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For years after their initial meeting, Wade amuses himself by making up wild tales of how they met in the most ridiculously romantic ways imaginable. To anyone who asks, he’ll say they met when they were skiing in the Alps or snorkeling in the Bahamas. Their meet-cutes on the slopes and under the palm trees are always heart-wrenchingly sweet, full of love at first sight, and, of course, complete bullshit.
Sometimes, Wade claims they met on a cruise across the Atlantic. He then proceeds to tell a lengthy story about how the entire ship sank while they were busy falling hopelessly in love.
“Isn’t this just Titanic?” Peter inevitably points out.
“Hush, you’re ruining the drama, Jack.”
Other times, Wade spins tales of spies, car chases, and life-threatening situations that brought them together in a gentle lovers’ embrace.
“Which James Bond are you thinking of?” Peter asks, fond and exasperated all at once.
“All of them. They get pretty repetitive, no?”
Peter’s favorite story is one in which they met stargazing in the Canary Islands, and Wade named a moon of a distant planet after Peter. This story always quickly devolves into a tale in which the moon is actually a space station in a galaxy far, far away, but Peter’s inner romantic appreciates the initial sentiment.
None of Wade’s stories are true. Peter cherishes them all anyway because they’re Wade’s and, therefore, special, but the truth is way more mundane: Peter first meets Wade on a freezing cold December night in a tiny 24/7 corner store.
It’s the sort of night that makes Peter regret his vigilantism. He has spent hours patrolling New York in icy cold rain, so he’s tired, freezing, and drenched to the bone. His Spider-Man suit is carefully hidden under his jeans and an overly large hoodie when he slips into the store in search of a midnight snack. Peter gets a pastrami sandwich and heads toward the soda section.
Then, one second, Peter is selecting a soda as usual; the next, he looks up and sees a stranger staring at him only a few paces away.
The stranger isn’t exactly handsome, but he’s striking in his way. Scarring marks every patch of his visible skin, and Peter idly wonders what happened to him. Maybe a fire or something? Yet, his eyes are easily his most noticeable feature. They’re very blue, wide, and confused as the stranger stares at Peter like he’s seen a ghost. There’s something odd about that look, some kind of distant recognition.
“Sorry,” Peter says reflexively, even though he has no idea what he’s apologizing for.
“Don’t mention it,” the stranger replies, but his tone is absentminded, and the response is clearly automatic. His relentless staring is getting a little unnerving now.
“Erm, do we know each other from somewhere?” Peter asks tentatively, even though he’s fairly sure that he’d remember a stranger like this.
“I think I saw you in a dream once,” the stranger tells Peter. It doesn’t sound like a pick-up line. It sounds like a genuine, honest statement, full of wonder.
“Huh?”
“You looked less like a drowned rat, though.”
“Oh, screw you, too,” Peter says accidentally.
To his surprise, the stranger laughs. It’s a pleasant, warm sound.
“That’s what he said,” he says like he’s laughing at some inside joke that Peter isn’t privy to. “Let me try again, yeah? I swear I can do better.”
Peter hesitates, but in the end, he nods magnanimously.
“Sure, go for it.”
“There must be something wrong with my eyes because I can’t take them off you,” the stranger says smoothly.
“Two blocks straight north, then turn left. You should find a good optometrist there,” Peter replies.
The stranger grins again. His sincere smile is catching, and Peter can’t help but smile a little back. The whole encounter feels a little unreal and dreamlike like only a midnight encounter in a corner store can. Yet, at the same time, Peter could swear he feels something slot into place like this is exactly where he’s supposed to be right now.
“I’m Wade,” the stranger introduces himself, “Wilson.”
Peter barely hesitates when he replies, “Peter Parker.”
Wade’s smile goes a little soft around the edges.
“Of course you are.”
…
Thus, Wade storms into Peter’s life and makes a home in every nook and cranny of Peter’s existence before Peter has had the time to process what’s happening. Wade makes himself a nuisance and a delight all at once. He fills Peter’s life with constant chatter, unending one-liners, gentle bullying, and warmth.
