Chapter Text
Peter’s no stranger to getting beaten up. Even before all the Spider-Man business, he knew the ins-and-outs of getting pummeled. Yeah, it was a lot less often, but he came home from school with black eyes and split lips often enough that when it started happening more regularly after the spider bite, May hardly even questioned it. She just coached Peter on standing up for himself, asked him whether there was anything he needed to talk about, and encouraged him to turn whoever was hurting him in to the principal.
(Peter wasn’t exactly sure what Midtown’s principal could do about a supervillain rampaging through New York, so he didn’t take Aunt May up on her advice, painful as it was to ignore her motherly instincts.)
Anyway, Peter’s used to it. Despite his spidey-sense and his stellar reflexes, even he can’t dodge every hit, can’t duck every punch. The amount of hits that he does take is miniscule compared to the ones that he evades.
And, even more than that, Peter prides himself on his ability to not die. He’s been Spider-Man for nine years. Almost a decade! And he hasn’t died once. Sure, he’s come close to it a couple times, but even close calls are pretty forgettable when you’ve successfully beaten the odds this often.
So, Peter’s not going to die. He’s absolutely, without a doubt, not going to die. Not slumped in the corner of this alley, blood spilling from between his fingers, hot and wet and making the rest of him feel cold. That’d be ridiculous.
Plus, it’d be a stupid way to die, and Peter can’t have that. When and if it happens, it better be as Peter takes down the newest, most evilest supervillain yet. Not like this. Not like—like— Uncle Ben.
It wasn’t a gun. Peter’s spidey-sense seems to blaze half a second earlier for bullets than any other weapon, which he’s pretty sure is solely because of his trauma surrounding guns. Anytime one is so much as aimed in his direction, it’s like there’s an electric jolt down his spine. In fact, the only person who can even hold a gun around Peter without his spidey-sense acting up is Deadpool, and that’s a long story in and of itself.
And Peter still has time for long stories, surely, but he’d rather get to the point of this one, first. Just in case.
Because he’s laying in an alley. Not shot, like Uncle Ben, who bled out on the sidewalk in front of him. No, it wasn’t a gun that got Peter – he’d leapt out of the way of that attack – but in doing so, he’d jumped directly in front of a second assailant, this one holding a knife. The wires in his brain got crossed. It was just danger!, and Peter didn’t realize that jumping away from one danger would place him in the way of more.
Anyway, that’s how he got stabbed. The amazing, spectacular Spider-Man. Neither the Lizard nor Doc Oc managed to take him down in high school. The Green Goblin failed while Peter was in college. Electro, Mysterio, the Chameleon – all of them unsuccessful, all of them defeated. And two random dudes from an alleyway are about to take the prize.
Peter managed to stumble to another alleyway, at least, so if he does bleed out – which he won’t – at least he won’t have an audience.
Things aren’t looking too good, though. Peter’s never been the best at dealing with injuries like this one. Really, he’s far better at managing the internal bleeding kind of damage. Definitely shit that could kill a guy, but a little bit slower and much more manageable for Peter’s advanced healing. But Peter’s bleeding far too much, far too quickly, for his healing factor to do much at the moment.
He presses down on the wound a little harder, going woozy at the pain, and lets his head thunk back against the brick wall behind him. Yeah. This really sucks.
“That you, baby boy?”
It’s Wade’s voice, unmistakable. Ugh, long, long story. Peter will tell it later. He’s tired.
“Been searchin’ high and low for you. Not in any of your usual spots tonight, huh?”
And then Wade steps closer, having finally reached the back of the alley, and he stops abruptly. Peter’s pretty sure he notices the blood first – that is, the blood surrounding him on the ground – before he takes in Peter himself. He’s not really sure what he looks like. Probably a little pathetic.
“Shit,” Wade hisses. His voice loses that jovial tune it so often carries, turning stark and serious that quickly. “You awake, Spidey? Talk to me.”
“Mleh,” Peter groans.
“Okay,” Wade says, low and hurried. “Okay, you’re fine, don’t worry. I’ve got you, come on.” He says all of this as he picks Peter up, careful and unlike the touches Peter’s used to. It’s not that Wade is rough, exactly, but he’s gentle by no definition.
