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Peter had planned on getting groceries the past three nights.
The first night, he’d bailed because shopping was stressful at the end of the month, when he was waiting for his next paycheck and next month’s rent was due. He still had a ramen and some pickles left. Groceries weren’t essential-essential yet. That’d been the part, in hindsight, where he'd fucked up.
The second night, Rhino had decided to test out his new suit on the subway in the middle of rush hour because he was peaking in his current villain arc. Peter had spent the better part of the evening fighting him, then trying to rescue civilians from the crushed train cars. He’d been so battered that he’d had to rest before dragging himself home, and there was a guy who offered him free pizza when his store was closing, so he’d put off the shopping again.
Tonight he had to go out. It didn’t matter that he’d clotheslined a pigeon while swinging in from a costume change to break up a looming street fight (everyone had laughed at him and left, which was great on the civilians-not-getting-injured front but not so great on the build-Peter-Parker’s-sense-of-self-worth front, but now he had a preposterously-large-for-being-caused-by-a-pigeon gash in his calf). Didn’t matter that he was running on four hours of sleep because he was bad at time management even before trying to take on a full time job, being a full-time student, a part-time job, and being Spider-Man. He’d drained the rest of the pickle juice for breakfast and was still a bit unnerved about reaching the new low of having not as much as a crumb of food in the apartment.
So here he was, hobbling around, using a jammed up and dysfunctional shopping cart as a crutch, and it was with a resigned sense of vague horror that he turned the corner onto the pasta aisle and clipped the display with the tip of his cart, which promptly started a chain reaction of toppling that culminated in an entire row of fancy spaghetti sauce in glass jars crashing to the concrete.
Peter hunched his shoulders as everyone turned to look at him. He could feel a blush burning up his neck and combusting in his ears. He thought, distantly, that he may be about to cry. And men were totally allowed to cry, of course Peter believed men were allowed to cry, but he really didn’t want to cry in the pasta aisle of a Key Food while everybody watched.
“Whoopsies!”
Peter flinched at the familiar grating tone of Deadpool, which was the exact wrong thing to do, because when he turned around to see Deadpool staring at him from under the hood of his I am Kenough sweatshirt, he could see Deadpool gathering all the evidence– his distress at the mess, his bruised face, his jumpiness– and landing squarely on the wrong conclusion.
“Hey, sweet thang,” Deadpool said, waving a casual hand. "It's alright. Could happen to anybody." He gave Peter a wink as he reached for Peter's cart, and Peter took a hard step back only to promptly trip over the display he'd just knocked over and go tumbling on his ass. He went flailing backwards, mentally screaming at himself to just take the fall like a proper grocery store klutz, when Deadpool made a wild lunge for him. He caught Peter just before Peter could hit the floor, an elbow snug against Peter’s hip, a massive forearm curling around his back, and a broad hand splaying over the base of his skull. Peter used some of the fall momentum to swing a dramatic arm to cover his face. He closed his eyes as everything went still and wished to be literally anywhere else in the world. Deadpool was too close, and he was looking too carefully, and Peter sent a prayer out into the universe that he’d never delay his shopping ever again if Deadpool would just let him go . He’d do his dishes before he needed to use them, he’d fold his laundry, he’d make his bed–
"I'm not going to hurt you, sweetheart," Deadpool said sadly. He stood back up, pulling Peter up with him and snagging Peter’s cart. “Let’s move you out of the aisle, yeah?”
He dragged the cart over to the far side of the aisle and slightly behind Peter, and Peter had shepherded enough scoundrels and villains through alleyways to recognize when Deadpool was doing it to him.
He’d also had enough interactions with Deadpool to know that, despite being insane and an absolute moron, Deadpool could be cuttingly perceptive. It wasn’t a question of if he’d recognize Peter. He already knew Spider-Man’s voice, knew how he moved, knew–
“No one’s mad at you,” Deadpool said gently, and Peter double winced. The first one was because he was definitely reinforcing Deadpool’s assumption that he was a victim of domestic battery, and the second because wincing was only further selling it. “Oh, darling…”
Peter shook his head, tugged his hood back on and started a slow retreat.
“Hey, no,” Deadpool said. His eyes flickered down to Peter’s janky leg, then swept back up to his face. He parked the cart next to the endcap display of parmesan and held his hands up defensively. “You’re safe. No one’s gonna mess with you here.” He thumbed at his cheek, mirroring the spot where Peter’s skin was still all busted up. “Is your, uh, ‘friend’ shopping too?”
Peter swallowed hard and kept carefully adding distance.
“You left them at the house?” Deadpool pressed. He gave Peter an encouraging smile and started trailing after him. He was too big and too muscle-y for it to look anything short of predatory, even with his giant fluffy tie-dye hoodie.
Peter shook his head frantically.
“They’re waiting for you outside?”
Peter made a desperate sound as Deadpool reclosed the distance between them in easy strides. He was sending out crystal-clear nonverbal signals that he wanted out of this interaction, but it didn’t matter how clear the message was: Deadpool was already locked in.
“Yeah,” Deadpool said, his mouth dipping into a little scowl before leveling back out into something bright. “I get it. Just…if it gets bad, if you need an out, give me a call. I get that you’ve got no reason to trust me, I get that it’s scary, but you don’t deserve that. Okay? You don’t have to take that.”
Peter gave him a thumbs up and sidestepped into the cereal aisle. Deadpool kept up his relentless pursuit.
“It’s an easy number,” Deadpool assured him. “Stop panicking so you can listen to me, and I’ll stop following you, okay?”
Peter paused, and Deadpool walked a couple of steps closer.
“Ready?”
Peter nodded. He kept his eyes low so that his hood could cover as much of his face as possible.
“555.”
God, if Peter were in a suit, he would absolutely be starting a fight with Deadpool. What an absolute ass. He schooled his expression as blank as he could manage.
“333,” Deadpool continued, staring at Peter like he was being serious. That was the scary part about Deadpool, though– even when he was just trying to be funny, there was always a knife’s edge seriousness ready to jab out like a horrifying jack-in-the-box. “1111. It’s a little odd , and a little backward , but definitely not a hard one to remember, eh?”
“Yeah,” Peter agreed, snorting at Deadpool’s emphases because there was no way Deadpool hadn’t used that corny-ass line before, but then he promptly remembered that he was trying not to talk and pursed his lips together.
“Good,” Deadpool said. “Don’t hesitate to use it, mkay?” His eyes drifted over Peter’s shoulder, and he looked back just long enough to give Peter a blinding grin before going to tell the poor employee behind Peter about the sauce spill on aisle six.
Peter didn’t hesitate. He was out of the aisle before Deadpool had finished his first rambling sentence.