Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wade wears his designation like the leather of his suit; skin-tight and confidently and demanding the attention of everyone in—or outside of—a room. Like he can’t even help it. Unapologetic, and so comfortable with it that he likes to shove up against all the stereotypes without a second thought. Even if he didn’t have the physical build of an alpha, it just makes sense for him. 

Peter, on the other hand, has never been as comfortable with his own.

He’d hated presenting. Hated the way everything suddenly became about securing a bond instead of all of the other dozens of interests Peter had wanted to pursue. Existing in the shadows is what he’d always been accustomed to, though. If he kept his head down, things could just keep going on as normal. 

Until his mutation. 

Now—now Peter’s this chaotic, mangled mess of hormones, his body confused by the added elements the bite had brought him, and he’s even more uncertain of where he truly fits in. 

He’s an alpha. He’ll always be an alpha, according to everyone else. Some days he’s fine with that. Other days, he just wants to be a human, first and foremost, and fuck everything else, honestly. 

Spider-man helps with that. His alter ego is designation-less and perfectly neutral, appetizing to optimists of all different classifications. Peter’s made sure of it. He wants everyone to know that they’re just as capable as he is of doing good, no matter what society tries to tell them. 

And, most of the time, that works. Peter works a shitty tech job downtown. Eats whatever he can scrape out of his pantry or bribe from the old lady at the diner near his apartment. Pops suppressants like candy when he can afford them. Hates himself when he can’t. Patrols at night and struggles to fall asleep until the sun’s coming up, then does it all again the following day. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it’s his, and Peter feels okay about it. 

+

Except for times like these, when Peter goes mindless with the need to manhandle and subdue and take. When he doesn’t trust himself around anyone.  

Save for Deadpool, that is. 

“Fuck, Petey,” Wade moans, ass up and face pressed into his pillow, Peter’s hands digging into his wide, scarred hips. The only sliver of his skin Peter’s allowed to see and touch when they do this. “Yeah. Yeah. There. Right fucking there.” 

Peter doesn’t care for Wade’s pleasure, not in this state of mind. But Wade’s enthusiasm both confuses and soothes him nonetheless, the lingering tendrils of his cogent mind pleased that he isn’t harming the body beneath him. 

Wade’s big and unflinchingly solid, but Peter’s quicker and, if it came down to it, deadlier. Wade does the most damage with his blades. If Peter really wanted to, all he’d have to do was sink his teeth into somebody and they’d drop dead. 

Save for Deadpool. Again. There’s a reason they do this sort of thing. 

“Close,” Peter huffs, his own suit bunched around his thighs and half up his chest, mask rolled up over his nose. He’s not sure how long they’ve been at this already, but Wade hasn’t once asked him to stop. 

Wade makes it absolutely impossible for Peter to be ashamed of himself. He’s drooling onto the pillow beneath his cheek where his own mouth is exposed, sweaty palms webbed to the slats in the headboard that keep nailing the wall behind it, synthetic pheromone lube dripping down the insides of his muscular thighs and on the blankets that, Peter noted earlier, had been arranged into somewhat of a haphazard semblance of a nest. They’re all ruined, now. 

He knows Wade does that for Peter’s benefit. Peter picks up on those sorts of things; down to the wrinkle of Wade’s nose when he uncaps the bottle, the unpleasant stickiness of it that undoubtedly irritates his sensitive scars that he cleans only once Peter’s left. 

But Wade is also under the impression that Peter won’t want him anymore if he doesn’t act like an omega when it comes to this specifically. Dousing himself in scents that Peter’s alpha should like, probably. Presenting himself on his hands and knees every time, letting Peter arrange him however he likes as long as they aren’t face to face for it. Wade thinks he’s ugly. Always has. 

Peter grunts through the last wave of frantic, rough thrusts, the frame creaking and his inhuman strength leaving more scars to decorate Wade’s hips. Peter wants to sink his teeth in. He wants to reach around Wade and take his dick in his hand, tug him off until he’s shaking and unable to keep up the act. 

He doesn’t. 

“Yeah, give it to me, that’s it, Petey, fuck.”  

Wade groans, muffled into the pillow as he bites down on it, and Peter can tell from the way he shudders and curls in on himself a little that he’d come from rutting against the mattress. Private and quiet, unwilling to hinder Peter’s own pleasure and the absolute antithesis of Wade himself. Coming back to himself a bit, Peter reaches toward the nightstand for one of Wade’s hastily discarded blades and slices through the thick webbing keeping his wrists captive. Peter rolls them onto their sides as they catch their breath and settle in to wait for his knot to go down. 

“You—you good?” Wade asks, like he does every time. 

Peter swallows around the gravel in his throat and refuses to push for more. 

“Yeah.” 

Wade is under the impression that Peter only wants him for this. And Peter—

Peter can’t afford to let either of them believe otherwise. 

+

Wade’s ruts are different. 

Peter’s not sure how, because he doesn’t think he’s allowed to ask, and Wade definitely doesn’t seem to want to offer. He’d been adamant that first time when Peter offered to return the favor and be there for him if he needed it, and Peter hadn’t pushed. 

