I haven't had friends for a while" Peter says, he finds his face warming, eyes suddenly hot like he's going to cry, and he's trying to hold back that bigger rush of emotions that threatens to break free. "And I'm not sure if Wade is a good person, but I think I want to be his friend. It's like I have to be. Like I'm meant to be. And normally he's not so bad. He seems fine. But what he did was so childish, you know? I just want him to apologize to me, you know?"

"I know," Li says, his hand tightens just slightly, "I know just how you're feeling, Peter."

Peter sniffles again, it's louder this time. "I'm sorry," Peter says, he wipes at his face, "I'm sorry. I don't think I've cried in a while either."

"Crying is a perfectly good thing to do," Li says.

Peter snorts, "You don't look like you ever cry."

"I do when I need to," Li says. "I keep a face on for the sake of my public life, but I feel my emotions just like anyone else, and sometimes that means crying. It is good to cry, it means that you're feeling an emotion so strongly it must free itself from you. Sadness and happiness and anger are good things to release, or they might eat at you from the inside, and turn into bitterness. And trust me Peter," His hand tightens, "You don't want to become bitter."

"Are you bitter?" Peter asks.

"About many things," Li admits. "And I have done regretful things because of it."

Peter looks over at the man. Something, a memory, flashes across Li's face, and then leaves.

"I'm-" Peter looks away, "I'm sorry to hear that. Somebody else once told me something pretty similar."

Peter… was it two? Three? The one with the curly hair, and a height Peter (him, Peter one,) was jealous of. That guy had said he'd turned bitter after the death of his girlfriend. Her name was Gwen. Peter could remember because the other version of him kept repeating it- Gwen, Gwen, Gwen. He had warned Peter against that path too.

"My best advice is this: when you talk to this… Wade, you must know what you want to say first. Be clear and honest. Then understand that you do not know how he will react, and you can't control his reaction either, we can only control our own actions," Li's hand leaves his shoulder and the calm feeling dissipates, Peter slowly feels his brain reorient itself, chasing that feeling, "And stay safe."

"I will," Peter says.

Li looks suspicious.

"I promise," Peter says again. "Jeez. I can handle myself, you know."

"I know," Li says.

Peter drums his fingers on the counter. The sound of the rain continues in the background, along with the occasional clap of thunder, and without Li's hand on his back, and that strange ease that comes with it, the gnawing of his spider-sense continues at the of his head. Just a buzz, like a mosquito was flying around him that he couldn't see, and wouldn't die.

He doesn't end up crying, but his face still feels hot, and his emotions swirl under the surface of his face, waiting to be let out.

He feels better though. Surprisingly better.

"Do you do this for a lot of people?" Peter asks, "Act like their guidance counselor in your free time?"

"Sometimes," Li says.

"Well, you're very good at it."

Li smiles. "You're a good kid, Peter. You deserve to have someone on your side."

-

Happy is at the lockers.

Peter can't turn away this time, not with Li there, somewhere behind him and waiting for the teenager to grab his things so he can give him a ride. It'd be too hard to explain why he couldn't see Happy, and his track record in speaking with Li so far meant he'd probably reveal a lot more than he ever intended to.

Happy catches sight of Peter, and perks up. Then his eyes move up towards Li hovering nearby and he hesitates.

"Peter," Happy says."I uh, wanted to talk to you about something."

"Oh, uh, what's up?" Peter hopes his nervousness doesn't come through, but he knows he doesn't have that kind of luck.

"It's-" Happy takes another look at Li, then back at Peter. "It's kind of personal."

Peter swallows thickly.

In his head, he's freaking out. Does Happy know? Did something really go wrong with the spell this time? He barely keeps himself from casting a nervous look at the door.

Peter doesn't want people to remember. It-

Get his things, he needs to get his things and get out of here.

"Yeah? What?" Peter asks, he moves over to his locker.

"I mean, uh," Happy scratches at the back of his neck. "It's about May."

Peter's hand fumbles with the lock badly enough, he has to start inputting the combination again. Still, he breathes a small sigh of relief. Mayz that was all.

Peter raises an eyebrow, "What about her?'

One more look at Li, and Happy sighs, frustrated. "And our mutual contact with May."

"Uh," Peter blinks. Then he just says the same thing he's already said several times in a row, because what was Happy even talking about? "What?"

"Spider-Man," Happy says, finally. "I've got to get in contact with Spider-Man. I thought you might have his number."

Peter freezes, his hand reaching in to grab his backpack and coat stills.

"Spider-Man? What makes you think I'm in contact with him?"

Happy squints, making a face, "You said he's how you know May?"

"Oh!" Peter nervously laughs. He spares a look at Li, who doesn't seem particularly alarmed by the conversation, but curious. Maybe he should've taken one of Happy's many hints and kicked the guy out of the room first but Peter thought having Li there might keep Happy from asking anything too ridiculous… he was wrong. "Well, it's not like I have him on speed dial."

"Right," Happy shakes his head. "Well if you see him, let him know I'm looking for him, okay?"

Peter drags his backpack and coat out of the locker. That couldn't be it, could it? All that Happy had to ask him was Spider-Man's contact information. Peter was relieved, and, yet, disappointed.

"I'll uh, I'll do that," Peter says.

"Yeah, thanks kid. Let him know it's important," Happy sighs.

Happy leaves quickly afterwards. Says he has to use the restroom, but Peter thinks it's just a mix of awkwardness and frustration. He must have really been hoping that Peter had something for him. Peter does, but he can't tell Happy that. He'll just have to stop by the guy's apartment sometime soon and say that kid- that really cool, really handsome one that works at FEAST- sent him along.

Li doesn't mention the exchange until they're in the car. Peter drops his backpack by his feet and drags his knees up to his chest. He's wet again, from the walk outside, but it's not like earlier, and the dry air in the car is working quickly to dry him off.

Li doesn't ask much, either. Just: "You knew May Parker?"

Peter turns to look at him. "Yeah," he says. His fingers tighten around his legs and he curls up further into the warmth of the car, "She was my aunt."

"I didn't know," Li said. "She was an amazing woman."

"She was."

And that's all they need to say for the rest of the ride.

The rain batters the car as they drive, like a drumbeat, the streets are filling with it. Li flicks his turn signal on and it clicks in a rhythm. Peter's vision is hazy, The same way the window looks, covered with that thick blanket of rain.

It's almost soothing. Peter lets his head drop down towards his chest and sinks into his seat. The sounds come to him, and go.

This was nice, he could just fall asleep like this.

-

You've had a long night, Spider-Man. Go to sleep.

-

Waking up the next morning, Peter can't recall getting to his apartment. He must have fallen asleep in Li's car and had to drag himself upstairs. The rain has let up, but the sky is still grey, and it is only a matter of time before another afternoon of bad weather hits.

Peter rolls over, and spots something on the counter.

He stands quickly and stumbles over to it. It's breakfast. Set on a nice plate, a Some sort of pastry, apple slices, and a still steaming cup of coffee.

A note lies next to it.

The crazy man misses you.
- Georgie

Georgie, the Greek woman.

Peter picks up the slip of paper, and sticks it in his pocket. He'll think of what he needs to do later.

Peter eats his breakfast (and it's delicious) as he tries to decide what's worse: Seeing whatever Happy wants, or talking to Wade. It's a hard choice to make, and in the end, Peter decides he doesn't want to do either. He'll go to work, and then on patrol.

But first, he grabs his GED prep book, because, yes, studying actually sounds better than even thinking about the other things he has to do. He'll avoid them for a bit, he decides, and he'll spend time with MJ while she's still there.

Chapter Text

Peter gets shot.

If he said he wasn't expecting something like this to happen, eventually, he'd be lying. It is inevitable that mistakes happen when your brain is a cluttered mess.

