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Peter Parker hated guns.
Peter’s hatred, and, quite honestly, fear (perfectly rational fear, thank you very much) of firearms was no secret, and the origins of his phobia could almost certainly be traced back to the traumatic death of a certain family member of his.
Holding your uncle in your arms as he bled out in an alleyway after watching him get shot in front of you does that to a person.
So, yes, Peter hates guns and would much prefer to avoid interacting with them altogether. He can usually manage it, too, by carefully planning out travel routes and making sure that he’s well away from danger zones, especially at night.
Spider-Man, however, is not so lucky. Coming into contact with guns is pretty much written into Spider-Man’s job description, so Peter is forced to face his fears constantly while working to protect the people of New York.
While Peter is still in no way comfortable being in close proximity to firearms, he’s been pretty desensitized to their presence in his almost 10 years of serving as Spider-Man (has it really been that long already?). He likes to think that he’s gotten pretty good at just treating them like any other weapon, his Spider-Sense no longer going off like crazy every time he gets so much as a whiff of gunpowder.
This long standing tolerance of guns is why Peter doesn’t understand why he’s currently hunched over in an alleyway in the streets of New York City trying not to have a panic attack.
Peter had just finished disrupting the mugging of a college student a few blocks over, and he’d successfully gotten the girl out of harm’s way before anything serious could happen to her.
After she’d scurried out of the alley, however, the mugger had pulled a gun on Spider-Man. This was not the first time Peter had had a gun pointed at him, and it almost certainly would not be the last.
Peter had managed to web the guy’s hand to the bricks behind him, but he hadn’t been quick enough to stop the criminal’s finger from pulling the trigger. The bullet had been thrown off course by Peter’s aforementioned webbing of the man’s hand to the wall, so it had just barely grazed Peter’s leg rather than shooting clean through his thigh.
This wasn’t even the first time Peter had been shot, but something about being in a dark alleyway and hearing the gunshot ricochet off the concrete had put Peter into a state of fight-or-flight.
Peter opted for flight over fight, having already subdued the criminal and figuring the police would eventually find the guy webbed to the wall.
He’s now wheezing out breaths in a slightly less dark alleyway about five blocks over from where the fight had taken place, trying and failing to remember the box breathing technique Aunt May had told him about at lunch a few weeks ago.
He can distinctly remember hearing her say that “it’s supposed to help with anxiety” and she “figured it would be nice” for Peter to try out the next time he found himself curled into a ball on his bathroom floor as the enormity of everything he can’t control takes over every inch of his mind, but he can’t actually recall the steps he’s supposed to take or the order he’s supposed to take them in.
Peter leans his forehead against the rough surface of the alley wall and forces his breaths to even out and his heart rate to return to normal.
It doesn’t really work, but it leaves Peter feeling in control enough that he can reasonably swing back to his apartment and continue panicking in the safety of his own home.
~~~~~
This isn’t Peter’s home.
It should be, as Peter definitely left that alleyway with the intention of finding his way home and collapsing onto his sofa, and maybe even ordering himself some Thai food from his favorite restaurant as a treat.
None of this changes the fact that Peter is not, in fact, standing in his own apartment.
Rather, he’s standing in Deadpool’s apartment, watching him eat takeout as he stands at his kitchen counter with his back to Peter.
Why is he in Deadpool’s apartment?
Actually, Peter decides, he doesn’t particularly care to examine why his subconscious decided that Wade’s place was safer and more comforting than Peter’s. There’s probably some perfectly logical, 100% platonic, not at all sexual explanation waiting for him there, but Peter doesn’t really want to check. Just in case.
“Deadpool?” Peter finds himself asking, as if it’s suspicious that Wade is in his own apartment and not that Peter just randomly showed up unannounced for no reason.
Wade jumps at the sound of Peter’s voice, spinning around and brandishing his plastic takeout fork as a weapon.
When Wade realizes it’s just Peter, he sags, lowering his fork.