Later, after secrets have come to light, Peter realizes that maybe there was always something a little odd about how easily Wade claimed his space in Peter’s life, as quick and efficient as an invasive species. At the time, Peter is too busy falling in love to stop to consider the minor oddities of their situation.
And Peter does fall; he falls quickly and effortlessly and further than he thought himself capable. He has been in love before, he knows this, but this feels different right from the start, inevitable like gravity. They just fit. They fit together like to puzzle pieces, a perfect match to each other in every way that matters.
“It’s because we’re meant to be,” Wade says. “It’s destiny or some shit. If you believe in that kind of thing.”
“And do you?” Peter asks curiously.
“Hm?”
“Do you believe in destiny?”
“When it comes to you, baby boy, I’ll believe anything. You’re a goddamn miracle,” Wade replies.
Peter smiles at him softly and never once realizes to wonder why Wade sounds so achingly sincere, like he means every word in more ways than one.
…
Eventually, Peter becomes aware of the heartbreak in Wade’s past. Wade never brings it up outright, but in time, Peter learns to read him like an open book, so it becomes obvious after a while. Wade slips up. Mostly, it’s small things. Sometimes, not.
“Happy anniversary, baby boy!” Wade says in June. They have been dating for six months.
Peter looks at him, baffled. “We met in December?”
Wade looks adorably confused for a moment.
“We did? I could swear…” he says, but he never finishes his sentence. He thinks hard for a moment, and then his expression goes slack with dismay.
“Right. You’re right. Of course, you’re right,” he says, sounding almost distraught.
Peter takes him in and reads the heartbreak in his expression easily enough.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Wade remains downtrodden and grim for the rest of the day, and Peter begins to suspect that maybe it is an anniversary, just not theirs.
Once Wade says, “Hey, sweetheart, do you…?”
He falls quiet, and the same dismay claims him. Peter knows instantly, instinctively, that this pet name is not his but someone else’s altogether. This does not belong to him. Wade is staring at him now, but for a moment, it’s like he’s seeing someone else entirely.
“Wade?”
“Fuck,” Wade breathes. “No. No, never mind. It’s not important.”
He laughs awkwardly and turns away, carefully not looking Peter’s way again.
Peter pretends that these things don’t hurt, but they do.
Sometimes, he wonders about it. Who was it who broke Wade’s heart so thoroughly? How long were they together for it to leave such a mark? Is Wade over it, or is he still hung up on someone, some faceless, infallible past love? How can Peter compete with something like that?
In the end, Peter decides that he can’t compete against the memory of a past lover. He’ll just be himself and hope that it is enough. All the while, Wade keeps looking at Peter like he hung the stars and the moon in the sky, so maybe it really is enough. Peter pushes his doubts aside and makes a conscious effort not to worry about this mysterious stranger in Wade’s past.
…
Peter and Wade have been dating for a total of three months when Wade takes Peter by the hand, sits him down, and then hesitates for a long time, clearly searching for words. Peter naturally assumes the worst because his life as a superhero has shaken any traces of optimism from him long ago.
“You’re breaking up with me,” he realizes, and his heart constricts painfully because he’s in too deep already.
Wade goes slack-jawed with surprise.
“What? No. No! Never,” he hurries to say. “I love you. You must know that by now. There isn’t a force on earth that could make me leave you. You’re stuck with me.”
Peter breathes a sigh of relief, but the apprehension doesn’t fully leave him.
“Then what is this about?” he asks, concerned.
“Deadpool,” Wade replies.
The name rings a distant bell in Peter’s mind, but it’s a name that shouldn’t come up in Peter Parker’s life. Deadpool lives in the shadows, in the same mirror world as Spider-Man does.
Peter carefully keeps his expression neutral when he repeats, “Deadpool?”
“I’m not a good person, Peter,” Wade says, “Not like you.”
And Wade tells him the truth, the whole ugly truth without editing out any of the blood or the violence. He speaks about his mercenary work. He admits to the blood and death that stains his hands. He confesses to his apparent imperviousness to bullets and physical harm, how he clings to life stubbornly like he does everything else, too.
Peter listens quietly and doesn’t interrupt once.
“C’mon, baby boy, give me something. You’re killing me here,” Wade says in the end when Peter’s silence has extended past the limit of his patience.
