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Chapter Text

“We don’t think you’re…. mature enough to be a full time member of the Avenger Initiative.” Fury had said as tactfully as he could.

This was ringing in Peter’s ears as he patrolled that evening, he couldn’t believe it. He might have believed it if he was still that confused seventeen year old, but the man was nearing thirty this was ridiculous. Apparently Fury considered helping the little people less noteworthy than fighting aliens every few years. Peter could understand where Fury was coming from, he suppose, you know it’s only the people of New York Peter was helping. What was that? Eight million people? Not that big a deal really, especially considering a lot of the work he did nowadays was cleaning up after the Avengers. Yeah, nothing major.

And you know what hurt the most? The Avengers agreed with Fury, they said he wasn’t ready. The ol’ Cap had sat him down and said “You’re better out working on the streets than working with us. You’ve got more than enough time and energy for that, kid” and then he had the audacity to ruffle Peter’s hair. Did anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. know that Peter had the ability to age past twenty?

Then, to add insult to injury, Fury said that, although he was still not a qualified Avenger, his skills were still needed for a recon mission. As though he was their pet that was on their beck and call. And he couldn’t just say no, lives were at stake. So he was on call for the next couple of days, they even gave him a pager. He was going to throw that outdated thing down the stairs next chance he got.

So yeah, he was more than a little miffed. It probably didn’t help that he spent the rest of the day patrolling the streets, practically jumping down the throats of anyone who even jaywalked in front of him. He was now perched on the edge of a rooftop, there was a shady looking guy standing next to the hot dog stand on the corner of the street.

“Wow I didn’t know being called Spiderman actually made you act like a spider, do you eat flies as well or are you more of a wasp man?”

Peter nearly fell off the damn building, he turned around to see Deadpool waving at him. He sighed deeply.

“If we could not do this that’d be splendid.” Peter said before jumping off of the building. He managed to swing over to a building further down the street and continued to watch the shady man.

“Motherfucker… you do not take my knees into consideration when you pull shit like that.” Deadpool panted while clutching said knees. He’d somehow managed to catch up to him not even minutes after Peter had gotten there. If Peter wasn’t mad he’d be impressed.

“What do you want, Wade?” Peter asked, he always wanted something, although usually he only wanted to hit on Peter.

“Spidey you’d consider us friends, right?” Deadpool said in such an ass-kissing tone, Peter had to roll his eyes.

“Nope, not even once, I can’t say the thought has even slightly crossed my mind.” Peter quickly replied. Deadpool ignored him and carried on.

“So, friend, I have a proposition for you.” He stopped for a dramatic pause. “How would you like to date me?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Peter responded after he took a minute to pick his jaw back off the ground.

“Not for real, god no. I would never, I mean I don’t even know who you are. You could be a grey old man under there… although you sound fifteen.” Deadpool babbled. For fuck’s… he’s twenty eight, how does no one realise this?

“Does this have a point?”

“A certain Canadian-played-by-an-Australian ursine friend of mine insisted that if I am going to be associated with him and his merry band of X-Men, I need to get my ‘fucking ass into gear.’ And I didn’t want to do that so I hired a PR team to do it for me. And they said it’d be good for my image if I dated a superhero and I knew I never had a shot with Captain America soooo.” Deadpool trailed off.

“You want to fake date me?” Peter replied. Was this real? This couldn’t possibly be a real thing that Peter was being asked.

“Well I would actual date you if you really want, but we’d need to establish a safe word first.” He could practically see the horrific images in Deadpool’s brain.

“No, thank you.” He replied and went to jump again, Deadpool grabbed his arm before he could.

“To the real dating?” Deadpool clarified.

“To both.” Peter said as though it were obvious. Deadpool looked genuinely shocked.

“What?! How can you say no?”

“What made you think I’d say yes?” Peter asked, deeply confused at Deadpool’s plan here.

“Blind faith mostly.” Deadpool shrugged.

“Right ok, see you round Wade,” Peter again turned to leave.

“Fine see if I care run back to your Avengers, better company than I ever could be.” Deadpool muttered bitterly under his breath and started the slow rejected walk back to wherever he came from. The Avengers… Peter had a thought, it wasn’t a good thought and normally he’d regret thinking it. But today was different, today he wanted to tell the Avengers to suck a fucking dick. And who better to do that with than the top spot of the never to work with list?

“Wade.” Peter said, Deadpool immediately appeared in front of his face. He’s like Voldemort that way.

“Yes Spidey?”

“I figured out why I’d say yes.”

“Hmm?”

“I need your help to piss off the Avengers.” Peter said, even through the mask he could see possibly the biggest grin he’s ever seen on a person.

“Well you have come to the right man. Do you want to start pissing them off now?” Deadpool moved in to kiss Peter, dear lord no. Peter quickly side stepped and watched as Deadpool kissed the air.

“No, actually I do not require your services now. But if you could be my on-call boyfriend for a couple of days that would be great.”

“On call?”

“Yeah there’s a teensy alien invasion, I guess, and the Avengers asked for my help as a not an Avenger.” The more Peter explained the situation the bigger Deadpool’s eyes widened. “And I couldn’t possibly fight aliens without my snookums by my side.  You’re a damn good fighter so they shouldn’t say no if I insist on having you there, I may have to throw a few tantrums to convince them but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. But, I’m sorry Wade, but they won’t enjoy your company and they’ll enjoy our coupledom even less.” Peter got a bit carried away with this plan, it was now possibly the best revenge plan he’d ever thought of. The look on Steve’s face when he calls Deadpool “Daddy” in the middle of a fight will be worth the rejection alone.

“This is so fucking cool! If I call you Johnny Rico will you call me Dizzy Flores?” Deadpool was hopping from foot to foot excitedly.

“Didn’t they die at the end?”

“No I die in the end, and I can’t die so we’re safe” Deadpool shrugged. He then waited a moment before leaning into Peter and waggling his eyebrows “For now”

“Right… I’ll be leaving now.”

“Wait if I’m on call how do I know when I’ll be needed?”

“I thought you’d be the master of stalking me by now Wade.” Peter said dryly before jumping off the building. The suspicious guy had the hot dog stand up at gunpoint, which was ridiculous like there would be $50 in that hot dog stand at most. As leaped over to him and kicked the gun out of the man’s hand, he had a sudden feeling of intense regret over what he had just agreed to. This was going to be an interesting couple of days.

Fortunately Peter didn’t have to wait long, his pager beeped at him that he was needed at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters not even a couple of hours later. His initial plan was that he thought if the pager beeped Deadpool would just randomly show up as he is wont to do. But the thing beeped and no Deadpool, Peter wasn’t sure why he thought that would work. Time for Plan B, he got off the couch and grabbed his mask, he slid it on and lent his head out of his living room window.

“YO! WADE!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. He ducked back into his apartment, and walked into his bedroom to grab a duffel bag he had packed and ready to go. He walked out of his bedroom to see a panting Deadpool in his living room.

“You rang?” Deadpool said in an attempted suave voice, the fact he had very large pit stains and was breathing heavily detracted from this.

“You ready to go? They want me at HQ now.”

“Are you?” Deadpool gestured at the knitted sweater Peter was wearing that said “Got Webs?” and his sweatpants. Peter shrugged.

“I have my mask on right? How much more Spiderman do I have to be?”

“Knit that yourself?” Deadpool smirked. Peter nodded. “Does Spiderman use traditional wool or does he use web?”

Peter rolled his eyes as he walked over to the door of his apartment and opened it and gestured for Deadpool to go through it. Deadpool did not.

“Wait are we not… swinging there? What do you call your way of moving?” Deadpool tilted his head as he went through the possibilities, Peter could have sworn he looked disappointed.

“In sweats? I don’t think so.  After you, Sweetums.” Peter said dryly and gestured to the door again. Deadpool immediately perked up and sauntered out of the room.

“Hate to see me go love to watch me leave eh?” Deadpool replied with a grin. Peter sighed so deeply that he feared his lungs couldn’t take the large amount of air he inhaled.

“Ah yes your sweaty ass wearing spandex with bullet holes in all the wrong places. It just does things to a man.” Peter said as he locked the door behind him. 

“I leave them there on purpose, it shows a bit of skin while still being intimidating.” Deadpool posed seductively at the end of the hallway. Peter walked straight past him and started climbing down the stairs.

“No, it just shows you’re too lazy to fix your costume.”

The cab ride there was nothing special, Deadpool spoke for the entire time. Peter focused in and out of this long spiel about this amazing pizza place but then the mafia got involved somehow? At any rate it ended with Deadpool blinding angry gunmen with pepperoni slices and jalapenos. Peter wasn’t surprised at this story, to be honest he was expecting more use of the pizza cutter.

As they left the cab and entered the building, Peter had to remind himself that this wasn’t as bad an idea as he thinks it is now. He wasn’t going to get murdered in his sleep over this idea, Deadpool might but that’s hardly a problem. This was just a light-hearted prank, no one was going to get overly furious at this. He was going to be fine, in fact it might be a little fun. He had told Deadpool to be at his most irritating and he was sure he would not be disappointed. This would turn out ok. They entered the lift.

“You ready darling?” Deadpool grinned.

“With you I’ll always be.” Peter said dramatically and before cracking up laughing.

“Is our love funny to you?” Deadpool said in a mock angry tone and placed his hands on his hips.

“Absolutely.” Peter stated as though it was obvious. He glanced at the lift controls, they were about to reach their floor. He took Deadpool’s hand off his hip and into his own. “Showtime.”

And the doors opened. They walked hand in hand through the reception area and into Fury’s conference room. As Peter opened the door he saw the Avengers’ welcoming faces and then Deadpool trailed in after him and suddenly they weren’t so welcoming anymore. Peter had never felt more alive than he felt at that moment, it took everything in him to not burst out laughing at their horrorstruck faces. Well everyone except Clint, he casually saluted Deadpool before looking back at the screen where Fury was giving his briefing. Fury in fact was not currently giving his briefing, he was looking directly at Peter, and he was looking extremely fury-ious in fact. Deadpool clearly was also thrilled to bits by their reaction because he dropped Peter’s hand and did the over exaggerated yawn move and draped his arm across Peter. Peter leaned into it and took Deadpool’s hand into his.

“Hey guys, what did we miss?” Peter said casually.

“What did you miss?” Natasha said disbelievingly, the first to break the uncomfortable silence. This was literally gold, if Peter could ever memorise a moment he would want it to be this one.

“Oh yeah right, this is my boyfriend Deadpool. I thought he could tag along since he’s a pretty good fighter.” Peter explained. He was pretty sure he just saw Steve’s eyes pop out of his head.

“I think you’ll find I’m just pretty in general.” Deadpool said to Peter in a gooey lovesick tone, that even grossed Peter out and he was in on the joke. So of course he needed to up the ante because Tony’s jaw hadn’t dropped yet.

“Damn straight.” Peter murmured before kissing Deadpool through the mask. And there goes Tony. This was the best idea Peter had ever had in his life. It was a quick peck on the lips but Deadpool seemed to be a bit breathless after Peter pulled away. It was a nice touch.

“You want to bring him along?” Natasha asked with a silent rage that she was just so good at.

“This isn’t prom, Peter. You don’t get to bring a date.” Tony snapped.

“Why not? The widowmaker here did.” Deadpool whispered into Peter’s ear. Peter had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing.

“This is a government funded mission, there are lives at stake.” Steve said as though he was talking to a child.

“You show up in trackpants and whatever that thing on your torso is, with him. Are you taking any of this seriously at all?” Natasha said scathingly.

“What and your typical leggings are oh so much more serious?” Deadpool continued to snark in Peter’s ear. It was kind of calming actually, Peter wasn’t used to such a full frontal attack from these guys. Although it was hilarious it was also very daunting, he was bordering on either laughing or shitting himself.

“Hey you can attack my man all you want, but my knitting? That’s just taking it too far.” Peter whispered back.

“Excuse me?” Natasha asked and started to stand up. Oh shit.