He knows only a few things: that Wade is everywhere all the time until suddenly he isn’t anymore, that he disappears for nearly a full two weeks—far longer than a natural cycle should be, though Peter has no room to judge—to one of his safe houses that’s further toward the edge of town, and that when he returns, it seems like something inside of him has died that takes ages to come back to life again. 

Peter guesses that it’s quite literally Wade himself. He doesn’t ask about that either. 

+

They’re on the kitchen floor this time. Hadn’t made it to the bedroom. Part of Deadpool’s suit is still clenched neatly between Peter’s teeth, the part keeping him from what he most desires, torn and ragged and no longer a hindrance. 

It’d hit him hard this time around. Out on patrol. He thought he had one more night. He’s glad Wade found him when he had, re-shaping Peter’s hyper focused aggression and bloodlust into something as sharp as a needlepoint. Warmer, headier, needier. 

Peter doesn’t like needing things, but he’s given up pretending that he doesn’t need Wade. 

Even if he isn’t needed in the same way. 

“Harder, baby boy,” Wade pants, gloved fingers like sandpaper clawing against the wood floor. Peter drops down over him and holds them steady. “Don’t hold back, Petey. I want it all.” 

He doesn’t really though, does he? 

But Peter’s falling further into that hazy headspace again, where everything is just pain&pleasure&take&Wade. He doesn’t trust anyone else with this. He doesn’t trust himself.  

Peter spits out the strip of Wade’s suit and bites the still-connected leather at his shoulder instead, and takes them both flat to the ground. 

+

Peter was thick into his finals for college when they first started all of this. Drowning in them, really, with no reprieve that he could ask for from his friends or remaining family. No matter how hard he pushed it down and pretended he didn’t, it always came down to two options. 

He either needed to fight something or fuck something, and he refused to do either of those without a level playing field. 

Wade always knew how to blur the lines just right. 

He’d offered the fighting first. Or—that isn’t right. He’d offered the fucking too, but Peter had declined. So they’d fought. And it helped initially, letting Peter get the aggression and the fucking mess of his hormones sorted out with the physicality of it while also having the guarantee that he couldn’t do anything to Wade that Wade either couldn’t handle or wouldn’t be able to come back from. 

Peter had busted a nasty underground organization a few years into being Spider-man, a set of assholes who’d crafted some sort of drug that kept alphas in perpetual rut-state. Sold tickets, brought in crowds to watch them be shoved into a ring together and fight until death or submission; neither of which were arrived at simply or quickly. Mindless, the alphas had gone at each other nearly numb, their hormones and adrenaline keeping them from feeling any pain. By the time there was a winner, there wasn’t any celebration. Whoever survived would be irreparably injured, their minds and bodies never the same after the mental and physical trauma. It was sickening. Peter’d carried a few of them out of the building himself when they busted the place, and it still makes him nauseous. 

He’d thought about that, the night he fucked Wade for the first time. How easy it was to give into his instincts despite Wade’s similar biology; how there could only really be two endings. 

They’d spar with each other until one of them passed out or Peter came back to himself a little, and then they’d stop. And then, one night on a random roof in Queens, they hadn’t. 

“Spidey?” Wade had paused, cheek pressed into the gravel where Peter had just rolled him over and pressed himself against his ass. “D’you—?” 

“I’m here,” Peter grunted, which hadn’t been an answer. Not enough of one, anyway. 

But it’d gotten the point across, nonetheless. That Peter was present, aware, and conscious of his decision, even if spurred on by base instinct. That he wanted this, even if he couldn’t be eloquent about it. 

He won’t ever forget the way Wade’s shoulders had unfurled beneath him at the confirmation, the happy little sigh on his lips as he’d reached up to roll his mask above his mouth and pushed his hips back against Peter. 

“Suit stays on,” he’d said quietly, unlatching his belt. “Other than that, you can do whatever you want with me.” 

And Peter hadn’t deserved it, but he’d taken what was offered to him anyway. Senses focused, jaw clenched, curled over Wade the way a predator might guard its prey. In that moment, he’d felt like one of those alphas in the ring, brutal and dirty and ruthless. 

But Wade hadn’t let him for long. He’d answered every one of Peter’s noises with one of his own, pushed back when Peter shoved forward, slipped a gloved hand behind himself to smooth a thumb over the line of his jaw until Peter had taken it between his teeth and held it hostage. 

Something inside of him had broken that night, but no more than he’d already been. Life since his mutation had been dark, so, so dark, and while Peter had held out hope for a gentle sunrise on the horizon that never came, perhaps that wasn’t meant for him anymore in the first place. 

Maybe it’d been Wade’s whip-crack of lightning instead, kicking up dust and breaking open the walls, bright, jarring light spilling through the cracks. 

Perpetually running from his enemies and never quite feeling safe in his own skin, Peter had sunk into the tight heat of Wade’s body for the first time and thought: home. 

+

Peter feels weird about leaving Wade alone when he’s dead. 

It’s just not good etiquette, especially not when he’d died shoving Peter out of the way. He’s sure plenty of other people would just dump him somewhere and assume he’d be fine, but Peter just can’t. 

