Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I got it!” Wade hollers, sliding out of the kitchen on socked feet and into the coffee table. 

“Watch the farsholtn furniture,” Peter complains from the corner where he’s been trying to balance decorations on the cigar store Indian for the last several minutes.

“I’ll watch the fucking furniture when you get rid of that thing,” Wade counters, pulling his utility belt over his civvies. It’s his day off, but the Deadpool pouches are pulling double-duty this weekend as Dadpool pouches.

“It’s historic,” Peter insists, standing on tiptoe to balance a yarmulke on its wooden headdress.

“It’s tacky and racist.” The doorbell rings again; Wade vaults over the table and Peter’s protests. “You don’t have to keep things just because someone gave them to Spider-Man!” he adds, ignoring Peter’s grumbling.

The door swings open to reveal Ellie, an overstuffed, Captain America-themed overnight bag, and Agent Preston.

“Ellie-Bellie!” Wade crows, scooping up his daughter and spinning her around. “Hey, Em,” he greets the SHIELD agent.

“Wade,” Agent Preston greets. “Homework’s done, bath’s done, but no dinner.”

“Why do you have weekend homework? You’re like five!”

“I’m eight,” Ellie informs him.

“Damn it, Ellie, I’m a mercenary, not a mathematician!” Wade protests in his best Bones McCoy impression. “‘Sides, who the fuck gives weekend homework to a baby? Are you even old enough to read?”

“Language!” Preston snaps.

“Yeah, watch your fakakta language!” Peter chimes in. He appears to have given up on the wooden Indian in favor of scattering festive heaps of gelt and brightly-colored wax sivivonim on the coffee table.

“Yeah, your fakakta language!” Ellie repeats through a tooth-baring grin.

“It still counts as swearing in Yiddish,” Wade sputters. 

“Gai kukken afin yam,” Ellie says with barely suppressed glee. She runs into the apartment to return Peter’s proffered high-five.

Preston and Peter are cackling in stereo, and Wade has never felt more ganged up on in his life. “I changed my mind, let’s go to Emily’s house for Kwanzaa. Parker’s a bad influence on my precious child.”

“Kwanzaa is next week,” Peter corrects him. “C’mere, Ellie, lemme teach you the worst gambling game ever invented.” He pats the ground next to him.

“I already know how to cheat at cards,” she informs him as she settles on the floor in front of the largest pile of foil-wrapped chocolate coins.

“If you figure out how to cheat at dreidel without telekinesis, you will be filthy rich in mediocre candy.” He spins a little hot pink, four-sided top, which almost immediately skitters off the table and under the couch.

Wade’s chest warms at the easy exchange between his daughter and his partner.

“Bedtime is at — ” Emily says, dragging his attention back to her.

“I know,” Wade snaps, then softens. “Pete made a binder with tabs and an index and everything. Kids make him anxious.”

“Sorry. I just…” she trails off.

Wade can’t really blame her. He’s not exactly going to win any parenting awards anytime soon, even after getting used to the idea that he has a kid. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be fine. Besides, Spidey will show up if there’s an emergency. I’m on like three of his patrol routes.”

Emily visibly relaxes at that, which Wade thinks is entirely unfair, considering Spider-Man’s sheer danger magnetism. Not to mention, Spider-Man has spent most of the last fifteen minutes trying to make a wooden Indian into a festive winter holiday decoration. However, along with the rest of the 616, Preston still hasn’t connected Peter Parker and his arachnid alter-ego. Maybe there’s something to that whole secret identity thing after all.

“Bye, Emily!” Ellie yells over her shoulder.

“Be good!” Preston calls back. “I’ll pick you up on Sunday morning! Santa knows your presents should still come to our house, don’t worry.”

The door barely shuts before Ellie turns to Wade and Peter. “Don’t worry, I still haven’t told Emily that you’re Spider-Man, and she still hasn’t figured it out. For a smart lady, she can be kinda dumb about stuff. She thinks I still believe in Santa,” she snorts.

“Santa is real,” Peter says. “He’s an omega-level mutant.”

Her eyes grow wide and saucer-like. “No way!”

“It’s true,” Wade agrees, scooping up the overnight bag and locking the deadbolt. “Also, Cronus is real and one time Pete and I had to convince him that Christmas and Saturnalia are basically the same.”

“Ah, the good old days before I liked you,” Peter sighs dreamily, making Ellie giggle. He’d totally get her in the divorce.

Wade flips Peter off behind his back as he carries Ellie’s bag over and sets it next to the pull-out couch. He settles onto the sofa arm across from them.

“If Santa is real, why are you still Jewish?” Ellie asks Peter. She unwraps a piece of gelt and shoves it into her mouth while she waits for an answer.

“Well…” Peter turns back to face her. “Ol’ Saint Nick being real doesn’t exactly prove that Jesus is the son of HaShem. I mean, if he existed, maybe he was also a mutant, right?”

“Huh. I guess so,” Ellie says thoughtfully, popping another piece of gelt into her mouth. “So Chanukah isn’t about Jesus or anything?”

“Nah, we don’t really care about that guy.” Peter refrains from going into a TED Talk on cultural Christian hegemony, the meaninglessness of the phrase “Judeo-Christian,” or his position on “secular” Christmas.