“I think it’s lovely.” Thor said.

“Thor’s bringing the thunder.” Deadpool said to Peter.

“If I thought my Jane could defend herself I would bring her along too.” Thor explained his position on the issue.

“This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t even be discussing this, this is a non-issue. He’s not coming end of discussion.” Tony ranted.

“Agreed, it’s far too dangerous.” Bruce dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. Peter looked over the bickering Avengers to see Clint and Fury at the end of the desk calmly discussing something. He nudged Deadpool and gestured over at the two scheming with his eyes.

“You know that doesn’t work as well as you think without any irises.” Deadpool said to him.

“Good, now you can’t see when I roll my eyes at you.” Peter said simply.

“If you all would like to stop acting like pre-schoolers and let me get back to my briefing.” Fury announced, bored of the arguing. “Peter, Wade sit down.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Natasha snapped.

“Oh for fuck’s sake Nat, calm down. Just because you don’t want to hang around him for a few days, doesn’t make him any less qualified to be here than you.” Clint finally said weighing in on the matter. Wade made a point to walk down and sit next to Clint with Peter trailing behind him, there wasn’t another chair so Peter did the logical thing and sat on Wade’s lap. He could practically feel the eyes being rolled at him, he couldn’t help but smile at the feeling.

Fury began his briefing, there was an alien species discovered prowling the sewers of outer suburban New York. This is when Deadpool loudly said “Pretty convenient isn’t it? Gross but convenient.” And in return Steve loudly glared at him. Fury continued that there was reason to believe they were setting up a base and the Avengers and Peter were to check it out in case things turned ugly. A base would be set up and the Avengers were to stake out there, at which point Tony announced that Tony Stark does not do stake outs particularly stake outs that are only two hours away. Fury then retorted with perhaps Stark would rather investigate with Parker and Wilson. Tony was quiet after that.

Essentially Peter and Deadpool’s job was to sneak around in the sewers searching for any evidence for a base. Of course Peter got the shitty job, apparently it was because his abilities would heal any effect the excessive amount of methane gas had on him. Which first of all that’s a lie, he had hung around his Aunt May after Chilli Tuesday and he would never say it to her face but good lord that woman could fart with the best of them. Peter would argue that Clint and Natasha could achieve the same results if they just gave them gas masks, however judging from the scowl on Natasha’s face he wouldn’t risk it.

After the meeting they were told to grab their gear and head to the chopper. Deadpool genuinely squealed in Peter’s ear, loudly. It hurt. As soon as they were told they could leave Deadpool threw Peter off him and ran out the door yelling something about calling shotgun. Peter picked himself up with a sigh, grabbed his duffle bag and walked after him. He saw Steve tut and shake his head at him, rude. Fortunately Deadpool popped his head back in and said excitedly so the whole conference room could hear.

“Hurry up Pookie, I wanna make full use of the cockpit before we go!” He then grabbed Peter’s hand and dragged him off. Fucking take that Steve.

“Ok now this may be the coolest thing to ever happen to me.” Deadpool said once they were out of range at the elevator doors. 

“I know! Did you see Bruce’s face when your arm went round my shoulders? Oh my god, I’ve never seen that particular shade of green on him.”

“This isn’t prom, Peter, you don’t get to bring a date.” Wade said in a pitch perfect impersonation of Tony. “Dude’s so salty his girlfriend could be called Pepper. Oh wait.”

“And when I kissed you, ohhhh, the deafening silence. It was like a symphony to my ears.” Peter laughed. “Nice breathless act by the way, really sold them on the whole couple thing.”

“Er sure, I’ll take it.” Deadpool said confused. He quickly got over it though. “So Peter Parker eh?”

“Yep.” Peter said uncomfortably. It’s not like he didn’t want Deadpool knowing who he really was, he just didn’t want Deadpool to see him in the middle of the street as Peter and yell ‘Hey! Spidey!” Which would absolutely happen now.

“The photographer kid?” Deadpool said. Oh shit he knew, Peter was hoping the name would mean nothing to him. He hadn’t been a photographer for years now, he did’t expect anyone to remember his old job of basically taking selfies and aerial shots of New York.

“Scientist now, I’m pretty good.” Peter corrected him.

“At taking pin-up shots of yourself. How did you manage to take those angles?” Deadpool asked. Pin-ups? If Deadpool made a calendar he may actually kill him.

“Wait times, flexibility and blind faith it would take a decent shot.”

“Well Peter Parker, I’m Wade Wilson, mercenary.” Wade held out his hand.

“I already knew that.” Peter said but shook his hand anyway.

“Not all of us are fans of the whole Secret Identity thing, it’s bad for business.” Wade shrugged. “Now hurry we must get to da choppa.” Wade said in a godawful Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. Peter rolled his eyes.

“That’s not even how he said it, it’s more like GET TO DA CHOPPAAA!” Peter yelled. Just as he yelled that he was shoved into by a grumpy tired blonde.

“Look I may be mostly deaf but that is no excuse to yell into a guy’s ear.” Clint grumbled. Wade immediately rolled the mask up over his mouth so it rested just underneath his nose.

“Clint! M’man!” He grinned at him

“I see you’re making friends in there.” Clint smirked.

“Natasha always had a thing for me, now that I’m with Petey the woman’s gone homicidal with jealousy.” Wade retorted. Clint snorted.

“I suppose it’s the same story with the rest of them?”

“Except for Bruce, he has a nerdy science boner for Spidey, wants to run all sorts of weird tests with his sticky web.” Wade joked

“Don’t you ever say that sentence to me ever again.” Clint warned.

“You can picture it though, can’t you?” Wade said as they entered the elevator.

“That’s why I never want you to say it again.” Clint shuddered. There was a silence as Clint surveyed the happy couple. “So you two, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm” Peter hummed.

“Funny I always pictured you with an older woman.” Clint said to Wade then shrugged the thought off. “Didn’t know you were into cradle-snatching.”

“Hey, he must be in his thirties by now!” Wade replied in his defence and then mumbled to himself. “I mean, he’s been around since the sixties, he must have aged at some point.” Peter didn’t want to ask what that meant.

“I’m twenty-eight, actually.”

“Oh my god, I’ve become my father.” Wade murmured in horror.

“How far apart are we? Like five, six years?” Peter guessed.

“Thirteen actually.” Wade corrected him as the elevator doors opened. They left the elevator leaving Peter to spend a few seconds figuring out if he was comfortable fake dating an immortal forty-one year old. Well, he’s come this far, it’d just be cowardly to back out now.

“Oh, well that’s not so bad.” Peter said with a wave of his hand as he caught up with them.

“Really?” Wade said taken aback.

“I mean you act about thirty years younger, what’s the problem?” Peter smirked

“Wow that’s a low blow, Loblaw.”

“You guys didn’t know each other’s ages?” Clint frowned at them. Well shit, caught already. Peter looked at Wade as if to say “uh oh busted.”  But Wade had other ideas.

“Why would I? Fuck first and ask questions later. I still think it’s a miracle he even said yes in the first place.” Wade said, who knew he was such a good actor? Even Peter was fooled with how genuine that sounded. In order to truly fool Clint, Peter took Wade’s hand into his.

“Aww babe, I think it’s more of a miracle you even asked.” Peter said in his sappiest voice. Wade tilted his head at him, why is he doing that? Peter is being romantic a head tilt is not warranted in this situation.

“You think I didn’t have the balls to ask?” Wade asked. Oh shit, he’s offended. Time to pull out the big guns, he leaned in close to Wade.

“I mean how did I get so lucky to land a guy like you.” Peter murmured before kissing Wade for the second time that day. If someone had told him a week ago he would be kissing Deadpool and enjoying it, well not enjoying it enjoying the effects it had on other people, he would have laughed them off so hard he could have brought on a hernia. But this was fun, he could see himself doing this more often. Pranking people, not kissing Wade. But if the two intertwined, well Peter wouldn’t complain.

“Ugh gross, dibs not sitting next to you guys.” Clint rolled his eyes and pushed his way through them before climbing into the helicopter.

“Why would I want to sit next to you when I could be sitting next to the pilot?” Wade yelled back.

“I think you may have to kill Fury for that position.” Peter said, Wade narrowed his eyes.

“We’ll see about that.” He said before climbing into the chopper. Peter wasn’t sure if he was joking and, if he was being honest, there was a high chance he wasn’t.

“Please tell me that you’re not going to try to kill Fury.” Peter pleaded. He heard Wade say something that sounded like ‘I’ve done it before’ but Peter didn’t particularly want to hear the explanation of that story. Unfortunately for them the rest of the Avengers decided to show their faces at that moment. “He’s kidding, I’m kidding.” Peter quickly explained to them.

Natasha scoffed at him and went straight into the chopper, Peter had never been frightened by a scoff before. She was followed by the rest of them except for Steve, who placed his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter had this sudden feeling he was about to receive The Talk, which was ridiculous he was a grown man he already knew all the information given in The Talk. Also, he absolutely did not want this talk from Steve who had a good twenty years on his Aunt May. It was hard enough hearing the phrase “your testicles will drop” from her, he may not be able to cope if Steve says something along those lines.

“We’re just concerned about this, kid. Deadpool, he’s not a good guy.”

“He’s not a bad guy either.” Peter interrupted.

“He kills people for money, Peter.” Steve said as though he could not believe Peter just defended him like that.

“And you kill them for free, what’s your problem?” Peter said, Steve flinched as he said it, he knew instantly he probably shouldn’t have said that.

“That’s out of line,”

“Is it though?” Peter asked as he shook Steve’s hand off his shoulder. He couldn’t stop the words coming out of his mouth, as much as he tried to it just kept on going. “Because I feel this whole conversation is out of line. I brought Wade along because I thought he would be useful, not because I am some fucking teenage girl who can’t live without her boyfriend by her side. But because, and I know this may shock you, he is damn good at what he does, I can’t count on one hand the amount of times he has saved my life. And just because you’ve all decided that he’s too annoying to sit at the popular kid table, doesn’t make him any less talented. So why don’t you all get your heads out of your asses and stop acting like he’s a piece of gum that won’t come off your shoe?”

“That’s not the issue we have with him.” Steve said after a pause where he let the steam fully leave Peter’s ears. “We’re concerned about you. We think you’re making a rash decision because of what happened yesterday.” Steve said it as tactfully as he could, however Peter was past the point of tact.

“You think in a day’s time I started dating Wade because you said no to me?” Peter asked deeply offended. However true it was, Peter was still going to be angry about it. “Because my life revolves around you guys, right? Because I couldn’t possibly be a grown adult capable of making my own decisions? Am I still that awkward seventeen year old who fights crime on the weekends to you guys? Because, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m nearly thirty. I don’t need your concern and I don’t need you telling me who I can and can’t date.”

“We’re not saying don’t date him, we’re just worried that he’s not the best thing for you for where you want to end up in life.” Steve reworded his sentence, but honestly he was just digging himself deeper.

“Oh so now Wade’s the Danny to my Sandy is that it?” Peter said haughtily, getting more and more defensive at each comment. Honestly at this point, Steve could say that Deadpool is an alright guy and Peter would counter with ‘only alright?’

“No! Peter, if he was arrested tomorrow they would have enough on him to get him over a dozen life sentences. Where does that put you?” Steve asked

“Well obviously that puts me in a Lifetime Original movie or maybe even a Dr Phil episode. My Gay Mercenary Lover is in Prison for Countless Murders but I Can’t Stop Loving Him.” Peter said in his best Dr Phil impression. Steve looked at him in a disappointed disbelief.

“I’m being serious.” Steve said

“And so am I. I know he’s done a lot of awful things, like really bad things. But I also know he’s paying for it, emotionally and physically. Do you know that he once helped me out on a mission on the one condition that when we were finished I would help him kill himself? He’s not a happy person, Steve, I have no doubt that nothing would make that man happier than an end. So what’s the point of punishing him for it when he’s already doing it himself?” Peter said, that finally shut Steve up. Thank god. With one last look he got into the helicopter.

