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Chapter Text

The Pokémon Go phenomena had swept over most of the planet like a devastating tidal wave, and in the span of a few short days the world had been turned completely on its head.  Not only were the streets flooding over with both children and adults alike, but this was honestly the most united and supportive Peter had seen Queens in… well, ever.  Big cities, especially ones in New York, weren’t exactly known for having the most friendly of citizens, but now strangers greeted each other like old friends as they passed on the sidewalks.  All wandering parties had their phones ready in their hands, shouting out helpful hints and the locations of the Pokémon that spawned nearby to each other (much to the confusion and annoyance of people who were out of the loop).  Of course the fact that there were rival teams caused a few spats, turf wars, and some vandalism to crop up, but the good was by far outweighing the bad.

One thing that Peter noticed as early as the first day of the app’s release in the U.S. was that when a lure was dropped at a Pokéstop… it didn’t just attract Pokémon.  No; gaggles of people in all walks of life would flock to them, hovering within range and discussing Pokémon.  It seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice, because a few of the shadier parts of town had muggings happening late at night, and they were centered around such Pokéstops.  It even made headlines.  Spider-Man was making his rounds, checking each one for suspicious activity.  Thankfully what he saw was that most people were moving around in groups varying by size, and he surprisingly didn’t stumble onto any traps that were actively claiming victims.  What he did stumble onto, however, was two young children who’d darted out into the street just after loudly declaring that there was a Vaporeon nearby.

Spider-Man swung low and fast, angling his body to cut through the air like a knife, and with an arm outstretched he grabbed the two just half a second before a cab’s front bumper would have taken them out.  The vehicle’s tires screeched as it braked and the driver started screaming at them through the window, but he didn’t seem too committed to what he was trying to pass along because he sped off after only a few choice words.  (Which didn’t stop everyone behind him from giving their two cents worth of road rage in the form of blaring their car horns, but hey.)

Having gotten them safely to the curb, Spider-Man kneeled and put a hand on each of their shoulders.  He was pleased to see that they were a little shaken up -- maybe that would make this stick in their heads better, to make the danger real to them -- but part of him was also sorry that they had to have this lesson drilled into their heads in such a traumatic way.  Both were staring at him so hard he wondered if their eyes would roll out of their heads and their jaws would fall off from all the gaping.

“You both okay?  Nobody’s hurt?” he asked, and he looked from the boy to the girl.  They both shook their heads.  “Good.  But,” he paused, and he let go of them to get his phone, pulling it out of a latched pocket he’d added to his costume for the sole purpose of carrying said device.  He closed the Pokémon Go app and reopened it, and flashed them the loading screen.  He tapped the warning at the bottom.  “Always be aware of your surroundings.  If you gotta get across the road, use a crosswalk and wait for traffic to stop.  Okay?” he asked, and his voice was filled with patience.

They both seemed awed and pleasantly surprised to find out that they were on the same game that the red and blue-clad vigilante was.  “You play, too?” the girl asked, and the fact that she’d almost been roadkill left her mind completely for the moment.  The boy pointed, and he fumbled to show Spider-Man his own phone screen.

“There’s a Vaporeon right over there!” he said excitedly and he sidled up beside the lithe hero to show him the battle he was currently engaged in.  It took a few shaky twists and angles, but he finally caught the water-type in his camera’s line of sight and Spider-Man watched it.  “We have to be looking at it, or-or we can’t catch it!”

Spider-Man leaned forward slightly, and he touched the top right of the screen, showing the boy a sliding option.  “Here, turn that off for now, okay?”  As he spoke, he did just that, and the surroundings of the battle faded away to show a darkened field with the Pokémon in the center of it.  “That way you don’t have to be facing it exactly.  It’s really, really cool to see them in places like your bedroom and on your kitchen table, but how about we don’t use that when you’re close to traffic, okay?”

The boy looked down at his own shuffling feet and he nodded, acknowledging the gentle chastise.  The girl did, too.

That was when a group of older kids, probably mid-teens, jogged up, and a few of them saw Spider-Man from around their phone screens.  “Hey, is that Spider-Man?!” one demanded, and that was when Peter knew he needed to take his leave.  As much as he took enjoyment out of finding people who didn’t completely hate him, this was only the tip of the iceberg of bodies that were about to flood the area for the rare water-type.  He set his hands on the two kids’ backs, and gave them a firm, friendly jostle before he said, “Head home before your parents worry too much, yeah?” and shot his webbing in the direction he’d swung from.  He disappeared into the busy city just like that, only visible for a single block.

When he was a safe enough distance he slowed down and then finally let himself perch on the side of an apartment building.  One thing that was good about this whole mess was that it took longer for people to exit out of their games to open their cameras and snap pictures of him.  He had his own territory that he stuck to as far as patrolling went -- every hero did --, but having photographic proof of that online made him uncomfortable.  He didn’t really enjoy the thought of anyone finding out a general sense of where he lived.  He tugged his phone back out of his pocket, and he checked the game for any more lures that were away from the more heavily populated streets.  He relaxed when he saw that they were, at least for now, only in major walkways.

Then he turned his view to point towards the Gym he’d taken over a few hours prior.  It had been reclaimed by team Valor, and Peter grinned under his mask.  He could take out that Scyther easily.  He re-sheathed his phone and then twisted his body so he could crawl his way up the rest of the brick wall and onto the roof, which he then jumped off of, landing on the neighboring building’s fire escape.  He needed to get within range to battle it, and since he didn’t have an iPhone his GPS was a bit on the wonky side.  Sometimes it wouldn’t register that he was well within the parameters of a Pokéstop or a Gym.  (Having checked a few forums online, he found several dedicated entirely to whether or not Apple products were the way to go as far as gameplay went.)  Then again, the servers were consistently overloaded and he had to take that in stride.  Lagging and lock-ups were just things that were to be expected right now.

What he wasn’t expecting was to find Deadpool squatted on the edge of the building that was, at least in-game, considered the Gym.  The guy was swinging his legs over the side like a child while he messed with his iPhone, which his large hands dwarfed.  Peter was about to slink off behind the raised exit that lead to the rooftop, and he debated with himself over it for apparently just a smidgen too long, because the Merc eventually looked over.  He’d probably noticed Peter’s screen -- despite being on the dimmest settings, it was still a beacon in the darkness above the streetlights.  A sharp spike in his spider sense put him on edge, but it was gone as soon as Deadpool recognized him.

“Yo, Spidey-babe!” he called, and he animatedly waved his hands at the other Costume.  Well, that decision was made for him, Peter thought, and he raised a hand in return, wary despite the fact that he didn’t sense immediate danger anymore.  That didn’t mean that Deadpool wasn’t dangerous.  The Merc’s head cocked slightly and he took in the sight of the hero’s phone, before his chest puffed out and he struck a confident pose, his free hand’s thumb jammed hard into his own chest.  “You here to battle my Gym?” he bragged, and Peter would bet money that the older man was smirking stupidly under that mask.

Spider-Man paused, and then glanced at his screen, only then noticing the name of the Gym leader.  “Dealpood?” he asked, his tone one of surprise and mild disbelief.  Peter’s eyebrow raised, but it was impossible to see through the giant lenses covering his eyes.

The Merc huffed and waved his hand like there was a fly he was trying to swat out of the air.  “‘Deadpool’ was already taken,” he admitted.  Then, under his breath, muttered, “And when I find the fucker, I’m gonna give ‘em such a brown swirly.”  

Peter’s enhanced hearing picked that up and he made a face in response.  “Gross,” he complained.

Deadpool apparently hadn’t realized he’d be overheard, and he almost seemed a little ashamed of himself, if only because he’d been caught.  “Oh, like you wouldn’t?  This is clearly identity theft and I don’t want some punk soiling my good name!  Or makin’ people think that I’m a shit trainer!”

Well, dunking someone’s head in a dirty toilet was still better than de-boweling them, so Peter would take the small, offered miracles.  He walked closer and dropped down beside the Merc, though he left notable space between them.  “You would be team Valor,” was all he said in reply.

Deadpool looked the absolute dictionary definition of offended.  “You’re not?  Spidey, no, come on, man!  We’re Team Red!  Wait -- don’t tell me you picked Mystic.”  Deadpool actually sounded like he was worried, as if they were no longer going to be on speaking terms over this.  Apparently the issue wasn’t serious enough for that, though, because the mercenary recovered almost instantly and threw an arm as far as he could around Spider-Man without scooting over too much.  “Well, whatever; enemies-to-lovers is still a decently interesting trope.”

Peter pinched the leather of Deadpool’s suit and lifted the arm off of him entirely, touching as little of it as possible, as if it could (and would) infect him with something.  “Uh, rain-check that plot,” he said, clearly unimpressed.  “I’m not here for slow-burn romances.”

Deadpool slumped.  “Aw,” he grumbled.  He took his hand back and minimized the app, and then he went to open his e-mail.  “You’re no fun,” he added as an afterthought.

Peter shrugged.  “I’m loads of fun,” he clarified, before he was drawn back into his own phone.  He swiped his thumb and tapped intermittently for somewhere around a minute.  After that, he let the screen go idle and he leaned back on his hands, head tilting upward to look at the light-polluted sky.  Sometimes he wished New York would just turn off for a single night so that he could appreciate the stars, be able to map out constellations with his eyes.  The view of the cityscape was nice enough, though, and he appreciated that instead.  After several minutes, he was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of Deadpool shifting.  The Merc had been astonishingly quiet, and Peter had forgotten they’d even been sitting together.  Now Deadpool was hunched over with his legs crossed under him, and Peter was the one kicking his feet, bouncing his heels off of the wall.

Peter discreetly eyeballed Deadpool’s screen, watching him pull Pokémon Go back up.

A beat.

“SONOVABITCH!” the Merc exclaimed and nearly threw his phone ten stories down to the ground.  He whipped around to look at Spider-Man, who was flashing him the peace sign.  The Gym that had previously been ruled by Valor now glowed yellow, and a new player character stood in Dealpood’s spot that was named ‘YoItsSpidey’.  The Scyther had been replaced by an Arcanine.

“‘SpiderMan’ was already taken,” Peter informed, but he sounded so utterly pleased with himself as he said it.  Then he patted Deadpool on the shoulder and got to his feet.  “Have fun giving people swirlies,” he added and then he jumped off the ledge, waiting until he’d dropped about four stories before he shot his web and swung himself across the street.  Totally unnecessary, but he knew he looked cool doing it, and that was the perfect exit strategy for tonight.

Deadpool screamed incoherently after him, but maybe that was because he had the wind in his ears, between which was a wide, shit-eating grin.

Chapter Text

The most surprising thing to come from this app was that now even the police were found in small clusters at Pokéstops and Gyms, all with their mobiles out and staring down at their screens.  At first Peter had been a wary -- and could you blame him with the love-hate relationship the cops and Spider-Man had going on? -- but in the end… it really seemed like this was the best outcome anyone could have hoped for.  Now instead of seeing every loitering youngster as a suspicious probably-criminal, the men and women in blue greeted them, asked if they were playing, and even gave them support and advice about the little monsters found in the game.  He’d seen one fistbump a child after finding out they were both on Team Mystic.

What was even better was that now they were patrolling the stops more frequently, and it made it harder for would-be muggers to set up lure-traps like they had been the first week of the app’s release.  Hell, crime had, impossibly, gone down, which was absolutely incredible.  Maybe Pokémon could actually change the world for the better.  Who knew it would happen so fast?

A few of the officers had waved at Spider-Man as he sat perched up on buildings with his phone out.  Peter was more than grateful that they at least weren’t shooting at him or threatening to arrest him and unmask him.

While he was out patrolling his new pit-stops, he ran into Deadpool again.

Well, no, it wasn’t ran into Deadpool again -- not like last time.  He swung low around the cluster of trees in a playground wedged between neighborhoods and business buildings, and saw something that made his blood run cold.  Then it was like gasoline was running through his veins and the spark of anger was a match igniting it all.  He had hoped that giving the scene a few more seconds to continue would make him understand what was going on better, that maybe he had mistaken what was really happening, but no, there was no changing what was playing out before him.  Deadpool, in full costume, was mugging kids.  They looked like high-schoolers, maybe fourteen-year-olds.

“Deadpool!” he boomed just after he landed and began stalking towards the group.  The other masked man turned, but Spider-Man’s presence clearly threw him off, and if Peter’s eyes hadn’t been trained on the Merc’s gun, then he would have missed the slight falter in his hand.

“I know this looks bad, but I’m gonna deal with these guys.”  His voice was cold and determined.  Spider-Man felt furious with himself for not kicking Deadpool out of his state when they ran into each other a week ago.  He actually felt betrayed, even though that emotion had no right to be bubbling up in him.

“Put the gun down or I’m going to make you.”  Spider-Man’s voice could get just as icy and serious as anyone else’s.

Deadpool made an aggravated sound and turned away from him, disengaging the back and forth that was clearly getting nowhere right then.  He yanked the phone out of the closest kid’s hand and then swiped the other three’s, and Spider-Man moved to take the mercenary out, but he froze when, instead of pocketing the electronics, Deadpool threw them on the ground and smashed them as hard as he could with his boot.  Now it was Peter’s turn to falter, because Deadpool spun his gun around his finger that was on the trigger, and then pocketed it at his thigh.

“You fucking do that shit again and I’m not just gonna break your fucking phones, you hear me?” the man-for-hire seethed.  The three, who had seemed relieved that Spider-Man had shown up, now only had fear on their faces.  They nodded, each one at breakneck speeds, and then Deadpool waved them off.  It was like a fire had been lit under their asses and they bolted off, probably towards one of their houses.  (They hadn’t looked related at all.)

Spider-Man stood still, tense, angry, and confused.  “Tell me why I shouldn’t take you down right now.”

Why was he even giving this asshole a chance?  He fully believed that people could change, that the villains who he put behind bars and into the system would take it as an opportunity to better themselves.  But not Deadpool.  Deadpool didn’t change.  He may have lowered his body count average for the past few months, but it was true what he had heard people say.  The other man always fell back into his old habits, no matter how much he promised he wouldn’t.  Spider-Man had actually been on the receiving end of one of Deadpool’s rambles about how he was trying to be a good guy, a hero.  Peter had been suspicious, but after seeing some minor results, he had actually fallen for it.

Deadpool grumbled and turned away.  He had the audacity to stretch his limbs like he had only gone for a light jog around the block, and after a few choice words he’d muttered to himself, he raised his voice so that Spider-Man could hear him.  (He apparently didn’t know Spider-Man had enhanced hearing.)

“Those kids were being cocky little fuckholes, and I ain’t about to fuckin’ stand here and let them bully anyone.”

Spider-Man stomped his way out in front of the mercenary.  “So what exactly made you think waving a gun at their heads was the proper response?”  He sounded like he was seconds away from decking the taller man in the jaw.  Maybe even do it hard enough to break his neck.

Deadpool looked away for a third time and then huffed out, “I don’t need to hear that from you.”

“Excuse me?” Spider-Man demanded, and his wiry form stretched slightly from him straightening his back even further.

Deadpool moved his head fully to look the hero in the eye and waved his left hand as if to draw a picture in the air.  “That wasn’t for you, but you know what?  I don’t gotta take shit from you, either.  You come in just assuming I’m fucking up again.”

Spider-Man actually did hit him then, making Deadpool stumble back, surprise evident even on his mask.  “You were pointing a weapon at children!  I don’t care what they did, they thought you were going to kill them!  I thought you were going to kill them!”

Deadpool shoved Spider-Man back out of his space.  “I don’t hurt kids.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed behind his lenses.  “Oh, so you have morals, now?” he sniped.  Deadpool looked like he was getting even more pissed.

“Yeah, I do.  That trio sure as fuck aren’t about to pick on nine-year-olds again, now are they?”  Spider-Man was seething.  How could Deadpool not see the problem with any of this?  The Merc started talking again before either of them could escalate things further.  “I was playing with the younglings -- they were too low level to take on Gyms that these shitheads were taking over just to see them all sad, so I was knocking the Gyms down so they could have a chance, you know?  And then the pricks walked up and tricked these kids into handing over their phones, bein’ all like, ‘Hey, let me see what Pokémon you guys have!,’ and shit.  Then they purposefully released all of their Pokémon.  Like, did it with these fucking smirks and they were so proud of themselves.  These poor kids were devastated and started crying.  They hadn’t done shit all to these fucknuggets.”

Spider-Man wasn’t honestly sure how to feel right them.  It was like a sheet had been yanked over his emotions.

Deadpool, still sounding full of conviction, went on.  “So I gave those kids money to compensate, and then I told ‘em to run home.  I wasn’t about to freak them out seeing something like what I was gonna do.  That’d fuck ‘em up.  But those guys didn’t feel any remorse.  They were still laughing about it.  So I wanted to freak them out.  They’d probably done this to other kids, you know?  Bullies like that don’t fuckin’ stop until they’re scared.  So I took an’ smashed their phones.”

Some wind was taken out of Spider-Man’s sails.  “That still doesn’t make you in the right.  You sunk down to their level; you bullied them.”

A sharp, sudden laugh came from Deadpool’s throat and he held his stomach like it hurt.  “You don’t fuckin’ get it, do you?  They weren’t gonna stop doing their shit until they got a taste of it back.  You saying you would have just let them walk away from doin’ that?”

Spider-Man squared his shoulders.  “No.  But you were still in the wrong.”

Deadpool disengaged again, and turned his body a full ninety degrees.  “Yeah, yeah, you’re above me, I get it.  You haven’t been through what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t fucking understand.  I shouldn’t expect you to.  You got your way of doin’ shit, and I got mine.  But you can’t tell me I don’t get results.”

Spider-Man didn’t even know what Deadpool had been through.  “My life hasn’t been sunshine and daisies, either.  But I try to be a better person every single day.  It’s a conscious choice.  It’s a choice you can make, too.  You have to work for it.”

Deadpool curled in on himself a little bit.  “I ain’t an outstanding citizen like you are.  We’re not the same.”

Oh believe me, I know that. Peter had to bite his tongue to stop that from falling past his lips.

“Next time just take their phones.  No gun.”  A pause.  “No knives, either.”

The Merc actually froze, and cocked his head like a spaniel.  It was obvious that he was staring hard at Spider-Man like he’d… oh, done something cliché like grown a second head.  “Did you just give me the greenlight to rob people?” he asked, but there was actually a little bit of amusement at the end of his sentence.

Peter looked at the other man’s arm.  It was easier than looking him in the eyes.  “That wasn’t…”

“No, man, you gotta commit to your lectures or no one’s ever gonna listen to you,” Deadpool said, and he sounded absolutely nothing like he had earlier.  There was life back in him now, not frigid detachment.

Spider-Man rubbed his temple with one hand.  “I want you gone if you’re gonna cause any more trouble.”  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  This was definitely a shame on me moment for Peter.  After a beat, he held out his hand and said, “Give me the gun.”

Deadpool, surprisingly, didn't put up a fight and took it back out, turned the safety on, and handed it over.  He probably had at least ten more that just weren't on him.  Peter tucked it in his shoes that stopped at his calves.  His hands were trembling after he was done, memories threatening to overwhelm him.  He left without saying anything else, shooting his webbing up at the closest building and climbing up to the roof of it.  He wondered when, exactly, kids had gotten so mean to one another -- but then he remembered being in school and he realized that they always had been.  Also that Deadpool better not even have his  holsters next time they found one another.

He was actually fully expecting them to, at this point.

Chapter Text

Peter had wound up dropping the confiscated gun off at one of the local police departments, webbing it to a piece of paper that he scrawled a note on.  Said note read that it was an illegally obtained firearm.  (Now, whether or not that was true, he had no idea.  But honestly, with how easy it was for anyone to get their hands on a weapon like this, it was most likely obtained over the internet or at a shop.)  Then he’d knocked on the window and swung away.

Over the next few days, it was hard to get his mind off of Deadpool whenever he thought about or opened Pokémon Go.  He just couldn't separate the two anymore.  It was not really something he wanted to let his mind settle on for long.  He wound up caving in and Googling information on the Merc, hoping to ease his thoughts with some backstory.  If he could just stop wondering what the other man had been through, maybe he could get his brain to move past this apparent roadblock.

It turned out that there was a disturbing amount of facts about the mercenary, and it made Peter’s skin crawl with unease.  (What if someone had been logging this much on Spider-Man?)  He’d found a superhero Wikipedia branch-off, and he couldn’t stop from questioning how anyone had gotten this much info on one person.  It wasn’t like Deadpool (legal name Wade Winston Wilson) was tight-lipped about himself, but seriously, this was some stalker-level stuff.  The guy was Canadian, somehow wound up in the U.S. Special Ops, got a dishonorable discharge, and then settled on being a man for hire.  He could be found either through word of mouth or on the Dark Web.  This whole article was like a trainwreck, and Peter couldn’t stop himself from reading more of it.  He’d tried, he really did, but it started driving him up a wall to not know what else there was.  Wade had gone through multiple health facilities, became part of a black ops group of Mutants (which included Wolverine -- Peter remembered Deadpool mentioning that man a few times), and then… it was like he’d disappeared.  There was no record of where he’d been after that.  He eventually showed back up again, with a different suit and no team affiliations.

Peter leaned back in his chair, which caused it to tilt and creak loudly, and he stared at his computer screen.  He felt like there was something hot and heavy resting in his stomach, and it was making him nauseous.  What had Deadpool been through?  He felt like the MIA portion of the Wikia was where something really, really bad had happened to the Merc.  To try to distract himself, he wound up looking up Spider-Man in the search bar.

It seemed that all of the eerily personal data had been taken from the S.H.I.E.L.D. files that had been dumped online back when the clusterfuck with Hydra infiltrating the highest ranked government facility came to a climax.  It actually hadn’t been too long before the Sokovia Accords had been the most trending search-slash-hashtag on every social media outlet around the world.  Peter remembered that part pretty vividly, because he had been scared out of his wits that he would be roped into something branching off of that mess.  It had been the topic of hot debate for a few months.  Where would the laws stop, and would they wind up affecting every superhero out there?  Jameson had printed several long, angry front-page articles about how such measures should be applied to Spider-Man, and every other ‘masked vigilante freak’ out there (even though the CEO of the Daily Bugle had shown his support for Captain America throughout, even going so far as to begging the super soldier to sign the Accords).  Peter had lost a lot of sleep during those weeks.

Thankfully, no one with an account on the Wikia had figured out Spider-Man’s secret identity, and there was mostly just security footage of the arachnid-powered Super, and guesses as to where in New York he lived.  Okay, so that much was really worrying, but at least his face remained a complete mystery, even to the now non-existent S.H.I.E.L.D..

That night, Peter stumbled upon a news article that Facebook suggested to him about a Pokémon Go dating website.  Before that, he’d been messing around on his phone until he fell asleep.  The website appeared to cost money, but only after the second date was successfully put together by the site.  Maybe it would serve as a distraction for his mind, give him something else to think about when it came to the game app.  Besides, he’d been purposefully off the market for a long time.  Maybe meeting up with someone could help him more than he knew…  It didn’t have to turn into anything serious.

He set up his profile, and his thumb hovered around the “what are you looking for?” option for nearly a minute.  Finally, he allowed himself to say both men and women.  He turned his phone off, and rolled over onto his side.  Then he shoved one arm up under his pillow and finally got comfortable in the fetal position.

The next morning, he rolled himself up, went to the bathroom, got himself a bowl of cereal, groggily ate that, brushed his teeth, showered, and then checked his phone while his hair was drying.

He’d actually completely forgotten about signing up for a dating website until he saw the e-mail that let him know his profile had been approved by an admin and he already had a list of matches.  He vaguely regretted the spur-of-the-moment decision from the night before, but it wouldn’t hurt to just look at his matches, now would it?

The color drained from his face when he saw the name Wade Wilson as a match who had already green-lit Peter as a date.  The photo was one of a very fucked up face with a similarly disfigured hand covering part of it.  A baseball cap resting under a pulled-up hood gave just enough shadow to the horror that was this guy’s face.  Peter dropped his phone.

He was panicking, he was completely panicking.  That picture was a now-permanent fixture in the back of his eyes, and his heart was beating a thousand times a minute.  There was literally no way that this could be happening.  There was over twenty-million people living in the state of New York, and Deadpool was the one to get a match on Peter, who had just had a profile up for a few hours?  His hands were trembling.

It might not have been Deadpool, though.  ‘Wilson’ was a common last name, and ‘Wade’ wasn’t exactly unique, either.  He picked up his mobile and stared at the photo again.  The man looked like he’d been in a fire and had his skin absolutely destroyed in the process.  Peter felt sick looking at the profile, but he also felt a little pity.  It was unquestionably shitty to judge someone as being ugly just because something obviously horrific happened to them, wasn’t it?  Even if he did look a bit like Freddy Krueger with a different face structure.  His gaze lingered on the man’s eyes, and it was obvious that the tight smile on his lips didn’t come close to reaching them.  Peter wondered if he’d fought with himself over whether or not to join based on the requirement of needing a photograph of himself.  He looked like he was forcing himself to even take the picture.

Aunt May would have hit him upside the head if his inner commentary on this guy passed his lips in her presence.

Okay, but seriously, it was statistically impossible for this to be Deadpool.  It was just dumb luck alone that it was the same name.  ...Right?  He went back to the article of Wade Winston Wilson on the superheroes Wikia.

It said Deadpool was married.  Someone named Shiklah.  How he hadn’t seen that before was beyond him, but that at least put his mind at ease.  Good.  It wasn’t Deadpool, then.  (He was a little disturbed about finding out that someone had married Deadpool.  Were they okay?  Did they accidentally stumble up the aisle and slip and fall into the wedding ring?  Have a convenient seizure with a pen in their hand and just happened to sign their name on the documents?)

Okay, that was actually really mean, but he felt justified in his opinion.  Deadpool was a really shitty human being.  But then, maybe his spouse was just as shitty.

After fighting with himself until noon, Peter finally accepted the date.  He'd thumbed through the other matches, and he gave up once he saw that there were two blondes and a redheaded girl.  All three had left a sour taste in his mouth, and twisted up his intestines with the memories of Gewn Stacy and Mary Jane.  He and Wade agreed to meet up on Saturday at a Pokéstop near a Starbucks, and get coffee afterward.  Peter checked his wallet to make sure that he could actually afford the over-priced, watered-down excuse for a caffeine source that the chain swore by.  He did, but it was going to be his entire week’s spending money.

Now he felt sick to his gut again -- but this time it was with anxiety.  He for-real had a date.  And it wasn’t with some criminal for once.  He had an honest, two-people-meeting-up-to-get-to-know-one-another date.

He texted Aunt May.  She’d been hinting pretty strongly that he should put himself back out there for well over six months now.  This would make her day.  He only realized that he was grinning after he hit send.

Chapter Text

Peter had well over-thought his situation and, despite waking up early, had freaked himself out over what to wear until it was almost time to go.  He’d cycled through his shirts until he had none left and then went back through the ones he’d tossed onto his bed as soft maybes.  And even then it took him almost a quarter of an hour to finally decide on one.  It was a Minecraft shirt he’d found at a thrift store; a black base that had three contemplative Creepers looking up at the square, pixelated moon.  It was honestly a ridiculous shirt, based off of that one joke that had been floating around more frequently a few years ago, but he’d found it too funny to pass up, and it had only been three dollars -- three dollars well spent.

He wiggled into his faded blue jeans, ones that had become so threadbare around his knees that holes had formed, but he liked them too much to get rid of them.  Besides, that was coming back into style.  Then he pulled on green socks and his black and white knock-off Vans.  He wanted to at least look like he could competently dress himself.  Finally, he set his father’s glasses on the bridge of his nose.

He left his apartment, locked the door, started walking down the hall, and then ran back in because he hadn’t grabbed his wallet.  He’d put it by the door specifically so he wouldn’t forget it, and look what wound up happening anyway.  Ugh, he really was a wreck.

Who could blame him, though?  He hadn’t… he hadn’t done this in so long.  First impressions were what made people leave knowing they were going to block you as soon as they got home, or text you to let you know they had a good time.  They both knew that their matches were into Pokémon Go, which meant that it was possible for them to be into other overlapping games, or even be branded as ‘nerdy’.  So he felt like his choice in clothes wasn’t too frowned upon.  He hoped.

After pushing his hair around several different directions, he eventually gave up and let it do what it wanted.  His hair had always been thick and a little curly, which made it nearly impossible to style.  Finally, after checking himself out for the umpteenth time, he nervously pocketed his wallet and phone, and then left his apartment.

