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He missed Wade. That's why he picked up his phone every ten minutes to dial a number that'll never answer. He's been ending the voicemails early though. By the end of them he always ends up almost saying something he doesn't want to say out loud yet.
Love doesn't mean anything between them. Wade said "I love you" and "you love me" all the time. Maybe nothing meant anything between them.
Wade had planted them into this nebulous territory of romantic in the most platonic of senses, and Peter didn't know where to go from there. He would have stayed there if he could, but Wade had only put them here because of he wanted the romance.
It's not that Peter didn't want the romance—it's not that he did want the romance. He wanted the in between.
All his life he's grappled with this sort of relationship ambiguity. He knows what it means to get infinitely close to the line and yet never cross it. May and Ben are like his parents—much closer to being his parents than they are to being his aunt and uncle, and yet there is this space of infinity that they exist in instead because math describes Peter's feelings better than he can and asymptotes make sense.
Back when they were kids Harry asked him if he ever felt like something was wrong. This was before everything—before the illnesses and mutations—he asked a simple question that would never stop haunting Peter. A question he ran away from because as the kid with dead parents, he could not keep being different. And you can ignore little things for a long time.
He never truly believed in those things: easy one-size-fits-all categories you can slot relationships and such into. And Wade had this mold, this idea, of what they could be, and Peter just didn't think that was feasible. It was not something he could give just like childhood memories aren't something Wade could share. Not easily. Not without a little bit of lying.
As a child you make promises to yourself. MJ said she wouldn't become another casualty in the Watson matriline. Harry said he would love his son no matter what. Gwen never wanted to let anyone change her.
When Peter was younger, he had these goals more than anything. He saw his aunt and uncle and built up the idea of "the one," he dreamt of someone who would never leave. He doesn't even remember when it stopped being romantic, but maybe it was something about the way Uncle Ben talked about siblings like a built-in best friend. And it probably had to do with how lonely Peter was that he craved that connection.
Whether it was a wife or a brother—both things so far out of reach—Peter's desire morphed into this fear that it was not something he would ever have or get. People, it turned out, could not be relied on. They change, they leave, they die. Though this want was unceasing. He wanted a marriage like Uncle Ben and Aunt May. He wanted a brotherhood like Uncle Ben and his dad had. He wanted a friend who stayed. It chipped away at itself until there was nothing left to chip away, just the core idea left of this nebulous "one."
Even if they were completely incompatible, even if they hated him, all he cared about was that they chose to come back to him at the end of the day. He's not searching for anything romantic or platonic anymore, it's just consistency.
And now he's got a part of his brain that isn't his and a fool for partner who can't die—for very long at least. And sure, Wade can't die, but he could still leave and he exercises that right. And when he does, Peter is the one who looks like a fool.
"My Spider-Sense doesn't go off for you," Peter mused into the phone. "Which means I trust, on some level, that you won't hurt me. Do you know how vulnerable that makes me? It's like having a guard dog that likes the enemy. Not that you're the enemy. You could be. I'd be more than a little screwed. You're a deadeye marksman and I wouldn't know what hit me. How do you live with that? Well, I guess you don't."
Peter ended the voicemail.
Sometimes Peter wondered what would happen if MJ came back. What they'd do– what he'd do and how he'd feel. He sees hints of her sometimes and they linger. And anytime something big happened, he wondered if she thought of him. Apparently, she still keeps up with Aunt May, but that just means that as they are, the next time they'll be in the same room will be at a funeral. It's just a matter of whose it'll be.
"I told my aunt about you," Peter continued, to himself now. "She was worried I felt abandoned, so I told her about all the friends I have. I reconnected with Randy, which is nice. He told me FEAST is closing down. It never really recovered from the scandal. She was upset about that. And then I told her about you. Or I told her I had someone that's looking out for me."
He redialed. It skipped the ringing and went straight to "leave a message after the beep." Peter held the phone away from him when it did beep and then brought it close again.
"I'm sorry you regained your healing ability, but to be honest I like your voice like this. I didn't want to say it before. I didn't want to say a lot of things before. Truth is, I kinda like you how you are."
He thought about hanging up again but didn't. It's easier to speak when there isn't the pressure of having Wade in front of him.
"I always tell you I was awful when I was younger," he continued, "and that's never going to stop being true. But I– you know that question that's like who are you when nobody's around to see? I don't think I've been a good person for a very long time. So, thank you. For… Yeah. You, um, yeah."
Peter waited for a moment, as if he could somehow finish that sentence, before hanging up. With that, he made the conscious decision to put his phone away—the only time he kept it on him while in the suit was when Wade was gone—or else he'd be here a while and that wasn't productive for anyone.