If Peter were as good a person as Wade believes, he’d take this opportunity to make a confession of his own. If he were fair and truthful, he’d tell Wade about Spider-Man. He’d explain his other, secret life like Wade has explained his. But Peter has clung to this secret for many long years, and the words don’t emerge that easily, so he keeps his truths tightly trapped in the back of his mouth.
“You kill people,” Peter says instead. “What do you want me to say to that?”
“Anything,” Wade pleads. “Something. Get angry with me. Yell at me. But just don’t leave me because I don’t think I can bear that.”
“Explain to me again,” Peter requests. “Explain to me why you do this.”
Wade does. They talk at length into the small hours of the morning until Wade’s voice goes hoarse from all the explaining and Peter starts to run out of questions.
“So, you were dying?” Peter asks.
“Yes. I looked for a miracle cure and found this instead,” Wade says. “And now I can’t die, even if I wanted to.”
Something about the way he says it makes Peter suspect that there have been times when Wade has wanted to die. Peter’s heart breaks a little for him, but he determinedly pushes the feeling aside.
“How long ago was this?”
Wade goes shifty-eyed and evasive. “A long time.”
Peter lets it slide because he suspects he doesn’t want to know the details.
“So, I’m dating an older, rich guy?” Peter muses. “Sounds like a good deal.”
Wade grins at him a little.
“You’re so sweet that you’d pass for a sugar baby any day,” he says.
Peter can’t help but smile back.
If Peter were as good a person as Wade believes, he’d get mad. He’d argue until his last breath against the mercenary work, against everything Deadpool does, everything he is, but Peter isn’t a good person. He’s stupid and in love, and that is that.
“I don’t approve,” Peter says. “But I suppose I understand.”
“You do?” Wade asks, surprise clear in his voice.
Peter thinks about Spider-Man and realizes that what he does isn’t all that different from what Wade does, only less bloody and final. Peter fights evil where he can. Wade kills it where he can. In this, too, they are so similar that it blows Peter’s mind a little.
There have been times when Peter himself wished he had the stomach to finish a fight for good. He has been Spider-Man long enough to know that there are people who don’t deserve a second chance. There are people without whom the world would be a better place. While Peter’s heart is too soft (he’ll end up giving second chances till he’s on his deathbed), it doesn’t mean he can’t understand why someone like Deadpool would choose differently. Yet, it sounds like maybe Wade would even stop what he does if Peter asked.
Peter doesn't ask.
Instead, he confirms, “Yes. I understand.”
Wade takes Peter’s face in his hands and kisses him like he has been waiting all his life for that one kiss alone. Peter kisses back and becomes a little less of a good person.
…
Afterward, Peter doesn’t meet Deadpool all that often. Wade clearly wants to keep Peter away from the life Deadpool leads, so Peter rarely sees Wade suited up and ready for a fight. He’s inexplicably grateful for it. It makes the guilt of looking the other way easier to bear.
Yet, some mornings, Peter wakes up in Wade’s bed, and Wade sits at the edge of the bed, geared up but without the mask. He always wears a peculiar look on his face, a little guilty and excited all at once.
“A job?” Peter mumbles sleepily.
“Yeah. Four days max,” Wade says, and then he adds in a horrid Terminator imitation, “I’ll be back.”
“Okay, Arnold,” Peter replies, laughing. “Now, get the hell out of here and let me sleep.”
Wade looks at him softly, a small smile playing on his face.
“You remind me of someone, sometimes,” he says. “He didn’t have your potty mouth, though.”
And Peter instantly knows that he means the ex. Wade has never mentioned him outright like this, but something about the quietness of the morning must have made him feel sentimental.
“Someone good, I hope?” Peter asks tentatively.
“The best of the best,” Wade confirms, his smile turning wistful.
Jealousy raises its ugly head in Peter’s heart, but he pushes it aside because Wade is here with him, not this mysterious stranger whose ghost sometimes rises to haunt their relationship. Wade is Peter’s, so Peter has no reason to be jealous, especially when Wade leans down and kisses him gently, so gently that Peter could cry about it a little.
Then Wade pulls on the Deadpool mask, and Wade Wilson disappears from the world.
Peter looks at Deadpool and says, “Come back to me.”