He carries Wade back to the nearest safe house despite his own aches and pains and litter of smaller injuries, picks the lock and deposits Wade gently onto the sofa, then returns to the door to latch all of them up again before he goes searching for a first aid kit. 

With a stolen rag from the cabinet, Peter shakes the dust out and runs it underneath the faucet to clean his own face of the blood and debris. He likes to be alone after a fight, once the criminals are webbed up and waiting to be dealt with, when nothing is Peter’s responsibility anymore except for himself. 

And Wade. 

Heading back to the living room, Peter flips on a couple of the hallway lights but leaves the rest of them off. Wade never likes it to be bright when he wakes up. 

Popping the kit open, Peter rests it on Wade’s eerily still chest and sets to work removing the bullet that hadn’t exited the other side. It’s a nasty wound; always is, when they aren’t a clean shot. Peter supposes not everyone can be as skilled as Wade is with a firearm, which is likely a good thing. 

The fact that they’re a shitty shot and that they hurt Wade has anger sitting like oil behind his teeth. That’s always his first instinct before anything else these days. Anger. 

Defensiveness, maybe. At least he’s self aware. 

Bullet removed, Peter hangs the thread from his lips and leans down to begin stitching him up with more care than Wade ever spares for himself. He says it’s useless, and maybe it is. The skin will seal up again within minutes. 

Regardless, Peter feels like he needs to do something with his hands. He keeps his eyes on the side of Wade’s abdomen as he works, moves back and forth across it until it’s nothing but a scratch with yarn sitting idly on the surface. 

His hard work rattles and then falls to the cushion when Wade takes his first shuddering breath, slamming to sit up the way he does each time. Peter can never tell if that gasp is relief or disappointment. 

“Easy,” he tells Wade regardless, a hand to his shoulder pushing him to lie back down. “The wound’s healed, but you still lost a lot of blood. It’s gonna take a bit to regenerate.” 

Head tilting slowly to the side, Peter pictures Wade blinking underneath the hauntingly white eyes of his mask. 

“I died.” 

“Yeah,” Peter croaks. 

“No, I’m still dead,” Wade insists. “This is heaven. You’re an angel.” 

With a roll of his eyes, Peter shakes his head. “Quit it, Wade.” 

His own half-rolled mask and suit feel too thick on his body, and Peter wants to get out of them soon. But he always stays a little longer when Wade gets hurt like this, even when it seems like he’s okay. So he stands from his spot on Wade’s coffee table and heads for the kitchen to get them both a glass of water, and pauses only once in the doorway between both rooms. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he admits, quiet enough that he could pretend Wade didn’t hear it at all. Peter knows he did. 

He escapes to the kitchen and grabs two cups from the old cabinet, then waits for the sputtering tap to go a little warm. 

Peter’s hands are shaking when he jams them underneath the stream. 

+

During his next rut, Wade’s reaching for the pheromone lube when Peter shocks them both by nearly snarling at him.

“No.”  

Wade freezes, wrist tangled in the sheets, and waits for further instruction. And Peter can’t tell him why, can’t articulate it in a way that doesn’t sound off alarm bells. So he leans into it a little more and lets Wade believe he’s just surrendered to his instincts, delirious to his want. 

Peter can’t tell him that he doesn’t want anything else that doesn’t smell inherently like either of them. Omegas are typically the ones that are more scent sensitive, but Peter’s instincts went haywire with the bite, heightened and enhanced, and the artificial staleness of Wade’s embellishments puts him on edge. 

He’s allowed to see only a specific portion of Wade’s body when they do this. Peter leans away, straddling the back of Wade’s thighs as he lies on his stomach, and observes. 

In the split between the top part of his suit and the bottoms, Wade’s ass is bare and tan and mottled with familiar scars. Peter’s more fascinated by them than he’d care to admit, and certainly more than Wade would ever be comfortable with. He often admires the way they move and shift, the way they’re never the same, always in different places by the time Peter sees them again. 

He grazes a hand over some of them now, at the crease of skin where Wade’s ass meets the top of his thigh. His breathing hitches, heart rate picks up, undetectable to anyone without Peter’s attuned hearing. He hisses through his teeth when Peter presses more firmly, and Peter wants to watch him shatter.  

He’s still clear headed enough to know that they can’t do this without some sort of slick that neither of them are naturally able to produce. Peter shuffles forward on his knees to swipe the dripping head of his cock against Wade just as he spits on the same spot, and Wade groans when he realizes what’s just happened. 

Oddly calm, Peter leans back again to spread it all around with his thumb, hooking the tip of his finger gently inside of him. He’s still so fucking tight with the healing factor, no matter how many times Peter fucks him open. 

He’ll have to improvise further then. 

Comfortable with the fact that Wade will tell him if he pushes too far, Peter climbs off of Wade’s legs and settles between them instead, yanks his hips up and pushes his knees further apart until the seams of his suit threaten to give way. 

“Baby boy?” Wade asks as Peter’s breath heats the side of his ass. It’s not a no. 

