Chapter Text
Wade’s swords sank into the flank of the rampaging beast, keeping him from splattering to the asphalt below. He would have turned and shouted something that was both funny and belied his hurt at the fact that Cable pushed him off a fucking building, but he just knew that asshole would shrug and remark that Wade would have turned out fine either way, so it didn’t matter.
There was also the fact that burying two blades into the monster made it let out a thunderous roar, and it began to thrash wildly to get the threat off its back. The fur of the thing wasn’t as soft as Wade had been hoping, so even the sensation of bristles against his skin was painful, a few digging into his suit and skin. It was all Wade could do to hold on.
“Deadpool?” Looking up, Captain America - who had landed somewhere near the thing’s head last Wade checked - was above him, gripping some strands of fur for balance and reaching a hand out to Wade.
Wade took it, and was hauled up onto the creature’s back, where staying balanced was somewhat easier. He managed to grab his swords and pull them out of the monster’s flesh before Cap hauled him up towards its head with a quick, “glad you could make it,” thrown over his shoulder.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Whatever this is. Seriously - what is this thing? It’s like a porcupine and a kangaroo had a disturbingly jacked and prickly creature together.”
“Remember that alien with the robot army?”
Wade squinted. “The one with the fucked up ray gun that you took so it couldn’t cause more trouble?”
“Well, it caused more trouble. Harvester’s still in prison, for now, but she had said she had a friend who was going to ‘pick her up.’”
“A friend.” Cap gestured to the gargantuan beast they were currently riding. “Nice friend.” The monster leapt into the air and both of them staggered, clinging onto the needle-like strands of fur desperately until it settled again.
“I’m surprised Spider-man didn’t tell you. He foiled her last break out attempt, and that’s when she told him about this guy dropping in to get her and the gun.” Wade winced.
“Yeah, I’ve been, uh, doing some other stuff. Hanging out with some mutants - oh! I was just on a mission with a jacked soldier not from this time period with a metal arm who I also have varying levels of unresolved sexual tension with.” Cap stared at him. “That’s called twinning. Put that in your little modern facts notebook you carry around with you.”
“How did you -” Cap shook his head. “Never mind.” The hero turned back around and made his way back to the creature’s skull. It looked like the all-American beefcake had landed with his shield submerged halfway into the monster’s skull. He was actually struggling to pull it out.
“My strength stats are kind of a crapshoot,” Wade said, stumbling up beside him, “but maybe I can help?” He grabbed the edge of the shield that Cap wasn’t already holding onto.
“Be my guest,” the other man said.
The creature’s skull was obviously thick, it took a good few seconds of pulling before the shield was finally released. Rogers grimaced at the blood at the edge of it reluctantly strapped it onto his back. “So, what’s the plan now?” Wade asked.
“Nothing is actually subduing this guy. Not even a giant metal disc shoved into its brain,” he said with a grimace. “I’m telling Tony to come get you; apparently he has some new bomb that might be able to fix this mess without causing another billion dollars in property damage.”
“Oh, cool.” Wade shielded one hand over his eyes to look around. “So, do I whistle, or - EEP!” Stark passed by and had grabbed him by the elbow, letting him dangle in his metallic grip before letting Wade go so he could stumble to the ground. Stark landed much more gracefully across from him. “Don’t do that!” Wade hissed, popping his shoulder back into its socket.
“Nice of you to show up.”
“I don’t have a pager or bluetooth headset or whatever the fuck you use to communicate with each other,” Wade snapped. “Also I was busy.”
“No, I mean it is nice of you to show up. Is everything that comes through the mask read as sarcasm?”
“I think that’s just your mouth,” Wade shot back, but the heat wasn’t in it. “Cap said this is a friend of that alien bounty hunter who wants me dead?”
“Don’t take it personal. She and her pet abomination want half this city dead, too. It’s all we can do to stop this thing from getting to the prison, and we’re losing ground. Luckily for everyone involved, I have a solution.”
There was a pause. Wade stared at Stark. Stark, presumably, stared back. “...Did I need to guess?”
Stark sighed, and tapped the side of his helmet. “That’s your cue.” A moment later, he turned around and caught a falling, black orb that had been launched his way. “Thanks, Nat.” He brandished the object to Wade. “This is what I’m talking about.”
“...You’re gonna make it play fetch.”
“It’s a bomb.”
“Right.”
“We need someone to toss it into that thing’s mouth.”
