Chapter Text
Peter slumps back with a final cry, unaware that his back had arched that high. His shoulders hit the armrest of the couch with a dull thud as he struggles to get his breathing back under control. Wade follows him down, head lined with Peter’s, breathing equally as hard.
“Wow.” Wade says. Peter notes idly that he’s never heard him sound out of breath like this. Sex brings out weird intimacies, even if the sex itself wasn’t intimate. Oh God. Sex. With Wade. “Good work team.”
Peter realizes he has his fingers dug deeply into Wade’s bicep. He swallows and unpeels them one by one. He clenches them, trying to stop the tremble. With a weird amount of himself exposed (his mask exposing a flash of his jaw and his pants around his thighs) Peter feels stupid and ridiculous and wow—this had been a bad decision. Wade is warm above him, the same flashes of skin flaunting their damage, and Peter wishes they weren’t touching at all.
Peter closes his eyes against the image, sated, though a dull panic is starting to grow.
Meaningless sex is not something Peter has ever done. Especially with Wade Wilson, a guy who thirty minutes ago had been arguing with him about whether or not Justin Hammer deserved to have his limbs removed. (He doesn’t, by the way. The guy is an idiot with an agenda, but that doesn’t mean they’re allowed to render him limb from limb, okay?)
In his twenty-five years on this bitch of an earth, Peter has had two partners. MJ, in high school, who had literally been way too cool for him and they both knew it, especially after the first few awkward times. And then Harry Osborn, in undergrad, which is another can of worms he’s not going to dive into, especially not right now, not when Wade is still rolling his hips in tiny little circles against Peter’s hip bone.
Wade’s had a crush on Spider-Man pretty much since the moment they’d met, and Peter had treated said crush with a weary disdain, which had only encouraged the feelings. They both know this, but Peter wasn’t all together convinced that Wade’s flirting had been anything more than a way to get underneath Spider-Man’s skin.
Apparently, Wade wasn't altogether convinced that Spider-Man’s air of disdain wasn't just a cover-up because he was ashamed of returning the feelings.
So Peter had called Wade’s bluff at the same time that Wade had called Peter’s, and they’d both ended up with their dicks in their hands. (No pun intended)(Okay, actually, it was definitely intended).
And now they went and fucked up (no pun intended, again) that easy balance that they’d had between head over heels and pure, unaltered hatred and Peter feels absolutely rawed, and not in a good way.
Because now Wade is under Peter's skin, and it's really obvious that Peter has enough feelings for Wade to sleep with him, at least.
He’s just chewing around a request for Wade to get the fuck off, when Wade presses a rough kiss to Peter’s jaw. He hadn’t rolled up his mask for the event and it wasn’t like kissing had any part in it either, so Peter gets to feel his lips for the first time through the blank spandex of his mask. Nevertheless, Peter feels it for what it was, a declaration of victory, a dethroning. I got Spider-Man to fuck me. Like a brag, or something uglier, something meaner.
Peter’s breath catches on the inhale—because what’s Wade going to do with this? What’s going to happen next?
Peter stops chewing on it. “Get the fuck off.” He says.
“Such a gentleman.” Wade husks into his jaw. He’s already moving, accepting the dismissal. He rolls back to his knee, one foot coming to the ground, legs swinging over, and then he’s walking away. In his absence, Peter feels cold and mostly gross and a little bereft, if he’s being honest. Which. He’s not. He’s not gonna indulge that feeling. It’s just the insanity of the decision he’d just made, nothing more.
With nothing better to do, he sits up, feeling the slight ache in his hip flexors and the pooling sweat at his lower back, but he ignores it in favor of making himself right again, pulling the mask down over his nose, tucking himself away, straightening his suit. It’s disgusting, because Peter had been the one with his back on the couch, and gravity works one way.
Meanwhile, Wade has done the same, but he’s also fixed himself a drink, now sitting at his own kitchen table, combing over a manila folder with the Hammer Industries logo stamped over it. His mask is down but the drink looks like something that needs to seep anyway: a splash of brown liquor and a huge piece of ice in a fancy crystal tumbler that seems out of place in Wade’s otherwise unappealing apartment.