Wade had talked about this one time—he probably doesn’t even remember. He’d been rambling about something else and taken a sharp detour about the last time someone’d gone down on him. How much he’d loved it, craved it, but claimed he’d never force someone to do that now, given the state of him. 

Peter had assumed he’d meant a blowjob. He’d been wrong. 

He hasn’t really stopped thinking about it since. 

Yanking his mask up fully over his nose, Peter inhales, high on nothing but Wade this time. He doesn’t want the synthetics. The rut sets in a little more firmly, sharp and demanding, and Peter sinks his teeth into Wade’s skin, desperate to leave a mark but careful not to release any venom. 

“Pete—” Wade tries again, a little shakier this time. Peter can hear the hesitance for what it is; not I’m not sure, but are you sure? 

Peter’s fucking sure. 

Wade shouts when Peter dips forward, making him slick with sweat and saliva and pre-come on his tongue, paving the way for his fingers and eventually his cock. 

They don’t leave the bed for hours. 

+

There’s another alpha in Wade’s apartment when Peter goes over to help with some reconnaissance. Peter has no right to feel any sort of way about it, but it’s weird. He’s not used to anyone else’s scent in Wade’s space. 

“Spidey, you’re here!” Wade cheers when he throws open the door and pulls him inside, a hand curled around his arm on the way to the dining room table. Peter would pull away, normally. Today, he lets it slide. 

“I’ve hacked into the system and located a blueprint for the building,” the other alpha says, one hand on the keyboard of his laptop and the other holding a beer. “I just gotta get past this last firewall and we can crack the security system. You guys’ll be set to go.” 

“Webs is fuckin’ amazing with the tech shit, I bet he can get us in,” Wade says, dropping into a chair at the table. 

The other alpha shrugs and shoves the laptop his direction, but Peter stands there until he vacates the chair nearest to Wade and sits on the other side of the table instead. As Peter works, Wade chattering happily, the other guy eyes Peter with a raised brow. 

“Not much of a talker, are ya?” 

“Leave him alone,” Wade tells him. “He’s working.” 

Peter fights a smug smile underneath his mask as the other guy scowls. 

Sure enough, it doesn’t take him long to get inside and locate the plans for the security system. He and Wade work great as a team now that neither of them are fighting that anymore, but it always helps to go in with somewhat of a plan. When they’ve made all of their notes, Wade jumps up to shoo the guest from his apartment, and only once the door shuts does Peter feel his instincts quell back down. 

“I’m fucking starving. You can stay for dinner if you want, but I can’t promise seconds. Weas was here way too long,” Wade grouses, boots thudding toward the kitchen. 

His apartment is more open than the safe house they’d been in last, so Peter doesn’t have to move from his spot at the table to watch as Wade moves around behind the island, grabbing pots and pans and gathering ingredients. 

“You guys seem close,” Peter hedges. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. We go way back. Long, unfortunate story.” 

“You’re friends.” 

Wade gives a long suffering sigh. “Yep.” 

“Like how we’re friends?” 

Silence falls between them, and Peter holds Wade’s narrowing eye from across the room, his exposed lips quirking into a smirk. 

“Is that what we are, Petey?” 

“I’m asking if you’ve slept together,” Peter deadpans. 

“With Weasel?” Wade’s grin falls, and he chokes on his spit with how aggressively he shakes his head. “Fuck no, baby boy. This healing factor takes care of any possible diseases, but I am not taking any chances there. Why?” 

Without answering the question, Peter stands from the table and crosses over to him. He rounds the island to stand directly behind Wade, nudges his feet slightly apart with his own and finds the split of Wade’s pants with his fingers as he hooks his chin over a muscular shoulder. 

“Finish dinner, Wade,” he says as he slips a hand inside of Wade’s suit. “I’m hungry.” 

“Oh, fuck,” he sighs, his head falling back onto Peter’s shoulder for a second before he picks it up again. His mouth is so close, so open, so slick with his spit. Peter wants to devour him. “Can’t we have dessert first?” he whines. 

Peter bends him over the countertop and hopes that Wade’s moans are loud enough for that asshole to hear outside on the street below. 

+

Peter’s next rut is surprisingly slow. Some of them are, sometimes. It’s always a little unpredictable with the mutation. 

Wade senses it all the same, more on top of the haphazard schedule than Peter is. He still finds Peter on a roof in Brooklyn and asks him to come home with him, still invites him in all the same even when Peter’s not tearing his suit in half and pushing him onto his knees. 

It’s quieter, save for Wade’s talking. They have time to eat first. Peter has a shower and still feels kind of guilty about it when he asks Wade to wear the hoodie he had to change out of for it. By the time he comes out of the bathroom to find it clinging to the contours of Wade’s body though, bare underneath, Peter can’t fathom regretting it. 

This time around, the mask and suit thing feels a little stupid. They don’t have an excuse for not changing out of them now. They hadn’t been rushed in the heat of the moment. 

As a commercial break rolls through on the television, Peter reaches up and pulls his mask all the way off, tossing it onto the coffee table in front of him. He can feel Wade’s eyes immediately. 

He’s not scared, though. 

