"It's complicated. A long story. But saves me from any possible injury. Got it from Wolveie himself. Mines better of course."

" Wolverine?" Peter asked with a small frown.

"Yup."

He nodded and glanced away, wondering how or why that happened. He was hesitant to ask his next question. He had only seen Deadpool's face once, but the image was scratched into his mind. Why did he have scars like that if he had the helping factor? He decided to go for it, "But what about your scars?"

The man stilled his fidgeting. Peter had noticed that Wade was always moving somehow, whether he be playing with his hands or swaying where he stood. Wade took his time to think about his answer before eventually chuckling. " Guess I can't avoid that story after all huh?"

__________

Wade

"Well no. You don't have to tell me if you-" Spider-man began to back pedal, hands raised to ease the situation. Wade ignored his antics and cut in.

"It's fine." It wasn't, " before I, you know, looked like I managed to escape hell-"

(which isn't at all far from the truth.)

"I had terminal cancer. Like anyone else, I wanted to live and was approached by weapon X. You probably don't know what that is, but it doesn't matter. They said they could cure me and all that shit. I took the chance and, well it wasn't quite what I was expecting. There was a dead pool to see who would survive the longest through the experiments or torture tactics they came up with to try and bring out a forced mutation in genetically dormant people." He paused, pushing back against the visuals that wanted to well up in his mind. He didn't want to see them, certainly didn't want to scatter his mentality within Peter's presence. " Well long story short, my cancer worsened with the new healing factor because it's technically a part of me, but it also keeps it at bay just enough for it not to kill me. If I'd had a biopsy before the experimentation maybe I'd have been able to get around it..."

"Must hurt then," Peter muttered quietly, his entire tone shifting. It felt weird, the sentiment in his voice despite being openly resentful of Wade.

Wade nodded with the added effect of a shrug. "If I pulled on your hair all day, after a while you would start to ignore it. It would still hurt but it turns into an element of the background."

(He's curious.)

[He asks too many questions ]

(He seems interested and he doesn't sound pitying.)

[Change the subject.]

"What about you, Spider boy?"

"What about me? How I became this?" Peter asked, tugging at his spandex shirt to refer to his spideryness.

Wade nodded. " What's your secret origin story Spideykins?"

Peter ignored the name. "My Stopwatch would regularly go off throughout Highschool, so after several sleepless nights I went on a school trip feeling pretty out of it. Got myself a little lost in a bioengineering building. It was apparently where my dad used to work before he died. He'd bred these modified spiders and what not. I got bit by one and because the Spiders were genetically engineered to only work with the bloodline of my father, lil ole me turned into the one and only Spider-Man." Peter looked down at himself and gave himself a flamboyant, if not aggressive gesture.

"Sounds complicated," The bloodline thing had some devious implications. You could create a line of powerful individuals like that. 616's own Ackerman bloodline, if you will.

"When you get into all the small details it really is." Peter agrees. " Not as significantly life-changing as your situation though."

"I wouldn't one up my story just because you weren't physically tortured. I'm sure you've had your worth in psychological trauma."

(Did you forget about it or something?)

"You know what I meant," Wade answered the box out of habit, annoyed that it would suggest that he wasn't accounting for the damage he'd already done.

Peter gives Wade a sideward look. "What?"

"Nothing."

Peter wasn't convinced, "Who are you talking to?" He asked uneasily.

[Don't tell him that. I don't want him to know. It'll only make things that much worse.]

"Sorry, just talk to myself sometimes."

(See didn't lie, or give anything away. Win win.)

Peter nodded slowly. A silence fell between them for a while before he eventually broke it. "Why do you keep assuming I want you to go away?"

Wade laughed. Maybe because he wasn't stupid? "Everyone wants me to go away. I just tend to stick around whether they like it or not. Really, I don't want to hurt you anymore then I have already. No one wants me around for long, don't see why you'd be any different."

(I think we said something wrong.)

' Whys that? We just told the truth.'

(He looks stiff )

'in what way?'

Wade looked over. The young man had gone ridged and frankly looked pissed.

"Why wouldn't I be any different?" He snapped.

Wade stared, needing a second to process the attitude shift. He also didn't quiet understand the offense, Peter hadn't been subtle the last few days.

"Because you clearly didn't want me around when we first met? You did break my nose, and I mean the vibe I was getting wasn't exactly welcoming." Wade pointed out curtly.