Peter rubs his mouth, wishing idly to be rid of the mask if only so he could rip all his hair out, and stands up. It’s this movement that catches Wade’s attention. He looks up, briefly, and then back down again.
“Shower’s yours if you want it.” Wade offers. And then. “You probably need it.”
Peter’s expression sours beneath his mask. “Okay, Deadpool.”
“Whatever.” Wade snorts. “Don’t let the door hit ya.”
“I’m sorry, but are you seriously pissed off right now?”
“Just call me Bozo, because I’m a clown.” Deadpool says, fucking mysteriously. Peter wants to burst out laughing, from the way his chest feels uncomfortably full and the three shots of bourbon Deadpool has by his elbow and the fact that he’d just called himself a clown, and what the fuck does that even mean?
The bluff had been called and nobody walked away feeling good about it.
Peter opens his mouth. Closes it again. “Okay, Deadpool.” He says again.
And. Well. That’s their first time.
So.
Peter has maybe a tiny issue.
Or, not tiny, really. More like six feet two inches and 220 pounds of an issue, who likes to wear Santa Clause red and kills people. Well. He used to.
And if that wasn’t already enough, Peter’s made it worse for himself by sleeping with his issues.
On a fundamental level, Spider-Man and Deadpool are two very, very differently people. They don’t even really like each other, not really. Sure, Wade is kinda stupidly cut. And, Peter now knows that Wade knows his way around a Stupidly Expensive Leather Couch, but come on.
Peter is thinking about this with his feet kicked up on the conference room table on the penultimate floor of Avengers Tower, glowering, arms crossed. They’re still working the case that brought them all together here in the first place—in that Justin Hammer is an idiot and said idiocy got brought to Wade’s attention who then brought it to Tony’s attention while Peter was in the room. Anyway, Hammer is trying to make a gas (spore? Poison?) that is able to be programmed (told? Controlled?) to target specific people (Tony Stark of Stark Industries?) by shutting down their lungs. Hammer was stupid enough to offer to pay Wade, a newly minted Avenger, to be the first one to try it out, which is why they’re all here.
So, long story short—because, really, when has Justin Hammer ever been the main problem, ever? —Tony had forced Wade and Peter to go over the information that Wade had been given. Three days ago, arguing over differences in the case had turned into arguing over pizza preferences had turned into some pretty fantastic mutual orgasming while horizontal on the couch, which had then turned into a curt dismissal and a bundle of hurt feelings.
Okay, well. They’re not actually hurt. He’s a full-ass adult and they’d both been consenting and panting for it. So maybe just, stung? Plucked, a little. Spider-Man isn’t strung out about this, nosiree.
“I have an actual day job, you know.” Peter insists, and Wade, across the table, perks.
“Ooh lemme guess.” He says, “Shoe shiner? Newspaper boy? Babysitter?”
Peter sits up, feet going to the floor, shoulders stiffening. “Are you trying to imply I’m a child?” He asks, deadpan, and Wade shuts the hell up.
Hm. That’s a new development.
“I know you have a day job.” Tony asserts, because Tony knows who Peter Parker is and Tony knows that Peter Parker is working toward his masters in a lab that Stark Industries funds. “But this is why I need you to work together. You keep Deadpool on task. Nobody else can.”
“I keep myself on task. Watch.” Deadpool replies, haughty. He turns back to Peter. “Bag boy? Video store clerk? The waiter at Olive Garden who tells you to say ‘when’”
“Not doing yourself any favors, DP.” Peter mutters, and Wade shuts up again.
Nice.
Tony watches this exchange with raised eyebrows. He turns back to Peter. “Find me something.” And then he gestures to the new stack of files piled at the center of the table.
Five hours later, Peter has combed through fifteen hundred lab hours’ worth of notebooks and Wade has made a comically large rubber band ball and done nothing else. Well, he’d babbled a bit, but that’s par for the course.
Peter shoves away from the table.
“I just think Mitch McConnel looks like a turkey.” Wade is saying. “Think about it. Think really hard about it. You know, Thanksgiving foods are all dry and heavy as fuck. Could benefit from some maple syrup or mustard or something.” Wade looks up. “I bet when you get fancy coffees you get extra whip. Extra thwip.” Deadpool chuckles.