He lets Wade stare at him for a handful of minutes, focusing on the television and willing himself not to wilt away from the attention the way he usually would. What they have isn’t like that. Peter might not be anything special, but he doesn’t think Wade’s shallow enough to just care about looks anyway. 

It takes another two episodes before, like a stop-motion animation, one moment Wade’s mask is settled above his lips, and the next, it’s beside Peter’s on the table. Peter doesn’t look, even if it takes every bone in his body fighting him to do it. 

Neither of them bring it up, though Wade’s usual chatter is nearly non-existent at this point. Peter can feel the heat in his stomach, lets himself indulge in it a little as they turn off the TV, put away the leftovers and move to Wade’s room. 

Wade is quiet as he climbs under the sheets, quiet when he lets Peter fuss with the blankets and as he ravages Wade’s closet to find something more comfortable to sleep in. Peter knows he’s waiting for him to look. That he thinks when Peter finally does, he’ll call the whole thing off. 

Peter wants to tell him that he’s brave, but he’s worried his voice will give him away. 

He strips naked right there at the end of Wade’s bed instead, fully aware of his audience of one, and slips on a t-shirt that hangs off his shoulders. He’s always been lanky for an alpha, but he’s learned to like that about himself. Means he gets to prove people wrong more easily. 

So Peter denies himself even as he checks the front locks again and returns to the bedroom, as he shuts the door and turns off the light and climbs in behind Wade in the bed. Peter’s face to his back, just like always. 

Wade is tense for a long time. Peter can’t sleep; never can, so close to a rut. He stays alert even as Wade’s body succumbs to nervous exhaustion, heart rate steadying and breaths long and even, and when Wade’s eyelids flicker with the evidence of a deep sleep, Peter, like a coward, lets himself look. 

The scars are no different here than anywhere else on his body, and Peter doesn’t feel differently when he gazes at them. Wade has a nice face, with a strong, sharp jaw, an angular nose, a little bit crooked halfway down like it’d broken and hadn’t healed in just the right way once or twice. 

He doesn’t have any brows but the small furrow of the bone as he dreams is reminiscent of the way it looks under his mask too, and Peter’s lips twitch as he watches them in the dark. 

The collar of Peter’s hoodie leaves Wade’s throat exposed, his chin tipped back and mouth split open in the middle. It’s one part of Wade he’s already accustomed to seeing, but in this context, alongside the rest of him, it’s different. It’s more. 

Peter wants more. 

As if having sated some sort of primal instinct to ensure that Wade was truly content, the restless part of Peter’s brain rackets down to nothing more than a dull buzz, and Peter slips down the bed a bit more so he can curve an arm around Wade’s waist. 

He bets Wade looks incredible in the sunlight. 

+

He wakes up hours later, desperate and needy for control, taking willingly what Wade eagerly offers him. They’re still on their sides but he ends up rolling Wade onto his stomach with the force of his thrusts, the sheets torn where he’s gripping them with his fingers. 

It doesn’t take long this time, not with the novelty of having their masks off. He can see the side of Wade’s cheek in the moonlight, the silhouette of a panting mouth and a furrowed brow, the subtle tint of darkened pink skin underneath the scars. 

Peter leans over him at the same time he reaches around to grab Wade’s cock where it’s pressed against the mattress, nudging forward to graze a kiss to the very corner of Wade’s open mouth as his knot fully settles inside of Wade’s body. 

“You know I’d let you do this to me, right?” he asks. 

Wade doesn’t yell, but he shakes so terribly when he comes that Peter has to hold him still, keep him steady, whisper soothing things in his ear. He keeps stroking Wade through it until he’s too sensitive, wet and whining and curling in on himself, and Peter pulls his hand away but follows him with his body. 

He presses a hand to Wade’s cheek to wipe the tears and tucks himself as close as he can possibly be, sleep welling back to the surface. 

And still, Peter wants more. 

+

That first night in Queens, after they’d fucked and were tied together on the roof, Peter couldn’t believe what he’d done. 

It had nothing to do with Wade, and yet everything, too. Wade, who was possibly the only other person left that would take what Peter had to give without question. Wade, who did that and then asked for more. 

Peter spends a good amount of time feeling guilty, for a variety of different reasons. It eats him up from the inside as if his venom has turned on him inside of his veins, sour in his gut and thick in his throat. Control is the only thing that used to help; having everything nailed down to the final, painstaking detail. No surprises. Predictability was safe, even if he was miserable inside of the confines. 

Wade never adhered to any particular rule. Peter couldn’t make him listen or obey. 

Not until Wade wanted to. That’s the difference. 

“Peter,” he’d told Wade in the gravely afterglow that first night, the noise of the city humming far below them. “My name is Peter.” 

The first time he’d let the lines blur. Not between he and Wade, but between the two versions of himself that felt so unlike one another. 

Wade hadn’t flinched. 

“Peter, huh?” he’d murmured, more weighty than his typical delivery as gloved fingertips ghosted over Peter’s arm. “S’nice to meet you, baby boy.” 

No matter how long guilt had been his default setting, Peter had never once regretted it. 