"What about after? Okay yes, I was mad and I swung at you. What was I supposed to do? You died well over fifty times, Interrupted my life, made me appear a soulless human and put me through enough emotional shit to qualify me as a first class heartbroken girl! And still, you don't seem to notice how I-"

"You're clearly and rightfully still Mad at me! Why do you want me around if I just make you mad?" Wade interjected before the young man could get too carried away.

"Yes, I'm still angry with you! That much anger doesn't just disappear. But don't you see I'm working on it? I'm getting rid of it knowing now that you're present. And you just want to ditch me? To leave me here still broken? I want to see what we are!" Peter yelled. "I once said that soul mates were a cruel joke. Believed it for the longest time. And now when I'm trying to look at things differently I'm starting to realize that maybe I really was right. There is no such thing as a perfect half...It's better that way anyway. Everyone I love dies. I always get them killed"

Wade waited, listening and trying to piece together the nonsense. It didn't make sense, but to a degree that it did. He had a feeling that this was just a broad emotional outburst that Peter didn't know how to deal with but needed to expel somehow.

"I can't die," He pointed out softly, trying to reel the younger back in. Peter was clearly younger, he was in high school still when a lot of their issues began, so that put them a handful of years apart. He was pretty sure he was eighteen or something when he died the first time? Maybe? Honestly, he couldn't remember.

"I know. That's the catch. The universe finally tilted in my favor, right? But apparently, you're not up for it, so it doesn't matter. I was wrong again," Peter turned away, voice strained to put it politely.

This sounded a bit like gaslighting considering the previous interactions they'd had, but Wade would give Peter some grace.

'That's not what I meant.'

[That's how he interpreted it. ]

(Thanks Sherlock.)

" Peter. . ." Wade started. This was admittedly his fault. If he wasn't suicidal, this wouldn't have happened. If he wasn't so hard-headed and stupid this also wouldn't have happened.

"I get it okay. You don't think I want you and I don't think you want me. I can't have you. I get it. I expected to live with it like this anyway. Only I never thought I'd meet you. " Peter said just before walking off the edge of the building they'd since moved to after the night spelunking.
Wade stared out at where the arachnid had been a few seconds earlier before he threw his head back with a deep sigh.

(He left us forty stories up in the air with no way down.)

[it's a sign.]

Wade shook his head. "But I don't want to jump,"

__________

Wade broke one of the large, not bulletproof windows of the skyscraper to get in. Who doesn't have a door to the roof nowadays? He was pretty sure that was illegal back in like the forties, so how were people getting by with it now? Unless it had been removed recently?

He had made it to his apartment unharmed. For the most part anyway. He was exhausted as he clambered back into his hole in the wee hours of the morning. He could see the sky beginning to turn pink with morning light.

"Note to self, don't get ditched two hours walking distance away from home without your wallet." He groaned before flopping sideways over the arm of his couch. He was milliseconds away from drifting off when something buzzed against the hard surface of a table somewhere behind him.

Wade whined, forcing himself to get up and investigate. It was only his phone on the table which sounded have been obvious because few other things vibrated in his home. He almost turned away from it, but stopped to approach.

( We didn't take out our phone.)

He was expecting a notification from his game which it was.

He frowned.

It was an announcement that two characters had reached a new relationship level. Out of curiosity he opened up the game and was greeted by the bright blue background as it started to load.

There was only one relationship he cared to check on, figuring it wouldn't hurt to add the equivalent of tonight's conversations while he was at it. His mission was interrupted when he noticed that there was something wrong. The relationship had been completely flip-flopped. Instead of a negative relationship between them, the game had shifted towards the near completion of being good friends. But instead of the bar being green it had been turned Pink.

There was only one explanation as to who had done the act.

[How the hell does that bug know where we live?]

"How did he even get in?"

Wade looks around and notices the window he always left unlocked for himself was open.

He couldn't climb walls, he was generally limited to his front door.

He returned his gaze to the game now completely, and utterly confused.

"I thought you thought neither of us wanted each other?"

[That little spider followed us here. ]

(Maybe he's still outside?)

"Um, Peter?"

Fuck I hate Wattpad. What a piece of garbage to write in. God forbid I copy and paste into Wattpad AFTER WATTPAD DELETED THE WHOLE ASS CHAPTER. Trash. I hate this website, wish it would go to back to what it was 2012-2015

Special thanks to Patron Poiuytr23 for their pledge. Their support has brought to you this edited edition of Stopwatch. If you would like to see more of Stopwatch edited in the future, consider pledging $1 to my Patreon. Link in bio.

(Originally published Aug 05, 2016, officially edited 2023)

Until next time~ Shadow-Assassin)

Original Note:

Hey guys. I'm leaving for a trip so I thought I'd give you this early today.