“You’re insufferable.” He says, webbing the rubber band ball from Wade’s hand. It’s solid with a little bounce to it. Peter has to give it to him—making a rubber band ball is no easy feat.
“Don’t lie. I know you find me delectable.” Wade replies, lazy. “Also, hey!”
Peter flicks the ball out and back, like a yo-yo attached to a spiderweb. He swings it back toward Wade and retracts at the last second, before Wade can grab it. “Thwip.” He says, as the ball comes back.
“Extra thwip.” Wade reminds, and Peter actually smiles. Don’t tell anyone.
“Listen,” Wade continues, gesturing toward the files that Peter had left in a neat stack and pushed toward Deadpool. “You wanna have another study session?” He lowers his voice. “Call your mom, ask if you can sleep over.”
Peter feels kinda cold and hot at the same time, but ignores it. “I had a lapse in judgement.” He says. “Don’t expect it to happen again.”
“Okay, Spider-Man.” Wade says.
Peter grunts and then stalks from the room. He has a day job, sure, but he also has a night job, and he’s about to be late for his shift.
“It’s not happening again.” He finishes, winning the last word after all.
It happens again.
“Ah, fuck.” Peter says, head banging back against the brick. He hadn’t even been remotely turned on ten minutes ago, when Wade had unceremoniously dropped to his knees.
Wade, who is doing something very complicated with his mouth and Peter’s thigh and his hand to nurse him through the comedown, pops away and says. “Christ, you must never get it.”
“Shut up.” Peter replies, hips curling into the heat of Wade’s fingers of his own accord. “And take your fucking gloves off if you’re gonna touch me.”
“I’m not gonna do that.” Wade replies, keeping his fists where they are, his mouth closing over the soft skin at the joint of Peter’s hip and his inner thigh.
“You’re insufferable.” Peter says. It comes out wrong because he’s overstimulated and oversensitive and Wade won’t stop touching him. “Deadpool.” He threatens.
"You’re easy.” Wade returns, and Peter feels a swoop in his stomach, unpleasant. It ripples all the way up to the pit of his esophagus and sits there like an errant potato chip.
Because that’s what this is. They got off together in the Receiving area of a Hammer Industries factory upstate.
Christ, maybe he is easy.
This is time number two. They’re supposed to be breaking into this place, but instead of taking out the security guard they’re giving him a show. Peter lets Wade place open mouth kisses up his hips and wonders when it’ll be appropriate to kick him away.
He hadn’t asked for this…this after part. Not really. Like last time, he wants to ask Wade to give him some space, because it’s in those spaces that Peter finally feels shitty about this, where he finally gets hit with the emotions he deserves. Right now, he just feels a little antsy in anticipation of the hurt, and really fucking good. Like. Glowing. It’s a weird cross road of emotion—like, in five minutes he’s going to feel like absolute used garbage, but right now Wade is warm and willing and more than giving and Peter hasn’t been touched for way too long.
“Can you go again?” Wade asks.
“Fuck you, Deadpool.”
“I wasn’t aware we were gonna go that far.” Wade returns, and it’s not a joke, though it could be.
Peter’s head hits the brick again, sparks in his lower belly. This is the second time this evening he’s asked for consent. Both times have been under the guise of a joke, but it’s unmistakable, and last time Peter had given the same unmistakable yes under the guise of being irritated. Not this time, though.
What the hell are they doing?
“We’re not.” Peter insists. "We're not doing that." Even if they have sex again after this (which they won't, because Peter hates sleeping with him like this, and hates the gross feeling he gets afterward), it's not going to be penetrative.
Wade finally gets the message, and slumps back to his heels, wiping his mouth.
Peter inelegantly covers himself, clears his throat. And ah. There it is. That garbage fire feeling. Hello again.
They spend another day scoping out Hammer’s upstate factory. Wade brings Uno and a tactical radio and they sit and trade binoculars and play a million games of cards, making up new rules when it gets boring.
“I don’t know why you made this rule.” Peter says, from where he’s playing while standing on his head. He does a poor mimic of Wade’s gravelly voice. “’Every time you play a draw four you have to stand on your head, Spidey.’”