+

Wade is sick. Peter wouldn’t even have to be so attuned to him to know it. 

He’s not as quick as he should be on patrol, and Peter has to swoop in to web him out of the way of a weapon or an angry assailant more than once. And yet, when he catapults them onto a nearby roof to take a breather, Wade’s mostly lost to the voices in his head that Peter can’t hear, his brow furrowed and eyes unfocused. 

Wade’s not the only one that keeps a calendar, though. Peter might not keep up with his own cycle as well as he should, but he knows Wade’s. Knows when to expect that Deadpool’s going to drop off the face of the earth for a couple of weeks before Peter sees him again. 

It only happens once every few months, but it feels too long every time. 

“You’re not well, ‘Pool,” he tells Wade, propping him carefully back against a nearby generator. “Why haven’t you left the city yet?” 

“Tried,” Wade croaks, mask peeled up to take in gulps of humid night air. “Couldn’t—didn’t feel right. Sorry.” 

Peter glances around the empty, quiet roof. They don’t have any supplies and Wade’s apartment isn’t far. Hell, Peter’s shitty studio isn’t far. But Wade needs something familiar if he’s slipping into rut the way Peter thinks he is. And even if he shouldn’t, he knows exactly where Wade goes. Peter could take him there, if his instincts don’t get in the way. He nudges Wade with his knee. 

“You trust me, ‘Pool?” 

“‘Course,” Wade says instantly. “Always.” 

Working his jaw, Peter leans forward and peels away the leather at the base of Wade’s neck. He’s experimented enough with his own venom to know what’s too much and what’s not enough, even though it’s a very thin, very fine line. 

Wade trusts him though. Peter won’t mess it up. 

He parts his lips against Wade’s throat and warms the mottled skin with his tongue, drawing blood to the surface. Wade’s healing factor will purge out the venom quickly. Peter will have to move fast. 

Slipping his other hand onto Wade’s cheek to tilt him further, Peter allows himself one more indulgent taste before he peels back his lips and sinks his canines in, and Wade gasps before going totally pliant beneath him. 

Pulling back, Peter slips an arm around his back and underneath his legs, Wade’s body heavy in his arms despite his enhanced strength. Quickly crafting something similar to a giant baby bjorn with his webs so his hands can stay free, Peter shoots off toward the distant treeline with Wade motionless against his chest, his heart beating steadily but sedated for now. 

It’s been all of five minutes, and he misses Wade’s voice. 

+

There’s obviously a reason Wade hasn’t taken Peter here before. This safe house is different from the others; smaller, dirtier, not pretending to be anything it isn’t. There’s no television and no food in the cabinets, no furniture save for a mattress in the corner of one of the rooms. 

Peter lays him down on it while he searches through the place, antsy with worry about how he’s supposed to care for Wade without any resources. He’s not sure he’ll be allowed to stay when Wade wakes up, but he doesn’t like not having a plan. 

When Peter’s lost to his instincts, Wade’s there to make sure he eats, bathes, and doesn’t lose himself completely. Peter would like to do the same. 

Figuring he’s already invaded Wade’s privacy anyway, Peter finds his phone in one of the pockets of his utility belt, begrudgingly locates Weasel’s number with a list and a vague address, and explicit instructions not to come any closer than necessary. 

With that finished, he goes searching for the generator, fiddling with the wires and switches until the electricity finally crackles to life. He feels pretty pleased with himself too, until he walks back into the main room and takes in the walls. 

Blood. Dried, but thick, in very specific patterns on the peeling dry wall. A couple of unloaded guns on the floor. A rusted blade that must’ve been lying there for ages. Peter’s stomach turns. 

He’s suddenly sickeningly aware of how exactly Wade deals with his ruts. 

Swallowing bile, Peter forces himself into survival mode. He has to be there for Wade when he wakes up. He can spiral about this later. 

Well accustomed to cleaning blood out of things now, Peter uses water and bleach from the kitchen to scrub at the walls and the floorboards. It won’t ever be enough to erase it the way that Peter would like to, but at least it won’t be so overwhelming anymore. 

He hopes, anyway. 

By the time Weasel texts back that the supplies have been delivered, Peter’s cleaned the living room and most of the kitchen, his fingertips pruned and stinging from the water and bleach. He washes them thoroughly and then brings in the bags, putting away the food and water bottles for later. He doesn’t think he could stomach anything at the moment. 

With the house quiet and everything finished for now, Peter slumps against the wall beside the cracked open bedroom door where Wade is, numb. 

This isn’t about just him anymore. Not self preservation or pride or whatever else he’d been saving by keeping his feelings to himself. 

He has to tell Wade. 

+

Peter wakes to the sound of a gun cocking. 

He’s up and through the door in record speed, landing on top of Wade on the mattress and knocking it out of his hands. It clatters noisily to the ground beside them, and Wade blinks, maskless and confused, before something settles in his face. 

“You’re…here,” he says. 

“You’re not doing that shit again,” Peter tells him, breathing hard. “Not when I’m here to help you.” 