Wade somehow managed to sit shotgun, Peter didn’t know how he managed it, but what he did know was Fury was sitting next to him instead and Wade was waving excitedly at him from the front of the helicopter. Fury was explaining what Peter should be on the lookout for during his stealth mission. He was describing all sorts of weird alien things, he did say tentacles at one point and Peter was relieved Wade was not in on this conversation. Essentially, they didn’t know what they were looking for. They hadn’t encountered this particular species before so they didn’t know what to expect, Fury basically said expect anything and try to keep calm. Which Peter could do, he’s seen Wade shirtless he knows how to stay calm in the face of the unexpected. Or should he say the chest of the unexpected? No he shouldn’t, now he’s just made it sound like Wade has boobs. Anyway shit’s about to go down.

As they landed, Peter basically had to drag Wade out of the chopper, or “Hubert” as Wade called it. Peter then got a blow by blow about Wade’s time with Hubert finally ending with a bold declaration of “When I die I want to be buried in Hubert.” Peter could practically see the hearts radiate off his eyes. Peter didn’t want to point out that not only would Wade have no access to Hubert in his unlikely death, but also he would probably outlive Hubert.

As Wade was prattling on, Peter got settled into his temporary home. There was a tent for each hero. There was a godawful metal frame portable single bed and a lock box to keep valuables in placed next to it. Peter could hear Tony complain about it from his tent and Peter was on the other side of the oval. Fury had explained that the local school was kind enough to lend them their oval for the week. This whole situation just reminded Peter of his college days, both the uncomfortable cheap bed and the sleeping on the oval. Peter dumped his duffel bag in the lock box and opened his bag up to grab his suit. Wade continued talking about what he would do if he owned Hubert as Peter peeled his mask off his face and wiped the sweat off his face, Wade suddenly stopped talking.

“Are you single? You couldn’t possibly be single.” Wade said after a very long silence.

“I did have Mary Jane for a while there but it didn’t work out.” Peter said casually, by didn’t work out Peter meant they got married and then divorced because of… well it’s a long story but after they divorced Peter didn’t want them to get back together again. What was the point? Some other divine force was just going to tear them apart again, and to top that off Mary Jane told him that maybe if he stopped being Spiderman they wouldn’t have to go through those sorts of ordeals. Which opened a whole new can of worms and once they did that it was hard to go back to how they were. 

“Are you saying you had a relationship with marijuana or with the ‘you just hit the jackpot tiger’ woman?” Wade asked.

“The second one,” Peter didn’t want to question how he knew that about her. He pulled his sweater off and went to pull off his pants.

“Woah there, if you wanted me to leave just say so, gosh Petey.” Wade said in a mock exasperation. Peter tilted his head at him.

“Why would I want you to leave?”

“Because you’re getting changed?” Wade asked as though he was crazy for thinking privacy was a thing. Peter took his pants off as well.

“Don’t get shy about my naked body now, Boyfriend.” Peter joked. Wade surprisingly didn’t have a retort for that, in fact he was oddly silent while Peter put his dirty clothes away in his bag. It was when he bent over to put on his Spiderman Pants Wade suddenly piped up.

“Ok I’m leaving now, I’m going to see if they have any cool tech for us, ok see ya.” Wade said in a hurried frenzy before quickly leaving the tent.

Weird, who knew Wade was a bit of a prude? Peter had always imagined Wade to be a real kinky type. Like fucking in public places, nails scratching down his back, cum on his face, using Peter’s web to tie him to the bedposts so Peter could do whatever the fuck he wanted. That kind of thing. Weird, huh? Peter was almost disappointed at the discovery.

He finished getting dressed and put his mask back on. He walked out of the tent and over to camp HQ to find out where Wade had gotten to. He didn’t have to walk far as Wade was being held up by his neck by Natasha. Oh boy, Peter didn’t want to come between those two but his moral obligations were telling him to quickly jump in there before someone got hurt. As he walked over to them, no use breaking a sweat over an immortal being, he stopped as he overheard what they were saying.

“First of all, you dare fuck up this mission by doing some dumbshit kinky hijinks and I will be on your ass so fast it’ll be like I was always there.” Natasha hissed at him.

“Is that supposed to be a threat because I wouldn’t mind you on my a-“ Wade was stopped by Natasha tightening her grip on his neck.

“Secondly, Peter is a good kid, bright, promising future all that jazz. You don’t deserve him. Don’t fucking sabotage this like you’ve sabotaged everything else in your life and fuck his life up too. Or I will rip your heart out of your chest as many times as it takes for you to get the point that you’re a useless waste of space.” Natasha threw him on the ground. “Nice chatting.” She said in a calm relaxed tone before walking away as though nothing had happened. Peter hurried over to Wade and crouched beside him. Wade had rolled over to his stomach in a pose that suggested he was perfectly happy to stay lying on the lawn never to get up.

“Hey are you ok? She can be fucking terrifying when she’s mad.” Peter said to Wade who simply groaned in response. Peter started absent-mindedly stroking Wade’s back in a comforting gesture. “Don’t take on board anything she just said, she’s a master manipulator. She’s just trying to say things that’ll hurt to get her point across, she doesn’t mean any of it.”

“This prank isn’t so much a prank anymore. It’s moved into farce territory, we’re going in too deep.” Wade said shell-shocked.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked, Wade sounded genuinely panicked. Which Peter had never heard from him before, it was kind of strange to hear.

“We can’t hit abort anymore. This is it, we’re going to die because we’ll fake break up a couple of weeks from now and Natasha and Steve and Bruce and Tony are going to come to my house and cut me into tiny pieces for hurting their precious Peter.”

“Why would I die in that scenario?” Peter frowned.   

“Because after they cut me into tiny pieces I’m going to come to your house and strangle the life out of you. I hope your healing skills are as good as mine because you’ll be needing them.” Wade said, it wasn’t a real threat, not really.

“Wade-“ Peter said in a hopefully calming voice. Wade just talked straight over the top of him though.

“I didn’t realise the entire Avengers squad sees you as their adopted son, I would never had done this if I knew. I thought this was an office prank kind of thing but this- its game over man. Game over. She had a go at me, Ironing board has been glaring at me all day, even Clint pulled me aside and said ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Clint!” Wade said sounding deeply betrayed.

“Yeah, I had to defend you pretty hard earlier, Steve was just ripping into you.” Peter said sounding equally betrayed.

“Did you?” Wade said surprised. Peter didn’t know why he sounded surprised, Peter had a habit of defending the little guy, and in fact he made a career of it.

“Yeah, I had to tell him how talented you are, how you’re constantly beating yourself up about everything you’ve ever done. He even pulled out the ‘He could get arrested at any moment and he would rot in prison’ card and you know what I said.” Peter said, Wade rolled over onto his back and looked at Peter.

“What?”

“I said they could make a Lifetime movie out of it.” Peter smiled, not that Wade could see through the mask, but he liked to think the intention was there.

“My Prison Bitch.” Wade laughed.

“Exactly.” Peter laughed along with him, there was silence as they looked at each other.

“Well, we’re boned.” Wade said as though he was resigned to the fact. Peter nodded.

“Yeah we did not think this through.”

“Do I ever?” Wade said before standing up. “Right let’s head on down and see if we can survive the rest of the day.”

“I’ll give it a go but I make no promises.” Peter followed suit as they walked down to HQ.

They arrived to see a group of agents preparing to give yet another briefing, how many of these things would they have to sit through exactly? Peter had his fill at one, he was pretty sure Wade stopped listening to last one about halfway through. Clint arrived not long after Peter and Wade did. He greeted Peter with a slap on the back and said

“Are you ready for the health and safety legal briefing of a lifetime? I hear they brought in the extra long one just for you guys.” Clint said with an unusual cheeriness. Peter put his head in his hands and let out a long-suffering groan while Wade said something about this not being in the comics.

Clint was not kidding when he said extra long, the briefing went well into the night. A solid ninety percent of it was various agents looking Wade in the eye and saying do not do this, do not do that and under no circumstances will you ever do this. The other Avengers started going in listing various things that tick them off about Wade. This would have been a lot shorter if Wade didn’t spend the entire time arguing with every single point made. At first Peter agreed with him, even defended him, but after a while he gave up and fell asleep in his chair. Look it was a long meeting you would do the same. He woke up to find himself drooling on Wade’s shoulder, the meeting was still going somehow. He asked Wade about how long he was out and Wade replied about two hours. Peter came to the conclusion he was trapped in hell, only way he could explain why this was still going.  They ended the meeting with a round of paperwork for them all to sign, which was honestly unnecessary, and Wade’s was a good twenty pages longer than the rest of them.

So after that shitshow, they all walked drearily back to their respective tents. Peter was a solid ten seconds from just passing out because the level of boredom he was at was exhausting. As they entered the tent, Peter immediately collapsed on the bed and ripped his mask off. He nestled into the pillow and started to doze off. But then he noticed Wade was standing awkwardly.

“Do you not sleep?” Peter mumbled at him.

“Well no I just,” Wade rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s only one bed.”

“So? Get in.” Peter pulled the covers back and patted the bed. Wade took his weapons off his back and legs and cautiously climbed in. It was an extremely tight fit, no single bed had ever been built with two men in mind, one lanky and awkward sized and the other bulky and muscular. The only way they were both going to fit is if they slept on their sides cramped against each other.

“You know most people take me out to dinner first before putting me in this position.” Wade joked clearly uneasy. Peter glanced at Wade, who, and Peter wasn’t a huge fan of this, was the big spoon in this arrangement.

“Do you sleep with the mask on?” Peter asked. “That must be uncomfortable.”

“Not as uncomfortable as this bed.” Wade continued to joke.

“You can take it off if you want,” Peter said casually, in an attempt to make Wade feel more at home. There was a long pause.

“I’d really rather not.” Wade said not comfortable at all, which was the complete opposite of what Peter was going for.

“Oh.” Was all Peter had to say, well shit.

Chapter Text

Peter woke up the next morning to find Wade asleep on the tarp on the ground. Peter would be lying if he said he wasn’t offended, but he understood why Wade was lying on the ground rather than sleep in the same bed as Peter. Honestly he couldn’t stay mad, Wade was curled up with his head resting against his hands, he looked downright adorable. Like a puppy. Peter stood up and went over to his lock box, he rummaged through his duffel bag to find his phone. 8:30. Not late enough to wake Wade, had Wade ever woken up before noon before? Peter would assume not. He went to leave his tent before he realised a dilemma. How was he going to eat breakfast and maintain his secret identity? He was the only one on the team that even bothered with the secrecy, but there were a good number of people out there who he would like to keep Peter Parker hidden away from. He looked over at Wade, he was going to have to do it. He walked over to him and crouched beside him.

“Wakey wakey eggs and bakey.” Peter said cheerily into Wade’s ear. It’s a good thing Peter was a morning person, or he might not have dodged that kick in time. Wade shuffled so he was sleeping on his other side. “Wadddee.” Peter said in a sing song voice.

“Fuck off.” Wade replied in that same sing song voice.

“Look, I need you to do me a favour. In return when you get back you can sleep on the bed by yourself all you want.” Peter said, making what he thought was a very reasonable offer. Wade thought otherwise.

“Not interested.”

“Oh come on Wade I’m starving.” Peter pleaded.

“You woke me up to get you food?” Wade asked as he turned to face Peter so he could yell at him properly. Oh shit.

“Well I can’t get it, I have a secret identity to maintain.” Peter said as though it were obvious. Wade squinted at him.

“Why don’t you go and get it with the mask on, and then come back and eat it here?” Wade asked him, not really asked more like told. Actually that was a good idea, why didn’t Peter think of that?

“Oh right… do you wanna sleep on the bed?” Peter asked as a consolation. But Wade was already standing up and making his way over to the bed, grumbling under his breath the whole time.  