It's his own fault, really. It is another whole week before Peter confronts some of his problems. And he doesn't confront them, they confront him. It just so happens that they decide to do this in the form of a bullet hole. Well, two bullet holes, but one bullet.

A bullet that hits him at a regular kind of bank heist where he shouldn't have been shot. Shot at, as he always is, but not actually hit. It lands only because he's distracted, and his senses have been firing like crazy every day now, so he doesn't even feel it coming. It's a clean trajectory through his leg, a spray of blood erupting as it leaves his flesh and gets wedged into the concrete of the bank wall.

Peter still takes them down, calls the police. It is only after he makes sure all the hostages are okay, and that the thieves are all webbed down securely, that he actually limps away.

Things really could be worse, Peter knows that. Peter could have three bullet holes, or four, or ten. The bullet could have hit something vital and not just his thigh. The bullet could have lodged itself inside of him somewhere, and Peter would have to dig it out with his fingers or something sharp from his kitchen, because he definitely did not have the right supplies for extracting a bullet.

In a wider sense too, things could be worse. Peter is grateful that MJ and Ned are still alive. He's grateful that he's alive. He has a place to sleep, food to eat. Things could be worse. But, and no matter how many times he tells himself how good he has it, the nothingness- the limbo- he finds himself in, is painful. It doesn't hurt like the defeat after Thanos took the time stone and left them on that planet to die, or like getting hit with a train, it's not as bad as that. It's different, though, and it hurts in a unique way.

He's moping again. He has been for a while. He is already aware of this hurt- so why does he keep thinking about it?

Of course it's now, at the most inopportune time, His conscious brain comes to him, shakily, and it breaks through the auto-pilot he's been running on for the last few days. It decides to come at the worst time to try and get thoughts in. His hands are fumbling with the rubbing alcohol and gauze and he's also trying to look up how to treat bullet wounds on YouTube (And then there's that constant, loud siren of danger, danger, danger screaming at the back of his head, like it has been doing for a while).

It is now, sitting on his toilet, leg scrunched up to his chest so he can reach it and follow the bandage wrapping tutorial he finds online, that he thinks.

He knows he needs to do something. He needs to talk to someone, anyone. He needs to stop avoiding FEAST because he's so scared of running into Happy.

So, Peter promises himself he will. With a clear head in a few hours, and the bullet wound a bit more healed, he'll figure out what that something he really needs to do is.

Right now, though, he just has to power through the sting of the rubbing alcohol, the cool burn of the antibiotic, and the fact that he wraps the bandages just a little too tight and he doesn't have the energy or will to fix them.

He'll get through this, and then he'll do something. Use the incident as a springboard (or something, whatever the right term would be,) for motivation to change in the morning. He'll sleep through the pain of the healing process, and then he'll do something useful with himself.

He may not actually feel the same way in the morning. He has done that before- made promises to himself that he doesn't keep once he actually has to face down the hard work of carrying them out. But for now, at least, the desire to stop being so full of self-pity is strong enough that the resolve settles inside his chest.

He tugs on the bandages, and they stay in place. He didn't bother with stitches, he heals too fast to warrant them.

Peter can already feel the wound underneath healing, and the healing itself burns- human skin isn't really meant to stitch together so quickly.

He grits his teeth, tries to ignore the pain, and rolls into his bed. The mattress creaks with the movement, springs weak under even his body weight.

Sweat beads on the abnormally hot skin of his forehead, and slides down his face. It's a byproduct of his metabolism kicking in, his body letting go of the adrenaline and allowing the healing to really begin. He knows this. It's still annoying.

He thinks briefly about getting a towel and laying it down to protect his sheets.

Then he doesn't. He doesn't want to move.

The heat builds, and so does the pain. It threads through the rest of his leg and up his hip, up the lines of his nerves

There's nothing he can take to staunch the feeling.

Only Tony would've been able to give him the right kind of painkillers, and he also would've been the only one able to give him the right dosage. Peter no longer has access to it. Stark industries let him do the necessary- making his webs. But they were distant, and Peter couldn't even trust that if he had gone to them they would've given him anything. Painkillers weren't necessary, and Peter couldn't face the impersonal faces of the employees he didn't know to get them. He'd think too much about how it should be Tony that greets him and helps him out.

Still, it didn't hit anything vital, and he would heal.

-

The second form in which his problems confront him are the bright white eyes of the Deadpool suit staring at him.

Peter is woken up by an insistent rapping on his window. The sound is too loud, and too inconsistent to be rain. Peter peels his eyes open, rolls over a little, and finds himself just about face to face with Wade.

Or rather, Deadpool. The black and red suit is a terrifying form on his for escape- nearly blending in with the darkness. The two white lenses in the mask stare through his window, like a creature.

Peter is immediately out of bed- before he can even process what he's looking at. His leg protests at standing, bends in pain, but doesn't collapse beneath him, so Peter labels it as healed enough to fight off the possible intruder.

Then he processes it, his eyes adjust to the darkness, and then some, those enhanced senses kicking in, and he relaxes slightly.

He raises an eyebrow.

Wade points towards the window latch, and Peter sighs but goes to undo it.

Immediately, the man's fingers scrabble forwards and slide the window open.

"You got shot," Wade says, bluntly. He forces himself through the small space of the window. It's awkward, and takes him too long. Wade seems to enjoy doing that- doing anything painful for another person to have to watch.

"You heard," Peter says. He buries his head into his hand. "Right, of course you did, everyone has. I'm sure JJ is sending out the party invitations on live air right now."

"I thought you might be dead," Wade collapses into his floor in a pile of limbs, crammed in the small space between his window and bed. The tone of his voice isn't easy to decipher.

"Not dead," Peter tells him. He sits back down onto the edge of his bed. "Sorry to disappoint."

Wade sits up, and the bright whites of his mask turn to Peter again. "Don't die, Spidey," Wade says.

"I'm not planning on it," Peter crosses his arms over his chest with a huff. "Are you… what are you doing here, man?"

"Sleepover?" Wade asks. "We could watch some dumb rom-coms. The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds is really good-"

Peter holds a hand up to stop him, almost amused, but too tired for it. The dull ache spreading through his leg, and his spidey-sense (danger, danger, danger) don't let the amusement win out. "Wade," Peter grunts, "Get out."

Wade does, without another word, something has shocked him into a quieter state, willing to follow Peter's instructions The mercenary shoves himself back through the window, and ends up a heap of limbs again, but now on the fire escape.

Peter rests his fingers on the window. He hesitates to close it. "Wade," He says, "You're my friend, you know that, right?"

"Of course I am," Wade says. "And you're mine."

Peter narrows his eyes, he starts to close the window-

Fingers lodge between the sill and the closing pane. "Next time you get shot, go get help," Wade says. "Not that you have to. This is America and free will and you can get shot however much you want and not seek help- I mean I've seen the cost of healthcare, man, I totally get it- but please, don't stitch it up yourself, that's…" Wade gestures a gloved hand at Peter's admittedly shoddy bandaging. "Awful. Really awful."

Peter rolls his eyes, but a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "Sure, Wade," He says, too exhausted to think up a wittier response.

He softly closes the window the rest of the way.

Leather gloves and boots squeak against the metal of the fire escape as Wade climbs downwards, and away.

-

Peter wakes up sweaty. His skin is still warm to his own touch. The sheets stick to him and he has to peel them away to get a good look at his leg.

The bullet wound is not healed all the way in the morning.
It's stitched together enough that he can get rid of the blood soaked gauze, but the fresh layer of skin covering the holes the bullet made- the entry and exit - are raw and pink and still sting as he presses his finger down on them. They look angry, a bit too red to just be scabs. They might be infected.

It's almost a relief to see them- not the infection, but the scars themselves. They are the only way Peter knows that last night even happened at all.