“Always,” Deadpool promises.
Peter waits for his return and spends the days pretending that the blood of Deadpool’s victims doesn’t stain his hands, too.
He gets better at it with practice.
…
Peter has kept Spider-Man a secret since he was fifteen. He’s good at it. He has figured out the best means of disappearing without it being suspicious. He knows how to hide the suit perfectly under his clothes. He can slip through any window quickly and quietly. He has become a fantastic liar. Keeping Spider-Man a secret from Wade, too, becomes a second nature, as easy as breathing.
Peter manages to keep the act of innocence up for months until one day Spider-Man falls from the sky.
He’s out of web fluid, exhausted, and aching, and the battle still rages on around him. The Avengers are busy elsewhere, trying to turn the tide, so nobody is there to see it when Spider-Man falls. He falls and falls, and surely falling shouldn’t take this long. Peter knows that this will hurt a great deal, so he squeezes his eyes shut and prays quietly that maybe he’ll survive this. His last thought before he hits the ground is of Wade and how angry he’ll get if Peter dies over something stupid like this.
Then, he slams into the ground, air escapes from his lungs, and his vision whites out. He must lose consciousness for a second there because the next thing he’s aware of is that he’s blinking awake to a world of pain.
“Ow,” he groans, but that makes the pain even worse. His ears are ringing, and there are black spots all over his blurry field of vision. He has probably cracked several ribs, and his entire body hurts. But more importantly, he’s alive, which wasn’t a given thing.
Deadpool is the one to find him. Afterward, Wade will swear up and down that it was pure happenstance and a coincidence, but Peter will always believe that Wade had his suspicions about Spider-Man’s identity already back then.
Either way, Deadpool strolls onto the scene and crouches next to Spider-Man’s limp form.
“Spidey?” he asks. “Is that you? Took a bit of a tumble, didn’t you? CNN had a live feed. Pretty cool stuff. I’m impressed you’re still alive.”
Spider-Man doesn’t have the breath to answer yet, so he doesn’t.
“You should consider yourself lucky that I found you rather than those damn clones,” Deadpool says as he pokes Spider-Man in the chest as if to check if he’s still alive.
“Yeah, lucky,” Spider-Man groans.
Deadpool grows still. He stops breathing.
“P—Pete?” he chokes out.
Spider-Man squeezes his eyes shut and wishes he had stayed quiet. Of course, Wade would recognize him by voice alone. Deadpool reaches over with shaking hands, and then he’s rolling up Peter’s Spider-Man mask. Peter hurts too much to stop him. Then the mask is off, and their eyes lock, almost like they had once upon a time in that small corner store.
“Peter, Peter,” Deadpool breathes, and he makes helpless little gestures over Peter’s aching body like he’s trying to figure out a way to help without making it worse.
“’M okay,” Peter assures, but the words are difficult to squeeze out.
“Can you sit up? Please, baby, give me some sign of life,” Deadpool pleads. Then he curses something colorful under his breath as if to get it out of his system.
Peter raises a hand enough to struggle the Spider-Man mask back on again.
“Still hav’to… the fight…” he says as he tries to sit up.
“No,” Deadpool says firmly. “You’re done.”
“But…”
“You’re done. You can’t even sit up on your own,” Deadpool points out.
“Okay,” Spider-Man agrees. He’d collapse right back onto the ground if Deadpool didn’t slip one arm behind his back and another under his knees. He lifts Spider-Man easily, as if he were weightless.
“R’mntic,” Peter mumbles.
“Oh, yeah, you falling from the top of a building and nearly breaking your ass is super romantic,” Deadpool replies. “We should have dates like this all the time.”
Peter has a sassy response prepared, but he’s out cold before he can deliver it.
…
In the aftermath, Wade is grim and uncharacteristically serious. He looks at Peter with a frown, and there’s an unhappy downturn to his mouth. He’s worried and angry in turns, but he’s trying to hide it from Peter while Peter recovers.
“I’m fine,” Peter promises. He sits on Wade’s bed, cocooned in the bed coverings. He has been thoroughly coddled and spoilt for the past 24 hours, during which he has mostly recovered.