When they’re in fights, Wade touches him quick and precise. His fingers will dig into Peter’s arm for half a second as he drags him back behind a wall, hissing, Wait just a second, will you?
And on the rooftops, when the city seems to be laying low and they’re goofing around instead of doing anything of importance, Wade’s touches are gruff. Hard. Fast. It’s like he’s touching Peter as much as he can in as little time as he can, like he thinks Peter will swat him away if he lingers. He’ll slap an arm around Peter’s shoulders and squeeze. He’ll punch Peter in the arm when he thinks of something suddenly, or grip Peter’s knee in the middle of a story, almost thoughtlessly.
Even the few times Peter has been injured around Wade, those touches had been brusque and hurried, too. Wade’s firm grip on his chin, turning Peter’s head from side to side to examine his definitely broken nose, his mask pulled up to the bridge of it. Or his hands deft and tight on Peter’s shoulder and arm, as he shoved his shoulder back into its socket.
But this…
Peter lolls his head against Wade’s shoulder. He sinks into his arms, feeling weightless. It’s like Wade is trying to carry him as lightly as possible. His steps are smooth and certain, keeping Peter from jostling in his arms too much. His chin brushes against Peter’s forehead like a caress.
“You keepin’ pressure on that, Webs?” he says.
Peter makes a sound. Kind of nods.
“Press hard,” Wade says. “I know it hurts, but you have to do it.”
So Peter presses hard, ignoring the throbbing and the slippery and the wet. His eyes are closed. The ground feels miles away, and Peter feels dizzy even with Wade’s sure steps. Despite this, he feels safe. Like he was right – he won’t die.
Wade kicks a door open – Peter must’ve fallen asleep, because it doesn’t seem like they went very far – and then Peter’s being laid on a couch. The spring that’s always stuck out digs into Peter’s back, making him whine in the back of his throat, but Peter’s too tired to shift to the side.
And then, very abruptly, Peter’s eyes fly open. Because Wade doesn’t have springs sticking out of his couch. Peter has springs sticking out of his couch.
He takes in his apartment rapidly. The water stain on the ceiling. The table cluttered with books and coasters and mugs, none of them actually on the coasters. The floorboards creaking under Wade’s feet, because he doesn’t know where to step to avoid them. Because he’s never been here before.
“This is my apartment,” Peter says. Blurts. He’s still woozy with blood loss and the words slur in his mouth, but the sheer shock of this moment seems to have kickstarted his brain, bringing him away from the brink of unconsciousness.
“Right,” Wade says, distracted. He’s rifling around in Peter’s bathroom – the only other room in Peter’s tiny apartment – and he comes back with an armful of medical supplies, Peter’s motley collection that he uses for all kinds of injuries. “Thank you for having me,” Wade adds.
“What’s…” Peter’s head floats away. He should be freaking out, right? Because yeah, Wade’s his friend, but he isn’t supposed to know where Peter lives. He’s Spider-Man’s friend, more specifically, and Spider-Man isn’t supposed to be associated with Peter Parker’s apartment at all.
“Shut up,” Wade says. “Save your strength.”
“How d’you know?”
“Just do,” Wade says, short. He kneels beside Peter on the couch, cuts away Peter’s suit with a knife – great, he’ll have to sew that back up – and pours Hydrogen Peroxide on the wound. Peter flinches, curling in on himself, but Wade just holds him down and continues working.
Peter is vaguely aware of everything Wade’s doing. He notices Wade pulling his own medical supplies out of his pouches. He’s aware of the needle and the lighter, the stitches and the gauze, the ointment and Wade’s fingers, still so gentle. Peter is tired and thirsty and too nauseous to be properly hungry. And he’s really fucking confused, a little scared but mostly offended. He’d thought they were close enough that Wade might’ve mentioned that he knew where Peter lived, at some point.
After Peter’s all cleaned up, mostly limp and on the brink of sleep, he’s aware of Wade carrying him to his bed, aware of the rest of his suit being shucked off and his legs maneuvered into a pair of sweatpants. He sinks into his bed, ready to pass out, but he opens his eyes behind the mask and watches Wade walk through his apartment instead.