“Jesus, Spidey. You scared the shit out of me,” he says, dragging a hand over his face.
“Sorry,” Peter says shyly. He usually can’t sneak up on Wade even if he’s trying to, to Peter’s endless chagrin. He thought Wade had noticed him and was just choosing to ignore him.
Peter takes another look at Wade and realizes he’s not in his suit, which is only a little strange for this time of night. It’s probably morning by now, but Peter is only just starting to wind down.
Deadpool hadn’t joined Spider-Man on his patrol tonight the way Peter’d become accustomed to, and Peter just figured that Wade had decided to take the night off. It seems Peter was correct. He usually was when it came to all things Wade. If four years ago Peter could see him now, he’d be losing his shit.
Peter’s friendship with Wade had had a rocky start, to say the least. Their first interaction had been Wade attempting to assassinate Peter, which generally isn’t the best way to kick off a tender and loving relationship.
In Wade’s defense, he’d been paid a shit ton of money to kill Spider-Man, and he’d been fed an even more shit ton of lies about horrible things Spider-Man had supposedly done in his deep dark past.
After his first failed assassination attempt, Wade had decided to collect all of the information he could about Spider-Man to have a better chance at successfully killing him, which led to him discovering that Spider-Man had actually never done any of the shit he’d been told about, and there was no reason whatsoever to kill him.
Wade had then pretty much immediately started pining after Peter’s hand in friendship, and now four years later they were as close as could be.
Well. Almost. But Peter was pretty sure this was as close as they’d get, and he wasn’t willing to risk his and Wade’s friendship over a stupid fantasy.
Peter supposed they’d also theoretically be closer if Peter actually revealed his identity to Wade, but he’s still not ready for that yet.
Everyone knows that Wade Wilson is Deadpool, and he only wears the suit to hide his skin, so Peter is the only one who has a civilian identity to hide.
In Peter’s defense, Wade sees the bottom half of his face every time they eat together (more than anyone else has seen while Peter is suited up), and he knows plenty of details about Peter’s life thanks to the stories Peter tells on slower nights when they get bored. Peter leaves out the proper nouns, but what’s the point of those anyway?
It’s not like Peter is really hiding anything from Wade, it’s just that still having his identity as Peter Parker to himself gives Peter the sense of security he needs to feel safe whenever thoughts of abandonment start to creep in.
Peter knows that logically Wade cares about him and wouldn’t just up and leave, but he can’t help torturing himself with those thoughts anyway. In the case that Peter’s biggest fears do come true, at least Wade wouldn’t know his civilian identity when he left.
Secret identities aside, they patrolled together almost every night, and more and more frequently their patrols ended with eating some form of takeout on Wade’s couch and watching shitty TV.
Peter supposed it wasn’t all that far fetched for his body to take him to Wade’s apartment when his brain shut off. It was where he usually ended up these days after a long night of patrolling.
Peter suddenly snaps back into his body when he realizes that Wade not wearing his suit means that Wade is wearing clothes. Okay, obviously he’s wearing clothes, but, like, regular civilian clothes that have absolutely no business looking as good on Wade as they do.
He’s dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black compression shirt that hides absolutely nothing of Wade’s huge forearms and even larger biceps. Peter finds himself staring and promptly fixes his gaze to some obscure point on the wall over Wade’s left shoulder. Peter realizes this is completely unnecessary thanks to the ever present mask on his face, but he does it anyway.
“...Webs? Earth to Spidey? Helloooo?” Wade asks, and Peter realizes that he’s been fully zoned out for what must have been quite a while if Wade has run out of nicknames.
“Uh. Yes?”
“I asked what’s wrong. You’re being weird,” Wade says, giving Peter a once over to emphasize his point.
Peter hasn’t moved from where he initially entered Wade’s apartment via the window, and Peter can’t tell if it’s because of Wade’s salacious choice of clothing or the barely subdued feeling of panic still coursing through Peter’s veins.
That thought only serves to bring the panic back to the forefront of Peter’s mind, and he quickly hides his hands behind his back before Wade can notice their shaking.
