Chapter Text
“What the fuck?”
Peter couldn’t exactly abort mid swing, so he followed through. The body of the goon he’d been swinging around in enthusiastic circles went sailing out the window, joining however many of his brethren.
{It’s a loooooong way down!}
Bucky stared at Stark impassively as he dropped his own goon from the window. Mimic was busy with Mal, her hands creating a makeshift bandage around his wound that was, somehow, better than his webs. Loki was still off to the side, cleaning his knives.
Loki explained he’d been caught unawares enough that the Hydra goons had managed to get the bracelets on him, but Loki had grinned sharklike when he added that they apparently thought that that had been enough to count him out of the fight. Peter had laughed at the thought, and even Mimic had snorted at that.
Peter had broken the bracelets, since apparently when Loki was in the cuffs Peter was stronger than a god which was thrilling, but apparently they hadn’t just been magic and strength cancelling – they’d been magic draining, too. Which meant Loki couldn’t heal his own wounds, and definitely couldn’t heal Mal.
Which had left them sitting around, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the Avengers to return, until White had pointed out what a mess they’d made and Yellow had said they should clean up. Earn some brownie points, or something.
So here they were, cleaning up. Bucky dropped another body out the window, expression unchanged as Stark made a strangled noise.
{‘Oh way down we go, go, go’~}
“Where’s Bruce?” Peter asked instead of answering, because wasn’t it obvious? “Mal’s got a stab wound the size of your ego and he’s been bleeding for a bit. Kinda hoping he can help with that, being a doctor and all.”
[We stopped it as best we could.]
{But we were also busy with killing bad guys, so not the best first aid ever!}
“We did our best in a shitty situation,” Peter agreed, and then fixed Stark with a look that had his whole ‘righteous fury’ storming over stop in its tracks. “Loki’s outta juice so I couldn’t just ask him, if that’s why you look so mad.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Mimic snapped. “Hydra came. Stop automatically blaming him when shit hits the fan!”
“I didn’t say anything,” Stark protested. Mimic shot him a look.
“Besides, Hydra didn’t even know I was here apparently,” Peter added smugly. “The whole thing was very divide and conquer. Take out the weakest link, except the weakest link got a bodyguard, ya feel?” He indicated himself with a cheeky wave.
{Mal’s still bleeding!}
Peter nodded. “Yeah, so Bruce?”
“I’m right here,” the man himself replied, striding over to where Mimic was crouched. “We need to move him to the med bay.” Bruce flicked a glance around the room. “I suppose I don’t have to worry about treating anyone else?”
“Nope,” Peter replied cheerfully.
“We killed all of them, except that,” Bucky said, gesturing to the body at Peter’s feet.
{Poor kid.}
[It can’t have been alive for more than a couple of months.]
“Basically an infant,” Peter murmured, nudging his clone with his foot. “Still, better it than me.”
{If you die, so do we!}
[Not to mention if it lived it would probably have been even harder to keep it safe than keeping Mal safe has turned out to be,] White muttered with a sigh.
Peter cocked his head. “You think we would have kept it safe?”
[It’s basically your kid.]
{Deadbeat dads are not cool.}
[Plus, Mimic said there’s at least five more.]
Yellow whined. {Why are they putting this sort of responsibility on us? We didn’t even consent to this!}
With a considering hum, Peter glanced back at the body of his clone. That expression, terrified but accepting, raised the hair on the back of his neck. Peter would never have such an expression on his face if someone shot him dead. Well, if they tried. And if they did try, and they would fail… Peter wouldn’t wait to put an even worse expression on their face.
[Imagine what they did to it when they made it.]
“Don’t have to,” Peter replied shortly. “I remember exactly what Tiny did to me. It must have talked like me, if they removed its tongue too.”
{Maybe it had boxes too!}
“‘What’s in your head, in your head?’” Peter sang, crouching next to the clone. He brushed his fingers along the scales scattered across the clone’s skin, finding the edges to be absurdly sharp. He stuck his bleeding finger into his mouth.
{‘Zombie, zombie, zomb-eh-eh-eh~’}
[Kind of not a great song to sing to a dead body.]
Peter hummed around his finger, pulling it out with a pop. The bleeding had already stopped. “Do you think they were able to replicate my healing factor?” he asked aloud, twisting his healed finger around.
The boxes were silent. Obviously, it wasn’t something either had considered.