Wade laughs. “Blood in your head is good for ya.”
“Blood is always in the head.”
“Pee is stored in the balls.” Wade returns, and Peter flicks at card at him. It hits him right in the mask’s eye.
“Don’t be lewd.” Peter says, tucking in and rolling to his knees. He cracks his neck.
Wade shrugs. “Jus’ the way I’m written.” He replies, tossing his cards down to retune the tac radio and pick the binoculars up again. “Oh my god, Spidey, they’re having another meeting.”
“Seriously?”
“It is not as sexy as I thought it would be to be a Factory Lead. Not enough of that tune. You know.” Wade hums a few lines of the instrumentals they always play during manufacturing scenes in cartoons. “Oh God I think there’s a bar chart on this set of slides. Can’t we just blow this place up?”
Spider-Man replies, tiredly, “This stuff is toxic when inhaled, Deadpool.”
Wade lowers the binoculars and looks at Spider-Man for too long of a moment. “Ha. Good.” He says, finally. “Put me outta my misery.”
Peter reaches across him to the Costco package of extra cheese goldfish, curls his hand into a handful. “What about me?”
“Okay, fish for compliments much?” Wade nudges him, sending his handful of goldfish scattering across the roof.
“Was that a physical pun.” Peter deadpans.
Wade sends him a shit-eating grin. “You’re quite the catch.” He says, and something in Peter's chest lights up like sunrise.
They don’t have sex at all that day.
It all goes to shit. Of course it does.
Wade had been half-assing his part and Peter had been three-quarter assing his part and they were both too busy having sex (twice! Twice now! Oh good lord) and now Tony has a weird case of a biohazard induced pneumonia and Steve Rogers is waiting outside his quarantined room with his arms crossed.
“Um.” Spider-Man says when he approaches. “Is he awake?”
"Yes.” Steve says flatly.
Peter loves Cap, really, and from the amount of time he’s spent around Tony he’s also spent a lot of time around Cap. He knows a lot about Steve and both likes and respects him, but it never gets any less terrifying to be subjected to his wrath.
“You wanna tell me how this happened?” Steve asks. “How you missed five tons of this stuff while you and Deadpool were upstate?”
“Five, uh, tons?” Peter asks. Damn. There’s an edge of a current inside his mouth, a taste he hasn’t swallowed around since Ben died.
Wade had said, hey, dare me to do something cool and then pinned Peter’s hips to the wall and now Tony is paying for it.
Steve sighs. His arms uncross and his hands go to the handle of the door. “Go home, Peter.” He says, and the dismissal stings twice as bad.
Peter doesn’t go home. He climbs three flights of stairs and calls Aunt May from the common room balcony. She doesn’t answer and Peter leaves a voicemail in a hollow voice.
Dusk is falling around the city, polluted air throwing vibrant colors as the sun screams its goodbye, and Peter wraps arms around himself and perches precariously on the railing, leaning outward, balancing in the wind.
He feels, rather than hears, when someone joins him on the deck.
“Having a pity party?” Deadpool asks. “Where’s all the balloons?”
Peter doesn’t acknowledge this.
“Come on. He’s going to live.”
At this, Peter turns. Wade looks even larger silhouetted as he is, arms crossed to makes his biceps bulge, the slight reflection of him in the bulletproof glass windows behind him looming.
Peter pivots, sliding himself down to stand leaning against the railing, arms crossed. “I don’t blame myself for this.” Though he does and this is a lie. But he wants Wade to hurt, because Wade never gets hurt. Wade wears his heart on his sleeve but somehow that heart is always whole.
And Peter has seen him angry and murderous and, quite frankly, scary, but he’s never seen Wade hurt. (Though he has, of course he has, he saw it with his own two eyes when Wade sat slumped at his own kitchen table with three shots of bourbon and Peter tried to pretend it all away on that damn couch). (The heart he wears on his sleeve is not his real heart—Peter would have seen it already if it was, and they’ve had sex twice and Peter still hasn’t seen it, despite all the flirting. The bluff got called, remember?)
“I blame you.” Peter replies. Wade, who has slept with him twice but still hasn't kissed him. Wade who has slept with him twice and Peter still only vaguely knows the fact that he had scars, has never actually seen them.
