Final chapter! Here we gooooooo!

Peter woke up in his apartment.

No. "Woke up" sounded too much like something you'd see in a children's movie, where the princess yawns and stretches as she blearily blinks her eyes open while birds flitter in her room, singing their morning songs. Peter had no such grace or finesse. He jerked awake like someone had fastened a rope to his sternum and yanked it hard. Blankets went flying off him and one of the pillows hit the floor with a soft squish as he sat up in bed, wide-eyed and head pounding. His vision blurred and he swayed, pressing a hand to the side of his head.

What happened? Was his first thought. Where am I? Was his second.

He looked down at the slim blankets on the floor, and then the heavier blanket pooled around his thighs, and had to blink several times before his eyes focused. Warm, he thought dumbly. Very warm. He hummed and slowly sank back into the bed. He liked warm. Warm was good and comfy, and he was too lethargic to care about anything else.

The pillows were so soft and he nuzzled his face into them with a content sigh. Then reality slipped into his brain like a worm and he froze. He wasn't supposed to have pillows, they were stolen. The rest didn't rush back to him all at once, he followed it like a child with rope, connecting to different memories one at a time, each one more harrowing than the last. Pillows were gone because he was robbed, Aunt May was robbed too, they had pictures of her and him and MJ, MJ was being watched, Peter had a plan because he was being stalked, he went to an apartment to confront the stalker, and then...what? His brain was so fuzzy it could've grown bits of mold. But everything else was very concerning and he lurched back up.

Except, lurch was a strong word. His moment of adrenaline was used up the first time he woke, and instead of jumping to his feet, he slowly sat up and then even more slowly moved his legs over the bed to stand up. The room spun and he had to brace himself on the edge of the bed so he didn't fall face first into the floor. His eyes were still hazy and unfocused, but he trailed them over the room, confusion growing by the second.

This was his apartment. That was his dresser in the corner, his camera perched on top; his desk was pushed up against the wall and his laptop was plugged in and charging on it. The floor was strewn with the discarded clothes he was too lazy to put in the hamper and the windows were drawn closed to keep the sunlight out.

Peter rubbed his face with numb fingers, hoping to spark life into his brain. His senses were dulled, but he could pick up a humming coming from outside the room. Quiet murmurings, like someone was talking.

That was wrong. No one was supposed to be in his apartment.

Thankfully, he wasn't too disoriented to climb the walls, but it was a close thing when he almost unstuck himself when easing the door open. He followed the sounds through the apartment, to the kitchen, keeping his movements quiet as he crawled along the ceiling. But his suspicion ebbed and his heart lifted when he recognized the voice.

A large figure was standing in the kitchen, their broad shoulders covered with a t-shirt slightly too small because it happened to be Peter's. Scars painted his skin in abundance and his bald head bobbed and jerked to the tune he was humming to himself. Wade was standing in the kitchen, frilly pink apron on, radio playing as he ladled another scoop of pancake mix into a pan where it sizzled. Next to him was a steaming batch of pancakes. Peter's stomach gurgled loudly at the smell.

He tried to unstick quietly, but his feet hit the floor with a too-loud thud and he almost toppled over. His head was still swimming and his thoughts were as scattered as someone trying to keep a bunch of kittens in a straight line.

"Wade," Peter croaked as the man turned around, and his heart fluttered at that familiar grin as Wade's blue eyes met his. Fuck, he missed that twinkle in his eye. His stupid shit-eating grin.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," his voice rumbled, "It's about time you woke up. Thought for a second you were comatose, and there go my plans of kissing the prince awake. I never get to have any fun."

"That's not very consensual," Peter murmured as he looked around the room. "What happened?"

Wade quirked an eyebrow as he untied his apron and tossed it over the counter, grabbing the platter of pancakes as he did, "You mean other than you falling and hitting your head like a goof? Nothing much. Hey, how sturdy did you say your webs were again? Because I remember someone bragging about how they can hold up to 1500 pounds of weight," Wade snorted, "Couldn't even hold your scrawny ass."

