Chapter Text
Peter had put it off for too long. He should’ve started this conversation the morning after Wade had gotten back, after Peter had “come out” for the second time. He should’ve emailed his thesis advisor that he’d been sick and needed to reschedule. He should’ve clung tighter to Wade in bed that following morning, remembered that revealing his secret identity to Wade Wilson — Deadpool, the Merc With the Mouth, his best friend and loving boyfriend — means that Wade deserves to hear why Peter had withheld something so important for so long. Spider-Man may get away with keeping his alter ego under wraps, but Peter Parker? Peter Parker is dating a super who happens to also be BFFs and crime-fighting partners with Spider-Man; it hardly feels fair that he’d excluded Wade from this particular truth after well over a year of companionship, several months of which have also been romantic.
He can’t put off discussing how it had made Wade feel any longer. Today’s the day they talk about it—
Except.
Wade keeps dodging him.
Not the sort of dodging that Spider-Man used to do when he’d first met Deadpool, when he’d tried his best to just leave the vicinity every time Deadpool had caught up to him. When he’d been distrustful and too willing to believe a bunch of other supers with their own hypocritical agendas regarding the masked mercenary. No, Wade ducks the conversation but he can’t stay away from Peter any more than Deadpool could’ve stayed away from Spider-Man.
“Wade,” Peter begins hesitantly four days after the reveal, barely 36 hours after their first rooftop sexcapade. He takes a seat at the kitchen island counter in boxers and a t-shirt, fuzzy blue socks on his feet and an equally fuzzy red blanket over his shoulders, a too-big cape that he tucks in over his knees. The brunet briefly wonders if he’d always managed to accidentally color-code himself as Spider-Man or if Deadpool’s penchant for Spidey merch was really to blame. Wade putters around the stove, setting up to make waffles; he owns two Belgian waffle irons, far too impatient to wait on one at a time despite the sheer size of even a singular waffle. “Can we talk? About my, uh. About Spider-Man?”
“I was thinking,” Wade says with his regular morning cheer, something Peter cannot remotely relate to, “blueberry today, chocolate chip on Friday?”
“Um, yeah,” Peter agrees, brow dipping. His pulse thrums in his throat and he tries again. “I just, I wanted to explain why I… waited so long?”
“I got so much deli roast beef, babe, I’m gonna make you the best French dip sammiches,” Wade goes on almost absentmindedly, remaining with his back the smaller man, who bites his lips tightly together. “Got a fuckin’ perfect baguette I picked up today.”
“You’ve already gone out?” Peter asks, effectively distracted. “It’s barely eight AM!”
“Ah, but now I can hang out with you aaaaall day,” Wade singsongs with a happy little sigh, finally turning around with a little green basket of blueberries in his hand. He grins at Peter and the younger man’s resolve melts into a smile of his own.
It goes like this for another twelve days: Peter tries to bring it up as diplomatically as he can and Wade dismisses, redirects, or fully manages to escape the room in a passably believable way. Or it would be believable, if the last time hadn’t been to supposedly pick up dry cleaning when Peter could quite literally turn his head and stare at the last pick up of Deadpool suits covered in plastic and hanging on the back of the bathroom door; Peter had mentally graded the effort as C-minus at best. Maybe if they hadn’t been in the bedroom, lounging on top of each other in the late afternoon, and Wade hadn’t used this excuse when he’d also barely had any clothes on. Maybe if he hadn’t needed to service the lie by hastily putting on civilian clothes and ducking out of the apartment, Peter would’ve been more inclined to buy it.
That one had sort-of — maybe hypocritically — hurt Peter’s feelings.
“Wade,” he says when they’re finally taking Halloween decorations down, the way some people wait well after the new year to take down Christmas trees and lights. It still amuses him that Wade had put window decals on the walls, leaving behind the vague, oily imprints of the shapes behind. He wonders if they should paint over or try to clean it off, doing his best to rearrange the gel decorations on the thin plastic sheets they’d come on so they can use them again next year. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’ll be with Wade next Halloween. There’s no doubt he’ll be with him for the foreseeable future, which is why he desperately wants to have this conversation and get it over with. Clear the air. Reassure his boyfriend and partner that he loves him with every part of who he is, even if it had taken him so damned long to share his complete self.
“Hm?” Wade hums, standing on a chair to take down a cutesy mobile of bats from the corner of the dining area. He looks down below his raised arm to smile serenely at Peter.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner and I really need to know how you felt about it and how you feel about it now because avoiding talking about what a dick I was is really stressing me out and I really care about you and I know I should’ve told you sooner and it was really shitty of me not to and I’m so sorry Wade, please, please talk to me,” Peter says all in a rush, needing to heave in a deep, staggered breath when he dares not interrupt his own verbal run-on sentence. The plastic clutched in his hands crinkles, a gravestone decal bent in half. “I love you so much, and I know I hurt you, and it’s kinda freaking me out that you haven’t had a reaction that wasn’t just— how horny you got day-of.”
Oh no, the stream of consciousness babble is really starting up. Peter’s chest tightens and his mouth goes dry and his rabbit heart tries to bust out between his ribs, and why is Wade just staring at him? Peter fumbles with the plastic sheet of bloody handprints and cemetery pieces and sets it on the dining table so he doesn’t drop it on the floor or crush it with his stupid sticky fingers, trying to compose himself long enough to speak a little more normally, control the pitch of his voice so it doesn’t jump an octave.
“I trust you more than anyone in the world and I just— stupidly, it— it’s so stupid but I couldn’t tell you, so I didn’t, but I should have, I know I should have! It wasn’t fair to just spring it on you and then just— just distract you with sex? I mean that’s not why I wanted to have sex, when we did, I just, it worked out that way, I swear, I—! Oh my god.” The world tilts for a second. “Oh my god, did I use you? Was I using you? Holy shit, did I manipulate you into having s—?” Peter goes on, starting to properly panic because why hadn’t he considered that he’d basically thrown down a massive, life-altering secret and then fucked Wade without actually giving him time to process?
Peter’s not really aware of what he’s doing with his hands until Wade is suddenly in front of him, interrupting his rambling and lowering them from the vicious grip he has in his own hair. His scalp aches and the brunet looks miserably up at Wade with guilt and shame and a horrible, icky prickling under his skin. He can’t really remember how to breathe and Wade’s neutral expression isn’t really helping; the fact that notably mouthy Wade Wilson has been silent during Peter’s ranting is also throwing him for a loop. He flexes his fingers uncomfortably, biting his tongue and looking at where Wade’s big warm hands gently hold his wrists.
“Please say something,” Peter croaks, because now his throat is as dry and sticky as his cottonmouth and this isn’t a comfortable, companionable silence like the ones he’s used to when both of them are able to shut up around each other and just be.
“Pete,” Wade says quietly, far too gentle considering what Peter had done and how long he’d basically jerked Wade around. Somehow, Wade not yelling at him makes him more nervous. “I’m… yeah, I’m upset. I was upset.”