“Takes two to tangle, mon cherry.” Wade butchers every aspect of the French and the idiom. It would be endearing, really, if Peter didn’t hate his guts and everything he stood for.
“No. You were a distraction.” Peter tells him. Mon cheri. My dear. Sweetheart. Honey. My love.
Wade crosses the chasm between them and cages Peter in, hunching down a little, hands tightening at the railing on either side of his hips. He leans in, too close, too warm in the fading light of September.
“Are you saying it was too good?” Wade whispers right into his ear, hot breath fanning over the skin there.
Peter uncrosses his arms, hooks his fingers into the straps on either side of Wade’s chest, and pushes himself onto his tiptoes to speak the next words directly over Wade’s lips. “Everything we’ve ever done together was a mistake.”
Wade’s hands come off the railing and around low on Peters hips. “That is a mixed signal.”
“Coming from you?” Peter asks, forcing Wade back a step, still in his personal bubble. Wade goes with the motion, hands sliding lower toward the swell of his ass. “What does this do for you?”
Another forced step back. Wade’s hands tighten, kneading a little. “We’ve had sex twice, baby, I think you know what you can do to me.”
Another step, hands harder. “What do you want from me?”
Wade closes the gap, nose to nose, lips touching through the mask. “I wanna know your name.” He says, and surprised, Peter forces him back one last step.
Wade’s back cracks hard against the bulletproof glass side of the tower, and within an instant a thousand tiny spiderwebs crack from the epicenter.
“Woah,” Wade says. He then coughs. “Ow.”
And Peter almost bursts apart.
In an instant, he is halfway across the balcony.
Oh God, oh god, what—what was he thinking? He stares at Wade for a moment and realizes he could have killed him with that action alone. This is unhealthy.
And altogether wrong, and somebody is going to end up worse than hurt.
“Oh God, Deadpool, I—” Peter starts, and with a wheeze Wade looks at him.
At the heat in his gaze, Peter is suddenly not halfway across the balcony, but instead over the railing, a web underneath him, and he is halfway across the city.
The middle of that very same night finds Spider-Man perched on the open window of Wade’s apartment.
Wade, who is not in uniform but still fully covered, who looks sleepy and comfortable but is surrounded in a hellscape of files. It's as close to guilt as a mercenary-turned-Avenger can get. Peter wants to cross the room and curl into him.
Wade looks up. “Look. I get we missed it. Messed up. Don’t have to shove me into anything else.”
It hurts, like it was supposed to. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Earlier. Today” Peter says instead. It’s not quite an apology, but it comes close enough for Wade to give Peter his full attention. “I really hate you sometimes, you know?”
“Yeah, I got that.” Wade replies, tossing a stack of folders to the floor. He must be sorting them. “Do you want to have sex?”
Peter just looks at him. “Look, I’m just—”
“Either get your dick out or get the fuck out.” Wade says. “That’s where I’m at right now, Spidey.”
Peter swallows. “I’m sorry.” He finally says, and Wade flinches
But it happens again.
If Peter had thought the first time on the Stupid Expensive Leather Couch lacked intimacy, then he’s not sure what to call this time. Part two starts rough and ends quicker; this time they’re not even facing each other. This time Wade gets himself off between Peter’s thighs and Peter is responsible for himself. It feels like Wade hardly touches him, hardly does anything but use him for the warm skin that he has.
“Next time I’m gonna...” Wade gasps, against the back of Peter’s neck. He bites, open and hard, like it’s punctuation.
Peter rolls his shoulders, getting the edges into the meat of Wade’s chest. They’ve never talked about it as a next time. They just let each other have each other in the moment. Peter wants to wipe his sweaty forehead against something, but it’s trapped inside his mask.
Peter, braced over that same armrest as before with all his weight (and Wade’s) in his elbows, grunts. It feels nice, in a weird way. He wants to slump into their wet spot and let Wade crush him. This is probably the longest contact they’ve ever had after sex.
He rolls his shoulders again, just for the contact, the warmth, and finds something hot and raw in his throat. Oh.