Wade, having been on the receiving end of these and several related lecture topics multiple times since Christmas decorations began showing up in his favorite local craft store in early October, admires his restraint.

Ellie plies Peter with questions, though Wade suspects she may be more interested in making herself sick on chocolate coins than in the history of the violent Jewish revolt against assimilation and repression in the Seleucid Empire. In any case, Peter doesn’t stop her from eating candy, no matter how bad her dreidel spins are.

“Okay, kiddo, I think that’s enough,” Wade finally says after she’s eaten enough candy that it’s making him a little sick.

“You’re right,” Peter agrees. “We should start cooking anyway. Wanna learn how to make latkes?” he asks Ellie.

“What’s that?”

“Potato pancakes,” Wade informs her. “But not, like, actual pancakes.”

Peter had taught him how to make latkes and sufganiyot last Chanukah, but he’d missed out on joining his baby bug at the official Jewish superhero Chanukah party and actually celebrating the holiday because he’d had to go get space divorced again. Aliens had the worst timing. At least he’d been back in time for Tu B’Shevat, which Peter insisted was a cooler holiday anyway.

“Huh?” Ellie looked confused.

“You’re too young to learn about your dad’s food crimes,” Peter laughs. “C’mon, that oil ain’t gonna heat itself!”

By the time they’re done frying latkes, keftes de prasa, three kinds of sufganiyot, mozzarella sticks (at Wade’s insistence), bimuelos, and defrosted a container of Aunt May’s homemade applesauce (courtesy of Thanksgiving leftovers saved for the occasion), it’s just about sundown. Peter pulls the brisket out of one crockpot and turns the heat down on the cholent on the second while Wade makes a salad and Ellie sets the table. The challah Wade baked that morning goes under its cover, and when Peter pours glasses of Kedem, even Ellie gets a Dixie cup’s worth of sweet wine at her place setting.

“Candles first?” Wade guesses.

Peter looks out the window, then checks his phone. “Yeah, should be about time once we get everything set up. Hey Ells, come pick out which chanukiah you wanna light.”

Ellie and Wade follow Peter from the kitchen back to the living room, where he pulls several boxes of candles in various colors and sizes and four candelabras from a blue storage container next to his tacky wooden Indian. Wade notices that the yarmulke is finally balanced on the damn thing’s head.

“I thought that was called a menorah,” Ellie says as Peter puts seven candles into each candelabra.

Peter sighs. “That’s, uh, I mean, it’s technically true? That’s kind of a generic word though, and it mostly means the ones with only seven arms. The ones we use for Chanukah, like this?” He pulls a sloppily-painted wooden one toward himself. It looks suspiciously like old-school clothespins, hexagonal nuts, and a hunk of wood scrap; Wade would bet all the gelt left on the table that it was Peter’s handiwork when he was about Ellie’s age. “That’s got nine arms, and it’s called a chanukiah.”

Ellie nods, eyes wide as Peter hands her a lighter. She’s been following his explanations all night way better than Wade can; she must’ve got the brains from her mamá because she sure as fuck didn’t get them from her daddy. On the other hand, the way she starts flicking the cheap Bic off and on, looking around for things to light on fire? That’s definitely from Wade.

“With great firepower comes great responsibility,” Wade says solemnly because he thinks he should try to redirect her from burning down Peter’s apartment.

His words don’t seem to deter her. Still, she’s distracted again when Peter places an additional pair of candlesticks on the foil protecting the furniture, asking questions and listening to his explanation of Shabbat rituals. For someone that gets so nervous about kids, he’s pretty good with Ellie, keeping her engaged while Wade kicks back and watches them.

It’s giving Wade a major heart-boner for his boo. He’d totally let Peter knock him up with his egg sacs of a gazillion spider babies. Gross.

He tunes back in just in time to take the offered laminated sheet of prayers.

Peter says, “Uh, you guys don’t have to sing stuff or anything. Just wait until I get to the Chanukah candles, and use the middle one to light the rest. Baruch atah Adonai …” he chants. His accent grows thicker, and the letters Wade is sure should be t’s become s’s.

By the end, Wade and Ellie are stumbling along with the tune, at the very least. Peter grins broadly as they sway together in the candlelight. He kind of looks like he might cry. Heck, Wade thinks he might cry. Extra gross.

“Okay, who wants doughnuts for dinner?” Peter asks when they finish. He claps his hands together, then busies himself with collecting their song sheets and smoothing the foil under one of the chanukiot. He rubs his face as soon as his back is to Wade, who would now bet actual money that Peter is totally crying.

Ellie shoots up and runs for the precarious stacks of treats oozing their filling onto the powdered sugar-dusted counter.

Wade creeps up behind his spider, who is still facing away and wiping his eyes. “Thanks for sharing with us, babe,” he says, wrapping his arms around Peter.

“Yeah, of course,” Peter chokes out, a voice strangled with emotion. “Let’s go teach your kid about responsible drinking.”

“Chanukah sameach,” Wade says, but he pronounces it “sam-aye-atch.”

“I changed my mind. Get out of my house.”

“Thish ish great!” Ellie shouts, the words garbled through a mouthful of fried dough. She’s already smeared powdered sugar, jelly, and applesauce across her face and shirt.

Wade pulls a packet of baby wipes from his utility belt.