Aunt May had been absolutely ecstatic at the news of him finally meeting someone.  He hadn’t let her know all of the details yet -- and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance to.  If this didn’t work out, then it wasn’t a huge loss, was it?  He didn’t know much at all about this Wade guy except for his skin condition.  And ‘skin condition’ was putting it lightly.  His stomach tensed a little, and he rested his left hand over it as he started down the stairs to the first floor.  He tried not to be judgemental, but it was just human nature to be that way.  He really hoped that he didn’t upset the other man by showing any disgust on his face or for staring too long.  He removed his phone and opened the other’s dating profile back up, and he eyed the image for a few long seconds.  He’d been doing this every few hours, trying to get used to it by expose alone.

Wade had a very strong jaw, and where his eyebrows should have been were jutted out and surprisingly expressive.  The lack of hair creeped him out a little bit, and after a lot of personal reflection, he realized it was because eyebrows were a huge tell on a person’s thoughts and emotions.  Without them… it was like he was hiding something suspicious and was untrustworthy.  It was an uncanny valley kind of deal.  But even without them, Peter could see that Wade was frowning.  Maybe it wouldn’t be so awkward after all.

Once he opened the front door to the apartment complex, the summer heat slammed against him like a solid wall.  He almost staggered back, and his first lungful of the outside air was difficult to take in.

Okay, so maybe wearing a black shirt, pants, and shoes that covered his entire feet was a bad idea.  He should have checked the weather before he’d decided on his clothes, and he was self-conscious about showing up to the date like he’d been out in the sun, sweating profusely all morning.  He was pretty sure that smelling like a ripe onion was a huge turn-off for the first date.  He actually was debating with himself about whether or not he wanted to eat the cost and take the bus.  He wound up decided against it -- the AC probably wouldn’t even help, and the amount of people would just make the place bake.  There was almost no air circulation on busses, windows open or no.

It took him roughly twenty minutes to get to the Pokéstop they’d agreed on, and it felt like it had to be twice that.  He was already wearing down, and sweat was dripping down the back of his neck.  Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be out and about as Spider-Man right now -- no matter how hot it got in the city, the rush of air as he swung around made him almost shiver from the cold.  And right now, that sounded like a dream come true.

It appeared that he was early, because he didn’t see anyone who had Wade’s skin who was currently at the Pokéstop.  Well, at least there was shade just above it, and someone had dropped a lure.  Peter could at least distract himself by catching Pokemon until Wade showed up.  (It also gave him something to do with his hands that wasn’t nervous fiddling -- he felt like he was about to get up in front of a class and recite a speech.  He hoped that he didn’t say anything stupid or stumble over his words when they finally met up.)  Unfortunately, the sweltering heat made his hands slick and if it wasn’t for his sticky fingers he would have probably dropped his phone about seven times by now.  And at least the day wasn’t a total waste -- he managed to get a Bulbasaur!  Nerves very momentarily forgotten, he fist-pumped gave a victory cry.

“Hey, uh, you catch anything good?”

Peter’s head shot up immediately and every muscle in his body felt like it was tightening up.  His mouth went dry but he tried to swallow on reflex anyway, which caused him to start coughing.  Great.  This was definitely an amazing start to this date.

“Wade?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse from clearing his throat.

And there the other man was, slouched over and head down, almost like he was scared to meet Peter’s eyes.  He was wearing exactly what he had been in his profile picture, and Peter had absolutely no idea how the guy wasn’t suffering a heat stroke.  Peter was burning up and he was wearing short sleeves and no hat!  On top of that, Wade had his hands shoved in his pockets.  If Peter hadn’t known what temperature it was, he would have thought a cold front had come through.

“Peter?” Wade pressed, but he sounded like he was trying to make himself small.  Like he thought Peter was going to bolt the first chance he got.

Peter felt overwhelming pity rush over him.

“Are you really okay wearing all that?” he asked, as he moved to get to his feet.  He autopilot dusted the grass off of the back of his jeans.

Wade shifted uncomfortably.  He shrugged.  “Yeah,” he lied.

Peter felt like he’d already said something wrong, and he got even more jittery and self-conscious.  “Well, uh, yeah, I’m Peter, Peter Parker,” he introduced, and he switched his phone to his left hand and extended his right out for a greeting.  Wade seemed to have an inner debate with himself before he pulled only his own right hand out of his hoodie pocket and twitched once before accepting the handshake.  Peter immediately felt that he was the only one sweating -- his date’s palm was completely, painfully dry.  The texture of his skin was uneven, bumpy, like he had mounds of scar tissue covering every inch of visible skin.

“Wade Wilson,” the other said, but at least he seemed minutely more relaxed.  Poor guy.

Peter smiled, and he cocked his head slightly.  “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, and was surprised that his voice hadn’t trembled.  Maybe he was picking up the slack instinctively, becoming the confident one to balance out Wade’s insecurity.  This was certainly a new thing.

“Yeah, it is,” Wade agreed.  Then he added, “Alliteration buddies.”

Peter chuckled.  He hadn’t even thought of that.  “Yeah, we are, huh?”

Wade’s chapped lips pulled into a small smile.  “So, didja catch anything good?”

It took Peter a second for his mind to backtrack to what he’d just captured.  His face lit up and he opened his list of Pokémon before he showed it off to his date.  “Yeah, a Bulbasaur, actually.  It’s probably still around if you wanted to try to catch it.  Someone dropped a lure, and I actually got a few high CP Pokémon while I was waiting.”  It was so bizarre for Peter to be the one filling the space between them with conversation, and he didn’t even sound like he was rambling uselessly.  Much.

Wade had started to take out his phone before he paused, and he shrunk in on himself again.  “I’m not late, am I?” he questioned.  Peter felt guilt wash over him.

“No, no, I was just really early.”  Geez, Wade had lower self-esteem than even he had.  That was impressive.  There was probably a medal out there for such an achievement.

Wade looked like that made him feel a little better.  “Well, uh, I’m here now.  So, you wanna get coffee, or… just hang around here for a while?”

Peter tilted his head in thought.  “It’s up to you,” he started to say, before he realized that Wade was probably close to actually having a heat stroke -- that must have been why he wasn’t sweating and his skin had been like a furnace.  Peter paled a little and he started kicking himself mentally for not thinking about that sooner.  “Actually, let’s go get inside where there’s AC.”  He gestured to the Starbucks that was almost directly across the street.  His mind was racing a thousand miles a minute about what to do if Wade collapsed from the heat.  Call 911, get him hydrated and try to cool him down with ice while they waited for the ambulance, try to keep him conscious.  Of course this was one day where he didn’t bring his reusable water bottle with him.  It was just his luck to have left that when he actually needed it.

Thankfully there was a crosswalk less than a block up, and the signal for them to cross turned on just as they reached it.

“So what team are you on?” Peter asked, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of how Wade’s mouth was slightly open, like he wasn’t able to get enough air.  This date might actually turn out to be a complete disaster.

“Team Way Too Fuckin’ Hot To Be On Fire,” Wade replied, and he awkwardly cast a glance Peter’s way.  He had his phone out and was busy throwing Pokéballs at the Bulbasaur.  It broke out and ran away.  Wade cussed under his breath.  “Little assfucker.”  Peter felt like he’d been hit with some kind of déjà vu, but after blinking a few times he shook it off.

“I’m Instinct,” he replied.

Wade clearly raised a would-be eyebrow and gave Peter a look up and down.  “Really?  Mister Geek Chic is Team Meme?”

Peter laughed out loud -- a little too loud -- before he could stop himself.  “Well, I was going to pick Mystic, but, well…”  He paused, and then shrugged with one shoulder.  “It’s more of an inside joke.”  He couldn’t just blab that it had been too fitting for him to pick Instinct when his spider sense saved his ass from being handed to him at least once a day.  “And, well…”  He tugged on the bottom of his shirt, straightening the fabric out and showing off the image.

Wade snorted.

Before Peter could open the door to the Starbucks, Wade beat him to it and held it open for him, gesturing the slighter male inside.  “After you,” he said, and it seemed like he was actually starting to get over his discomfort and let his personality slip out.  Peter inclined his head and said his thanks before he even realized he was doing it.  Aunt May raised him right, after all.

The rush of cold air felt incredible and Peter sighed blissfully.  He also felt relief bubble up in him that Wade was going to be able to bring his temperature down.  “How about we sit for a second and figure out what we want?” he suggested, and caste a glance at his date.  He felt... oddly comfortable.  Maybe that silly dating website really had matched him up well.

Wade immediately collapsed at a two-person table, taking the seat that was facing the wall.  Peter felt like that was definitely on purpose.  He said nothing about it and pulled out his own chair before sinking down into it.  “Feels good in here,” he said, trying to keep up the conversation.  He looked around at the other patrons and noticed that a few people were staring at them.  He frowned.  He almost never got eyeballed when he was out being plain Peter Parker.  Was it… because of Wade, then?

Said man removed his baseball cap but kept his hood pulled up, and started fanning himself with his hat.  “Fuckin’ seriously,” he agreed.  Peter was once again struck by familiarity.  “Feel’s like Hell is tryin’ to fuckin’ take over,” Wade went on, and he closed his eyes and leaned back slightly in his seat, enjoying the air-conditioning.  They fell into silence for a few moments.  Peter was nervously opening his captured Pokemon screen, sliding back and forth between them and his eggs.  He actually hadn’t been able to hatch many eggs because his way of transport as Spider-Man went well over the fifteen miles per hour cap.  At least walking today had gotten him slightly closer by a few kilometers.

“So what d’you do?” Wade asked, and Peter lifted his head to blink at the other.  “School, have a job…?”

Peter closed the app to save the battery and set it face-down on the fake marble tabletop.  “College, but I’m on break right now,” he said.  His tongue ran over his lips to wet them, and his foot started bouncing up and down under the table.  “And I do freelance photography.  Occasionally the Bugle uses some of the shots I get.”

Wade gave a clearly disgusted huff.  “Man, that paper’s so full of shit.  It’s more like a fuckin’ gossip mag.”

Peter couldn’t stop the wide grin that covered his face.  “No truer words,” he agreed, and gave a few slow shakes of his head.  “But money’s money.”

Wade nodded, and it seemed like Peter’s smile was infectious.  “Ain’t that the truth.”

Maybe, just maybe, Aunt May was right, and dating wasn’t so bad.

Chapter Text

They spent almost half an hour chatting before Wade suggested that they skedaddle out of there and hit up an actually decent coffee shop that had “the real stuff,” complete with better food and prices.  Peter agreed, so they got up, pocketed their phones, Wade snuck his hat back on, and they headed out.

It was like walking right back out into an oven, but at least they’d gotten a nice reprieve from the hellish weather.  He was actually enjoying himself so much that he had forgotten to re-open Pokémon Go and let it count his steps toward hatching his eggs.  He wound up mentioning that, and Wade seemed to straighten his spine, to lift his shoulders, and to hold his head up higher.  He looked flattered and happy.  Peter felt his heart flutter a little at that sight, and he almost walked right into someone because of it.  He whipped himself in a spiraling crescent out of the way just before contact, his spider sense going off and deciding his movements for him.  Wade wound up clapping, saying how that had been an incredible save.  Peter smiled stupidly.

“You ever take ballet?” Wade asked.

Peter shook his head.  “No.  I never considered it, actually.”  He was most definitely flexible enough, and he had more than enough balance and stamina.  He’d have to take time out of his already busy schedule to sign up, and if it wasn’t a free class, well… that answered his question for him.  And besides, it left a bad taste in his mouth -- he had been bullied pretty ruthlessly throughout school, and even though college was a lot different than that, he still felt a pang of fear rush through him.  He always used to be made fun of for being small, well-read, and probably gay because of those things (which was long before any of them had hit puberty).  He had been an easy target and he couldn’t really fight back when he was young.  He hadn’t known how to.  Instead, when knocked to the ground, he’d curl up -- which he found out the hard way was a bad idea; it left his kidneys and spine wide open for attack.  He’d just taken the kicks as best he could.  It had sucked a lot.  Aunt May and Uncle Ben had actually talked with him about changing schools, and a few times Peter had agreed with them on it… but he knew, deep down, that he would just find a whole new set of bullies.  At least the ones he had he was used to.  He could guess their moves and maybe even dodge a few.

Ballet wouldn’t benefit him at all.

“I’d probably suck at it,” he said, and his voice was suddenly quiet, withdrawn, and insecure.

Wade frowned at him and Peter could see it out of the corner of his eye.  “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring up anything unpleasant,” he said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle.  Peter felt moved by the show of kindness and he smiled at Wade, even though it was strained.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” Wade questioned, and he shoved his hands right back into his pockets.  Having the conversation turn to him obviously made him nervous.

Peter shrugged.  For being considerate.  For being supportive.  For making me feel comfortable.  “For being you,” he finally answered.

Wade looked bewildered and then barked out a quick, jarring laugh.  “Ain’t never been told that before.”

Peter felt pity rise up in him again.  Who had hurt Wade so badly?  He’d probably been bullied, too.  Peter was pretty sure his skin made a lot of people stare, made him feel vulnerable and ugly.  He probably closed himself off after failed attempts at getting close to anyone.  It only struck Peter then, that Wade even signing up for a dating site at all was probably more difficult than Peter could ever truly understand.  He was so glad he’d forced himself to come to terms with the other’s looks, letting him get to know the man under the skin.

“Well,” Peter said, and he wasn’t really sure where he was going with this.  “Everyone but me’s missing out, then.”  He tilted his head a little, glancing up at Wade through his own messy, sweat-laden bangs.

He wasn’t expecting Wade to look so lost at that.  Peter wondered if he somehow said something wrong.  Wade looked away, and neither of them said anything for so long that the silence between them became awkward.  Peter inwardly berated himself for it, for ruining what was supposed to be a pleasant, doesn’t-have-to-get-serious date.  He thought about why he’d kept to himself for so long, why he, too, had pushed everyone away from getting emotionally close to him.

Maybe it was better this way.  Anyone who knew him would always be put in danger sooner or later.  Sooner or later they’d wind up dead.  Everyone but May and Mary Jane had, and that was why Peter had to be so diligent in keeping as many things from them as he could.  Hell, he’d broken up with the redhead because it was very possible she’d be the next Gwen.  The next Harry.  The next Ben.

“Thanks.”

Peter was startled by the sudden sound of the other’s voice, and his face showed it.  He was about to parrot Wade’s own words -- for what? -- but he was cut off as Wade continued.

“Thanks for sayin’ that.  I didn’t think I’d needed to hear it, but, uh…”  Wade trailed off, and looked increasingly more awkward as he took a hand out to wave around like he would be able to find his words by snatching them right out of the air.  “Shit, that sounded clingy,” he grumbled under his breath.  “Yeah, well you fuckin’ come up with something better on the spot, genius.”

Peter was pretty sure that wasn’t meant for him to hear, since it was muttered and sounded a little aggressive.  He felt sick, actually, and he couldn’t put his finger on why.

“You shouldn’t have to thank me for acting decent to you,” Peter said.  Something was wrong and it was making him incredibly uncomfortable.  His precog wasn’t giving him any warning signs though, so what was causing it?

“The place is up here,” Wade said, dropping their previous conversation entirely.  Peter was more than okay with that.  “It shouldn’t be too busy,” he added, and once again opened the door for Peter, who was overcome with relief at the feeling of air-conditioning.  The place was small, only had five tables and one couch that was facing a wall-mounted TV.  It was actually really nicely decorated, and it had a homely kind of feel to it.  Peter felt his nerves ease up slightly.  It smelled amazing, too.

His metabolism had gone right through the roof after he’d gotten his superpowers, but his budget didn’t allow him to ever feel truly satiated.  More and more lately, he was feeling worn down after fights, and he always had a lingering hunger cramping up his stomach.  It was actually worrying him, and he’d tried to supplement his diet with things like jars of peanuts, but it was hard to get ahold of fruits and vegetables that would stave off his appetite.  The local farmers’ market was only open during hours where he either had class or needed to catch up on sleep.  His meals consisted mostly of starch, because rice, potatoes, and pasta were the cheapest things available at stores.  He knew that it wasn’t sustainable in the long-run, but there wasn’t a lot he could do.  He had to take more classes than he could honestly handle just to qualify for some of the scholarships that were the only reason he was able to attend higher education.  Between that, fighting crime, and trying to visit his aunt so she wouldn’t be too lonely, he had absolutely no free time left.  That train of thought brought him down, because he remembered that his break was ending soon and he would have to dive back into his studies.  Spider-Man was probably going to get scarce again.

Wade was busy talking about how good this place’s coffee was, and how they made all of the pastries and sandwiches there every morning, how they didn’t have them shipped in like other places.  Peter set a hand on his stomach, trying to calm his negative thoughts enough to smile for his date.  His inability to eat what his body needed wasn’t helping him from falling into bouts of depression.  He’d been so anxious this morning about what to wear and what Wade would think of him that he hadn’t had breakfast like he’d initially made time for.  Now he was paying for that; he felt tired and nauseous.  The heat had really pushed him, it seemed.

He eyed the menu while Wade rambled on, and saw that they had iced coffee.  He tried to decide which of the flavors offered wouldn’t be too sweet for him -- too much sugar on an empty stomach tended to make him feel even worse off than if he just hadn’t had anything in him at all.  He pushed his glasses up before he pointed at the list.  “Just a plain iced coffee for me,” he said, and then he mentally calculated out how much he’d have left for a sandwich.  Wade had been right: the prices were way better here.  He reached into the refrigerated container and pulled out two ham and cheese sandwiches, and by the time he’d wandered back to the counter, he saw Wade taking out a twenty and handing it over.  The brunet juggled the food into one hand so he could fish out his wallet, but Wade waved him off.  “Don’t worry about it, I’m paying,” he said, and he winked at Peter.  Without even looking at the change given to him, Wade dumped it all into the tip jar and walked over and threw himself down on the couch like he was right at home.

Peter’s brain still hadn’t caught up to that.  He blinked three times and then glanced down at his wallet.  As nice as that was, Peter felt guilt creeping up his back and resting in his gut.  A side-effect of growing up poor, he was hyper-aware of other people spending money on him.  He mathed it out, plus tax, and knew exactly how much he was going to pay Wade back.  He made his way to the couch, which faced away from the rest of the shop, and sat down on the edge of the other side of it.  He already knew that he was going to cut things off with Wade, had come to terms with it.  He just didn’t have the time to socialize, much less have a significant other, and it just felt beyond shitty to have Wade pay for his meal with Peter knowing this was their last date.  “Here,” he said, and he pulled out a ten.  It was more than he owed, but it was about as much as it would have cost if they’d stayed at Starbucks.

Wade eyed the money and then looked up at Peter.  He seemed to notice that something was off.

“You don’t gotta.  It’s not like I’m strapped for cash.”

Peter pursed his lips and was going to push it further but just gave up and lowered his wallet.  The least he could do was make this date a good one for Wade.  “Thank you, then,” he said, and immediately started opening one of the sandwiches.  He was already done with one of them by the time their coffee was done, and since they were the only customers in the place, the woman behind the counter brought them their drinks, setting them on the low table in front of them.  Peter thanked her.  Just before she left, she turned on the TV for them, and the news was on, having yet another story trying to show Pokémon Go in a bad light.  Apparently people were being disrespectful of the World War II monuments and Holocaust Museum.  Peter frowned as he took a bite of his second sandwich.

“People are gonna be assholes with or without some dumb app,” Wade said, and he sounded annoyed.  “Remember Justin Bieber saying that Anne Frank would have been a fan of his?  It’s not Pokémon that’s making people shitty.”

Peter nodded.  He’d actually forgotten about that.  Once again he was struck by familiarity, but also that… maybe he wouldn’t have to break up with Wade.  The guy seemed pretty understanding, and what if Peter telling him there wouldn’t be a second date just destroyed what confidence he had?  The ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ likely wouldn’t go over very well -- Peter wondered how many times people have used it on Wade.

“The company’s really small so it’d take a while, but they’re probably going to eventually make the Pokéstops and Gyms be an opt-in or opt-out deal,” Peter said.  Just thinking that he would say yes to a second date had raised his spirits.  Obviously that meant a lot.

“Speaking of…”  Wade pulled out his phone and grinned, casting a look at Peter.  “There’s a Mystic Gym within range.  Wanna take it on?”

The question was so ridiculous that Peter smiled around his mouthful.  He swallowed and then cocked his head.  “Why not?”

They were on different teams, but they could still both knock down the Gym’s prestige points until one of them was able to become the Gym Leader.  Peter set his food down on the table, neatly on the wrapping it had come in, and got out his phone.  There was a childlike joy filling him right now -- his elementary-school self was going ballistic.

Together, they repeatedly took out the Exeggutor and Snorlax until the Gym turned silver with no team owning it.  “Would you like to do the honors?” Wade asked, and he sounded so pompous right then.  Peter was surprised that someone from team Valor was actually giving someone from Instinct a chance to run the Gym.  But Peter shook his head.  Even though his Arcanine was his strongest, it would be annihilated within a minute.

“Nah.  I don’t have anything really worth putting up,” he said, and he was… actually really enjoying this.  Even though they’d hit a few bumps and he himself had fallen down into some pretty lame thoughts and poorly planned too-early decisions, it seemed like this date was going to be successful.

That is, until Peter looked down at his phone and felt his blood run cold as ice as he saw the name of the new Gym Leader was ‘Dealpood’.

Chapter Text

Peter dropped his phone and immediately stood up, face pale a sheet of copy-paper.  He looked around wildly for a bathroom and bolted for it.  He wasn’t the type who threw up easily, but right now, everything he’d just put into his stomach was forcibly coming back up.  He didn’t even get to lock the door behind him before he was bent over the toilet, losing the bits of sandwich that hadn’t even been broken down by his stomach acid -- which burned like all hell because it hadn’t had the time to be diluted.

His brain had flatlined completely, and was taking its sweet time booting back up.  There were over twenty-million people living in New York, and Deadpool had been the one to match him.  Even though Peter had taken precautions and made sure in every way he possibly could that it wasn’t Deadpool, it was still Deadpool.  The man was married -- what the fuck was he doing on a dating app?  Did his partner know?  Had they broken up?  Was Deadpool cheating?  Why had Peter fucking said yes at all when he saw the name Wade Wilson?

He sucked in air like it was going out of style and set his cheek against the rim of the toilet seat.  The porcelain was cool against his now-fevered face, and it helped him feel like maybe he wasn’t about to give in to another round of hurling up his internal organs.

What the actual fuck should he do?  He couldn’t just stay cooped up in the bathroom the entire rest of the day.  He shakily stood up and pressed down on the lock with his thumb, the soft click sounding impossibly loud to his overstimulated senses.  He could hear movement outside, could hear the barista asking if ‘he’ was okay.  He heard footsteps and then the bell ring from the door opening.  Then there was only silence.  Had… had Wade…?

Peter made his way over to the sink and stared at his reflection.  He looked terrible.  He turned the knobs and cupped his hands under the flow before sloshing it up onto his face.  He repeated the process, but this time the water went in his mouth, and he gargled it and then spit it back out.  He grabbed some toilet paper, blew his nose (which was runny from snot and bile), and flushed it along with his former stomach contents.  He went back to the sink.  Shit.  Shit.  How had he not noticed that it was Wade’s voice that was so familiar before?  Was he really that dumb?  Sure it was usually muffled slightly by a mask, and he usually sounded arrogant and loud, not withdrawn and mopey… but still.  Red flags were cropping up everywhere as he remembered how his morning had gone.  How could he have been so stupid?

Peter ran his hands under the water again, and raked them up over his face and into his hair.  He had to leave this cramped room eventually, and it didn’t sound like Deadpool was out there anymore.  Why had he run off, when he’d seemed to be having a good enough time with their date?  Peter felt himself grow faint again.  What if Deadpool knew Peter was Spider-Man?  He patted his back pocket for his phone before he realized, with a sickening stutter of his heart, that he’d left it out there with the game still up and running.  He ripped open the door (then winced when he heard the metal hinges squeal), and looked for his mobile.  A panicked thought that maybe Deadpool had stolen it crossed his mind, and that would make sense as to why he’d left so abruptly.

But it was sitting on the table neatly, put there with purpose.

Peter felt numbness wash over him, from head to toe right then.  The woman at the counter frowned in his direction and asked if he was okay.  Peter nodded on reflex.

“Your friend left,” she said, looking like she had no idea what to say, like she was somehow butting into their private business.  “I didn’t see which way he went, though…”

Peter sunk into the couch cushions, his eyes never leaving his screen.  His screenname was there, plain as day, at the bottom left corner just under his experience bar.  The first time he and Deadpool had met after the app came out, Peter had, as Spider-Man, taken over Deadpool’s Gym.  As much as he wanted to say differently, Deadpool wasn’t an idiot.  He could have easily put two and two together.  Or three and three.  How obvious had Peter been, exactly?  He was wearing tight jeans, his arms were showing… he’d fit the body-type of the vigilante hero, and Deadpool had made it more than clear that he’d been eyeballing him nearly every single time they found each other.  Spider-Man was on team Instinct, and Deadpool would have seen that, along with YoItsSpidey after he’d wrecked the other man’s Gym.

He reached out a trembling hand and picked up his phone, still unable to tear his gaze from it.  When he had dropped it, Wade must’ve picked it up for him and seen everything…  He knew Spider-Man’s face.  He knew his name is Peter Parker.  He knew the general area of where he lived.  He knew his age, his sexual preferences, and he knew his secret identity.  Peter felt like he might just throw up again.

He thought about how Deadpool had often sucked up to him while they were in costume, but how much money would it take for him to sell Peter’s name?  A quick Google search would tell that most photos of Spider-Man that the Bugle printed came from him.  His name and face would be all it took to find out his phone number, his address, where he attended school, his previous address that was where his aunt still lived, his aunt’s name, the police report and obituary of his uncle… oh, God.  He only noticed as he was getting up that Wade had completely abandoned his coffee.  Peter did the same, leaving the last few bites of his food as well, before he jogged out the door.  The second he was outside he spun around, looking frantically for the lumbering man in a dark hoodie.  He didn’t see anyone who even kind of fit that description.

“Wade!” he shouted, but there was no response (save a few people telling him to shut up and pushing past him).  Peter looked across the street, looked for anywhere he could get into to sneak up to a rooftop so he would have a better vantage point.  He snuck between the coffeeshop and the bookstore next to it, barely able to squeeze past the trash cans at the mouth.  He threw a look down the slim alleyway to check to make sure no one was looking before he started climbing the wall.  Once he reached the roof, he pulled himself up onto it and ran to the edge that overlooked the street.

He didn’t see Wade anywhere.  He didn’t have his web-shooters or his costume with him, so there was absolutely no way for him to scour the area to find a known criminal in disguise who currently wanted to stay hidden in the crowd.

Peter’s knees gave out and he fell.  His brain lagged behind for several seconds before he even realized that he couldn’t stand up.  His legs were tingly and sensitive, and he was shaking like a leaf in a storm.  His heart was pounding in his ears so loud that he could barely hear the chatter down below, and his breathing was sharp and painful, burning like he’d inhaled fresh embers.  His vision was starting to blacken at the edges, and it looked like he was peeking out at the world through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

A panic attack.  He was having a panic attack.

Knowing that didn’t stop any of it, but at least he was conscious enough of himself to take note of it at all.  It felt like forever that he was up there cooking in the heat on the scalding roof, curled in on himself, unable to catch his breath or calm himself down.  Finally, though, he felt his muscles untense, felt like his thoughts were attempting to swim through a thick bale of cotton, and like he had just run a fifty-mile marathon.  For a few more minutes he laid there, trying to get control over his body again.  He felt like his movements were delayed, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was actually upright and sitting for several more moments.  He was still trembling, but it was definitely manageable now.  All his body wanted to do was fall asleep, but he knew he couldn’t do that.  Not yet.

He palmed around for his phone until he found it lying a foot away from him.  It must have fallen out of his pants.  He stared at it, trying to remember what he had been about to do.

Aunt May.

He dialed her number (after typing it wrong multiple times in a row) and held the speaker to his ear.  It rang six times before she picked up.

“Hello?”

Just hearing her voice calmed him slightly.

“Hey Aunt May,” he said, and he huffed at himself in annoyance at how he’d slurred his words out.

“Peter?” she asked, sounding bewildered.  “Oh, honey, what happened?”

There was no way she wouldn't know something was up just from his greeting.  “I’m okay.  It’s just really hot.”

“Peter, you need to get inside!  You sound like you’re about to collapse!”

He laughed, but even that sounded weak.  “I’m in the shade right now,” he lied.  “I just… got a really bad feeling.  If you see anyone weird hanging around, call me immediately.  Please?”

He knew she was frowning then.  “Did something happen?” she asked warily.  He took in a deep breath and laid down on the baking concrete.  He closed his eyes to the sunlight.  Why did May have to be so smart?

“Just… remember when I used to come home late and worry you?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” she said.

“Someone… someone from back then.  It’s just someone from back then.  Please call me if you see anyone?”  Even though the better advice would be to call the police, he knew the police couldn’t take out a guy like Deadpool.  Spider-Man could, though.  Or, at least, he had a much better shot at it.