“No, I’m not. I’m being perfectly normal,” Peter retorts. The slight quaking in his voice isn’t helping to get his point across, but there’s nothing to be done about that.
Wade raises an eyebrow at Peter–when did his eyes stray from the point on the wall? Looking at Wade isn’t helping the fluttery feeling in his chest–and replies, “You still haven’t actually stepped into my apartment. And you’re all tense. And your hands are shaking. And you won’t make eye contact with me.”
“I–wha–how–what?” Peter stutters out eloquently. “How could you tell I wasn’t making eye contact?”
“Oh I was just guessing,” Wade says with a grin, “but you helpfully confirmed that I was right.”
Peter rolls his eyes at Wade but does nothing to correct him.
The grin drops off Wade’s face when he realizes that Peter isn’t joking back with him, and he gets serious again.
“Okay, actually what’s wrong? Rough patrol?” Wade asks, taking a few steps closer to Peter.
Peter really doesn’t want to talk about it, but he nods anyway, knowing that Wade is just going to keep asking questions until he gets the full story. Wade doesn’t mean to be invasive, Peter knows, he just likes getting the full scope of things before he acts on them.
“What happened?” Wade asks, leaning against the back of the couch across from Peter and crossing his arms over his chest. The motion accentuates the bulge of his biceps and Peter has to swallow several times before he trusts his voice not to crack when he speaks.
“It was pretty quiet, actually, up until the end,” Peter starts. “There was, uh, a guy mugging this college girl. I don’t even know why it got to me. He had a gun.”
Peter doesn’t know why he tacks on that last sentence as if it will provide any more explanation as to why a typical mugging shook Spider-Man enough that he accidentally swung into Deadpool’s apartment instead of his own.
Wade just hums though, nodding as if this makes complete sense. “What else?” he asks, as if he can see right through Peter and knows he’s holding back.
Peter gives up on trying to act like he’s okay and blows out all of the breath in his lungs in one big sigh. “I don’t–he was just. He reminded me of my–of another mugging. A while ago. One I couldn’t stop.”
Wade knows some vague details of Peter’s past, but all he knows about Uncle Ben is that one of Peter’s adult family members died shortly after Peter became Spider-Man. While Peter would consider Wade his closest and best friend, it doesn’t make talking about the past with him any less painful.
Peter’s hands are really shaking now, and the nervous energy is spreading to the rest of his body. He hates talking about Uncle Ben. It makes him feel like a teenager again–sad and angry and so, so, so lonely.
It also makes him feel scared, like he’s back in that alley with blood all over his hands and Uncle Ben’s last words echoing in his head.
Logically, Peter knows he’s safe. He’s with Wade, in Wade’s apartment, and nothing bad is going to happen to him.
Emotionally, however, Peter is all over the place, and he can feel his heart rate picking up as he struggles to breathe deep enough for it to matter.
Peter starts pacing to try and physically get the anxiety to leave his body, but it doesn’t really work, and now Wade probably thinks he’s insane and/or having a mental breakdown.
“I really don’t know why it got to me today, especially because the girl got away fine, but then the guy was pointing his gun at me, and he shot it, and it sounded–it sounded exactly like it did before, like, the exact same gun, and I couldnt–I can’t, I can’t–I can’t breathe–”
Peter knows the signs of a panic attack. He’s had them plenty of times before, but almost never in the presence of other people. He prefers panicking alone where no one can see him or hear him or be at all aware of him losing it.
Hyperventilation is one of the main signs of panic attacks, especially for Peter. It’s a non-negotiable when Peter he’s spiraling like this.
Peter is semi-aware of Wade abruptly stepping toward him, hands out and voice placating, but Peter suddenly can’t focus on anything other than the feeling of acute suffocation, and the only thing he can think of to help is to rip off his mask.
He immediately does so, and the feeling of relief lasts for about three eighths of a second before he starts gasping for breath again.