Peter focuses on Wade’s words and the way his expression is too soft, his hands on Peter’s skin too careful, just holding him motionlessly — not squeezing, or digging nails in, or pushing Peter away. But he deserves all of that, Wade should be furious and maybe even should’ve broken up with him for lying and definitely, totally manipulating the mercenary and abusing his kindness and generosity and affection and—
“Aw, Petey, don’t cry,” Wade murmurs delicately, but Peter can only feel worse guilt because he shouldn’t cry, he shouldn’t be allowed to feel upset that Wade had been upset. Big fat tears of shame and anxiety and cold, impending loneliness start spilling out of him and blurring his vision. Maybe he won’t be with Wade next Halloween after all, how could he be so selfish to think this happiness could last after what he’d pulled? And Wade — too kind, too patient, sweetheart Wade fucking Wilson — hauls him forward and wraps the smaller man up in his arms, cradling Peter’s head to his shoulder and running soothing hands up and down his back. “Hey, c’mon, Pumpkin, I… I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding it, I know you’ve been tryna talk to me about this,” he says at the younger man’s ear. Peter can’t see his face to read his expression, but he dares to press his wet face to Wade’s warm skin, only a thin layer of cotton between him and Wade’s familiar scars. Scars he may never have the privilege of touching again, any minute now. “Can we sit down, Sugar Bear?”
Peter’s shoulders tremble with the rest of his stupid, traitorous body when he nods against Wade’s chest, arms weak as he gratefully returns the embrace. Wade hesitates only a moment before squeezing around Peter and simply picking him up off his feet. Miraculously, Peter chokes on a small laugh and the larger man brings them to the couch, turning to sit back and settle his spider in his lap in a familiar move. The way Wade can encompass him without making him feel caged or unsafe is bewildering. Peter still can’t wrap his head around how good it feels to be smaller in comparison to someone like Wade; it’s even better when Wade makes himself small for Peter, and he really, really hopes they can have that after this. That he can have Wade curled in his own lap and give him the comfort of being held the way Wade holds Peter. Sniffling, Peter curls his fingers at Wade’s back and pulls himself back so he can look at his mercenary, look into his beautiful hazel eyes and suck it the hell up so he can apologize like an adult and try to come up with a way to make it up to Wade if he still wants Peter after all this.
“Hi,” Wade greets with a little smile when Peter’s woeful puppy dog eyes, still glistening with tears, meet his gaze with a measure of willpower he knows his shutterbug is struggling to maintain. He keeps one hand firmly rubbing up and down Peter’s back as he lifts a hand to gently card through soft brown curls, watching his long lashes flutter. “Are you breathing, baby? Can you breathe for me?” Peter’s jaw tenses but he nods, swallowing hard and trying to do just that because Wade had asked him to. Because he isn’t good at it when he’s halfway to an anxiety attack. “We can talk about it, but I also kinda wanna cuddle you, okay? It’ll make me feel better,” Wade reasons honestly.
Bonus points, it also makes Peter feel better to close the distance when one or both of them feel like shit; stretched too thin and reeking of panic, guilt, and shame.
“Yeah,” Peter agrees, voice scratchy. He pulls a blanket from the back of the couch and shakily opens it up, doing his best to wrap both of them up in it. Clutching the ends closed, he buries his face into the curve of his boyfriend’s neck again; Wade smells like leather conditioner and the enchiladas from last night. Under it is a faint whiff of maple that Wade jokes is just his “natural Canadian musk,” but he smells like home and the comfort that Peter doesn’t deserve. He’s distracted, still soothed enough by the scent that he doesn’t notice Wade nosing into his hair until there’s a soft sigh of appreciation above his ear.
“Like damp earth,” Wade notes quietly. Peter turns his face just slightly closer to Wade’s jaw, brow furrowed. “Like rain. Pretty sure there’s a word for it, but…,” the other super elaborates unhelpfully.
“What?” Peter asks uncertainly, clutching Wade’s shirt and the fuzzy corners of the blanket. He does already feel a little better, warm and huddled against his boyfriend who he really hopes stays his boyfriend.
“You smell like rain, Sweets,” Wade says with a tiny smile, nuzzling Peter’s crown with his cheek, fingers still playing with strands of hair at the back of his neck. “Cinnamon and rain. Fruity cereal. Sometimes sea salt. Real surprised I didn’t put that together— Spidey smells like cinnamon and salt. I mean, you do. In the suit, y’know?”
Peter isn’t sure he should be hearing such a casual, soothing tone out of Wade right now, tensing slightly as Wade continues to talk about Spider-Man and Peter himself in comparison; he doesn’t dare interrupt now, just tucks his face to press his nose under Wade’s jaw, listening.
“There’s a buncha stuff I shoulda noticed, Petey. The uh. The boxes had some opinions for a while there, I just didn’t listen. And here we are.” Wade pauses and shifts slightly, hands falling from Peter only to pull his legs up and cross his ankles, giving Peter a more comfortable lap to sit in, settling him delicately and helping the brunet cozy up against him again. Peter stiffens but shifts to accommodate, sagging against Wade’s broad chest and resting his head on his shoulder. Wade returns a hand to his hair and breathes in as Peter sighs raggedly. “In hindsight, which is 20/20 and never needs correction, I shoulda noticed the similarities months ago.”
“Wade,” Peter says in a small voice, but Wade hushes him and wraps an arm around his shoulders to bring him even closer, sharing his considerable warmth, trying to convey security and patience. Peter chews his cheek and waits again.
“You ever noticed the way you walk, baby?” Wade asks lightly. Peter nods after a beat. “Course you do, bet you thought a lot about it when you were younger, huh?” Wade adds quieter, knowing. “But you move like an acrobat, Sweetie. You’re fluid and quick. You do this thing, when you’re curious or focused, where you sorta… stop? Like you go still, and then.” He snorts, startling Peter. “Then you cock your head at an angle, like a, like a bird. Or a puppy tryna listen to something he can’t hear right? Like, I can tell you’re listening, and it’s— it’s so adorable. Then you—.” Peter scowls and narrows his gaze, lifting his head to show Wade his displeasure. The man giggles, gesturing to Peter’s face. “Yeah, that. You squint a little. It happens to your mask, too, the lenses contract and it’s so precious, Petey.”
This is certainly a confusing conversation but now Peter is embarrassed instead of ashamed. “What!” he demands, but his voice is still rough and his red-rimmed eyes are sparkly, so Wade can only beam at him, which throws the brunet off again. “What?” he repeats softer, shier, almost smiling.
“Shoulda noticed the freckles, too. Your canines. I just thought, y’know, ‘lotsa people have freckles, it’s not that weird that Pete and Spidey both have freckles.’ And I think you noticed I was staring too much after I noticed them for the first time. Like when we’d be hangin’ out or eating ‘n you’d have your mask over your nose? Cuz you stopped letting me look for too long a few months ago, and then the light was never good enough, and— wow, I’m pretty dumb— I also love the shape of your nose and totally shoulda noticed you have the same nose…” Wade squints and swipes a fingertip down the length of Peter’s nose while he studies the man’s face, which is turning hot pink as the smaller super opens and closes his mouth when he can’t come up with something to say.
“You’re not dumb,” Peter decides sincerely. “I… I wasn’t weird about the mask until I was seeing you more as… well, myself. Just Peter.” He can’t maintain eye contact when Wade’s are all scrunched with humor and affection like they are. “I didn’t want you to notice those things.” He steels himself, because he still hasn’t explained. “I didn’t want you to change your mind about me.”
“What’s there to change?”
“People like Spider-Man. You liked Spider-Man.”
“Still do, Hot Stuff.”
“But I couldn’t ‘ve guaranteed you were gonna like Peter Parker,” Peter goes on meaningfully, clenching his jaw for a moment and darting his eyes back to Wade’s. The mercenary frowns thoughtfully. “If you knew that soon that it was just me under the mask, things would’ve been… different. I didn’t want you to see Spider-Man when you looked at me. Or me when you looked at Spider-Man.”