Well, he also forgot to lock his window when he closed it up again.

He flicks the lock and starts to get ready. His brain is hazy as he steps into his shower- the one that isn't even in his bathroom, but in the same room as everything else in the cramped studio- and closes the curtain. The water runs cold but Peter is, for once, grateful.

A shower washes off all the crusted blood and grime and sweat, and brushing his teeth feels refreshing. These are the kinds of things he frequently forgets to do, and certainly hadn't had the time to do last night.

Last night is a strange memory in his brain- a reminder to pay more attention, do better, do something with himself. The resolve is still there. Peter is still confused what to do with it.

The day goes as planned up until a certain point. Then it goes bad. Then it goes worse

But most of it is okay. Peter has a limp, and he tells his co-workers it's from clipping his hip on the doors of a subway car, and they don't care enough to pass. He's a bit out of it at work, but it's nothing new. He's usually somewhere up in his head anyways, this time there's just the added stress of a mild fever.

His boss asks if he needs to go home early, but Peter waves him off.

By the time work is over, however, his fever has ratcheted up past mild. His skin is swollen around the wound, but the scabs are thicker, more healed, despite the fact they're clearly infected.

Patrolling might be out for the day, but he still ends up at FEAST, determined to work off the pain and the sick. He doesn't see Happy.

He ends up packing supplies in the shed outside. Organizing it while he goes. Keeping himself busy.

His movements are clumsier than usual. His breathing is difficult, labored in a way that reminds him of before he had his powers. Like asthma. His parents trying to depress that plunger on time, scared for the day no one will make it in time, him included, to press it down, and even out his breathing.

He sits for one second on a folding chair, trying to catch his breath, and-

-

"Peter," Li says, a hand pushes on his sweaty forehead, moving his bangs out of the way. "You have a fever."

"Mr. Li," Peter slurs. "I have a what?"

"You need medical care," Li tells him.

Peter shakes his head, he snacks away Li's hand with more force than he means to. Li doesn't even flinch. "No- No doctors."

A sigh. "I know."

"Where 'm I?" Peter asks.

"Storage," Li tells him, "The kids found you here."

"Smoking?" Peter asks.

"Supposedly looking for some lost earbuds. But, yes, smoking."

"Noooo," Peter whines.

Li smiles at Peter's behavior. "If it makes you feel better, I think you might have scared them out of it for a bit. They thought you might be dead."

Arms loop underneath Peter's knees and his shoulders. As Li lifts Peter to his chest, with a surprising amount of ease, the teenager notices how Li is careful not to jostle his thigh. Like he already knows where the wound is.

"You really don't know any doctors?" Li asks.

Peter rests his head against the pane of Li's broad chest. It's hard with muscle that Peter didn't know was there

"I know one," the words slip past Peter's lips without thought. "Well two. But Banner is like- he doesn't know me.. And then Strange, but I don't want to talk to Strange. Well-" Peter's vision swims, and he has to find the words again, "I kind of do, cause my senses have been going crazy, like something is following me, and I guess I want to see those Greek people, and Wade."

Li's face twists at the mention of the man. They're walking now. Well, Li is walking, Peter is curled up in his arms. When they get outside, Peter realizes it's much darker than he expects.

"Late," Peter says dumbly.

"It's two in the morning," Li tells him.

"Where are we going?" Peter asks.

Li answers him.

The words are muffled, though, like Peter is underwater. He looks like he's underwater, too. Surrounded by darkness, stranded somewhere murky.

Peter lets his head dip on the other side of Li's arm. He tries to keep his eyes open, watching the world retreat behind him, backwards and upside down. It's sickening, and Peter would vomit, but he can't.

He fails to stay awake. His eyes slip closed again.

-

The smell of a new car. The smooth hum of machinery underneath him.

Peter is buckled in.

"You remind me of Mr. Stark," Peter says. "Sometimes."

He doesn't know who answers, but they sound surprised. "Interesting."

-

Broken bits of Chinese. Someone is talking on the phone. There's the smell of something good cooking. An open bottle of wine.

Whatever he is lying on is soft. Something is cool and wet on his forehead.

His breathing stutters in his chest. Something twists inside of him, and he groans. He knows he would vomit if he could, but there's nothing in him, so he is left heaving without reprieve.

Two legs appear in his eyeline. A hand lands on his cheek.

His body calms. He breathes easier.

-

Rest, Spider-Man.

-

"Work," Peter whines. "Need to call in."

The person standing there needs his passcode, Peter gives it to them. They explain the situation-what situation?- to his boss so calmly. Voice fluid and easy like water.

The thing on his forehead is replaced, and a new rush of cool relief spreads through his face.

Then he's alone. Dress shoes squeak against the floor. Silk clothes. They're going to work now, or something.

They sit him up first, before they go.

"Antibiotics," they explain, holding an orange bottle in one of their hands. Pills rattle inside. "How much do you need?"

Peter tries to think.

"A lot," is the answer he settles on.

-

"May" Peter says. He reaches in front of himself blindly. The person returns, replaces the towel.

"I'll take that as a compliment," they say back.

-

Peter opens his eyes to a pleasant light. He lifts up to his forehead, and pulls off the towel that has been laid across it. It might've been cold once, but it's now lukewarm. He sits up and holds it to his chest awkwardly. He's not sure where he's supposed to drop it.

He's not sure where he is.

He's on someone's couch. Someone's really nice couch. The apartment in general- the penthouse, really- is just absolutely gorgeous. Peter gasps as he takes it in. He's not sure if he's ever seen anything quite like it. He'd never actually seen Avengers tower, because Stark sold it, and Peter was certainly never rich enough- not in the right circles- to be invited into a place like this unless it was Stark.

Giant windows overlook Manhattan, the wooden floors are dark and polished, the furniture is all good quality and clearly taken care of.

It's decorated well. Art filling the walls in a tasteful, and careful arrangement. The kind of art an actual collector has, so not just paintings everyone recognizes. There's statues and masks and beautiful ink prints. All arranged in such a way that Peter finds his eyes getting lost inside of them.

Peter stands, notices that his leg feels perfectly fine now, no wobble at all, and looks around. There's a second floor above the kitchen, a spiral staircase winds down from it, opening up next to the beautiful marble counters and shiny new appliances.

Peter finds his attention drawn back down to the floor he's on. He walks over to the walls, looking at the art more closely. His fingers brush over the surface of a piano in the corner.

He presses down a note. It rings out.

A door opens upstairs. Martin Li steps out of it, he is as composed as ever, even in what looks to be pajamas.

"You're awake," He states.

"I am," Peter says, he holds back his surprise. He tests his weight on each of his feet, hoping for an explanation that doesn't come. "Uh, this is your place?"

Li nods.

"It's nice," Peter says. "Super fancy. Totally you."

Li smiles. "I take pride in my space," he tells Peter. Then says. "You should sit back down, I'll get you some water- if you think you can stomach it now?"

Peter nods dumbly and sits back down onto the couch. Li descends the stairs and Peter can hear the clinking of glasses.

"I'm sorry, this must be confusing," Li says. And he explains quickly. "You were sick, and you refused to go to the hospital, You needed hands-on care, more than what the nurses at FEAST could give you- I wasn't sure where else I could take you."

Peter blinks, owlish. "You didn't just take me to the hospital."

"You didn't want to go," Li explains. He rounds the couch with a glass of water in hand. Peter takes it.

"And you listened to me?"

Li nods. "You were quite adamant. And I don't know your circumstances, but I didn't want to put you in more danger. If your fever didn't break in the next hour or so, though, I was going to call the hospital."

Peter stares at the glass of water in his hand.

"I- thank you."

"I'm going to make dinner," Li says. "If that water stays down… Will you be staying to eat?"