Peter looked at him, puzzled, "What? I didn't...no, I mean...what happened to the man? And the woman? The one's stalking me."

Wade gave him a weird look as he set the pancakes on the table and beckoned for Peter to sit, "According to Tony, he was watching you for your 'own safety,' but I agree that it's a bullshit excuse. Just because Tony wants to micromanage his little boyband, doesn't mean he can start butting in our life. I'll let him know you said to fuck off. And what's this about a woman? Don't tell me I have competition now, I've only been gone a few months."

"No. No, there was a man and a woman, and he wasn't...Tony. They've been watching me for months," Peter pressed his hands over his forehead, trying to remember all the details, "They've been following me. Taking pictures. Leaving stuff for me at work. I swear it," his eyes drifted to the door and he perked up, heading toward it, "They have a whole room filled with pictures," he said, beckoning Wade to follow him, "Come on, I'll show you. They've been living in the apartment down the hall."

Peter didn't even make it a few feet before Wade was grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him around. His expression was less amused and more concerned now. "Whoa there Petey, my sunshine, the crisp apple of my eye. What are you talking about? Did you hit your head harder than we thought," he checked the back of Peter's head and Peter winced from the touch. He replaced Wade's fingers with his own and gingerly touched around the bump that was there. He hit his head? How hadn't he remembered that? It explained his piercing headache though.

"No, I...there was a woman...I swear it."

Wade took Peter's hands in his and pulled him back to the table, "We'll head over to Iron-Butt's after breakfast. He said you might have a concussion, but I didn't think it'd knock any screws loose. Can't have you taking my place as the cooky one in the relationship," he sat Peter on a chair and placed the entire stack of pancakes in front of him. "Eat up, spidey-baby. Get em' while they're hot," he winked.

Peter looked down at the plate and slowly picked up the fork. This wasn't right, was it? There had been two people. He was followed. He didn't imagine it, he couldn't have.

Wade was back in the kitchen, flipping the other pancake and ladling more in its place. Peter watched him for a minute before slowly cutting off a piece of his pancake and chewing it, not even giving the taste any mind.

"When did you get back from your job? I thought it was going to be another few weeks, at least."

Wade looked over his shoulder as he started scavenging through the cupboards, "Finished early. The infiltration was the hardest part, but knocking the head honcho off his ass? Easy peasy. In and out. Could've done it in my sleep. Arrived back in town just after you conked your noggin."

"You keep saying that. What happened?"

"Nothing really," Wade shrugged, "You were out patrolling, webline snapped, fell into the street. Traffic stopped, for once in its life, so you weren't run over. But got a nice shiny bump on the back of your head. Hit yourself pretty hard, so I hear."

Peter frowned at his plate, "But..my webs don't just snap out of nowhere. Not unless something cuts them."

Wade shrugged, coming up behind him and softly rubbing his shoulders, "Don't know, Petey. Maybe this batch wasn't as strong as you thought."

Not as strong as he thought? Peter doubted it. He was always careful when it came to his webs. They were one of the most important tools in his arsenal. He couldn't be swinging around, thousands of feet in the air, with faulty webbing. If he'd run out of web-fluid, that would be another thing. That's happened plenty of times and will probably keep happening until he can figure out a solution for canisters that can hold more.

"No it couldn't have been my webbing," Peter said, insistently.

Wade hummed and kissed the top of his head, "Whatever you say, honey-butt."

His tone was playful and humoring, which Peter didn't appreciate, but he kept rubbing his shoulders and that felt amazing. Peter relaxed into those skilled hands and hissed as Wade's fingers massaged a particularly rough knot in his shoulder.

He took another bite of the pancakes, actually focusing on the taste this time, and made a face, "Did you use pancake mix? I thought you hated using the boxed brands."

Wade hummed, "Didn't have time to get the stuff for homemade batter, sweetums. Too busy taking care of you."