“Pete,” Wade says gently, like the smaller man is breaking his heart. But Peter shakes his head, unfinished.
“Spider-Man is me. He is . I am, it’s me, we’re the same person, but— but I-I can’t be confident, super friendly, funny, kick-ass Spidey all the time. I’m… I’m also Peter Parker, and Peter Parker is a cranky nerd with ADHD who spends most of his time on thesis stuff or in class. A-and I like old movies and doing math for fun and if I weren’t a biochemical engineer, I think maybe I’d teach, or maybe I would’ve gone into astrophysics or software engineering—,” he goes on, and why oh why does he ever talk about himself? This is hardly the time and luckily for him Wade sets a finger over his lips. He quiets immediately, grimacing apologetically.
“I’m not hearing a problem, Pumpkin,” Wade tells him simply. “I like Peter Parker. I like how geeky you are. I like that you like old movies and musicals and Godzilla. I like how good you are at puzzles and how you get really into your photoshoots.” Peter’s cheeks and ears are turning red now and Wade smirks triumphantly. “Pete, I fell for you . The fact that you’re Spidey is extra ganache on a tasty 4-layer chocolate fudge cake that I was gonna binge eat no matter what.”
“I. I’m sorry, I’m derailing,” Peter says uneasily, because Wade moving to flattery and reassurance is not the plan. “I… I didn’t tell you, not just because I wasn’t sure you’d like… me, but because there’s still this… this other stupid hang up I’ve got.” He fidgets and Wade moves his hands to rub up and down Peter’s arms, warm and steady. Grounding. It lights his nerves with affection and that lingering guilt, the guilt that he has to keep an eye on because it likes to coil into grief and jump into his lungs when he least expects it. But it’s important. It’s relevant. It’s not fair and doesn’t really apply to Wade, but it’s part of Peter’s problem and he has to confess the whole story to someone.
“People who know that I’m Spider-Man get hurt,” he explains carefully, unable to meet Wade’s eyes again. “They get— sometimes they get killed, and it’s my fault.” His voice starts to crack every few words and Wade squeezes his deltoids, gaze narrowed slightly. “They get hurt, or they die, and it’s because they know I’m Spider-Man.” He takes a deep breath when Wade sets one hand on the back of his neck. “It happened to MJ, it happ—,” he tries, choking on a sob, his face screwing up, “it happened to Gwen.” Not only had he withheld his alter ego, he’d withheld his first love like he has any right to keep her a secret, like Gwen is someone to be ashamed of. He’s not ashamed of Gwen, he’s ashamed of himself. “It’s my fault Gwen died,” Peter says wetly. Wade pushes both hands through his hair, urging him to come closer and lean against his chest and shoulder again; he doesn’t deserve Wade’s comfort but Peter is too weak to resist.
“I didn’t tell you I’m Spider-Man because it turns out Spider-Man is a killer and a hypocrite and h-how could I tell you not to do the same thing I did? How could I turn your hero into a— a fucking murderer?” Peter says through his teeth in nearly a whisper, rubbing his knuckles over his eyes, just moving the tears around. He doesn’t want to soak Wade’s shirt. He doesn’t want to burden Wade with this, even though Wade should know; he deserves to know, he doesn’t deserve to be lied to anymore. “How could I be your hero, after what I did? She died because I couldn’t save her. I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t smart enough, and she fell, Wade. She— she fell so far,” he goes on, voice fully breaking.
“Peter, you’re okay, I’ve got you,” Wade assures him gently, rocking them a little, tucking his chin over Peter’s head as the brunet shakes and curls up tighter in his lap. Peter clings to the back of his shirt and refuses to look up from where he’s hiding his face in his knees. No wonder he holds onto Wade like this when he’s scared or sad. Shit. “Is she the girl in your nightmares?”
Peter’s heart nearly seizes. “What?”
“You say her name sometimes, baby. In your sleep. When you have a bad nightmare and wake up screaming.” Wade does his best not to sound like he’s just realized this had been another piece of the Spider-Pete puzzle.
Peter’s mind reels. He’s been saying her name this whole time? He’s well aware he still has the nightmares, that they’ll never stop. He’s had way fewer in the last couple of months, sleeping in bed with Wade and able to soak in the ambient comfort and warmth of his loving boyfriend. “I have?” he squeaks.
“Pete, I… I think I know who you’re talking about.” Wade treads carefully, revealing how much he knows about Spider-Man’s villain interactions has always been a touchy subject around the wallcrawler, since the extent of it borders on… well, stalker levels. He’s a fangirl, naturally, but he’s also a mercenary; gathering information and observing subjects are strong suits. Wade had looked into a lot of things about Spider-Man, stopping just short of tracking down his identity, and incidents like the one with the Green Goblin in Manhattan less than four years ago had been included. From what he’d gathered, Spidey is either missing crucial details or misremembering after all the — you know — trauma. Wade can’t just let him get away with blaming himself, so he takes a breath and goes on in a gentle voice. “I need you to know, Sweetheart, the autopsy said the shock of the fall killed her.”
Peter tenses up in his arms again but only continues to cry softly. “I broke her neck, Wade.”
A cold silence fills the room. Grief bleeds out of Peter as he sniffles, relaxing all at once. Resigned. Wade’s eyelid twitches.
“I tried to stop her falling,” Peter tells him, strangely numb. His tears don’t stop but he can’t be bothered to fight them. “Tried to catch her before she could hit the ground. But she… the momentum, Wade, I— I caught her, but she— bounced. Just before she could hit the pavement.” He sees it again, even from high above: her body bending unnaturally with the force of the stop. “I heard it, Wade. I heard her neck sn—.” He flinches, remembering the series of sickening little cracks in quick succession, crystal clear with his cursed enhanced senses. Peter swallows roughly again. The lump won’t go down. “I heard it snap. I killed her.”
“Peter,” Wade says gravely. A chill ripples up Peter’s spine; he tenses again but Wade is unmoving. “You didn’t kill her. She was dead before you caught her.” Peter’s heart twists, tears renewed. He’s exhausted, too tired to hold onto him anymore but Wade cradles him closer and Peter doesn’t deserve the trickle of comfort it grants him. “Goblin killed her, Pete. He threw her from that skyscraper and even if she’d been alive when you caught her — which she wasn’t — of all the ways to die, a broken neck is a thousand times better than becoming a pancake on the sidewalk, baby.” A pause. Wade grits his teeth before relaxing his jaw again. “You gotta trust me on that, I can speak from experience. It would have been a mercy.”
“Wade,” Peter croaks, trembling now. His fingers curl slowly back into Wade’s shirt, bunching the fabric as he presses his face into his chest, drenching it after all with his horrible, messy tears. “You don’t hafta… don’t say that. I know what I did—.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” Wade insists defensively, and Peter clamps his mouth shut. “You didn’t kill Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man. Gwen is not dead because you tried to save her. A dangerous, fucked up, severely ill criminal with a vendetta against one of the greatest heroes on the planet killed her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and Goblin took advantage of that. If I recall correctly, Spider-Man barely walked away from that fight himself.” Peter ducks his face lower. “You feel responsible because you’re a hero, Pete. Because you loved her.” His voice softens, his shoulders droop, and he rests his cheek atop Peter’s head again, threading fingers lazily through his hair. For a few long, precious moments, he just holds the brunet and plays with his curls while Peter processes.