Following the trend of ripping his mask off, Peter starts clawing at his suit, frantically searching for any way to get the too-tight fabric off of him.
“Hey! Hey, Spidey, it’s okay, you’re okay, look–stop scratching yourself!”
All of a sudden the only thing Peter can see is Wade’s face as he steps fully into Peter’s personal space and grabs Peter’s hands to prevent him from scratching off the skin of his throat.
Peter still can’t fucking breathe and he needs Wade to understand this before he passes out on his living room floor.
Problematically, the thing about not being able to breathe is that it means you also can’t speak, so Peter has no way of communicating his internal struggle to Wade in any meaningful way.
Wade, however, seems to get the message that something is still wrong. “What can I do to help?” he asks.
For all of his teasing and joking and posturing, Wade Wilson can be a very serious man when the situation calls for it.
“Suit. Off,” is all Peter manages to get out between futile gasps for air.
Wade nods, seemingly to himself, before he starts efficiently searching for the seams on Peter’s suit. He finds them far quicker than Peter would have expected and expertly strips the fabric of the Spidey-Suit off of Peter’s body.
Peter hadn’t even realized that he was overheating until he felt the blissful kiss of cool air against his now bare skin. Wade’s window was still cracked open–Peter hadn’t been nearly focussed enough to close it when he came in–and the breeze felt like heaven as Peter finally took a deep breath in.
He continued breathing in deeply, eyes closed and head tilted up as he centered himself.
Finally, when Peter feels at least slightly more stable, he opens his eyes to the sight of Wade staring at him with concern written all over his face, Spidey-Suit still clutched tightly in his hands.
“Better?” Wade asks, voice gravelly, and Peter promptly bursts into tears.
He doesn’t know if it’s the lingering pain of bringing up Uncle Ben, or the day’s stress catching up to him, or just the sight of Wade holding the Spidey-Suit as Peter stands before him in nothing but his briefs, but Peter can’t stop the tears running down his cheeks once they start.
If anything, they just get stronger and stronger until Peter is full on sobbing as Wade stutters and apologizes and asks what else he can do.
God, this is embarrassing.
Peter just shakes his head, wondering if it’s too late to jump off of Wade’s roof. He decides that that probably wouldn’t help the situation, and instead just sort of slumps into Wade, hoping he gets the hint.
Wade goes stock-still, tensing up before he realizes what Peter wants, at which point he promptly drops Peter’s suit and wraps him in his (still insanely large) arms.
Peter isn’t generally the most touchy person, but when it comes from Wade, he can’t get enough.
Wade, who has no concept of personal space nor physical boundaries, is more than happy to provide. He’s all about casual hugs and high-fives and fist bumps and such, and he’ll even cuddle Peter when they’re watching shows or just lounging on some random city rooftop.
This feels different, somehow. It’s a touch offered not just out of friendship or casualty, but out of genuine care and comfort. Wade knows just how to hug Peter to make him feel safe but not trapped, cared for but not smothered.
Peter melts into the embrace, not even bothering to wrap his own arms around Wade.
Peter feels safest in the circle of Wade’s warmth, and he trusts Wade enough to completely let his guard down and just soak up the comfort Wade is offering him.
After several long minutes of Peter crying into Wade’s arms, he becomes distantly aware of Wade moving them to the couch and arranging Peter in his lap so that they can both rest, but he decides that Wade has a handle on it and he doesn’t need to engage his brain again just yet.
When, finally, Peter’s sobs have faded into gentle breaths and he no longer feels dread but just bone-deep exhaustion, Peter lifts his head from Wade’s shoulder and looks him in the eye. He doesn’t yet break the careful silence, instead trying to silently communicate how much he cares for Wade.
“Hi,” Wade whispers after several long moments of intense eye contact.
“Hi,” Peter whispers back.
“Better now?” Wade asks, still whispering.
Peter nods, then shakes his head, then nods again. At Wade’s raised eyebrows, Peter sighs.
“Yes, I’m better than I was before. No, I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he clarifies.
