Hey guys, sorry for such a long wait. We're catching up to what I have written for this fic, so I need to buckle down and get the last chapters written out so I don't hit a funk. But anyway, here's this! Wade's POV

Adrenaline made Wade feel like he was on a high, and what an addicting feeling that was.

Drugs didn't work on him anymore (thanks healing factor) so he had to get his euphoria elsewhere, and that came in the forms of jobs, being elbow-deep in a mission, or coming across a battle that was his particular brand of chaos. He never felt calmer and more in control than when he was pulling the trigger of a gun. It was arguably one of the few times he felt peace at all.

See, there's a lot of messed-up shit crammed inside his body; his head, his thoughts. Stuffed in every nook and cranny until he's pulling at the seams to keep it all in. When his skin wasn't burning him alive like a Salem witch on trial, his head was a never-ending roller coaster of loops, neck-snapping turns, dizzying highs, and stomach-rolling lows on an unfinished track where seat belts didn't exist. Sometimes his thoughts didn't feel like his own. His brain was a congress of monkeys banging gavels and shooting guns, screeching for a new job, for money, for pain, for sex, for someone to please shut the noise up because he can't think and he can't feel and nothing makes sense, and everything is moving too fast, and it hurts.

But when he has his finger on the trigger, or a katana in his hand, all of that screaming, and screeching, and banging, and sobbing, and agony narrow into a laser-focus that clears his head and leaves it to operate like the well-oiled machine it was cultivated to be. He took jobs for silence of mind as much as he took them for money.

So, you can imagine his surprise when he found a similar relief in Peter Parker.

Yeah, Wade always had an obsession with Spider-Man, the hero and mascot of NYC, who stopped buses with his bare hands and swung around buildings like the world's most attractive spider-monkey. But it was with Peter Parker that Wade found stillness of mind. There were mornings when he woke and Peter would be there, sleeping next to him, breathing deeply and expression peaceful, and in the silence, as Wade committed that face to memory because hell and heaven knows that he might not get another chance, his brain settles. A lake of rippling water becoming a sheet of glass, or a tornado of leaves coming apart and drifting softly to the ground. Talking with Peter kept him focused. Playing games and teasing each other distracted him from the pressure building in his head. Peter even helped his scars by rubbing baby lotion over the dry areas when it got bad and Wade couldn't reach.

Spider-Man was his hero, but Peter Parker was his anchor. Tying him down in one position so he wasn't in danger of floating into a million other directions. The eye of his storm, you could say. The stitch to his wound. A warm blanket on a cold day.

Now that he was gone - no, taken. Now that he'd been taken, Wade could feel those stitches starting to unravel, seeping, bleeding. Pieces of him crumbling, like a worn statue wearing down from weather and abuse.

He tapped his finger on the picture laying over the counter, tracing the lines of Peter's face with his eyes and searing every detail into his brain. One leg bounced with pent-up energy, but otherwise, he was frozen. His laptop was perched on the table with multiple tabs open, but his gaze kept snapping between it and the photo, trying to draw lines from Peter's face to the map of New York like he was weaving a homing beacon between his Spidey and his location.

His phone dinged, pulling him out of his mental threading, and he swiped open a message from Aunt May detailing the break-in to her house. He shot a quick thank-you and a kissy-face and read it through, several times, while matching it to his memories of the Parker household.

The chances of this stalker also watching MJ and Aunt May was high, considering Peter's use of Code Blue, and for mentioning that he thought his cover was blown in one of his voicemails. It was likely that the person who took Peter also robbed their apartment and Aunt May's house – the fact that the perp only stole Peter's belongings and his pictures added to that theory. So, Wade wasn't just looking for a creepy stalker, but a creepy, obsessed stalker. One of the fun ones.

"Sooo, whatcha thinking big guy?" Weasel asked from behind the bar as he rearranged alcohol bottles and brushed broken glass off the counter.

"That I'm going to kill a bitch and fasten their skin into a mating drum," Wade deadpanned, tapping the corners of the picture in rapid succession, his agitation building until he finally sat up and pulled the laptop closer.

"Kinky," Weasel commented, wrinkling his nose, "Gross, but kinky."

Wade snorted, unamused, and squinted at the screen. Local listings and cheap apartment buildings were pulled up on the first tab. He was cross-referencing them by condition, how easy it would be to move things in and out, and how much they cost, with how close they were to his and Petey's apartment. Given that this person stole so much of Peter's stuff, Wade didn't think they could've gone far. They had to be in the city at least, the 5 boroughs at most. He scribbled down a few names to check out and clicked on another tab.

A man's face stared back. Narrow chin, black hair, goatee, brown eyes. His name was George Thatcher, the man who had been supposedly renting the room down the hall. This was their guy, and Wade knew that because he's been dead for 8 years.

Died of an overdose in Chicago. Little to no family. Wasn't very loved by that little family due to his drug addiction and the fact that he couldn't hold a job for more than a few weeks. So why was this Mr. Thatcher coming back from the dead to kidnap Peter Parker?

Elementary, my dear Watson. Their stalker wasn't this deceased druggie, just the face and name someone was using to cover their tracks. Which meant' whoever this bastard was, was good at keeping their head down. This couldn't be the first time they've done something like this.