"I'm, sure... I can help cook if you want," Peter offers, unsure of what else to do.

Li smiles, "That would be nice."

Peter does try to help. But it's more like he stands in the kitchen, watching Li chop vegetables, mesmerized by the speed and efficiency of his knife. Peter struggles with an onion, and gets moved to potato peeling duty, and then Peter gets moved to another job before he can finish that. Li moves through the space like a master chef, dicing, chopping, peeling, carefully working through a recipe he opens to in a cookbook. The page has been doggy-eared for ease.

He asks Peter to start the rice, and Peter tries to do it on his own, but it ends up with Li teaching Peter how to use a pressure cooker.

"I don't make rice a lot, and when I do, I just use the stove," Peter explains. "I think my skills are more… uh, just think broke college student with a pantry full of ramen."

Li smiles good-naturedly. "You're fine," he says. "Really, I don't mind getting to cook for someone, you know."

Peter feels warmth blossom in his chest.

"I don't get it," Peter says, a few minutes later, watching Li move around the kitchen gracefully. "Why are you being so nice?"

Li pauses.

"I've already told you," Li says. "You're a good kid, Peter, I want to help you."

"I don't- I just don't get it. Why didn't you call the hospital?" Peter asks again.

"I don't want to make your life harder," Li answers. He comes around to rest his hands on Peter's shoulders, "I didn't want you to get in trouble, or for someone to show up who you didn't want showing up."

Peter feels his whole body relax. He doesn't want to question Li's kindness. He is just so overwhelmed by it. "Thank you," he whispers. He's flustered with the kindness. Tripped up by it.

"I trust you," Li says. "Or I would've called."

"You're a good guy," Peter says.

Li makes an interesting face, thoughtful, and then returns to his cooking. "Most of the time, yes."

Peter doesn't understand the response. He can't think of a way in which Li is a bad man. He's a smart, honest businessman, he runs a homeless shelter, makes hundreds of people feel safe, brings hundreds of people food and shelter and opportunities, and he has nursed Peter back to health for no reason other than… the goodness of his heart.

"Li," Peter says. He meets the man's eyes. "Thank you."

-

Deadpool hugs him upon arrival at the sanctum, dragging him inside. Peter lets it happen. He could've dodged, but he doesn't, just lets his face be smushed into the other man's chest.

"You weren't at your apartment," Wade says.

"I had a fever," Peter says. "Someone let me sleep at their place, helped me through it."

Wade fusses. It's an odd thing. Peter isn't annoyed by it, this time.

"Good job, Peter!" Wade says, dragging him through the halls, catching the eyes of the wizards. They don't pay attention to Wade, apparently used to his antics, just Peter. Peter is aware that he's in his civvies this time, not the spider-suit but he doesn't worry about them knowing- if they put it together and figured out he was Spider-Man. He was pretty sure they knew already, or could figure out if they wanted. Several wizards already had figured it out, with no help from him.

"Good job?"

"You asked for help!" Wade explains. "Gold star for that."

Peter doesn't mention that he didn't ask for help. That help seems to find him, regardless of whether he wants it or asks for it or not. He let himself pass out in a shed, and he was lucky enough that someone cared to help him out.

Wade doesn't apologize for his actions. Peter doesn't expect him to, really. Wade doesn't seem like the kind of person capable of saying sorry. Peter isn't sure what he's supposed to do with that. He decides it's okay, probably.

What Wade does say, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of the hall, is "And I know you're a different Peter. You're Peter, but a different Peter."

Peter nods, and the moment is over. The grip returns to his wrist, and Wade skips down the hall. Peter lets himself be dragged along.

His spidey-sense crawls up his spine, sharper than ever, but at least his emotions loosen. He's calm, he's happy.

Strange is too busy to see him. All the wizards are. Peter does however, catch a sliver of familiar looking handwriting on a note posted to the fridge.

I told you he missed you. Also, you really should ask. He's not always busy.
-Georgie.

Peter peels The sticky of the note off the fridge and pockets it. Wade opens the freezer next to him, and yanks out a tub of ice cream.

"Sleepover?" Wade asks. Eyes hopeful.

Peter sighs. Wade gives him these puppy eyes that Peter can't deny.

Eventually, he gives in. "I'll stay for a while."

Wade cheers, he stuffs the first tub of ice cream into Peter's arms, and then takes out another one.

He doesn't know what he needs to ask about. So he doesn't ask about anything.

Chapter Text

"I think I used to have that shirt," MJ says to him. She once told Peter she hated normal greetings- she always tried to start a conversation past the painful formalities.

Peter looks down. It's MJ's shirt. It looked big on him, hid the more defined lines of his shoulders and stomach. When she used to wear it, she drowned in the fabric.

He was there when she pulled it out of the goodwill bins, saw the random band logo, and Betty convinced her it would be a good sleep shirt.

He promptly stole it.

"I think I borrowed it once," Peter says, he smiles at her, a little joke only he knows. "But I think at this point I've just stolen it."

"Other people's clothes are the best," She says. Her smirk is knowing, and it startles him. "I've got hoodies I borrowed, and I don't even know who they belong to anymore. They're the best things in my closet."

Peter doesn't stay in the shop that day.

-

Peter never stays in the shop. Never long enough, at least.

MJ knows that well.

-

MJ is wearing the hoodie again.

She scrunches her hand into the fabric and brings it up to her face, inhaling. She could not say why it smells so nice. The faint hint of lemony detergent, and chemicals, and her own, older perfume, the one she ran out of in December and switched out, because the other one was limited edition. Smells that remind her of someone she doesn't even know, and someone she does, kind of, sort of- she's not sure.

Parker. He smells like this, sans her own perfume. Parker, Parker Parker, who takes up space in her brain that he shouldn't.

He comes in, orders one chocolate donut, one coffee with so much cream and sugar she's surprised he's not dead after drinking it.

He says he doesn't like coffee. But he keeps ordering it. She finds this amusing.

Sometimes he orders an egg sandwich, this means he will stay, and MJ likes it when he does that, because then she can talk to him. He'll sit in the farthest booth away from her and run through GED questions with an efficiency that means he's obviously smart enough to pass the test without the practice.

Sometimes, he'll read the news. He takes notes on it, like only a lunatic, or a journalist, or a vigilante trying to stay up on crime statistics does. And he does it in this terrible handwriting, more scratch and scribble than anything resembling the English language, with no consideration for lines or space, that- and she checked, again and again- also frequently shows up in the margins of her school notebooks.

Freshman year, she draws Captain America. It's a silly looking cap, not in his combat suit but the ridiculous one he wears on the PSA's they watch in gym.

A speech bubble extends from the face and scribble writes inside: Abstinence!

It's not a funny joke anymore. But she remembers it being funny, then, when she was an awkward freshman, with a worse sense of humor that she pretended she was above. She remembers acting annoyed though. Rolling her eyes at…

At…

Well, Ned was there, sitting next to whoever it was, and he was laughing.

Sophomore year, she writes: U good?

The bad handwriting wrote back to her, barely decipherable: Do u think Ms. Millican is an alien?

Junior year, the notes become more frequent. Sometimes, more serious.

Scribble writes: You've been absent.

She writes back: Sick

A poorly drawn frowny face is the response to that. She doesn't even know how someone draws a bad frowny face. But the eyes are uneven, and the penmanship is sloppy.

In the beginning of her lab notebook from this year, she finds a sticky note. She'd drawn a spider. It's a good drawing, the hatching is amazing, and it's a drawing she'd be more proud of if she could remember drawing it.

She puts it up on her wall. She knows what it means, even if she can't remember why.

Parker- Peter- is Spider-Man. She doesn't know the first time he shows up, or the second, but the third. His eyes linger on her necklace, the dahlia she forgot to tuck underneath her collar, and she just knows. There's no reason for her to know, but she does. Everything falls into place after that.