As Peter thinks on this, Wade moves around a little, shifting, withdrawing, but then there are lips sucking on his neck, soothing from the bite before. He jerks in response, back into the cradle of Wade’s hips.
“You want next time to be right now?” Wade rolls his hips in return, lips climbing up Peter’s throat.
Peter wants to turn his head and kiss him.
He surprises himself with his next words. “We can’t keep doing this.” It comes out low and wrong and filthy, but Peter has tears in his eyes.
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Wade doesn’t move and Peter’s chest hitches, catches, like a rusty nail on skin. He squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lips closed and then Wade takes the weight off. The cold filters in.
But then, there are soft lips back on his neck. Not hard or painful. Just lips, a ghost of something.
“Oh for Chrissake.” Peter says, turning in Wade’s arms and kissing him, fully on the mouth. It’s a concession. An admission.
But Lord what an admission it is. Wade knows what he’s doing, kisses like he knows what he wants, knows when to moves his hands, when to dip in, to taste.
It doesn’t last nearly long enough. Wade breaks it to bite at Peter’s jaw and worm his hand down again.
So if they end up going for time number three on the Stupid Expensive Leather Couch, then really, what’s the difference between two and three times? It brings the grand total up to four, and honesty, really, maybe Peter should just stop counting. At this point, he's taking what he's given.
When he gets home, he replays their first kiss over and over in his mind, and it scoops him out, gutted.
The next afternoon, Peter is in a hazmat suit in one of Tony’s personal labs trying to take apart what little they have sampled of the spores. He’s got it underneath a microscope, a couple of experiments in a centrifuge, and his concentration breaks when somebody taps on the glass.
He presses pause on his concentration, and the centrifuge still has a little to go, so he steps easily on the other side of decontamination and rids himself of the suit with a few easy steps. He ducks out of the lab as he pulls of his goggles, rubbing at the imprint on his skin.
Tony, looking a little ashen still but overall still no worse for wear, says, “Where are you at? You want me to kick this over to Banner for support?”
Peter is still rubbing at his nose. “No. Not yet. I have a bit of its chemical composition, not a whole lot. You ever heard of ChemDesigns?”
“Yes,” Comes a voice, and Peter is extremely startled (thanks so much, Spidey sense) to see Wade leaning against the far wall, arms crossed like he’s sulking.
Oh man, this is the guy he’d been sleeping with last night. And they don’t even know each other, not now, not in the light of day. They’ve had sex four whole times, and Wade doesn’t even know who Peter is.
He feels kinda dirty. Had Wade not slipped and mentioned he’d wanted to hear Peter’s name, then he’d probably feel even worse.
Small victories.
Tony smirks. “Peter, this is Deadpool.”
Peter stiffens, “Yeah, I know.”
“Pleasure to meet ya,” Deadpool says, and then smiles. “Are you lab grown? Didn’t know they had the tech to make somethin’ that cute.”
Peter smiles meanly at him. “Hatched, actually.”
“Fuckin’ hell, baby, I’d let you Alien me.”
“Um.” Tony says, and Peter remembers he’s still standing there. “Do you two know each other?” He asks, importantly. It would be easier to have this conversation as both Spider-Man and as Peter Parker, and maybe he’s already sleeping with Wade, but it’s not a good type of sleeping with each other. Wade isn’t a Bring Home to Aunt May.
They don’t even like each other.
Right? That’s definitely why Peter feels like such garbage about their arrangement. Its definitely because he doesn’t like Wade Wilson.
Peter shakes his head, just as Wade asks, “Carnally? Would I ever!”
Peter wants to bite out an aren’t you sleeping with Spider-Man but he doesn’t, and it’s not like they’re exclusive. Or that they even like each other. And Peter Parker shouldn't know about all the carnal getting to know each other Deadpool and Spider-Man have been doing.
Nevertheless, he can’t help his response, directed at Wade. “Shucks, Mr. Stark, sounds like I can get a free meal outta this guy. Two if I'm lucky.”
“Parker.” Tony snaps, and Peter’s eyes snap to his. Tony gives him a what the fuck look and oh. Yeah. This is weird.
Peter clears his throat. “ChemDesigns. They’re on Hammer’s payroll for his work in water purification. They also have government contracts. Records require a security clearance, but whatever this stuff is I’d consider domestic terrorism.”