Bucky appeared next to him. “What do you want to do with that?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly.
Peter rocked on the balls of his feet. “I don’t know. I’ve never been shot in the head. We’ve come back from a lot of things, but we don’t use guns. Lacks… finesse.”
[Sure, that’s what it is.]
{Shut up, pal.}
“Headshots usually scramble whatever brainwashing they used,” Bucky offered. Peter didn’t need to ask how he knew that.
[There seems to be a lot of people that can survive a headshot,] White noted.
{We’re all evolving! We’re all Pokémon!} Yellow exclaimed. {I’m still the best though. Obviously.}
“It’s not even old enough for them to have done any brainwashing,” Peter replied, ignoring the box. “They could have just raised it to be this.”
{Do we get to raise it to not be that?}
[We’re not even sure it’s gonna wake up.]
{We’ve got at least five more shots, baby!}
Peter grabbed the clone and stood up. “Med bay for now, I suppose. Don’t want to yeet it out the window in case it wakes up and goes back.”
[But if this bitch empty…]
{Yeet!}
Bucky followed him. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you yet,” he explained when Peter shot a look at him.
[You should have thanked Mal.]
{We don’t do nice things just for anyone.}
“We wouldn’t have even known you were there if Mal hadn’t told us,” Peter said. “You should thank him if you haven’t already.”
[I mean, we knew the Winter Soldier was a Hydra assassin.]
“Didn’t particularly know he was unwilling,” Peter pointed out as they entered the med bay. “Assassins get paid bank, not mind control. Usually, anyway.”
{Blank eyes are kind of an assassin thing too.}
Peter dropped the clone onto a free bed, arranging it into an approximation of a comfortable position. With the hole in its head, there was probably nothing comfortable about the position, but he was pretty sure he got points for trying.
“And we didn’t really want to mess with the Winter Soldier, either. Even if you did wok for Hydra, aren’t you old like Captain America?”
He hadn’t meant anything by it, other than an acknowledgment that Bucky had probably been around long enough that his knowledge could threaten Peter in a fight. But Bucky flinched when Peter mentioned Captain America.
[What.]
“The.”
{Fuck!}
“Do you know Captain America?” Peter demanded, suddenly excited. “Like, know know him?”
{Oh my god do you call him Steve in your head???}
[Did you guys fight together? Was it long? Hard? Who finished on top?]
“See, White, now you could be talking about something else.” Peter winked.
Yellow giggled. {I’ll bet it was long and hard!}
“But who finished on top?” Peter shot back with a grin.
{Yoooo, super soldier vs super soldier? Winter Soldier has to lose to Cap, right?}
[But can you imagine Cap being loose enough to want to stick it in?]
“Can you imagine Cap loose?”
“Can you not?” Mimic interrupted cheerfully. Peter glanced over his shoulder, having not registered her presence. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Bruce was studiously ignoring him, focused on Mal’s wound, who was unconscious. Stark had trailed after them, moaning about his Tower and ranting about having to dodge bodies falling from the sky – that sounded fun, why hadn’t Peter been invited to that? – but now he was just staring at Peter a little blankly. Loki, who had apparently followed Stark, was looking at Peter like he couldn’t quite decide if he wanted to know or not.
{Buzzkill!} Yellow yelled at Mimic.
Peter glanced back down at his clone. “Well, if ‘Heroes’ taught us anything,” he muttered, peering into the bloody bullet hole, “it’s that head wounds can’t heal until whatever caused it is removed.”
[Makes a hell of a lot of sense,] White said.
{Yeah, when you think about it – wait, are you going to use your fingers?}
Peter froze at the disgusted tone. “What else am I supposed to use?” he demanded.
[We’re in a place that probably has medical shit,] White pointed out.
{Like forceps and tweezers and biceps.}
White sighed. [One of those things just doesn’t belong here.]
{There’s still a lot of biceps,} Yellow said happily.
Mimic cleared her throat, and handed him a long pair of forceps. Peter pouted and took them.
“How do you two remember things like this?” he whined. “I’m the brains and the brawn of this operation, remember?”
[We’re what you lack.]
{Side splitting hilarity.}
[General knowledge of all things.]
{A strong moral compass!}
Peter snorted, using the forceps to pull the wicked looking bullet from the clone’s head. “Your moral compass is firmly pointed to hell.”
[It ain’t as flimsy as yours.]
