A/N 

Chapter warnings in the End Notes at the bottom of the chapter.

Unrelated: WHOO we've made it to 100,000+ words! Can you BELIVE this was originally supposed to be 20,000 words MAX. Crazy the growth of fanfic.

The dichotomy of Wade Wilson is his ability to stay as close to Peter Parker as he can, while simultaneously keeping his distance.

He drags the both of them upstairs, tipping the majority of Peter's body weight onto his shoulders while keeping his gaze fixed on the light at the top of the stairs.

A horrible description really, but he can't figure out which part of it he's most upset with. The idea of Peter going into the light. Or the fact that he was the one dragging him there.

In the living room, he helps Peter onto the couch, trying to be as gentle as he can with only one arm. He rearranges Peter's limbs, not unlike a doll, into what seems most comfortable, and steps back. He spent hours—days—strategizing; coming up with solutions for problems from A to Z. He came up with solutions for problems that had a thousand-to-one chance of happening. And as he backs up, bumping the backs of his legs against the coffee table, he digs into those plans only to come up...empty.

Nothing.

His skulls echoes with the growl of his frustration as he grasps at strands of thought that disappear between his fingers, flimsy as smoke.

At least Peter stopped hyperventilating. His chest still hitches occasionally, but the desperate gasps for breaths he had downstairs were gone, which is one less thing Wade's fumbling brain has to worry about. He's no longer sobbing either, though his cheeks are splotchy and his eyes rimmed red. In fact, he's strangely...emotionless. Face slack, expression dull, staring blankly at nothing.

Wade brushes hair out of his face, but Peter doesn't so much as twitch.

Shock, maybe? Weren't there blankets for that?

Blankets! Right. Peter is cold. He needs to be warmed up.

Wade races upstairs and hauls back every blanket he can find. Comforters, throw blankets, decorative blankets, fur blankets, anything soft-looking and rectangular that can fit in one arm. Peter hadn't moved an inch in Wade's absence, except for his eyes which are staring down at his hands, bloody-knuckled and sticky with spongy pieces of brain matter. They shake, his chest hitches, and Wade drops the blankets on the couch.

Right, right, he needs to clean him up first. He runs a dishrag under hot water and sits on the edge of the coffee table.

"I need to clean you up," he searches Peter's face for a flicker of emotion, but his eyes are locked on his hands, still mostly black. Probably still in spiderspace, sinking into it. Submerged too deep to pull out of just yet. Like a variant of subdrop, maybe? Spiderdrop? "I'm going to touch your hands, okay?"

Peter doesn't look up, much less give him the go-ahead, but Wade's not even sure he can hear him right now. He carefully takes one of Peter's trembling hands and sets it on his knee so he can dab at it. This touches something deep in Peter's mind, because as soon as the rag makes contact with his skin, he flinches, fingers twisting up and curling so hard into Wade's skin that the joint of his wrist creaks. Then it softens. Then there's nothing again. Peter's entire body is trembling now, from his shoulders to his legs, and Wade wants to pull every tremor out of his body like Mebendazole to parasites.

When Peter's hand is clean—or as clean as it can be with a rag—he moves on to the next; but there's still blood and brain matter in his hair, which can't be comfortable either.

Bath, Wade thinks. He needs a bath. He'll feel better when he's clean.

Peter's skin has a blue tint to it that doesn't look healthy and is still ice-cold to the touch. How long was Wade dead? How long was Peter down there, body temperature dropping, trying to pull himself out of spiderspace on his own?

Bath, Wade nods. A bath will be good.

You can't just dump someone with hypothermia in a bathtub, idiot.

No, no, let him try. It'll be funny.

Right, right right. Such a drastic increase in temperature will make it worse. Peter needs to warm up slowly. Right, right, right.

Wade grabs the blankets he'd left on the couch, but wavers, taking in just how much of a mess Peter is. He's woken up in pools of his own blood, swaths of it dried on his costume, giving it the flexibility of cardboard. The smell of decay in his nose, the taste of copper on his tongue. On bad days, it was just another layer of his skin. On good days, it was just another layer of his skin that was a tad too gross to put off until later.

Peter's shirt is drenched in blood. Thick trails of it run down his mouth and chin, all the way to his collarbones. It's splattered on his arms, flecked across his face. Wade glances between the blankets and the rag, indecision warring in his brain. Warming Peter up is the bigger priority, right? But Peter shouldn't have to sit in such disgusting clothes.

But he's so cold.

But Wade should clean him up more.

This shouldn't be so hard!

This is perfect. You know why it's hard? Because you can't do anything right. Look at him.

Wade looks at Peter's emotionless face, the way his body trembles, the blue tinge of his bloody lips.

You did this, pal. This is why no one trusts you to be in charge of anything. Ever.

Good job, you broke Spider-Man.

I still think you should put him in the bathtub. Let's find out what happens when spidercicle meets boiling water.

Wade shakes his head hard to dislodge the voices and knocks his knuckles against his temple a few times. He needs to focus. He should clean up as much of the blood as possible, get Peter out of those gross-ass clothes, and then wrap him up.