“Okay,” Wade says with a simple shrug. Wade has the beautiful gift of being able to turn any situation casual once it loses its intensity. Things are almost never awkward with him unless he’s trying to make them so. Which he is a lot of the time. “Wanna eat? I got Thai,” Wade asks, not-so-subtly changing the subject.
“Yes, please,” Peter replies. “Why are we still whispering?” he asks as he carefully extricates himself from Wade’s lap.
“I don’t know,” Wade says (in a whisper), “it felt fitting to the situation.”
Peter stretches once he’s fully upright, raising his arms above his head and cracking his back as he leans from side to side. He catches Wade eyeing his bare torso, and he realizes all of a sudden that he’s practically naked. In front of Wade. Ohmygod he was just sitting on Wade’s lap wearing nothing but his underwear.
Someone kill him now, please.
Peter also realizes that he has no other clothes here. Well, except for the suit, but just the thought of putting it back on right now makes Peter’s skin crawl.
“Do you–uh, you wouldn’t happen to have a spare set of clothes, would you? I wasn’t really thinking about that earlier,” Peter asks, scratching the back of his neck. He can feel the blush spreading across his face and down his neck and chest–all of which Wade can still see, he thinks, not helping the blush–and he refuses to make eye contact with Wade as he asks.
Wade just snorts as he turns toward his bedroom. “I noticed,” he says, and the tone of his voice makes Peter’s blush bloom even redder. He’s never living this down, is he?
Showing up to Wade’s apartment out of the blue just to have a panic attack and strip off his clothes all because of one little mugging? Peter sighs, resigning himself to at least a year and a half of relentless teasing on patrols.
Peter can’t help but feel like this is scarily close to how a post hook-up with Wade would go. Stripping in the living room, then cuddling on the couch, getting into a pair of his clothes, and sharing takeout in the kitchen.
He quickly shuts down that line of thinking as Wade returns with a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that only hangs off of him a little (a lot).
Before Wade can walk away, Peter says, “Thank you, Wade. This–all of this–means a lot.”
Wade just stares back at Peter for a moment as a flurry of emotions crosses his face with enough speed that Peter couldn’t hope to decipher them if he tried.
“You’re welcome,” he says finally. “And you should call me Wade more often. It’s pretty when it comes out of your mouth.”
Wade says it with a joking tone and a glint in his eye, but everything else about him is dead serious, and Peter has no idea how to respond to that.
Wade rescues him before he can make a total fool out of himself by directing them to the counter he was standing at when Peter first barged in and offering Peter a second plastic fork that must have come with the meal.
It’s from Peter’s favorite restaurant, and he can’t help himself as he digs into the food.
Wade stands across from him, elbows on the counter as he eats from his half of the container.
The two men eat in companionable silence for several moments, but Wade keeps sneaking glances up at Peter, and after the seventh or eighth surreptitious look, Peter dramatically drops his fork into his food and throws up his hands.
“What?” he asks defensively.
“What?” Wade responds in kind, but Peter can tell he’s playing dumb.
Peter narrows his eyes at the other man, but Wade remains stubbornly silent, turning his eyes back to his food and continuing to eat.
“You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, you know,” Peter says as he takes up his fork again. Having a panic attack really stirs up the appetite. Well, after the nausea and feeling of impending doom passes, that is.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wade responds, but Peter can see the smirk he tries to hide with a bite of noodles.
“Right,” Peter says shortly.
Wade keeps looking at Peter, and normally Peter wouldn’t care–he wouldn’t even notice–but Wade’s not just looking at him, he’s looking at him, and it’s starting to make Peter’s skin itch.
“Okay, seriously, what is it?” he finally asks.
Wade looks up at Peter before he responds, his eyes boring into Peter’s. “I’ve never seen you out of your mask before,” Wade says simply. “You’re cute.”
“Oh.”
What the fuck?
First of all, Peter hadn’t even realized that this was the first time Wade was seeing his full face, too caught up in his panic to register what he was really revealing when he ripped off his mask.