Wade figures his boyfriend has never really let himself grieve properly. Peter had mentioned therapy and the timeline for when he’d tried lines up with Gwen’s death, but it’s hard to fully take advantage of a therapist when you can’t explain that you weren’t just the civilian boyfriend but also the masked vigilante who’d been on the scene at the time; the survivor’s guilt hits very differently. (We know all about survivor’s guilt and failing to save someone we love.) Wade can’t imagine someone like Spider-Man hadn’t also had a touch of a savior complex, considering his only recently and barely broken habit of thinking he needed to save the entire city all by himself.
“Harry was my friend, Wade,” Peter says so quietly he’s not sure he’d spoken aloud. Wade frowns but doesn’t stop petting the other man’s hair. The mercenary knows the Green Goblin — the man who’d killed Gwen Stacy — had been Harry Osborn, but even after his arrest that night, nothing had ever come out on the villain’s personal life that had included Peter’s name. A “P. Parker” had been mentioned in relation to Gwen in the papers and online, but it had been easy for Deadpool to assume her only connection to Spider-Man had been tangential to knowing the hero’s photographer, if there had ever been a connection to begin with. Even the Daily Bugle had reported that there’d been no obvious link between Gwen Stacy and Spider-Man, that she had ultimately just been a random, convenient target as a reachable civilian trying to help during a citywide bombing crisis. “He was my best friend since childhood and he took Gwen because he knew it would hurt me.”
“Pete—.”
“I wouldn’t give him my blood, Wade. He wanted my blood— Spider-Man’s blood. He thought it would help him get better. I told him it wasn’t a good idea. Spider-Man told him it wasn’t safe.” A dry, bitter laugh, and Peter goes on. “A messy, debilitating hereditary disease that kills you slowly and miserably. He just didn’t want to die young, but I… I knew my blood wouldn’t help. It’s, it’s a long story, but the company? Oscorp would’ve used it to hurt people. For everything good they do, they do twice as much for the military, sketchy covert government departments, and private operations. It’s bad enough Oscorp sells the tech that they already do, I couldn’t let them have what might give them super soldiers.”
Wade’s eyelid twitches more drastically this time. Super soldiers, huh? Sounds familiar.
Holy shit, what a weirdly noble little bug. Those morals are gonna get him killed, no wonder he’s so sympathetic to our tragic backstory.
“Your friend doing something stupid and fucked up because he was scared of mortality is not a good reason to blame yourself, Pete,” Wade reasons stiffly. Peter takes a long, deep breath, exhaling silently as Wade settles his hand on the back of his neck. He seems smaller than ever when he’s heartbroken. “How did he find out?”
“He—,” Peter chokes. “He didn’t know until he grabbed Gwen, but he wasn’t gonna kill her until he realized who Spider-Man was. Who I was.”
“Baby,” the mercenary murmurs, squeezing Peter’s side. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he reminds him even more gently this time. “Weren’t you all of, like, 20 years old?”
“Yeah. We were,” the brunet answers in a small voice. It’s hard to accept they’d both been so young. “She was trying to help.”
“Did you tell her to?” Wade questions quickly, already knowing the answer.
“Of course not,” Peter rasps, grimacing.
“Then it sounds like she made a choice to be there.”
A trace of a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “You couldn’t tell Gwen what to do even if you were a police captain,” he muses, and Wade suspects he’s being a smart-ass. “She was so confident. Independent.”
“She sounds like a smart cookie,” Wade chuckles. He’s not jealous, somehow. (Can’t compete with the dead, anyway. A memory doesn’t hafta be a challenge.) He’s almost grateful to her, actually. (WHAT?) Peter had once had something important with her, something deep and meaningful. Wade can see how attached his boyfriend had been to this pretty blonde, this girl he still can’t stop grieving. It means Peter had loved and been loved so thoroughly that it’s followed him for years, even if that love looks like guilt and shame and sorrow now, festering in the smaller man’s too-good heart. Wade doesn’t need to have met Gwen to know she’d been good for Peter if he still feels all of these things after losing her so abruptly, thinking this whole time that he’s responsible.
Wade would be a nasty hypocrite to fault Peter for having another love he’ll cherish forever. Shit, Vanessa’s death had been sudden too, and Wade had nearly lost his mind all over again after it had happened.
Don’t think about Ness, big buy. Don’t think about how you could’ve saved her, either. Pete didn’t do anything wrong, but you? You never should’ve turned your back to the door when those fuckers came for you. It should’ve been you—
Wade and Peter sure have a lot in common.
“You miss her, huh?” Wade sighs, resting his chin atop Peter’s fluffy curls. Screw the boxes. What the hell do they know?
Everything you do, you fucking moron—
“Yeah,” Peter croaks, clearing his throat. “Yeah I do. I miss her all the time.” He can’t keep his face dry for more than a few seconds, still crying and still too tired to lift his head. “I thought I’d… I thought I’d be alone forever after Gwen died. I didn’t think I could be happy again, I knew I couldn’t just be with someone after her. I couldn’t…,” he strains. “I couldn’t get anyone else hurt, o-or killed, just for knowing me. Just for helping Spider-Man.”
Wade rubs circles at his boyfriend’s neck and along his side, soothing and gentle, giving him time to breathe. “You know I can’t die, right?” he says after a while, when he can’t hear Peter crying anymore. He can hear the gears thunking and grinding away in Peter’s big beautiful brain at this reminder on the heels of his grief, and the younger super’s next breath in is stuttered even as he swallows a sob. He continues to cry after all, quiet and contemplative.
“I don’t want you to get hurt, either. You still feel pain, Wade.” Peter sniffles. “Pain sucks,” he mutters tightly, and Wade fights down a laugh.
“I can handle a little pain, Petey. I’d let those ass-blasting Weapon-X monsters torture me again if it meant you were safe.” Wade doesn’t hesitate to say it, either, and Peter’s gut churns with indecision at the same time as certainty blankets his anxieties. He believes Wade. He knows Wade would move heaven and earth if it would protect Peter Parker. The mercenary strokes through soft hair and tilts the brunet’s head to kiss his crown, lingering. “I’d ‘ve cut that purple chin-beast’s ugly fuckin’ head off before letting anything bad happen to you, Baby Boy,” he growls.
Peter’s brow furrows, face screwing up with confusion and the deep affection he can’t just call “love” when it doesn’t mean enough. It is love, of course, but it’s not enough. He’s just not sure what his boyfriend is talking about. “Wade…?” he rasps.
“And I bet Gwen woulda said the same thing, right?” Wade challenges carefully, skipping right over his meta slip. Peter presses his forehead to Wade’s shoulder. “Just cuz she couldn’t lift a bus or heal from bullet wounds doesn’t mean she woulda liked seein’ you hurt. She sounds like a hero.”
“Wade,” Peter murmurs tentatively.
“I saw the news coverage, Pete. You were real fucked up by the time she showed.” Wade can still picture the news footage: Spider-Man had been limping and clutching his side before nearly stumbling off when he’d zipped away that night, and he hadn’t made an exit until EMTs were at Gwen’s side. He remembers his own heart aching for the way Spider-Man had clung to that poor girl’s body. He feels stupid, in hindsight, not putting together that Spidey had clearly been in love with Gwen Stacy. “Don’t you tell me she saw you fightin’ that gliding green creep and didn’t wanna help.”
“Wade.” This time Peter’s voice breaks.