Aunt May was speechless for a long time before she said, “I will.”  He heard her switch what ear she was holding the phone to.  “Peter, please be safe.  If anything happens to you…”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.”  He hoped he could keep that.

“You’re sure about this?”

No.  “Positive.”

She paused.  “Alright.”

“Love you, Aunt May,” he said.

“You know I love you, too, Peter.  So, so much.”

“Yeah,” he said, and then they both just sat in silence, neither wanting to hang up.  Peter finally pulled his phone away and tapped the red ‘end call’ button.  He felt his stomach knot up, like that was the last time he was ever going to hear that from her again.

If Deadpool even touched one hair on her head…  Well, he was definitely going to fit the name Deadpool a lot better, Peter was going to make sure of it.

Chapter Text

Peter had been hesitant to go back to his apartment, but he was too exhausted to spend his time doing anything other than sitting.  Even though his recovery time was incredible compared to normal peoples’, he still felt drained of everything, and hungry to top it off.  He hadn’t even been able to enjoy the food he’d gotten before it left him.

He wound up taking the bus home.

His spider sense was silent the entire time.  There was no one waiting for him, either outside or on the stairs.  He took every step up them heavy-footed and was relieved when he got to his floor.  No one was skulking around there, either.  He unlocked the door and opened it halfway.  He lived in a cramped studio with canary-yellow walls, so he didn’t even have to check anywhere to know he was alone before he shut the door and fell onto his bed.  He could hear traffic passing on the street below, that the person living above him had their TV on too loud, and that the people down the hall were fighting again.

He’d checked the PokéDates website from his phone on the bus, and Wade had either blocked him or shut his profile down.  Peter deactivated his account, too.

Even though he felt like he hadn’t stopped moving for a month straight, he couldn’t manage to drift off.  His mind was just too loud, and it wouldn’t slow down long enough for him to fall asleep.  Replaying over and over everything that had gone wrong, that could go wrong…

Peter uninstalled Pokémon Go.

He hardly slept at all the next few days.  He spent every morning and night out looking for Deadpool, all to no avail.  He kept his phone practically glued to his ear, and he called Aunt May every evening, and swung by her place once it got dark as Spider-Man.  He’d asked around, had looked the Merc up online… but no one had seen nor heard of him since well before they’d split up abruptly during their date.  Peter was so wound-up that he was jumping at every sound, every shadow, every movement.  He finally passed out by day three, face-down on his bed, still fully dressed even down to his shoes.  He woke up half an hour later to a phone call from a telemarketer.  He was so tired and frustrated at this point that he wanted to cry, wanted to throw a temper tantrum because he only wanted one thing and the world was doing what it could to stop him from getting it.

Peter felt like he was coming completely apart at the edges.  Deadpool had probably skipped town, could have skipped the country entirely for all he knew.  The longer the Merc’s absence went on, the more paranoid and confused Peter felt.  Was Deadpool going to out him or not?  Was he going to approach Spider-Man and try to talk about any of this?  It didn’t seem like there was going to be a climax to this at all… and the suspense felt like it was actually killing him.

It was half a week later when Peter, as Spider-Man, spotted a hulking silhouette on the edge of the roof of a thirty-story building.  He felt his heart stop for a few seconds before it shuddered and started back up at a much quicker pace.  He had been spread so thin emotionally, mentally, and physically that his landing almost ended in him falling on his ass, but he caught himself and only stumbled forward a few steps.

“Deadpool?” he asked, and he sounded winded.

The figure didn’t even move.

Spider-Man crept closer, almost sure he was hallucinating again, but the shadowed man at the lip of the roof was turning in full three-dimensional glory, and Peter collapsed hard beside him.  “Wade,” he said, and his voice was small.

“Spidey,” the Merc deadpanned.

Silence expanded out between them.

Peter looked down at the bustling city below them, at the people who looked little more than ants, at the lights flashing by faster than his brain could comprehend in his current state.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Peter said.

Deadpool didn’t even glance towards him.  “Not to check on me, though, was it?”  It was phrased like a question, but it sure didn’t sound like one.  Deadpool had such conviction in his voice, like he was more sure of his statement than he was about anything else in the world.

It was true.  Peter hadn’t gone looking for Deadpool out of concern for the older man.  It had only been because Deadpool knowing Spider-Man’s identity had scared the hero half to death.  Probably literally.  He was pretty sure he’d done lasting damage to his brain from how poorly he’d been taking care of his body since their, uh, split-up.

“No,” he finally admitted.

Deadpool snorted derisively.  “Didn’t think so.”  He finally turned then, looking directly at the superhero.  “You know what fucking sucks more than someone taking a rancid shit in your breakfast?”  He didn’t wait for Peter to answer.  “I finally fucking meet someone who doesn’t take one look at me and tell me to fuck off.  I finally fucking meet someone who walked with me, who talked to me like I was a human fucking being and not some circus freak.”  His voice wavered.  “And then the reason they wind up throwing up ain’t because of my face, but because of me .”

Peter realized then that it sounded like Wade was actively trying not to cry.  Whether they were angry tears or not, he wasn’t sure.

Self-deprecating laughter bubbled up from Wade’s throat.  “I thought maybe things were gonna go okay for once in my fucking life, and then it just had to be you.”

Peter was beyond confused.  He’d thought that Deadpool had been flirting with him before this whole mess.  He’d heard from other Supers that the mercenary wouldn’t shut up about how they were best friends and how Spidey had the most perfect ass and legs he’d ever seen.

“I always knew deep down you didn’t like me, but I didn’t realize you hated me so much you’d fucking hurl at the thought of me.”

Peter couldn’t find the words he’d spent all this time coming up with.  He’d been so terrified that Wade was going to sell Spider-Man’s personal information off to the highest bidder, that he hadn’t even thought that the other man had been hurt by Peter’s response.  He was so exhausted then that he had no energy to even try to keep up with the current conversation.  He tried to open his mouth a few times, and then he tried to get up, but that was when the world pitched forward and Peter saw the city lights blur together in a mess before everything went completely black.

Peter woke up wrapped in a blanket.  He tried to sit up, but he immediately lost consciousness again.

He had no clue if his eyes were even open, or if it was just really dark.  He blinked, and felt the lids move.  They were definitely open, then.  He tried to lean forward but he was forced back by something.  

He came to again later.  He had no idea how much time had passed.  He felt that he was moving, felt air rushing by him.  He couldn’t move.

The next time he gained consciousness there was light.  His hands and feet felt like ice, and breathing was difficult.  He reached up with a palm that felt like it was made of a one-ton weight and patted his face.  No mask.  He didn’t know if he’d taken it off himself or not.  His hand dropped back onto the bed, and his head lulled to the side like it was too top-heavy to keep its position.

The walls were grimy and the carpet was brown.  He thought it had a marbled pattern at first, but it looked like those were just stains.  The pillow he was on smelled horrible.  He groaned and tried to roll over, tried to get away from the fabric that reeked of greasy food and bad breath and mildew.  The blanket that was on him was too weighted, and he was over-cooking despite the shiver that ran through him.  He felt like he was about to throw up again.

There was a staticy television on in the background somewhere.  It was turned down low, but it was still too loud to his oversensitive ears.

Minutes passed, maybe even half an hour, and he didn’t feel any better.  He pushed himself into a sitting position and was surprised he actually successfully made it up.  The nausea got stronger, and he bent to rest his head between his legs.  It helped somewhat.  Where even was he?  He knew from the stale smell of the air alone that this wasn’t his apartment, and Aunt May certainly hadn’t moved into a dump.  Once his mouth stopped salivating like he was about to get sick in the next few milliseconds all over this strange bed, he lifted his head and looked around.

There were packed boxes lining the walls, a corkboard with a bunch of photos and news articles tacked onto it, a chair that had a deflated… plastic thing in it?

He realized that the window wasn’t covered, but the sun was coming up.  Or going down.  He had no idea what direction he was even facing.  It didn’t look like he was in a very good part of town.

He was too exhausted to panic, but he did feel unease nibbling along the edge of his mind.

Peter got out of the bed, had been barely able to get the blanket off of his feet (they’d gotten tangled), and he made his way to the slightly cracked-open door.  He heard the electronic ringing from the TV get even louder to his senses.  He had to stop to cover his ears as he winced.  A few seconds more, and he was able to move forward.  His legs were wobbly and he was trembling.  It was hard to stay on his feet, but he managed to by some miracle.

The lights were all off in this room, and the TV was making every piece of furniture cast a disturbingly large, dark shadow.  Canned laughter followed this realization, and it reminded Peter of something out of a horror movie.  He sure hoped he wasn’t about to find out he’d been kidnapped by someone who wanted to use his skin as clothes.

The lighting changed from blue to mostly white, and Peter was able to see that there was someone lounging on the couch.  Someone large and wearing a red and black suit.

“Wade,” he said, and his voice was quiet and hoarse.

Deadpool immediately jumped and turned to look at him.  “Shit.  You’re up.  Uh, here, let me--”

Peter wasn’t actually sure if he’d passed out or just fell suddenly, but Deadpool was immediately by his side, helping him crumple to the ground in a better position.  “The fuck is wrong with you, Spidey?” Wade asked.  Peter couldn’t tell if he sounded just concerned, or angry.

“Don’t know,” he managed.

“You’re not gonna die on me, are you?”

Peter had to spend a few moments steadying his breathing.  “Hope not,” he croaked out.  He felt the blood leaving his face.

“You’re just sick, right?”  Wade pressed a hand against Peter’s forehead.  “Cold and clammy.”  A pause.  “I’m, uh, not a doctor, so…”

Peter tried to shift himself so he was sitting properly on the floor.  He didn’t want to think about how disgusting the carpet had looked when he’d gotten an eyeful of it.  “What day is it?” he asked.  Talking was difficult.

Wade moved his hand and Peter thought he saw the guy start counting on them.  “Uh.  Sunday?  I think?  Look, Spidey, you’re really freakin’ me out right now.  I can barely hear you at all, and you’re completely dead-weight.”

Peter tried to think about what ‘Sunday’ meant.  Had it been Sunday the last time he was awake?  He thought it might have been Saturday.  “What happened?” he asked.

Wade shifted, and he gave a quick warning before he lifted them both up, and he started moving them towards the couch.  Peter grunted when he was placed on it, and his body went limp.

“I was yellin’ at you and you suddenly fell over?  Scared the absolute shit out of me.  Like, I tried to get you to wake up and you would for a second, and then you’d try to sit up and you’d pass right out again.  I couldn’t get you to stay awake so I started looking in your costume for something -- you can’t get mad at me for it -- and all you had on you was a phone and these bracelets?  Or, I thought they were bracelets.  Then I realized it was how you make webs.  I’m not gonna lie, I had been a little bit worried about that, like how would that even work?  Do they come out of your veins?  Does webbing come out of your butt, too?  Anyway, I put ‘em on and tried to swing us somewhere safe.  I wasn’t really expecting guests, so I didn’t kick everything in the closet and throw fresh sheets on the bed.  Didn’t do the dishes, either.  Shit, that’s a lot of mold.”

Peter was somehow able to follow Deadpool’s one-man conversation.  He heard glass and metal clinking around in the kitchen, and then the sudden sound of water running.

“Oh jeez, that’s really brown.  Uh, okay, well, I got a Gatorade in the fridge.”

Peter had been counting his erratic heartbeats.  He was listing the symptoms off in his head.  He wasn’t a doctor either, but he figured out that he probably wasn’t dying.  Quick pulse, heart pounding way too hard, lightheadedness, losing consciousness, weakness…  When was the last time he’d eaten?  Or properly slept?  He checked around for his phone and pulled it out of the sewn-on pouch.

“Here,” Wade said, and Peter was too zonked to even be startled.  He grasped the half-empty bottle on autopilot before he even recognized what it was.  “I drank some already, but there’s not a lot of options right now.  You gotta get somethin’ in your system.”

Peter uncapped the bottle and tipped it into his mouth.  He underestimated how much was left and some wound up spilling down his chin.  He gulped the rest of it in, and finished the entire thing off.  After huffing and puffing a few times, he said, “I think… I need food?”

Wade shuffled around and then went back into the connected kitchen area.  “I got some canned soup, some cereal… I don’t know about milk, though.  Uh, well, there’s some chili.  Probably shouldn’t put anything that rich in you.  Oh, here’s some bread.  ...Okay, here’s some bread with penicillin growing on it.”

What Peter wound up being given was torn up pieces of white bread that were just a little too chewy.  Wade had obviously pulled the mold off of it, even though that didn't actually help -- the spores were already inside of the loaf by that point, but honestly, Peter was far too gone to care right then, and his body would work it all out for him.  He hoped.  At first he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to keep it down, but after a few more bites his stomach felt much better.  He wound up curling himself around his phone after he was done, and that was how he fell asleep, with the sound of another laugh track fading into a tarry, black abyss of unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

The next time Peter woke up, he felt like a truck had hit him.  Which, surprisingly, was actually an improvement from before.  He cracked his eyes open and groaned quietly as sensations flooded over him.  He was stiff in every joint in his body and he was housing a building migraine.  His stomach felt like someone had used it as an excavation site that had dug a mile downward, hollowing out every last crevice.  This was what a completely empty stomach felt like, and he was briefly grateful that this was only one of a few handfuls of times where he’d felt this way.

“Did anyone get the license plate of that Winnebago?” he asked, and the vibration of his voice caused his head to throb harder.  He brought his hands up to cover his face, his thumbs rubbing along his temples in a slow, circular motion.  He’d never been drunk before but if this is what a hangover felt like, he never want to touch alcohol even once in his life.

“You sound like you’re feeling better,” he heard someone say.

Right.  Deadpool.  That would also explain why it seemed like there was a television on in the background playing some infomercial about kitchen knives.  (Especially since Peter didn’t even have a TV, much less a place he could plug it into in his dinky apartment.  It only had two outlets.)  The arachnid-powered vigilante winced.  Sound was bad.  Sound was very bad.  It sucked horribly.  It sucked so much that it felt like an icepick was trying to carve out his eye-sockets.

“Kill me now,” he whispered, and thankfully talking hurt less when it didn’t rumble his vocal-chords.  He pretty immediately regretted his choice of words, though, since he was in the presence of a deadly, had-been-super-pissed-off-at-him mercenary.  But he didn’t feel his spider sense spike.

“Nah, too much effort.  How’m I gonna explain that to your folks?  Yeah, sorry Spider-parents, Baby Boy jokingly -- it is joking, right?” he asked, but he didn’t pause for an answer -- “begged for death and I took him up on it, my bad.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Peter whispered.  “But could you stop talking so loud?”

Deadpool sucked in a muffled breath.  “Sorry,” he hissed.  “You need pain killers?”

Peter debated it, but his body would require so much to have any effect, and he didn’t have anything in his stomach to buffer them eating away at his organs.  Plus, he was starving and probably dehydrated beyond belief, which would cause the normally workable number of meds to overdose his system.  Taking care of his needs was the best way to start going after the pain.

“Just food and water,” he finally answered.

“Yeah, cool, I got your back on that,” Deadpool replied, before Peter heard him scramble to get to his feet.  Even his footsteps on carpet were so loud to Peter that he prayed for temporary deafness with every step.  “I went to get groceries while you were out,” Deadpool continued, raising his whisper volume just barely, even though it wasn’t necessary -- Peter really should tell him he had extremely sensitive ears.  “Got a bunch of water bottles and stuff, and fruits and veggies?  Got microwavable dinners and white rice and some more bread for startin’ you off.”  As he was talking, he obviously opened the freezer and pulled out a boxed meal.  It sounded like he shoulder-bumped the door closed.  Peter flinched.

“I’m not really sure what you like, but I stuffed the shit out of the fridge and the pantry.  I think that’s a pantry -- er.  It didn’t have any shelves, so it might be a broom closet?  Why would anyone keep dirty brooms and dustpans right next to the food?”

Peter, once again in his life, wished that Wade was less chatty, especially when he was nervous.

At least it sounded like he was trying to shut the microwave door gently.  He shuffled something around and then padded quietly back into the room and dropped down, doing a good job of not jostling the couch Peter was effectively stranded on.  “The rice should be done in a few minutes.  Here’s some bread to soak up the acid.”

Peter felt the texture of crust bump against one of his hands, and he took the proffered food with his eyes closed.  He tore up the slices and stuffed them into his mouth, one at a time, making sure to break it down as much as he could before swallowing.  “Thanks,” he said.

“No prob, Bob,” Wade replied, but he sounded… a little sad?

Peter swallowed his second piece of bread.  He had spent the last week plus being absolutely terrified that Wade was going to sell him out.  That he was going to hurt Aunt May.  That he was going to blackmail Peter.  Meanwhile Wade had been hurt the entire time, thinking Peter hated him.  Which, really, hadn’t been too far off the mark.  Peter remembered Wade telling him that he’d actually had high hopes for once.  That for once someone hadn’t been an asshole to him.  But then it turned out to be Spider-Man, who was an asshole to him.  Peter felt even more nauseous at the thought that he’d only seen the Merc as human before he knew Wade Wilson was Wade Winston Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool.  He’d only had thoughts about how shitty Deadpool was going to be to him, never once thinking about how his instant reaction could have upset Wade.  Before he knew they were the same person, he’d cared for Wade’s feelings.  He’d assumed Wade had feelings.  But the second he knew they really were the same person, Wade no longer had feelings or personal problems he worked through in his daily life.

And what had Deadpool done when Spider-Man, running on nothing but fumes, passed out on him?  He’d taken the hero somewhere safe.  He took care of him.  He didn’t bring up how shitty Spider-Man really had been.

Peter felt like he was a genuinely horrible person then.

“Obviously not right now,” he started, and tilted his head a little so that Wade knew he was specifically being talked to.  “But we need to talk.”

Dead silence followed.  Peter couldn’t even hear Wade breathe.

“We, uh, we really don’t?  We already talked?”

Peter sighed, irritation dripping into the action.  “No.  No we didn’t.”

Wade still wasn’t breathing.

“It’s not going to be a bad one.  Really.  I… I need to apologize.”

Wade’s body was suddenly working again -- or, at least, he sucked in a gasp.  This time he didn’t turn Peter down.

The microwave beeped, and Wade jumped up to get the food, probably using it as an excuse to let the conversation end there, since trying to stop the sound was useless now.  Peter flinched again and knew that he deserved that stab of pain.

“Shit, I didn’t even get you a water,” he heard Wade mutter, clearly forgetting he was supposed to be whispering.  He came back with what sounded like an armful, and the plastic squeaked as it rubbed against itself.  Yup.  Peter deserved that pain, too.

“Here’s the first one,” Wade said, and his voice was quiet again.  Peter felt the cold bottle press against his forehead, and he immediately sighed with relief.  Oh, God, that felt amazing.  He was more thirsty than he was hurting, though, so he took the bottle and uncapped it.  He only tilted his head forward so the water wouldn’t splash down his front, and he greedily gulped the entire thing down.  Once he pulled away from the mouth of it, he inhaled some much-needed air.

“Jesus, Baby Boy,” he heard Wade say under his breath, probably to himself.  Peter felt another cold bottle press into his hand, but instead of opening it, he held it to his forehead again.  He sighed in relief.

“Thank you,” Peter repeated for the umpteenth time.  He felt shittier and shittier as he relived their date once again in his mind, this time in a different light.  He wasn’t looking at Deadpool as the villain he had to protect himself and his family from.  He only saw the anxious, self-deprecating Wade he’d agreed to go on a date with.  He remembered telling the older man that he was thankful for Wade being himself.  How lost Wade had looked in response.  How he said no one had told him that before.  How Peter said that they were missing out.

God, Deadpool was so much better than Peter ever gave him credit for.  Still fucked up beyond belief, but definitely capable of kindness.  And considering no one had gone after him, he could only assume that Wade hadn’t told anyone who he was.  No, it seemed he hadn’t been plotting against him when he’d left the coffee shop.  He’d left because Peter, who had said decent, respectful things to him, turned out to be a total dickbag who laughed about Deadpool behind his back.  He’d left hurt and probably feeling the same way Peter had about his identity being spread out without his consent.  They both had accidentally outed themselves, neither of them willing at all; but now they had to deal with the aftermath.  Once you hit the bottom there was only the option to stay there or go back up.  Maybe they could swim towards the surface together.

Peter drifted off to sleep once he had a stomach full of warmth, his now-empty bowl tipped over on the carpet with the spoon lying nearby.  Two more empty water-bottles had joined the first one, and a room-temperature one was left leaning against his left temple.  He actually dreamed this time.

He dreamed about Wade.

Chapter Text

Peter woke up around one in the morning.  He only knew it wasn’t one in the afternoon because everything was dark again.  Even the TV was off this time.  He heard slow, even breathing next to him, and he gingerly turned himself on his side, looking down at the lump that was Deadpool who was sleeping sitting up against the couch.  He watched the other man for several minutes, letting himself slowly wake up.  Deadpool was very... human right now, and Peter felt strange as he let that thought sink in.

Peter sat upright and the blanket that had been spread out on him slid down to crumple in his lap.  He didn’t want to wake Wade up, so he left it in a heap on the couch as he got up as quietly as he could manage.  He crept across the floor, overstepping clothes and trash that hadn’t quite made it to the trashcan on the first toss.  He could see pretty well in the dark, and it wasn’t too hard to tell which door lead to the bedroom and which door to the bathroom.  Once inside, he shut the door, twitching as it creaked, and he turned the knob so it wouldn’t click too loud when it closed fully.  He turned on the light, and for a split second his head throbbed at the sudden brightness.  The bathroom was in about the same disastrous state as the rest of the apartment, maybe even a little worse.  The mirror looked like it had been punched hard, and the glass was splintering all the way to each corner.  A few shards had fallen behind and around the sink.  Blood was crusted along the fake porcelain, and the grout between each tile was nearly black in some places.  Peter felt his skin crawl for a moment, before he talked himself into calming down.

He just needed to pee (which was a very good thing, because it meant he was less dehydrated), he didn’t have to spend the rest of the night trapped in here; he could leave as soon as he was done.

He tried not to think too hard about what stains could have been made by what as he did his business.  It shouldn’t be too surprising just how grody the place was, considering Deadpool had no need to try to stop himself from bleeding, and he certainly wasn’t going to get some infection from bacteria and die.  Peter eyeballed the spider that had made a home along the sewage pipes behind the toilet.  It wasn’t looking too fat and happy, and the hero crossed his arms and tilted his head.  “I feel you there, buddy,” he said quietly, and flushed the toilet.

He turned on the water, and it ran brown at first.  Peter had planned on waiting it out, and he took off his other glove in the meantime, but it didn’t seem to be coming from rust in the pipes.  He awkwardly turned the water back off.  The knob squealed.  Peter rubbed his hands together several times, taking a layer of dead skin off with each pass.  

Even though he felt less than clean, he left the bathroom, but didn’t turn the light off.  It wasn’t enough to wake up someone who was fast asleep, but it would be enough for Wade to see and know Peter was awake.

He settled himself back down in his spot and picked up his phone.  He started thumbing through his messages.  Aunt May had called him twice, but it was way too late right now to call her back.  He texted her with a repeated but lame excuse, that he’d just been busting his rear getting ready for college to start back up again, and he’d lost track of time, and his phone was on silent.  God, he hoped he hadn’t worried her much, going from calling her every day to suddenly absolute silence for days on end.  Speaking of…

Oh, shit.

His classes had started on Monday.  He’d already missed his first day back to school.  Well, that was three hundred dollars down the drain for absolutely nothing.  He cursed at himself inwardly, and he wanted to stomp around and throw a quick tantrum over it.  Damnit.  Damnit.  This was all because he had stopped taking care of his body and mind.  This never would have happened if Deadpool…

…

This never would have happened if Peter had just let himself calm down enough to eat and maybe nap a few times here and there.  Of course Wade had something to do with that.  He couldn’t blame only Wade, though.  The other man hadn’t really known Peter was practically killing himself over the identity reveal.

There wasn’t anything he could do about his classes right now, not while it was still nighttime.  That was money he was never going to see again one way or the other, and he could pretty easily get caught up if he really pushed himself.  Or, at least, that was the lie he was going to tell himself.  He was taking five classes this semester, and he knew from experience just how overwhelming that deceptively small number could be.  With a heavy sigh, he slumped farther into the couch cushions, and he went to through Facebook.  Nothing exceptionally weird had happened to his friends or in the news over the past few days.  Finally, he let himself admit that he legitimately missed playing Pokémon Go, and now that things had settled out more or less with him and Wade, he didn’t feel like he was about to get sick just thinking about the app.  He re-downloaded it, and signed back into his account.

Seems there’d been several updates since he’d deleted the game.  Now there were two separate categories of Pokémon, “sightings” and “nearby”.  The sightings section actually had photos in the background on exactly where to find the listed Pokémon, and that was an incredibly useful add-on.  Peter found himself grinning already, and he settled further into his nest.  He had forgotten just how stress-relieving it was to just let his mind get absorbed back into a childhood fantasy.  Another update had warnings cropping up every few minutes, but it was obviously still a little buggy, seeing as he got a, “You’re going too fast!” pop-up when he was seated perfectly still in Wade’s apartment.  He found that oddly amusing.

He wound up dropping an incense on his character to draw Pokémon to him, and then he set his phone down in his lap.  His eyes trailed back to Wade, and he watched the man as he slept on, oblivious to Peter’s conscious presence.  He wondered how he was supposed to start off their impending talk, because Deadpool sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.  They both needed to be open and honest about their prior interactions, and about their current relationship that was in limbo.  Peter… he had enjoyed Wade’s company.  And Deadpool could sometimes make him laugh.  

A striking thought was that Peter, at least, had the option to take his mask off and go completely under the world’s radar.  He had two entirely separate lives; one as Peter Parker and one as Spider-Man.  But Wade?  Wade could take off his mask, but he could never be inconspicuous.  People would always see him no matter how many layers of clothes he put on.  That had to have a hand in how the other acted.  How he covered up his personal pain with humor.  How he so desperately wanted human interaction but pushed others away.  Deadpool didn’t have a downtime.  He was constantly on high alert, always ducking his head and powering forward.  Peter thought about the file he’d read on Wade Winston Wilson.  He wondered what exactly had caused the skin mutation, and what it had done to Wade’s psyche.  Peter remembered the eerily blank spot in Wade’s S.H.I.E.L.D.-known history.  What had happened to turn Wade into who he was now?

His phone buzzed, and it jerked him out of his endlessly circling thoughts.

It was just a wild Pidgey, but he caught it anyway.  He needed the Stardust.

Wade stirred in his sleep about an hour later, snorting suddenly and sitting up, confused.  His arm lifted to his face and he felt along his mask before he went slack again.  Then he jumped, and his head jerked towards Peter.  The brunet was startled, too, and his spider sense was left screeching shrilly at him.  They both just stared each other down, both unmoving, Wade having gone for an offensive first strike, and Peter going for defense.  After a few moments passed, Wade slumped and started laughing to himself.

“I was damn near ready to gut you,” he said, voice heavy from sleep.

Peter didn’t uncoil himself.  “I noticed,” he said warily.

“Sorry.  Not used to waking up with guests over.”

Peter only blinked in response.  His spider sense was milder now, but that didn’t mean he was about to open himself back up completely.  Not just yet.  His heart was still racing from that first pump of adrenaline.

“So, uh,” Wade began, and he sat himself straighter, his right hand moving to scratch the back of his head.  “You feel any better?”

Peter’s muscles started to relax.  “Yeah.  Been awake for a while.”

Wade dropped his hand.  “Oh,” he said.  The awkwardness seeped into the air between them.  “You don’t have to stick around, you know.  You can leave whenever you wanna.”

Peter gnawed on his bottom lip, trying to find the right words that wouldn’t scare Wade off.  “Yeah, but I didn’t want to just leave while you were sleeping.”  He shrugged afterward, looking unsure of himself.  Wade watched Peter for a long time, which made the young adult squirm in his spot.  What was Wade even thinking right then?  The subject had to be breached sooner or later, and so Peter sucked in a breath and took the plunge.  “Besides, we still need to talk.”

Wade groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.  “Do we really have to?  Like, right now?”  He grumbled a few choice words under his breath.  “You don’t really beat around the bush, do you?

Peter rolled his eyes and leaned against the couch back with his shoulder.  “Afraid not,” he answered.  He tapped his fingers along the back of his phone, and he prayed that he would find the right words for this conversation.  He sighed again.

“You’re the only person who knows that I’m Spider-Man.”  Might as well start with the zinger.  After all, he didn’t ‘beat around the bush’.

Wade said nothing for several seconds.  “Seriously?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

Peter nodded.  “Seriously.”

Wade turned his body so he was facing his guest fully.  “You go around with the screenname ‘YoItsSpidey’ and I’m the only fuckin’ one who knows?”