Second of all, cute? What the actual fuck is Peter supposed to do with that?
Wade thinks he’s cute? What kind of cute? Cute like aw he’s so sweet he’s like a brother to me or cute like oh my god I want him he’s all I’ve ever dreamed of?
Okay, maybe that’s a bit intense, but still! What is Peter supposed to think?
“You can stay here tonight, by the way,” Wade says, snapping Peter out of his own thoughts and back to reality.
“Oh, um, thanks. That’s–you don’t have to,” Peter responds. For all the time he’s spent at Wade’s apartment he’s never actually spent the night before.
“I know,” Wade responds simply, and Peter’s never before felt so cared for.
~~~~~
Peter wakes up in Wade’s bed and it takes him far longer than it should for Peter to remember the events of last night.
He’s too overwhelmed by the scent of Wade completely surrounding him to think straight (ha!) and when he finally orients himself it all comes crashing back to him.
“Oh, god,” Peter mutters to himself. He might have to change his name and escape to a foreign country to escape the embarrassment he’s accrued all in one night. Iceland is supposed to be nice, right?
Despite the fact that Peter is in Wade’s bed, Wade is nowhere to be found.
After a long and stubborn argument last night, Peter had finally, very, very reluctantly agreed to sleep in Wade’s bed and for Wade to sleep on the couch.
Peter had initially insisted that he’d be fine on the couch and that he wasn’t going to kick Wade out of his own bed, but Wade had been simply unwilling to take no for an answer.
Peter had thought about offering to share the bed just so that Wade wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch in his own apartment for god’s sake, but he’d quickly realized the implications of that and decided against it.
As consciousness fully returns to Peter, he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed.
He’s still wearing the clothes Wade had lent him last night, and is that bacon he’s smelling?
Is Wade cooking breakfast for them?
Peter stands up and slowly makes his way out of the bedroom and is greeted with the sight of Wade standing at the stove, shirtless, wearing an apron that reads “Don’t Forget to Kiss the Cook!” with several comically large arrows pointing down to Wade’s groin. Right.
Wade has also donned the mask of the Deadpool suit to cook breakfast. He must be having a bad skin day, then.
At the sound of Peter’s footsteps, Wade spins around, spatula still in hand, and beams at him. Well, Peter assumes that the mask is stretching so widely because Wade is beaming.
“Morning, Sweetcheeks! How’d you sleep?” he asks, still grinning.
It takes Peter a moment to respond, still dumbfounded by waking up to– this.
Peter’s friendship with Wade has never quite had a ‘domestic’ side before, and Peter is left flabbergasted by the sudden change in pace. He’s not averse to it, though.
“Pretty well, actually. I still feel bad for kicking you out of your own bed, though,” Peter says as he takes a seat at the counter.
“Really, it’s okay. I bought a comfortable couch for a reason. Well, for multiple reasons, if you catch my drift,” Wade responds, winking at Peter as he does.
Peter just rolls his eyes at Wade’s back as he turns to continue cooking the bacon he currently has sizzling on the stove. Peter notices that there’s also a plate stacked high with pancakes off to the side, and Wade has scrambled a batch of eggs to go along with it.
Peter didn’t know that Wade cooked. He clearly has a passion for it, though, if he’s this comfortable in the kitchen.
Peter simply sits back and observes as Wade finishes putting together breakfast, humming along to some obscure song that Peter can’t identify.
Once he’s finished, Wade expertly plates up all of the food and places it out in front of Peter who is more than eager to dig in.
Wade takes the seat next to Peter, their thighs brushing ever so slightly, and jumps straight into a vivid retelling of some bizarre dream he had last night. It involves unicorns and katanas and more bodily fluids than Peter is comfortable with. It does, however, provide a comforting background noise to settle into as Peter devours plate after plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon.
“And then I was like, ‘Woah! Let’s all calm down!’ which is weird because usually I’m the instigator in my dreams, and the unicorns honestly weren’t even doing anything that bad except for all the genocide, y’know? I must’ve picked it up from you, Honeybun, because–”
“Peter.”