Peter put his mask on and walked outside. In the ten percent of the meeting yesterday that wasn’t about Wade, they explained the layout of the field. Unfortunately Peter was asleep for this part and Wade vaguely explained where everything was.  He only remembered Wade saying something about the food tent because he did that thing he does whenever food gets mentioned where his eyes get bigger and you can hear the smile in his voice. Peter always liked that about Wade. Anyway Wade said it was next to the tech tent whatever that meant. Peter wandered about the oval wondering why no-one every bothered labelling these tents, he understood this was a stealth mission but this was ridiculous. He ended up giving up and just bursting his head into random large tents, of which there was a surprisingly large amount. He had walked into both the men’s and women’s showers, and he deeply regretted ever falling asleep because he walked in on Tony in the shower and the man was primping and preening his hair with no towel on. Peter did not need to see that, he also definitely didn’t need Tony greeting him by turning away from the mirror and facing him. He high tailed it out of there vowing never to enter there again.

He eventually found the food tent and it was surprisingly empty, there were a few agents there but no one Peter knew. He went over to the buffet and grabbed a plate and filled it with whatever he could get his hands on. He knew Wade would steal almost everything off his plate so he stocked up. As he was reaching for his fourth hash brown his hand brushed against one reaching for the bacon tongs.

“Hey man.” Clint said causally.

“Never expected you to be a morning person.” Peter remarked.

“I’m not, but who can turn down a free breakfast buffet?” Clint said, he was a simple man with a love of simple pleasures.

“Wade apparently.” Peter snorted.

“Yeah I’ve been meaning to talk about that with you actually.” Clint said. He gestured for Peter to follow him. “I don’t think you understand what you’re going to get yourself into.”

“Clint, no not you too.” Peter said understanding now why Wade had felt so betrayed. He followed anyway and sat down at a picnic table. Clint sat down on the other side of the table and started eating.

“Shut up.” Clint said through a mouthful of toast. “I know you’re faking it.” Shit.

“What are you talking about?” Peter feigned innocence which made Clint roll his eyes.

“Yeah that’s what Wade said too, he then tried to storm out of the helicopter, but you can obviously see why that didn’t work.” Clint laughed. “I’ve seen both of you in relationships this isn’t how you act. You’re sappier than normal and Wade’s more cautious than he would be.”

“How do you know?” Peter scoffed at him.

“I’m a secret agent, this is literally my job.” Clint gave him a look of disbelief. “Look I don’t know why you’re doing this, Wade has a talent for nonsensical schemes, but I know the motivation behind it.”

“Wade said he needed to improve his image in order to impress Wolverine.” Peter said, actually now he said it out loud it did sound completely ridiculous. Clint started laughing.

“Have you ever met Wolverine? Do you honestly think he’d be the kind of person who’d be impressed by a relationship?” Clint said through his laughter. Peter now had the mental image of Wade and himself standing in front of Wolverine holding hands and Wolverine took their clasped hands into his own and said “Yes. Good.”

“Why did I fall for that?” Peter asked himself.

“I can’t answer that, but I do know this, he’s in love with you.” Clint paused as he waited for that information to settle in. No, that couldn’t possibly be true.

“I know he has a slight celebrity crush on me but that’s a big exaggeration.” Peter said with a wave of his arm.

“No, he’s in love with you. Think about it.” Clint insisted. So Peter did think about it, at first he thought Clint was crazy to suggest it but now he was not sure. It would explain why he was so uncomfortable sharing a bed last night, and why he left so quickly when he was getting changed, and how he’s put up with all of Peter’s shit. Oh my god, he was in love with him.

“He’s in love with me.” Peter said in a sudden realisation, putting his head in his hands. “How did I not see this? It’s so obvious.”

“Well yeah it is, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.” Clint said, Peter looked up at him through his fingers. “There’s not a lot of people fighting in Wade’s corner, in fact I doubt at the moment there is anyone. And he’s probably not doing so great at the moment, with everyone around here coming down on him hard for daring to defile their golden child. I’m not saying do anything drastic, but I’m trusting you to do what’s best for Wade. He’s a broken person, and whatever fucked up situation you two have found yourselves in, I’m trusting you to keep that in mind.”

Peter had never seen Clint this sombre before, it was nice actually. It was good that there was someone out there who was looking out for Wade. Peter felt relieved that he wasn’t the only one who cared about him.

“I will.” Peter promised earnestly. And he would, Wade deserved to have someone in his corner and Peter wanted to be that someone. He had no idea before this whole thing started just how many people didn’t have the patience to deal with Wade. No wonder he spend so much time chasing after Spiderman. Clint seemed satisfied with this answer.

“Good, you can go eat now. I see you’re also making full use of the breakfast buffet.” Clint smirked at the mountain of food on his plate.

“Yeah well, if you’ve ever eaten around Wade you’d understand the precautions I’m having to take.” Peter said gravely as he stood up and took his mountain with him, Clint laughed at that.

“You two are a good fit.” Clint said as though Peter wasn’t going to spend the rest of the afternoon obsessing over this whole conversation.

He walked back to his tent thinking about what just happened exactly, because, unless he was getting the wrong impression, it did seem a little bit as though Clint thought Peter reciprocated those feelings. Which was ridiculous. Obviously. Peter had only really been in two relationships and they were both women. Admittedly he was with MJ for ten years and he never had to think about being interested in anyone else, but that shouldn’t mean anything. It would have twigged if he was into men, specifically Wade, by now.  He wasn’t some clueless sexually repressed sixteen year old, he was a man who just got out of a ten year relationship that he’d had since high school who coincidentally was the only person he’s ever slept with and oh sweet Jesus he was a clueless sexually repressed twenty-eight year old. Oh fuck this can’t be right, he can’t be more repressed than Steve for fuck’s sake. But the facts were staring him straight in the face and holy fucking shit. He knew fuck all about his sexuality, he hadn’t a crush on someone since high school, what the fuck? How could he have let this happen? 

What if he was interested in men? He didn’t fucking know, he doubted his Aunt May would be surprised, very little surprised that woman. Was there anyone he found even slightly attractive in the past ten years other than MJ? He remembers being pretty obsessed with his old grad school professor, but that was just because Peter was envious of how much he knew right? That had nothing to do with the fact he looked like he lived in the woods and cut down trees in his spare time a.k.a. rugged as fuck. And then that was this whole thing where he could not stop watching Ryan Reynold movies, but that was because he was a good actor. But then just being a good actor didn’t explain why Peter had to rewind and rewatch certain scenes over and over again. And there was also that deep appreciation of Bender from The Breakfast Club. Jesus fuck, this was too much to deal with before breakfast.

He made it to the tent and sat down where Wade was, Wade was now on the bed fast asleep. He took his mask off and started absent-mindedly nibbling on a hash brown. He heard sniffing coming from Wade’s direction. Suddenly Wade was sitting next to him and eating a grilled bacon and egg sandwich.

“Do you think I might be bi?” Peter asked. Wade nearly spat out his sandwich, he quickly regained his composure though. This may have been a mistake, Peter thought in hindsight.

“Were you not?” Wade asked confused. That was not the response he was expecting.

“What made you think that?” Peter asked, he attempted to sound calm but it came out as a panicked yell.

“There was that whole thing when you lived with Johnny Storm that I thought was a bit suggestive.” Wade said thoughtfully.

“Oh fuck I’d forgotten about that.” Peter said. Ahh Johnny Storm, however insufferable he was, all was forgiven when he woke up to him making breakfast in nothing but that apron and underwear. God bless.

“Any reason you asked me this?” Wade asked still very confused.

“I just got cornered by Clint, he seemed a little too convinced by this whole thing.” Peter lied, Wade didn’t need to know the truth. “And then I thought really I’ve only had two relationships and they were both from high school, I never really gave the whole sexuality thing any thought. I just assumed I was straight, but what if I’m not? I don’t know.” Peter could stop himself from venting all this information that was probably not the best thing for Wade to hear.

“This may surprise you but I’m not straight.” Wade joked.

“Really? You had me fooled.” Peter said dryly.

“I knew I was queer ever since I was fifteen and had a crush on my gym teacher. He was about ten years older and wore jogging shorts everywhere with no underwear. Ahhh what a man.” Wade said wistfully.

“In Canada?” Peter asked in part admiration part horror.

“He had dedication, I’ll give him that.”

“I feel like I’m having a big realisation now, but I don’t know what I’m realising.” Peter confessed.

“Yeah, totally normal. Soon you’ll have the How Did I Not See That? Phase where you’ll look back on every slightly gay moment in your life and think it’s some sick kind of foreshadowing.” Wade said reassuringly.

“I think I’m already there. Were me and Johnny really that gay?” Peter asked. Looking back on it, there were nights they were sleeping in the same bed because Peter’s room was closer to the front door than the living room couch, he was surprised MJ put up with it.

“You two were fairly gay. I totally thought you were sleeping together.” Wade patted Peter on the shoulder before grabbing another sandwich.

“Yeah, I can see now why’d you think that.” Peter agreed. “Well this isn’t how I thought my day would go. Did I tell you I saw Tony’s dick?” Wade again nearly spat out his sandwich.

“Please tell me this isn’t any way related to the previous conversation.” Wade pleaded.

“Oh my god, that’s disgusting! Why would you think I? Eww! NO! He’s nearly sixty that’s just- Ew.” Peter yelled at Wade. He shook his head to get the thought out of his head. “No, I walked into the men’s showers and he was standing in front of the mirror completely naked, no towel, with this pile of hair products in front of him. And then he saw me and he turned around to face me and said ‘Hey kiddo!’”

“Did you reply ‘Hey Dicko!’? What did it look like?”

“Smaller than I expected.” Peter said

“You had an expectation for his dick size?” Peter couldn’t see through the mask but he would bet Wade had an eyebrow raised right now.

“Don’t be so gross. I just looked at it and I thought ‘Well I guess you can’t have it all.’” Peter said. Wade laughed at that.

“Wow that was brutal. I hope you never catch me naked with an assessment like that.” Wade took a hash brown as they had already run out of sandwiches. Peter was sure that his assessment of a naked Wade would be pretty damn positive… wait what? That was a weird… Anyway

“Look, he affronted me with his penis, it was hardly my fault.” Peter said in his defence.

“That is some very risky wording.” Wade commented. “So what did Clint corner you about?”

“He asked me to look after you actually. He said that he trusted me to do what’s best for you.” Peter said. He couldn’t really gauge Wade’s reaction through the mask, but the sudden silence from him was very telling. “He cares about you a lot, it’s rather sweet.”

“Oh.” Wade said finally. Peter felt like maybe this moment was a bit too personal for him to be a part of so he quickly changed the subject.

“Did you know there were no breakfast muffins at the buffet? Or any fruit? How do they expect me to keep my trim figure?” Peter jokingly complained. Wade still hadn’t moved on from that yet. “There was also cereal but no milk, they expected me to eat cornflakes like a savage.”

“I just had the sudden mental image of a caveman trying to eat cornflakes with his club.”

“See? Completely uncivilised.” Peter said as though he made a very dramatic point. He reached over to the lock box and checked his phone, 9:45. “Shit.”

“What?”

“We need to be front and centre in ten.”

“Alright but I’m taking my hash brown bacon sandwich with me.” Wade said defiantly. Peter looked down to see three pieces of bacon shoved between two hash browns.

“Ok now that’s just plain unhealthy.”

“I’ll work it off at some point.” Wade shrugged. Peter stood up reluctantly.

“Right, Honey you ready to spend all day in the sewers hunting for aliens that probably aren’t there?”

“There will be aliens even if I have to drag them down from space myself.” Wade got up and left the tent with a determined look on his face. That can’t be good.

Peter followed him out of the tent and wherever he was going. Wade made his way through the almost unending rows of tents to find the one they were supposed to be at. They walked into the tent to see Fury and a team of agents waiting for them. At their feet was an opening to a sewer.

“Convenient.” Wade remarked.