“You could’ve died. You very nearly did,” Wade points out.
“I didn’t, though,” Peter insists.
“Peter, please,” Wade says. “If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d lose my damn mind for one.”
“Nothing happened to me! I fell. It happens.”
“It happens?”
“Not often!” Peter hurries to assure. “Only sometimes.”
Wade shakes his head.
“You can’t just play superhero and assume I’ll…”
Peter bristles. “Play a superhero? I’ve been Spider-Man for years, and I’m pretty fucking good at it too!”
“…assume I’ll stand by and watch you die,” Wade finishes, ignoring Peter completely.
“So, as far as you’re concerned, it’s alright that you kill people for a living, but you get pissed off when I save them? Is that it?” Peter asks, and he’s getting angry now.
“No. Yes,” Wade says. “I mean… You can’t die. I won’t let you.”
“It’s not your call to make. I choose how I spend my life,” Peter bites out. “I acknowledge your concern and appreciate it, but like hell you're going to make my decisions for me.”
They fight about it a few times more before Wade admits defeat. Peter goes on being Spider-Man, and now that Wade knows the truth, Deadpool starts to turn up for Spider-Man’s fights. At first, Peter is annoyed, but in time, he acknowledges that it’s nice to have someone watching his back.
“Oh, I’ll watch your back any day,” Deadpool leers and ogles Spider-Man’s butt. “Spandex suits you, babe.”
Thus, Deadpool and Spider-Man become as inseparable as Wade Wilson and Peter Parker. In this, too, they fit together like two puzzle pieces, complementing each other perfectly. However, after his secret, superheroic life comes to light, Peter sometimes catches Wade looking at him oddly, almost like he’s already grieving.
Peter isn’t sure what to make of it.
…
Then it all comes to a head on an ordinary Friday, when they least expect it. By then, they already live together, so maybe it is inevitable that the last secrets would come tumbling into light. Deadpool has freshly returned to New York from a job, and Peter warmly welcomes him back into his life.
Deadpool steps in through the door and pulls Peter into a bear hug, burying his masked face against Peter’s neck.
Peter laughs and winkles his nose.
“Oh my god, you stink something awful. Let go of me! Did you not see a shower for the entire five days?” Peter asks and pushes Deadpool away, even as he curls their fingers together gently.
“No,” Deadpool admits, pulls off the mask, and then he’s Wade Wilson again. “I was trying to finish in a hurry, so I’d get back to you as soon as possible.”
Peter’s heart melts, but he pretends otherwise.
“You go take that shower right now, or I’ll kick you straight out again,” he warns, and Wade agrees with a laugh. He still risks getting kicked out and kisses Peter thoroughly before he goes. Peter lets him.
“Order us a pizza, won’t you, babe?” Wade yells over his shoulder on the way to the bathroom. “I’m starving.”
Peter obeys, pulls up his phone, and orders them a large pepperoni pizza. Afterward, it takes about half an hour before the doorbell rings.
“That’s the pizza!” Wade's voice calls excitedly from the bedroom, where he’s changing into something comfortable after his shower. “Be a star, baby boy, and tip the guy.”
Peter finds Wade’s wallet and heads to the door. He opens the door, greets the delivery guy, and then checks the bills for something suitable to use as a tip. As he goes to pull the money from the wallet, a photograph falls from between the bills onto the floor. Peter looks down at it.
It’s a picture of Wade with a man. Peter instantly knows that this is the ex, because why else would Wade keep the picture in his wallet? Peter picks up the picture from the floor, turns it the right way up, and hesitates. Some small part of him doesn’t want to look. He wants to remain blissfully ignorant of who he’s competing against, this guy on whom Wade is clearly still hung up on. Yet, a larger part of him burns with curiosity, so after a second of hesitation, his gaze falls onto the photo. He stares.
Wade stands in the picture wearing his familiar Deadpool suit but without the mask. He’s grinning widely at the camera, and his arm is wrapped intimately around the waist of a man who’s looking at Wade and smiling softly. Peter’s heart nearly stops because the man is him. Peter would recognize his own face anywhere and this man is a splitting image down to his messy hair and lopsided smile. He’s older, though, maybe in his forties. There are subtle crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes that Peter himself doesn’t have, but otherwise, they could be twins because of how closely they resemble each other.