Nodding. Wade wets the rag again, softly tells Peter that he's going to clean him up, and does so, gently running the rag across his skin. Peter's eyes are downcast, heavy, and lidded, like he's on the brink of falling asleep. Some spiders hibernate, right? Or go into menopause?

No. Diapause. It's diapause.

Probably good that he can't have children. Wouldn't want him spreading more of your nasty genes into the world. Speaking of how IS Ellie doing these days?

Peter probably shouldn't fall asleep. What if it took days for him to wake up? What if he slept until spring? God, what if he didn't wake up at all?

Water drips down Wade's hand, running all the way to his elbow, and he forces himself to relax his grip on the rag. "I've got you," he says, wiping away as much blood on Peter's chin as he can. "We'll get you properly squeaky clean later. For now, let's get you outta these clothes."

Peter doesn't help, or resist, as Wade struggles to pull his shirt over his head one-handed. He then leans Peter back and attempts to do the same with his pants. Peter's eyes finally stopped dilating, but they're frozen somewhere in the middle; his pupils fill up most of his eyes, but there's a sliver of brown around them. That's progress, at least.

Wade wraps him in as many blankets as he physically can and lays him on the couch, obsessively fussing with them until every part of Peter's body is covered except for his face. When it's more or less satisfactory, Wade backs up, wringing the hem of his shirt.

What next, what next, what next?

Food. Peter likes food. Spider-Man has always been receptive to food. Wade nods, shaking a finger in the air, and proceeds to tear apart the kitchen, pulling out pans, measuring cups, knives, and all the cutting boards. It's when he's emptying the fridge of its contents that he gets a look at himself. A hazy picture that blurs on the shining stainless steel, and it's not a pretty one. He looks down at himself, feeling along the rips of his suit and the bloodstains that make up most of the red. His bandolier is gone and most of his pouches have been ripped off. Only one shoulder strap remains, but the scabbards for his swords are missing—which explains a lightness on his back that he's just now noticing. The nub of his other arm aches deeply, barely reformed to his elbow. Feeling along his face, his mask is in tatters, most in the center where Peter's fist had punched it in.

Faintly, Wade wonders if the fuzziness in his head is on account of pieces of fabric getting stuck in his brain, healed over and blanketing his thoughts.

He can't make food like this. What if he gets pieces of brain matter in Peter's pancakes? He's a walking bio-hazard.

Are you really going to clean yourself up while precious Peter Parker has to stew in YOUR own filth?

Wade wavers.

That's not fair, is it?

"No, it's not," he admits, looking down at his good hand, scarred and bloody as it is, with the glove barely hanging on by a few threads.

I'm sure he can survive a little HIV. He survived sex with you, after all.

"Maybe," Wade murmurs, anxiety squirming in his chest. Why should he get to be clean and refreshed when Peter is still sticky with blood and brains? His blood and brains. Peter doesn't deserve that.

I can clean up when Peter's cleaned up, he decides. It's only fair. Still, he doesn't want to get germs in Peter's food, so he yanks his glove off, washes his hand, and pries the lingering pieces of his mask off.

Pancakes are his go-to and they're the easiest to make, so those are first. Chocolate chip pancakes, blueberry pancakes, pancakes with maple syrup mixed in. The sweet aroma curls in the air, but Wade's stomach twists when he glances at Peter, who hasn't moved an inch.

Pizza next. Peter's diet is 85% pizza.

Wade's never made pizza from scratch before, but there are several boxes in the freezer, so he throws all of them in the oven. He drums his fingers against the counter. What next, what next, what next?

Hotdogs. Peter likes hotdogs. What bona fide New Yorker didn't like hotdogs?

It won't be an authentic, boiled, mystery-meat chilly dog, but there's a pack or two of the store-bought stuff in the freezer. Stark really did stock everything.

He boils those on the stove, then smells burning pizza, and yanks open the oven, waving aside the burst of smoke that escapes. Most of the crust is burnt, and the bottom is basically charcoal, but Peter's eaten worse. Wade looks back at him, hoping the aroma of melted cheese and pepperoni will at least make him stir, but Peter doesn't move. In fact, Wade's pretty sure he hasn't blinked in the last 5 minutes of him anxiously glancing at him.

Is he even breathing?

Wade trips on his own feet in his haste to press his fingers to the side of Peter's throat, searching for a pulse. It's there, but it's slower than normal. Unless that's Peter's normal heartbeat. The only other times he's checked Peter's pulse was back at the Piers and when he was spiraling during his acid trip—and both of those were jack-hammering. Maybe this is Peter's normal.

Or he's slowly dying.

"No," Wade denounces the possibility, daring the universe to even try. "He's fine. He'll be fine."

But terrible thoughts whisper between his ears, cracking his resolve in long, hair-thin lines. Maybe he should call an ambulance.