Peter made another face, twisting to look up at him,"You told me you'd cut off your own leg and eat it before buying pancake mix. You even made me promise to never buy it," he squinted up at Wade, who rolled his eyes as if Peter were being silly, and maybe that was the first sign that something was wrong. This was his apartment, this was his boyfriend, but it was off-kilter. Something didn't feel right.

Peter got up, shrugging Wade's hands off his shoulder, "I think I need some air."

"You're supposed to be under house arrest, Petey. Apartment only."

"What? I can't step outside? I'm just going to stand outside the firescape." Despite the pounding in his head and the way he felt like he was moving in molasses, he was in the room before Wade had the chance to protest and flung the curtains open. The window was frosted over from the early morning and clouds littered the sky above. It was going to snow. Peter hooked his fingers under the window to pull it up, but the billboard across from him flashed bright white and he squinted. Damn toothpaste commercials.

His stomach dropped.

He didn't have a billboard outside his room.

In that moment, Wade grabbed him from behind, pinning Peter to his chest and pushed a cloth over his nose. It was damp and smelled of chemicals. Chloroform. Peter flailed, elbowing Wade in the gut with years of practice and Wade doubled over, letting him go. Peter stumbled away, reaching for the window, his closest escape, but Wade caught him by the ankle and yanked him back. He hit the ground hard and Wade was on top of him again, pinning his arms to his sides and shoving the cloth over his mouth and nose.

But Peter was still stronger and bucked him off.

He rolled to his knees, but couldn't make it to his feet. He lolled to the side. He already breathed in too much.

"Who are you," he demanded, leaning against the dresser. He was wrong, this wasn't his dresser. It looked like the one in his room, but while the likeness was the same at first glance, the one in his actual room had belonged to him for nearly 2 years. This one was brand new. This wasn't his apartment, just a very good copy.

Wade got back to his feet. Any likeness toward the man he knew was suddenly gone. He didn't have Wade's humor when he smiled. It didn't even have the same softness as he held out his hands to soothe him. "Calm down," the not-Wade said with the gravelly voice that didn't belong to him.

"Don't tell me to calm down," Peter spat. His legs wobbled and his brain was scattering."W-who the hell are you? What..." he was feeling woozy, "What did you do with Wade? Where am I?"

"You're safe," Not-Wade assured him, "You're somewhere where you can be happy. I promise. I don't want to hurt you."

"Yeah, that sounds familiar," He needed to leave. Fuck this guy, he'd kissed Peter on the head.

Peter bolted for the door, fast despite his dizziness, and managed to make it out of the room when he was tackled from behind. Not-Wade was being very rough for someone who didn't want to hurt him, and Peter didn't have any problems with twisting around to throw a punch. It landed on Not-Wade's jaw, but it wasn't nearly as strong as he was going for. Not-Wade grunted and returned with a punch of his own. It was a lot more solid given his undrugged state of mind, but Peter's taken worse hits. He tried worming his way out from under Not-Wade, but with his back to the copycat, the other man pressed his weight down on him and put the cloth over his face for a third time.

This time he curled himself around Peter, curling his legs around Peter's torso and twisting his arms around Peter's neck and head so he couldn't shake the cloth off. Peter tried holding his breath, but he couldn't hold out for long. Through their struggling, the scars on Wade's forearms flickered on and off, revealing smooth skin underneath. Not-Wade was wearing an image inducer.

Peter tried to fight as long as he could, but it didn't take long before his struggling lightened and he was slumping. Not-Wade waited until he wasn't moving before unwinding himself and getting off. Now free, Peter tried to move but all he could do was turn his head enough to look at the imposter. His image was flickering more sporadic now, fluttering like static on a tv screen.

"Must have knocked my gear loose," the fake chuckled, and his voice fluctuated between the unique gravel of Wade's voice, and a much smoother one. One that Peter recognized.