“You said yourself you couldn’t tell her what to do. She wanted to help you. That girl loved you.” Wade starts holding Peter a little tighter, his chest aching. He’s not good at this, this reassuring against guilt and grief stuff, even if he knows there’s not a word of untruth out of his own mouth as he consoles his Baby Boy. The smaller man shudders. “Gwen loved you, and you loved her, and what happened is not your fault, Peter. You did everything you could, you saved the city, and she died a hero as far as I’m concerned.” Because it’s important, because Peter doesn’t seem to believe him yet, he repeats, “It’s not your fault, Spider-Man.”
Peter’s head throbs with the impending headache of crying so hard for so long. “Wade,” he tries to say, but Wade noses at his crown again.
“It’s not your fault, Spider-Man,” Wade whispers delicately, voice even softer and eyes closed as he cradles his boyfriend in his lap.
“Okay,” the other super finally agrees. Relief and uneasy acceptance trickle through his nerves, following the lines of his veins as his muscles slowly relax. He feels taut and sore, but being in Wade’s warm grasp helps. “Thank you, Wade,” he murmurs. Peter starts to breathe again in long, deep breaths. For a few minutes, the two of them just hold each other. Peter’s brain is a flood of emotions and impulses to fight but he’s starting to feel less like he and Wade can only end tragically. Wade himself can’t imagine thinking far enough ahead to Peter dying of old age, because there’s no way anything else in this or any other reality is going to take Spider-Man away from Deadpool — or take Peter Parker away from Wade Wilson. “Wade?” Peter eventually asks and even though he can’t see his face, Wade knows Peter’s brow is furrowed.
“Yeah, Pumpkin?”
“I really am sorry I didn’t tell you.” He opens a hand and sets it over Wade’s chest when he feels him take a breath to respond; hand flattened over his sternum, Peter applies the slightest pressure. His heartbeat is strong — alive — because Wade is… undying. Everlasting. Peter feels stupid for worrying about an immortal but he can’t help himself. It still stings to see Wade hurt, to patch him up after he comes home without a limb or with a piece of his skull missing, to wait for him to wake up after a brutal fight when they’re both still in masks. Just because his merc bounces back doesn’t mean Peter likes that he ever has to bounce back from something as severe as evisceration or decapitation.
It always hurts to see the people you love hurting.
Peter had loved Gwen so much, had thought he could’ve spent the rest of his life with her if things had gone differently, but Wade? If it were possible, he would try to spend eternity with the other super. There has to be something better than a silly bracelet that he can give to Wade, something to show him how he feels, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal at the moment to puzzle over it. So, another time. Another time he’ll come up with a good way to ask Wade for whatever might be the closest thing they could reach to eternity.
“I know I hurt your feelings, and I don’t— I never want to hurt you,” Peter articulates cautiously, letting some of that desire to share forever with Wade cling to his words. His merc’s heartbeat doesn’t really slow or speed up but he feels it skitter for just a moment. The brunet curls his fingers into Wade’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, they’re quiet again, but then Wade sighs, soft and light.
“It did hurt my feelings, Pete. When you told me and I realized how long I hadn’t known,” he tells him honestly, when it feels enough like the both of them can handle it. Peter nods into Wade’s collarbone, pressing a fistful of the taller man’s soft shirt into his chest, encouraging him to go on. He should hear this; he needs to hear this. “I thought maybe you didn’t trust me not to fuck with your life, knowing you’re Spider-Man. Like you thought I’d sell you out to the highest bidder.” For a moment Wade feels the battering wash of self-hatred stinging his fragile skin again. He hates who he used to be. If it hadn’t been for everything that had happened after Weapon X, he might have. He might have been just fine tracking down Spider-Man’s identity for the right price.
So what the hell changed, big guy? How are you any fucking different now?
The difference? Money had stopped being enough. What happens when you have so much money that every job you take makes no difference to you or how you live? When you start wondering why you do what you do after all, if the money is meaningless? You look for purpose somewhere else. You start… caring if people are suffering again. You try the hero thing, even if it sucks and no one is ever grateful or believes in you. You try to make yourself worthy of being in the presence of pure, heroic souls like Spider-Man. Wade had gone back to helping the little guy, like he’d been doing before the nightmare face and the immortality. He’ll never sell out someone like Spider-Man, and he sure as hell won’t hurt Peter.
“I thought, maybe you didn’t think I was good enough for Spider-Man. Or maybe, I wasn’t good enough for Peter Parker,” Wade goes on, back to truth time. Peter winces, but he doesn’t otherwise interrupt his merc. “The, uh. The boxes? They’re kinda huge dicks a lot of the time.” He staunchly ignores a sequence of outraged protests behind his eyes, accusatory and defensive. “There was a hot minute where they—,” he goes on with a tired sigh, but forcibly stops himself from elaborating. He hasn’t really gotten into the boxes with Peter yet. Peter knows they’re intrusive and cruel, knows he responds to them aloud sometimes, but he doesn’t know the real extent to which Wade is fucking bonkers. Sucking his teeth for a moment, the larger super looks out across the room into the middle distance and carefully chooses his next words while Peter remains silent and still in his arms, just listening.
“I spend a lot of time hating myself, Petey,” he starts evenly. Peter stirs but Wade scritches lightly at the man’s scalp to try and distract him from sidetracking him. “I know, I know; we’ll talk about it later, I’m getting to it,” he insists, and Peter takes a beat to lean into Wade’s hand and delicately trace his scarred collarbone with lightly calloused finger pads. “Anyway, uh. I don’t like myself, and the boxes are pretty big on that. They remind me why I should hate myself, point out the obvious, offer helpful suggestions, tell me what’s up when people look at me. They usually really get behind me un-aliving people who piss me off, y’know? ‘S wild how they begged me not to, after you got abducted. Told me I’d break your heart. Weirdly, they’re surprisingly less violent than usual when I’m around you. But, uh, they won’t let me have nice things for too long. Someone like me, with someone like you?” He dismissively waves around the hand that’s not in Peter’s hair, Peter’s eyes tracking it even as he holds his tongue. “They know it doesn’t make sense. Me? Too ugly, too loud, too chatty, too wrong and bad and broken. All that good stuff.”
That’s not all we do! Besides, we only speak the truth. It’s not our fault you’re such a fuck up.
“Yeah, like that,” Wade sighs, rolling his eyes, and Peter is uncomfortably aware that the boxes have said something nasty. “They replay my greatest hits, and y’know— it’s not all bad. It’s not always a nightmare or a flashback in 5.1 stereo on the biggest screen available cuz it’s my whole brain,” the mutant goes on grudgingly, gruff. He settles his hand over the blanket at Peter’s back again, when the smaller super presses his fingertips into Wade’s chest. Peter misses the closer contact of Wade’s hand unimpeded by an additional layer of red fuzz and squirms a little, but Wade pats him gently and the brunet takes a deep breath to relax again. “But sometimes it is. That is, when it’s not just running commentary on every little thing happening around me. It’s like I’m living in a comic book, they just. Pop up whenever they feel like it.”
Haha, get it? Cuz it’s a fanfic and not the comics this time?
“Do you see them?” Peter asks softly. “Your boxes?”