Peter, out of sheer surprise, burst out laughing.  His nerves made the action sound tight and strange.  “Hey!  I have an excuse for that!” he said and he held out a finger at the mercenary.  “I make my living selling photos of Spider-Man.  I figured I could just say that it’s supposed to be like, ‘oh hey, there’s Spider-Man, better get his picture!’  ...That doesn’t sound too far-fetched, right?”

Deadpool cocked his head in thought.  “People are pretty dumb.”  Then, in a sudden rush of excitement, he seemed to finally grasp the full intensity of Peter’s admission.  “Wait, so I’m really the only one?  There’s not a single other soul besides the two of us who knows?”  The man worked his arms up onto the couch, and Peter was almost positive if he had a tail it would he wagging.

Peter started tearing up the edge of the blanket he’d grabbed hold of and nodded again.  “Yeah,” he finally said, and he tried to calm himself down by looking around the living room.  He had to convince himself all over again that this was a good idea, that Wade wasn’t going to sell him out.  “Well…”  Peter went silent for a long while.  “There were others, but…”

Wade’s bounciness died down.  He seemed to understand what that meant.  “They’re dead, huh?” he guessed, his voice much quieter.  Peter appreciated the seriousness Wade was allowing this subject to have.

“Very.”

Wade pushed himself up, and he scooted onto the couch, pressed up as far against the other arm as he could get, giving Peter all the space he could ever need on his side.  “Kinda know how that goes.  I mean, I’m not really hiding myself -- wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if I did.  But I know about people dying.”  He let his part end there, and they both seemed to fall back into some painful memories.  Peter swallowed hard around the knot that thinking about his losses brought on.

Wade continued.  “I don’t have anyone to protect.  But I know that’s not the norm in our line of work.”

It was true.  Secret identities really stopped mattering once the person had nothing -- and no one -- left to lose.  “I was really scared.  When I found out I was on a date with you, I just…”  Peter froze, his eyes wide as he relived that moment.  He subconsciously clutched his hand over his heart, bunching up the material of his suit.  “I panicked.  I was scared of you.”

Wade was silent.  He didn’t seem to know what to say, or at least wasn’t letting himself say what he was thinking.  (Which, honestly, when had that ever happened before?  The Merc with the Mouth not talking?)

Peter realized that the air in the room changed, that it felt colder and he knew that he was going to have to keep going if he didn’t want this to crash and burn horribly.  “My mind was going through every worst-case scenario possible, and by the time I got ahold of myself, you were gone.  I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know what you were going to do.”  This was where the talk was going to have to get worse before it could get better.  Peter kept rolling the loose strings from the blanket between his fingers, to give himself an outlet for everything he was thinking and feeling.  “I’m not going to lie.  I wasn’t thinking great things about you.  I was terrified you were going to sell my name, or hurt…”  He waved one of his hands around in a circle like that would explain the rest of his sentence for him.

Wade became visibly nervous, too.  “I thought about it,” he admitted.  Peter felt his blood run ice cold.  “I thought about ratting you out.  I was pissed the fuck off.  But in the end, I just… didn’t.”  His voice became soft at the end.  Nothing more came from him, and Peter was left to have that information fester in the back of his mind -- that Wade had wanted to.

Peter felt sick again.  “Why didn’t you?” he asked, and his voice trembled.

Wade kicked his foot a few times.  “I didn’t really want to.”

“Why?” Peter repeated.

Wade shrugged.  “You’re a good guy.  I’m not.  You’re a hero, and people owe you their lives.  I always looked up to you, even after I heard some of what you were saying behind my back.  I tried to pretend like I never knew, like it didn’t sting like a fuckin’ bitch.”

Peter felt even more sick to his stomach.  It was one thing to make fun of someone, and completely different for them to know about it.  Peter had been bullied relentlessly throughout school, and he had done exactly what had been done to him.  He felt ashamed.  His ears burned as he thought about what Aunt May would think.  She would be so disappointed in him.  She hadn’t raised him that way.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, and he meant it more than he could ever get across.

Wade clearly hadn’t been expecting that, and he stumbled over his next words.  “Well, uh, sure.  I mean, no hard feelings?”

Peter reached out, and he set his hand on Wade’s arm.  The world seemed to stop existing around them, neither breathing or even blinking.  “Wade, I’m really, truly sorry for how I acted.  I was cruel to you.”

Even through Wade’s mask in the dimly lit room, Peter could see his mouth flop open and closed a few times.  Then the Merc glanced down at where Peter was touching him.  Peter gave the older man a gentle squeeze.

“I know I’m not easy to handle,” Wade finally said.  “I don’t blame you for hating me.  I haven’t exactly done anything to deserve praise.”

Peter shook his head but he kept the physical contact.  “You do a lot.  You’ve teamed up with me and helped me in fights I might not have won otherwise.  You haven’t killed in a while.  You tried to help those kids with those bullies at the park.”  Even though he’d gone about it in completely the wrong way, he’d still done it with the bullied children in mind.  Spider-Man would’ve intervened at that point, too.  “I think we both need to work on ourselves.  To become better than we were.”

Wade laughed again.  “For me?  The bar’s already pretty damn low.”

Peter cocked his head and smiled slightly.  “Good.  A low bar’s easier to lift.”

Wade set his hand over Peter’s.  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Chapter Text

They spent the rest of the night talking straight into the morning.  Wade, after hearing Peter’s stomach growl like some kind of cryptid beast, got up to make them breakfast.  Peter was surprised Wade could cook at all, even if it was something as simple as pancakes.  There wound up being enough to feed a small party worth of people, but the two of them worked through the entire stack by themselves -- even though Peter regretted it when his stomach started hurting afterward.  Turns out not eating properly for as long as he had, and then not eating basically at all really messed up his organs.  But besides that, it turned out Wade was… actually really enjoyable to talk to.  Sure he was crude and morbid, but by this point Peter was used to that much by now.

Well, at least, until Peter revealed that he was in school for biochem.  Wade got weird after that; he was much more critical of everything Peter said, and he kept making passive aggressive comments.  It really grated the young adult’s nerves, and they wound up splitting up on a somewhat bad note because of it, with the hero pulling on the rest of his suit, getting his webshooters back, and webbing his way back to his own apartment.

He had a few hours before class started, and so he hopped into the shower, and brought his suit with him so he could wash out the stink of body odor and city smells that stuck to the spandex much like he himself stuck to walls.  Long after the water went cold, he was still upset and obsessing over the semi-fight they’d had.  The more he thought about it, the more angry he felt.  He’d been trying to open up on a personal level to the other man, and the Merc had the gall to start making fun of Tony Stark after Peter admitted that he wanted to intern at Stark Industries.  He had to not only deal with Wade’s sudden shitty attitude, but also the memories of Harry, and why he had to switch to Stark when he’d grown up thinking he was going to work at OsCorp.

Needless to say, his entire day had been soured early.

He showed up to class physically strained and tired, and he was already mentally exhausted before the professor even showed up.  He slumped into a seat in the back and didn’t even bother to straighten his stack of notebooks and the very well-worn copy of the required book that the teacher had probably written himself and then made profit off of poor college students who had to buy the stupid thing for his class.  Peter couldn’t get his attention to stay focused on the teacher even after he got a copy of the syllabus.  He thought about what Wade had said.  

“What, do you want to cure cancer or something?”

“And what’s so awful about that?” he’d snapped back.

“Everyone goes in wanting to cure cancer.”

Wade had started off so condescending and then… he’d muttered the last part in a volume that was barely audible at all.  Then he went off talking to himself afterward, about how no one stays a saint for long, or something along those lines.  After that he’d tried to dissuade Peter with talk about how Tony Stark was a selfish prick who only wanted to do good because he felt personally guilty for shit he’d started himself.  How Peter could do so much better in a different field -- what about computer tech or something equally as nerdy?  What the hell did Wade have against Peter wanting to go into the science field and help people?

Then he thought about Doctor Connors.  That man had started off wanting to make breakthroughs for human limb regeneration.  Peter had helped make that dream a reality -- before the entire thing collapsed in on itself.  Instead of giving Doctor Connors his life back, he took it away from him completely.  

Then he remembered the file on Wade.  How he was in and out of healthcare for years.

Then he remembered the mysterious black hole in the mercenary’s life.

Peter felt a cold chill creep along his spine and down his limbs.

The professor was now talking about how this isn’t a class you can bullshit your way through, missing homework assignments and absences will not be tolerated, and if you can’t handle that, then maybe you should go to your counselor and get your classes changed, yada yada yada.  Peter slid lower in his chair.  He already knew he was going to hate this class, and he just wanted to get this day over with.  He felt nauseous because he couldn’t stop thinking about freaking Deadpool of all people.  He was so tired of thinking about Wade at this point.  He knew that it was better to just not to entertain the possibilities that he was coming up with of what could have happened.  He dutifully pulled the top notebook off of his pile and a pen and started to take notes that were being written on the dry-erase board in an almost illegible scrawl.  The professor went over what previous classes should have taught them, and what they would be diving into immediately after this refresher.

Peter left the two-hour long course with a list of what he was supposed to write a ten-page essay about.  Fun stuff.  Really.  No sarcasm involved in this whatsoever.  (Spoiler alert: Much sarcasm is involved.  Writing ten-page essays suck.  All it really is, is getting as much filler words in as possible around a single page of actually interesting and unique information.)

After he wrote a paltry half a page and was left staring at his computer for an hour and some odd amount of time not doing his homework, he decided to call Aunt May and talked to her for about forty minutes, just catching up on the past few days for her, and Peter doctoring details about his own.  He broke down and told her that he and the person he'd gone on a date with had a fight, and that was really why he'd been distant.  Aunt May took that surprisingly well.  With that done, Peter, feeling much better now that he’d heard her voice, went to pull on his air-dried suit that he’d slung over the bar holding up his shower curtain.  It smelled a lot better than it had, even if he could pick up the scent of the dollar-store soap he’d used to wash it with.

He was out his window and swinging within ten minutes, and he felt any lingering stress of the day wear off, like it was being peeled away by the wind whipping past him.  He shouted a happy call as he swung low over traffic.  It was just getting dark enough that lights were being turned on, and the sunset mixing with them was a beautiful sight indeed.

That is, until he heard a voice over the police scanner say that there was a possible jumper who’d made their way up part of the Manhattan Bridge, and he veered suddenly, turning in a ninety-degree direction change.  He got there just before the police did, which he was thankful for, because while they could handle this sort of problem, people tended to trust Spider-Man a little more than a random officer.  Not that said officers cared any less, but it was so easily overwhelming when they intervened…

Because the sun was setting off to the side of his vision, Peter couldn’t make out much about the person besides that they had a small frame.  A few people had stopped their cars and were looking up at them, all with their phones out and ready to film the scene, whether or not it took a good turn.  He heard one person shout his name once they noticed him.

Spider-Man crawled up the thick, metal cables holding the bridge up, body moving unnervingly between them like the arachnids he was so named after, and slowed down once he neared the top of one of the arches.  “Hey, there!” he called out, but he made sure not to let his voice be too loud.  The person’s head whipped around towards him.  They looked like a young woman.  “Just letting you know I’m here,” he went on, and he pulled himself to sit on the metal ramp with her, but at a respectful distance.  He tapped his fingers against the dip in the metal, fingering one of the gigantic bolts holding it in place.  “Are you just up here enjoying the view?” he asked.  This subject was one that was very hard to approach, because what worked on someone would absolutely make another person worse.

The girl stared at him, before she slowly angled her head out to look at the sunset over the water.  He almost missed the shake of her head.

“You don’t have to tell me anything.  But I’d like to sit here with you.  Is that okay?”

She seemed to be frozen in time for several long seconds -- Peter counted eleven -- before she nodded.  He let out his held breath in a silent sigh.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully, and he turned to gaze over the darkening cityscape on their right.  He didn’t want her to feel like he was staring at her, or putting her more on the spot than she already was with everyone making a ruckus below them.

“How do you do it?” he heard a quiet, trembling voice ask.  He looked to the probably-teenager, and he cocked his head slightly to let her know he was listening.

“Do what?” he questioned.  There were certainly a lot of its in his life that he pushed himself through doing.

“How do you keep going out and doing so much for people when they’re always calling you a monster?”

Peter thought about it.  “Well,” he began, and he tapped his fingers repetitively.  He wished he had something to properly hook his foot on, some kind of pressure he could use to ground himself.  “I’m not doing it for the people calling me a monster.”  He gave a few seconds of pause before he continued.  “At first that kind of thing really got to me.  I mean, it’s pretty awful, I’m not going to lie about that.  But I learned that they were just unhappy themselves, and they were taking it out on me.  Even the police are pretty amicable to me by this point.  They used to shoot at me.”  Had shot him.  Several times.  It hurt just as bad every time.  Maybe more, because it kept piling on and on what he already had on his too-full plate.

He had been hoping maybe he could get a laugh out of her over that.  Apparently not.

“So it just stopped hurting you?” she asked, and her voice was extremely hushed.  She was frowning hard.  “You just stopped caring one day?”

Peter shook his head.  “No.  It’s a conscious effort.”  He shrugged.  “I have to think of it, like… I have to picture it in my mind, that I’m wearing a raincoat, the ones with hoods and they go almost to your feet?  And that what they’re saying are just drops of water.  All I have to do is shake myself off, and their words have no real traction to hold onto me so they just disappear, because none of it’s true.  Just big, scary words to make people want to buy their gossip mags or newspaper to find out whatever conspiracy is clearly going on.”

She had her head down now, with her chin almost touching her collarbone.  “But what if they are true?”

Spider-Man didn’t say anything for a while.  “What’re you really asking about?” he wondered.  He wasn’t trying to push her or belittle her.  His voice was gentle and he truly wanted to help her.  He just didn’t understand.

It was her turn to shrug.  “There’re these girls and…”  She stopped suddenly, and she turned away.  She wiped her hand harshly over her eyes, probably because she’d started tearing up.  Peter wasn’t about to fault her for it.  “They keep spreading rumors about me, and I just… I just can’t…”

Peter wasn’t sure if she would mind touching or not.  When he would get into this state himself, sometimes touching and sounds were just too much stimulation for him to handle.  He leaned more forward, so that she might be able to see him better.  “I got bullied a lot, too,” he said softly.

The girl sniffed and wiped her nose.  “Really?” she asked, like that was almost a ridiculous thought.  After all, who would bully a man who could lift a fully-sized car with minimal effort?

“Yeah,” he confirmed.  “It was hard.  Made the idea of getting up to go to school the next day a hard-to-conquer nightmare.  There were even days where I faked being sick just so I wouldn’t have to face them.”

The girl had leaned in slightly, her weight fully on one arm.  “Yeah?” she asked.  She’d probably done that herself at least once, too.  “Did it ever stop?”

Peter sighed again, but this time it felt heavy.  “No.  Well, yes.  It stopped after I graduated high school.”  A beat.  “Have you told your parents…?”

The girl made a guttural sound and it startled Peter so badly he jumped into a defensive position.  She looked so defeated.  “Of course I have!  That’s the first thing everyone says!  Tell your parents, tell your teachers!  Well, they don’t do anything about it!”  That was when she threw herself forward, and Peter acted before he could think past his brain blaring alarm bells at him.  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back in with his weight, and he cradled her protectively with his arms.

“God, please, no, don’t do this, please,” he begged against her hair.  She started wailing then, and she held him back.  He tightened his hold to comfort her.  “Please don’t take your life.”

She didn’t answer him for a long time.  She could only cry, and he sat there with her the entire time.

“I almost did it,” she said, and she started sobbing as she finished those words -- like she was absolutely terrified that her life had almost ended minutes earlier.  “God, I almost--”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Peter assured.  “I won’t let go until you want me to.”

She buried herself in his shoulder.

It felt like it had only been a few minutes after that, but it was more like an hour that the two of them were up there talking.  It went from the serious topic of bullying to them laughing about silly memories and talking about homework and classes.  Then, he helped her down when she was ready, anxious and reluctant at first to accept the help of the strange men in uniform who hadn’t been bonding with her through a very dark time in her life, but were there for the aftermath regardless.  “I can swing you home,” Spider-Man had offered.  “So you don’t have to get put in the spotlight down there, or have someone catch your face on their phone.”

She wound up telling him it was alright.  It was her decision to enter the awaiting blanket held out by the firemen, and the police who came to question her as they checked her for injuries.  Peter waited for a little bit, watched them care for her, and then he caught the girl -- Briana -- looking up at him and he waved to her.  Then he webbed himself away, into the night that had fallen like a thick blanket over the busy cities.  The sun was completely gone under the horizon now, and Peter felt… well, he felt like a weight had been lifted from him in turn.  He was so proud of Briana for talking about it with him, for letting him help her.  She wanted to become a nurse when she was older.  They’d talked about their ideal future careers, about her dog, about her parents telling her they were thinking about getting a divorce next year.

He spent the next few hours looking around the red Gyms, trying to spot Deadpool anywhere.  He came up short, and he thought that next time they met up, they needed to exchange some form of contact information.  He decided that he would stop by the Merc's apartment tomorrow.  Peter felt a restless wriggling in his chest that would only be calmed by knowing that Wade was alive and well.

He had oddly vivid dreams that night about talking to Deadpool on a bridge.

Chapter Text

The tapping on the window had more of a reaction than Peter had meant it to.  Deadpool, after letting out an impressive shout and then several long seconds of staring and a quick rub over his eyes, eventually came and unlatched the window.

“Hey,” Peter said a little awkwardly, waving at the Merc as he clung to the bricks upside-down.  

Deadpool tilted his head a little, like he was trying to see him right-side-up.  “Oh, uh.  Hey.  You come back for the food?” he asked, and then began picking a few ramen noodles off of his suit.  Peter had the decency to feel a little bad about that, since the mercenary had been eating them before being startled.  The water had probably still been boiling hot, which would explain why he’d let out a string of words that would have Aunt May rolling up a newspaper to whack him with.

“No?  And sorry,” Peter replied, gesturing to the mess of still-too-hot, spicy shrimp broth.  He could actually smell it from there.  He was so tired of cup ramen.  “I actually just wanted to stop by.”

Deadpool fell into another fit of ogling him again and then shook his head, muttering, “Yeah, I don’t know, either.”  He turned and waved his hand inward, gesturing for Spider-Man to come in through the window.  “Wasn’t… really expecting to see you again so soon.”

Peter crawled his way inside, jumped down onto the slightly damp carpet, and shut the window, locking it on reflex behind him.  “Yeah, well…”  Peter shrugged.  He tugged the curtain closed without asking, and then, once he was sure no one could peep on them, pulled his mask off.  “I wanted to check on you.”

Deadpool’s exposed mouth turned into an unreadable line.  “Oh,” he said.  His words were plain and dry.  Then he shrugged and pinched off one of the two tiny shrimp rations they put in the instant noodles and popped it past his lips.  “I’m fine, so you’re free to go do other shit.”  Peter’s right eyebrow lifted a little as he watched Deadpool wander over into the kitchen area of the surprisingly large apartment and start opening the cupboards, rooting through them and pulling seemingly random things out.  “I’m just a plain ol’ hair-trigger kinda guy, you know,” he went on, and then grabbed a plastic shopping bag out of a larger… bag of bags.  Good to know other superhumans had that habit.  He began tossing the food into it.  “So you don’t gotta worry your pretty little head none about Wade Wilson, I bounce back from death like a fuckin’ pong ball, nothing really phases me anymore.”  He tied off the bag and started walking back towards Peter.  “So anyway, here’s your takeout box, go kick some ass out there, buddy.”

Peter looked down at the miscellaneous goodie-bag that seemed to have both canned vegetables and free-range fruit, which meant one of those two things was going to end up with some nasty bruises.  “I’m… really not here for food.”  Even though he could kind of understand why Wade constantly pushed him away, it was no less frustrating.  Especially after so much time of him following Spider-Man around and borderline flirting with him.  More than borderline.  He had mentioned Peter’s ass-to-waist ratio at least seven times before things got… really weird between them.

“We didn’t really leave on a good note.  I wanted to… apologize for snapping and try to understand what went wrong.”

Deadpool paused, cocked his head, then started cleaning out his covered ear with a gloved pinky finger.  “Say that again?”

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes.  He knew he didn’t need to repeat himself, Wade was just doing… what he did.  The bag tore open and the previously contained food spilled out everywhere, two apples making a break for the front door.  Peter jumped and spread his feet to avoid getting his toes smashed.  They both looked to the plastic shreds still in the arachnid’s hands, and he sighed for a second time.  He let his hands drop to his sides and balled up the now useless bag.

“I genuinely want to know why the conversation turned sour, so that the same thing doesn’t happen again.  You have reasons for acting the way you do, and I want to understand them.”

“The fuck kind of convoluted…”  Wade smacked the side of his head like there was a fly that landed.  “You wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t know what your face looks like.  I already said I’m not gonna rat you out, so let’s just go back to how things were.”

Peter felt the frustration turn into annoyance.  He refused to back down or turn aggressive.  “There’s more to it than just that,” he replied, but what was he supposed really to say to make Deadpool understand?

“I’m sure there is--” Deadpool started, but Peter cut him off.

“I don’t want to go back to how things were.”

Dead silence followed.  An angry driver slammed on their car horn in the street below for three seconds too long.

Wade let out a heavy exhale and his shoulders went slack.  “Spidey…”  He rubbed his palms over his eyes, this time like they hurt instead of like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.  “You’re really springing this on me.”

Peter let a long blink overcome him to steady himself before turned his head away, eyeing what appeared to be blood spatter on the wall.  He really hoped it was somehow just marinara sauce.  “I know.  And I can go if you want me to.  I just don’t have any other way of contacting you besides physically dropping by.”  The more he looked around the place, the more it seemed like… Well, yes, obviously Wade was lazy, but it looked disturbingly like the depression clutter that Peter had gotten after certain… lows in his life.  Silverware and bowls were just left on the carpet where they got set down after being used, trash didn’t get picked up if it missed the bin, and it looked like the only cleaning attempt made was to find the remote on the couch-side table.

Why was he only noticing any of this now?  Was it only because he’d gotten invested?  Because it really seemed like Deadpool didn’t bother to hide anything save for behind verbal manic subject hopping.  Maybe it had to do with yesterday, and his dream...

Wade bent down and picked up one of the cans of soup that had rolled against the couch, the kind with an easy pop top, and peeled it open.  Then he moved backward and plopped down on said furniture and reached down, picking up the fork he’d most likely just been eating ramen with.  He stabbed a potato and shoved it in his mouth.  “You can come sit if you’re really not just gonna take my freely given easy-out.”  He sounded tired.  Peter was, too.

He sat down on the other cushion, but didn’t push himself against the armrest like he had last time.  Peter wondered if Deadpool’s costume ever hurt him after wearing it too long.  They both fell into another quiet and both watched the Spanish soap opera on the television with varying degrees of interest.  The young adult was busy trying to think of how to start their conversation, when Wade snorted and folded his legs over one another.  “These people are so dense.  I swear to God, Soraya shoots or stabs someone every other episode.  Everybody’s always shocked by it, too, like she’s never done this before.”  He was apparently done fishing out the solid bits in his meal and tipped the can back like he was drinking a soda.

Peter felt like he'd seen the character before.  Maybe he'd seen her while he was staying home from school sick before.  He aunt tended to leave the TV on low volume for background noise.  “I have absolutely no idea what’s going on,” he admitted.  He was a bit ashamed of how little Spanish he remembered since the forced two years of it for high school.  He recognized almost every word, but just couldn’t think of what they meant for the life of him.

Wade leaned back against the couch and tossed the can, fork inside of it, over the side and back onto the floor with a clatter.  The Merc cast a look at Peter.  “Te juzgo en Español,” he muttered, and then pulled his mask down to cover his mouth.

Peter had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t ask.

They eventually fell into a pretty casual conversation after that, and Peter wound up sitting cross-legged with a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats.  Deadpool was still enjoyable to be around, impending awkward conversation in the future or no.  Finally, after turning the channel to some bizarre cartoon Peter had never seen in his life, the air around Wade seemed to get fidgety again.

“I’m sorry I pre-judged you and assumed you’re gonna become a mad scientist,” he murmured.

Peter finished chewing the bite of cereal before replying, “I can guarantee you I’m not.”  He scooped up another spoonful.  “But… is there a reason you jumped to that conclusion?”

Wade shrugged and didn’t make eye contact.  “Don’t much like doctors,” he said.  He was rubbing his hands together, now hunched over and shifty.  ...Well, Peter was kind of right about that much, then.  “So is there anything else you wanna talk about, or was that it?”

Peter was getting pretty good at seeing exactly where their conversations started going towards the big shut-down.  “I like hanging out with you,” he admitted.  He tapped his finger against his the bowl a few times and pursed his lips.  Then he ran his tongue over them.  “Would it… be okay to do this again?” he asked.  When he heard no response, he looked, and Wade was staring at him like he had said something monumentally crazy.

“You mean like... you wanna be actual super-bros?”  His tone sounded weird.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Peter’s lips.  “Yeah.  So; super-bros?” he asked, and he held up his hand in a fist towards Deadpool.  It was left hanging long enough that Peter faltered and he started to drop it, before Wade fist-bumped him.

---

Peter knew that he couldn’t afford the time he spent with Deadpool, but he’d done it anyway.  He felt like several thousand pounds were lifted from his shoulders now.  He felt… happy.  He’d stayed longer than he should’ve, but… it was… really nice to hang out.  He hadn’t had proper time for making friendly connections in a long time, between taking way too many classes and being a superhero when he should be sleeping.  Wade was… definitely something else.  But he had a lot of damage, just like so many other people in the world did, and Peter was slowly learning about it.  He finished putting away the food that Wade had practically begged him to take with him, and Peter had finally accepted it after some fussing.  He didn’t want to admit how much he actually needed it, and he was incredibly grateful for it.

And now he needed to work on his homework, and probably forgo sleep to do it.  He felt exhaustion setting in again just thinking about it, but he still wasn’t going to let himself regret today.  Wade had assumed Peter was only doing this begrudgingly, being nice to him because otherwise Wade would sell his name and face.  And if not that, that he was just turning his hero complex (boy did those words taste bad) towards Wade, who he just saw as someone to fix.  That wasn’t what this was about, though.  Sure, the last thing Peter wanted was for anyone to need help and him just blow it off… but it wasn’t about giving help.  It was about being there for someone he was growing fond of, regardless of the circumstances of that feeling.

He opened his laptop and glared at the word document.  He really wasn’t feeling up to forcing out nine and a half more pages along with a paper for the class from this morning about what exactly he was hoping to accomplish in this field.  It was just busywork, but he needed to get it out of the way.

Instead, he looked at his phone, and turned on the screen.  Wade’s number stared back at him.  He wasn’t sure if now was too soon to get in contact with the other man, but he opened messenger and, after debating with himself, sent a picture that he’d found probably too funny with the afterthought that Wade might enjoy it, too.  He got an immediate text back with a picture of Dickbutt.

He wasn’t really sure how things went full-circle back around to this, but he and Wade had agreed that they should to go on another Pokémon Date, maybe actually take out a few gyms in the area this time.  Peter let him know that he was free Sunday.

He wound up not finishing either assignment that night, but he got to sleep around three in the morning with a full stomach and a dull buzz of excitement about their plans.  

Chapter Text

Peter was run absolutely ragged by the time Sunday rolled around.  Part of him wanted to just stay in bed the entire day, but he knew he would hate himself over it if he did.  He managed to pull himself out from under his blankets (plural, since Fall was finally rolling around), and got dressed.  It was less that he didn’t care as much about how he looked compared to their initial date, and more that he was just too tired to go through and find something that was clean and kind of matched.

He grabbed the last apple Wade had given him and devoured it slowly as he stared at the wall.

They’d agreed to meet at the same place they had the first time, but Peter was almost too embarrassed to go back to the same coffee shop.  He grabbed his phone from the wall charger and headed out, hair brushed as an afterthought (he’d forgotten until he was halfway out the door) and his clothes were clean but wrinkled.  His shirt said, “What do you do with a dead chemist?  You barium.”

Ha ha.  So funny.

God, he missed the concept of sleep.

Maybe he could crash at Wade’s and get another week or so in.  Hey, he could entertain even impossible hopes and dreams, right?  Besides, he’d royally fucked his body up to get to that point, and he’d rather never do that ever again.  If his bad habits and low income didn’t kill him, the stress probably would.  He was honestly surprised he didn’t have ulcers from that fiasco.

Thankfully the heat wave finally seemed to be over, and it was actually almost pleasant outside -- in the shade.  He plopped himself down where he’d been sitting the first time they met without masks, and he got out his phone to pass the time.  Why was he feeling nervous now, anyway?  Everything that could go wrong ran through his head, and he felt anxiety prickle along his gut as he remembered his panic attack on the roof.  That wasn’t going to happen.  They knew each other now, and they’d established that they were going to be super-bros.  That definitely meant something.