“Alright boys, you know the drill. Explore as much as you can, keep an eye on the time and try not to break anything.” Fury said, an agent took Peter’s wrist and attempted to slap a watch on it. Unfortunately the agent didn’t take into consideration Peter’s web canisters and wondered why Peter’s wrist was so fat. Peter eventually just took the watch from him. “These devices are for us to keep in contact with you, they have trackers so you don’t get lost, you can tell the time with them. Don’t break them or you’re fucked.” Fury warned. Wade straightened his back and saluted Fury with a half-eaten sandwich.

“Aye-aye Captain.”

“God speed solider.” Fury replied with a hint of a smile, Wade’s eyes went wide and he immediately gave Peter a look that was so excited that it melted Peter’s heart. The agents then removed the metal grate and the boys began their climb down.

The first thing Peter noticed was that it fucking stank, like it proper honest to god reeked. He had to lean on a wall to recover himself from the smell. The second thing he noticed was that it was darker than he expected, he had night vision so he was fine, but Wade immediately tripped over the second they were down here. Fortunately he landed on mostly clean concrete but still, gross. He heard Wade swear loudly and fumble around his suit for something. Suddenly there was a bright light in his face.

“Jesus Christ, warn a guy.” Peter shielded his eyes as Wade took the light off his eyes and stood up. Peter looked at the light the torch was emanating. “Is that… is that supposed to be my logo?”

“Found it at the dollar store.” Wade said proudly. “It was filled with candy when I bought it.” Peter didn’t know whether to be concerned or flattered. He didn’t even know there was cheap merchandise of him, he knew about the fan made stuff but this was a new development.

“You want to face off with aliens, with a Spiderman torch?” Peter looked at Wade who nodded proudly. “Well good luck.” Peter said as he began to web the watch to his wrist.

“Are you knitting yourself a wrist-strap?” Wade asked in a way that suggested he never knew how much of a dork Peter was.

“It’s hardly knitting, it’s more weaving without a loom. Which takes a lot of skill thank you very much.” Peter corrected him.

“There are people out there that are terrified of you.” Wade said in disbelief as he watched Peter finish his wrist strap and proudly admire it. Not too shabby if Peter said so himself.

“Hey, I’m a knitter with attitude. Goddamn right they should be scared of me.” Peter said with more nerve than that sentence deserved. He heard Wade giggle at that. He started to make his way through the sewers with Wade trailing behind him with his damn torch.

There seemed to be an endless amount of sewer, Peter was about ninety-nine percent sure if he didn’t have night vision they would be walking in circles right now. Wade started talking just to fill in the silence while Peter made sure they didn’t get lost. Wade’s train of thought was oddly charming when said aloud, it was also very strange but Peter had expected that. First he started talking about a time where he and Cable had to chase a guy in the sewers and Cable spent a total of three seconds in the sewer before going fuck this. And that story somehow lead to a half hour long critique of the film Anaconda, which Wade felt was a waste of Owen Wilson as well as unnecessary film in general. And then that led to a Wade asking himself for an hour where were the humans in Cars? Was it a Maximum Overdrive situation? Or did it tie in with 9? Maybe it was an alternate universe in which everything was the same, it was just that humans were cars. Wade then spend the rest of that hour making car related puns about pop culture. Super Cario Brothers, Jurassic Parking, Pacific Rims, Silence of the Lamborghini, on and on it went. A normal man would have caved, but not Peter, he honestly thought it was pretty damn adorable. The way that he just knew all these things of the top of his head, the way he could probably have made those puns for days if he didn’t get distracted by yet another tangent, the little gasp and the light slap of Peter’s arm whenever he got excited over a genius pun. Peter honestly could have listened to him ramble on for years.

He was smacked out of his train of thought by his Spider Sense going crazy. He quickly covered Wade’s mouth with his hand and pushed him against the wall with his other hand. Peter scanned his surroundings before sticking his head around the corner, he didn’t expect what he saw. It was a fucking huge centipede, but with teeth. It was horrifying. It was roaring at a wall, clearly not happy to be there. He left Wade and started to climb the walls in order to get a better view of this thing. He managed to get to a part of the ceiling that gave him the perfect vantage point. He fiddled with his watch until he found the camera, he started taking photos to bring back to Fury. What was odd about the creature was that although it had more than enough legs, it moved around like a snake. Peter felt like he had taken enough photos and went back to find Wade and get the hell out of there.

He climbed back to Wade who was where Peter left him, looking very confused at what was happening. Peter grabbed him by his arm and led him back to where they entered. Wade asked questions the entire way mostly “What the fuck was that sound?” but Peter ignored him. When they got back to camp Peter went straight to HQ and shoved his watch in Fury’s face.

“We found it and it’s big.” Peter said hurriedly. Fury took the watch and connected it to his computer, he displayed the photos Peter had taken.

“Dear god.” Fury frowned. Wade shoved his way in front of Peter in order to see.

“Oh holy shit.” Wade laughed. Peter tilted his head at him. “I didn’t think this was real, goddamn. The world is a strange place.”

“What is it?” Peter asked.

“It’s a Venipede, it’s from this cartoon from when I was a kid. I thought it was fake though.” Wade said. Fury looked like he just had a brainwave.

“In the 80’s there was a big push to get the public used to aliens so S.H.I.E.L.D. helped to release merchandise to do with top secret profiles we had on various species. What cartoon was it?” Fury asked as he opened up the database.

“I think it was the Sectuars?” Wade said.

“That was about the Symbions,” Fury said as he pulled up the information on the species. “A planet of failed alien genetic experiments, but they have very little history with Earth what are they doing here?”

“Probably the work of the dastardly General Spiderax,” Wade laughed, Fury looked at him to continue. “He was the main bad guy in the show. He rode around on a giant spider. This is all very surreal.”

“We have a profile on the general, he was the leader of the Dark Domain and made multiple assassination attempts against the leader of planet.” Fury summed up. Wade was looking at him with wide eyes.

“I remember that episode. Are you sure this is happening? This just seems like real weird dream.” Wade asked anyone that listened. Peter put his hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down.

“What do you know about the Venipede, Wade?” Fury asked and gestured for him to walk and talk. They left HQ and started making their way through the tents

“Oh well it was never in the show I don’t think, it was only in a book I had. They used it’s venom to charge their weapons. I guess that’s why they brought one to earth.” Wade said

“Where did you find it?” Fury asked, Wade suddenly had a blank look on his face

“I pinpointed the exact location on my watch, but it was underneath the school.” Peter stepped in for him. They had reached the Communication Tent, Fury had started working on his master plan. Steve, Tony and Thor were to remain in the stakeout positions on the gym’s roof while Natasha, Bruce and Clint were to investigate the schools for any signs of insect life. Meanwhile Wade and Peter were to take a shower for god’s sake. Peter felt like he should have expected it when Wade helpfully suggested that there was a laundry tent.

Peter went back to his tent to grab a towel, and a change of clothes. He had packed an emergency beanie just in case, MJ always let him pack for holidays when they were together. She said she could trust him to bring everything bar the kitchen sink. Wade had followed him back to the tent and was sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Do you need clothes?” Peter asked.

“Would your stuff fit me?” Wade retorted.

“Only one way to find out.” He threw Wade a t-shirt and sweats. As Peter went to leave, Wade took a closer look at the shirt before laughing.

“Joesph and His Technicolor Dream Coat?” Wade said amused. “I never took you for a Llyod Webber man.” Peter immediately turned back to face him.

“Hey! It was more of a Tim Rice production, don’t you insult me like that.” Peter lashed out. A Llyod Webber man, even the thought disgusted him to his core.

“Was it though?” Wade questioned. Peter rolled his eyes as he left the tent singing.

“I close my eyes, drew back the curtains, ahhhahaa, to see for certain. Any dream will do.”

“Totally Llyod Webber.” Wade yelled after him.

“Fuck you and your opinion.” Peter yelled back. How dare he, after all they had been through together, drag Peter’s name through the mud? He made his way over to the shower tent he swore he’d never enter again. He checked no one was in there before webbing the tent flaps shut. He was not going to have a Stark situation, or a Starkers situation, oh my god. He had to tell Wade of this new nickname later, he’d love it.

He peeled off his sweaty disgusting suit and got into the shower, it didn’t feel as refreshing as Peter had hoped it would. In fact it just felt like it was raining on him, but on a humid day so the rain was lukewarm. He wasn’t expecting a first class experience but Jesus, if he could leave a Yelp review it would be a solid one star. The one star would be because this was completely free. He looked around the shower and there was this grotty soap bar with hair on it. Peter had to really question just how revolting he smelt for it to be worth that. He thought about it and he figured he could hide it with deodorant no stench was worth touching that thing.

It was one hell of a day now that Peter thought about it, and it was only noon last time Peter checked. How in the hell was this day going to fuck him up even more? He prayed that it didn’t, he wasn’t prepared. He finally had enough of that nasty shower and towelled himself off. He had grabbed his, “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Spiderman!” sweater. That might have been a bad idea, at least he had the common sense to grab his glasses as opposed to his usual contacts. He put his clothes on quickly, he refused to be naked for too long on a school oval.

He grabbed his clothes and ripped the webbing off the tent and started to make his way to the laundry. He tried his old tried and true tactic of popping his head into random tents. He then burst into a tent where Wade, dressed in Peter’s clothes, was sitting on a washing machine singing along to a radio and reading a magazine.  He was maskless, Peter noticed finally noticed. This was weird he’d never seen him maskless before. Wade did have a hat on however that was possibly the most 90’s thing he’d ever seen. But he looked so… normal, he wasn’t sure what he expected Wade’s face to look like but this- this was actually kind of beautiful in his own way. Ok now that just sounded super gay, thank god he didn’t say it out loud.

“Sometime anytime, sugar me sweet, little miss innocent sugar me. Yeah!” Wade sang, well obviously Peter had to sing along too.

“Yeah!” Peter sang over the top of Wade who looked up from his newspaper and grinned. Peter had never seen the full grin before, it was exactly what Peter hoped it was. The cheeky twinkle in his eyes and the creases around them, the warmth in his smile was just something else. Wade hopped off the washing machine as he prepared himself for the duet of a lifetime.

“Take a bottle! Shake it up, break the bubble, break it up!” Both of them sang before busting into their best rock star pose. “Pour some sugar on me,”

“In the name of love” Peter sang on his own and winked at Wade who looked at him as though Peter had just proposed a challenge.

“Pour some sugar on me.” Wade moved closer to Peter so they were in each other’s faces.

“C’mon fire me up.” Wade sang with a hip thrust, Peter couldn’t help but laugh.

“Pour your sugar on me.”

“I can’t get enough.” Peter trailed his fingers down Wade’s chest with a slut drop, before coming back up again for the final line.

“I’m hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet.” They both sang, they were unusually close, they were panting they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. Holy shit. Holyyyyy shiittttt. Peter leant in just as Wade turned around to fully immerse himself in the air guitar solo experience. Peter started to put his clothes in the other washing machine as though he didn’t just try to kiss Wade, what in the FUCK? He continued singing along with Wade, but not as involved as he was. This was just- fuck shit cock juggling thunder fucking shit Frankencunt. Wade finished by falling onto his knees with his hands in the universal symbol for rock n roll.  Peter stopped loading his washing machine to applaud.

“Thank you, thank you.” Wade stood up and bowed. “And now for my next number.” He waited for the radio presenter to stop talking. Another song started to play, it was Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones, and Wade shook his head and turned down the radio. “More of a Beatles man myself.”

“Ok what’s the deal exactly with that hat?” Peter pointed at it, it was a Pluto hat, you know like the dog. “You look like you’re about to go on vacation with the Genie.”

“I got it from an ex of mine. Don’t know why I had it on me however. Nice sweater.” Wade smirked, Oh tatertits his smirk was better than his grin. Peter could genuinely feel himself melt under that smirk. Where in the shit was this coming from? 