“Yes, I visually manifest the boxes,” Wade confirms clinically, and Peter tries not to flinch at the tight tone because he knows it’s not really for him. He has to imagine someone had once phrased it like that on Wade’s behalf, and wonders if Wade’s ever seen the inside of a psychiatric institution, criminal or otherwise. “Not every time, ‘n I don’t look at ‘em much anymore, but, uh. Anywhoozles. When you told me you’re Spider-Man, I thought for a second, y’know… maybe you were just messing with me all this time? Seventeen chapters , and you were just messing with me!” He laughs nervously, deserving the next onslaught of criticism from the boxes when he once again catches his mistake a moment too late.
Yeah, let’s bring up that meta bullshit right now, that’ll go over just swell! the boxes sneer. Have you tried telling him he’s a fictional character? Wanna go over how perception is reality and everyone is someone’s fictional whatever in the ~grand calculus of the multiverse~? Are you for fucking real right now? Take your stupid fourth wall and shove it up your—!
“I really hate it when you drop the we/us,” Wade hisses at them, unable to stop himself.
“Is there a way I can help?” Peter inquires sincerely, mercifully ignoring the comments that don’t track and blinking up at Wade, who flicks hazel eyes down to big brown beauties.
“You help just by bein’ around, babe. I promise,” Wade tells his boyfriend easily, because he doesn’t have to lie about it. The boxes have no argument, which feels highly suspicious but he’ll take any amount of peace they’ll grant him right now; it could be a royal shitshow if they decide they feel like chiming in any more frequently. “They seem to like you. Sometimes you just make ‘em all romantic or real horny, honestly.” He chortles and Peter smiles faintly. “But this is one ‘a those, ‘save myself’ kinda deals. My brain’s been scrambled, fried, refried, spilled everywhere, then scooped back into a blender for funsies before getting’ poured back into my skull. It’s fuckin’ chaos up in here, Baby Cakes.” He taps one of his temples with his index finger and waggles his eyebrows, which makes Peter squint at him. Wade’s lips quirk at one corner. “It’s sweet that you care about my mental health, Bambi. But I’m a special breed ‘a headcase — the constantly healing and rebuilding brain cells and brain matter kinda special. Short of more human experimentation, I’m not gonna see medical help that ain’t regular psychotherapy.”
Maybe behavioral therapy? Ha ha, remember that time we were institutionalized in England? That lady sucked. Wait, was that us-us or a different us?
“Or behavioral therapy.” A pause. “Not always assholes. Sometimes just nosy and mouthy,” he allows, but rolls his eyes to make his point when they grumble about his lack of gratitude. “And I don’t know any therapists that handle supers. Bet I could ask around for one that’ll see private contractors, though…,” he muses, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Could make a difference, if the therapist at least understands, “I am/was paid to harm and/or un-alive people,” isn’t a metaphor to dance around or merely “humor.”
“I don’t either,” Peter grumbles, resting on his shoulder again, still studying the way Wade’s expression shifts when he’s in his head or listening to the boxes. “I guess I should ask more supers, maybe there’s an Avenger who’s seeing someone that’s not just working for S.H.I.E.L.D. That would be nice.”
Wade chuckles, nodding sagely in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t need any more dealings with S.H.I.E.L.D. than where I’m at with ‘em now.” He pulls his head back slightly to look down at Peter in his close proximity. Peter lifts his gaze, eyebrows raised. He seems a little more like himself again, no longer a shaking, sobbing mess in Wade’s arms. It makes it a little easier to feel alright — well, maybe not alright, but better — about telling his boyfriend about the boxes. “The boxes claim they figured you out way before I did.” (We did, though.) “They’re pretty smug about it, too, dirty bastards,” he gripes. “But, in a stunning upset, they also wanted me to believe I could… that you could still want me, even though you’re too good to be true.”
Peter thumps the flat palm he has on Wade’s chest, jolting him. Leaning back with a stern scowl and his nose wrinkled just slightly, Peter makes his freckles harder to avoid staring. “What are you talking about?” he demands curtly, remarkably dodging an accusatory tone. Wade has said stuff like this before but in the context of this conversation, Peter knows he means it, that it’s not just a playful flirtation.
“Well. Yeah,” Wade responds like it’s obvious, eyebrows raised. “I don’t deserve you, let alone you and Spidey being the same person and still wanting to be with me.”
Duh. Also, we’re gonna looove this next bit. You won’t appreciate it for a few paragraphs, though.
Peter gapes, looking between Wade’s achingly serious eyes as a sort of horror lays over his own features. “You… don’t think you deserve me?” he disbelievingly asks for clarification, because there’s no such thing as someone who doesn’t deserve someone better than him. Especially Wade. “Wade,” he says simply, “that’s the craziest thing you’ve ever said.”
Wade barks out a laugh, tossing his head back, but Peter slowly folds his arms up over his chest and Wade’s amused grin falls when he catches the intensity in the brunet’s face. “Oh. You’re serious,” he mutters. “Pete. C’mon,” he scoffs nervously. Those gorgeous brown eyes can surely see into his soul, oh god. Wade sweats. “I’m Freddy Krueger if Freddy Krueger shot people for a living and annoyed everyone from here to Timbuktu by talking until their ears bled. You’re getting your masters in biochemical engineering during the day and saving lives in a super suit when the sun goes down.”
“You don’t think you should have nice things,” Peter observes absently, tipping his head back to look at Wade from an angle. Wade’s mouth stretches into a thin line and he can’t seem to find anything to reply with. Peter’s eyes flash. “You… hypocrite!” he accuses breathlessly, eyes widening. “Wade!” He thumps his boyfriend’s shoulder with a loose fist, the blanket around the both of them pulling at his back. Wade whines, pouting and making a show of rubbing the spot. Peter huffs but sets his hand over his boyfriend’s and splays their fingers, putting on a sad smile with his brows curved upward. “You deserve nice things. Things you want, but think you can’t have.”
“Now, hang on,” Wade tries to argue, the words familiar, but Peter cups a hand over his mouth and smirks a little when Wade dutifully shuts it. He’s sorely tempted to lick Peter’s palm in an obnoxious reflex but behaves himself for the moment.
“Wade,” the smaller man says sternly, “you can’t tell me I deserve good things and then turn around and say that you don’t.” Peter carefully adjusts to sit back on his heels but keeps himself between Wade’s legs, bringing his other hand up to cradle the side of his boyfriend’s face. Wade doesn’t like the pensive look he’s wearing. “You don’t really think you can’t have me, do you?” he asks softly, a creeping of hurt in his roughened voice. “Cuz I… Wade, I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. It feels like I don’t deserve you.” He shakes his head when Wade gently pries his hand from the merc’s infamous mouth.
“Baby Boy, that’s not even close to true.” (What a couple ‘a sad sacks, Christ. Dial down the downer, fellas.) Wade fills his lungs with air in a dramatic, exaggeratedly deep breath, holds it for a second, and then lets it go in a heavy rush, Peter watching him with curious, faint amusement. “Well this sucks,” Wade jokes, “guess neither of us is worthy. Does that mean the self-loathing cancels out? Are we worth-neutral? That’s how math works, right?” Peter rolls his eyes and head, and Wade points at him with a delighted grin. “And that! You and Spidey roll your eyes with your whole head! Is it cuz of the mask? People can’t tell if you don’t overdo it?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Peter admonishes, lowering Wade’s index finger and tugging his fingers apart to lace them with his own. “I love you, Wade. I think you more than deserve me, if you love me too.”