Wade sighed. “Let me guess - someone who will live even after getting blown into a mound of blood and ash, right?”
“Wh - that’s how extensive your healing factor is?” Wade shrugged. “Well. No - this isn’t a typical bomb. But I can do the grand reveal after this creature is gone. Watch and learn. Actually, this is still highly experimental, so watch while moving as far away as possible.” With that, Stark jetted up into the air again.
“Oh, I’m watching,” he said dully. The creature was still on a rampage, but the bullets and explosions that were hitting it was making it angry enough to try and find the source of the ballistics, so it wasn’t actually moving down the street that quickly. That also meant it was an easy target for Stark, who flew up next to the creature’s face, keeping just enough distance that the thing’s arms couldn’t swipe at him.
Wade was set for a gruesome display of pyrotechnics that would most likely result in a desperate need for a shower, until the Hulk made a dramatic reappearance, crashing down from a building and smacking the monster into the pavement.
The motion sent Cap off the monster’s head and flying, landing right into Stark, who fumbled, the bomb dropping out of his grip as he tried to grab ahold of Cap and stop him from falling to his death. “That’s bad, right?”
{Yeah.}
[Probably.]
The bomb, luckily, didn’t make its deadly trip to the ground, being intercepted by Spider-man at the last second. He swooped up into the air again and stuck to the wall of a damaged skyscraper where Stark was awkwardly holding onto Rogers. It looked like the three of them had stopped to have a chat.
During what had to be a witty exchange, the monster rose up from its temporary lie down, batting the Hulk away once again and swiping at the three heroes with another ferocious cry. They were all thrown towards the opposite end of the street, near Wade. Spider-man used his momentum to web an exposed piece of a girder and swing around it before landing neatly on the pavement. Stark and Cap weren’t so lucky, however, Stark was only just able to use his propulsors to stop the two of them from crashing into the building, instead just hitting it roughly.
Of course, the heat of the propulsors heated the already damaged support of the building, and a few support beams and attached concrete subsequently rained down on them as they were forced down onto the ground by the hail of debris.
“You guys okay?” Wade yelled. Rogers pushed a slab of metal off of him, Stark rolled over in his suit, climbing out of the construction materials.
“Totally fine!” Cap said, swaying on his feet as he stood. There was blood trickling down his face. He gave Wade a thumbs up anyway.
“Yeah, totally fine,” Stark added, “that’s barely a concussion.” He began to fly into the air again - but the propulsors on the right side of his body shorted out, causing him to crumple back onto the ground. “...Alright, it’s ground duty for me.” He regained his balance and looked over in Wade’s direction. “If you wanted to have a turn taking down King Kong over there, now would be a great time.”
“Distract a giant monster that thinks the Hulk is about as annoying as a fussy cat, sure,” Wade said. “I can totally do -” He turned around. “...That.”
“Um.” Spider-man was holding the bomb in his hands. “Hi.”
[Fuck.]
{Shit.}
[Fucking shit.]
“It’s uh - I was gonna say it’s good to see you,” the other man said, “but obviously these aren’t ideal circumstances and everything so. Yeah.” Wade tilted his head slightly. Spider-man shifted his weight from foot to foot. “But hi, anyways,” he added.
{Are we still mad at him? It’s been a month.}
[For him and everyone else, not for us. ]
{Should we try being funny?}
[Hit him with that patented DP charm?]
“Hi,” Wade managed. The monster roared above them. “Stark says we need to throw that,” he pointed, “into that thing’s mouth.”
“Right.”
“And I don’t currently have the ability to fly, scale walls, or float.”
“Uh, right.”
“And I imagine you’d probably have trouble swinging around and avoiding that frankly disturbing creature and tossing the bomb into its mouth. So.” He sighed. “Wanna team up?”
“S-sure. Sure! Yeah. That’s - I can do that. We can do that I mean,” He nodded. “Yeah.”
Wade held out his hand. Spider-man tucked the explosive under his arm, reaching his own hand out to meet Wade’s.
Wade pulled back. “Give me the bomb,” he clarified. Spidey’s hand drooped.
[Wow. Harsh.]
{That was a curve if I ever saw one.}
“Right. Uh. Here.” The other man passed the bomb over. It was about the size of Wade’s palm, so he was able to shove it into one of his pouches for safe keeping.
“Okay. Ready when you are.”