No, Peter doesn't like hospitals, and Wade won't be able to explain away his abnormal spider body. Word would spread and some shady government organization is going to snatch Peter up from the shadows and use his frozen sexy-ass body for science experiments. Next thing you know, he'll have a moldy cheese face and 32 years of crippling self-image issues.

Nope. Not happening. Nuh-uh.

You should call Iron-Dick and explain how you botched this whole operation in epic proportions.

The very idea makes Wade want to eat his own toes. Stark said this was a bad idea. He didn't like it from the start because it was, quote-unquote, "a messy, half-cocked plan that relied on pulling out at the last second and hoping no one got pregnant." And he was right. This shit got fucked right up the ass and it's too late for Plan B. Abortion is their only option, but look at the state of the fucking healthcare system, it's a goddamn mess.

But Peter's more important. If his baby-daddy is really dying...

"I can't be a single mom," Wade weeps, dropping his head in his hand. "How are we going to make rent? What's little Tim going to eat? Our economy is shit."

He fumbles for his phone, but just as he's bringing up his contacts, Peter takes a shaky breath, and Wade nearly drops it. Peter blinks slowly, like his eyelids are half-frozen, but they drag over to Wade, and Wade sags onto the floor next to him.

"You with me, Petey?" he presses the back of his hand to Peter's forehead, which is still cool to the touch, but substantially warmer. "Can you talk? Do you understand what I'm saying?" He cups Peter's jaw, gently tilting it from side to side to examine every inch of his consciousness.

The muscles of Peter's neck twitch as a sleepy trill rumbles from his throat. He sways in Wade's hand, eyes half-lidded. Still not back, but on his way. Okay. This is good. This is a positive development. Maybe their baby won't be saddled with Wade as a parent. One kid was enough. He didn't even know how he would break the news to Ellie.

"Stay here. I'll get you something to eat." He drops a relieved kiss on Peter's forehead and runs back to the kitchen, all but shoving an entire pizza onto a plate, and sliding it on the coffee table next to Peter, standing back.

Peter's eyes flicker down to it, but otherwise doesn't react.

"That's okay," Wade nods to himself. "He's still waking up. It's fine."

And he's going to be hungry when he does. That superhero appetite won't feed itself.

Rolling up his sleeve, he goes back to the kitchen and gets to work. The hot dogs are done by then. He makes a whole plate of those and drops them on the table for Peter as well. He loses himself in the process after that, cooking whatever comes to mind: lasagna, spaghetti, sandwiches, tacos, cookies, more pancakes. The island stacks up, but he's on autopilot.

The only thing that pulls him back to the surface is a noise from the living room. Still holding a sizzling pan of sausage—startlingly similar to his fingers—he peeks around the mound of dishes, and his breath catches in his throat as Peter slowly sits up. He looks around like he's in a daze before his eyes lazily drift to the pizza.

Wade clutches the panhandle, leaning forward, as Peter lethargically grabs a slice and takes a bite of burnt crust. He doesn't eat much, just a few more bites, before dropping it and laying back down, but Wade holds onto it with two meaty fists, squishing it between his fingers. His breath feels unstable, like there's a loose screw rattling in his lungs. He's always had screws loose, clattering and jingling. Empty noise for an empty head.

Peter will be fine. It's going to be fine.

Don't get ahead of yourself, big red. Taking a few bites of burnt pizza doesn't mean shit.

Yeah, the jury's still out on this one. Ten bucks says Spidey can't bear to look at your face when he's out of la la land.

Wade's chest tightens, and he thumps his hand against it a few times to loosen it up. It doesn't. He debates going over there to check on Peter, but he's already back to sleep, so it's probably not a good idea to disturb him.

Which is fine. He's okay. They're okay.

Wade can wait.

What next, what next, what next?

He shoves aside the old dishes and gets busy making more.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

By the time Peter is back to normal—or as normal as he can be after accidentally murdering his boo-thang—Wade has made enough food to feed a small orphanage. The Essex House of Mutant Rehabilitation would probably appreciate a donation with all those young, tortured youths to feed.

Peter doesn't move from the couch for a while. Wade monitors him from the kitchen —not spying. He learned his lesson. When Peter eventually sits up, Wade knocks his head on an open cupboard, dropping the pan he'd been grabbing. If Peter hears the racket, he doesn't turn to investigate. He robotically pushes the blankets off and heads upstairs.

Wade follows from the living room, but pauses at the stairs, watching as Peter disappears onto the landing above, followed by his bedroom opening. After a few minutes of anxious pacing, Wade timidly follows.

The bathroom connected to Peter's room is alight and the shower running. Right. Wade only got the barest bits of gore off of him. It made sense that his first move would be to get the rest of it off. Maybe he should have coaxed him into a bath sooner.

Good job. You let him stew in your filth for hours while you made Tuna Helper. What a wonderful way to wake up.

"You guys literally told me to," Wade hisses.

We didn't tell you to do shit. This is all on you, pal.