What the hell?
The pizza delivery guy clears his throat pointedly. Peter is busy staring at the picture, so he accidentally tips the pizza guy a hundred bucks of Wade’s money and accepts the pizza on autopilot when the guy offers it to him.
Peter closes the door, sets the pizza on the kitchen table, and then stands there idly, shaken and uncertain.
“Thanks for feeding me, babe,” Wade says when he turns up in the kitchen. He drops a quick kiss on Peter’s dark hair.
“Wade…” Peter starts. It comes out sounding odd.
Wade is peering into the pizza box with a hopeful look on his face, and Peter almost feels sorry for ruining dinner, but there are more pressing things on his mind right now.
“Wade,” he repeats, and Wade finally looks at him. Peter lifts the photo and shows it to Wade. Wade goes still. His face goes through several complicated expressions in a very brief moment before settling into careful neutrality.
“Who is he?” Peter asks. For some reason, his voice is shaking a little. He clears his throat awkwardly.
“He’s…” Wade starts to say, but he stops to hesitate. He reaches out and takes the picture. He stares at it for a moment.
“I don’t know how to explain,” Wade admits in the end.
“From the beginning?” Peter asks because that makes sense to him.
Wade looks up at him and shakes his head.
“There is little to tell,” he says, sighing. “I loved him. Then he died.”
“Died? How?” Peter asks.
“He tried to save someone’s life. It went very wrong,” Wade says, and it clearly hurts him to say it aloud. “If he had just waited for five goddamn minutes, I would have made it there in time, and maybe he’d be alive, but…”
Peter swallows past a lump in his throat.
“Why is he…? I mean, he looks like me,” Peter says, feeling ridiculous as he does.
“Yeah, I think he is,” Wade admits.
Peter stares, still uncomprehending.
“You think he is me?” Peter repeats, trying to make sense of it.
“I do.”
“Time travel?” Peter guesses because odder things have happened during his years as a superhero.
“That would be simpler, but no. It’s been over twenty years since he died—no time travel,” Wade tells him. “I had accepted it, you know, finally. I accepted that he was dead and not coming back. I was learning to live with it. And then I saw you in that store, and you were alive. I still don’t know how that’s possible.”
The picture is getting clearer, but it still makes no sense. What Wade is implying is impossible, illogical, and out of this world. He seems to genuinely believe that Peter and his long-lost lover are the same person.
“I’m not him,” Peter chokes out. “Not like that.”
“You are him. There’s no other explanation,” Wade says. “The way you are. The things you do. The way you talk and the way you move. The way I love you. Everything about you is exactly the same.”
Wade says it all like these are good things, but Peter’s heart is breaking in his chest.
“So, you’ve never loved me?” Peter asks.
Wade looks confused. “What?”
“This has always been about him,” Peter realizes, and it hurts more than anything has ever hurt before. “You just never stopped loving him, and you’re projecting it all onto me.”
“No. No! It isn’t like that!” Wade protests. “You don’t understand. You are him. I just never stopped loving you.”
“I’m not the ghost of a dead man,” Peter says firmly. “I’m not a substitute for someone you loved and lost.”
Wade looks confused and uncertain suddenly.
“It’s not like that,” he says, but it’s weak and tentative, like he isn’t sure of it himself.
“It sure sounds like that!” Peter bites out. “Did you even… Do you even care about who I am? Or is it enough for you that I look like him?”
“Of course, I care about you!” Wade protests.
“That’s not what I asked!” Peter says, and he feels like crying because Wade clearly doesn’t even understand the problem here.
Peter always thought that Wade was comparing him to some unnamed stranger whom he had loved immensely, but this is even worse. Peter is suddenly full of doubt that maybe Wade has never loved him. Maybe he has never truly seen him. Maybe he always looks at Peter and sees this stranger who wears Peter’s face.
“What was his name?” Peter chokes out.
“What?”
“Tell me his name.”
Wade swallows. His response is quiet, barely a whisper.
“Peter.”
Of course, it was.
…
Peter makes Wade sleep on the couch that night.