“I do,” Wade assures him immediately and the grimace Peter offers makes it clear he hadn’t been fishing. Wade squeezes the brunet’s hand in his, and leans to kiss his cheek. “It’s hard to let yourself… have things, huh?” he muses. “I didn’t want you two to be the same person,” he confesses, but quickly follows it up before Peter can look at him like he’s broken his heart anew, “because I can’t stand the thought of losing both of you. I’ve lost people before, too, Pumpkin. And it— it really does fuckin’ suck.”
Maybe the whole self-destructive spiral after Vanessa is a story for another time, big guy. You’re already always on the brink of scaring him off…
“Shut up,” Wade grinds out impatiently, and Peter ducks to nuzzle at Wade’s neck, softening his brief burst of irritation and mild panic.
“I guess I can understand that,” Peter mumbles. “But, uh. You might have noticed, I can kinda take care of myself a lot of the time.” It feels strange to know it’s true and also know it comes with a caveat. “You’ve been good for me when I can’t. Y’know?” he awkwardly assures his merc, who hums in acknowledgement. “I’m. I’m really sorry, Wade. I should’ve told you sooner,” he adds weakly, voice cracking. He’s not going to cry anymore. He’s not.
“Pete. Petey-Pie. Petey Pumpkin Pie, Apple of My Eye,” Wade murmurs sweetly, attention fully on the super in his lap, who kisses his mottled skin gently. “I’m not mad you didn’t tell me sooner. I respect the super bro code even if it turns out my super bro is also my boyfriend,” he says, smirking wryly when Peter purses his lips. “I mean, you coulda waited even longer, or I coulda found out by accident and uh, outed you myself, I guess.” He blanches, groaning and rubbing his face. “Yeah, forced disclosure? Not my scene. I never tried to find out your identity, Baby Boy. You’re not a job, you were never a job, ‘n I never woulda taken one where Spider-Man was the target.” This time, when he says it, he knows it’s true; he’s not convinced even the old Deadpool would’ve sold out Spider-Man, after all. He’d done a lot of things: bad things, neutral things, tiny little good things, maybe. But he can’t imagine himself accepting payment for outing a guy like Spidey — nothing he’d have followed through on, anyway.
“I believe you.” Peter brings both hands to smooth over his boyfriend’s textured scalp, resting at the back of his neck and making him sigh. The touch is gentle, commonplace these days, and Wade is still shivery for the direct, willing, positive contact from someone who so easily and honestly tells Wade he loves him. “I really am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I— I trust you, Wade. I trust you more than anyone else and I should’ve told you for that reason alone. I… I know you’d never sell me out, by the way. I promise I know that.” He’s known that for a while. He’d believed it after only a handful of months working with Deadpool, actually, but knowing Wade personally? Knowing how he makes food for people when he’s worried about them and loses his shit when kids get hurt, how he handles Peter’s anxieties so thoughtfully and his body so reverently, how he laughs uproariously at sitcom re-runs and shovels popcorn into his face when he’s comfortable enough to be without the mask? Peter regrets. He regrets waiting to tell him. Knowing what he knows now, he at the very least wishes he’d told Wade once they’d slept together.
Wade whines softly and cradles the brunet’s supremely cute face in his hands, tipping his head to touch their foreheads together. His little queer heart hums away in his chest, all twitter-pated and fond. “That means a lot to me, baby. I know trust is a big deal for you.”
“It’s… it’s kinda everything,” Peter admits sheepishly, blushing a pretty pink. Wade coos. “I trust you, Wade. I trust you and I love you.”
“I trust you too, Pete,” Wade says, shifting and carefully trying to arrange the blanket snugly back around them, urging Peter to join him again. But Peter pushes meaningfully at Wade’s shoulders with a lopsided smile and Wade wriggles to lie down on his back, humming happily as the brunet climbs over and lies atop him. They become a comfortable tangle of limbs, and Wade sighs dreamily as Peter nuzzles at his neck and tucks his arms under the larger super’s torso, locking them in place as he slots their hips and wraps his legs around Wade’s. “I trust and love you, Baby Boy,” he murmurs, stroking idly up and down his spider’s spine, cozy and relaxing more and more with every passing minute.
“I got a real kick outta makin’ you prove you were Spidey, by the way,” Wade muses after a beat, and Peter pushes up just enough to glower down at him. Wade grins mischievously. “But I love who you are, Pete. I love you, Spider-Man or no,” he goes on shamelessly and Peter’s frown morphs into a wobbly line trying not to be a smile. “If you cry again, I’ll cry too,” Wade warns him, and Peter dips to nip the tip of his nose, making his boyfriend yelp and dissolve into giggles.
“Shut up,” Peter chuckles, a satisfied smile in place as he rests against Wade again, closing his eyes. “I love you.” Safe, home. “Can we order in tonight? I know you were thinking about making pasta, but I kinda don’t wanna get up for a while. Or not be cuddling you,” Peter mumbles quietly into Wade’s neck, a little drowsy from crying so much. His head aches just slightly but Wade’s warmth and the hand wandering through his hair have him melting right where he is. “We should get tacos.”
“Tacos sound good.”
“We got tacos the first night I realized I might really like you beyond, y’know, friendship,” Peter notes, smiling to himself. Wade’s hand stills in his hair but picks up again a moment later, and Peter’s smile twists into a smirk. “We get tacos all the time,” he allows knowingly, figuring Wade is trying to parse which specific time it might have been. “Think July,” he informs him, because he’s not a total asshole. “You technically met Peter Parker like, a few days before.”
“Legs from the alley, how could I ever forget?” Wade hums, starry eyed and affectionate. He has an immaculate recall of the way the cute brunet in the glasses from the alley had looked up at him with such bewilderment. For everything that his brain does cruelly, badly, and often, it lets him keep that memory intact: the first time he’d seen Peter’s full, gorgeous face. “I swear I wasn’t stalking you when I saw you in Central Park,” he quickly promises him, grimacing. The stalking hadn’t happened until after he’d hand-delivered Peter’s fanmail at the Daily Bugle. Everything up until that point had been a series of fortunate events lining up perfectly. (Or a narrative predetermined by an omniscient fanboy. We’re so popular!) “It just definitely seemed like it.”
“It was a hard coincidence to accept, but I forgive you,” Peter snorts, pressing his fingertips into Wade’s back where they’re trapped between his boyfriend and the couch cushions. “Those tacos were really good.”
“Where’s my phone?” Wade whines, reaching one hand out and groping for the coffee table in case it happens to be there. He can’t remember when or where he’d had it last. Peter laughs and pulls his hands out from under Wade, sliding them down the man’s sides and earning a squeak when he gropes at Wade’s back pocket, pulling the phone out and holding it up with a smirk. “How did I miss that?”
“I’m very distracting,” Peter replies smoothly. He means the breaking down and hysterics, but Wade acts like he’s some alluring tempter instead.
“Hell yeah, you are,” Wade growls, bouncing his eyebrows and snagging his phone. Peter folds his arms over Wade’s sternum and rests his chin there, watching his merc hold the phone over his face and mess with a delivery app. “Oh good, they’re on the apps.” He orders the same things they’d gotten that night because he does remember it, that specific night, the specific way Spider-Man had been so hesitant to accept being fed the way Deadpool always wants to feed him. The specific way Spidey had nearly smashed tacos into his mask before comfortably pulling it up onto the bridge of his nose, no longer anxious about showing the lower half of his face to Deadpool for more than a few seconds at a time. The night Wade had vowed to feed his spider whenever he could get away with it. “Sucker,” Wade mumbles with a tiny, triumphant smirk, and Peter quirks an eyebrow.
“Hey, doofus.”