“’Pool,” Peter mutters.
“Shh, baby boy,” Wade says. “Go to sleep. Text me when you wake up. You’re gonna be fine, I promise.”
Peter groans, because that’s not what he’s worried about anymore, but Wade can’t seem to communicate via groan. He puts a glass of water on Peter’s bedside table, squeezes Peter’s thigh – a little more like the touches Peter is used to – and climbs out the window.
Unable to help it, Peter finally passes out.
--
When Peter wakes up, the very first thing he does is chug that glass of water. The second thing: he freaks out.
See, Peter and Wade aren’t the most conventional type of super-friends. In fact, they got off on a pretty bad start.
“I decided I’m not going to kill you,” Deadpool had said, perching on a radiator and swinging his legs happily. Peter had jolted, twisting around to find him there. He hadn’t heard him approach. Didn’t even know if he’d been on the roof when Peter had landed there, which was scary.
He’d dropped into a fighting position automatically, adrenaline already buzzing in his ears.
Deadpool had gaped, his mask stretching around his open mouth. “Why are you getting all fight-y!” he’d yelped. “I just said I’m not going to kill you!”
“Why is not killing me something you have to decide to do?” Peter had said. “Why would you want to kill me in the first place?”
“Money, for one thing,” Deadpool had said. This was several years ago, back when Peter was nineteen and still not-quite-liked by the public. He had fans, of course, but the police hated him and New York’s government kept passing more and more laws about vigilantism, trying to scare Spider-Man away from his suit forever. At the time, Deadpool had still been doing mercenary work, and while he stuck to his own moral code, there was enough fodder for the rumor mill to make Spider-Man seem like a bad guy at times, especially in the eyes of the media. “Heroism, for another. If I’m doing it for the right reasons.”
“Killing people isn’t heroic,” Peter had said.
“Right! If you’re killing a good person, defs not heroic.”
“Any person,” Peter had said.
“Eh, agree to disagree,” Deadpool had said, hopping off the radiator and taking a step toward Peter, who’d shot a web at his advancing foot. Deadpool had glanced down at it, then back up at Peter. “How many times do I have to say I’m not going to kill you?”
“Being told you’re not going to be killed isn’t as reassuring as you think it is,” Peter had snapped. “What do you want from me?”
“Well, I was checking you out, seeing if you were the bad guy I was told you were – spoilers: you aren’t – and after I decided that I wasn’t going to kill you, I thought I’d let you know. And also befriend you.”
Peter had just stared at him. “Unlikely,” he’d finally said.
It was more likely than Peter had thought, of course.
That first year, Peter barely tolerated Deadpool. He would show up randomly, almost always at inopportune times, and Peter would ignore him or snap at him or swing away from him as fast as possible. True to his word, though, Deadpool never tried to kill him.
Things changed when Deadpool jumped into a fight when Peter desperately needed help. It’d been one of those nights where Deadpool was pestering him more than usual, cropping up at several different points during Peter’s patrol and driving him crazy. Peter had ended up in a fight he didn’t plan for, literally stumbling into a weapons’ deal, and just when things started to look dicey, Deadpool showed up.
He didn’t kill the bad guys, for one thing. Merely incapacitated them. And Peter was able to get his wits about him and jump back into the fight alongside Deadpool, the two of them working together surprisingly well.
It became easier to tolerate him, after that. Peter would entertain conversations for a little while. He wouldn’t change the entire route of his patrol the second he caught sight of his mask. And somehow, that led to the two of them occasionally sharing a meal on a rooftop, the conversation flowing easier than Peter would’ve expected.
Soon enough, they were friends. Before Peter knew it, he trusted Wade implicitly. He barely needed to communicate to work with him. Wade could read his emotions through the mask. Peter trusted Wade even with a gun in his hand, which was something Peter never thought would be possible.
And these days, Peter’s madly in love with him. So much so that he can’t help cataloguing the different kinds of ways that Wade tends to touch him.
There, the whole long story. From Wade being hired to kill him, deciding not to go through with it, and the two of them becoming best friends.