Wade takes a deep breath, gripping the doorknob hard enough to turn his knuckles white. With tremendous amounts of restraint, he gently closed the door and stomped downstairs. He can't bring himself to return to the kitchen, so he paces in the living room, only pausing to tidy up the blankets and set them in a messy pile at the end of the couch. Which immediately teeters over the edge.

He yanks them back up with a snarl, stubs his toe on the coffee table legs as he does so, and punches the solid oak table so hard his knuckles crack. It's this pain, actually, that settles the riled waters in his chest. The burning, splintering pang in his hand is so much more bearable than the aching, twisting snake that's become his intestines.

He circles the couch, wringing his hands, until Peter's door finally opens and his head snaps up, tracking Peter's movements as he descends the stairs. No more walking on the walls or ceiling, no more rules, no more lop-sided smiles that make Wade's heart flip-flop, because he royally screwed up this entire cabin retreat.

As par the course.

"Would you stop!?" Wade snarls and Peter pauses. Wade backs up, palms out. "N-not you, Peter, I was just," he gestures off-handedly to his head. "How are you feeling?"

Peter's feet touch the bottom of the stairs. He's doing that thing where he erases himself from perception. No sound, no rustle of clothing, no sudden moves, like a spider disappearing on the wall. The silence is a vacuum that sucks words straight out of Wade's mouth.

"I made food," he gestures to the kitchen with both hands. "All your favorites, I think. I burnt the pizza a little, as you probably know." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I have a lot of other good ones that aren't so bad."

Peter stops by the couch, which acts as a solid barrier between them. He looks at the cold pizza on the table, holding a towel over his shoulders with gripping white knuckles. He hasn't looked Wade in the eye once.

I'll take that ten bucks.

Please, that was an easy one. MOST people don't wanna look at him.

Wade swallows hard.

"I'm...not really hungry," Peter murmurs, scraping the towel against the back of his neck, collecting the drops of water dripping from his hair. His skin is pink. Healthier and more alive.

Wade deflates. Then pulls his shoulders back up, pretending that his heart hadn't flopped out of his chest and splattered on the floor, squishy and bruised, like a rotten tomato. He crosses his arms over his stomach to stifle the way his gut coils. "Yeah, okay. That's fine. It's there if you want it. I know how you superhero types are. Always watching your calories."

"Did you eat?" Peter asks, still rubbing his neck, the skin there beginning to look red and raw.

"Yep," Wade lies, rocking on the balls of his feet. "Was great. Good. Fantastic."

Peter hums, rubbing his neck harder.

The silence stretches like a frayed rubber band and Wade doesn't wait for it to snap back—or worse, break—especially when Peter's mouth opens, eyes glancing quickly between him and the couch. Wade lurches to the kitchen, hauling himself backward like he's got a cave-line attached to his spine.

"I'll make something else. There are no dessert options, and that's just, like, what's wrong with me, you know?" He laughs, hiding behind the island as he digs through the cupboards for more pans.

When he peeps over the top, Peter is leaning against the couch, turned away, with his arms curled around himself. Hunched and small.

Wade tears his eyes away.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

He doesn't purposefully avoid Peter. Really, he doesn't. He just...can't bring himself to look Peter in the eye.

Of course, he's not going to totally abandon his spider-bae. He leaves things around for him. Blankets, food, clothes—all things Peter can grab himself, sure, but Wade needs to offer something, at least. It's not like he's going out of his way to stay away from Peter maliciously, he's just...giving him space.

Don't you remember what happened last time you gave him space?

We don't back-read often, but come on, man.

Wade squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them. Knocks the hard edge of his knuckles against his temple and shakes his head. Pieces of the gun in his hand are scattered around him. He's usually better at keeping track of all the parts. The gun is already half-disassembled, but he doesn't remember picking it up.

"He needs space," Wade grabs the oiled cloth next to his knee. "It won't be like last time. He...he really needs it. You saw how he looked. The last thing he needs is me around."

Can't disagree with that. You are genuinely difficult to be around.

You know what? I think WE need space from HIM.

Wade makes a face. "What?"

We've been following him around forever. Aren't you tired? Aren't you disappointed? We used to look up to Spider-Man, ya know? But now he's got all these issues and inner demons, and I don't know, man. Let's just go.

Wade grabs the gun frame from off the ground and runs the cloth over it vehemently. "I'm not leaving him here."

Come on, he'll figure out his own way home. We're tired of this shit. Sure, he was more fun when he was all blood-crazed and biting people, but now he's all weird and mopey. The bug stuff was interesting and all, but it's time to mosey on down the trail.

Wade drops the frame and snatches the base pad next. "We aren't moseying down any trail," he flings the cloth to the side to forcibly reassemble the gun. "You guys are such two-timing shits, squeaking and shitting in my ear all the time. Can you just stop?"

Like an infestation of rats, the voices agree. And no, we won't. You can't tell us you're not exhausted. We're exhausted. It's exhausting watching you fail so badly all the time.

Wade's teeth ache as he clenches his jaw, shaking his head fiercely.

He's not exhausted. He's not...

...except...maybe he is.