“...what?”
Peter raises his head to look Wade in the eye when he realizes what he just said. Peter honestly hadn’t even been aware of opening his mouth to speak before the single word was past his lips.
He has no choice but to double down now, though.
Peter swallows thickly before trying again. “My name. It’s Peter. I think we’ve come far enough in our friendship that you can at least have a name to go along with my face now.”
Wade, again, just stares blankly at Peter as he processes this information and Peter really, really wishes he would stop doing that because it is deeply unsettling.
Wade always has a quick and witty comeback ready at the tip of his tongue for any situation he finds himself in, and yet Peter has apparently left him speechless more than once in the past 12 hours. It’s weird.
Wade blinks slowly before what can only be described as a shit eating grin slowly starts growing on his face, and okay actually the silence wasn’t that bad now that Peter thinks about it.
Why is he smiling like that?
Wade takes a breath before he bursts into raucous laughter that makes him double over, clutching his stomach and banging his fist against the counter.
Peter is taken aback. Of all the reactions he expected when telling Wade about his civilian identity, whatever this is certainly wasn’t one of them.
Once Wade masters himself again, Peter asks, “What the fuck? What was that? Is my name really that funny?”
“Yes,” Wade replies simply, bursting into girlish giggles again. “Peter!” he exclaims. “Pete, Petey, Peter-Boy,” says Wade, fighting through yet another round of giggles.
Peter is quickly realizing that he should have put more thought into the decision to tell Wade his real name, not because of the laughing and the teasing, but because the sound of his name in Wade’s voice is almost too much for him to bear.
Just to put a stop to it, Peter finally demands, “What could possibly be so funny about the name Peter? That’s like one of the most common names out there!”
Wade glances suggestively at Peter, and just the look alone is enough to turn Peter’s ear bright red.
“I meannnnn,” Wade starts, “it’s pretty funny in the right context.”
At Peter’s confused look, Wade continues, “Peter? Like, your Peter? Your little Pete? Your personal Petey-Pie?” all while looking and gesturing toward Peter’s groin.
“Oh my god,” Peter groans, dragging his hands over his face.
This reaction is apparently hilarious to Wade who starts laughing again, this time while pointing at Peter’s ever-reddening face.
Wade is pointing and laughing at Peter, and Peter can’t find it in himself to even be mad. This is such a textbook Wade reaction that all Peter can feel is a warm and bubbling sensation in his chest.
Soon enough, Wade’s contagious laughter gets to Peter and now he, too, is clutching his stomach and gasping for breath.
As the two men sit at the counter, breakfast long forgotten in front of them, the charge in the air shifts.
In the course of their laughter, Peter and Wade had both subconsciously shifted toward each other, resulting in them sitting practically knee-to-knee, staring into one another’s eyes.
Peter sucks in a breath, faced with Wade’s undivided attention, unsure what to do with himself.
Wade is inexplicably close to Peter all of a sudden, leaning towards him but not making a single move to touch him.
He’s close enough, however, for Peter to be able to feel the heat radiating off of him. Peter can also see a slight nick on the cheek of his mask where he must have gotten hit recently. Peter abruptly has the urge to run his fingers over the mask, to check where else Wade has had to patch it after being injured.
He manages to refrain, but he can’t stop himself from muttering, “Wade.”
He can’t seem to conjure any other thoughts, so he lets the single name speak for itself.
“Peter,” Wade responds, and though his voice is even and sure, there’s a breathy quality to it that assures Peter that Wade is equally affected by their proximity.
And, oh, the sound of his voice in that particular tone Wade is using is more than Peter can bear. He gasps, his eyes falling closed as he subconsciously leans in closer to Wade, seeking out his warmth.
One of Wade’s hands lands lightly on the top of Peter’s thigh, applying just enough pressure to ground Peter in his body but nothing more.