...What if he’d forgotten to put on deodorant?  He did a quick sniff and found he could at least bury that particular worry down.  Smelled fine, at least to his own nose.  He tested his breath next, even though… would Wade be in range of smelling his breath?  They were going to hang out and play Pokémon together, for fwip-sakes, but who knows.

He started to get annoyed after a few minutes of messing around on his phone, because his fingers were too ‘sticky’ to swipe across the screen correctly and he’d missed every single throw because the ball landed not even halfway to the Pokémon in question.  He had trouble controlling his powers when he got too emotional, but apparently sleep deprivation plus generic nerves counted, too.  He started flicking his wrist harder with each toss, and he finally just gave up because he was fruitlessly wasting all of his Pokéballs.

“Catch anything good?”

Peter looked up and it took him a second to register what Wade had said -- and then he started laughing, feeling his muscles instantly start to loosen up.  The effect was incredible.  And wasn’t that the exact same thing he’d said before when they’d first met?  “Who knew you could be smooth,” Peter said, and Wade scoffed like he was offended.

“Jeez, Petey, you’re a real sweet-talker there yourself,” he quipped as Peter started to get up to his feet.  Wade was dressed covered from head to toe again, but this time he looked just a little less like he was about to drop from the heat any second.

“Ah, you know me, the notorious Mr. Suave,” Peter said, before he glanced at his phone.  “Just one Rattata,” he added as an answer.  That pathetic capture had been just before his overthinking had really gotten to him and he started fumbling his throws.

Wade snickered.  “How many Pokéballs you’d lose over that thing?” he asked with a grin.  Peter was caught off-guard by how nice it looked to see the other man actually happy.  He mirrored the look instinctively.

“Three,” he complained, though the tone of his voice was saying he was giving too small a number, and then shoved his phone in his back pocket.  They were skinny jeans; good luck getting it to fit anywhere else.  They were already walking across the street, passing people who were out enjoying the last day of their weekend and the first bout of not-completely-awful weather in months.

Then Wade seemed to notice he had words on his shirt and squinted at him.  “Nice shirt, nerd.”

This was something Deadpool hadn’t really done much before -- playfully insulted him.  Peter was going to see it as a good thing, that Wade was finally… seeing that they were both people, and not one of them on a pedestal while the other stared up longingly.

He smiled and his eyes flickered up to the Hawkeye hat.  Peter felt his snark engine revving up, like when he was out as Spider-Man and not Peter Parker.  “Genuinely nice hat, jerk.”

“Real creative insult, twig.”  Wade’s response was almost immediate.

“Oh, and ‘nerd’ is?” Peter shot back.  He made a sweeping motion with his hand going down his body and added, “I’ll have you know that I’m pure, lean muscle.”

“I only buy that because I know it’s true from personal experience,” Wade said, and he did take an appreciative once-over that followed the path of Peter’s hand.  Peter paused, watched Wade look him over, and then had to let his mind readjust its gears.  Did being friends with Wade include the probably-flirting like when they were just in costume and acquaintances before?  He decided he would worry about the implication of that later.

“Are we going to the same place?” Peter asked, changing the subject away from his body.

Wade turned his head skyward and hummed to himself.  “Do you wanna?  We could take a vote.”

An eyebrow stretched up Peter’s forehead.  “That’s kinda hard with only two of us,” he said.

Wade snorted and waved his hand.  “You’re leaving out my shoulder angel and devil, and they’re quite offended.”

Peter wondered briefly if that was who Wade talked to.  “Well, where do they wanna go?” he asked, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was allowed to smile or not.  He couldn’t help the small one that snuck through.  He knew that Wade heard voices, but honestly, if it wasn’t actively hurting anyone right now, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t let Wade interact with them openly, since he tended to do it anyway.  He didn’t want to encourage anything negative in Wade’s life, but he also wanted Wade to be able to trust him, and it would ruin their day and everything they’d built up to this point if he shot down Wade sharing his personal details.

Wade seemed a surprised that he was asked about the opinions of his head-voices, and he wide-eyed looked left and right.  “You hear that, boys?  Your opinion is required.”  A beat.  “Okay, no, you know what, you don’t get a say; your choices suck hairy, unwashed testes.”  Well.  That was certainly an image, and Peter was left thinking about it.  Gross.  Wade looked back to his left.  “Your chance, and don’t fuck this one up for us.”  Another beat.  Wade cocked his head a little bit like a spaniel and considered the unheard (at least for everyone but Wade) suggestion.  Then he glanced over at Peter.  “You wanna eat shitty, cheap, breakfast-all-day kinda food?”

That sounded like it wasn’t going to cost a lot of money, so Peter was honestly up for it.  “Sure,” he said, and the answer was accompanied by a small nod.

“IHOP it is!” Wade hollered with an arm up, but no one paid him any mind, save for quick looks and avoiding the overly-excited man’s berth.  This was, once again, going to take nearly every penny Peter had left in his wallet, but he hadn’t needed to go grocery shopping this week because of what Wade had given him.  He lived with a small kitchen that had incredibly limited counter-space, a stove that would probably make aunt May feel faint, and a mini fridge he picked up from a Craigslist ad.  It froze everything inside of it, including the milk in the bottom of the door.  Because of this, he couldn’t get much while shopping that wasn’t non-perishable.  The care bag he’d been given was a freaking Godsend.

(He was also secretly happy that they weren’t going back to that coffee shop so soon after the scene they’d caused, even if he was pretty sure the workers had seen far worse.)

They found an IHOP pretty close by and the line wasn’t even horrible.  Since it was around lunchtime, there were quite a few groups out and eating, most of them dressed in their church clothes, obviously having just left and had decided to go out to eat before going home.  Wade shifted his weight and gave off general signs of being anxious, which made Peter cast him a glance and they made eye contact.  Peter smiled a little.  Wade stared back and his fidgeting died down to a minimal amount.  The arachnid-hybrid wondered if the other man was nervous about being out and about without a mask on, or if he just didn’t enjoy being around people.  Either option was a sad one, but Peter could understand it to an extent.  He obviously couldn’t wrap his mind around living with Wade’s skin condition, but he himself wasn’t the biggest fan of large crowds.  There was just too much noise and movement.  It messed with his senses and his mind tried to keep up with all over it, sometimes winding up overwhelmed and unable to properly cope.

Once they were seated, each of them taking the opposite side of the booth from the other, the host left them with menus and informed them who their server would be and then darted off again.

It seemed that the change of scenery had taken away their ability to easily fall into conversation, and Peter swallowed, going for his phone again, while Wade tapped the table.  “You got the update yet?” the Merc asked, and the brunet glanced up to his dining partner.  “You know, the one where you walk with ‘em and they give you candy that way?” Wade went on, after having not gotten a response.

Peter’s face lit up with recognition, but he shook his head.  “I don’t have enough space for the update,” he admitted and laughed a little at himself.

Wade looked appalled.  “Seriously?  How much space is even on your phone?” he asked, leaning forward.

Peter passed the device back and forth between his hands and shrugged, waiting for the app to open again.  “About eight gigs?” he guessed, and then he pushed up his glasses as a nervous reflex.  “I mean, I could just buy an SD card and get more space that way, but,” he explained, but he trailed off at the end, leaving it open.  But SD cards cost money, money he definitely wouldn’t be able to even dream about after this lunch date.  “So you got the update, then?” he asked, turning the conversation back to Wade.

The heavily-clothed man leaned back and nodded, pulling up the app on his own mobile.  “Yup!” he informed.  “Got me a fuckin’ fish on a leash,” he said with a wide grin and turned his phone so Peter could see it.  His partner was a Magikarp named FlipFlop, which made Peter snicker.  He could just imagine that poor thing being dragged on a leash behind Wade’s game avatar.  “I will one day obtain his Angry Rage Noodle evolution and annihilate all Gyms.”

“I heard they nerfed Vaporeon,” Peter said as he scrolled through his list of caught monsters.  “Good thing I evolved mine beforehand.  Next to Arcanine, that one’s my strongest.”

When Peter looked up again, Wade was reorganizing the syrup bottles.  He was grinning almost from ear to ear.  “I got me a fatass Snorlax,” he said, sounding far too pleased with himself.  “My beautiful cinnamon roll, my unproblematic fave,” he went on, and then finally decided that the condiments were how he wanted them and poured some of the strawberry one on his finger and stuck that in his mouth.  “Screw Whitney and her fuckin’ Miltank, we’re ballin’ harder than she ever will.”

Peter was once again reminded of his suspicion that Wade just opened his mouth and sound came out unhindered.

“You know the whole trope of like, the idiot and the straight-man bein’ bros and it’s always hilarious?” Wade said, changing the topic at breakneck speed.  Peter nodded while he eyed the menu.  “I like that trope, it’s really fun.  So, uh, thanks for being the straight-guy to my idiot.”

When Peter looked up, he saw Wade with his jaw in his hands, looking just off to the side of Peter’s neck.  That was definitely a lot more sobering than their joking around and light conversation had been.  He thought about it for a little bit, about what that meant, and he supposed that they both sort of switched off in that role.  Sometimes Peter was the one who said or did something ridiculous and Wade had to reel him back in with common sense, not just vice-versa.  Granted, that happened less often, but still.  He was about to reply, when Wade cut in again.

“Well, I mean, you’re not really a straight man, more like a bi man,” he said, and he was amused by his own joke.

Peter couldn’t stop the surprised huff and covered his mouth, trying to squash that sound out of existence.  “Bi guy,” he rhymed with some mirth of his own.

Wade gasped and then held up his left hand for a high-five,  “People-don’t-believe-we-exist bros,” he whispered excitedly.  Peter lifted his hand in response and gave the other man’s palm a light clap.  Honestly, he wasn’t sure exactly where he stood in the labels category, despite how long he’d been looking into them.  He just fit under too many, and it got to the point where the list he’d made about himself was spanning more lines than he was comfortable with.  So he just didn’t bother with it.  Labels were fine and good, but they weren’t supposed to stress a person out.

“So, have you ever dated anyone in the Super Department?” Wade asked, and his demeanor fit that of a young kid at a sleepover, getting to gossip with friends outside of school.  Peter shrugged and rubbed the back of his head with his hand, his eyes meeting the tabletop.

“Well, uh, not really,” he admitted.  “I don’t really date often,” he added, and then kinda wished he hadn’t.  That wasn’t a necessary addition of information.  “You?” he asked.  It only seemed fair to allow Wade a response to the question.

Said man’s face fell, but he had it covered up so quickly that Peter wouldn’t have been sure it had really been there at all.  “Well, shit’s complicated.  I mean, I’ve had one-nighters with some of ‘em?”  His mouth was pulled down at one end as he clearly remembered his own history.  “Depends on what you consider dating, I guess?”

Peter pursed his lips and he debated inwardly with himself before he finally blurted it out before he could over-think it.  “I heard you were married.”

Silence followed between them, and the gentle white noise of chatter in the background rose in volume and sounded much louder suddenly.  Wade’s entire face was frozen in a look that Peter couldn’t translate, and then the other man frowned and looked away.  He seemed closed-off and antsy again, and Peter wished he hadn’t spoken at all.

“Yeah,” Wade grumbled.  “Not anymore, though.”

Peter was inwardly kicking himself.  Damnit, Peter, why must you be like this?  “I’m sorry.”

Wade shrugged heavily and cleared his throat, rubbed the bottom of his nose with his finger, and did several other gestures that may or may not have held any significant meaning.  “Don’t be.  Didn’t work out.”  Then he laughed, and it sounded almost like a bark.  “Yeah, she wasn’t even a citizen -- and neither am I, come to think --, so it wasn’t really even legal?  I mean, it was officiated by a real great Captain, but our names were never on some marriage document.  It was more a title than anything else.”

He had so, so many questions about this, but this wasn’t a subject Peter was about to push.  Especially not when they were supposed to be having a good time hanging out together.  Wade could tell him what all of that meant later.  If at all.

“‘Sides, I never woulda met civilian-you if we were still goin’ steady.  And let me be perfectly honest, I thought you were catfishin’ me at first with some rando hottie’s pic; fully expected to show up and not see anyone there and then get blocked.  But you’re real.  I still can’t wrap my fuckin’ mind around it.”

Peter was left sitting in his seat, staring at Wade for many long seconds.  That had never even occurred to him, that people did that.  He felt as if he was in mourning for everything that Wade had gone through in the past.  But at the same time, he felt his face warm up as the words sunk in.  Wade just complimented his looks -- called him a hottie.  It was different to have someone talk about every muscle in your glutes and thighs, but it was completely different somehow to have them look at your face and tell you it was pleasing to them.  He dropped his gaze and rubbed his thumbs along the screen of his phone when he hit an invisible roadblock in his attempt to ground himself.

His fingerpads were too sticky to move again.

Chapter Text

While Peter ate his pancakes and bacon (which just wasn’t as good as it should have been -- since his aunt spoiled him with the thick-cut kind that had pepper caked on the sides), Wade was busy playing footsie with him under the table.  Peter just assumed that Wade didn’t have many friends and he showed his affection in… weird ways.  That didn’t stop him from pushing back and being childish with the other man.

“You should try this,” Wade said, and he held a spoon out in front of Peter’s face, obviously expecting him to lean forward and eat it.  Peter eyed the spoonful of mashed-up omelet and paused, debating with himself what was worse -- putting his mouth on the thing Wade was actively shoving in his own, or saying no thanks and possibly hurting Wade’s feelings.  He chose the middle ground and used his fork to take the proffered bite, and then he went to taste it.  It was surprisingly good, and he wasn’t sure if it was genuinely enjoyable or if he was just that hungry.  To be fair, this place was Heaven for him and his piss-poor diet.  His body was in desperate need of protein, and eggs were not something he could always afford.  (Besides, they’d usually wind up frozen and exploded in his mini-fridge before he got the chance to cook and eat them.)  It was definitely a good decision to come here, and Peter was half-tempted to thank the shoulder angel-slash-devil -- whichever one -- that suggested it.

Peter nodded his response, covering his mouth as he said, “That’s really good.”  It was just eggs with sausage and cheese in it.

“You can have it, you know,” Wade said, and he twirled the spoon in his hand -- which wasn’t entirely cleaned of its food and some egg and a piece of what might’ve been onion flew off and landed on the table and wall.  Peter eyed the them.  He took his napkin and wiped clean the spots he could reach.  He froze then, though, as the other’s words fully sunk in.  He turned his head back and looked at Wade with two plainly raised eyebrows.

“You don’t want it?” he asked a little warily.  Wade shrugged and went on to eat his order of waffles instead.

“Nah, not what I was craving.”  And the Merc had ordered what looked to be three whole meals, so he certainly had the option to be picky about which one he went for.

Peter still wasn’t sure what to do about that, but honestly, it would make for good leftovers if nothing else.  “If you’re sure,” he said, and he couldn’t stop himself from feeling suspicious.  He got the inkling that Wade was just trying to fill his apartment with food.  Which he shouldn’t be picky about or even think about turning down, but he was actively debating both of those things.  He may be desperate, but he was also stubborn (“The old Parker genes,” Aunt May would say with that fond look she got when she remembered the good times with Ben).  He could fend for himself -- had fended for himself for this long already.

“I won’t eat a damn bite of it if I take it with me; I’ll forget and find it two months later covered in an entire colony of mold, the ecosystem within probably advanced enough to have a democratic, albeit rigged, political system.”

Immediately, Peter’s building annoyance vanished and he cracked a grin.  Wade… brought out something strange in him, that’s for sure.  “Fine,” he agreed, but he made sure to look like this definitely wasn’t his first option.

Eventually they got their bill, and Peter excused himself to the restroom for what could’ve been no more than a minute, and as he was digging his wallet out to pay on the way back, he saw the cashier saying his goodbye and waving professionally to Wade.  There was then that hard-to-describe feeling washing over him in a rush, and the fingers holding onto his wallet twitched and trembled slightly.  Wade at least looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as he handed over the bag with their leftovers boxed up.  “Ready to go?” he asked.

Peter pursed his lips, unsure of exactly what to do.  Wade damn well knew by this point that Peter was not the kind of person to accept charity easily or even well.  The younger man fought with himself over how to react as he accepted the bag, and apparently his expression said something to Wade, who suddenly looked prepared to put up with a verbal lashing.  That response was the tipping point, and Peter backed down, his shoulders sinking along with his will to fight.  “Thanks,” he said, and let the bag settle at his side.

Wade looked startled and then pleased, a spontaneous smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, where the skin looked particularly messed up.  Peter wondered if every well-used area had that problem on the other’s body; the skin worn and struggling to keep up.  “Hey, no problemo, my dude!  Now let’s mall-crawl!”

That took Peter by surprise, who had thought that their shared day was either about to be over or that they would talk about where to go afterward.  Wade took the wrist of his free hand and tugged him along. Opening the doors for both of them until they were back outside, where it felt monumentally hotter than it had before they’d gone inside for a meal.  “Why?” he asked, confused and, at this point, suspicious that he was being purposefully doted on.

A shrug was his immediate answer.  “Because it’s fun?” Wade said -- asked? -- before he glanced back at the brunet.  “Unless you’ve got a better idea,” he added.

Peter did not.

He also wasn’t sure if he was supposed to bring up the fact that Wade was now holding his hand as they walked.  In the end, the hero just shoved that information into the same category as the game of footsie and the other awkward behavior that came from the Merc.  He didn't want to allow himself to think of it any differently.  With that out of the way, Peter let himself focus on the texture of the other’s skin.  It was… definitely a new thing to experience.  Some of the scarring was soft, while other spots were scabbed over and scratchy.  He couldn’t tell if the muscles in Wade’s hands were constantly tensing and relaxing, or if that was the skin itself, which concerned Peter some.  Actually, no, it was pretty concerning.  It was also both gross and intriguing.

“Do you think museums are interesting?” Wade suddenly asked.

Peter wasn’t certain if he’d just missed the trigger for that particular topic or what, but he frowned.  “It depends on what kind,” he said.  He didn’t really find art that interesting to look at, but history and dinosaur displays were ones he found he could spend hours at and not notice time passing.

Wade huffed.  “Nerd,” he said, repeating the same lighthearted insult from earlier.

Peter rolled his eyes and, with the bag still in-hand, he shoved his glasses further up on his face.  “Yes, we’ve established that much about me; but now I’m really starting to worry about you, Mister ‘Creative Insults’.”

The area of Wade’s eyebrows rose, and he sucked in a lungful of air before he started mock-laughing.  “Ooooh, you don’t wanna start that kind of contest me with me, my stringy little bookworm.”

Peter’s nose wrinkled.  “You wanna go, Chatty McBeefcake?  I can write better ones than you using a bowl of Cheerios.”

Wade let go of Peter and spun around in two tight circles before dancing in place.  “Oh!  Oh ho ho ho!  My Rude Crude Dude, we are so on!”  He opened his mouth wide to continue on, Peter mirroring the action, when he suddenly froze like someone had paused the movie they were in and then checked his phone, which had buzzed at him.  Wade let out a sound of pure enjoyment and he glanced at his hand-hold buddy, having just reattached their hands.  “Hold that thought; there’s a cluster of Pokéstops up here, and they all have lures.  It’s near a Gym, too.  Wanna check it out?”

Peter clamped his mouth shut, once again getting whiplash from the subject change.  He was embarrassingly low on Pokéballs and also embarrassingly low level for how much he left his apartment (since he was pretty constantly traveling faster than fifteen miles per hour, so he didn’t get any benefits from it), and so of course he nodded and fished out his own phone.  “I move too fast for my eggs to hatch ninety-percent of the time,” he complained, eyeballing the loading screen.  It wasn’t until they were within range of the ‘Stops that Peter felt his gut instincts go off.  Something wasn’t right, and even Wade seemed to sense it -- or he just noticed how the air around them changed.  They shared a glance, and started forward, their hands still locked together, and that was how they found the source.  It was a shady-looking building of a long-standing business that had recently gone under and no one had rented the space yet.  Where the name of the store had been, there were ghosts of letters lingering behind, and the windows were boarded up, every single one tagged already.

There were shadows of people moving around inside.  “Who the hell decides that breaking and entering is a good idea in the middle of the day?” Wade questioned quietly from his side and Peter wondered that, too.  The arachnid-powered hero wanted a better view of what was going on, and he tugged them around to the side of the building before he pulled Wade to a stop next to him, holding onto the other man’s arm maybe just a bit too tight as he craned his head and peeked in through one of the windows that had been mostly covered up by a torn-apart cardboard box.  There was a group on the ground, and they looked like they were being held hostage, though he couldn’t hear any sirens in the distance, and his phone hadn’t gone off for any sort of amber alert.  It was highly likely that this had just happened, especially since the lures hadn't run out, and those were only active for thirty minutes.  He could pick out two of the people who were running this job, both with face-covers on and Peter saw the flash of a gun in the hand of one of them.  The group of eight victims ranged in ages of Way Too Young (maybe around eleven or twelve) to someone middle-aged and gray-haired, possibly the youngest one’s caretaker.

“Bet those guys are the ones who dropped the lures,” he murmured, both to himself and his partner.  Wade nodded.  Right now, things didn’t look too bad, but he knew from experience that that meant nothing in the long run.  Their job is to de-escalate while getting everyone out safely.

“Take off your jacket,” Peter hissed, eyes never once leaving the sight.

“Whoa, man, you haven’t even kissed me first and you want me to strip?” Wade asked incredulously.  Peter rolled his eyes and let go of the other to hold out his hand in a demanding fashion.

“Give me your jacket,” he reiterated as he yanked off his glasses and started removing his own shirt, setting his phone and the leftovers down to do so one-handed.

Wade’s expression was something that he wished he could get a picture of, but unfortunately this wasn’t the time or the place.  “Right?” Wade asked the air next to his head, like Peter was asking something monumental of him.  He started taking off his clothes anyway, and the jacket fell heavy in Peter’s waiting arm.  The lithe young man was absolutely swimming in the other’s clothing and the sleeves went so long that they covered his hands.  He started to roll them up and stopped when they were mid-way to his elbow.  The fabric felt weird against his bare skin; a little bit on the side of itchy, but that wasn’t the selling point of the garment right now.

He reached down and took his crumpled shirt out from between his thighs where he’d been holding it, and he tugged it over his head, though he stopped just short of poking his head through the neck.  Then he started to tie the sleeves behind his head, giving himself a makeshift mask that looked a little reminiscent of a ninja’s cowl, revealing only his eyes.  (And even that was too much for his liking, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.)

“Dude, seriously, they’ll go down in less than five seconds if you just let me at them,” Wade begged from behind him, with his hands clasped together, going the whole nine yards complete with an expression he apparently thought was worthy to be called a sad puppy look.

“No,” Peter said sternly, pointing his finger at Wade like he was, in fact, a dog.  “And if I even see you start reaching for a weapon, I’m going to take you out along with them.”  His other hand was busy digging through his side pocket while he was talking, and he slapped the two black bracelets on, hooking a small circular piece to the palm of each hand.  He tested it against the bricks closest to him, and webbing came out just like it should.  With one last look at Wade to make sure he was sitting still, and he was off, gone up the side of the building and up onto its roof.  From there, he broke the door to said roof open quietly, and he crept down into the lower floors.

He could hear the masked muggers talking, laughing like they were enjoying some kind of joke between them.

“Is this guy serious?” he heard one ask, and he crept his way along the ceiling as silently as he could, looking down at the crooks, one of which was going through a wallet they’d presumably taken.  “He’s got like fifty twenties in here!  The fuck you doin’ walking around with cash like that around here, man?  You got paid and you gonna go lookin’ for hookers?” the guy managed between chuckles.

Peter was pulling one hand off of the ceiling, readying it to web the closest one’s arms together, when one of the victims looked up at him and gasped, clearly terrified, like he was some kind of horror movie monster.

Granted, he was in just civvies with his face covered, crawling around defying gravity like a freaking cryptid, so on the one hand, he couldn’t honestly blame them, but on the other hand--

“Shit!” he cursed to himself as his spider sense went absolutely haywire and he jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being shot.  Then there was another spike in his sense and he dodged a second bullet.  He wasn’t so lucky the third time, and he felt the hot, sudden pain of something several hundred degrees entering his right thigh and he quickly tried to rework his movements to take his injury into consideration.  It was mostly instinctual, and his focus was split between being shot at and everyone suddenly screaming incoherently, which barely got to his ears over the shrieking of his inner precog.

Chaos was what was happening below, and Peter swung himself by one arm from the ceiling and let go, flinging himself directly onto one of the thugs, who got knocked off of her feet and into the wall with a heavy sound, a few of her joints cracking into this new, sudden position.

“You ever hear that shooting people is a little bit rude?” he demanded, standing with an offset gait, putting more weight on his left side.  “It’s right up there with robbing people!  Manners!”  He webbed her hands down, then her legs, and lastly her gun, which had landed a few feet away.

The group that had been lined up along the wall with no windows was now clustered in a dark corner, everyone looking ready to climb over one another to get away.  They had no idea what was going on, but looked warily at the crazy dude with a shirt tied around his face who was possibly helping free them.

“Spider-Man!” one of the young ones screamed, and Peter’s head whipped around to look at him.  But the probably-middle-schooler wasn’t pointing or even looking at him -- he was gesturing wildly at Deadpool.  Well, Deadpool’s mask on some random’s body.  That was when another gunshot was fired, and the second robber fell, screaming and cursing and kicking at nothing.  Two more followed, and Peter had Deadpool up against the wall, lifted up by the front of his shirt before he could even think.  He slammed him against the wall a second time to make his point clear.

“What did I say?!  What was the one thing I told you not to do?!” Peter shouted, and he jostled Wade again.  The Merc kneed him in the stomach and Peter coughed, took a step back, and, unfortunately put weight on his injured leg.  His pants felt really wet on that side.

“He was about to fuckin’ blow out your brains, you ungrateful dingleberry!” Deadpool barked.  “I didn’t fucking kill him, look, he’s fine!”

Peter pulled away while Wade slid down onto the floor, and the air around him radiated the very words pissed off.  He looked away from the mercenary and to the pathetic lump of a person that was left crying on the dirty floor, blood spattered around him and soaking his clothes.  The guy’s hand had a hole blown all the way through it, and by the look of it, so did his calves.  Peter huffed and puffed, trying to get his breathing back to semi-normal, and his gaze swept the room again.  The group in the corner didn’t look any less freaked out now that ‘Spider-Man’ had just shot someone multiple times.  He sighed and gripped his face with his fingers, digging them in hard to ground his thoughts, before he stood up straighter and let his hands drop to his sides.  His elbows cracked with the action.

“You guys gotta wait for the police to get here, and if anyone’s hurt, we’re calling an ambulance, too.”  His voice was much more muffled than it ever was when he wore his proper mask, and he hoped that they could hear and understand him well enough to follow directions.

“Thank you,” a young woman in the group said, her voice so soft (probably from the trauma) that Peter was grateful for his super-hearing, and he nodded at her.  He dropped to his knees and made his way over to the injured robber, and he webbed a makeshift bandage around the guy’s hand on both sides, turning it to get it the entrance and exit marks, and then webbed up the similar wounds on his legs.  

“That should help stop the bleeding,” he said, and then he gave the same treatment to his own thigh.  Oh, jeez, that was… that was a lot of blood.  He didn’t think an artery had been nicked, but it was possible.  He was lucky he hadn’t bled anymore than he had, actually.

He heard movement behind him, and he turned, looking at Deadpool who was picking himself up and walking towards the barred door.  He kicked it down one-legged, and told the air to “Shut up,” adding that, “Horse e-books has better ideas than you do.”  Then he tried to slam the broken door, but one of the hinges came right off and it wobbled awkwardly to one side.  Peter got up and limped over to Wade and stopped him from leaving by grabbing his arm.

“Don’t go,” he said, and there was a tired sort of desperation behind his words.

“Don’t think you want me to stick around right now,” Wade replied, and his voice was cold.  Peter flinched.

“Will you please go with me back to my place?” he asked, and Wade went completely silent.  That was obviously not the answer he was expecting.

“Seriously, you don’t--”

“Please go back with me to my place.”

A beat.  Then Wade’s demeanor changed, and his body language with it.  “Oh, well shit, I didn’t think violence got you in the mood, but hey, I don’t kinkshame; if you’re dee-tee-eff, I’m not gonna complain!”

Well, that was… that was better and one-hundred percent less terrifying than stone-cold killer Deadpool from a few seconds ago, and Peter would take it as a gift.  He deflated and leaned heavier on Wade, who stiffly placed an arm around him.  He was debating asking Wade to use his phone to call for an ambulance, but he heard sirens already starting up.  Someone must have reported the gunshots.  He turned, and he pointed at the group, who was now much more dispersed, a few of them checking through their bags, probably to give themselves something normal to do so they wouldn’t freak out more, though some may have just gone into shock.  “Seriously, don’t leave until the police are done questioning you,” he said to them, but he just sounded exhausted with only vague authority in his voice.  He leaned more weight on Deadpool.