“Right - right, yeah. So, uh. How do you want to do this, exactly?” Wade couldn’t help but wonder where this level of restraint was before Spider-man-as-Peter decided to get involved with him, but Wade didn’t feel like actually voicing it aloud. He just wanted to finish this up and go - somewhere. Anywhere.
Away from this one guy in particular.
The one he had idolized, pined for, befriended, which, really, was too much to put into one person who couldn’t extend the same amount of trust and affection back. Who may have never given it back, even if Wade hadn’t realized the truth.
“Hey!” Wade turned his head. Stark waved his arm. “Whatever weird thing you two have going on - monster attack, here? Maybe hurry it up?”
“Got it!” Wade shouted. He moved past Spider-man and started stalking down the block, where the creature was crashing against the buildings. “Think you can get us up there?” he asked from over his shoulder.
“No problem!” And finally, Wade saw a web shoot out and stick to the side of a skyscraper, and a moment later he was taken into the air, Spider-man’s hand holding onto his katana holsters. Not the most comfortable way to be carried, but even Wade had to begrudgingly admit it was nicer than getting pushed off a roof or being grabbed so harshly that his shoulder popped out.
[Our bar is so low.]
{I don’t think we even have a bar, to be honest.}
“Look out!” Spidey swung them wide, dropping through the air to avoid a piece of building the spiky kangaroo thing had ripped off and threw at them. “Ugh. I hate giant monsters.”
“What are you talking about?” Wade shouted so he could be heard over the rush of air, “giant monsters were the first NYC bad guy! This is like a legacy battle.”
“Legacy as in it’s old. Pastiche. Totally cliche.”
“You kids these days just can’t appreciate something classic. I bet you won’t watch any movie if it’s still in black and white.”
“Oh my God,” Spider-man said, swinging them higher into the air. Wade could tell from the way that he said it he was amused, not exasperated. He also kind of hated that he knew that. “I’m just saying some more thought could be put into the designs. This thing looks like a giant marsupial with spines for fur.”
“What do you want, Freudian levels of psycho analysis for every guy you beat up?”
“Well, that would at least be interest-ING!” The monster batted them into the side of a building, sending them through the window and into an abandoned office. They both groaned, staring out the broken glass as they tried to get up. Through the settling dust, Wade saw that the monster had collected a torn up piece of road and was trying to throw it into the hole they had been forced into.
“You can stop that, right?” Wade coughed out, kicking away some shattered glass and computer monitors that had landed on him.
“Probably not. Back up, back up!”
The monster’s arm was drawn back, about to strike - until it was hit in its eye with a bright, aquamarine colored blast, making it drop the mound of concrete as it shrieked in agony. Wade sat up and made his way to the hole in the building. Across the street, he saw a familiar shadow on a rooftop, massive rifle slung over his shoulder. “Perfect timing,” Wade murmured.
Unlike the explosive arrows and more typical gun fire that had been hitting the creature for most of the fight, this staggered the thing long enough for Spider-man to grab Wade’s waist as he dove out the window, a web slung out just in time to save them from both the monster and a hundred foot drop. He deposited them both onto a small alcove near the top of yet another decimated building that was more of a concrete skeleton than anything else.
[Nothing like a blast of radiation to magically fix things!]
“What was that?” Spider-man asked. The monster was still writhing in pain on the ground below.
“Friend of mine. Has the biggest, coolest gun ever that he won’t let me touch no matter how many times I beg him.” He blinked. “That is exactly what it sounds like.” He could feel the other man’s eyes on him for a beat.
“...Well it distracted big and spiky. I can swing us around and -” With a deafening screech, the monster began to… transform.
It looked as if it was turning inside out, its mouth opening like a flower to show endless rows of teeth and a gaping maw. The sharp hairs on its back also stuck up, looking more like needles than ever before. The noises it let out shook the foundation of the building, and Wade had to consciously balance himself on the precipice of the metal he was standing on. The sound of a thousand teeth clicking as it snapped its jaw made his hackles involuntarily rise.
“...Damnit,” Spider-man whispered to himself.
“Gross,” Wade said, “I thought that radiation would just give it super cancer, not turn it into a- a-”
“- Final boss of a Resident Evil game?”
“Yeah.” They glanced at each other, and below, the monster continued to cry out and gnash its teeth, blindly shifting its body weight to ram into the nearest buildings.
“This is just great,” Peter sighed.
“Well, its mouth is bigger, right?” Wade tried, “easier target.”