“Fan made, had to help a brother out.” Peter shrugged. He glanced at the rest of Wade’s outfit, his shirt could barely contain Wade’s bulk. It was more skin tight than Wade’s suit and that was made from spandex. This was an extremely bad day to be Peter Parker. “That really doesn’t fit you does it.”

“I think it would have complimented my figure if I didn’t like breathing so much.” Wade joked. Peter knew Wade was joking but shitting fuck, Peter wasn’t. He couldn’t believe he was lusting after someone in a fucking Pluto hat, any preconceptions Peter had about his own standards flew out the window never to return.  “Have a nice shower?” Wade asked. “Did you see our friend-“

“Did I see Tony Starkers? No, no I didn’t” Peter grinned. Wade let out a laugh, Peter couldn’t believe he never noticed that Wade was in love with him before. Everything Wade did around Peter was so genuine, so unfiltered, he wasn’t like this around other people. He constantly had his guard up, with sarcastic comments and attacks, but with Peter, Wade didn’t think he just did. Peter wondered if he was ever this open with anyone else. He guessed he must have at some point, he did have other relationships than Peter. But it wasn’t like Wade was on his own, Peter was also pretty open with Wade lately. He hadn’t opened up to someone like this since MJ, which must say something about Peter’s friendship with Wade, right? Fucking shit, what in the name of Steve’s baggiest y-fronts was going on with Peter?

“I would say that’s a shame, but I have it on a reliable source that it would have been more of a shame if he was there.” Wade rested his chin on his hand as he leant on the washing machine Peter had just turned on. He then waggled what would have been his eyebrows.

“Have you ever tried drawing eyebrows on?” Peter asked, more out of curiosity than any desire to change Wade’s appearance.

“I figure I already look too much like a scrotum, adding hair might be that final push.” Wade replied.

“You don’t look like a scrotum.” Peter said dismissing the thought, Wade gave him a look that said ‘Really?’ “Ok yes you kind of do, but that’s not a bad thing. It works for you.” Wade continued that look. “It gives you a rugged charm.”

“I have never been called rugged before, even when I had my devastatingly good looks. And oh boy let me tell you, I’m not one to toot my own horn.”

“Yes you are.” Peter interrupted.

“But all this.” Wade gestured to himself. “Could have been a model.” He was trying to impress Peter so hard, it was sweet really, so clearly Peter had to take him down a peg.

“You could still be a model. You could be the after model in a car accident PSA.” Peter remarked.

“You’re one to talk, you’re a literal embodiment of an Apple ad. You and your Andrew Garfield hipster ass.” Wade snapped back almost instantly.

“Ohh how long have you been holding on to that one?” Peter asked.

“I have more.” Wade freely admitted.

“I don’t doubt it.” Peter replied. Neptune’s fucking spatula, why was there so much fucking tension in the air? It was now Peter noticed they were basically on top of each other. How was he so fucking blind? They were both just gazing at each other now, like literally just gazing. What the fuck?

It was at that moment Peter’s phone went off. He checked it and it was MJ, well of course it was.

“I gotta take this.” Peter said apologetically. He didn’t have to, he just wanted a way out of their gaze off. He left the tent and walked a considerable distance before answering. “What’s up?”

“When you moved did you take the toaster oven?” MJ asked.

“We had a toaster oven?” Peter replied.

“I’ll take that as a no, any ideas?” MJ sighed down the phone, not at Peter just at the fact she did not have the answer to her missing toaster oven problem. They actually ended things surprisingly well, they knew each other too well to let it get messy.

“Have you tried the cabinet in the living room hallway?” Peter suggested, he had lovingly christened it the junk trunk, MJ and he when they first moved in threw whatever didn’t fit in the rest of the house in the junk trunk. He still popped over to see if the junk trunk had a missing warranty or emergency candles or something like that.

“Why would it be in the junk trunk? Is it even big enough to fit a toaster oven?” MJ asked but Peter could hear over the phone her walking over to check anyway. “Well I’ll be damned.”

“God bless the junk trunk.” Peter said proudly.

“Who’d have thunk it’d be in the junk trunk?” MJ laughed.

“Hey while I have you can I talk to you about something?” Peter asked.

“Go for it Tiger.”

“Well first off, I think I’m bi.” Peter said and waited for MJ’s reaction, he didn’t have to wait long.

“What part of this is news?”

“Really? Did everyone know but me?” Unbelievable.

“I knew back in high school. I thought you were going to leave me for Flash Thompson.” MJ snorted. Excuse me?

“Flash Thompson? Are you out of your mind?” Peter yelled down the phone to MJ’s amusement.

“Yell all you want it’s true. So much tension around you two.” MJ reminisced. Honest to god, that woman.

“You’re unbelievable.” Peter said.

“Mmmm I get told that. You said first off, what’s second?” MJ asked.

“I’ve had a very stressful day.” Peter sighed.

“It’s one in the afternoon.”

“It’s been a very long day. I think I might have a crush on Deadpool.” Peter admitted, to both himself and MJ.

“Deadpool? I feel like I should know that name.”

“You know those weird nights where I’d come home and need to punch something?” Peter said.

“Oh yeah with the punching bag with the weird face on it.” MJ said fondly. In hindsight, Peter was not that good at dealing with his feelings.

“Yeah he’s the weird face.”

“Oh Tiger look at you go.” He could hear her smile in her voice. “Tell me all about it.”

“Well I did a dumb thing. I got told I couldn’t be an Avenger by the Avengers so I did a sulk patrol, and then while I was on it Wade, Deadpool, popped out of nowhere and asked me to fake date him for some bullshit reason. And I was angry so I invited him to fake date me on this top secret mission, and I don’t know what I was thinking but we rocked up to this meeting. And you should have seen the looks on everyone’s faces, MJ, you would have laughed your ass off. We basically made out in front of them to spite them it was incredible. But that’s not all, literally almost all of them basically threaten Wade with various levels of violence not to hurt me. All of them except for Clint who said we made a good pair and made me promise to look after Wade. And he talked like I was already in love with Wade which was ridiculous but I just spent all of my morning with him with that in mind and oh my god, MJ, this is just. It’s too much.” Peter rambled on.

“Hey, when was the last time you had a crush this intense on someone. Please, for my sake, say ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago.” Peter said truthfully.

“You’re new to the game, Tiger. I’ve had your smooth moves all to myself these past ten years, you’ve forgotten what it was like to pull those moves in the first place.” MJ said. She nailed it, because of course she did she knew Peter better than he did. “What do you like about him?”

“I’ve already made a ten page list of all the things I liked about him today alone.” Peter said hoping to convey the gravity of the situation he was in.

“You’re in deep,”

“I know, it’s just. He’s- Fuck. Why am I like this?”

“You like him.” MJ sang at him.

“I know it’s a problem.” Peter sighed.

“Is it though? Because honestly it sounds like a perfect time for this to happen. Everyone already thinks you’re dating, including you, make it a thing. Sow your wild oats.” MJ said in an oddly reassuring way.

“Ew but yes I see your point.” Peter agreed.

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Absolutely not, no.” Peter said in full confidence.

“Ok Tiger, call me if you change your mind.” Peter could already see her rolling her eyes at him.

“Hey MJ?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” Peter said, and he meant it.

“I meant it you better call me if something goes down.”

“You know I will.” Peter said.

“See ya round, Tiger.” She said before hanging up on him.

Well fuck. Just… Fuck.

Chapter Text

Peter put his phone back in his pocket and made the walk back to the laundry. He was still in shock about this whole thing. How long had this crush on Wade been a thing exactly? Peter thought back to when they first met, Peter must have been about 20, possibly younger. Peter saw him and thought he might have to call his lawyers because that costume was suspiciously close to his. They ended up in a schoolyard throwing yo mama jokes at each other, in hindsight that was probably as close to pulling on ponytails as they got. He tried to pull of Wade’s mask but he basically kicked him to the ground threatening to bring out the yo’mamagedden. Ever since then they’ve always managed to bump into each other some way or another. Peter had always considered their hijinks to be a breather from his usual day to day stuff, a stressful slightly irritating breather but a breather nevertheless. Although Peter still hasn’t forgiven him for stealing his web canisters that one time. Peter smiled to himself at the memory of Wade screaming while flying through the air and Peter running furiously across rooftops trying to stop him. Jesus fuck he had it bad.

He walked back in the laundry and Wade was back on top of the washing machine.  The radio was playing some song Peter was only slightly familiar with thank god. Wade was humming along and Peter only got a glace up from the magazine as his hello. Peter sat up on top of his washing machine.

“Mary Jane called.” Peter explained. “She’d lost the toaster oven.” Peter wasn’t sure why he was saying this, Wade didn’t care.

“She did? But I didn’t hear any yelling?” Wade said confused. Wait what?

“Why would you hear yelling?”

“She’s your ex isn’t she? All conversations I’ve ever had with exes involve a lot of yelling.” Wade said. Oh dear lord, sometimes Wade’s life was damn tragic that it was almost comical.

“We stayed friends.” Peter said. Wade gave him a look that said “You can do that?” Oh geeze. “I told her about our situation and she said she couldn’t picture me doing this with anyone but you.” Peter lied, not Peter’s smoothest line but it was all he had.

“Glad I have your ex-wife’s approval.” Wade muttered darkly. Oh my.

“Wade Winona Wilson, are you jealous?” Peter asked accusingly. Wade put on a mock shocked expression.

“Me? Jealous? What would I have to be jealous of? You’re perfect, I’m perfect so we’re perfect together, born to be forever.”  Wade said dramatically as though he was reciting a great love poem instead of the cheesy musical that it was. Peter laughed.

“I love you when you do that.” Peter said genuinely in this goofy love sick voice, he didn’t mean to say it, it just fell out of his mouth. Wade immediately sat up straight and gave Peter this look that Peter couldn’t decipher.  Oh fucktruck.

“You’re not-“ Wade started to say, he was interrupted by an Agent bursting into the tent and saying loudly.

“Fury needs you HQ on the double, new intel has come through.” The agent left the tent as quickly as they entered, leaving Peter and Wade staring at each other.

“Well you heard the good man, I’m outta here.” Peter said hurriedly, before quickly leaving the tent. This isn’t how he pictured this going, he don’t really know how he pictured this going he only figured this out maybe half an hour ago at most. Why was this happening so fast, what the fuck?

“Peter, what was that?” Wade asked him as he caught up to him. Peter just walked faster.

“Oh real simple, that agent wanted us to meet Fury ASAP.” Peter explained.

“That’s not what I meant.” Wade said still able to catch up with him. Peter was nearing a sprint now. “Just because when I got bitten by a radioactive spider it just made my arm numb for the day doesn’t mean I can’t keep up with you.”

“Sorry Wade, business calls.” Peter said.

“Peter!” Wade said almost desperately. Nope not talking about this not now maybe later potentially… probably not.

They had already reached the tent. All of the Avengers were there, fuck. Well this had royally blown up in Peter’s face.

“Been keeping each other busy, eh?” Bruce said after both of them had walked in sweaty and dishevelled. Oh god no, why must good people be put through bad things?

“Well you know how it is, Bruce, all that free time, one thing lead to another.” Wade said with a smile before placing his hand on Peter’s waist. It literally felt like lighting shot up his back when Wade did that, what a fucking dick.

“Wilson! Front and centre!” Fury barked at him.

“Yes, sir!” Wade replied enthusiastically as he dropped Peter like last night’s leftovers and raced to Fury’s side.

“Wilson here is the closest thing we have at the moment to an expert on the Symbions.” Fury said begrudgingly, like he wasn’t happy at this turn of events. Wade waved at everyone, what a beautiful idiot. “Wilson and Parker this morning discovered this creature in the sewers beneath the school.” One of Peter’s photo’s came on the screen behind Fury, at this point Peter was convinced Fury had a screen behind him at all times. He gestured at Wade to continue this conversation, which Wade didn’t notice until Peter had to point it out for him from his position at the back of the tent.