“If you wanna piggyback me the rest of the way to my place, that would be really… really great.”

Chapter Text

Peter had almost completely forgotten about his glasses, phone, and food, but in the end they wound up leaving with everything in tow.  Peter took off his makeshift superhero costume, gave Wade his jacket back, and put his own shirt back on (properly).  He put his glasses on, and wondered where the smudges had come from when he’d been so careful to keep from touching them with anything.  Oh, well.  His shirt was too sweaty and gross to even attempt to clean them, so he’d just have to wait until they got somewhere.  Wade (who’d taken off his mask and put it away somewhere) watched him as he covered his leg in another layer of webbing for the trip back.

“Ready?” the Merc asked, and Peter nodded without much energy in the action.  He sighed from deep his chest.

“Yeah,” he said, and Wade took the leftovers bag and knelt down so that Peter could climb on his back.  Peter did so, hissing and biting back some choice words a few times as he had to bend his leg or stretch the muscles around the bullet.  His body’s healing factor would just force that out on its own -- it had done so before -- but until then, he had to keep the wound taken care of.  The bullet wasn’t any danger to him, since the heat during firing killed any and all bacteria on the metal, so it was effectively sterilized.  Once before when he’d been shot, his body had pushed the bullet out and it cut an artery in the process… so all of a sudden a rush of blood started spilling out of his side, thankfully not while he was at school or work.  That had been… well, an experience for sure.  Glad he hadn’t traumatized May with that mess.

He used his sticky hands to latch himself onto Wade safely until they had settled into better position between the two of them.  Wade’s arms hooked under his knees to give him something to sit on.

“How’s your leg?” Wade asked, his voice a little gruff.

Peter let his head fall onto the back of Wade’s head, resting his forehead on the other man’s baseball cap.  “Ow,” he responded.

Wade huffed.  “No shit,” he chuckled, but it sounded pretty humorless.  “So where the hell’re we going again?”

Peter pursed his lips.  “My place.  Go back to where we met up and and then keep going straight for seven blocks.”

Wade was quiet for the first few steps.  “So you’re really gonna let me see your place?” he asked.

Peter nodded against him.  “Yeah.”  He went silent for a second.  “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do trust you.”

Wade immediately scoffed.  “Sure.”

Peter inhaled and closed his eyes to focus.  “I’m serious.  It’s just...”  His hands formed fists, clenched and unclenched.  

“It’s just me,” Wade cut in before he could continue.

“No,” Peter said, and his sounded annoyed.  “No, it’s the guns.  I don’t like them.  My… my uncle was shot and killed in front of me.”

Wade’s step faltered and he came to a quick stop, breathed a few times through his mouth, and then uttered, “I’m sorry.”

Peter’s head leaned a little harder on Wade’s crown.  “Thank you,” he said softly.  He really did appreciate the seriousness that Wade was giving his admission.  “It’s still hard some days,” he went on, and his heart sank as he said it.

“Was it recent?” Wade asked, and they were back to trekking along the sidewalk.  No one seemed to care much but one person did eye the blood that was soaked through Peter’s jeans.

“No.  It was…”  He paused to think, and he was surprised to find that time had actually been moving forward at a steady pace.  “God, it was eight years ago.”

Wade grunted in response.  “Sorry I triggered any bad memories,” he murmured, and he really did sound honestly sorry.  Well, until he realized what he’d said.  “Okay, so poor choice in wording, but I really didn’t know.”

Peter didn’t find that pun too funny, and he didn’t say anything about it.  The other sentiment, though, he thought about it, let those words sink in, and he chewed on his bottom lip.  The general malaise that came with feeling depressed had settled over him like a thick blanket and he didn’t like it.  “No, you didn’t know.  But you do now.”  Change was hard, he knew this from personal experience, but it was the actions from here on out that determined whether or not Wade was actually sorry or if he only felt that way right now.  Peter hadn’t done too hot a job backing Wade up when he’d needed it, or about thinking the best of him even now, but he was trying.  He just… needed to try harder.  And maybe with both of them working together on it, they truly could reach a better place to settle into with each other.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Wade replied in a deadpan.  “So do we get in some more character development before we get to your place, or what?”

Peter wasn’t really in the mood for jokes right now, but it did help him smile, even if it was a tense, melancholy-looking one.  “We’ve got a good fifteen-minute walk, so sure, why not.”

“Fall’s coming fast (oh, baby); d’you do Halloween?  Go to parties, dress up?  Oh, please tell me you go as Spider-Man, that would be too much!”

...Peter was beginning to think that Wade actually has ADHD or something.  At least the topic wasn’t something that lingered on the darkest memories possible, and actually did a good job of steering the conversation away into something much lighter.  Peter shook his head.  “I don’t do any of that, no,” he admitted.  “I used to dress up when I was a kid, but parties aren’t my thing, you know?”

Wade shrugged.  “Yeah, you don’t seem the type.  But fuckin’ seriously, you should go to a costume contest dressed as Spidey and win a shitload of money, or a yacht, or a trip to China!”

Peter’s right eyebrow rose.  “You’re thinking about some Wheel of Fortune-esque prizes there,” he said, but actually… that wasn’t too bad of an idea.

Wade canted his head and agreed, but then he backed up some.  “So fuck English, there’s tons of silent letters and shit that don’t make any sense (just like French, those assholes gotta hold up their got-dang aesthetic), but if you say yacht the way it’s spelled, like with a hard 'k' for the 'ch', you don’t sound like you're talking, you just sound like a cat with a hairball.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Peter said and he held back just this once about how Wade never sounded intelligent.  The guy certainly made him think about things that didn’t cross his mind often, and some of the sadness lifted off of him and dispersed like steam.

They waltzed up to Peter’s apartment building in almost no time, and Peter was busy debating how much he hated himself versus how much he didn’t want to walk up several flights of stairs painfully slow (literally).  “Is this it?” the mouthy Merc asked, pointing at the… not super expansive building.  Peter sighed and pushed his nose against Wade’s hat, hiding himself a bit more.  He didn’t even want to know what his neighbors were going to start saying about him next after this.  The rumor mill was intense, especially with all of these nosy people.

“Yeah, fifth floor, room 514.”

The other obediently started up the stairs, having given the elevator death trap one look before he made the right decision, and the going was tedious and hurt Peter’s thigh more than he would ever admit.  He’d bitten a red crescent into his lower lip by the time they reached his apartment.  Peter let Wade know he wanted down, and he shakily took out his keys and unlocked the door.

Wade took one look at the cramped space as he sat the leftovers down on the carpet and whistled.  “You know, my place is a shithole, but what the fuck, Spidey?”  Peter shut the door behind them and gave Wade a look.  Wade threw his arms out in response, wildly gesturing to the place that had absolutely no sitting space besides the computer chair and the bed, and didn’t even have a television.  “What?!  You live in a shoebox.  Like, Jesus, I know you’re poor, but--?”

Peter regretted taking this loudmouthed idiot to his home, now.  Well, no, not home.  He’d never really thought it if that way.  His place of residence, the place he put his head down when he was tired… those were better descriptions for it.  Aunt May’s place would always be home to him.

“Thanks,” he said, and he pushed past Wade to go over to his closet.  The only sectioned off room in his studio was the bathroom, and so he grabbed a pair of clean boxers and shut himself up in there.

“You know I’m not trying to be mean,” he heard Wade say, muffled, through the door.  Peter closed his eyes for a few seconds to calm down, but sucked in a breath of intense pain as he tried to peel his pants off.  He had a pair of scissors in there for varying reasons, and so he took them off of the back of the toilet and tried to wedge it under the webbing for leverage.  When that didn’t work, he groaned and just gave up and started cutting the damnable fabric off of his leg, leaving only the strip around the wound like a bandage.  Peeling the shredded denim away from him when it was attached firmly to his skin and leghair wasn't exactly pleasant, but after a few hitches he was able to get it all off.  The pants were old and ruined anyway, even if he got the blood mostly out.  His webbing would dissolve completely on its own in two hours, so he just had to wait it out.

“Nothing you can say about the place that I haven’t before,” he snapped back as he stared down at his shredded former jeans.  He left them on the floor of the bathroom -- the blood would be easy to clean off the tile whereas a pain in the butt to try to get out of carpet --, and he gently pulled on the fresh boxers that weren’t stained red.

But now he had a dilemma: He was going to have to walk out pantsless in front of Wade, who appreciated his rear aloud quite often, who had recently called him a 'hottie', and, well… Peter liked him, maybe.  He wasn’t a very sexual creature by any means, but he did enjoy Wade, relationship bumps aside.  He hadn’t really let himself think on it if he could help it, because he always overthought, and just…

Well, when Wade had called him attractive at the restaurant, he’d… he’d felt warm all over and his heart did a weird thing, the same thing it did when he got crushes on someone.  That definitely meant something, because that’s what had happened with Gwen, and what had happened with… well, the only other person he’d dated had been MJ, so those would be the only ones he’d list.

He gripped the doorknob, and finally, finally forced himself to turn it and step out.  Wade was busy looking at the posters and photographs on his wall, and reading the magnets on his mini-fridge.

“Is this seriously all you have?” he asked, sounding about as impressed as Peter was with the other man’s nagging questions about his lifestyle.

“Yes,” he said.  “Look, can you just stop making me feel worse for a few minutes?”

Wade turned and looked at him, and was about to snark something fierce when he noticed that all Peter was wearing was a shirt, some boxers, and a really shitty bandage.  Peter forced his eyes to burn holes in his ugly yellow wallpaper while Wade openly admired him.  It was when Wade wolf-whistled that Peter just told himself fuck it, and he walked over to his pile of overworn clothes that needed a desperate washing and pulled on a pair of sweats.

“Aw,” Wade whined.  “You gave me a glimpse of what Heaven’s like, and then you take it away from me, just like that?”

Peter felt his face light up in a flame and he cleared his throat.  “Are you being serious?” he asked, but he sounded somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed.  Wade heard the tone and sobered up some.

“Of course I am,” he said.  “Spidey, your bod’s as hot as an Arizona summer, and practically all of the people on Reddit agree with me on that.”  He was waving his hands like this was going to somehow convince Peter that this was the absolute truth.  It just made his face cook a darker shade, and he flopped onto his bed, taking the collateral pain from his bullet wound and covering his face with his pillow.

“No, honestly, I don’t know what the fuck I did to make you swipe right on me, but damn, son.”

Peter let out a cartoonish whine into his pillow.  He couldn’t help it; this was massively embarrassing and Peter needed time to let it sink in so that he could come up with the proper response.  Especially since Wade had just brought up the dating app, and they’d just come back from their second date, and--

...Oh God.  Oh good God, Wade didn’t think they were dating-dating, did he?  Peter liked him well enough to try to get to know him better, but this wasn’t--!  He’d swiped right to see where it went, to make new memories about the Pokémon Go app, to try to forget that Wade Winston Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool existed and that he had a really messed up and depressing file lying right on the open internet, and that Peter felt guilty about all of that mess from before, and…

He sat up, his hand covering his mouth, and he let the pillow fall down into his lap.  It landed on his wound, but that wasn’t anything worth worrying about right now.  It was already healing and he could feel it.

“Wade, are we dating?” he asked, and he must have looked like he was staked out somewhere between mortified and curious.

Wade went quiet, and he caught one look at Peter’s face and turned away, leaning against the one-foot of counter space between the fridge and the stove.  He shrugged, then verbalized his response.  “I’nno.  You don’t really seem so keen on the idea, so nah, we’re just dudes bein’ bros, you know?”

Peter looked at Wade, and the other man’s expression was… upset.  “Wade?” he asked quietly, but the mercenary didn’t look at him.  “Wade?” Peter pressed, more urgency in his voice.

“I’d just pull you down, we both know that,” he said, but Peter was wondering if he was more talking to himself than to civvies Spider-Man.

The younger of the two got off of his bed and limped towards the resident chaotic neutral who was no more than five feet away from him.  He reached out, and he paused, looking up at Wade for any kind of go-ahead.  Wade didn’t pull away, didn’t back off, didn’t jump out the window to get away.  So Peter let his hand fall on top of the other’s, and he curled his fingers around the large palm.  He didn’t hate the feeling of Wade’s skin on his, it was just going to take a little while to get used to, and…

Oh, the thought that struck him so hard and fast that it left him absolutely winded.

Wade couldn’t die.  He couldn’t die.  The problem with dating Peter Benjamin Parker was the danger that came with it, the genetic bad luck, the trove of sob-stories that made up his past.  He didn’t want Wade to be one of those, to be a smudge on the calendar at this point in his life that he’d rather forget five years down the line when he thought about the two of them.  He always sprung right back up, like some kind of daisy straight from Hell, and Peter started tearing up before he could stop himself.  He didn’t know what all sorts of baggage he’d been holding back besides the weight of Ben, or what connection his brain and heart had made without him in the loop, but he was left a blubbering mess against Wade’s chest, and Wade held him there, wrapped his big, warm arms around Peter and held him close.

Wade wouldn’t die.

Chapter Text

Peter had never been very good at initiating anything when it came to dating, so after he and Wade had held each other while Peter tried to get control of himself, he wasn’t… sure what to do, and Wade didn’t seem to want to push anything.  So they stood there, holding hands for God only knew how long, and they eventually fell into peaceful conversation.  Even still, the younger man’s face was flushed, and his chest felt tight.  He wasn’t sure if the contact was a little forced because now there was a possible title between them, and this is what people who were dating were supposed to do, even if that’s not how they were even a day ago.

“Jumpscares are so cheap,” Wade said, and Peter watched the way their hands melted to one another, how his own was smaller, his fingers more lanky, while Wade’s were thick.  Peter’s fingernails were thin and bitten down to the quick, while Wade’s were yellow, uneven, and much too wide.  Looked like a fungus had gotten to them, or maybe it was psoriasis, or whatever was wrong with the rest of his skin?

“Yeah,” he said distractedly.  Did he really feel anything crush-like towards Wade, or was it only because he thought Wade liked him that he felt anything at all about this?

“Hey dream-boat, you there?”

“‘M listening,” Peter murmured.

“Really?  ‘Cause you look like you’re a million miles away right now.”

A quirk pulled at the edge of Peter’s lips.  “Yeah, well I have super-senses, so I can hear you from where I am.”

Wade looked curious.  “Oh?  Like Superman’s or something?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s a comic book character, no, it’s not that intense.”  With his free hand, Peter let his fingers dance through the air.  “I obviously can’t hear someone talking from across the city, but I can hear them pretty clearly through multiple walls.”

When he looked up Wade was grinning at him.  “Bet you’re in the know about every bit of gossip in this complex,” he said.  Peter groaned quietly and nodded.

“Most of it, yeah,” he said.  He was alright hearing about drama he wasn’t involved in -- most of it was worthy of sitting down to listen with a bowl of popcorn -- but when he was already stressed out from school, and from work, and from crime fighting, and from struggling with personal relationships?  Hearing the couple at the end of the hall arguing over where the milk is supposed to be kept in the fridge (“There is a slot for it in the door, Jessica.”  “You can’t put milk in the door, it won’t stay cold enough and it’ll go bad faster, Stephen.”) was… less than entertaining.  Especially when he just wanted to sleep.

“That’s so freakin’ cool,” Wade said, and Peter had to disagree slightly with that statement.  “I never got anything like that,” he went on, and Peter listened while he noticed that Wade didn’t have any visible body hair, either.  “I was experimented on and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

Yup.  Peter’s blood definitely ran a little body colder just then.  “Is it at least a comfortable t-shirt?” he asked.  One of the lumps on Wade’s arm looked like a squirrel.  Or a Chinese dragon.

Wade took his hand back and ran the pad of his pointer finger and thumb over the shirt he was wearing.  A grin slid over his features and he cocked his head before saying, “Feels like boyfriend material, actually.”

Peter smacked him on the wrist and rolled sideways to lean against the stove next to the mercenary (ow, thigh pain), and he was trying to stop himself from outwardly showing that he both found that funny and desperately wanted to squint up his face in a wince.  It was a horribly lame joke and didn’t deserve a positive response.  He coughed a little to cover up any urge to chuckle.

“Admit it, I’m hilarious,” Wade wheedled, and Peter huffed.

“There’s nothing to admit,” Peter shot back.  “You steal jokes from the internet and articles about bad pick-up lines.  If that’s what you consider funny, well, you do you, man.”

Wade acted like he was offended.  “Oh, says Mister Bad Puns And Pop Culture References?”

Peter threw his arms out.  “You literally took my schtick and you’re gonna sass me about it?”

Wade shook his finger from side to side and tutted.  “I’m older, so I win.  You took the schtick and ran with it.”

Peter looked Wade up and down and folded his arms across his chest.  “You cannot seriously be pulling the age card to get out of infringement accusations.  Besides, what was it that kid back at the crime scene called you?  Spider-Man, wasn’t it?”

“Whoa, it’s not my fault his parents haven’t gotten his eyes checked.  Besides, this part of New York is your territory; I’m just a humble, wide-eyed, virgin farm boy from Canada trying to make it in the big city.”

Peter’s deadpan look was impressive as hell.  “Okay, you wanna try that again?  Your nose grew a few inches.”

Wade jiggled his hand like he was on the fence about the question.  “How about I’m a fiddler from the South who heard you can follow your dreams in the Big Apple?”

Peter looked like he was having to attempt to keep up his deadpan.  “Nope.”

“I’m a young, naive, small-town girl who just wants to dance?”

Peter’s mouth twitched a few times but he held strong.  That is, until Wade burst into the song his brain had jumped towards, too.

“Just a small-town girl,” Wade belted, a hand coming to lay over his right breast.  “Livin’ in a lonely world!”

“Oh my God,” Peter managed to say as his face went through several different expressions ranging from I fucking knew it, to be strong Peter and don’t sing along.  “Please, no more,” he begged playfully.  He wasn’t being serious about it, though.  Wade had an okay singing voice, and this was miles of progress from the closed-off, stony shell of a man from too short a time ago.

“Fine,” Wade eventually said.  “So what’s your backstory, then?”

Peter’s lips pulled off to the side as he thought, and his head tilted just slightly to the left.  “Not as interesting as your nine lives, oh ye who walks among streetlights.”

Wade’s body sagged.  “Oh, come on.  How did Spider-Man become Spider-Man?” he asked, and he looked like a child before Christmas.  Peter was surprised, because he thought they’d still been making up ridiculously cliche stories about their lives before New York.

“Seriously?” he asked, and he suddenly felt a little nervous, like he was having to get up in front of the class and talk.  “Like, the actual real deal?”  A hand came up and ran through his hair in a fidget, and his eyes automatically went to find something else to focus on.  Peter Parker was a meek creature by nature.

Wade suddenly seemed hesitant.  “I mean, you don’t gotta tell me, but I kinda wanna know for really reals.”

Peter’s lips pressed into a thin line and he debated with himself about where the story started, and how many words it actually needed to be.  The full lead-in all the way from the point where he got bit by a lab experiment to when Ben died, causing him to actually put his powers to use to protect those around him who were more helpless than he was…  Geez, that was a long one.  In the end, he counted how many seconds inhaling and exhaling took (five seconds exactly), and then said, “Got bit by a spider.”

It sounded so simple to just whittle it down to that single sentence, but that was it; that was the big whammy that gave him his powers.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Wade demanded.  “What kind of -- where the fuck were you, Chernobyl?”  He really seemed completely taken aback by Peter’s answer.  “You got bit?  You’re not just a mutant or something?  I really thought you were a mutant.”  He grew quieter, and snapped his head a little bit to say, “Yeah, no wonder the Mutant Country Club hadn’t recruited him,” to thin air.

Peter’s eyebrow raised high into his hairline.  “You sound disappointed,” he noted.

“Because that’s disappointing!” Wade shot back.

Peter rolled his eyes and pushed himself off of the stove (ow).  “You asked, you know,” he reminded.  “Not my fault you didn’t like the answer.”

Suddenly Wade was next to him when he turned back around to face the front, and he jumped, startled, onto the nearby wall, and immediately made a face of pain before he was able to cover it.  Wade loomed in closer, as if to inspect him.  “So the crawling on things isn’t just gloves?  What all can you stick to?” he wondered, taking a step closer, clearly enthralled by seeing Peter show that he wasn’t any average human.

Peter crept his way up higher, feeling like nails were raking across his bullet wound, and he was very glad his shoes at least had traction because the fine hairs along his body couldn’t poke through the thick soles, but the rubber kept him from sliding down.  Not that he couldn’t hold himself up by his hands alone, but still.  “Everything so far,” he said, and shifted himself so he was now officially taller than Wade as he wedged himself in the corner between the wall and the ceiling.  Wade’s mood swings were enough to give him whiplash, and the way the guy was looking at him was weirding him out.  It was like he hadn’t ever seen Peter before just then.

“That’s so fucking sweet,” the mercenary murmured.  “You really look like a spider, you know?  The way you move, the way you hold yourself when it’s a natural response.”  He finally straightened his spine and stood tall, now coming up to Peter’s collarbone.  “I like it,” he decided.  “Also you look super cute like that.  Kinda like you were scared but now you’re not and you don’t know why.”  He paused.  “No, wait, that sounded a little bit creepy.  I didn’t mean it to be creepy.  For once I’m really not being creepy.”  Another pause.  “Am I?”

Peter cocked his head.  His spider sense hadn’t gone off once over Deadpool since the robbery, which was part of why the sudden movement had made him jump so hard, besides that he hadn’t heard it.  He may ‘look like a spider’ but he’d sprung like a cat.  “Do you want the honest answer to that?” Peter asked, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose again.  He wasn’t in any danger, so there was no reason not to get comfortable where he was.

Wade stared up at him.  “...Yes?”

Peter felt himself smile a little, even though it was strained from pain.  His muscles were actively having to bend and work around the bullet, and the webbing made his makeshift bandage far too tight with little give.  “You’re a creep,” he said.  “You invade my personal space and you never seem to know what’s appropriate to say out loud.”  He started to let himself out of his shoes with one hand, working to untie each one and tug them off.  “But you know what?  It’s growing on me.  Kinda like mold.”

Wade broke into a bright smile.

Chapter Text

They moved into the bedroom area as time went on, Peter now perched comfortably on the wall, sitting with his legs bent and stuck in place while his hands were free to move about as he talked.  It had hurt a lot at first, but then the wound became numb as it healed back up.  Wade sat on his bed and watched him, and Peter tried to pretend like he didn’t notice how the other’s blue eyes tracked his every movement, like he didn’t notice how Wade seemed enraptured by even the slightest twitch of Peter’s fingers.  Being put in a spotlight like this was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t stage fright that filled his chest, it was a thick, hot and heavy lump that formed, and it caused his skin to flush and his words to stumble.

Wade looked so at ease, so happy, so caught up in everything Peter was saying, and this wasn’t what they’d had a week ago.  This wasn’t who they were at IHOP.  Was it?  He’d have noticed, right?  Or maybe not, because now he was hyper-aware of everything because now it was constantly at the forefront of his mind.  “And so you can actually battle competitively with a Magikarp,” he finished, and chewed on his lip as he counted each hair on the back of his hands.

Wade really looked like he was falling head over heels, and Peter still didn’t know if he reciprocated to the fullest extent, but it sure felt like he was starting to.  Talking to Gwen in class, trying to get up the courage to talk to her outside of class, it all felt like this but it had started off far different.  Peter had had a crush first before engaging.  This time he’d engaged and then fell.

“And on that note, I gotta go walk mine for a bit,” Wade said suddenly, and Peter’s head snapped up and he watched the older man get up, stretch, and then head towards his front door.  What?  Why was he leaving?  Peter hadn’t said anything wrong, he knew he hadn’t.  He just went back and analyzed every word, and there was absolutely no way Wade could have taken anything out of context.  His lost expression must have shown plain as day, because Wade frowned and walked over to him and reached out.  He hesitated for a second, before he touched Peter’s jaw.  “Hey, I won’t be gone long.  You wanna come with me?  I’m just gonna hit up the CVS.  But don’t you have an essay to work on?”

Peter didn’t feel any less confused and a little bit hurt.  He felt like Wade was messing with him to an extent, but he didn’t understand the reason.  Now he was offering his company again, very freely actually, so it didn’t seem likely that he was punishing Peter for something.  “Yes,” he said after a beat.  He did have another essay, and he really, really needed to work on it.  He’d been putting it off to spend time with Wade, and honestly, now was the absolute perfect time to get it done and out of the way for tomorrow’s class.  It was about the deaths of different types of cells.  “I should work on it,” he admitted, then added, "but I probably shouldn't be walking too much -- shot, remember?"  And then, he plunged into his question without letting himself think anymore.  “Why are you suddenly going now?”

Wade’s fingers dropped away from Peter, who hadn’t realized he had leaned into the warmth until it was gone.  “You were talkin’ about Pokémon battling, and I thought about Go, and then I remembered I needed something.  You think I’m running out on you?”

It was somewhat ironic that Peter was now the one having to be comforted about that.  “It crossed my mind.”

Wade’s eyes softened and he shook his head.  He seemed so much more confident now, nothing at all like who he’d been when they were first talking out of costume, who he’d been when he met up with Peter face to face for their initial date.  “No.  I’m gonna forget if I don’t do it while I’m thinking about it.  Nothing you did.”

When he left, Peter realized just how lonely he had gotten, and much like the feeling of cold that crept in after the disappearance of lingering contact, he felt everything he was missing without Wade to help fill up the silence of his own life.  He got down onto the floor (ow) and stared at his dark computer screen.  He autopilot booted the tower up and sat down, his hands ready on the keyboard to get him into his account.

He thought about why he felt like this, and he realized that because there hadn’t been given an allotted time to help him get used to this new them… he didn’t know how to think, how to react, how to correct himself when he was suspecting Wade might be doing something to hurt him.  That wasn’t who Wade is, not anymore.  They now needed to both actively work towards getting closer, instead of falling apart.  He did like Wade, he really, actually did, and he wasn’t just suddenly invested because Wade couldn’t die.

He typed up half a page of soulless text before Wade came back, knocking loudly on the door.  Peter felt… so relieved and he jumped up and limped over to open it and let Wade back in.  The other man waltzed in like he’d done this a thousand times before and dropped the plastic bag on the bed before falling down into place beside it.  “You would not believe the shit I heard this old dude say,” he started, jumping immediately into conversation like he hadn’t been gone at all.  “He sounded like a young guy when I wasn’t looking, so I was really surprised to look up and see some gray-haired balding guy talking about fist-fighting a ten year old over candy.”  He paused, noticing that something was off, and his fingers curled in on his palms, his shoulders sagging somewhat.  “You’re staring really hard there, buddy,” he said warily, and Peter let himself fall onto his shitty old mattress next to the other, taking the pain in stride, and he leaned against the well-worn jacket sleeve.

He liked the contact.  It distracted him from bad things.  He was so happy for it.  His head landed on Wade’s shoulder.  “I missed you,” he said.  He wanted Wade in his life.  “I’m glad you’re back.”

Wade looked positively stunned, and then he melted into the touch.  “Haven’t heard that in a while,” he said back.

“Get used to it,” Peter answered, to both Wade and himself.

Wade gripped the plastic bag a little oddly.  “So I kinda got you something,” he said, and trailed off.  He shoved the bag at Peter and the brunet took hold of it, lifting his head up and curiosity creeping up on him.  “It’s a little selfish of a reason, but I really want you to be able to update your game so we can keep playing together,” he went on, like he had to defend himself over the gift.  Which, honestly, with the way Peter’d been acting about having charity pushed on him, it was no wonder.

The bio-chem student uncrumpled the bag and peeked inside of it, finding only one thing in there at all.  A brand new 64-gig memory card for his phone, with the price tag scratched off messily.  He reached inside and pulled it out, looking up at Wade with his mouth slightly open.  “Thank you,” he said, and he blinked a few times.  “You didn’t have to.”

Wade canted his head.  “I know, that’s literally the definition of a gift, you know that, right?”  He seemed relieved that Peter was taking this so well.  “I have a knife on me if you don’t have scissors, those damn packages are such a pain in the--”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before Peter tore the thick, melted-together plastic in half like it was tissue paper, and he dug out the tiny little chips inside, holding them both gently in his hands like they were precious.  And they were.  One of the memory cards was normal-sized, and he could use that in his camera, and he’d needed a new one badly.  He took photos at the highest quality possible, at the highest resolution possible, and it really affected how many shots he could take in one go.  The other one was just the right size to put in his phone.

“--...Totally forgot you were super strong.  Well.”

He was really touched, actually.  This didn’t feel like pity-charity, this felt like Wade wanted to give him something practical that he could use and they could enjoy together.  His throat was tight when he tried to swallow.