“Like anthrax.”
“Yeah, so start there. I’m still working on more details.”
Wade cuts in. “How’d you know about payroll?” he asks. “That was in my files. Er, Spidey’s files.”
Peter shrugs, polishing the last vestige of steam from his goggles. Blasé, plain, he says, “Sometimes Spider-Man sleeps on my couch.” He winks, “He tells me things.”
“Parker.” Tony warns again, “Seriously?”
“Sorry, Mr. Stark.” Peter says, though he isn’t.
Wade seeks him out on patrol that night. He brings tacos, like a peace offering.
"Hot and fresh. Get em while they still have hot sauce."
Peter makes grabby hands. "Did you get mine with--"
"--Extra fajita veggies, yes, you fool." Wade throws a bag to him with an infinite amount of fondness.
"God bless America." Peter says.
"God save the Queen." Wade returns, reaching for tacos of his own, turning as he rolls up his mask.
"Listen," Wade starts. "Is there--"
Peter waits, trepidation mixing with something bright. Yes, Peter is not ashamed of the fact that this morning at the lab had been a test.
"Do you know what--"
It takes approximately five minutes for him to say, “I met your boyfriend today.”
Peter hums. “My who?”
“He’s cute.”
Peter throws back his last taco. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. It’s unbecoming.”
Peter laughs. “I’ve known Peter for a long time.” Is all he says, and Peter can tell that Wade thinks he’s caught Spider-Man in a lie. He can see his face sour.
He doesn’t get the full reaction he wants though, because Wade is dragging him closer by the wrist, pulling hard until Peter bounces against his chest. He drops his lips to Peter’s, opens their mouths into a kiss that tastes like hot sauce and saliva. He tugs Peter’s lip with his teeth, and moves to the neck, the space he’d been sucking at last night.
“I’m on patrol.” Peter insists, but belays the words by twisting to get more of Wade’s mouth. He doesn't know how much longer he's going to get, and this is velvet smooth with a little tang, like a long pull of a good wine. God, Peter loves Wade's mouth.
Wade’s grip on Peter’s wrist is crushing. He kisses Spider-Man until they’re both too flushed and almost angry. Peter sinks into it, feeling heavy and light, something open in his chest.
And that's it. Wade leaves Peter there, staring after him.
When it’s over—when Wade’s finished—Peter feels used and ashamed and very, very vulnerable. Tears leak steady from the corners of his eyes, and his nose is suddenly stuffy and uncomfortable. His throat, raw, jagged, can barely swallow, a long line of saliva and come dripping down his chin. When Wade releases him, Spider-Man slumps, hitting the wall a little too hard, curling a little around himself.
It feels like Wade had just fucked the soul out of him.
Peter shuts his eyes. What would people think? What would people say? How would people use this knowledge, this image of Spider-Man giving particularly rough head on his knees in the semi-public?
He drags a gloved hand over his mouth, doing little more than smearing the wetness there. Above him, Wade says something that he doesn’t catch.
This...this is enough. Peter is ready to admit it.
He can’t do this for much longer. He can’t circle around this, can’t be stuck in this orbit. Because it makes him feel equally useless and used, makes him feel soupy and wanting more than this can give him.
If he’s being honest, which he rarely is, he’s tired of clinging to something he never really had in the first place.
Because Wade is huge and annoying and always there, but he’d been right about Spider-Man. Wade is loud and funny and stupidly smart and giving to the point of no return and has a huge heart that he tries to pretend is three sizes smaller, but most of all, Wade had been right. Spider-Man only acted put-upon and disdained because he had feelings for Deadpool.
And those feelings made him uncomfortable.
Still do, but on top of those uncomfortable feelings, now it just hurts.
And then Wade—frustrating, angry, content with the orbit—crouches down and fits a thumb into the hinge of Peter’s jaw. His mouth pops open with the pressure, a slight relief from the ache.
“Too much?” Wade asks, other hand fitting just underneath the mask and behind Peter’s ear. His eyes shut, and he manages to say nothing in response. Without his permission, his chest gives a pathetic sound. It's almost a whimper. “Yeah, too much.” Wade says softly, and swears. “Sorry. I'm sorry, Christ, Spidey you kept telling me you could handle it."