The notes on the news, the way he perks up at other people's conversations in the diner, sometimes rushes out in a hurry and then something comes through on the news thirty minutes later about a car crash or a robbery or something.

She drops a tray of food on her way to a table and he catches it with one hand, spilling nothing. The table she'd been walking towards, middle-schoolers, all clap at Peter's show of reflexes.

Peter blushes and leaves. He is always leaving.

The moment attention is on him, he's gone.

She leaves the necklace out sometimes, just to see how his eyes catch on it, on the broken petals.

(A voice in her head, it sounds like Peter, he sounds disappointed. A bit heartbroken. Rushed, and a little gritty and worn, like it had been crying.

"I had this plan, this stupid plan, I wrote it all down-"

Gloved hands are cupping hers, a broken necklace, and she is leaning forward, why is she leaning forward? She can't remember.)

He brings it up only once. Seems nervous about it.

("Oh this," she says. "It was a gift."

"Couldn't have been a very nice one," he says, shaking his head, he's doing that thing where he thinks she doesn't get it, and she doesn't but that's not the point. She should get it. She does, somewhere in her head. "It's broken."

She hands him a donut. They're out of chocolate, and he gets strawberry instead. The one next to it. She suspects he doesn't care about the flavor, just her ease of access to it from the case. He likes to keep all of his orders simple.

"I like it like that," she says. Her finger curls into the chain.

His eyes follow her movements.

Peter leaves then. He always leaves before MJ can muster up her courage and ask him-)

Ned points out the hoodie as she flops down on the couch next to him. He stops in the middle of his ramblings to do so. Betty got a new boyfriend, Ned is happy for her, and he'd like a girlfriend, but he's also working on himself right now, there's also some new vigilante, real crazy dude, a new Hawkeye too, it's a girl now, which MJ should like, and why would I like that? she asks just to mess with him.

"You wear that one a lot," Ned says.

It's yellow, and has a blue, cursive-like Queens embroidered into the breast. She embroidered it, but she can't remember why, or for who (but it's Peter, she knows that, but doesn't). It smells the strongest, like it got the most wear.

"I like it," she replies, simply. She's not lying.

She pulls her hair out from the collar and lets it fall loose onto her shoulders. It's not being cooperative tonight, frizzy with humidity from the rain. Peter had been in the diner earlier that week, telling her the weather was going to be bad, and he was right.

"Well, anyways-" Ned starts, and he goes on about the new Zelda game that's going to come out. MJ played some of the first one, she liked it, but she never finished. She only had animal crossing, and the Zelda game asn't on her Switch, it was on someone else's and she always meant to borrow it from-

But-

She brings a hand up to her forehead. A headache. "I'm ordering food," She tells Ned, standing right back up. She's also getting some water. Maybe some Advil. "You feeling Thai?"

"Oh I larb Thai food," Ned says.

"Not as much as I larb it," she says.

Ned and her tried to figure out when they started that joke, back in January when they last ordered Thai food. Neither of them could remember.

-

MJ has long grown used to spending most of her nights alone. Gayle works night shifts, some security job at an art gallery that keeps her from being around, but pays the bills.

If her sister isn't there when she comes home from work, then there's no one. Her mother and father are, as she'd predicted when she was a freshman and saw her father brandishing a knife at her mother's chest, grip wobbly with drunkenness, gone.

It's good. She's glad they're not there.

They hadn't been around, really, for years, and she knows that. She had just been clinging onto the hands of ghosts that didn't want her.

It was so obvious once she let go, how glad she was that they were gone.

Sometimes, maybe, she misses the before. She misses when they were really there, and not just spirits haunting her out of some parental necessity. The before, when she was six years old and her father would do her hair up with butterfly clips, and talk about his student's antics, or the particular history of whatever record he'd started to play. Back when her mother used to sway her hips to the music, and smile- before she was always frowning, and screaming-

She tries to only mourn that first version of them. Even that is dangerous. It messes with her head, makes her almost think they could come back around someday.

She knows they can't. They'd been gone for a long time now.

Even when they should've been the closest, when they were the closest, physically- sleeping in motels, other people's apartments, or crammed into the truck that didn't have room for them, all throughout middle school, while she desperately tried to pass Midtown's entrance exam, and hoped that her shoddy school attendance didn't ruin her chances- they were always gone.

For years, her parents were in their own worlds, orbiting their own suns, far away from MJ's.

Then five years passed in a void, and passed while her sister grew up and moved out and MJ was just gone, didn't exist, and any small connection that was there was mercilessly, and mercifully, snapped.

MJ came back, and Gayle owned an apartment, a little farther from school, but much homier. They set up partitions to make two rooms out of one. They were thin, but they got the job done, and they kept different schedules, anyways, so it was never really a problem.

It only became a problem when MJ brought a boy over, and Gayle snuck up on them and said, holding back laughter, that she could hear everything. The hand that had been placed on MJ's waist drew back, and the boy was too flustered and awkward to continue.

MJ can't think of his face.

But she pictures it as Peter Parker's.

Tonight, MJ is alone. She is used to it. For some reason, though, she feels different about it. Has felt different about it for months. She knows she was spending her nights with someone for a while. Sneaking over to their apartment, or having him sneak over to hers, and it was nice.

She remembers the nights where Ned was there too the best. Those are the clearest in her head, because the clear memory of another person would sometimes break up the haziness of the scene.

She remembers the three of them, huddled together, watching something on the TV. It was them against the world, like some stupid cliche.

She remembers it being warm, though. Cozy. Safe.

She puts the kettle on for tea, and pads her way to the living room. She draws for a while, until that can't distract her from the feeling of missing, missing, missing and then she turns on the news.

Spider-Man has been shot.

-

She goes to look for him. It's an impulsive thing, and a dangerous one. She keeps mace curled up in one of her fists, thumb poised to lift up the safety cap, and sticks a pocket knife inside of her waistband. She shouldn't go out alone at night, but she does.

Spider-Man is gone. More than that, the crowd is gone, by the time she gets there. The streets are empty besides some employees sweeping broken glass off the sidewalk.

She walks to an apartment in Queens, like it's a path she has taken before, but the moment she sees the curtains and they're green- not the right color- she knows that Spider-Man isn't there.

She doesn't know where to find him. She still tries, walking around with her hood pulled up to hide her face, searching for the injured man.

By the time she gets home it's late.

She sleeps in, skips until her last period, and gives the office a sick note that they're happy to accept.

They're seniors, they graduate in a month, and no one really cares if MJ comes at all.

-

MIT is this promise. Shiny and bright, at the end of a long tunnel. One in middle school that she thought she might never see the other end of. She's got one hell of a scholarship, which means she can afford it, even if it'll he hard.

Still, she's hesitating. She already sent back her own declaration to attend. A down payment. She can't afford to hesitate.

"I might take a gap year," She says to Ned.

He nods. And, surprising her, he says, "I've been thinking about one, too."

"Really?" She asks.

"Yeah," Ned tells her. "I think I just need a break, you know? And like, clear my head."

The bell rings, Peter Parker walks through the door.

It's not his normal time for visiting. It's later in the evening than he usually shows up. He's wearing his uniform, the one she's seen once or twice (mechanic looking, he's very good with tech, she knows this) the top of it unbuttoned and revealing a plain T-shirt underneath. There's an oil stain that goes up from the elbow to his shoulder.

MJ breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of him. Ned's eyes are wide at the sight of him.

"Good to have you back," MJ tells him. Peter glances towards Ned. It's barely noticeable, but MJ is good at reading people- their small tells, micro-expressions, the way Peter looks at her like he is in so much pain and so much in love.

"I was gone?" Peter asks.