Peter is vaguely aware of Wade moving his arms, and Peter registers the sound of fabric sliding against skin, but he keeps his eyes closed against it all.
This morning has been so perfect, and if Peter just keeps his eyes closed, maybe the illusion won’t be broken. He’ll still be sitting at Wade’s counter, in Wade’s clothes, eating food Wade has prepared for him.
Wade will still be next to him, treating him with more care and gentleness than anyone ever has before, and maybe Peter can even picture that they’re actually together. That Peter isn’t a coward when it comes to his feelings and he’s brave enough to confess to Wade, and Wade reciprocates and they live happily ever after.
Unfortunately for Peter, that’s not how things are, and he forces himself to open his eyes after the silence settles again.
Peter is met with the sight of Wade’s bright eyes gazing directly back into Peter’s.
Wade has removed his mask, and there’s maybe four inches of space separating their faces. Wade’s hand is still resting on Peter’s thigh, and his thumb is now moving in infuriating little circles on Peter’s knee.
Peter allows himself a moment to catalogue Wade’s face and fully commit it to memory, knowing full well that what he’s about to do may mean that he never sees him again.
Peter traces the lines of Wade’s face with his eyes, detailing the bridge of his nose and the sharp arch of his brow. He makes a mental map of Wade in his mind, making sure to include all of the dips and valleys of Wade’s scarred skin and the gentle curve of Wade’s lips.
Wade’s lips.
Peter is no poet, but he’s sure he could write prose about Wade’s lips, about how it was the only part of Wade’s body that Peter ever saw for the first year of their friendship and how they remain just as captivating now as they were that first day he and Wade shared a meal on patrol.
Now that they’ve caught Peter’s attention, they refuse to relinquish it, and Peter is left helplessly staring at Wade’s lips as they quirk into a knowing smile.
Wade slowly raises his hand from Peter’s thigh to his chin, using his thumb and forefinger to tip Peter’s chin up so that Peter is forced to make eye contact with him.
“See something you like?” Wade asks, and the twinkle in his eye is back–or maybe it never left.
Peter blushes furiously, but he’s too far in to back down now. “Maybe,” he shrugs.
Wade arches a single eyebrow at Peter’s response, and Peter just stares back defiantly.
“Well that just won’t do,” Wade says, and it’s all the warning Peter gets before he’s being picked up at the waist and settled down on the counter.
Peter gasps at the sudden change in position, and Wade grins as he leans over him, trapping Peter in with his arms.
And then–Wade stops. He hovers barely an inch away from Peter, moving neither closer nor farther away. His sudden stillness is dizzying, and it aggravates Peter.
Peter huffs out a breath of frustration before he lunges forward, crashing his lips into Wade’s and fisting the front of Wade’s apron.
That’s all the permission Wade needs before he’s kissing back just as intensely. His hands come up to cradle Peter’s head as his tongue sweeps into Peter’s mouth.
One of Wade’s hands remains in Peter’s hair, but the other ventures down Peter’s side to grip his waist as Wade moves his attention from Peter’s mouth to his neck.
Peter lets out an embarrassing whimper as Wade bites his neck and then soothes the mark with the flat of his tongue. Peter immediately clamps his mouth shut, but the noise seems to do nothing but spur Wade on further.
Wade continues his ministrations on Peter’s neck, and it’s only so long before Peter is gasping for breath.
“Wade,” he breathes, brain empty of all thoughts other than the man in front of him.
Wade pulls back to take in the sight of Peter and is apparently satisfied with what he sees. He runs his hand through Peter’s hair and Peter leans into the touch. Wade could probably slap him across the face right now and Peter would thank him. Don’t look too deep into that.
“You sound almost as pretty as you look,” Wade murmurs, and Peter doesn’t think he’d have been able to pick up on it if they weren’t so close.
Peter smiles shyly in response, leaning in to kiss Wade again, slower this time.
They both know they have a lot to talk about, but for right now they’re content to spend the morning wrapped up in each other’s arms, safe and content and oblivious to the world around them.