He felt the need to swing, and if the path he took just so happened to make him pass by two of Wade's safe houses, then that was neither here nor there.
While he was low enough to the ground, he got accosted for directions and ended up playing chaperone. When he finally shook that off, it was only to be accosted again.
"Don't you ever just want to stop someone on the street and tell them they're beautiful?" Wade called out.
Peter smiled involuntarily, but that's not something anyone can see. Instead, he just faced Wade with his arms crossed and asked:
"How well does that work out for you?"
"Depends." If he had hair to twirl, Peter is sure Wade would be twirling it. "Are you free tonight?"
"Depends," Peter repeated. "What are we eating?"
"Hopefully each other."
"How about pasta?"
"That works too."
"You're different like this." Wade announced.
He's leaning against the counter, head propped up by his elbow.
Peter himself probably looked ridiculous, sitting cross legged on Wade's island eating from his own personal pot of spaghetti. He covered his mouth while he chewed and asked:
"Different good or different bad?"
"Different happy."
Peter shrugged.
"You make a mean spaghetti."
Wade pointed at him.
"See, that right there."
"What?"
"You're comfortable. When did that start?"
Peter scoffed, twirling more spaghetti onto his fork.
"Probably when you stopped joking about how else I'd look good in your kitchen."
"No, no, this isn't about that," Wade said, straightening and shifting his weight onto his hands. "I mean you seem lighter. What did you do?"
Peter shrugged.
"I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."
"That's a bad thing."
"What I mean is, you met me at a very strange time in my life."
Wade jut his head forward, scrunching his face under the mask.
"Why do you keep quoting things?"
"It's funny."
"No," he argued, "it's vaguely worrying. Like signs someone is about to kill themselves worrying."
"Wade."
He threw his hands up.
"You're the one acting weird!"
Peter stopped eating with a groan.
"Can't a guy have a good dinner without it being weird?"
"Not with us!"
Peter threw his own hand up.
"Okay, fine. You got me Wade."
"I knew it! Wait, no don't kill yourself you're so sexy."
"I have a confession–"
"That you've been in love with me this entire time and I just can't go through with my wedding because of it?"
They paused.
"You're getting married?" Peter asked.
"You're actually in love with me?" Wade asked back.
Peter shook his head, ignoring the distraction that is Wade.
"What I was going to say is: I owe you. I haven't helped you, but you've helped me and… I can't imagine my life without you in it."
"I love you too," Wade replied without missing a beat. "And you're not saying this in a 'I'm about to break your heart' way?"
"Fuck it." Peter said.
He crawled across the island to get in front of Wade. For a split second he figured he could just stay up here, but he decided he should do this the right way. He nudged Wade enough to have room to jump down and then hugged him.
And Wade paused.
"Hug back," Peter ordered.
Wade didn't need to be told twice. He did instantly, and tightly.
"Promise you're not killing yourself," Wade muttered against Peter, his head tucked down towards his clavicle.
"Wade–"
Wade tightened his grip.
"Promise?"
Wade is a soft man. Softer than Peter is.
"I promise."
He's Peter's padded room.
"Don't go where I can't follow."
"Now who's quoting things?"
Peter pushed himself from Wade slightly, just enough so that he could get Wade to look him in the face.
He also understands sewing, and maybe they are the weaving of the needle. In and out, crossing the line a finite amount of time. That made sense too.
"Wade," Peter started.
He wasn't going to say it. It's not his style. But it's Wade's. So, he's going to say it anyways.
"I love you."
He paused for slightly too long after I, spent too much time on the L, and somehow made "you" sound like "u," but hey. He said it.
Wade kept his gaze.
"What if I lifted you back onto the counter and we made out?"
"Try it and I snap your neck."
"Okay, well, ignore everything that's happening in my pants right now."
"God, let go of me my pastas getting cold."
Wade grabbed him.
"P. Do you mean it?"
"No, I'm a liar who's lying."
"Hey," Wade said, letting go. "That's a paradox."
Peter understands science too. He understands gravity and thermodynamics and nuclear fusion. There isn't much Peter doesn't understand.
Give him an equation and he can solve it. Give him any object and he will dissect it. Even ask him how to deescalate something and he will try.
He used his palms to lift himself back onto the counter, overshot, and ended up crouched on it rather than sat. It made him more less at eye level with Wade.
"I think we talk too much." Peter said.
"I think you're probably right."
Wade leaned forward, his hands resting on either side of Peter.
"Will you bite if I get any closer?" Wade asked.
"Yes."
So, they stayed like that. Peter looking at Wade looking at Peter. Spider-Man and Deadpool. Waiting to see which way the wind blows.
The thing with understanding though is you just have to start. You have to do it. No one else. And Peter liked finishing what's already been started.