The image sputtered off altogether and a white mask looked down at him, the eyes behind it amused. "Don't worry, I'll get it up and running again."

Peter's eyes widened, just a fraction. He was already gone, the drug too strong to fight off, and he only managed to whisper one thing before he was unconscious again.

"Chameleon?"

{LINE BREAK}

Meanwhile, several miles away, a man stepped out of the airport and onto the sidewalk, wrapped in a large hoodie, a scarf, and a baseball hat, despite the cloudy weather. He inhaled a deep breath of cold winter air, and let it out in a condensed puff that was snatched in the wind. Dark grey clouds were gathering. New York was in for one hell of a snowstorm, if the weather reports were correct.

He grabbed his suitcase and lugged it after him as he waited for his taxi. Normally, he might've arrived with a little more fanfare, wearing the red suit he often donned, and pissing off the general populace with his sheer presence, but this was a special occasion. He's been gone for a while and he had a Spider-Babe at home that he missed and wanted to surprise.

He checked his phone. The taxi would be here soon according to the message left on the home screen. Instead of closing it, he brought up his contact list and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Heeeeey Petey-Pie, just calling to check in again. I'm not home yet, I'm just about to get on my flight. I want to hear all about your little stalker. Got most of your messages, but the wifi has been iffy, so I haven't gone through them all yet. I'll pick up some Thai on the way home and you can tell me alllllll about it. I know you're probably at work and I'm not supposed to bug you, yada yada yada, all the boring stuff, but call me when you can, kay. Bye, and hey," he smirked into the server, "I love you too."

He put the phone away.

Past the humor and wry-grins, he would admit he was a little worried. Peter sounded concerned in some of his voicemails and lonely in most of them. Wade supposed he couldn't blame him. He's been gone for a month longer than either of them expected, and the job itself had sent him on a wild goosechase. Peter has always been so wonderfully paranoid of everything and Wade loved him for it.

There hadn't been any talk on the news about Spider-Man battling some new villain, and as far as Wade knew there was no new gossip about NYC other than the usual. Everything was peaceful so the problem probably got sorted out.

The screeching of tires, honking of horns, and terrified screams of bystanders drew Wade's attention to the street, where his ride was pulling up. Dopindor was laying it heavy on the horn and waving his hand out the window for his attention, shouting "Mr. Pool! Mr. Pool! Over here!"

Wade grinned, hauling his luggage back up. He couldn't wait to see his Peter again.

"It's good to be home."

Hahah so as you guys can probably guess, there is going to be a sequel to this book. This story was my NaNoWriMo project and I did reach the 50,000 word goal, but I didn't get the entire story finished in time. So I split the story in half. 25,000 words for this book and 25,000+ for the next. I already have more than half of the second book written. If I had finished the entire thing before December, I would mass post the entire thing, but I didn't, so you get half.

So, yes, our mystery stalker is actually Chameleon. I know some of you guys guessed, and I couldn't be happier! This fic was inspired by two different Chameleon comics, 1) the older comic where Chameleon admitted that he loved Peter after spending some time in his shoes, and 2) the Spider-Man/Deadpool comic where Chameleon was openly following and attacking Spider-Man for days, but kept disappearing into crowds and posing as innocent people to make him paranoid and on edge. Peter couldn't go home because Chameleon might follow him, and he couldn't even sleep for very long because Chameleon kept finding him on rooftops, so he was extremely paranoid, very stressed, and very tired by the time Wade showed up. Wade helped him get rid of Chameleon in the end and it was great. The comic is one of my favorite Spider-Man/Deadpool comics of all time.

So basically, I read these two comic stories and decided to merge them into one. And BOOM, "Invisible Man" was born.

Thank you all so much for the support and comment and kudo's throughout the book! Seriously, I love you all so much! I'm glad you guys enjoyed it and I hope to see you there when I start posting book 2.

If you enjoyed this Spideypool story, feel free to check out my other Spideypool stories!

See you all next year and I hope you have a very good holiday season!