MJ notices her mistake. "Three days without my favorite customer," She says, refusing to blush, or be embarrassed. This is surprisingly easy around Peter. He doesn't embarrass her, he makes her feel happy. Speaking is easier when he's there. "I noticed."

"Hey!" Ned says from behind her, "I thought I was your favorite customer!"

"Sorry," She says. She doesn't sound apologetic.

"I'm Ned, by the way," Ned says to Peter, waving, "Have we met?"

Peter shrugs, he's doing the thing. "Nice to meet you Ned, I'm Peter," he's doing the thing where he keeps that little joke, that little painful thing inside of him and MJ wishes she knew what it was. Who is he? Who is Peter Parker? "And no, I think I just have one of those faces, you know?"

MJ shakes her head but doesn't say anything besides. "Chocolate donut and a coffee?"

Peter nods.

-

And then Spider-Man goes missing.

Ned hurries into the diner, and tells her to open her phone, and there he is. Or he isn't. Spider-Man. The man who takes up all of her brain space, is suddenly taking up every headline.

She watches the video once, Ned urging her. She watches it again. It plays in a loop, until she feels sick.

Spider-Man- Peter- is mid-swing over Times Square.

And then he's gone. Vanished.

The line of the web slowly falls back, the weight and momentum pulling it forward suddenly gone. Spider-Man disappears into thin air.

For some reason, she thinks of her parents. Gone. And she doesn't miss them, because she had an explanation. She knew what she was missing.

Right then, she doesn't know what she's missing. Who she's missing. Just his face, and his smile, and the way his hands feel when she gives him change, and tries to remember a time when she held them. She searches for the callouses she knows, for some reason, are there.

There's a hole in her heart that can't be explained.

MJ leaves work early. Drags a panicking Ned out the door with her.

She doesn't know where to go, so she just lets her feet carry her to another unknown destination. And this time it's not the apartment, with the wrong colored curtains, but another place, along another route, that she knows for a reason she can't remember.

They don't take a bus. She's not sure if she could give the directions to someone else. It's just in her head somewhere, a need that drives one foot in front of the other. Plus, they're close enough to Greenwich anyways, there's no use in wasting the money.

Ned doesn't ask where they're going. He seems to get it, anyways, he's walking there too.

Chapter Text

Peter waits until he knows everyone is out of town, Pepper is home upstate, taking care of Morgan, Rhodes is on mission far from New York, and, to Peter’s knowledge, all of the other supers are either not in the state, or staying at the compound.

The Stark labs in New York city are smaller now. The flashy beacon of Stark tower, then Avengers tower, then Stark tower again was sold off years ago (the same year Peter broke into the Washington monument, took down the invisible plane with Toomes in it, and stood up Liz Toomes at homecoming, it was an exciting year).

Most of Stark's business focused elsewhere nowadays, Washington, or back to LA and Miami where Stark used to live, before he uprooted his life and tried to make himself The Avenger's sponsor.

The building that remained in Manhattan was still nice, though. Small, but nice.

Nice architecture, however, didn't negate the awkwardness Peter felt upon stepping inside. He waves to the secretary at the front desk and she sighs.

“We’ll clear out a lab for you,” She says, “But could you maybe call ahead next time?”

He hides himself away in an office break room while he waits for the batch of webs he started to finish cooking up. He steals a bagel from a communal box that's been left open. It's stale from being left out all day.

He locks the door before sitting down. Better safe than sorry.

No one bothers him.

-

Spider-Man knocks on Happy's apartment window, and waits for the man to let him inside, perched on the wall.

A curtain across the street is peeked through, two eyes focusing in on Peter, and then the fabric is pulled tighter across the window.

Spider-Man should be a beacon of hope. Heroes in general should be. People shouldn't be wary of them.

But, there’s been a turn in the way the media portrays them lately- and while most of the people on the streets still welcome Peter with open arms, he can feel the divide growing bigger between himself and the civilians he tries to save with each passing day. The police certainly hate him, when they didn’t before.

This kind of thing has happened before- a first surge of adoration came with the emergence of the Avengers, but it turned towards caution a few years later, after HYDRA and Sokovia. Then, the accords were birthed out of that.

It seemed that as long as heroes were around, public opinion would be a changing thing, not a stagnant one. A pendulum that swung from hate to love every couple years.

And right now, thanks to the attack on the UN (Despite the new Cap's ability to make a speech, and get people calmed down), Scarlet Witch taking an entire town hostage, and Peter's (as JJ put it) ‘attempted decimation’ of the Statue of liberty… Everyone is on that doward swing towards hate and distrust.

Maybe Peter's exaggerating. JJ’s broadcast this morning had been particularly mean, and Peter still felt a bit sour thinking about it.

Or maybe it’s just the times. It’s not just JJ that has been dragging super’s names through the mud lately… even if JJ is the one Peter thinks of the most.

(JJ's ugly mustache framing his thin-lipped scowl. His angry face on every television, every smartphone. James Jonah Jameson, a grown man, respected in his field, making the decision to air Peter’s face, a seventeen year old kid’s face, on live television, and accuse him of mass murder and destruction.)

So, nowadays, people are starting to not like Spider-Man. Especially in nice neighborhoods like this.

And while Peter is fuzzy on the details of what people do know… they probably knew that they lived only a street away from where Happy's old building was ruined a few months ago. Several condos decimated- families traumatized from the sight of Green Goblin beating Spider-Man to a bloody pulp, or a giant lizard clawing through the glass of their windows, and then left without a place to stay. The lobby is still out of commission, and construction equipment, dormant for the night, lies scattered on the sidewalk where they've been working for months to undo the damage Spider-Man did.

Yeah, these people really don’t want Spider-Man here.

It's probably the wrong time to do this, and maybe the wrong place, Peter knows that. He could’ve ambushed Happy at work, but the man’s hours don’t work for him- this is the time Peter has.

Peter wonders for a second if Happy will even let him inside. He knows that Happy doesn't typically stay up late. The man's sleep schedule usually has him down by twelve o'clock.

Peter knows this because Happy complained about it quite a bit. When Happy stayed at their apartment, he would always groan out something about his age and how, when he was younger, he used to get away without eight hours of sleep, and how he was envious of Peter's constant energy.

Peter misses Happy's grumblings. He misses when Happy and May were dating, and even when they weren't, when Happy would come over for dinner, or drive him home from school on a particularly hard day. Or, after one of Mysterio's supporters- a crazy, but not insignificant group, said something particularly horrifying about Peter.

Peter liked having Happy around in general.

Those times especially, though. When the night was calm and sleepy, and Happy himself was tired, was when Peter got to know Happy best. It was a side of the man that Peter hadn’t gotten to see before. Tired, Happy would tell Peter stories about Tony, sometimes Rhodey, (though even though Happy glossed over it in his stories, Peter knew Rhodey didn't usually participate in the antics willingly), sometimes the Avengers. Happy was never a superhero, he was just kind of dragged along into helping them sometimes. But he’d done his job. He’d liked his job.

Peter waits for Happy to come to the window, and after a moment without response, he knocks again.

Another moment, there is no indication that Peter has been heard.

Peter is about to give up, when he suddenly hears the sound of something moving in the other room.

There’s some grumbling. It's Happy.

Peter peers through the glass. The bedroom door opens, and Happy blearily swipes his eyes around his apartment, confused. He brings out his phone, presumably to check the time.

Peter knocks on the glass once more, getting his attention. A sleepy Happy turns towards him. Peter waves.

The window opens a second later. Happy steps back and gives him an expectant look. Peter crawls inside.

"Let me guess," Happy sighs, dragging a hand along his face, "You hacked Stark’s system?”

Confused, Peter shrugs. “I did… uh, years ago? Why do you ask?”