“You still got the bomb?” Wade patted one of his pouches and nodded. “Alright.” Peter hesitated a moment before gingerly putting his hand around Wade’s waist. “Is this… okay?” he asked. “Just - it’s easier to hold on, I mean.” Peter’s hand was hot against his hip; indecision making his fingers flex along Wade’s suit.
{We could say no.}
[Do we want to?]
“So long as you can get me close to that gross mouth thing,” Wade managed. Peter nodded, once, and shot a web out to the opposite side of the building. Wade waited for them to go over the edge, but instead, the other man continued to shoot out more lines of webbing, building off the first horizontal strand until there was more support across both buildings, and the entire collection looked more like, well, a web. Only then did he shoot out a strand towards the middle of the bridge he created, and let them swing over to it.
Their position was now directly over the creature’s mouth. “These will hold, right?” Wade asked, wrapping his own arm around Peter’s side for support.
“Yeah. It’s a stronger formula I perfected. It could hold up an elephant.”
Wade nodded, still not taking his hand off Peter’s side, or his eyes off the creature looming below. The abominable case of threatening yonic symbolism had lost its legs in the transformation, but it still managed to move by swaying its body. And that jaw could still seize up, snapping at the air. Wade did not want to get caught between those teeth, and he had the sneaking suspicion that a tiny bomb made by Tony Stark wasn’t a run of the mill incendiary, either.
Peter stuck himself to the web he created before attaching a web to Wade’s back. “I’m going to lower you down, okay?” Wade grimaced, but didn’t say anything. His hand was still glued to Peter’s side. “...You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
“No, but I am afraid of dangling over a giant metaphor for being afraid of vaginas because you never knew your own mother.”
“...Should I go down instead?”
Wade sighed. Between the two of them, he could probably live through whatever crazy shit would happen once the bomb went off. “No, I’ll go. Just make sure to give us both distance once this goes in - Stark said it wasn’t fully tested.”
“Got it.”
“And don’t drop me.”
“Never.”
Wade nodded, and let go. He was expecting a jerk of the webbing, but Peter did as he said, lowing him down, swiftly but carefully as he drifted closer to the creature. The web got so long he started to slowly dangle in the wind. “Ugh, this is not something I want to see up close,” he groused, digging into one of his pouches and pulling out the bomb. He stared at it. The orb was black, but in a strange, unfathomable way, like looking into the unknowable depths of the ocean, or of space. “Hope it works.” He waited for the creature’s mouth to open wide, before he lobbed it in, and the bomb disappeared. “Alright.” He tugged on the web. “Pull me up!”
Before he could get very far, however, the creature seized up again, its mouth snapping viciously at Wade’s heels. Wade pulled his feet up, but the mouth still chased him, teeth gnashing. On instinct he kicked out when the teeth got too close for comfort, and a spike of blistering pain went through him. “Augh! When is that bomb going to fucking work?! Is it on a timer?” As it opened its mouth to bite down yet again, Wade saw a spreading darkness from within, and the base of the monster seemed to be collapsing in on itself. Peter pulled him up, but the monster wasn’t deterred, snapping through the webbing like it was a few pesky threads.
The younger man grabbed Wade around the waist again and swung the two of them to the edge of another building, and further away still, the monster’s deafening screams drowning out the noise of Wade’s racing pulse.
Too far away to catch its prey, the creature continued to thrash around. “What is that explosive doing?” Wade asked, looking over Peter’s shoulder.
“I think it might be falling into some sort of… black hole? It’s being sucked up into nothing.” It was true - most of the monster’s mass was gone, its mouth opening into a deep void, until even that had vanished, and the eldritch abomination ceased to exist entirely, disappearing from sight.
Wade felt the pair of them relax in unison. He could hear Peter breathe, and open his mouth to say something, only for a renewed force of suction to kick up. “Right, black hole,” Peter said, frantically. He held on tighter to Wade as large piles of debris were sucked into a central point of nothingness. Wade held onto Peter with both arms, and he could feel the pressure grow even stronger, abandoned cars and giant masses of concrete left on the street being dragged forward.
With a yelp, Peter came unstuck from the building, the web still attached to the roof snapping, too. Wade was left to hold on as Peter scrabbled for purchase, pained grunts and the sound of fingers scraping on nothing, the ground fast approaching below.
Wade pulled harder where his arms were around Peter’s waist and flipped them as the other man doing anything he could to slow them both down. They hit the jagged pavement, and Wade felt his skull and spine crack painfully on impact.