The recoil spring slips out of his oily hands but Wade doesn't try to chase it. He bends over, scrubbing his hands down his face. Every inch of his brain is riddled with bad nerves, sparking and overheating, burning holes through his skull. A coiled spring is tightening in his limbs, winding tighter and tighter until he's a pressurized trigger threatening to go off.

Except he can't go off. Not here. Not now.

And it is exhausting.

"I can't just leave him," he whispers into his hands.

Sure you can. It'll be easy. Just walk out the door.

Or jump out the window.

He won't know 'till you're halfway to the nearest town.

"I...I'm not leaving him," Wade grabs the partially assembled gun, unaware of his trembling hand until it's curled around the handle.

Heh. You hesitated. You want to.

"No, I don't," he hisses through his teeth, willing the tremor to go away.

Yes, you do.

"No, I don't."

Yes, you do."

"Shut up!"

A knock on the door makes Wade jump and he drops the pieces he'd been jamming together.

"Wade?" Peter calls from outside.

Wade's throat dries and his hands go clammy as he climbs to his feet. "Ye-yeah?"

"Can..." the shadow beneath Wade's door shuffles. "Can we talk?" God, even Peter sounds like that's the last thing he wants to do; forcing the words out like he's forcing a dog to throw up a sock.

What are they supposed to talk about? How he pushed Peter too far? Abandoned him in that basement, freezing and covered in blood? That this isn't working and Peter wants to split ways in an "it's not you, it's me," type-style? The way Wade's chest is collapsing and he's rapidly losing the warmth and stability he'd been desperately clutching onto since waking up on Peter's ratty old couch, holding the other man like he'd carved a space into Wade's being and fitted himself inside without Wade noticing?

He choked on his words, "Can't right now. Hopping in the shower, be out in a bit," and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. He can't hear Peter's response, or the silence of his footsteps as he walks away, but he stands frozen in the middle of the room, waiting hoping for Peter to break down the door and demand an answer.

He does not.

Wade swallows hard, slumping on the toilet with his head in his hands.

Masterfully done.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

[Spider-Man hasn't been going to his sessions] Tony texts him.

Wade, in the middle of mindlessly scrolling through channels, replies: [how tf do yu kno that patent confidentality dipsit]

[His therapist told me he missed his sessions, dipshit] Tony responds. [This is part of our agreement. No session, no cabin.]

[Yeh whatevs im onit] Wade tosses the phone on the other side of the couch. He looks up at the second floor, where Peter had disappeared into his room three hours ago. He should probably go check on him. Immediately, he shakes his head. If Peter wants to come down, he'll come down.

He needs his space.

Wade picks up the remote and continues channel surfing.

Of course, so many shows on, and not a fucking thing to watch.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

"Stark says you've been missing your therapy sessions," Wade brings up from across the room. Peter's in the kitchen picking through Wade's cooking spree, searching for anything that's still edible. Wade hadn't thought to put them away. He kind of just...forgot about it. Then remembered. Then didn't want to put it away in case Peter got hungry. Then thought that was stupid. Then forgot again.

Peter grunts in acknowledgment, settling on a box of crackers from the cupboard. Wade's heart pinches as he roves over the leftovers on the counter.

He doesn't want to eat your food. You know what that means in spiderish, right?

He doesn't want you. This is rejection. Time to move on to the next hot piece of ass that'll tolerate you. Come on, let's go pack our bags.

"You don't know that," Wade hisses under his breath. "He's just not hungry."

Right. SPIDER-MAN isn't hungry. Okay. And we don't have seven Glocks stuffed under our pillow. Hey, why don't you grab one, put it in your mouth, and-

"Wade," Peter murmurs, and Wade's head snaps up, meeting the other man's gaze. There are bags under Peter's eyes, heavy and purple like he'd been socked in the face. They're dull and emotionless. So...exhausted. Both of them. Tired. Tired of each other, maybe. Or Peter's just tired of him. It was only a matter of time before it crashed and burned, right? That's how it's supposed to happen. That's always how the story ends.

"Wade," Peter says again and Wade's eyes snap back to him, unaware that they'd been listing to the side. Peter rounds the counter, timidly approaching him, and Wade jumps off the couch, beelining for the stairs.

"Can't right now, Petey. Gotta take a shit. Ate a burrito. You know how those are coming back out." He's gone before Peter can utter another word. Peter's sigh follows him up the stairs like a worn-out ghost.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

It's 1 AM and Wade can't sleep.

He's been tossing and turning for hours, the blankets too hot, the pillows too soft, and the voices bouncing around his skull like Flubber on caffeine. They erupt into arguments and complaints whenever he closes his eyes longer than 5 seconds, bringing him up from the cusp of sleep in the few times that he's close enough to grab it.

Finally, he throws off his blankets and declares, "Fuck it." If he's going to sit here and listen to the voices insult his every way of life, then he's going to do it with Cheetos dust on his fingers. He creeps out of his room on tiptoes, not wanting to wake Peter, but a slip of light spilling across the hall floor gives him pause. He follows it up to Peter's door, which is open a crack, barely hiding a quiet murmur of conversation inside.