"Oh, so you just know where I live, then?" Happy asks, sarcastic. "The new place?"

Oh, this Happy had no memories of Spider-Man coming over? Perhaps Happy had thought more of Peter instead of Spider-Man than he had ever actually cared to admit to the teenager.

"You're not that hard to find?" Peter says, it sounds like a question. Happy raises an eyebrow, mouth opening to speak again. Peter knows he needs to change the subject. He interrupts Happy before he can ask anything. "You- Uh, Peter said you needed to see me?"

"Doesn’t have Spider-Man on speed dial my ass,” The man grunts. “What’s your deal with that kid anyways?”

Peter freezes. Lie. He needs a lie. “Peter’s a friend.” Which is- That’s actually kind of a lie. Which is funny in a sad kind of way. Peter takes a look at Happy, the man seems unsatisfied with the answer. Peter's brain must hate him, because he blurts out. “He’s really good with tech.”

Happy’s eyes widen in understanding. “So he’s your guy in the chair, huh?”

“Uh," Peter panics, "Yeah, kind of" he says. It is true, in a very dishonest way. Internally, he winces at Happy's choice of phrase- Happy didn’t know it was one Peter had taught him. “He’s my guy in the chair.”

"Your guy?"

"My guy?"

“Spider-Man's guy is a high school dropout."

Peter winces at that, and is glad Happy is now turning away and can’t see the reaction. “The guy is smart! He just… has circumstances,” Peter tells him. "You know. He's busy.”

“Whatever- I thought you were the tech guy," Happy says. Maybe I should've brought Peter in for this."

“I'm a tech guy too," Peter reassures him. "What is it?”

It is not what Peter expected. It's the fabricator. The one that Electro had gone for back in November, after Peter had been using it to make cures for the supervillains.

"It's busted," Happy says, he kicks the machine. "Hasn't worked for a while. I remember-" A sharp breath, "You had to use it."

Peter comes to stand next to Happy and the machine and reaches a hand out towards it. His palm spreads out flat on the metal. There's no thrum of electricity underneath the surface. It stays folded up and unresponsive.

The sight gleam of the arc reactor inside lets him know that's at least intact. That's the part Electro had actually targeted before.

"I can try and fix it," Peter tells him. "I thought- Peter said you told him this was important. This is just- you could've gone to, like, any of the people at Stark with this."

Happy averts his eyes. The man looks guilty, "I'm not supposed to have it."

Peter snorts. "You stole it?"

"No," Happy shuffles on his feet, "I was just supposed to return it. When I quit."

Peter pulls his hands away quickly from the machine. He turns towards Happy, eyes wide. "You quit?" Peter asks, a bit too loud. A bit too surprised. "I thought- I thought you liked your job, though. "

Happy shrugs. "I did."

"Is it," Peter hesitates, "Was it Mr. Stark? You couldn't, uh…" Peter doesn't know what to say. Couldn't say it, actually. You couldn't grieve properly without the freedom to move on? That felt too much like a question that would make him think about himself.

“Actually,” Happy shakes his head. "It was May."

Peter blinks. "Why? What does her, uh," Peter chokes on the word, but manages to get it out, "Death have to do with your job?"

Happy shrugs. "I don't know, kid. I just knew I couldn't stay there. There was nothing in it for me anymore."

A moment of silence. Happy sounds like he's being honest, and Peter isn't sure how to comfort him, or if he needs to comfort him, so Peter turns his attention back to the machine in front of him.

This can't be it. There's another reason Peter is here, and he knows it.

Someone would fix the fabricator for Happy if he asked. The man was one of Tony's right-hands for years, one of Tony's friends. There was no urgent need to fix the fabricator- or, it shouldn't be, unless Happy was suddenly interested in engineering. Happy wouldn't have asked Spider-Man here if it was urgent, not after months of radio silence and no reliable way to contact him.

Peter sets his hand down on the metal again and runs his fingers along its sleek surface.

"Thought you might want the first look at it," Happy tells him. "You were the last person to use it. Thought there might be something on there that you don't want me to see."

"Thanks, Happy," Peter says. That's a nice thought for Peter's well-being on Happy's part, but it's still not everything. The other motive Happy has eludes him. "Can I- I can do it right now, if you want?"

"Sure," Happy says, he's grumpy about it (as usual). But there's an undercurrent of something else that actually sounds relieved. "Not like I was sleeping or anything."

"I can leave," Peter offers.

Happy rolls his eyes. "Just fix it. Who knows when you'll actually visit again?"

Peter shrugs, he circles the machine to inspect the backside, his fingers follow along, until they catch on the ridge of a panel. Peter could pry it off, but there's no reason to. He taps on the screw holding the thing in place.

"You got tools?" Peter asks.

Peter assesses the damage. Pries apart as much as he can without breaking it more. The insides of the thing are horrifically massacred, Electro had battered and fried a lot of beautiful tech in his (unfortunately successful) attempt to gain more power. It almost hurt to look at. Stark's engineering was art, and Electro had defaced it.

But Peter knows Stark tech well, and it was resilient. Peter could fix this.

After a half an hour or so of meticulously assessing the damage, because stuff like this takes a long time when you weren't Tony Stark with an arsenal of highly intelligent AI at your command to do stuff for you, Peter has a good idea of what he needs to do, and a plan for executing the repairs.

"But I need stuff," Peter tells Happy.

Happy is annoyed, but resigned, and asks him to list it off.

Peter ends up writing everything down- Happy, despite his best attempts at listening, doesn’t know what technological garble Peter is telling him he needs.

Happy tacks the list up on his fridge with a magnet.

"This time," He tells Peter, as the teenager slides open the window again. "Don't leave me waiting for months before I hear back from you. Okay?"

Peter has one foot out the window. He shouldn't do this. He knows it.

"I can give you my number," Peter says. "So you can tell me when you've got everything."

-

May comes. April ends. It is one step closer to the summer, and then his friend's inevitable departure in the fall.

Peter floats along for a few weeks in a kind of haze. He is both happy and sad. People continue to feed him: Georgie sometimes leaves him breakfast, along with notes he doesn't quite get. Li sneaks him sandwiches, along with small therapy sessions.

His bullet hole leaves a scar, but a small one, and probably only because it got so infected. Peter will run his fingers over it sometimes, just to feel the bump of raised skin under touch, and remind himself that those three Strange nights were, in fact, real. They didn't feel real- from Wade's check-in, to Li's homemade dinner- they felt like a dream.

Wade joins him on patrols now, but he doesn't do it every day, and he always asks if he can come along first. Wade looks a little like a kid asking for their parents signature on a field trip permission form.

Peter has yet to say no when he asks, but he still appreciates the gesture.

They don't apologize.

They never really talk about their little argument. Wade makes one joke about it that makes Wade himself laugh, but not Peter, and then it doesn't get brought up again.

They do, however, change, and somewhere along the way they forget they even fought.

Wade is more careful with his words, a bit more cagey around Peter. Cagey isn't ideal, but it's better in a way. Wade treats him like a friend, but a new one- a bit cautious, and unsure, not making as many assumptions about Peter’s feelings. Not in a way that would be obvious unless Peter knew what he was like before. Wade is still an overwhelming presence but it's… manageable now. Barely.

They get to know each other. Or, Peter gets to know him without feeling like he's just some replacement for another Peter.

Wade already kind of knows him. Wade knows his favorite food (May's apple pie), his favorite color (Red, which would've been easy enough to guess, but Wade didn't guess), that he dislikes mayonnaise (in sandwiches, at least) and crusty bread, and that he secretly hates Stars Wars as much as he loves it. But Wade gets to know him better, and he does not, in fact, know him in every way. Peter still gets to surprise him sometimes.

(Peter squints at Wade. "What?" He asks.