Peter was over him, sticking to the ground, boxing Wade in to stop him from being sucked into the void. Wind and concrete and metal flew overhead, narrowly missing the pair of them every time. Wade opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but for a frightening moment, even the air around them was being sucked away.
And just as suddenly as it started, it stopped, all the debris in the air dropping with a crash around them. The lack of a gravitational pull meant Peter suddenly pitched forward, nearly hitting Wade in this nose. They stared at each other.
“I’m glad you didn’t decide to jump into that thing with the bomb on you,” Peter said.
“Me too. Thanks for being a passable spotter, by the way.”
“I was more than passable - I saved your life.”
“True, but if my calculations are correct, you definitely -” Wade felt along his leg, “did not save my right leg from the knee down.”
“You were kicking it.”
“What did you expect me to do?”
“Do you kick sharks attacking you, too?”
“I mean, maybe. Why, do you regularly fight sharks? What’s the Great White population like in Queens?”
“About thirty-nine percent,” Peter said.
“That’s not what I meant, and why do you even know that? Why would you need to know that?” Peter just scoffed. “I have the suspicion you’re rolling your eyes at me.”
“Guess you just know me too well,” Peter shot back. Again, Wade had the uncanny feeling that Peter was smiling at him. He could see it so easily; bright teeth set into a narrow face that was flushed from swinging through the air. He coughed.
“Thanks for not dropping me, though.”
“I’d never drop you.”
“I don’t think you can promise that.”
“I just did, didn’t I? I’m trying to stick to my word better than… before.” Wade bit the inside of his cheek, and after another prolonged moment of staring, Peter looked up. “Should we join the party?” He stood up, standing at Wade’s side instead of laying on top of him.
“Sure.” Wade stretched, his back cracking audibly. The back of his head was still sore, but he was pretty sure everything was healed - aside from his missing leg.
Peter held out his hand to help Wade up. He took it, leaning against the younger man’s side as they slowly worked their way towards where the Avengers had gathered.
“Well, that was something,” Dr. Banner had re-emerged, and other than being covered in dust and missing all of his clothes aside from a torn pair of shorts he had to hold up, he looked fine. Widow nodded at him - or Spider-man, or both of them - and Hawkeye twitched his mouth to adopt a possibly friendly attempt at a smile.
“Nice save,” Barton said to Spider-man. He nodded to Wade’s missing limb. “Even if you missed a spot.”
“Hey, I’m ninety percent here,” Wade said, “the rest of my leg is probably, I don’t know, Detroit? Space? A garbage dump in China?” He turned towards Stark. He had flipped his face plate up. His lip was busted, and he had some dark bruising around his cheek.
“It’s a contained explosion that allows for a small rip between this chunk of the universe and another area that happens to be somewhat close to a supermassive black hole. The radius was only supposed to get rid of that thing, but it went a bit further than that. The important part is that it’s now somewhere far, far away, where it can float around aimlessly and think about what it’s done.”
“More like go through the terrifying process of spaghettification,” Dr. Banner supplied. “You should probably test that further before using it again.”
“And warn everyone involved about what that thing does, maybe?” Peter added. Wade silently agreed. He had a sick feeling he could probably survive in the cold vacuum of space, running out of oxygen, asphyxiating, reviving again… until he also got torn apart on a cellular level once he hit the black hole’s event horizon. He shuttered.
“I would have liked a heads up on that also,” Cap said, raising his hand slightly.
“I told Banner,” Stark defended.
“I don’t think the Hulk would’ve been able to run all of that by us in the heat of battle,” Widow said.
“The point is,” Stark pressed, “the thing’s gone. Harvester is still in prison, and that gun is still with us. Mission accomplished. And it also helped with some of the clean up.” He gestured to the cracked road around them that was mostly free of debris.
Rogers jutted his thumb over his shoulder. “Then if we’re done here, I’m going to talk to some of the officers, tell them the threat’s gone.” He started moving, briefly stopping next to Wade and Peter. “Thanks again for your help - both of you.” He flashed them both a friendly smile and started moving again, down the street where a crowd of police cars had started to accumulate.
“We have a debriefing to do,” Widow said, throwing her arm over Barton’s shoulder, steering them away, “if anyone needs a ride…” She glanced pointedly at the Stark.
“Yeah, sure. I know Pepper’s going to make me talk to the governor about another hefty donation to the city’s road infrastructure.” He grimaced as he spoke, “just give me a minute and I’ll catch up.”