“Thank you,” he repeated, and he looked at Wade, made eye contact and held it.  “Thank you so much.”

Maybe Wade hadn’t ever pitied him.  Maybe he’d honestly just wanted to do something nice, the only nice thing he knew he could do at the time.  Peter felt a small nip of guilt get at him about how he’d been treating the gestures before now.  He was stubborn to a fault, in every aspect of his life, and he didn’t take kindly to people he’d thought so poorly of before thinking Peter needed their help to get by.

He stood up briefly to grab his phone from the table beside his mousepad, and he carefully took the back off.  It was so hard at first to figure out how much effort he had to use for everyday things, like toothpaste and doorknobs and throwing his shoes across the room.  But by now he had it mastered like an art, and he gently set the removed back down, and used his thumbnail to pry one of the slots open.  He laid down the memory card like it was a puzzle-piece and he pressed until it clicked.  Then he replaced everything and it looked as good as new.

Wade watched him quietly, like it was truly something interesting, and preened himself when he saw that it worked.  It took a few minutes, but Peter had the most up-to-date version of Pokémon Go.

“Okay, now go to your Pokémon, and then choose who you wanna be your best bud, and then tap that,” Wade said, practically vibrating as he explained what Peter probably could have easily figured out on his own, but he let the other talk.  It was endearing.  He also felt the excitement of his inner child that he was going to be able to keep up with this silly game.

“Like that?” he asked, wanting Wade to keep talking.

“Yeah!” Wade congratulated, and then he held his own phone next to Peter’s.  “Whoa, Haunter’s fucking huge,” he muttered.  Peter was surprised about that, too, eyeballing the looming ghost that was more than the size of his trainer avatar.  “Holy shit.  Think about meeting that in a dark alley.  I’d shit myself.”

Peter raised an eyebrow at Wade and was smiling.  “I’ll make sure to bring toilet paper next time we’re out somewhere,” he said.

Wade leaned over and bumped shoulders with him.  “That actually wouldn’t be a bad idea; you have no idea how awkward it is to have to pop a squat on someone’s roof.”

Peter looked disturbed.  “Be joking.  Please be joking.”

Wade clicked his tongue and shook his head.  “Desperate times,” he said grimly.

Peter shoved him off of his bed and over onto the pile of clothes at the end.  “You are going to be house-trained first thing,” he said, pointing down at Wade with the hand not holding his phone.  “That is so gross.  You know there’s gas stations on every corner, right?”

Wade reared his leg back and kicked at Peter in the least-committed way he had ever seen anyone move, and he dodged it easily.  “You don’t even know the story behind why!” Wade exclaimed.  “I’m not just gonna take a shit on your carpet, you know?” he said, and sat up.

Peter leaned back on his legs, and inhaled just a little sharper than normal because of the pain that came from stretching the skin around his thigh in this position.  “I don’t know,” he sassed back  “You can’t just say stuff like that and not expect me to judge you!”

Wade pulled himself over onto the twin mattress and Peter scooted back.  “Even Professor’s offended, and he’s never on my side,” he snapped playfully.  “You got both of ‘em on my side, and that’s not an easy feat.”

...Oh.  The voices thing again.  Yeah.

Peter set the foot of his uninjured leg on Wade and shoved him back off of the bed.  “Well you can be offended down there for a while; I just cleaned my sheets.”

Wade whined loudly.  “Come on, Petey-pie, I’m cold and sad down here!”

Peter tossed Wade his phone and it landed on the guy’s chest.  “There.  Scroll through /b/ or something,” he said.  Wade huffed and complained for a few more seconds before he grew quiet.  Peter limped off of the bed and laid down on his back next to Wade on the floor-slash-kinda-dirty-clothes-pile.  “An Eevee spawned,” he said in a hushed but excited whisper.

Wade scrambled to turn the app on.

Chapter Text

Peter caught the Eevee and only used a single Pokéball on it.  Wade, however, used three Greatballs and even an Ultraball on it, and then the thing ran.  Peter was glad it was daytime, because the racket the Merc with the Mouth caused would have woken the dead.

None of it actually made any coherent sense, and most notably consisted of ‘son of a fucking,’ ‘cockmunch,’ ‘asswagon,’ ‘buttgobbling,’ and ‘shitswizzler.’  He was actually surprised Aunt May didn’t just show up with with a broom and start beating the crap out of Wade for being near enough to her nephew and having such nasty language.

Peter named his Eevee Not Wade’s.  Wade reeled his arm back and looked like he was about to punch Peter in the shoulder before he wound up just pulling a dirty shirt from the pile under them over the brunet’s head and giving him a noogie.  “I will throw your phone out the window,” he threatened, and Peter laughed, muffled, and it turned into the least evil-sounding cackle ever.

“Just try to pry it from my hand,” he challenged, blindly holding it up like it was the Olympic torch, his upper torso still wrapped up in his laundry.

Wade actually attempted to, and gave up after fruitlessly tugging and trying to twist it every which way.  He fell back, huffed, crossed his arms, and then whipped his head around to point at Peter, who now had a peephole through the sleeve of the shirt.  “I went easy on you,” he said, waving his finger around like he had any authority whatsoever.

“Of course,” Peter said smugly and then settled back down into his spot and closed the app (since there were no more Pokémon and they weren’t close enough to any Pokéstops), and started browsing news articles and forums from the comfort of his new shirt-cave.  He looked ridiculous.  Eventually he gave in and opened his Google Docs app and started working on his paper from the floor instead of moving three feet and using his computer.  It was much easier to write his paper when his mind was calmed by Wade’s presence beside him.

After somewhere around twenty minutes, Wade leaned over and got Peter’s attention, nudging him and inclining his head towards the younger man’s lower body.  “You’re bleeding through your pants,” he said, and Peter shifted, seeing that there was now a mass of red growing on his previously-clean sweats.  That meant the webbing had finally dissolved, and the blood was able to get through the denim-’bandage’.  He hissed under his breath and sat up, getting himself free from his laundry mess and then he pushed himself to his feet using his arms and a single leg.

Shit, that really hurt.  He’d been pretty still while he relaxed on his phone, so his body had healed some around the bullet again, and he was actively having to tear the area back open by moving.  He limped back to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.  He sat himself hard down on the toilet and propped his leg up on the edge of the shower.  The movement hurt a lot.  He peeled his sweats back, and the bloody patch tugged against the tattered remains of the jeans, which tugged against the tattered remains of his thigh.

The denim had gotten itself pretty mashed into the wound, and his body had attempted to heal around it, which meant the fibers were very much in him.  Oh, this was going to suck so much.  This is why he wore spandex; it tore easily and opened up the area around injuries and hardly got stuck to them bad, nothing like this.

He zoned out, so he had absolutely no idea how long he’d been in there, but he was pulled back to the real world when a loud knock on the door startled him so bad that he jumped.  He was getting more skittish than he would have liked to admit recently.  “Uh, yeah?” he called, trying to calm himself back down.  Wade.  Wade was here, in his apartment, it was Wade at the door.  He heard awkward shuffling from the other side of the wood.

“You’re gonna be okay, right?” he heard Wade ask.

Peter slumped down again, and he eyed the wound.  “I’m going to be fine.  This just isn’t very fun.”

Wade grunted in agreement.  “Yeah.”  He paused.  “I don’t really have to do upkeep like this, and I sometimes kinda forget other Costumes aren’t like that.”

Peter dropped another piece of the denim into the plastic bag he’d worked out from under the sink, having wiggled enough of the fabric away from his skin and sawed through the now-partially-hardened material with the blade of the scissors.  “Well, I do have advanced healing,” he said, his voice strained, “it’s just not as fast as yours.”

He heard Wade sigh.  “Good to know.  I figured, but it’s still really scary to think about that stuff.  Like, I know you’re capable, but shit happens.  You can’t get like, super crippled or anything, right?”

Peter didn’t like thinking about that, either, and he finally got his nail under the last part that was merging with his body.  It felt like he poured boiling water on the spot when he ripped it away, and he had to bite his lip and jiggle his other leg a few times with both hands fisted.  At least the worst was over with, and he just needed to let nature do its work.  Well, after cleaning, that is.  Afterward, it should close up completely within two days, but who knew when the bullet would work itself out.  That was what was going to be the most annoying -- because the longer it stayed in there, the longer it would work against his muscles.  The last thing he wanted to do was go in after it and remove it.  He could seriously hurt himself worse attempting it.

He sighed in relief and leaned back against the toilet as the immediate, intense pain ebbed away into a heavy throb.  Now he just needed to fix it all up nice with a pretty bow made out of bandages.  He leaned down and got out the bacterial-killing liquid from Hell and readied himself for another nice string of internal words that was sadly less creative than Wade’s spiel from earlier.  Oh, did the damnable stuff not let him down.

After it was done fizzing more than a shaken soda, and Peter’s muscles were able to untense some, he wrapped it in non-stick bandages to keep everything out that needed to be.  Now he just needed to let his healing factor do the rest of the work, and he got to his feet (albeit a little bit shakily) and pulled his sweatpants back up.  The blood was dry on them, and there was no point to change into something more clean when these were still perfectly good for covering his lower body.

He tied off the bag of trash but left it on the floor to take out with the rest of his garbage, and then set to washing his hands.  Finally, when he went to open the door, he got it maybe half an inch before it collided with something solid with a bang that then let out an “oof” and backed up.  Peter opened it some more and then peeked around at Wade on the other side, who was rubbing his head.  Yikes.  “Sorry,” he said, even though Wade probably shouldn’t have been trying to listen that hard.  “I’m done,” he added, and then limped out into the main room and back to his computer chair.  His phone was lying on the ground a few feet away, but he just didn’t feel like getting it.  Besides, he needed to finish his paper, and he typed much faster with a proper keyboard, and… oh.  Oh, dear.

Evening was already setting in.  Just how long had he been doctoring himself up?  After checking the clock, he saw that it had been almost an hour.  He had twelve more pages to get done and then he needed to go out as Spider-Man and do his rounds, eat somewhere in all of this, and then he had to somehow manage to get some sleep before his morning class.  The class that he liked the very least, which was another reason why he’d been putting this off.  “I hecked up,” he groaned and slid down into his chair and covered his face.  “I’m not getting sleep tonight,” he resigned, and realized that he needed more pictures to turn into Jameson, too, and that Tuesday’s work wasn’t printed out and he still needed to make a diagram for Thursday’s.

Why had he let his life get like this?  He was supposed to be punctual and have everything sorted out at this point.  This was why he couldn’t afford himself a social life.  It distracted him and took away time he should have been putting towards graduating and getting paid.  Aunt May was the only social life he could have.

...But that’s not what he wanted.  He didn’t want to only have Aunt May.  He loved her more than he could ever find words for, and he would fight every villain in the world to keep her safe -- would do anything to keep her safe -- but only having May… he never realized just how lonely he’d gotten.  How depressed.

He glanced up at Wade, who looked like he was thinking up excuses on why he should let himself out, and he watched the older man’s face as he frowned to himself.  It would be so quiet without Wade here.  Quiet was what he needed to do what needed to get done, but he knew he would get stuck thinking about that.  Then it would be an endless cycle that fed itself for the rest of the night.

“I should get going,” Wade said slowly, and he rubbed a hand along the back of his neck.  It was clear he wanted to do otherwise, wanted to do something, but was caught with himself over it.  Peter bit his lip along with the inside of his cheek, and he tried not to let his mind go into every nook and cranny of what and why.  (Maybe it was the same anxiety Peter had from earlier, only… being kicked out.  Maybe he was trying to cut it off himself so Peter didn’t cut it off for him.)

“Hey, Wade, come here a second?  You got something on your face.”  He sounded just a little bit jittery, and his voice hit an off note near the end.

Wade frowned harder, looking much more dangerous than he ever should, and he let his hand slide across his own jaw.  “Yeah, it’s called ugly.”  But even having said that, he moved closer to Peter, within arm’s reach.  The brunet tried to make it look like he was about to just wipe food or a stain off of the other’s skin, but as his hands wound back over the Merc’s neck, he froze, he let his nerves get the best of him.

“Could… it be me?” he asked, his breath hitched and his face burned darker and darker as he realized how stupid he sounded.

Wade looked like he’d been struck dumb.  His eyes were left wide and his mouth open.  “Uh?” he asked, sounding… a lot like the main character from Home Improvement.

Peter, whose heart was thumping like a startled rabbit’s foot, looked away and mumbled, “I’m asking for a kiss.”

More seconds passed between them, before Wade swallowed hard and then, very quietly, said, “Hell yeah.”

It was Peter’s first kiss in years.

Chapter Text

The kiss had been a stupid idea.  It had been a stupid idea because he had wound up doing exactly what he was worried about and spent the whole night thinking about it.  Part of it had been a test, to see if he really, actually had those sorts of feelings for Wade.  Turns out he did.  Thinking about what they’d done made Peter’s face, ears, neck, and chest burn with a flush, and his fingers trembled over the letters on his keyboard.

He finished his paper close to midnight, remembered he had leftovers, nuked the hell out of it to make it edible (still tasted good, huh), and then pulled on his costume resolutely.  If he spent two hours on patrol tonight, got back in decent enough time, fell asleep instantly, and didn’t wake up, he could get as much as three whole hours of sleep before he needed to get up and shower.  Just enough to get REM sleep and help him be awake and alert in time for class.  Fun stuff, that.

By the time Saturday night rolled around again, Peter was barely scraping by on fumes alone.  After getting home from class, he pulled on his Spider-Man suit with as much energy as one could muster on seven hours of sleep over the past few days and multiple all-nighters that week.  He was exhausted, he was starving, and he knew there was only one thing he really wanted.  He considered the swing over as part of his daily round, and he felt like he was in a soft bubble, underwater, as he knocked on the window he was above.  Everything felt slow, felt delayed, and it was like his brain was surrounded by cottonballs, every thought having to really struggle to actually get to him.  He also felt the bone-deep ache of having been awake far too long.

Wade opened the window for him, and Peter practically fell onto the carpet.  “What the hell happened?” he demanded.  Peter appreciated the concern, even if he didn’t have the ability to explain the entire list that lead up to him coming here.

“Tired,” he mumbled as he tugged off his mask and dropped it onto the floor.

“You look like shit,” Wade replied as Peter leaned forward into the Merc’s immediately-offered hold.

Peter grunted, agreeing with that.  “Feel like it, too,” he said, and he melted into the warmth of Wade’s body.

The sensation of strong arms around him made him feel like it was all worth it to get here, to practically crawl his way into this embrace.  He wanted to sleep with the comfort of someone there, to wake up to the only real good in his life right then.  It was funny, really, because if anyone had told him a few months ago that this was where the two of them would end up, he’d have laughed himself sick.  There hadn’t been even a single hesitation when he’d sought comfort in his mind, which had supplied the name ‘Wade’, and here he was.  The smell of the apartment was what clung to Wade’s clothes, and it was what his shoulder had smelled like when they’d gotten close nearly a week before.

The older man helped him over to the couch, and Peter was asleep before he even realized he was fading.

He came to curled up and warm under a blanket on Wade’s worn-in couch, something he’d gotten somewhat familiar with when he’d messed himself up with stress and passed out.  What struck him immediately was how awake and alert he was.  He felt honestly rested for the first time in… more fingers than he had to count on, and he pushed himself up on his elbow.  “What time is it?” he asked with a slight slur to his voice, and he rubbed the back of his finger over his eyes, knocking out the hardened gound that gathered there.  But Peter didn’t see Wade anywhere in his immediate vision.  He also smelled something familiar, and the memory of his aunt running around and trying to Pledge all of the surfaces before the guests came for the holidays jumped into his mind.  He sat up and glanced around, seeing that the garbage had been taken out of the trashcan, and everything that had spilled out or never made it in in the first place had been cleaned.  There were grocery bags sitting around on the floor in a cluster, obviously having just been brought home, and an air-freshener had been plugged into the wall socket.

What in the world...?

Movement was coming from the bathroom, and Peter frowned as he combed his fingers through through his sleep-pressed hair.  “Wade?” he called, and he heard a bang, like the poor man had just stood up really quick and brained himself on the sink.  Peter winced.  “Sorry,” he added, and he hoped it hadn’t hurt too bad.

Wade’s head stuck out of the door, and he had on a hairnet on and rubber gloves.   “Shit.  We woke you up, didn’t we?  I knew Yellow was singing too loud, I fucking told you--!  And you know what, I don’t need your sass right now, young man!”  Wade waved his dish sponge around in the air, flinging water and suds onto the floor.

Peter shuffled himself around and got to his feet, and he stepped over to the other man, reaching out to calm his actions down.  “I couldn’t hear any singing, and no, nothing woke me.”  Then he peeked around Wade, into the bathroom that smelled like he hadn’t diluted bleach anywhere near enough.  “What... are you doing?” he questioned, his tone wary.

Wade huffed and glanced over his shoulder, putting the back of his hands against his hips, arms akimbo.  “Well, it was gonna be a surprise for you, since you keep coming over -- figured if you were gonna make it A Thing to keep showing up, I might as well get my ass in gear and clean, you know?”

Peter blinked a few times before reacting, and he slumped a little to the side, and then looked around at the apartment.  From what he could see, even without vacuuming, things really were far different from the first time he’d ever woken up here.  He was startled when he turned his head back, about to comment on the gesture, and Wade pressed their mouths together instead, but parted quickly.

“Just for you, Sugar Cube,” he said cheerfully, booped Peter’s nose with a gloved finger, and then sauntered his way past the still mostly-costumed Spider-Man and over to the kitchen counter against the wall.  “You want anything to eat, bee-tee-doubleyuu?  I grabbed snacks and shit.”

Peter was still stuck on the unprompted kiss, and he rolled his lips inward on reflex to wet them with his tongue.  “I, uh, yeah?” he answered dumbly.  For some reason, even though he’d been thinking about it, and been missing it, the physical contact and affection from before still felt a little like a dream.

“I got chips and popcorn and a bunch of candy.  It’s gonna go out of stock soon, because of a certain upcoming holiday.  I’ve been hoarding the good stuff,” Wade went on, pulling down a large brown back of assorted chocolates, completely oblivious to Peter’s state.  “And I like you so much that you can even have some of the Reese’s and I won’t demand payment.”

Peter, who was trying to get his reeling mind back in his skull, rubbed his palm along the side of his neck.  “You know I’m broke, so you wouldn’t be getting much, anyway.”

Wade tossed the bag to him, and because he had left the rubber gloves on, the smell of cleaning product lingered on the plastic for a few seconds.  “Payment don’t gotta be money!” he chirped and walked past the brunet back into the bathroom.  “Also I bleached the toilet so that’s all nice and clean.  Be proud of me.”

Peter’s expression faltered and he looked into the bathroom with a frown.  “I’ll be proud of you when you assure me there wasn’t urine anywhere near the bleach,” he said, and even though he was overwhelmed by the chemicals in the air, he had to admit that the bathroom no longer looked like something out of a horror movie.  The tiles were actually white and the grout between them was no longer brown or black, the mirror was still broken, but a drawing of a happy face was taped up over it, and the blood was gone from the sink and the surrounding spaces.

Wade went quiet.  “Uh,” he drew out, and glanced down at the toilet.  “Before I answer that, could you elaborate?”

Peter’s shoulders sagged and he stepped his way back out into the living room.  “Ammonia and bleach makes chloramine, Wade.”

Wade’s face remained mostly unresponsive.  He must have heard that word while he was in the army, but it looked like it was lost somewhere in his mind.

Peter groaned and rubbed his hand over his face.  No wonder his eyes were burning so badly.  “It’s a gas they use as a weapon in war.”

Wade silently reached over and flushed the toilet.

Peter made his way back to the couch and sat down on one of the cushions (since the other had the bundled blanket on it) as he eyed Wade, who at least looked guilty.  “Anything else I might accidentally make that could kill a person while I’m cleaning?”

Peter opened the pumpkin and bat-decorated bag and pulled out a simple Hershey’s bar.  His mouth was already salivating at the thought.  God, he was hungry.  “Other than tripping hazards, probably not,” he admitted and took a bite of the chocolate.  It tasted heavenly.  “See, the main reason that bleach is such a problem while, say, kids peeing in a swimming pool isn’t, is because of the amount of chlorine used, and it has to be a much more concentrated amount for the mixture.  Usually a flushed toilet doesn’t have enough for it to really be much of an issue, but if the toilet wasn’t emptying correctly, which is a problem with cheap toilets (one reason being they have such thin pipes, which is why they clog often, too), or it wasn’t flushed before cleaning it with the undiluted bleach, the ammonia starts to break down over time, and the levels of--”

Wade lifted both of his hands up and turned, showing he had absolutely no idea what was being said.  “Dude, your nerd-talk is going over my head, and I’m not gonna lie to you and have you thinking you should just Science at me because you think I understand it.”

Peter shut up, and his face tinted red as he ate the rest of his chocolate.  Wade seemed to realize that he’d been a little rude and he came over, taking off the rubber gloves and tossing them off to the side and onto the tile floor nearby.  “But I appreciate you doing it.  Makes me feel like you think I’m a person,” he said, and that was an unexpected moment of emotional openness that neither of them was ready to have out so suddenly.  “And you saved me from gassing us both to death.”

Peter’s lip quirked, and though he was still flushed, he shrugged.  “It probably wouldn’t have been that bad.  Just causes nausea and eye irritation when it’s such a small amount.”  Then he made his hands busy by digging around for a second piece of candy to shove in his mouth and stop him from rambling himself into an embarrassed hole.  “I just kind of get really into talking about that stuff,” he added, his words a little bit mumbled.  It was because he knew the information and the how and why of it, and he wanted to impart that knowledge.

A quiet chuckle pulled up out of Wade’s throat and he leaned on the arm of the couch.  “I’ll be sure to remember that talking about piss gets you excited.”

Peter’s face scrunched up, and he looked disgusted.  “You know that is not at all what I just said.”  Why did it always come back to potty humor somehow?

Wade leaned over and bumped shoulders with Peter to show he’d been joking.  Mostly to erase that confession out of the brunet’s mind.  “So what’re you doing for Halloween?” he asked, and he took a handful of candy out of the bag and dumped it on his own lap.

Peter leaned his head back and shrugged.  Wade had already asked him this before, and his answer was the same.  Nothing exciting.  “Patrolling,” he said.  “The killer clown threats are still pouring in,” he sighed.

Wade rolled his eyes.  “Patrolling ain’t fun, though.  You’re not gonna at least hit up one party?” he asked with his mouth full.

An eyebrow raise was the response to that.  “Are you?” Peter shot back.

Wade stopped chewing for half a second and then shifted in his spot.  “You know, it’s impressive how few questions people ask about strangers showing up and wandering in their house when they’re in a costume.”  He swallowed.  “Really, they should be more savvy to that kind of shit -- like, have they never seen a single horror movie?”

Peter set the bag between them.  The air-freshener was too strong and he was starting to get a headache, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Wade about it.  “So you just sneak into people's houses?”

Wade waved a bare hand at Peter and shook his head.  “Nah, no sneaking involved.  They open the door, I walk in and eat their food, and then hit on the cute guests.”

Peter’s chest tinged with a strange feeling before it faded.  Wade, at least, didn’t give him time to figure out what that had been, before he added, “Well, now I got my own cute guest to hit on.”  When Peter met eyes with him, Wade was grinning like a fool.  “And let me tell you, your ass is seriously the best out there.  And those legs!  Oh, you could wrap those thighs around my face and I would die a happy man.”

Peter’s face darkened with blood again and he looked back to the candy bag.  His hands were shaking slightly, and his chest was tight again, but this time it was different.  It wasn’t a twinge of disappointment this time.

When he didn’t reply, Wade quieted down, and he dropped his arms that had been thrown in the air in what looked like praise towards some deity.  “Hey, uh... I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?” he asked, and his voice was very sober compared to what it had been.

Peter opened his mouth to inhale a slow breath, and then he tried to come up with the words to explain this.  “It’s not...”  He trailed off, and he realized that, while he could talk about chemistry all day and night, he couldn’t come up with basic words to form a coherent sentence about his feelings on this matter.  “It’s not that,” he said.  His fingers twisted the empty wrapper in his lap and he inclined his head slightly to the side.  The fact that he’d only napped was starting to come back to him, and he felt a grogginess setting in.  He sighed and closed his eyes and shook his head.

Wade did make him uncomfortable, but the discomfort was his natural mental reaction to being complimented.  Low self-esteem, bullying, and a hefty guilt-complex did that to a person.  But it was more than that.  He was happy that Wade found him attractive, and it made him feel special when he had the time to sit around and think on it, and fight back those initial negative thoughts.  But that wasn’t the core of the issue -- not to say that there was an issue, just... this definitely needed to be talked about, and honestly sooner was better than later.

“I don’t really...”

Okay, this was beyond frustrating.  He was supposedly so smart, and his current vocabulary apparently consisted of around fifteen words total.

“I don’t really get it.”

He glanced up at Wade, and the other man was frowning, looking away with his gaze fixated on the wall.  “You don’t get that you’re hot?”

Peter pursed his lips.  “Well, yes, that, but I meant...”  He sighed again.  “I don’t get sex appeal.”

A long silence passed between them, and Wade finally turned back and eyed Peter.  He really looked confused.

The brunet shook his head and he set his forehead in his hands.  “I don’t feel...  I don’t feel sexually about people.  I just never really have.”  This was humiliating to admit.  He found people attractive -- but he realized in high school that it was... definitely not the same kind of attraction other people felt.  Other boys.  Other girls.  He had never looked at anyone and thought about wanting to have sex with them.  He didn’t get it.  He knew something was wrong with him, that something about him was broken.  He'd hoped he was just a late bloomer, but the urges never set in.  Eventually he’d looked it up online, about a year ago, and... he wasn’t alone.  So that made him feel somewhat relieved.

But it didn’t make him feel less broken.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice pitched a little with emotion there.  He felt like he had somehow lied to Wade about what dating meant for him.

He felt the warmth of Wade’s hand and sensed the presence of it, but it never touched him.  “Like, you’ve never wanted to have sex...?  Ever?” Wade asked, and he sounded like he honestly wanted to understand.

Peter nodded.  There were a lot of technicalities about that, like how he had wondered about it, tried to like the idea, but he just... it wasn’t him.  He couldn’t force it, no matter how much he tried.  Touching himself felt amazingly good, and it wasn’t something he really shied away from, but it was like it there was a disconnection between the act and actively craving sexual intimacy with another person.

Wade took his hand back and looked a little bit blown away.  Surprised.  Confused.  Sad...?  “Wow,” was all he said.

Peter awkwardly reached back and set his hand on Wade’s after a hesitation.  “You can still touch me.  I don’t dislike it.”  He actually felt scared now that after everything, this would be what pushed Wade back away.  He didn’t want that.  He didn’t want them to break up after only just getting together.  But really... if he and Wade wanted different things out of a relationship, couldn’t see eye to eye, then logically breaking up wasn’t a bad idea.  It just strung.  A lot.

Wade threaded their fingers together, seemingly consoled by this information.  “So does it make you uncomfortable when I make comments about your body?”

Peter didn’t immediately respond.  It used to, but not anymore.  After a few seconds he shook his head.  “No.  I just don’t get it.”  He hated repeating the same phrase over and over, but he didn’t know how else to say it.

Silence spanned out between them, but it was broken by Wade suddenly standing up and stretching, making an effort to groan and sigh as much as possible as his joints cracked.  “Welp, this is definitely new.  But you’re not, like, freaked out by people making advances?”

Peter watched him move.  “Not when it’s you,” he admitted.  He felt hope bubble up in his gut.

Wade was thrown off of his attempt to distract from the somber mood, and was left blinking a few times at Peter.  Then he smiled, and his blue eyes were really quite beautiful.  “So you still wanna date this mouthy idiot?” he asked, and he directed his thumb at himself.

Peter nodded.  “As long as you still wanna date this... whatever,” he said and motioned down at himself.

“Then I don’t see a problem,” he said, and Peter actually felt a little like he wanted to cry.  His eyes were burning again and he was taken aback by how out of nowhere the prickling tears were.  Wade interrupted those thoughts and waved his hand at Peter.  “And ‘this... whatever’ is my fucking cute-ass, smart-ass boyfriend.”  He seemed so pleased about being able to use that word.

Peter got up and stepped over to Wade, setting his hands on the other man’s naked chest and leaning up for a kiss.  It stayed chaste, if only because he’d never kissed any differently and had no faith in attempting to try now, but that was another worry for another time.  He was liking Wade more and more with every meeting, and it had never ceased to surprise him when he thought about it.  Maybe it would become normal for him one day.  “Says the ‘mouthy idiot’ who tried to wage chemical warfare on us by cleaning the bathroom.”  Something like that kinda made a person doubt how trustworthy Wade's opinions were.