It's not like Peter to leave his door open; he's a private twat who harbors his space like a hoarding rat. Wade creeps closer, picking up on two voices instead of one, which immediately puts him on edge. He peers through the crack in the door.

Peter sits with his back to Wade, laptop open in front of him, engaged in a quiet conversation with a balding, middle-aged man with a pair of boxed glasses that emphasizes his blocky chin.

He's cheating on you with older men. Can we leave now?

Wade shushes the voice.

"—and I couldn't," Peter is saying, or struggling to say, as he picks at his webshooters. He's wearing his suit—mask, gloves, boots, everything—with a pair of pajamas thrown over them. "I wanted to leave, but...I couldn't just leave him on the floor like that."

Oh.

Oh.

A coldness seeps into Wade's skin, sharp and prickling.

"I-I could smell his body. He stopped moving. Stopped breathing. I knew he was dead the moment I..." Peter trailed off, fists bunching in his pajama pants-one of Wade's sweats, actually. The one that hung low on his hips unless he tied the string. He takes a few seconds before he continues, voice tight. "It was so fucking cold down there and all I wanted to do was leave. Every atom in my body was telling me to, but...I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"Why do you think you were unable to leave him?" The balding man asks.

Peter sniffs, rubbing his nose harshly on his sleeve. "I don't know. I just...I-I think..."

"It's okay, take your time. Just think about it."

Peter takes a deep breath and falls silent. Wade shouldn't be listening. This isn't meant for him to hear. He's violating Peter's trust ...again. But he leans in closer, needing Peter's answer like it's the last lifebuoy and he's drowning at sea.

Peter takes a few more deep breaths, but when he continues, his voice is still tight. "I just...didn't want him to be alone when he woke up. It's like...I was freaking out and everything was in overdrive. I felt so panicked. But I kept coming back to this...distaste, I guess, about him waking up like that. It's strange the way my brain works when I'm...like that. It's not so much thinking actual thoughts as it is reacting on instinct, and instinct wanted me to stay with him." Peter pauses, picking at his webshooters more gratingly. "I don't know. The more I think about it...maybe I should've just left."

"Why is that?" Balding man asks.

"I can't get the smell out of my nose," a hint of distress slips from Peter's voice. "I've brushed my teeth so many times, but I can't get rid of the taste. Every time I close my eyes, it's like I can still sense his body just...lying there." Peter looks down at his hands. "The sound, the feel, of plunging my fist through his skull." He tightens his fists, taking a shuddering breath. "Maybe it was a mistake coming here."

Wade backs up. Enough of that. There are only so many splintering aches his heart can take before it splits in two. He returns to his room, softly closes the door, and stuffs a pillow over his head, pretending to sleep as the voices roar in his ears.

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

The world is hazy when he wakes up the next day.

Everything is simultaneously too fuzzy and too sharp. He stumbles through the house like his feet are screwed on backward. Too warm and stifling. Too cold and jarring. His head is swollen. Throbbing. So full that when he sees Peter in the kitchen, he doesn't recognize that it's him until Peter calls his name. Apparently, he's been staring for the last five minutes.

Peter says something else that Wade doesn't really hear, eyes drifting to the cutting board next to Peter and the hack-sawed vegetables he's attempting to cut. He latches onto it like a leech to skin.

"I do the cooking in this household," he hears himself say, throwing on a smile as he shoos Peter to the side. "This is my kitchen. Scoot."

"But I was—"

"Nah, nah, nah, my kitchen. I'll do the cooking. Now go on. Get."

Peter hovers in place, holding the knife helplessly until Wade coaxes it out of his grip. Indecision wars on his face and his mouth parts slightly, words hiding behind his lips, going back and forth on whether they should take the plunge.

He probably wants to talk about all the nightmares he's been having since sharing a room with your decomposing body.

He doesn't want to eat your food because you're fucking nasty and didn't even bother to clean yourself up before you did it .

Wade twirls the knife between his fingers and got to cutting the celery. "There are a lot of things we could talk about," he says sweetly. "It doesn't have to be any of that."

Peter clears his throat. "Wade, can we—"

"Sit your keister on that couch, young man," Wade points the knife at Peter and the couch respectively, "I'll have food ready lickety-split."

You don't even know what he was making. Or trying to make, at least. What is all of this?

"Something with tomatoes, obviously," Wade shrugs.

Peter fidgets, picking aggressively at the counter from the corner of Wade's eye. His mouth opens wider. Wade's heart lances with panic. Peter's mouth closes. Relief. Stepping back, defeated, Peter heads to the living room, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Wade finishes the celery and moves on to the onion. What was Peter trying to make? Eh, whatever, he'll figure it out. Maybe they'll start with a light salad and move on to something sturdier and more filling.

Peter might eat his food again. Things can go back to what they were five days ago.

Yeah, that's not how this works, bucko. People don't just forget.