“Sure,” Widow said, she and Barton starting to walk off.
“Banner, you coming?” Barton asked.
“Uh, I’m gonna,” Banner gestured to the two agents, “So. Bye.” He walked off, his gait surprisingly smooth for someone walking over cracked concrete and broken bits of construction without shoes.
Wade shifted his stance slightly, looking down at his leg. Peter shifted with him as he moved. The limb had stopped bleeding a while ago, and there was already decent progress in the regrowing department, the skin of what would soon be a new foot coming in fresh and pink and unscarred. Stark stared at them both.
“So, did you need a ride or were you just going to take the Spider-man express?”
“As fun as a sleepover at Avenger’s Tower sounds,” he started, “I have somewhere to be.” Well. Not really. But he didn’t just want to leave Cable while the guy was still skulking around on a rooftop somewhere.
“Leaving again?” Stark asked.
Wade tilted his head. “Again?”
“You never answered when I contacted you. Figured you were…” He gestured. “Off doing something.”
“Just out of town. Helping some mutants, maybe traveled into the future slightly. You know how it is.”
“Was that why you weren’t around?” Peter asked abruptly.
“For the most part,” Wade said. Stark hummed.
“Right, well, I hate small talk, so I’ll make this quick. Great work team, blah blah blah - Wilson, answer your phone next time you aren’t pulling some Interstellar nonsense, got it?”
“Uh, right, yeah. No problem.”
“Good. Now I need to see some SHIELD agents about a ride.” With that, he too started to pick his way through the battle’s debris. It was strange to see Stark suited up and walking, and he and Spider-man silently watched until the red and gold armor disappeared down the street.
“How’s your leg?” Peter asked.
Wade flexed it. “It’s getting there. If you need to go somewhere, that’s fine.”
“I can take you up there until you heal.” Peter pointed up. “If you want, I mean. The cops are starting to come over and it’s kind of my fault that you - uh. Yeah.”
“Hey, I kicked it didn’t I?” Wade could hear a collection of voices getting closer as the police were allowed into the area. He sighed. “Fine. Take me up.” Peter put his arm around Wade and hauled him up onto the roof of a building that was mostly intact. Wade sat on the edge of the roof, gloved fingers pressing into the sensitive patches of fresh skin to test it.
It was quiet, now. All the civilians had been cleared out before Wade even arrived on the scene, and the police would be establishing a perimeter. There was no one else around, except for - well. Him. Wade took his hand away from his leg and rested it on his lap, knowing his mind ought to be racing in a panic, but unable to come up with anything at all.
“Hey,” Peter spoke up, “that menacing figure that just jumped from that rooftop to ours is your friend right? And not a murderous assailant?” Wade looked back up.
“We’re not friends,” Cable said immediately.
“No, we definitely are, he’s just very touchy about it,” Wade said.
Cable grunted. “I need to get going. I don’t have much of this lunarium left to work with.”
“Lunarium?” Peter asked.
“I had a little side quest,” Wade said, “don’t worry about it.” He looked over at Cable. “So this is it - till next time you come barging in and need me to tag along on some super friends outing with you?”
“Sure,” Cable said, in the way that someone agreed to something and had very little intention of acting on it. Ever the diplomat.
“Oh, uh,” Peter interrupted, “thanks for that save back there, by the way.” He stuck his hand out, but Cable didn’t shake it. He rubbed the back of his neck instead.
{Peter is getting curved too many times today.}
[Yeah, but it's funny.]
Cable stared at Peter, an unreadable expression on his face. He glanced at Wade for a split second. “Spider-man, huh? Interesting.” There was a hint of amusement to his tone now. He was still looking at Peter, but Wade suddenly had the feeling Cable was making that remark to him.
[He’s from the future. He must know something we don’t know.]
{What, do we become sworn enemies or something?}
[Does Spider-man turn evil?]
{Plot twist!}
“Uh, yep. That’s me. Friendly neighborhood Spider-man at your service, uh?”
“Cable,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll run into you again.” He held Wade’s gaze. “Until then.” He walked further along the roof, using his metal arm to break off the padlock of the service entrance, and disappeared into the building.
[Oh, he could do that now. ]
Peter watched Cable leave, before slowly turning back to Wade. “Nice friend. You didn’t, uh, tell him about me, did you?”
“He’s from the future,” Wade said with a hand wave. “Must’ve known about you from his time.”
{Before everyone apparently died, of course.}
[Yeah, how did that happen? Cable never really said much about that.]