“Oh! Ahem. The Venipede as seen here is typically a swamp creature found on the planet Symbion. It has an extremely deadly venom sac which the locals use as ammunition for their weapon known as the Venigun.” Wade said in his best Sir David Attenborough impersonation.

“Our stakeout team found this entering and leaving the premises.” Fury went to the next photo, it was a giant spider with wings. Peter would never had agreed to this if he knew how many bugs were going to be involved.

“Brother of yours?” Thor asked Peter in such a pleased with himself for thinking it up way, Peter couldn’t be mad at that proud lil face. Meanwhile Wade let out one of his excited gasps.

“Ohh that’s so cool!” Wade exclaimed. Fury failed to find the cool in this situation, fortunately Wade enlightened him. “Ok so, this is Spider-flyer, General Spidrax’s animal, each person got an insect or arachnid of some sort it’s a symbiotic planet, hence the name. Now, General Spidrax, like the jerk he is, instead of bonding with his arachnid friend, decided to enslave it instead. So this animal has years of pent up aggression, don’t go anywhere near it or it will eat you on sight.”

“The investigation team found the General in a science classroom.” Fury showed Spidrax in a classroom trying to do something with the science equipment there. Peter saw Wade’s face light up.

“Oh, this is amazing! Hokay so they were a very sheltered culture, the Symbions. After the whole genetic experiment disaster, they went to a more bug like lifestyle like with dirt and leaves and shit and I recognize that face, that’s the ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ face. He’s probably just fucking around wondering where we hide our spaceships.” Wade said as though he was talking about a lost child rather than a bloodthirsty general.

“So you’re saying if we tell him we can give him transport he’ll pack his bags and go?”

“Well probably yeah if your messenger is indestructible or something. Cause he’s going to get a few shots in.” Wade laughed. Peter watched as the entire room looked at Wade. “Aw shit.”

“Parker, Wilson, you’re going to initiate negotiations, Thor, Tony, you’re with me. The rest of you will act as back up for those two make sure they get out alive.” Fury ordered as he walked out of the tent. Peter wanted to buy him a Segway, he just constantly seemed on the move.

As Peter began to move out of the tent Wade grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the laundry. Fuck, avoid at all costs, not ready to have this conversation yet. Not even remotely ready in any sense of the word. Once they entered the tent Wade cornered Peter in front of the washing machine, fuck he knew Peter was gonna run.

“We need to talk, Parker.” Wade said. Oh god he meant business.

“Do we though?” Peter asked while looking for a way out, the washing machine with his suit in it was on the other side of the tent Peter could probably duck underneath Wade’s arm and make a run for it.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Wade started to say.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter interrupted as he took his plan into action. He made it halfway out the tent with his suit when Wade grabbed his arm.

“Peter.”

“My Spider sense didn’t go off.” Peter noticed panicked, looking at where Wade had a firm grip. “Why didn’t it go off?”

“Does it normally?” Wade asked confused.

“It always goes off when someone goes to grab me or sneak up on me, the only people it’s ever trusted were my Aunt May and MJ.” Peter explained. Oh god no, this was it, they were basically as good as married now, this was unbelievable. His powers were meant to help him fight evil not be a matchmaking service. For fuck’s sake.

“What does that mean?” Wade asked softly. It meant they best know what colour they wanted the curtains because Peter was moving in tomorrow. 

“It means we’ll talk about it when we don’t have a planet to save.” Peter looked at Wade with pleading eyes. Wade reluctantly let go of his arm. “Thanks Wade.” He said that as genuinely as he could.

Peter left to get changed into his suit. He couldn’t believe the day he was having honestly, he was a bit overwhelmed. It wasn’t like he was Juliet and Wade was Romeo and he’s decided they need to get married right this instant, after knowing each other a day. It’s not like that at all, this was eight long years of build-up and this was just inevitable. So then why did it feel so sudden? Why did it feel like he was about to agree to a shotgun wedding? He’s known Wade for eight years, this wasn’t rushed, and this isn’t a spur of the moment decision. This was something brewing for years and years and Peter was just too dumb to see it. They were already basically an old married couple, this literally changes almost nothing. So why was this so fucking terrifying? Peter really needed to think about something else.

Once he reached his tent he quickly changed into his suit, which was still damp ugh, and threw his clothes into the lock box. He went back to HQ where the gang was waiting for Wade, Natasha was frowning at Clint who had this shit-eating grin. Steve and Bruce were ignoring this childish display and were talking about the big game or some manly thing like that, Peter couldn’t actually hear what they were talking about but that’s how he’s always imagined their conversations.

“Guess who was right?” Clint said to Peter has he walked over to them.

“Was it you?” Peter asked.

“Well it wasn’t Nat!” Clint practically yelled in her face, she rolled her eyes at this foolishness.

“I never said he wouldn’t be useful.” Natasha said in her defence.

“Ah yes, if I remember your exact wording it was something like, ‘What’s fucking point of tolerating his shit? The only thing hell be fucking good for is as a human shield.’ Correct me if I’m wrong.” Clint grinned with an unadulterated glee.

“The only reason why he’s useful is because he fucked around watching TV in the 80’s instead of doing something useful in his life.” Natasha said bitterly.

“You know he was like fourteen at most in the 80’s right?” Peter said.

“Ugh.” Natasha scoffed, as though a fourteen year old Wade should have known better. Speak of the devil, Wade walked up to them, his suit just as, if not more, soggy as Peter’s.

“Are you all ready for the crossover that you all haven’t been waiting for?” Wade asked enthusiastically.  He got a bunch of blank stares in return. “Glad to hear it!” Wade said before he started walking off.

“You’re going the wrong way, Honey.” Peter yelled after him.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Wade replied as he quickly turned around and started walking the correct way.

“What a man.” Peter sighed affectionately.

“What a goddamn idiot.” Natasha grumbled as the group started to follow Wade. This day might have just gotten even longer if Peter has to listen to her complain the entire mission, not that Peter blamed her for it all her complaints were completely valid Wade was a fucking idiot. Normally Peter would be there with her complaining as though it were an Olympic sport, not today. Peter was about two meltdowns away from going to bed and not getting out until they packed up the tent with him in it.

When they got to the school doors, Wade turned around to face the Avengers and Peter. He cleared his throat before explaining his plan, which Peter was surprised he had to be honest.

“Ok gang, I need one of you behind us on the front entrance and two in the back entrance…. Name of my sex tape. Me and The Babemiester here will go in hopefully fool him into leaving this planet never to return. If things go wrong, which I think they might, I will yell the codeword Kumquat, when you hear kumquat, Bruce, get real fucking angry. Sound good? Okay on three.” Wade held his hand out in front of him, there was an awkward pause before Clint and Peter both put their hands in, Bruce and Steve followed suit and Natasha slowly and reluctantly place hers on top. “One, Two, Three. Fuck you in the ass Spidrax!” Wade said excitedly.

They all broke off and started to follow Wade’s plan. Clint followed the happy couple in while Natasha and Steve took the back entrance. Bruce hung around the front, ready for his cue. As they were walking towards the General, Wade leaned in to Peter and whispered.

“You know how I said yesterday that was the coolest moment of my life? I lied, this is now the coolest moment of my life.”

“Why kumquat?” Peter whispered back.

“Why not kumquat?” Wade shrugged, he suddenly thwacked Peter’s arm. “You know the Symbions ride their insect or arachnid buddy like a horse and I was just thinking-“

“No, absolutely not, no even if you paid me.” Peter shut that idea down as fast as Wade thought of it.   

 “But-“ Wade protested, Peter could see his heart break.

“No. Go to Plan B.” Peter said firmly. Wade sighed sadly.

The three of them walked through the school until they reached the science block, they heard a loud hiss and glass smashing against the floor.

“Hmm I think that might be the alien.” Peter pointed out, but Wade had moved on without him. He was at the door about to go in. Peter nearly sprinted to catch up with him.

As they walked in the door Peter noticed two things, one, there was a huge fucking spider in the room with them, and Peter was about to shit himself. And Two, the alien just looked like a man in a bad alien costume, he was wearing mostly purple, he had the leggings, helmet and cape. Honestly, Peter felt like he was at the weirdest pop culture convention he’s ever been at.

Wade marched in the room with an air of self-importance that Peter had never seen on him before. Wade shot Peter a look that said follow my lead, Peter nodded and fixed his posture.

“General Spidrax, Sir!” Wade saluted at him. The General immediately turned around and gave Wade a curious glare before nodding at him to continue. “Captain Deadpool of the Earth Military 16^th Regiment, this is Lieutenant Spiderman of the Earth Military 14^th Regiment. We are here to represent the Earth Military in assisting you any way we can.” Wade said before saluting him again. Lieutenant? This is some grade a bullshit, as if Wade was higher ranking than him. Also Peter highly suspected Wade had no idea what the regiment part of a military ranking meant.  The General looked satisfied.

“This planet will be mine!” The General cackled maniacally for about ten minutes, this was totally a cosplayer this couldn’t be real. Wade shuffled awkwardly waiting for this to end.

“Sir, we have organised transport for your safe return home if you need, Sir!” Wade said before saluting again, Peter had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing. The General immediately turned his attention back to Wade.

“Oh private, I won’t be going home. The empress will be oh so pleased with me.” The General muttered to himself before he began his evil laughter again, Wade stopped him with a cough.

“Sir, with all due respect, you and what army, Sir?” Wade asked before saluting with less enthusiasm then before.

“The Great Spiderax does not NEED an army. Your planet will be crushed against my heel.” The General said with delusions of grandeur. Sweet Jesus.

“Sir, neither do we… Sir!” Wade said before saluting with one lone finger. Oh Peter was enjoying this.  “I will ask one last time for you to take the transport back to your planet.”

“Keep your transport, scum. You will be needing it more than me.” The General threatened. Wade narrowed his eyes at him as he pulled his gun out of its holster. Oh shit, nope. Peter slapped it out of Wade’s hand.

“KUMQUAT!” Peter yelled at the top of his lungs, suddenly the Avengers appeared out of fucking nowhere and Hulk smashed through a window, because of course he did. Peter just held Wade back before he tried to kill anything else, Wade just looked like he was enjoying the show. Before long Hulk and Clint had knocked out the spider and Natasha and Steve had The General in hand cuffs.  The Hulk had the spider slung over one shoulder and The General on the other. Steve patted Peter on the back as the watched the Hulk leave.

“It’s ok Peter, you’re not really related to that thing, it’ll be fine.” Steve said before walking off laughing.

“He may have aged well but his jokes sure haven’t.” Wade said after he left.

“Did that seem too easy to you? It felt too easy?” Peter remarked, the whole thing took about three minutes at most. He knew the Avengers were good but this was ridiculous.

“He’s a cartoon character from a shitty show in the 80’s, what did you expect?” Wade shrugged.

“I don’t know, it’s just, it was a lot of build up for not a lot.” Peter explained his disappointment.

“That’s why they don’t make a movie out of every mission.” Wade patted Peter’s shoulder, Peter didn’t really know what that meant but it felt comforting. That might have more to do with Wade’s arm on his shoulder than the actual advice itself. “Come on, if we’re lucky Fury will give us the all clear to go home and I can have a bed again.”

“You’ll always have a bed when I’m around.” Peter joked.

“I think you’ll find the reverse is true actually.” Wade pointed out before following the Avengers back to camp. Peter was thankful his mask was there to hide his face which was now the same colour of said mask. Not his proudest moment, if he was being honest.

The walk back was mostly Wade exclaiming to the Avengers how cool that was and bragging to them about how smooth he was in negotiations. Everyone was ignoring him except for Clint who was acting like a mother taking her son home from his first day of school. Peter stood next to him beaming with pride, it had reached the point where Wade just had to breathe and Peter would be like “Did you just see what my boy did? Look at those lungs go!” It was embarrassing really. Peter honestly had to get a better handle on himself.

Once they reached the camp, Clint turned back to Wade and Peter and told them to wait while they sort out this whole prisoner situation. Peter, in hindsight, should have put up more of a fight against this, because Wade seized the opportunity to confront Peter.