Wade snickered.  “Hey, idiot was in the title.”

Peter set his forehead against the other’s neck, enjoying the body heat.  He felt comfortable.  He felt safe.  “Thank you,” he said, and his voice was barely above a whisper.

“No problem, Baby Boy.”

Chapter Text

Peter apparently nodded off after heating up four microwave burritos and inhaling them, his stomach finally, blissfully warm and full.  He jerked awake to Ponyo screaming about ham.  “What time is it?” he slurred for the second time that day.  He wiped the back of his gloved hand over his mouth, and only then realized he was still wearing his costume, sans mask.  He tugged the gloves and boots off.

“You’re up already?” Wade asked, leaning his head back to look at Peter.  He was wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, having taken off the hairnet and gloves after taking a break from cleaning.  “I thought for sure you were gonna hibernate.”

Peter patted around for the sewn-on pocket and tugged out his phone, bringing it out of sleep-mode.  The sudden brightness hurt his eyes, but then it dimmed automatically afterward -- it still left him seeing spots for a few seconds.  Turns out he’d only been asleep a little under two hours, and while that was a long time for a nap, it wasn’t a full night’s rest.  Yet he felt bright-eyed and clear-headed again, so he must have somehow managed a perfect sleep cycle in that time.

He opened Go and sat back against the couch, his eyes wandering over to the television.  “Betty White?” he ventured for the reasoning of this particular movie, even though it was just an assumption.  Especially since he remembered that Wade could speak Japanese fluently, so what reason was there to watch the dub?

Wade grinned and lifted himself up onto the couch from his spot on the floor.  “Did you mean the literal God Amongst Men ?” he shot back and Peter found that amusing.

“Yes, please forgive my slip-up,” he said, his tone sounding almost theatrical.  Suddenly his eyes shot back to his phone screen.  “Oh, hey, they’re doing a double experience event in Go.  It’s going to last to the end of the month, right?  I can finally level up again.”  He noticed as he was talking that he didn’t have as much of a headache anymore -- whether that was due to eating, sleeping, and there being less chemicals in the air, or probably a combination of the three, was up for guessing.  The rumbling of his vocal cords didn’t cause him pain, so whatever the reason was, he was happy for it.

The windows on either side of the living room wall around the TV had been opened up, and the sounds of traffic could be heard louder.  The stuffiness of the apartment had abated and it was left feeling open and much, much cleaner.  Peter inhaled the night air, though it still had the aftertaste of the plug-in air freshener.  The sound of cars on the highway not too far off could almost be mistaken for ocean waves, if one tried hard enough, and the sound had always lulled him to sleep as a child.  The sudden blaring of a horn, which turned into ten or fifteen more, was less soothing, and Peter started slightly.

“Fuckin’ sweet,” Wade crowed, and then whipped his phone out of God only knew where.  “By the way, I’ve decided I’m taking you out on Halloween,” he added, leaning into him.  Peter canted his head slightly and caught the older man’s look.

“Why are you so obsessed over this?” he asked.  It was just another holiday.  As a kid it was fun to dress in costume and go door to door with Ben, but as an adult, well…  Seeing the darker side to the day kind of made the name taste bitter.

“‘Cause you’re gonna have a good time and I’m gonna be the one to give it to you, damnit,” Wade said and he sounded so serious right then.  Peter’s mouth clamped shut and he blinked stupidly at the mercenary.  Part of him had gotten so relaxed around the other that he’d forgotten that he was, in fact, dangerous.  Deranged and dangerous, two things that were worse when mixed together.

But he’d been good to Peter, even when things hadn’t gone so well.  He’d managed restraint where he would never have been expected to.  Even though Peter’s intuitive precog always buzzed in the back of his brain whenever he was around the other, it rarely got deafening.  He’d gotten so used to it by now that he actually forgot it was happening at all.  The sensation should have caused him to be on edge, and yet… there was no edge.

“Please don’t take me to a party,” he said after several more seconds.  “I really don’t like them.”

Wade frowned and nudged his head against Peter’s neck while he switched positions, his legs now hanging halfway over the armrest.  “I’m not gonna take you to a party.  We’re gonna take down every Gym in the area and be worshiped as the kings we are!”

...That was…

That was honestly touching.

Peter found himself smiling, which was getting almost embarrassingly commonplace (but wasn’t that a good sign?).  “Who gets to take them, though?  Instinct or Valor?”

Wade rolled himself over so he was on his stomach, splayed across Peter’s lap.  “Uh, Valor, duh.”  He reached up with one hand and flicked Peter on the nose -- well, he tried to.  The brunet leaned to the side and out of the way of the attack without even having to think.  “...And I suddenly understand why you picked Instinct.”

And in a completely unexpected move, Wade tossed his phone on the floor and forced his arms around Peter, who squawked and was taken down off the couch when Wade rolled them over.  “Try to dodge this!” he shouted, sounding manic, and started tussling Peter’s hair.  Peter attempted to fend him off by blocking his path, but the guy kept somehow finding an opening and continued his onslaught.  That was when Peter decided that it was absolutely fair game to use his super strength and he wiggled until his legs were under Wade, then he lifted the two-hundred-something pound man as easy as he would have a loaf of bread, balancing him precariously with only his feet.

“I’ll web you to the ceiling!” he threatened, trying to hold back his laughter as he straightened out his hair.  It had already been sticking up before Wade had helped it along.

“Holy shit,” the Merc uttered, as he teetered back and forth, failing his arms to try to steady himself.  He then threw all of his weight forward, thinking he could just get close enough to continue to reach Peter’s head to annoy him.  Peter, however, tipped his feet upward, and back Wade went with a scream.  The tiny hairs on the bottom of his feet were now stuck to Wade’s chest, and he was taking full advantage of this, wearing a shit-eating grin the entire time.  “I keep forgetting you’re not just a noodly little nerd with asthma!”

“And now you’re really getting webbed to the ceiling,” Peter said, as deadpan as he could manage, and bent his knees before tossing Wade up into the air with a relatively gentle kick -- he didn't want to put him through the roof, just up to it.  Wade was webbed from his shoulders to his knees in four seconds flat.  With his work done, he crossed his arms smugly and laid himself fully on the ground, smirking up at Wade.  Said mercenary wiggled.  “Naughty children get banished to the web-cocoon.”

“Okay, I get that this is punishment, but it’s actually kinda hot,” Wade admitted in a small voice, and Peter sputtered from underneath him.

“What the hell!” the brunet asked, and then he sat himself up.  “You can’t find the web-cocoon attractive!  That ruins the entire point of the web-cocoon!”

Wade just whimpered.

Peter sighed exasperatedly and then spotted the other man’s phone.  He grabbed it and waved the screen at his captive.  “I’ll change the passcode to your phone.  Is that sexy?”

Wade’s small, awkward noises turned into a long whine.  “You’re truly the evil mastermind the Bugle says you are!  I’m gonna call them up right after I get out of this and tell on you!”  He started fake-thrashing, and added, “Oh, Jameson, help me!”

Peter dropped the phone and grumbled, holding his face and falling back to the floor and then over onto his side.  “You are not allowed to call out his name when you’re with me, and you know that!” he complained.

“But he treats me better!  Maybe I just need a Manther in my life!”

Peter couldn’t take it anymore and he started laughing hysterically.  He could barely get the words, “What the heck is a Manther?” out between his fits.

Wade stopped moving for a second.  “You know, it’s a male Cougar, an old bear that’s into hot young lads like myself.”

Peter’s laughing was now interspersed with pained-sounding groans.  “Oh, that is so gross,” he managed, now trying to get the image of Jameson wearing only his underwear out of his mind.  No, no, no.  He never wanted to go towards that territory ever again.

Wade went back to moving like a fish out of the water that was stuck in a net.  “And now you’re kinkshaming me!”

Peter threw his hand up and pointing an accusing finger at Wade.  “I am always going to kinkshame when Jameson comes into the mix.  Don’t even start.”

“Oh, I’m starting, Baby Boy!”  Wade twisted his body and threw his head to the side as he yelled, “Mister Jameson, I crave the gentle brush of your ‘stache as your lips pass over my collarbone!  I need your old, wrinkly fingers that look like overcooked sausages to roam freely over my body, and I gasp as they go lower-- ”

The Merc suddenly had his mouth webbed shut.  Honestly, it should have been way before that, because now Peter had to live with an even worse mental image.

Chapter Text

Peter was still extra thankful for the fact that when he’d stopped by Aunt May’s last, she had given him a pair of cotton thermal underwear she’d found of his while cleaning out the hallway closet.  It had dropped under fifty degrees and wearing only his suit to spend the night walking around would not have been too fun.  Even still, he’d brought a jacket to wear over his top, a Letterman that he’d found at a thrift store, from a school he’d never once attended.  He figured that, on top of the warmth, it would be a good way to throw people even further off his cover.  Yes, he was a tad-bit paranoid, but he had every right to be.

“Another fucking Cubone, oh my Goood,” Wade whined from beside him.  Both of them were decked out in full costume, katanas and all, though Peter had somehow managed to beg Wade into only taking his blades with him.  It may not have seemed like a huge step, but it made Peter feel a thousand times more comfortable about the thought of getting into some trouble tonight.

“At least your phone’s loading anything for you,” Peter shot back, and he closed his app for the umpteenth time and opened it back up.  This was eating up his battery, but Wade had brought multiple portable chargers with him.  He was apparently prepared for the freaking apocalypse, it seemed, with how much random-but-useful shit he carried around in his pockets.

“I just want a ghost, that’s all I’m asking for is a few ghosts,” Wade went on, but he suddenly perked up.  “Oh, hey, I just saw that lady giving out full-sized Snickers.  Later,” he said, before he zipped off with his plastic ghost trick-or-treat bucket out, while he readjusted the princess tiara over his masked head.  The hero felt warm as he watched his boyfriend mesh into a group of children who were swarming this old woman’s doorstep.  After receiving his treat, Deadpool came rushing back to his side, and he was dancing from one foot to the other.  “Dude, holy shit, it’s legit, she’s really out giving out the good stuff!” he squeaked excitedly, and then he grabbed Peter’s arm, trying to tug him along.  “Come on, the loot’s running low, and there’s some teens about to get the rest of it.  We gotta beat ‘em.”

Spider-Man shoulder-bumped against Wade.  “Don’t you feel a little bad about conning an old lady out of candy that’s supposed to be for kids?” he asked.

Wade nudged him forward at a faster pace.  “Well kids aren’t gonna get any of it anyway after those guys do.  And you’re doing this for me.  Give the candy to me after you get it from her.”

Spider-Man couldn’t stop the chuckle that huffed past his lips, muffled by his mask.  “You have like fifteen bags of candy back at your place,” he tried to reason.

“But candy from other people tastes better!”

“Could that be because they're laced with imaginary drugs?  Don’t you remember having to get our stash looked over by adults before we could eat the few rationed to us at bedtime?”

“Yeah, that’s great, but we’re the adults now, and I’ve been checking this shit out already and you’re going to get the Mars Bar when you reach into the bowl.”

Their banter (and planning) was interrupted when one of the teens they were supposed to be fighting off against shouted, “Dude, sweet Spidey costume!”  It was the one at the head of the group that was dressed as a football player (Peter could only assume it was his actual football uniform from school).

“Thanks!  Nice sportsball costume!” he shouted back, raising his hand.

“Hey, my buddy’s the real deal!” Wade called as he swung his arm up and around Spider-Man’s shoulders, jerking him like a ragdoll as he did so.  Peter actually felt a little bit of fear jump up from his gut to his throat, but then he realized that he was covered from head to toe and no one could see his face.

The group of teens, who seemed to be a little bit tipsy or otherwise, laughed heartily at that.  “Hell yeah!” they crowed and one stumbled slightly to one side.  “Real Spidey, real Spidey!” they chanted.

Deadpool joined in with it, and he held one of Peter’s wrists while he pumped his own.  “Real Spidey!”

Peter realized then that he was in for a long night.

Though, right as the thought hit him, the police radar he had clipped to the collar of his jacket announced that there was a robbery happening at the Bank of America on Queens Boulevard.  He shoved his phone back into its sleeve, and then he batted Wade off of him as he aimed his arm up and shot a web to the roof of the old woman’s place, to at least get them some distance from the ground.  “Get on my back,” he said as he tilted his head towards Deadpool.  The Merc straightened up and saluted him, looking completely ridiculous as he did so.

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” he agreed, and with a relatively smooth transition, he got himself piggybacked on Spider-Man, his limbs wrapped tight and his hands fisted on the jacket for dear life.  Then he waved the group of teens and the kids who had stopped to stare as they took off into the night, with several surprised and delighted screams responding to the action.

Once they were out of sight, Deadpool’s shoulders drooped some.  “I really wanted that Mars Bar.”  Before Peter could respond, he snapped, “I do not!  Yo, driver, does this tiara make me look fat?”

Spider-Man rolled his eyes.  Very heavily.  “No, it fits your beautifully-sized skull perfectly and accents your strong jawline.”  He shot another web and they turned down a new street at the end of a block.  The sounds of people reacting below, the police scanner, and Deadpool talking were all coming together in something that was just a little too much, and Peter felt itchy over it.  “We have to take patrolling seriously, and it comes before trick-or-treating.”

Wade grumbled against his ear.  “Yeah, I know.”  His voice grew serious.

The air rushing past them felt like it was below freezing, and even with his extra layers, he was still left cold.  Suddenly, he heard Wade say, “Oh shit,” and felt the other man shift on his back, and it caused their path to suddenly veer and they lost some speed.

“What?” Spider-Man demanded, worried that he had missed seeing something important.

“I dropped my phone,” Wade said, sounding both sad and far-off.  Peter looked back, but it was too late -- he saw the shattered remains of the iPhone in the street.  Even if it had been salvageable, a passing car ran right over the mess that was left of it.  The overkill factor was off the charts.

“Uh,” he replied, not really sure what he was supposed to say to that.  Wade shouldn’t have been fucking around on it while they were swinging?  Why had it even still been out?

They lost momentum entirely, and then they were suddenly going backwards, and Peter had to stop his brain’s line of thought in order to keep moving.  He angled them and landed on the side of a brick building, and he took a second to re-calibrate.  The overly-loud voice from the communicator informed him that the robbers were armed, and he hissed his displeasure.  He didn’t even get to reach the top of the roof before he heard Wade say, “Nope!” and suddenly used his back as a springboard.

“Wade!” he shouted on reflex, as he turned to look as his other half.  The Merc was scrambling (with what looked to be a broken leg) over to where his phone had dropped.  But he didn’t have time to wait for Deadpool to come back, didn’t have time to go get him, because the terrified request for backup over the sound of gunfire came over the scanner.  Spider-Man cussed under his breath and the second he got to the roof, he took a running leap off of it.  He was able to get back up to speed quickly enough, and it was much easier for him to move when it was just himself.

He arrived at the scene with police cars parked in a semicircle around the bank front, with officers on their knees, guns pointed at the doors.  He landed quietly behind one group, and stayed curled over on his hands.  “They’re not clowns, are they?”

The cops jumped and whipped around, two aiming right at Spider-Man’s face.  He immediately threw his hands up and fell back on his haunches.  “Whoa!  Not the bad guy!” he said, startled, and his spider sense was shrieking at him.  It quieted down as they lowered their guns, though one of them sure didn’t look happy to see him.

“Five guys in clown masks,” the woman on the right said.  “They claim to have a bomb.”  Her eyes trailed down to Spider-Man’s jacket and puffy pants, like she wasn’t entirely sure he was the real thing.  He didn’t blame her.

“What is this, Gotham City?,” he murmured and then lowered his arms.  “Any hostages?” he asked.  He eyed the building. The lights were turned off in the front, but he could see that some in the back behind the teller desks were on.  It was a Sunday, so no one should have even been in there, but by the looks on the officers’ faces, they’d still managed to snag a victim or two

“We don’t know how many,” the officer in the middle said, and he sounded weary.  “We can’t get a visual confirmation, either.”

Damn.

“Well, that only makes things slightly more complicated.”  His sarcasm was evident.  He was trying so hard to stay in the present, and not let his over-stimulation affect him, or his worry over Wade.  He tried not to feel disappointed on top of all of this.  He’d wanted to spend the night out with his boyfriend, being silly and lighthearted together, even though he knew if anything was going to go wrong, it would be tonight.  He knew he was wearing his costume to patrol and not to get candy and have fun.

He realized he was tapping his fingers against his thigh then.  The cops were staring.  He’d spaced out.  Shit.

“Okay, yeah,” he said awkwardly and then he slunk away, trying to keep in the shadows.  Hopefully if the gunmen saw any part of him, it would be the jacket and they would assume he was just a civilian looking on from the sidelines, even though there was a barricade up.  He got to the side of the slanted-roofed building and then climbed up until he was on the second story, front-facing windows.  He webbed the entire glass panel together to keep the noise and mess down to a minimum, and he attempted to pry the window out of its panes.  It only cracked a little bit, but he managed to get the entire thing off in one piece.  He took it with him as he let himself into the opening and only set it down once he was completely on the floor.  He’d done this a million and one times before.  He’d even defended this very bank before.  Multiple times before.

He was so done with tonight, and it was only six-forty.

Chapter Text

Spider-Man stopped moving and listened. It was abundantly clear that none of them were on this floor, but he could very vaguely hear them talking down on the ground level. All of his senses felt amplified both from being in the dark and from being on a high-alert adrenaline rush.

----
Hahaha imagine some cool action scene here because I’m a loser who can’t write it!!!!
Basically it was going to be that this gang who was Valor had taken their rivalry with a Mystic group WAY too far and tried to assert their dominance by pulling this publicity stunt that wound up with them in prison. This was based on something a friend of mine almost went through lmao. Whoops. Yey, Florida Pokemon Gangs??? I’m so sorry I failed you guys in this way. I really hope it’s at least kinda cute.
----

As Spider-Man sat on his rear in the parking lot catching his breath, he felt the precog ringing come nagging at the back of his brain. Out of the corner of his eye, in the very edges of a streetlight’s glow, he saw a stumbling figure coming towards him. He was about to wearily jump to his feet and get ready to bust ass out of there, when he caught the glint off of a gem on… the thing’s crown.

He felt like he was about ready to have a stroke with how high his stress level was right now, and he let out a loud huff of air and fell into a spread-eagle pose on the hard, overused tarmac. “Wade, you’re killing me, buddy,” he said breathlessly.

Deadpool, who was limping, very much favoring one leg over the other, finally reached him and dropped down next to him. He patted Spider-Man’s shoulder and left his hand there. “I think I’m ready to head home for the night,” he said, and Peter was willing to bet he was just as tired. Sure sounded like it.

“Me, too,” he agreed.

A silence passed between them, while they listened to the police and civilians talking back and forth in a mass of voices.

“Why did you dive for your phone?” Spider-Man finally asked without moving. He didn’t want to get up just yet. Lying down felt so nice, even if he had a rock jammed into his skin just above his kidney.

Wade shifted. He started pulling at the frayed edges of his costume that was covered in quite a bit of blood. In fact, so was his entire leg from the knee downward. There wasn’t any leather covering that spot, either. Peter suddenly realized what had happened -- when Wade had jumped, he’d broken his knee completely out of place and it tore his suit. Oh, lord, that was definitely not an image Peter wanted right now. Or really ever. Yes, he had a strong stomach, but bones poking out was not something he glanced at casually.

“Uh, well. I kinda had stuff on the memory card that I didn’t want anyone to find, so I had to make sure it didn’t survive the fall.” He held up the thumbnail-sized card that had some dings in it. “It got scuffed, but it still works.” Peter wasn’t even going to ask how Wade found that out.

More silence.

“I kinda have a picture of you sleeping without your mask on, but you can totally still see your logo and the whole… you’re absolutely Spider-Man part. And yeah, I could just say that it’s one of my things to wanna have a Spidey sleeping on my couch all cute and shit, but I don’t want anyone even getting the chance to see it.”

Spider-Man was staring at Deadpool, completely dumbfounded. The look somehow translated through the mask. “What the actual fuck, Wade?” he demanded.

“To which part?” Wade pressed.

“All of it!” Spider-Man snapped as he sat up. “One, you know how easy phones are to hack, second, you know how easy it is to steal phones, three, why do you have that picture?”

Deadpool threw his hands up in the air. “In my defense, you weren’t supposed to find out.” A pause. “Dude, have you seen yourself?” he asked, like it was obvious, in a sudden change of tactic. That didn’t seem to give him a pass either, though. He deflated with a heavy sigh and hunched over. He poked at some loose gravel. “Look, I’m fucked in the head. Shit got really scrambled when I was in Hospice, and I… I see a lot of shit that’s not really there, you know? And I… I wanted to make sure it was real. That you were real and on my real couch, breathing real air and… shit,” he hissed.

Peter couldn’t even say anything to that. All of his irritation evaporated and blew away in the gentle breeze. He reached out and hesitated for a second before he set his hand down on his boyfriend’s bicep. Wade reached back and cupped his own, larger hand over it. They sat there like that for a while.

“I didn’t have the heart to delete it,” he said softly. Peter leaned against him. Wade held the chip in his free hand, and then, after he seemed to think about it, he crushed the ever-loving shit out of it. Seeing that it wasn’t damaged enough, he snapped it in half with his thumb. “Sorry,” he grumbled.

Peter sighed through his nose. “It’s okay,” he said gently. Wade shrugged under his hand. “It’s really okay, Wade,” he pressed. Then he tightened his grip for a second, trying to give his other half comfort. “Let’s head back,” he suggested, and made to get up, giving Wade his hand in offering. Wade took it.

“Yeah,” he said, and was still favoring his left side. “Ugh, I’m gonna have to go phone shopping and people are gonna be all crazy because it’s almost Thanksmas.” Peter could empathize very heavily with that. He did not enjoy large, busy crowds. Too much noise. Too much to see.

Peter stopped by his shoebox to grab a change of clothes and then took them both to Wade’s apartment.

----
----

It was getting cooler the closer it got to December. Peter found out that Wade’s skin, even in the fall, kept its feverish temperature. He pitied Wade for constantly being above average in that way, but he seemed to fare pretty well after it stopped being in the nineties. Besides, his hand was delightfully warm around Peter’s, and the coffee he had in his other one was almost as nice.

They’d both woken up late, and even though Peter was mentally exhausted from being up until almost sunrise playing Super Smash Bros. with Wade, he felt content. Yeah, it was going to suck spending all day in a nasty brainfog, but he only had one class today and then he could head to his place for a nice nap. Or maybe just plain catch up on his missed sleep. Wade had treated him to a very bleary breakfast, and he was walking with him to class. Peter never once thought he would become so domestic so fast with anyone, especially not Wade Wilson of all people. But hey, the world changes. People change. They grow, sometimes together, sometimes apart. They were both just very lucky to have had the string of events go as they did -- even if it wasn’t good at the time. Looking back, if any of it had gone differently, he wasn’t sure where the two of them would have wound up.

While Peter may not have had any free hands, Wade was using his to scroll through his brand-sparkling-new rose gold iPhone he’d just received in the mail the evening before. “Someone looked through the code and they’re getting ready to release some of Gen Two,” he said and thumbed through more of the article.

Peter’s eyebrows raised up into his bangs that were pressed down against his forehead by his knitted beanie. “Seriously?” he asked, but he still just sounded sleepy. “I hope they up how many you can hold, then… I’m almost full.” Then a huge yawn pulled apart his jaw and he tried in vain to cover it with his coffee-laden hand.

“If it were me, I would just skip class,” Wade said, glancing at the brunet.

Peter nodded. “I know, and I’m not,” he answered flatly. He wished he was still in high school so he could fake sick, so he could just decide to not go, so he could look at his alarm clock and just roll over and pull the covers up over his head like he never heard it go off. But this was not high school. He had to keep his grades above a 4.0 average to keep his scholarships and every single class was a hefty $483, so missing one… was half of his rent for the entire month.

He hated being an adult, honestly. As hard as juggling life was a superhero at fifteen and sixteen and even seventeen was, he almost missed it, because he didn’t have to pay bills, and he got to see his aunt every single day. Nothing like time and distance apart to make someone grow more fond of another person, huh? Yes, he always loved her more than he could ever explain in a day, but family didn’t always get along one-hundred percent of the time. Just like how Wade and he weren’t without their roadbumps. It was in the time afterward, when they were apart, that he missed them both all the more.

“I’m going to Aunt May’s this weekend,” he said, and he felt a little bit nervous. He was finally going to tell her everything -- well, within reason, of course. That the person he’s seeing is Wade, that they’ve been off and on for… a little while now. That he really, really was enamored with this giant doofus. That Wade had absolutely no filter, and he was so, so sorry for it, please Aunt May, just give him this one free pass.

That he really wanted to bring Wade over for the upcoming holidays.

He thought that Wade might say yes, would probably say yes, but the other man sometimes reacted… exactly the opposite of how Peter would expect him to. And he had every right to have his personal space, to say he didn’t want to go, and that he wasn’t ready.

Peter swallowed the knot in his throat, and he realized that his hand was definitely stuck to Wade’s. Welp. That totally wasn’t more embarrassing.

The Merc looked over at him and seemed amused. “Yeah?” he asked, but Peter could see that he was smiling to cover up his own anxiety. His eyes were surprisingly expressive, even when he tried to act his way out of having to talk about certain feelings.

“Do you think… you’d want to come over for Thanksgiving?” Yeah, screw hedging around some bushes, he wanted this to just be over and done with.

Wade’s personal mask fell a little and he chewed hard on his bottom lip. He shrugged his shoulders, which Peter was gradually learning was how he said, ‘I’m saying I don’t know but I kinda wanna say one way or the other instead’. Peter gave him his time to think about it, and tried to calm himself down with a mental mantra and some slow sips of coffee.

“Think she’d like me?” he asked after a while. Peter canted his head to the side. That, of course, was a concern everyone had with meeting someone else’s friends or family for the first time, and logically Peter knew that, but he still felt his heart sinking over it. He knew that Wade was scared to open up to people he would eventually like to get close to. Out and about in public? Strangers? He was the most loud, obnoxious, doesn’t-give-a-single-fuck sort of guy. But putting himself out there to make connections? Well…

“She’ll love you,” he assured. His aunt was the most amazing woman in his life, and when he’d slipped up and said ‘he’, when he was talking to her last time over the phone... he’d frozen, and felt his heart shudder to a full stop, but after only a single missed beat, she answered just as she usually would have, though her voice wavered in an odd way. Only once, though.

He’d wanted to hug her so badly that day. She hadn’t brought it up as an issue, not a single time.

God, he loved her so much.

He came back to himself and found he was smiling wistfully at the air in front of him. Wade was staring. Peter bumped against his shoulder lightly and tightened his grip. “She’ll love you,” he assured. She loves me, he thought, so of course she’ll love you, too.

Wade didn’t answer.

They waited at the bus stop, on their phones and still touching, though this time just leaning their shoulders against one another. “Hey, I’m about to take this Gym,” Wade said and Peter glanced up from what he was reading (which was Facebook). He opened Go and it loaded just as Wade cried, “Haha, got it, motherfucker!” cheerfully. An old man sitting near them glared in their direction.

By the time Peter got his game to comply with him, it had already been reclaimed as a yellow Gym. “Nope, back to Instinct,” he informed. When Wade didn’t answer, Peter looked up at him with a raised brow. Why the silence? Wade, meanwhile, was wearing the most shit-eating grin Peter had seen to date.

“Am I missing something?” he asked.

Wade’s expression grew even more ridiculous.

Peter tapped on the Gym that was currently being headed by a Scyther.

The Gym leader’s name was ‘YoItsDP’. Peter’s mouth fell open. He turned and looked up at Wade with his stunned expression, and Wade started laughing. “Surprise,” he cooed and leaned down to kiss Peter’s still-parted lips. The brunet blinked dumbly and closed his mouth into the kiss.

Wade had started a new account (with a new app store account and everything), just so that they could both be on the same Team. It was all so silly, and so minuscule, yet Peter felt endearment bubble up even harder in his chest, and he melted against Wade’s warmth.

“Hey, gaylords, get a fuckin’ room!” someone yelled from the passenger side of a car.

Wade promptly flipped them off and shouted, “How about you go fuck yourself, buddy!” back at them. Then suddenly his face lit up with sheer, childish glee, and he revised his sentence slightly. “How about you Pokémon Go fuck yourself!” Wade threw his arm up and then down, like he was witnessing someone getting super owned. “Aw shit son, movie title in the movie!” he hollered.

Then he held up his hand for Peter to high-five him.

Peter did. “You’re an idiot,” he said, half-embarrassed and half-amused. He refused to look a little to the right and catch the stink-eye the old man was giving them right now.

“Yeah, but I’m your idiot,” Wade said, sounding so freaking cocky.

Peter snorted quietly and kissed him again.