{Definitely climate change.}
Peter whipped his head over his shoulder again. “Doesn’t you… telling me that potentially mess up the timeline, or something?”
“Who knows. He told me, and he didn’t suddenly cease to exist. Though I don’t think time travel works like that for him anyway..." He frowned thoughtfully.
"So how does it work for him?”
Wade shrugged a shoulder and glanced down at his foot again. The skin was pink and raw, but his foot and calf were nearly formed again. He'd be walking soon . “He has a device to ‘slide through time’, whatever that means. We were looking for some alternative energy sources he could use to power it, but things got, uh, weird. He transported us here and also sent us into the future.”
“...How far in the future?”
“A month.”
Peter nodded, and slowly walked towards Wade, sitting down next to him.
“A month.”
“More or less.” Wade took out his phone. “I have way more missed calls then I thought. And texts. And e-mails.” Peter tensed beside him.
“Yeah, about that…”
Wade hopped to his feet, wincing as his naked foot met the ground. It felt a little weak, and the skin burned under the rough material of the rooftop, but he just dusted off his suit and bounced in place. “Alright, well, it’s been fun, but I’m gonna beat it. Places to go, people to see, all that.” He made a single step forward, then another.
“Wade, wait.”
He could keep walking. He could just… not look back, put one foot in front of another, and then he could go somewhere else - somewhere that wasn’t here, where he wouldn’t have to stare at Peter and talk to Peter and get reminded of Peter - well, too late for that.
“Wade, I owe you an explanation,” Peter tried again, talking at Wade’s back.
“No!” Wade coughed, shook his head. “No, you don’t. It’s fine, Webs. I’m just gonna - head back.”
“What I did wasn’t - it wasn’t right. I know you’re mad. You have every right to feel that way. I just - you’ve been MIA for a month, Wade. I couldn’t find you anywhere, no other hero in town heard from you, I thought something awful happened.”
“Hey, it didn’t, just a quick flash back to the future. And even if it did, I’d get over it. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?” He waved his hand. “It’s fine, really. I mean," he swallowed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was trying to crawl up his throat and escape, “your identity is important, can’t trust anyone, people you get close to die, et cetera et cetera. Typical hero stuff.” His shoulders slumped. “And I know we just don’t see heroism the same way and probably never will, people have a right to doubt if I’m going to stay good or if I’m going to fuck it up - which I probably will, knowing me. And it will definitely be catastrophic when that happens, so if you didn’t want to put your life and safety into the hands of a possible-future-anti-villain then you know, I get it.”
“Wade -”
“And I mean, spying on me while I was spying on you was a dick move but it’s also something I would have definitely done in your position, so, I don’t know what that means to you, but I guess that’s something I can move past. And yeah, the whole fake dating thing - it’s funny how that trope gets used all the time and it always seems to end well in every other scenario, but who doesn’t like a good deconstruction of story lines once in a while?” He put wrung his hands together as he babbled.
“No, listen, Wade I just -”
“So I guess if we ever wanted to meet up in the future it’d definitely be a Batman-Catwoman type situation where you’d let me get close to an extent and we could shack up on a rooftop once in a while but our own senses of justice means we could never give any meaningful relationship a serious try and -”
“Wade, I’m sorry.” Wade’s ears twitched, picking up on a particular sound. Peter’s voice was different this time. Not as deep as it had just been. Somehow, he sounded more like Peter. He turned around to see the man holding the mask in his hands. Wade’s eyes widened at this last trick; why he never matched Peter’s voice to Spider-man’s.
The hero had once mentioned, in passing, that he had a police scanner in his mask so he could hear about any crimes going on in the city. A small voice modulator wasn’t out of the question, either, he realized.
He also realized this was the first time he was hearing Peter’s voice - his real voice - today. No other hero that he knew of, except for Stark, inadvertently, had heard this voice. He fought against how his chest tightened at the sight and sound of Peter; he didn’t want to do this, his muscles ached and his foot was still raw, but he just wanted to run away.
He didn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said again, tugging and stretching the mask in his hands. “I’m really, really sorry. I -” He sighed, mouth tugging down. “I jump the gun. A lot. I make a split second decision and go along with it for way longer than its viable and I get into a lot of trouble because of that, as Spider-man sometimes but almost always as… me.
"At first… I mean, it was hard to get a read on you - on Deadpool. Good motives sometimes, other times… not so much. So I didn’t know if I could trust you,” Peter’s voice grew quieter, trailing off like he didn’t want to say that last part out loud.