I mean, unless they're you. All it takes is a particularly good shot to the head and WHAM, no more fickle memories.

That sounds like a great idea. You forget this whole fiasco and we can get out of this unbearable cesspool of second-hand embarrassment.

"Shut up," Wade growls, slamming the knife through a tomato, and splattering red juice across his knuckles. "I can fix this."

YOU can fix this? When have you ever fixed anything in your life?

"I...I fixed that human trafficking ring."

That wasn't fixing, that was mass murder. That's all you're good at. Breaking things. Breaking bones, breaking trust, breaking relationships. You broke SPIDER-MAN for fucks-sake .

I'd be impressed if Spider-Man wasn't already messed up. Never meet your heroes, you'll meet their fucked up mental issues, too.

"Shut up!" Wade snarls, slamming the carrots onto the cutting board. "Everyone has fucked up mental issues. I have, like, a bajillion comics."

Yeah, you'd know all about issues.

"Yeah," he said emphatically, "I would."

So why are we still HERE? Let's go. Spider-Man is a big boy, he'll figure things out on his own. This isn't our responsibility.

"With great issues comes great responsibility."

That doesn't even make any sense.

"Like you'd know anything about making sense."

"Wade."

Now you're getting it.

Nothing about this relationship makes sense! Deadpool and Spider-Man? What were fans thinking? It's like mixing oil and water .

"Oil and water make a rainbow!"

"Wade!"

You can't even properly defend this. You knew this was doomed since the beginning and you STILL went for it. What was that about psychotic behavior? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?

"We could've worked!"

Hah! See, could've! You're already seeing this relationship in the past tense. It's over, buddy, just admit it.

"Wade!" Peter wrenches Wade's hand from the cutting board and Wade blinks in surprise, staring at the bloodied mess drenching the countertop, then at the sausages next to his perfectly cut carrots.

Oh. Not sausages.

Peter passes a wad of paper towels over Wade's hand, which soaks with blood in a matter of seconds.

"Hold that," Peter orders, turning to grab more, only to snap his head to the side just as the oil that'd been heating on the oven burst into flame. "Fuck!" He ran to it, turning down the heat and searching for the lid. "God-fucking -dammit!"

Wade watches, heart sinking.

Weren't we supposed to be making things easier on him? Look at him.

Wade looks.

Is this the pretty picture you wanted?

The oil is still burning, and Peter is slamming open cupboards, cracking the door under the force. His face is twisted into a frustrated scowl, brows furrowed and eyes hard. Smoke wafts through the air, stinging Wade's eyes. That's the excuse he tells himself.

Where is the lid? Probably buried underneath the mounds of rotten food still taking up space on the counter. Was there even anything left in the house to eat? No wonder Peter was eating crackers.

"No," Wade murmurs, a numbness spreading through his chest that makes his shoulders drop and his hands go limp.

That's right.

You know what you have to do now, right?

Wade turns, dropping the paper towels. Blood drips from his hand, pattering hard on wood floors that need sweeping, as he walks to the door. By the time Peter notices, his hand is curled around the knob.

"Wade?"

He's descending the porch steps as Peter yells, "Wade, where are you going?"

Wade doesn't answer. He walks.

That's right. Leave. It's what you do best. This is what's going to fix this relationship. The voices are strangely soft. Soothing.

Leave.

So Wade does. He walks and walks and walks. The snow is falling so heavily it's difficult to see. It doesn't crunch. It's soft snow. Like a blanket. Blood drips onto the whitened ground, getting smaller and smaller as his fingers heal.

That's right, we always heal.

"Not always," Wade murmurs.

Sure we do. Just keep walking.

He isn't sure how long he walks or where he's going. All the trees look the same. All the bushes are snow-covered imitations of each other. The silence, though, speaks volumes. Why can't his head be this quiet?

It can be, the voices whisper softly. You look tired. We are tired. Why don't we lie down for a bit?

Wade stares at the snow. It does look soft.

It is. Go on. You earned it.

Wade doesn't descend gracefully. It's less lying down and more collapsing as his knees buckle out from under him. He curls his arms to his chest and tucks in his knees.

See? Nice and comfy, isn't it? Just like a blanket .

It's cold, seeping through his clothes, stinging and wet, and soaking into his skin like a prickly poison. The falling snow rests on top of him, numbing him from both sides. He shivers, teeth chattering.

He wants to get up.

He doesn't want to get up.

Stay right here. It'll be fine. We'll take a nice nap. You're tired, aren't you?

"Yeah," Wade whispers.

You want to take a nap, right ?

"Yeah," he adjusts his body, getting comfortable, though it's not comfortable at all.

Go on then. Go to sleep.

"Yeah. Okay."

He closes his eyes.

And it does get better. Eventually, he stops shivering. His breathing slows. He feels...sleepy. A calmness spreads through his chest and he feels like he's sinking.

He's not even cold anymore.