“So… you love me when I do that?” Wade said after a silence. Peter choked on his own saliva for a second, he shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was, he knew this was coming.

“Did I say that?” Peter said awkwardly.

“I seem to recall you did, I also remember you leaving your underwear in the machine in your rush to leave afterwards.” Wade said and pulled out a red and blue pair of y-fronts. Peter snatched them off him and shoved them in his pocket. “Fan made?”

“No, self-made.” Peter admitted.

“So what item of clothing are you going to leave in order to get away from this conversation? I’m hoping your armbands, but I think I’d have to make this extremely awkward in order for that to happen. So Peter, what do you think is better for our future children? Parker-Wilson or Wilson-Parker. Or we ditch Wilson entirely and go straight for Parker, because those names are misleadingly posh.” Wade rambled on.

“I think we should go with Wilson,” Peter said taking Wade’s distraction and running with it. “Parker is just as misleadingly posh.”

“Peter I want to have your children. I know I can’t physically at the moment, but I hear modern medicine has improved leaps and bounds. I think by 2018 I should be able to.” Wade said seriously as he took Peter’s hand. What the fuck? “Am I close to those armbands yet?” Oh. Peter drew his hand away from Wade.

“No! Not after last time Jesus Christ. People still ask me what happened to my other costume, it was so much cooler.” Peter said bitterly, Wade lightened up at that.

“Damn right it is! Slimming yet satisfying.” Wade posed to show off his ass in the spandex. “You willing to talk yet?”

“Why? Because I saw your ass?” Peter scoffed.

“It is a game changing ass.” Wade said proudly. Peter looked at the mess in front of him, he couldn’t agree with that statement more, if he was being honest. Maybe it was time, maybe Peter should ignore any anxiety he had about this moment and go for it. It was obvious Wade knew at this point, and it wasn’t like it wasn’t mutual. Fuck it let’s do it. Let’s just fucking do it. Peter took a deep breath.

“Listen Wade, what I said. These past couple of days may have made me realise that” Peter started to say, his voice was shaky which was fucking ridiculous, he was really badly fucked up by this man.

“Wilson!” Fury was approaching fast and fury-ious, still funny. Wade groaned to himself before turning to Fury.

“What news do you have for me, oh Captain my Captain?” Wade saluted with a grin.

“I’m a colonel.” Fury said unimpressed. “I need you with me to interrogate the prisoner and convince him to go the fuck back home.”

“Can do, Mr. Colon Sir!” Wade said cheerily before giving Peter a longing glance as he walked away.

Well thank fuck for Nick Fury. Peter was this close to embarrassing himself irreversibly, he needs a better game plan than just fuck it. What was he even planning to say then? He didn’t know. Not that he wanted to overly plan this, this is Wade Wilson he’s talking about. Anything Peter planned was going to get derailed two seconds in. Peter sighed as he walked back to camp, fuck it if Peter wasn’t needed he was going to nap like he’s never napped before. He reached his tent and dove into the bed, he has never felt so tired at three in the afternoon before.

Except, of course, he doesn’t fall asleep because it’s three in the afternoon. He just lies on his bed awkwardly and wish he was asleep. Eventually after twenty minutes of this he thinks to himself this is fucking ridiculous. He searched the tent for his phone and dials MJ’s number, because she’d know what to do. She picked up on the second ring.

“Wow Tiger, you move quicker than I remember.” MJ said impressed

“I haven’t.” Peter quickly clarified

“Oh,” MJ said disappointed. “Well then why are you calling me?”

“I’m going to. Also-“

“Peter! That’s great, Tiger! Look at you! I’m so proud!” MJ said excitedly. Peter never thought she’d be so pleased to see him with another man, they were divorced but it still hurt a little.

“Yeah well something happened. I accidentally let it slip that I like him and now he’s on my ass trying to-“

“Peter, I support you in your romantic endeavours but that is just too much for me to handle.” MJ interrupted. Peter was starting to develop a theory that he had a type.

“Thank you, dear, for your unneeded comments but if I could continue.” Peter sighed down the phone, he heard he snicker at her own joke.

“Go ahead.”

“Now he’s at my heels trying to get me to admit it, and for some reason I’m feeling like this is so sudden and I’m possibly not ready for any of this.” Peter admitted.

“Pussy.” MJ immediately said without any thought or effort. Peter swore to god, he had a type and it was a goddamn pain in his ass.

“Well I think that’s all the loving advice I can handle from you today. Have a good day, dear.”

“You know you have never called me dear and meant it, it always went with the sarcastic comments.” MJ reminisced. Peter hoped his silence would convey the disappointment he felt at her. “Ok, ok, it sounds like that you’ve known this guy a while, like I remember buying that bag with you that was at least five years ago now. Is it really that sudden? As much as it pains me to say, you might have liked him for a while now.”

“I never cheated on you.” Peter quickly clarified.

“No, I know, that’s not what I meant. Do you think maybe that you’re just overthinking this?” MJ asked.

“Constantly, not just with this but with life in general.” Peter joked.

“I know, Tiger, I know.” MJ said comfortingly. “Maybe just when you see him, stop thinking for five minutes. See what happens, you might like it. And if you don’t who cares, you can just talk my ear off for the next four days. I mean you’ll probably do that whatever happens.” Peter could practically see her eyes roll affectionately at him.

“I don’t know-“

“Peter, I’m not suggesting you have his children! I’m not even saying admit your crush, I’m just saying let your mouth do the talking on its own without your pre-scripted thoughts. Just give yourself a chance, Tiger. You might surprise yourself.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.” Peter said.

“Why? Hasn’t he been in love with you since forever? You think your adorable self acting awkwardly is going to deter him? If anything it’ll drive him crazier.” MJ said.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Peter sighed. “I hate it but you’re right.”

“Damn right I’m right. Now do you want to hear about my much less stressful but equally as life changing day?” MJ asked, but in a way that Peter knew he was going to be listening to this for the next ten minutes.

“I thought you just lost the toaster oven.” Peter said confused.

“If only I just lost the toaster oven.” MJ said remorsefully. She then went into detail about her day, it was delightfully normal. She had a mishap at the grocery store, she found out she had a deadline moved to a weird date, her mother called to tell her to call her sister more often. It felt so nice to hear this, Peter was basically living vicariously through MJ when he heard these stories, because he was never going to have this life. It’s why they broke up, Peter wouldn’t have minded if he had settled down with MJ, but the thought of not being Spiderman anymore, Peter felt like he was betraying the people he strived to protect. Peter was destined to live life in a shitty apartment, spending most of his money on pain killers and sewing kits because that costume was a bitch to fix. 

Eventually MJ had run out of things to talk about, and she had people to chase up about this shitty deadline. So Peter reluctantly let her go, so he was back to his own thoughts. It was now four o’clock, Peter could absolutely justify having a nap. He finally managed to sleep his troubles away.

Peter woke up when he nearly fell out of bed. Wade had dived headfirst into the bed and damn near bounced Peter out of the shitty thing.

“Jesus fucking shit, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Peter yelled in shock.

“Hi honey! I just spent a delightful hour arguing with a cartoon character which ended in him just getting detained so it was essentially a waste of my fucking time. Then I spent another hour in the sewer making sure his fucking pet was alright. Which it wasn’t by the way, it had died in the sewer because that’s how evil cartoon characters in the 80s work.” Wade grumbled into Peter’s shoulder. Peter absent-mindedly patted his head.

“Welcome to the superhero life.”

“I don’t want any part of it, it’s real fucking depressing.” Wade said bitterly. There was silence for a bit as Wade snuggled into Peter’s side. It felt right, that’s the only way Peter could describe what they were doing, it just felt right. Peter could honestly lie like this forever. Wade must have suddenly remembered that he wasn’t actually dating Peter and sat up.

“What are you doing?” Peter asked as he sat up too, he was using Wade as his own personal water bottle he was freezing now.

“What are we doing, Petey?” Wade retorted. “Because this is the weirdest dynamic in a friendship I have ever experienced, and let me tell you Parker I have had some fucked up friendships in my time.”

“Wade.”

“No shut up you had your chance. You have always been this weird fucked up fantasy of mine, like fucking on rooftops with our masks on after we beat the bad guy kind of fantasy, for eight years now, like it was past the point of lust bordering on crazed creepy fan. But with Spiderman not you, because I knew Spiderman but I knew nothing about Peter Parker. And they are not the same people, like at all. Spiderman is cool calm and collected, there is nothing he can’t outwit. It’s ok if I get a boner when Spiderman kicks some bad guy to the curb because he’s fucking Spiderman he’s cool as shit, it’d be weird if I didn’t. But Peter Parker, he’s a big dork who knits his own Spiderman themed sweaters, Peter Parker overthinks everything possibly even breathing, Peter Parker thinks making references to musical theatre is hilarious. It’s like I’ve met a completely different person, and I think this person is possibly the person, because I fallen real hard for you, real fast. It’s kind of scary actually, just how perfect you are.”

“I think perfect is a bit of an exaggeration.” Peter replied.

“I said shut up Peter, like this isn’t just a crazy fantasy for the wank bank anymore. This is I couldn’t sleep a wink with you sleeping next to me because I couldn’t stop memorising your face in case I never saw it again level shit. This is you said I love you when you do that and that’s the only thing I have thought about all day. But here’s the thing Parker, I can’t do this. Because you’re not going to be looking for that are you? You just realised you had options, you just left your ex-wife who you still talk to, you’re not going to want what I want out of this. And as much as I’d like for this to be the crazy fantasy, it’s gone past that for me. If this happens it’ll hurt me more than help me. And I can’t do that to myself.”

“Wade.”

“No Petey.” Wade had already managed to talk himself out of this and this wasn’t even a ‘this’ yet. It was a miracle to Peter how Wade had ever got anything done.

“I’m in love with you.” Peter admitted.

“No you’re not, Peter.”

“I have a room in MJ’s house when I lived there, which was a gym, and every time I’d come home from working with you I’d have to hit that gym. Because you had me so confused and I was so repressed I didn’t get it. And every little thing in that gym had your face on it. Because I didn’t understand why I was so obsessed with you. I would literally go home and complain about you for weeks after seeing you and eventually MJ got sick of that so I literally would punch your face for hours at a time. And actually this may not be the best story to prove my love for you but I’m going to finish it. You were the most stressful frustrating thing in my life. Every little thing you did absolutely drove me insane. And I couldn’t not think about it because it’s what I do. And it was really only today that I figured out that that obsession was actually me being madly in love with you for six years and it never clicked because why would it? I was straight, I had MJ, and it never needed to click. But your dumb ass singing Def Leppard in a Pluto hat, I was about to kiss you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“You were in the middle of a guitar solo it seemed rude to interrupt you.” Peter shrugged.

“I love you.” Wade said in an absent-minded slip of the tongue way.

“I love you too.” Peter said genuinely.

“Peter, I don’t want you to do this for me, that’s stupid” Wade told Peter as he started to pull Wade’s mask off.

“Yo Mama’s so stupid she heard it was chilly outside and went to grab a bowl.” Peter murmured. Wade’s eyes lit up, Peter had never seen someone so happy to have their mother insulted.

“Yo Mama’s so fat her memory foam mattress drinks to forget.” Wade grinned

“Yo Mama’s just like the sun, big round and hard to look at.” Peter replied before throwing the mask into the lock box and kissing Wade, who kissed him back hungrily. Like he’d been waiting for this for a long time. Eventually Wade pulled himself away

“Um so just so you know, I lied about the PR thing.” Wade confessed.

“Duh” Peter rolled his eyes at him.

“So why did you fall for it?” Wade frowned

“Because I’m in love with you, why else?”

“So we’re really doing this?”

“We could always stop if you want. I mean that’d mean no more kissing but-“ Peter started to say before Wade jumped on top of him and kissed him.

Fuck, they were really doing this, and Peter couldn’t be happier.