{Or as changeable!}
Loud, striding footsteps were approaching the med bay. Peter glanced at the door just as Captain America and Wade burst into the room.
Peter felt his breath vanish.
[Abort, abort, abort!] White screeched.
{Holy hell Batman,} Yellow cooed. {I’ve missed the suit.}
Wade was fully kitted, including his katanas and guns, although his suit was littered with enough holes to make Peter frown automatically. Sure, he was healed, but the holes were evidence that he’d put himself in the firing line yet again, and Peter was pretty sure they’d talked about that.
At some point, probably.
{And if we didn’t, we’re telling him pronto.}
While Peter was busy glaring at the holes in Wade’s suit, Wade had set his eyes on the dead clone of Peter x Liz, his mask hiding his initial reaction. But whatever that reaction was didn’t really matter, because the next thing Peter knew, his wrist was being very slowly crushed and Wade was dragging him from the med bay.
“If it wakes up, it can’t be the new me!” Peter screeched as he was bodily dragged from the room. “Been there, done that!” The door shut behind them with all sorts of finality, but this time Peter wasn’t giddily about to test new formulas.
[Is he done ignoring us?]
{Wade, baby, we’ve missed you!}
[You are utterly hopeless.]
{I know you are, I said you are, so what am I?}
Peter didn’t know where Wade was taking him. He didn’t know why. He didn’t really notice much beyond the warm, strong grip on his wrist, the broad shoulders that took up so much of his sight.
[What happened to aborting?]
{That was all you. We want to climb this man like a fucking tree.}
[That’s because I’m the only one with a functioning brain.]
{Want writer lady to give me back my brain for a hot minute?}
[…I’d rather her not,] White said venomously, somehow also managing to sound like he was pouting.
“Then shut the fuck up,” Peter said pleasantly.
{But I want my brain back,} Yellow whined.
“At some point in the future I’m sure you’ll get it,” Peter told the box. “Right now, I need my brain, so can it.”
Peter tripped around the last corner, straight into Wade’s arms. He grumbled against the leather, but otherwise stood and took the hug like a champ.
[Or a sad, touch-deprived gay boy,] White hissed.
“I’m not gay,” Peter muttered back. “I’m whatever floats my goat.”
[Denial is a river in Egypt.]
“Peter,” Wade sighed, his arms tight around Peter’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“What happened to you?” Peter shot back. “Last I saw, your suit wasn’t full of bullet holes.” He didn’t mention when he’d last seen Wade, because that would mean admitting to watching the Avengers from the vents when they’d had their debriefing and went on their merry way. Basically, he’d been stalking the hero.
Was anyone surprised?
{He smells like he’s been fighting.}
[They were on a mission, dumbass. That’s why Hydra thought they could come in all gung ho.]
“But we were here,” Peter said. “Put a sizeable dent in their shitty plan, we did. Plus, I’m sure they thought the Winter Soldier would be easier to force back into compliance, but he showed them!”
“I was on a mission. They had more firepower than Cap was expecting. I stepped up to make sure my team didn’t get hurt.”
“Self-sacrificing bullshit,” Peter snapped, suddenly so angry he could taste it. He slipped out of Wade’s grip, snatching the mask off his face while he was at it. “You know I don’t care about your team. You know this,” he gestured wildly to Wade’s suit and the bullet holes, “is high on my list of Not Okay Things. It’s a short fucking list, but this is like top two.”
When he accidentally met Wade’s eyes, he felt his breath catch in his throat. They were warm and sad and just a lot, considering Peter had pretty much given up on having Wade look at him like that ever again.
[Maybe taking the mask was a bad idea,] White whimpered.
{Helloooo handsome,} Yellow cheered.
“I know that,” Wade said quietly, his eyes ensnaring Peter. “Just like you have to know that seeing you like that – after you’d just tried to kill yourself – is top of my Not Okay Things list.”
[He did this in retaliation?] White demanded.
{This isn’t retaliation,} Yellow said. {And if it is, it’s deserved.}
“Retaliation is not a healthy coping mechanism,” Peter said, wagging his finger at Wade. He broke eye contact with an effort. “I should know, revenge has been mine for… a while.”
{Revenge is the best!}
Peter examined his nails. “And we are the best at revenge.”
Wade sighed. “Peter, it wasn’t that I did it because you did that. I did it to keep my team safe. I had a reason that wasn’t to get back at you.”