“That’s an antihero thing, I guess,” Wade defended weakly. “So when I told you what Stark wanted me to do, you just wanted information - to see if I was really on the up and up?” Peter swallowed, looking pained, and nodded. Again Wade was pushing against himself, trying not to feel anything, trying to make himself believe that it didn’t matter, anyway, what Peter thought of him.
“That’s what I did at first. And I tried to get your attention by flirting with you, but then things started to change. Well, you didn’t change. I did. I realized things about you that I never did before.”
“My amazing sense of humor?”
The edge of Peter's mouth twitched. “You always had a great sense of humor.” He frowned again. “I never hated you Wade,” he started, “but when I actually got to know you, I found someone who who I shared so much common ground with. And you’re a better person than you let anyone believe. And I could probably stand here for the rest of the day telling you why I went from barely trusting you to wanting to be with you - but the point is,” Peter’s eyes flashed, and his jaw worked, “by the time you showed me your real face and I kissed you, that’s all I wanted to do.”
Peter held his gaze. He had stopped fiddling with his mask. All was still.
Wade moved.
Just those two steps back, until he was in front of Peter.
“If all that is true,” Wade started, “why did you lie?”
“Only two people in the world know who I really am,” Peter said. “Well, three now. I did think about telling you, when you snuck into my room, but I once you left I just kept thinking of all these worst case scenarios and I froze up. I do trust you, Wade, and I’ve always believed in giving people second chances. It’s just, people who know who I am always get hurt. Every time.”
“Well, that usually doesn’t stop me for long,” Wade said, shaking his now healed leg for emphasis. Peter smiled again.
“You can still feel angry and betrayed and - whatever else. But please,” Peter reached out, and gingerly took Wade’s hand, “don’t just run away. Keep your distance if you have to, but when you just left without a trace I - I was scared I wasn’t going to see you ever again. That I ruined a lot of things for you, not just us.”
Wade swallowed, but there was that feeling of something moving and forming a lump in his throat. “I can’t promise I won’t have to go somewhere on a mission somewhere else,” he managed, “but if I leave, it will be because I have somewhere to be, I’m not just trying to get away.” Peter smiled again, dark eyes brightening in a way that drew attention to how pale and thin his face looked - more than Wade remembered.
The younger man held Wade’s hand even tighter before letting go, and held his hand out to Wade.
“Wanna start over?” Peter asked. Wade thought about it for a moment, and shook his head. Peter’s hopeful expression dropped along with his hand.
Wade stepped even closer, and pulled Peter into a hug. “Starting over means forgetting everything,” he said, as Peter’s arms went around his middle and held him tightly. “We can’t just ignore everything that happened, you know?”
“But we can move forward together, right?” Peter said, mouth pressed against Wade’s ear.
“Exactly.” He stepped back. Peter was smiling - no, actually grinning, this time, even as he tried to nonchalantly rub at his eye with the heel of his hand. He let out a nervous laugh, and Wade smiled back. He wanted to move closer again, cradle Peter’s face in his hands, kiss him until everything else fell away. But he couldn’t. Not yet.
“Hey, none of that,” Wade said gently, even as his voice came out rather strangled, “this is good, right?”
“Better than I thought it would turn out,” Peter said with a laugh. “I really did think you were going to run away.”
“Me? No, that’s the old Wade Wilson.” He threw his arm over Peter’s shoulder and walked him towards the service entrance. “Mind if we take the stairs? My leg needs to readjust.”
“Sure - and then food, right? I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” Wade teased.
“Well, so are you, so are you coming or not?”
Peter had his reasons, and Wade could understand them and forgive him for that, but there was still a whisper of doubt in the back of his mind - the anxiety that this was an even longer con waiting to happen. It probably wouldn’t come to pass, but he needed to know, needed an absolute certainty that he could trust Peter with everything he had. And once that happened he could lean in and finally close that gap.
“Yeah, sure.”
Peter grinned at him, before pulling his mask back on and hopping onto the banister. “Great! Race you down!”
Wade called after him, but Peter was already leaping down towards the bottom of the stairs, laughter floating up as he went. “You’re still paying!” he shouted as he began his descent, his leg fully healed and taking him down easily, one foot in front of the other, relentless and quick on the metal steps below, pushing ahead.
The two of them weren’t there yet, but Wade had a feeling they’d make it.
One day.