They stare at each other for a moment, Wade’s body tense beneath him, his wrists moving under Peter’s grip. He loosens it only just enough, but Wade doesn’t pull away, even when the muscle twitches involuntary. 

“I’ll web your hands if I need to, Wade. I mean it.” 

He does. He’d sooner dose Wade with more of his venom than let him hurt himself again. 

Sitting back, Peter climbs carefully off of his lap and heads for the gun lying on the ground. He clicks the safety back on and empties out the chamber, then shoves it to the back of the closet and slams the door closed. 

“Get up,” he tells Wade. “I’m changing your sheets.” 

Still quietly suspicious, Wade stands obediently to the side as Peter yanks off the old, tattered sheets and draws out his bleach mixture from the kitchen to let the mattress soak for a bit before they put the new ones on. 

“I—I can help,” Wade offers. 

Peter bypasses him. “You need to eat.” 

He fetches water and one of many protein bars and shoves them in Wade’s direction, who blinks owlishly at Peter as he stands idly beside the counter. Peter wishes he’d stop staring, but he can’t blame him. This isn’t—they don’t do this. 

He’s not going to make Wade explain himself. Peter knows there are things Wade has gone through, is still going through, that he can’t understand. His pain is constant, often times all consuming, and for however much Peter values the weight of a human life, he isn’t going to pretend that Wade doesn’t know what he’s doing, or that he isn’t valid for it. 

But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt, right in the center of Peter’s chest. 

“If you ask me to go, I will,” Peter says carefully. “But I think you should let me stay.” 

Wade huffs. “Why?” 

“Because I care about you, ‘Pool. Why d’you think?” Peter snaps. 

He breaks off another piece of the protein bar, chewing noisily. 

“You shouldn’t.” 

“Drop it, Wade. This isn’t you.”  

“Maybe it is,” Wade argues, face hardening. “Maybe this is me, and you just don’t like it. Well. Tough shit, baby boy. There’s the fucking door.” 

“Bullshit. Don’t tell me I don’t know you.” 

“You don’t!” Wade yells, tossing the trash onto the counter beside him. “You don’t know me. If you did, you wouldn’t still be here.”  

Peter braces his hands on the countertop and shakes his head. “You don’t get it.”  

“Get what?” 

“That I want to!” Peter shouts back. “I just cleaned your damned blood off the walls, Wade. You’re right. If I didn’t want all the fucked up parts of you too, I wouldn’t still be here.”  

“Why are you doing this? Nobody else cares if I—” 

“Yeah, well I didn’t think I was just anybody else to you,” Peter says. 

Wade’s mouth snaps closed, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. Slowly, eventually, his shoulders lower. 

“You’re not.” 

“Seems like it, sometimes,” Peter confesses. 

Wade’s face twists. “How so?” 

“Because apparently killing yourself is a better alternative than letting me help you.” 

The hiss of breath through Wade’s teeth is rattling, the anger bleeding out of him. 

“That’s not true.” 

Peter grips the cabinet more harshly. “I’m not asking you to pretend like this is more than you want it to be. But don’t put this on me that I haven’t offered, Wade. You’re the one that doesn’t want me.”  

“What?” Wade chokes. “Where the fuck did you get that idea?” 

“You won’t let me help you the way you help me,” Peter clarifies, suddenly exhausted. “And it’s fine. There’s all the hormones and shit. You don’t trust me, I get it. It’s—” 

“Peter,” he interjects firmly. “What the fuck. It’s not that I don’t trust you.” 

“What is it, then?” 

Shoving both hands down his face, Wade sighs through the gap in his fingers and faces him. 

“You can’t hurt me. Even if you kill me, I’ll come right the fuck back. Like a virus. You can’t get rid of me,” he stresses. “But you—you’re the farthest fucking thing from breakable, Pete, but—” 

“But what? We’ve fought before, Wade. Plenty of times. You know I can handle myself.” 

Wade shakes his head, glances at the floor. Peter steps around the corner of the cabinet until he can stand right in front of him, daring Wade to look back. 

“What are you actually afraid of?” 

“The things I want…” Wade hesitates. “I can’t have them. Better not to even try.” 

“Why can’t you have them?” Peter asks. 

“Because it’s some really fucked up shit,” Wade laughs wryly, still turned away. 

He shrugs. “Try me.” 

“Peter.” 

“I’m serious, Wade. You’ve never flinched at anything I’ve thrown at you regardless of if I’m in my right mind or not. Whatever you’re about to say, I’m not gonna think you’re an awful person for it. It’s not gonna change how I think of you. Okay?” 

With a distant whine, Wade seems to argue with himself for a moment, his lip caught between his teeth and contemplative lines carved into his forehead. 

“Wade,” Peter says again. “Tell me. I want to know.” 

His teeth dig in harder, a dot of blood appearing on the surface. Peter swipes it away with his thumb, watches Wade watch him slip it onto his own tongue for the taste. Squeezing his eyes shut, Wade steels himself, then exhales. 

“I want everything,” he rushes. “I want every fucking part of you, Peter. I want the good and bad and whatever else is in between, and I want to keep you naked and helpless in my bed until I’ve mapped it all out,” Wade continues. “And who’s to say it would stop there? I can’t promise I’ll stop. That I’ll ever stop. I think of—I think—” 

“What do you think of?” 