“Yes, my sweetest, darlingest boy?” Wade singsongs, dropping his phone on the couch arm above his head, tacos ordered because he’s hungry and Peter will be totally wiped from crying in less than an hour. He’s also feeling a little romantic. What’s more romantic than tacos?
“Kiss me or I’m gonna pout,” Peter threatens, biting his lower lip to stop from breaking into a grin.
“But you’re so cute when you pout,” Wade argues, cooing when Peter makes good on his threat and throws in the puppy dog eyes. Wade wails comically, holding the smaller man’s face with both hands again, squishing his cheeks together and making him whine. “Okay, okay! C’mere.” He hauls Peter up and plants a smiling kiss on his pretty lips; Peter hums softly in approval, spreading his fingers over Wade’s collarbone and shoulder.
“I love you,” Peter says again when they part, basking in Wade’s hazel gaze. Wade who sees him. Wade who makes him feel safe and loved. Wade who emanates home when Peter looks at him.
“I love you,” Wade echoes dreamily, watching little red and blue hearts and stars float and pop around Peter’s head. He could watch the brunet inspire fun little visual filters in his brain all damned day. “Wanna watch monster movies all night?”
Peter groans, dropping his forehead to Wade’s solar plexus and making him grunt even as he laughs. “Yes, I super want to watch monster movies and eat tacos with you, Wade. You’re my favorite.”
Wade gasps. “You’re my favorite!”
Peter is about to counter with another, equally silly gushing comment, but suddenly remembers something just as silly and meaningful. He gasps, pushing himself up again and beaming down at Wade, who raises both eyebrows and narrows his gaze with curiosity. “I hafta show you something,” the shorter man says excitedly. As reluctant as he is to part, he pries himself up off of Wade and rolls off the couch to the sound of the other man’s whining protests. “Just a sec,” Peter promises him, quickly righting himself and darting down the hallway.
“Just can’t exit a couch normally,” Wade muses, sitting upright and already missing Peter’s weight and body heat, waiting patiently as he watches Peter corner hard into his office. A few seconds of light clattering and boxes shifting, and his boyfriend emerges with a folded piece of paper and a smart-ass grin. “Well don’t you look satisfied with yourself, Handsome?” he chuckles, sighing fondly as the brunet returns on quick, quiet feet. Wade drapes an arm over the back of the couch, his boyfriend’s smile morphing from triumphant to bashful as he bends over the couch to show Wade the piece of paper he’s unfolding. The mercenary gently takes it from Peter’s offering hand and falls completely silent as he takes it in.
Told you it would come up in the last chapter!
It’s a colored pencil drawing, bold colors and confident, hard lines, signed in one corner with “MARLA, AGE 8.” Spider-Man is launching webs from both wrists, swinging on the Brooklyn bridge, and below that is a flattering depiction of Deadpool himself, reaching for the hero with hearts in his mask’s eyes. Wade makes a tiny, strangled noise of joy and agony, and Peter tips over the back of the couch to nose at his crown with a warm smile.
“This is so painstakingly precious, Webs,” Wade croaks. He has to clutch dramatically at his chest for the ache it forces on his little queer heart. “Little Marla — age eight — is gonna be a famous illustrator someday,” he goes on aimlessly, because if he admits he wants this framed above their bed it might be weird, so he keeps talking as Peter hops over the back of the couch and settles in Wade’s lap while he sniffles. “When did you get this beauty? Can I get the kiddo’s autograph? Do I get to keep this?”
“Same night as the tacos,” the webslinger murmurs, basking in the glory of Wade in the middle of adoring something innocent, big brown eyes flicking between Wade’s sparkling hazel, the taller man’s short, sparse lashes damp. “Wade,” Peter says gently, and his boyfriend lifts his face to focus on Peter’s. “You can’t keep it because I’m gonna hang it up in the dining room,” he informs him with a lopsided smile, propping his elbow by Wade’s on the back of the couch and leaning his head into his hand. “That way we can both enjoy it.” And it’s probably not too risky to display one little piece of perhaps innocuous fanart in their home.
“You got any other extremely flattering fanart, Pumpkin?” Wade asks roughly, needing to clear his throat and flap a hand at his wet eyes. “Ohhh, this is just so cute, sorry. Even little kiddos know I’m enamored with you. How embarrassing,” he giggles.
Peter snorts and Wade smiles as he slides fingertips up Peter’s propped arm, lowering the brunet’s hand from his cheek and replacing it with his own. “I don’t think you’re embarrassed at all,” Peter muses, closing his eyes and leaning into Wade’s palm, big and warm and safe.
“You’re right,” Wade confirms. “D’you save all the art you get?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s so fuckin’ adorable,” Wade growls. Peter flashes his fangs in a grin. “Better show me sometime, I’m dyin’ to know what people actually hand over to you.”
“It’s mostly little kids that actually hand me their drawings. Otherwise I get tagged on social media.” Peter brushes his fingers over the back of Wade’s hand on his cheek, holding him there. “People are really skilled, it’s honestly really flattering. Only a little embarrassing, sometimes, when they get, uh. Risqué? I feel like you’d like those ones.”
“There’s tons of pornographic fanart of you, Baby Boy. As is good and right.” Wade smirks deviously and Peter takes the drawing to set it on the coffee table. He shifts to sit more in his merc’s lap again, settling over strong thighs and circling an arm around his neck and shoulders even as he insistently keeps Wade’s hand on his face. “I’ve definitely found it.”
“I believe you,” Peter comments drily, “and I’ve seen some of it. Feels weird though, to see people so horny for me when they, uh. Y’know. Have no idea what I look like.” A pause. “Under the suit, anyway. They seem to have a decent understanding of my musculature,” he goes on with a little smirk of his own, cheeks dusted pink. The more he thinks about it, the more validating it feels that the general public and even artists are clocking (or at least representing) him as cisgender. Peter is not ashamed of who he is, but he knows how important it is for his identity and safety that Spider-Man be seen as cis.
“And I am so grateful for the privilege of knowing what’s hiding under all that sexy spandex, Sweetcheeks,” Wade sighs dreamily, nuzzling at Peter’s fluffy curls. He grins mischievously but hastily reels it in. “You seen the live action stuff?”
“I daren’t,” Peter jokes. “Let the amateur porn be what it may, but I think watching some guy in a knock-off Spidey suit with just his dick out while he’s screwing someone in a Black Cat costume is ten times more mortifying than even the sluttiest digital painting of Spider-Man with the suit all torn up.”
Wade tries very hard not to picture these examples, biting his tongue. “Mm-hmm,” he hums tightly. “Yeah. Mortifying. Not sexy at all. D’you, uh, have any links to either of those?” he asks, voice cracking. Peter laughs brightly but turns his face to bite at Wade’s collarbone, earning a yelp. “What!”
“Perv,” the brunet accuses wryly. “You get the real thing, don’t go confusing fantasy with reality.” He noses up under Wade’s jaw, smiling against his mottled skin as Wade’s hand presses between his shoulder blades.
“Nothing compares, Pete,” Wade murmurs sweetly, breathing in cinnamon and rain. “Whatchu wanna watch first?”
“Mechagodzilla,” Peter answers decisively and Wade grins into his hair.
They pass out a few hours later tangled up on the couch with Mothra playing on the TV and taco wrappers scattered around them. There are no bad dreams, no nightmares, and when they wake in the morning, they just breathe together for a little while. Comfortable, home, and perfect for each other.