Maybe it’s unfair and petty, but right now, Peter is too full of raw hurt for anything else. He needs the space to organize his thoughts into something that makes sense. He doesn’t sleep well that night because he’s busy contemplating the nature of existence. He searches the web for articles about reincarnation and reads through them feverishly, but it only makes him more confused because he’s always been a scientist at heart. He’s expected to take a lot on faith alone, and he struggles to do that. Yet, he saw the picture, which is undeniable evidence that a man who looked exactly like Peter existed at some point in time. Wade told Peter about him, and Wade has no reason to lie.
“I wish this were about time travel,” Peter tells Wade in the morning over breakfast. “That would be easier to believe.”
“You can say that again,” Wade agrees. “I thought I had finally lost it when I saw you for the first time.”
Peter hums in agreement and recalls the first time they met.
“I think I saw you in a dream once,” he repeats the words Wade had said to him back then.
Wade only looks at him, looking a little heartbroken and endlessly fond all at once.
“I can’t die, Peter,” he says quietly. “I thought I’d spend the eternity alone, losing everyone I hold dear. Then I found you again, and there’s hope now. Maybe there will always be you. The one constant in the universe. I just have to find you.”
“You’re talking about reincarnation?” Peter asks, still full of doubt and disbelief.
“What other explanation is there?” Wade asks, almost pleading like he’s willing Peter to understand.
“So, you’ll what? Look for me in every lifetime?” Peter asks.
“Yes,” Wade replies, sure and firm.
“What if I do something awful and reincarnate as a…” Peter looks for a suitable comparison.
“As a spider?” Wade suggests, grinning a little, like he thinks he’s being very clever. What a goofus. Peter loves him, maybe enough for more lifetimes than just this one.
“As a spider,” Peter confirms.
“You’re already halfway there, and I love you anyway, so I don’t think it would stop me,” Wade replies. “I’d keep you gently and feed you a lot of fat flies.”
Peter draws a steadying breath and asks helplessly, “How can I be sure you love me and not just some idea of him?”
“He didn’t have superpowers,” Wade replies instantly. “He didn’t have your potty mouth. He was a morning person. You are definitely not, you sleepyhead.”
Peter doesn’t know what to make of that, so he says nothing.
Wade says, “You talk in your sleep, did you know? Scared the crap out of me the first time it happened. He never did that.”
“I don’t talk in my sleep!” Peter protests, even though he has no idea if that’s true.
Wade ignores him with a placating hum and continues, “He wasn’t an orphan. His parents were a real pain in the butt at family events. They really hated me. He was a scientist, too, though. Maybe you’ll always have that big brain power going on.”
“Do you compare us all the time?” Peter asks a little crossly.
“Hush, I’m trying to make a point here,” Wade hushes him.
“The point being?”
“You’re still different. I just fell for you again because how could I not?” Wade says. “I don’t think you’re literally him. He died. But you’re something very close, and I love you, too, just as much.”
“Just as much? Why not more?” Peter asks immediately.
“Don’t get greedy; there’s plenty of me to go around,” Wade admonishes. “Sometimes you do remind me of him. How could you not? But I know you are not exactly the same. You’re the same person but with different experiences and memories.”
Peter decides to ask something that has been worrying him the most:
“How many have there been? How many Peters have you gone through?”
“You’re the second, I swear. My immortality is still fresh. There’s only been you and him. But as I said, you give me hope.”
“This is why you secretly hate Spider-Man,” Peter realizes.
“I don’t hate Spider-Man,” Wade protests unconvincingly.
“You do, and you know it. It’s because you think being Spider-Man will kill me,” Peter says. Wade looks away, and Peter instantly knows that he’s right.
“I don’t want to lose you too,” Wade admits.
“You won’t,” Peter promises, even though he isn’t sure if that’s in his power to promise.
“I will someday,” Wade says quietly.
Peter takes a deep breath. He chooses to believe.
“And you’ll find me again,” he says.
Wade looks up, hopeful.
“You think so?”
“You told me yourself. For me, you’ll believe anything, even destiny,” Peter replies. “I think I’d reincarnate just to make sure you never have to be alone.”
“In this life, I’ll love you alone,” Wade promises. “Never doubt that.”
Peter never doubts it.