He could. He could handle it. He just can't anymore.
"Deadpool." Peter rasps, sounding very much like he'd just swallowed a box of nails.
"Yeah, Spidey." The thumb digs in a little better, and the pressure release could make Peter cry. "Tell me what you need.”
After a moment, Peter manages. “Isn’t this the part where one of us leaves?” He states, voice wrecked. It’s a fitting way to put words to something they’ve never spoken about, raw and cracked and ragged and frank.
“Can you even stand?” Wade asks, a little smug, but still fixed in this weirdly tender place, thumb rubbing a soothing circle at Peter’s jaw. Peter wants to crawl into the warmth and curl up around it, wants to fling his arms open and let the wave hit.
“That’s not what I was saying.” He returns, and there’s a darkness in his voice that he can’t pinpoint, an anger, maybe.
Wade’s hand stills, withdraws. “You were asking me to leave.”
Peter doesn’t respond. He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either. Instead he just tries to swallow again, against the taste of Wade in his throat.
Wade sighs, a picture of exhaustion. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Wade doesn’t call him on it. “Alright, then, Spidey.” He says, his voice off. “I’ll see you around.”
And then.
And then Wade gets shot and bleeds out on the back porch of ChemDesign in Jersey. Peter gets to him when he’s cool and pale but sill breathing, and Wade doesn’t die but it’s a close fucking bet. He lets Wade throw an arm around him and presses the button in the middle of Wade’s belt to teleport them back standing in the familiar center of Wade’s apartment, near the leather couch that they’ve had sex on three times now.
Wade makes a small noise, reaches up to his chest, and pops the bullets out.
Peter presses his face into Wade's chest and Wade's arms come around to squeeze the hell out of him, and against his temple Wade mutters, "Thank you."
And then.
And then the night ends on the center of Wade’s bed breaking more than one boundary they’d tacitly agreed never to break, when Peter steadies himself with a hand over the largest hole in Wade’s uniform and sinks down onto him, hand over skin.
And oh.
In the moments it takes to adjust before movement, Wade makes a wounded noise and sits up, hands coming around Peter’s back.
“I have feelings for you.” Peter says. The only way to fix this is with communication. Now that he can admit it to himself, he has to admit it to Wade. It had only taken three weeks of fucking to figure out.
“What?” Wade asks, distracted and pressing his hips upward in a test. It takes the breath right from Peter's chest, like he'd been hit with some of those spores and can't breathe any more around the closing of his throat.
“Deadpool.” Peter says. “I’m falling in love with you.”
"Don't." Wade replies, shifting. "Don't do this."
"The reason--" Peter hitches, begins again. "I keep telling you we can't do this anymore because it hurts me when we do it. And I realized it's because I want more."
"Don't do this." Wade says again.
"If you don't want more, I can deal with that." Peter whispers.
"Don't." Wade spits, "I can't."
It's like being kicked in the gut. "Okay, Deadpool." Peter says.
Wade doesn’t reply, just opens his mouth against Peter’s neck and fucks into him.
Peter clenches his hand over the hole in Wade’s suit and tucks his head against Wade’s, eyes shut, overwhelmed and uncomfortable, full to bursting with something denser than air.
It’s not enough
He lies there for a long time, alone between the sheets on Wade’s king bed, cold and still wearing his mask and most of his uniform. He thinks he gets it though. Because Wade is terrified. That part now is obvious. He’s scared because the flirting has always, always been an unbidden defense mechanism, an errant desire. And Peter called him on it, and now Wade is too afraid to make it real.
Peter has been lying to himself about this for a long time. The disdain has always been fear of a magnetic attraction to a man broken enough to try to change, hanging on to that change, staying true to it.
They are more similar than they thought.
But none of it is enough.
Not enough of anything, because this time, this real first time, is hard and unforgiving and improper and it hurts underneath the constant thrum of heat. By the time Wade releases Peter’s hips and slips out to tie the condom off, Peter has tiny pinpricks of wetness in his lashes. It feels like an end.
It feels like being punished for a vulnerability.
Wade doesn’t return, and Peter limps home.