And Peter knows that it sounds crazy to be freaking out about Wade knowing where he lives, after all that. He doesn’t trust anyone as much as he trusts Wade, and it’s probably some kind of extremely backward, nonsense logic that allows Peter to panic over the thought of the person he’s in love with knowing one of his biggest secrets, but it’s logic that Peter has managed to cling onto, nonetheless.
It's not even that it’s Wade, really. Obviously, Peter would be having some kind of conniption if it were anyone other than Wade who knew this about him. But the fact still stands that Peter is a man of many secrets, and it’s kind-of-really terrifying to realize that this secret is out there. And not only is out there – Peter has no idea how long it’s been out there. How long Wade has been sitting on this information, never acting on it.
When did Wade discover this about him? Despite what everyone likes to say about him, Deadpool isn’t as bad at keeping secrets as people have been led to believe. He could’ve seen Spidey crawl through the apartment of Peter’s window last week, or he could’ve stalked him back to his home years ago.
Peter isn’t even worried that Wade is going to do something untoward about this information. He doesn’t think he’s going to sell it to the media, or abuse the knowledge, or break into Peter’s house whenever he feels like it. And the fact that Peter knows all of this and trusts Wade this much only makes it even crazier that he’s currently flipping out over it in the first place.
He just feels like he’s free falling, maybe. Tumbling through the air, his web-slingers malfunctioning. The ground rushing toward him for the final time.
Peter’s identity is like his safety net, and his apartment is implicitly connected to his identity. Which – oh God, oh fuck. Wade probably knows that too, right? How could he not?
Peter wheezes into his pillow, panicking and pissed at himself for panicking, wanting to talk to Wade to understand it all and wanting to avoid Wade because he’s in too much of a State to articulate anything in the first place, and that’s when his phone goes off.
It buzzes from his bedside table, shockingly mundane in the midst of Peter’s mental breakdown, and it drags him right back to reality. Suddenly, Peter’s heart is slowing and his hand doesn’t even tremble when he reaches for his phone.
It’s from Wade.
hey bby boy u awake?
i ordered food 2 ur place. assumed u wud b starving from healing factor schnaz
yes i’m awake
thanks
can we talk?
OOP my phone’s cutting out
over text?
i’m not stupid dp
i just want to understand everything
well, i found u in an alley bleeding ur guts out!
did some hero work by working on the hero
did some cute stuff by ordering u breakfast
all caught up :)
not all caught up.
how do you know where i live?
do you know my identity too?
why didn’t you tell me before?
oh all THAT stuff
imma hav 2 talk 2 u l8r
hoard of rampaging cattle on 9th, gotta take care of this
heal up!
Peter gapes at his phone. It’s obviously a lie. And even if it wasn’t obvious, Peter checks online anyway, because if there were rampaging cattle in New York City, someone definitely would’ve mentioned it. But no, Wade is just avoiding him. Dick.
Peter can’t even go out and track him down himself, his wound too fresh and tender to do any kind of swinging, so he’s forced to sit at home and grumpily eat the four-course McDonald’s breakfast Wade ordered for him. At the very least, Peter’s newfound annoyance takes over his state of panic, and he spends the rest of his day – when he’s awake and not passed out from his healing factor working overtime – debating how and when he’ll track down Deadpool, and what exactly he’ll say to him.
--
Peter learns – with much more surprise than he should probably feel – that tracking someone down is hard.
He doesn’t know how Wade does it. Of course, Wade could just be an expert at avoiding people, which, yeah, he probably is. But Peter’s also just horrific at finding him.
He’s tracked down people before. Mostly supervillains, which was considerably easier, seeing as they usually leave a trail of destruction behind them. And even when they don’t, it never takes more than a minute or two on social media to find someone posting about a villain’s whereabouts. But Peter figured tracking down Wade would be easier than it’s turning out to be, especially considering how often – and how easily – he tracks down Peter.
Like, they exchanged numbers forever ago, but even now Wade never texts Peter and asks where he can find him. He just shows up, whether Peter is someplace Wade should expect him to be or not, and Peter stopped questioning it a long time ago.