"On the field trip," Wade says, lie Peter is supposed to know what that means. "When you got bit by the spider?'

Peter shakes his head with a dry laugh. "It definitely wasn't on a field trip, man. I can tell you that much.")

Perhaps it's not the healthiest way to be, never quite serious or mature enough to really talk about what bothers them, but it is a way to be and it works well enough for the time being. The sensitive Wade, the one who showed up at his window and asked him not to die, hides somewhere deep deep underneath the suit, and the mask of ridiculous behavior, and Peter is content just knowing that. He doesn't need to see him all the time. He just knows he's under there, he knows Wade cares, and it's nice.

Who would've thought? Friends were nice. Nice to have. Nice to be around.

Wade moves out of the sanctum. Says the wizards are finally starting to leave again, but he needs to strike out- be his own man!

("So, basically, Strange finally kicked you out?" Peter clarifies, taking another bite of the chili dog abomination in his hands.

Wade pouts, his mouth visible with the mask rolled up to his nose. "No! Strange loves me. See, I've grown on him, like a fungus, and if he acts all cold and distant and mean it's just the whole bad guy trying to pull at that little seam in the universe like it’s the thread of a sweater, like that one Weezer song- "

A roar breaks off the conversation.

"Oh it's Rhino!" Wade jumps up. "I know that guy!")

Wade tries to move into Hell's Kitchen, gets kicked out by Daredevil a second time, and then moves in with some old blind woman over in the Bronx.

It's Cage's territory. And Cage… seems to barely tolerate Wade, but tolerates him more than Daredevil, which means Wade isn't thrown out on his ass.

Cage still punches him. A lot.

Peter doesn't blame him.

Meanwhile, Peter stays busy. When he's not working, he's somewhere else. He's working, or he's patrolling, or he's volunteering. Rarely, he is sleeping.

Peter also adjusts his schedule. He tries to see Ned more. Because he forgot what it was like to see him- and Peter runs into him one day at the cafe, just after the whole Li thing and Ned asks if they've met. Peter says no but the hint of recognition doesn't dissipate, just quiets a little bit and then suddenly Peter wants to see Ned again, the need to see him insistent because yeah Peter really didn't just lose a girlfriend, he lost a best friend, which was arguably more important, who he had been neglecting and what kind of a friend is he-

Ned is here today though.

MJ once again breaks off a conversation with the other boy to come to the counter.

"Sorry," Peter says. "I don't want to interrupt."

"Parker," MJ says, with a tone so blunt Peter can't help but feel stupid. It’s also comforting, in the way only MJ can be. "This is literally my job."

"Hey, Peter," Ned greets, waving. "You’ve seen The Batman, right? Because we need you to settle an argument.”

Ned had insisted Peter watch the movie. Peter had watched it at his urging because… because he hadn’t seen a movie in a while.

Peter smiles. He's… joining the conversation when he shouldn't, and deciding to stay.

There's new decorations up in the shop, strings of lights that look like bunny rabbits, and new pink and green stickers on the sides of napkin dispensers, salt and pepper shakers shaped like more rabbits, colorful eggs crammed into hidden corners. Peter wonders if he gets something from finding them.

It's almost Easter. Not a holiday he has ever really celebrated, beyond a couple of very secular egg hunts, but one that marks the passing time regardless. The pastels of spring are in full bloom, and Peter is hanging out with friends he'd missed more than he'd even realized.

He's letting himself be happy.

-

Happy sends him a text that he's got the parts Peter needs.

Peter shuts the phone off and holds it tight to his chest.

He's such a fool. It hadn't even been a year before he began to cave in on his resolutions to stay away. Not even a year.

-

Then, he goes missing.

He's in the middle of Times Square, not a place he goes often, because he doesn't care for the amount of people trying for his attention. But he checks in every once in a while because it's also a place with a lot of crime. He needs to do his rounds returning unsuspecting tourists' wallets every once in a while.

He's swinging.

Something in the air changes. It's not colder, or hotter, but it's still. Moves slow and lazy.

The smell of gasoline and grime that Times Square always seems to have is replaced with… nothing.

Peter closes his eyes.

And the next time he opens them there's a face right in front of his own. Peter yelps, he wants to shrink away from it but he-

Can't move.

Blue eyes, and sharp, serious features. A man Peter doesn't recognize, but one that looks vaguely familiar is staring at him like Peter is fascinating to him.

Peter realizes he's hanging upside down, suspended by something. His eyes are level with the man's upright ones.

"Hello," The stranger says. "Oh yes," A hand brushes along the edge of Peter's jaw before Peter can speak. All the words inside of him are shut off with the gesture. "You and that little spell will work beautifully."

The man steps back, humming, as soon as he's a few feet away, darkness overtakes his features.

Peter tries to see beyond him and into the room he's in, but the only light are a few candles, and they don't seem to burn particularly well. Peter can only see as much as he can because of his powers, and that's not much. He can see flashes of color- dark red fabric, the shine of metals, coins, valuable things, a stone floor, runes spiraling out across it, converging on the point where Peter is hanging-

Fucking magic. Of course, it's always magic.

Suddenly, the man is gone.

Peter can feel the presence at his back just as soon as the vision of the man fades from in front of him. His spider-sense, oh God, his spider-sense

This is the first time in a long time that it is quiet. It registers no immediate danger. That made no sense. He was in more danger now than he had been in months, but there was nothing. Silence.

Peter can't even crane his neck to see him, but he knows the person is there. Watching. Peter can feel him, the pinpricks of his gaze along him, but he can't hear him.

Can't hear him.

Everyone can be heard, to some extent. But with this man, there's no breath, no heartbeat, just the lightest sound of fabric passing through the air.

Mysterio was the one who taught him to be good at that, to know, beyond the capabilities of his sight, where his enemy was. Mysterio didn't prepare him for being paralyzed, though. Being unable to do anything about it.

"He doesn't even know, does he?" The man is, pleased, amused. His voice is crazed, a little giddy. Footsteps echo around the room, and the sound reverberates behind the words. "You didn't even tell him. I know you felt- Well… I suppose you are just a child. Better for me. Gives me some more time."

A hand latches onto the back of his head, Peter can feel how cold it is even through fabric and hair, and his mask is pulled off..

"You will be his unraveling. One of his mistakes, come back to destroy him, destroy all of them, really you're just like-" The person circles around to Peter's front again, and Peter thinks, idly, how he looks a lot like Dr. Strange. Older, taller, skinnier, and his hair is blonde, but he has the same defined arch of eyebrows, the high cheekbones. The same blue eyes. "Me."

Chapter Text

Update, 12/5/22:

I hate when people post authors notes like chapters, but I'm doing it anyways.

So, I'm going to take this fic down. Not entirely, but... Basically. I'm going to rework some individual scenes I really like and post them as separate things/oneshots/studies and delete this old one. I still like some of the ideas I had for it, but this project got too clunky and complicated for one fic and I stopped being happy/excited to write it - and, honestly, I'm not satisfied with the writing that's here anymore.

I'm trying to do better about not letting ideas sprawl and sabotaging myself- but I'm only human.

This fic will be up until I post some new version of it in some capacity. Which will probably be like the end of this week.

Said new capacity is probably going to be something like: little MJ character study oneshot about her memories, Happy and Peter fic about healing and Martin like a little background wink, and the Wade doesn't get blasted back to his universe oneshot that this originally was (but edited).

Possibly a little Stephen Strange and Wong thing. Possibly a Peter interacting with people at FEAST fic- which would be like a couple little vignette-ish type things. I like the world and spirit that's here in this fic- just not the execution of it. I guess we'll all have to see how it shakes out.

But, I just want to thank you for the support this fic received! I appreciated all your comments and kudos and bookmarks, and I'm sorry, but she's gotta go. She's being replaced.