Peter bit back his initial sneering, scathing response. Something in Wade’s posture made him pause. He thought about what Mimic had said, what Bruce had said. He thought about everything White and Yellow had told him, everything he’d said back to them and everything he’d been trying to force himself to believe.
He let his shoulders drop, let every bit of shame and frustration and rage that had been eating at the already tattered edges of his mind show through.
“It wasn’t to get back at you either,” Peter said, his voice resigned and so fucking tired. “I can’t forgive myself for hurting Mimic. I can’t forgive myself for killing you. There’s – there’s everything else I’ve ever done,” he levelled his hand at head height, “and then there’s that.” He gestured to the ceiling.
“You know that wasn’t you,” Wade offered.
“No,” Peter snapped. “Whatever reasons I gave you, whatever reasons I gave myself, they’re not holding up in court. I can’t forgive myself for what I did. I’ve been trying, but what happened in the lab… Obviously, trying isn’t working.”
[‘I tried so hard.’]
{‘And got so far.’}
“‘But in the end, it doesn’t even matter,’” Peter finished bitterly.
Wade studied him. “So where does that leave us?”
Peter couldn’t help it – he laughed. It was an ugly, tragic thing. “Us?” he echoed. “What part of ‘I can’t forgive myself’ sounds like ‘I can totally get back together with you’?”
“Your solo coping obviously isn’t cutting it,” Wade pointed out. “Plus, you know Mimic’s not leaving you alone. I’m not letting her be the only one on your side.”
[No one is ever on our side.]
{They are!}
[Unless the other option is killing them,] White continued, ignoring Yellow.
“Been there, done that,” Peter muttered back.
“Not that Mimic would be the only one,” Wade continued. “Don’t tell the others, but I know for a fact you’ve got more people on your side than you think.”
“Considering the running assumption was zero, I’m no longer surprised,” Peter said dryly.
“I want to be there for you,” Wade maintained. “If you – if you’re not ready for a relationship, that’s fine. I can wait. I will wait.”
[What is wrong with him?] White demanded.
“Still trying to figure that out,” Peter muttered.
{He still loves us, there’s nothing wrong with him!}
“That’s just evidence that there is,” Peter hissed back.
[I’m with Spidey.]
{Of course you are. When we could have nice things but Spidey’s all sad and insecure, of course you side with him so we can’t have nice things.}
[We tried! It didn’t work!]
{You never tried. Don’t start now,} Yellow snapped sarcastically.
White huffed. [Fine, you tried and it didn’t work.]
“Peter,” Wade said, his hands stroking down Peter’s arms. When had he gotten so close? “I will wait. I want to wait. Well, I’d rather not have to, but I understand you’re struggling right now. I’m not forcing anything and I never will. I want you to want a relationship, and then we can go from there. If that never happens, I’ll be crushed, obviously, but I’ll deal with that myself. Maybe with a few of those big B&J’s ice cream tubs. You know, the ones that you feel full just looking at.”
There was just so much to think about. Peter’s feelings for Wade had never wavered, no matter what White thought or what he’d said himself. Wade was Wade.
“‘I’m not ready yet to let you go, oh, oh,’” Peter sang tremulously.
[‘Crawling like a worm, feeling low, low, low.’]
{‘All you’re gonna get is “no, no, no”!’}
“‘Hanging by a thread, at the end of my rope. I want you to stay, but I need space.’”
Wade shook his head, his hands still moving up and down Peter’s arms. “I’ve tried that. You just run off like everything around you is constantly on fire and I’m the reason. You’re not coping. With anything. And I’m – I can’t watch you tear yourself apart anymore.”
“Excuse you,” Peter snapped, recoiling. “I am the coolest of cucumbers. I am the most put together crazy assassin you’ve ever seen.”
Wade smiled. “Even then, darling, you’re the least put together person I know.”
“‘Darling’?” Peter repeated scathingly. “Well I never.”
Wade’s smile turned into a grin. “I love you, Peter. That’s never changed.”
Peter swallowed, the words thick in his throat. “I – you know, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Or, I hope I do. But nothing happens until you tell me we’re good, okay? You actually have to say it out loud. And mean it.”
“I got it,” Peter snapped. He sighed. “I got it,” he repeated, gentler.
[Here we go again,] White muttered, sounding resigned.
{Back on track, baby!} Yellow screeched.