"So, what are you going to do?" Weasel asked, feigning indifference as he grabbed a bottle of tequila.

Wade picked up the notepad he'd been scribbling on and checked off names of villains, anti-heroes, and anyone suspicious that he and Peter got involved with within the last year. "I'm going to hunt down the son of the bitch who took my boo, is what."

Weasel sighed, "Okay man, I'm going to level with you," he leaned onto the counter, "Can you do that anywhere but here? I know you're going into scary merc mode, and I'll admit, it's kind of badass, but your brooding is scaring off my customers."

Wade snorted, "You say that as if they're a bunch of thumb-twiddling, wide-eyed civvy's coming in for a cup of coffee."

"Yeah, well, you're probably one of the few people outside a superhero or life counselor that can scare them away. Criminals or not, they're my income. So find somewhere else to do your Brian Mills roleplay before I'm run out of business."

Wade ignored him by turning around and purposefully putting his feet up on the table, getting comfortable.

"You bitch," Weasel grouched under his breath.

Wade grinned, but that dropped quickly enough when he turned back to his list. He crossed off names that didn't have an association with assuming identities or going deep undercover. He crossed off Kraven the Hunter, but underlined Doctor Octopus with a question mark scribbled at the end.

"Weas, have there been any image inducers sold on the black market recently?"

Weasel stopped cleaning the counter, "How am I supposed to know that?"

"Can't you look it up?"

"I can't just tap into my phone and see every dealing that's happened in the black market for the past 12 months, Wade. This isn't Costco."

"Can Costco even do that?" Wade shook his head, "Doesn't matter. Can't you figure out who the big sellers are? There aren't a whole lot of them, so it should be an easy list to narrow down. And where are you at with that footage?"

Weasel threw his hands up in the air, "Wade, you do realize I can't just hack into the city's traffic cameras whenever the fuck want. Do you know how much coding and smarts go into hacking? I'm a weapons dealer who dabbles in information broking, I'm not your handyman of crime."

"That's probably the most humble thing I've ever heard you say about yourself," Wade hummed, "But I am going to be needing that footage. Soooo..."

Weasel took a deep controlled breath through the nose and looked up to the ceiling as if mumbling a prayer, which was ridiculous because Wade knew for a fact, he wasn't religious. He clapped his hands excitedly when Weasel trudged into the backroom and returned with a flashdrive.

"I had a buddy of mine do it, she wasn't able to download more than a few days without getting caught, so this is all she could get, don't ask me to get more."

Wade grabbed the flashdrive with eager fingers and slid it into his laptop. Weasel didn't return to his counter and continued staring down at him, casting judgment until his hands came up to exasperatedly pinch the bridge of his nose, "Seriously, can you do that anywhere else but here? Take my backroom for all I care, just please hide yourself from members of society."

"You're so sweet," Wade blew him a kiss, but scooped up his laptop and notes. Not because it would be sparing Weasel and his customers, but because that seat was uncomfortable and his butt was going numb anyway.

He parked himself in the backroom, sitting on the edge of the ratty old couch with his laptop on the table. He pulled up the video footage and got comfortable. It wasn't of the apartment building he and Peter lived in, that building had no security systems set up, and only a handful of the small stores and rentable spaces nearby did. But there were traffic cameras, and Wade cased the perimeter enough to know the streets around it like the back of his hand.

Most of the footage was useless. None of the people met the descriptions of the stalker or Peter. But Wade sat diligently, combing through every second and analyzing every face that came on screen, slowing it down when he needed to.

He was two hours in when he saw it, and sat up so quickly to pause the feed that his notepad went flying. It was a moving van. The image was fuzzy, but he could make out details on the side. EZ-Move Co. was inked in bold letters, and sitting in the passenger seat was good ol' Casper himself, George Thatcher. Wade fast-forwarded the rest of the video, checking different areas for the same van, but Dead-Man must've taken a side street, or one of the back alleys, because he didn't show up on any of the main roads.

Still, he had a name now. EZ Move Co. It wasn't much, but it was a lead and Wade was grasping for straws. Looking up the name, he found several listings throughout the city, but the nearest one was downtown, in what some might consider a shadier part of the city. Wade wasn't intimidated by a few could-be gangs and druggies, and it checked all the boxes for the perfect location to stash a person you didn't want to be found.

He wrote down every address anyway, just to be careful, and stuffed the paper in one of his pouches. He closed the laptop, bundled his things, blew Weasel a kiss on his way out, and reciprocated the birdie he received in response as he left. Stepping outside, his breaths came out in puffs as soft whiteness flitted from the dark sky, illuminated by the scarce light of the streets. Wade craned his neck. The snow, from below, looked like thousands of tiny bugs descending from the heavens, covering the earth in scourge. At least that's what snot-nosed 8-year-old Wade Wilson used to think when he watched snowfall. Adult Wade still agreed.

He inhaled, letting the chill fill his lungs and sharpen his mind to a razor point. It was a cold night tonight. The kind of weather people hid from in their homes and warded off through large coats and space heaters. Not the kind of weather that spider's thrived in.

Wherever that bastard took Peter, it better be warm.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment, each one is loved and treasured! The next chapter should be out sooner than this one was.