Now, Peter’s questioning it like a madman. He’s writing theories in his notebook. It’s full of hypotheses, detailed descriptions of any similarities or incongruences between the times Wade has found him, even a half-formed formula which makes absolutely no sense. All of it’s only serving to make Peter more frustrated, and he just wants to talk to Wade.
Even on the few occasions when Peter has managed to find Wade recently, it’s always at a distance. Always as Wade is slipping away. And no amount of chasing him or calling out to him or flat-out texting him has resulted in Wade’s reappearance.
Peter’s not sure what he could have to hide. It’s not like he’s done anything with any of the information he clearly has, which leads Peter to believe that he’s been holding onto this information for an absurd amount of time, and clearly feels guilty about it.
He finally manages to catch Wade a little more than a week after he started chasing him, and he’s pretty sure it’s only because Wade lets him. Peter couldn’t even find him at his apartment, which probably makes sense. Wade was likely hiding out in one of his many safehouses.
“Deadpool,” Peter gasps, flinging himself at the ledge Wade is sitting on. He tips backward for a second, almost losing his balance, but Wade grabs him by the elbow and steadies him. Peter pretends like he can’t feel the imprint of Wade’s fingers long after he returns his hand to his lap.
“Webs,” Wade greets.
“You didn’t run away.”
“Got tired of watching you chase me,” he says. “It was less entertaining than I thought it’d be. A little sad, really.”
“I’m not – mad,” Peter blurts, rearranging himself so he can sit on the ledge properly. His shoulder knocks into Wade’s, mostly on purpose, and Peter leans against him for a second too long. “I just— I want to know why. How.”
Wade groans, flopping back on the roof and kicking his legs against the building. “You’re not mad yet,” he says.
“How long have you known?”
Wade tilts his head to look at him. Peter holds himself stiffly, trying to be patient.
“Always,” Wade says.
Peter blinks. “What?”
Wade rubs his eye through his mask, knuckling it. “It’s— I was… fuck,” he hisses. “This was back before we were friends, okay?”
“Okay.”
“It was when that douche hired me,” Wade says. “And he sounded so serious, and I actually thought that maybe the newspapers were right, and you really weren’t a good person…”
“Okay.”
“That’s when I started investigating you. Obviously, I wasn’t going to just take his word for it. I couldn’t risk killing you if he was wrong.”
“Appreciate it,” Peter says.
Wade snorts. “Anyway. I was stalking you and shit. First as Spider-Man, then as Peter.”
Peter’s entire body goes cold. He flinches, his breath catching in his chest, and Wade grabs his hand and squeezes it. He doesn’t let go. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.
“Keep— keep going,” Peter whispers.
“It’s not like you were super obvious, or anything. I was spying on you for a while before I figured it out. Anyway, I think I just got lucky. It was when you were fighting that chemical guy, and you ended up nabbing one of those bottles right off his belt. I followed you, and you broke into some sort of lab—”
“God dammit,” Peter huffs.
“And I was like, hm. I mean, I could see Spidey breaking into a lab I guess, but it didn’t seem likely. You knew exactly where the lab was, and where all the equipment was, and – well, you used the same station the whole time. I figured you – the real you – probably worked there.”
Peter glares into the distance, at the headlights creeping along the streets, the pedestrians clustered on corners. He takes a deep breath, trying to settle himself with the familiarity of it all. The cars honking, the people shouting.
That was an especially annoying villain. And now that Peter thinks about it, his spidey-sense had been going off practically that entire time. He’d figured it was because the chemicals were so dangerous, and he was swinging through the streets with them, but no. It was because he was exposing himself, revealing his identity to Deadpool.
“That’s when I started investigating Peter,” Wade says, squeezing Peter’s hand. Peter squeezes back. “It seemed obvious at that point that Spidey wasn’t the bad guy people were making him out to be, but I thought – well, I don’t even know what I thought. Like, maybe this Peter guy had some deep, dark plan and I could just figure it out if I stalked him a little more.”
Peter snorts.
“I think I might’ve already been obsessed with you, at that point,” Wade admits. “I was being selfish.”
“And that’s how you found my apartment?”
Wade nods, finally sitting up again. They’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, their hands clasped between their legs.
“You were at work, and I broke in. I went through, like, everything in your apartment.”