Wade groans, his head tilting backward. “You bring out the worst in me,” he breathes. 

Peter pulls him back down. “Tell me.”  

“I want to keep you here, waiting for me, ready for me any time I decide I want you. I don’t want you to ever leave. I want—I want you to wear my mark.” Peter gasps at the insistent fingers suddenly gripping his throat, but he doesn’t pull away. “And I want yours, even though the healing factor would fuck it off within the hour. I want to— God, Peter. I want you to bruise. I want everyone that ever lays eyes on you to know that you belong to me. I want to rip apart anyone who thinks they have a shot.” 

Wade’s fingers flex again, the pressure tightening just enough that Peter’s eyes flutter against the tops of his cheeks. 

“And then, I want to fuck you so hard you cry while my hands are still covered in blood,” Wade murmurs, “until all you fucking know when someone dares to ask is my name.” 

They’re sharing the same air by the time Wade finishes, temples pressed together, Peter’s head spinning as oxygen fills his lungs again. 

“I’ve never wanted anything this fucking bad, and it terrifies me,” Wade whispers. 

Peter can fucking relate. 

Slowly, he lifts a hand to layer over Wade’s at the base of his neck and squeezes.  

“Okay.” 

Wade’s touch slips away from him altogether, his scarred brow bones drawing in toward each other. 

“What do you mean, okay?” 

“I mean exactly what it sounds like. I’m fine with all of that.” 

“You’re—you can't be,” Wade sputters. 

Peter sighs. “Wade, I’ve said all of those same things to you before.” 

“Yeah, but you weren’t totally, you know, there. I didn’t think you meant—” 

“I meant them,” he interjects. “All of them.” 

There isn’t any doubt about that. Peter’s had his fair share of being controlled by his instincts, but he can hardly speak when that happens. It’s all movement, calculated and direct. The words, he’d been aware of. 

Wade blinks again, slow and curious. 

“Oh.” 

Closing in on him again, Peter runs his palms up Wade’s arms, still covered in dirty leather, and up to his bare neck where he’d sunk his canines in earlier. Fully healed now. Wade won’t keep his strength for much longer. 

“Let me help you, Wade. Let me stay.” 

Peter doesn’t want to take his choice away from him. But he needs Wade to make it now, before they run out of time. 

Swaying forward until his head lands somewhere against Peter’s shoulder, Wade shudders out a breath. Peter feels him reach out, feels tentative fingers curl around his hip, encourages Wade with his own. 

“Yeah,” Wade nods eventually. “Yeah. Okay.” 

Peter nearly crumples in relief, wraps an arm around Wade, and leads them to the dingy shower in the bathroom before he loses any more energy. He peels off each layer of Wade’s suit as the water heats, discards any hidden weapons and bits of debris, keeps them resolutely turned away from the foggy mirror above the sink. 

It’s the first time he’s ever seen Wade completely naked. 

He doesn’t linger for too long, stripping his own suit off and pulling Wade’s hunched shoulders and sunken eyes toward the tub. He gets in a cursory once-over of Wade’s body with the rag and soap, but when Wade leans on the wall and eventually sinks to the floor, Peter doesn’t fight him on it. He follows as if by extension of his own body, Wade’s knees pulled to his chest, Peter’s limbs splayed in all different directions to encompass the bulk of the man in between them. 

Peter lets the water run over them both as he runs a hand over Wade’s shivering shoulder to pull him in close and thinks, it’s nice to meet you too, Wade. 

+

For all Peter still dislikes Weasel, he has to respect the man for not skimping on the sheer amount of unscented, un-enhanced lubricant Peter requested in his text. Granted, if he believed it was Wade asking for it, he’d probably known better than to ask any questions. 

+

He knows it when Wade begins to settle back to himself after five days of nothing but sweat and heat and instinct, clear eyed and alert, more in tune with him than Peter sometimes is with himself. 

The blinds are broken on the window above them and sunlight spills in over the carefully arranged cocoon of sheets, illuminating not only the bruises in various stages of healing covering them both, but the marks on either of their necks as well. 

It won’t be a real one. Despite their fucked biology, there’s certain things that just won’t be possible for them. 

But Peter runs his fingers up the outside of Wade’s arm, presses two against the marks of his canines where his venom had dulled the last of Wade’s pain temporarily, and he feels Wade’s own mark on his throat pulse in time with it. 

Wade stirs with the touch, flexing his solid grip around Peter’s bare middle. He cracks one eye open, looking well rested instead this time, and smiles crookedly. 

“You good?” Wade asks, like he does every time. 

Peter bites back a grin of his own and stretches, thrilling when Wade follows. He nudges their tangled legs under the blanket and thinks, jarringly, that he could probably do this forever. 

“Yeah.” 

He moves in to press his mouth against Wade’s—because they can do that now—and Peter rolls onto his back as he drags Wade in between his thighs again, face to face, no longer unsure of where he fits. 

Wade really does look good in the sunlight.