“Jesus, ‘Pool.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I was just – endeared, I guess? I realized you were 19, practically a kid. You had the crappiest apartment I’d ever seen. Messy, too. Textbooks scattered all over the place, plus a couple dozen novels. I was honestly just being a nosy piece of shit, going through your drawers and shit ‘cause I knew I wasn’t gonna kill you anymore – I’d known for a while, actually – and that’s when you came home.”
“What?” Peter says, jerking in place. He turns to gape at Wade, who winces sympathetically.
“I was hiding in your bathroom, pretty sure you were gonna figure me out, but you were distracted. You were on the phone.”
Peter flounders. How the hell was there someone in his apartment without him noticing?
“You were running around the place, phone tucked between your shoulder and your ear. And you were eating leftover Chinese out of a carton as you changed, jumping around with one pantleg on as you struggled into your suit. You were promising whoever was on the phone that you were about to have a quiet night in, just doing some homework and watching TV.”
“My Aunt May,” Peter says, stunned.
“Yeah, I think you called her that,” Wade agrees. “Anyway, you hung up, finished getting dressed, and left through the window. And that was the night I tracked you down.”
Peter rubs his eyes, feeling exhausted. “God,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” Wade whispers. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“No kidding,” Peter laughs.
“I never went back,” Wade says. “Other than the other night, obviously. Are you mad?”
Slowly, Peter shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Just— shocked, I think.”
Wade nods. “Makes sense,” he says. “I can leave, if you want. Give you time to process.”
“No,” Peter says. “You’ve been avoiding me all week. I missed you.”
Wade sinks against Peter with an exaggerated sigh. “Thank God,” he says. “I was afraid you’d hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” Peter says, ignoring the way his face grows hot.
Wade nods sagely. “Because you love me?”
Peter stiffens. Gapes. Flounders. “Wh— how did you— how do you know that?”
Wade sits up abruptly. He stares at Peter, his mask unreadable. “I didn’t,” he finally says, after what feels like an eternity of silence. “I was joking, Webs.”
Peter makes some kind of sound. Like a squeak. Or air escaping a balloon. “I gotta go,” Peter wheezes, pretty sure he might actually die from embarrassment. He makes to stand up, but Wade grabs him and drags him right back to the roof, rough.
“Are you serious?” he says. “You actually love me?”
“Wade,” Peter says, complains, because he definitely can’t get a whole sentence out there and he’d like to be swinging away now, please and thank you.
Wade grips Peter by the chin, keeping his gaze locked on Wade. And then he eases his thumb under Peter’s mask, and Peter doesn’t do anything to stop him. Why bother? Wade already knows everything there is to know about him, apparently.
He pulls Peter’s mask off, and the evening breeze is desperately appreciated against his burning face.
“You look older,” Wade says.
“I was nineteen when you last saw me,” Peter huffs.
Wade drags his gloved thumb over Peter’s lower lip, and Peter makes – never mind. He’s not repeating what that noise sounded like. Ever.
“Baby boy,” Wade says, his voice gruff, and Peter struggles to breathe, struggles to regain his composure, struggles to stay still and silent and not beg Wade to kiss him.
But then Wade yanks his mask up – only to the nose, despite the fact that Peter has seen his face before – and then he’s kissing Peter. Pressing his whole body into Peter’s as he kisses him fiercely. He has one hand behind Peter’s head, keeping him in place, while his other hand is on Peter’s chest, as if he’s about to push him back. And Peter’s gasping into his mouth, gripping anything he can hold onto – Wade’s shoulders, his katanas, his face.
When Wade finally pulls away, Peter is breathless and panting and far pinker than he was mere moments ago. And Wade’s grinning, still holding Peter close.
“Fuck,” Wade groans. “I imagined this a million times. What you’d look like after I kissed you.”
“Really?” Peter says, his fingers twitching against Wade’s bicep. It takes all his willpower not to just drag Wade into another kiss.
“Easily. I loved you before you loved me, you know.”
Peter snorts. “Unlikely.”
Wade’s grin grows wider, his head cocking to the side. Peter shivers, unable to help it. It wouldn’t be the first time Wade proved him wrong, after all.