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Suddenly, there's a pair of hands on him. A voice, though he can't make out what they're saying. He's being pulled up, pried from the snow's embrace. He blinks blearily, forcing his eyes apart. His vision is blurry, but there's a shadow moving above him, lifting him up.

Their voice gets clearer the more he focuses on them.

"Wade?"

They sound very familiar. Wade wants to wrap the voice around himself and go back to sleep.

"Wade, are you alright?"

They sound distressed now. Wade doesn't like it. He considers saying as much, but his skin feels fat and numb, and his lips are frozen together, so he closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. The person above him makes a frustrated noise.

Once they'd gathered him in their arms, Wade buries his face in their soaked shirt, and when he finds the strength to look up, it's to a man with red-rimmed eyes that stare ahead and wet brown hair that clings to his forehead, his teeth chattering from the cold.

When he notices Wade looking, his face softens in relief. "Wade? Can you hear me?"

"-etey?" Wade looks around them in confusion. "Wha' you doin' out here?"

"What are you doing out here," Peter shoots back, tucking Wade closer to his body. "It's freezing."

Peter shouldn't be out here. Wade's not sure why he's not supposed to be out here, the thought eludes him, but it feels important. He scowls. "You shouldn't be out here."

"Yeah, no shit," Peter says, "and neither should you." When he looks back down at Wade, his eyes are hard, but concerned. "What happened?"

Wade drops his head against Peter's chest again. "Hurts," he croaks.

"What hurts." Peter asks as he muscles through low hanging branches and stumbles around bushes.

"Everything."

"Is it your skin? I packed the lotion in case—"

"No."

"Is it...your head? The voices?"

No, they're quiet actually. Blissfully quiet. It's been a while since Wade's had this much peace. Their methods work, however painful they tend to be.

"It hurts worse than that," Wade thumps his head against Peter's chest a few times, enjoying the solid feel of it.

Peter's eyebrows furrow in confusion. So much confusion. Everything about them is confusing. They really are like oil and water. Or fire and ice. One can't exist around the other without putting it out. They've been standing in a puddle of their own making this whole time, and Wade hates wet socks.

"We were never going to work, huh?" he murmurs, eyelids getting heavy.

Peter's head snaps down at him. "What?"

"How can we work?" The words rise out of Wade like steam, or maybe that's just his breath. The last bit of warmth his body can conjure. "How can we stay together if one of us is constantly falling apart? We've got so many problems. I can't even handle my own problems, how am I supposed to deal with yours?"

Peter looks away, wincing.

"What happens if we break at the same time?" Wade wonders aloud, craning his neck to watch the falling snow. "Who's going to keep us up? I can't," he giggles softly. "Look at me. I can't. I'm...I'm tired, Petey."

"We're almost back to the house," Peter says, staggering over an upturned tree root. His skin is tinged blue and he's shaking so hard it's a wonder he hasn't fallen to pieces yet. At least one of them hasn't.

"You should leave me here," Wade slaps his hand on Peter's chest, trying to push him off. "I'll be fine until spring. I'll thaw out with the rest of the wildlife."

Peter's grip gets bruisingly tight. "I'm not leaving you."

"You should."

"Well, I'm not."

Wade sags. He wants to sleep. He's just so tired of this. Tired of his head thinking and his body running.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he whispers, eyes drooping. "Maybe we should just..." whatever he was going to say slips, disappearing in a breath, as he closes his eyes and falls asleep. 

<><><>LINE BREAK<><><>

Wade wakes up warm.

And naked.

Not bad, but he can't quite figure out why he can't move his arms. That might've been more concerning if he didn't feel like he was melting into a soft cloud. It takes a second to pin it down; he's wrapped in several, several blankets of varying sizes and weight.

The air is warm and sweet. He follows the smell like a cartoon character to the kitchen, where Peter is at the stove, stirring a pot. Most of the dishes had been cleared away—not necessarily cleaned, but shoved to the side.

Peter screws up his face when he thinks really hard, furrowing his brows and scrunching his nose; he's going to give himself wrinkles. Wade considers telling him but sinks into the blankets with a sigh instead. Too warm, he'll worry about wrinkles later.

Peter's muttering under his breath, and Wade doesn't need super hearing to know it isn't good. That dampens his warmth a bit, and when Peter's eyes flicker to him, Wade has a split-second instinct to pretend he's still sleeping. But then he's staring into Peter's eyes, and Peter's staring back, and Wade says, "What's up, buttercup?"

Peter turns off the stove, taking the pan with him, and empties whatever is inside into two mugs. He places one in front of Wade and curls up on the seat next to the couch with the other. Wade looks between the blankets he's wrapped in and the mug, and squirms, wriggling his hands from the depths of his cocoon. There's a mitten—many mittens–on his hand as well. He grabs the mug. Hot chocolate. The fancy rich kind that was probably grown and packaged in sweatshops. He gulps indulgently, despite the way it burns his throat and tongue.

"So...how'd you make it back without freezing?" he asks, staring down into his drink. It's got little marshmallows and everything.

"It was close," Peter says dully, also looking into his mug. "Almost dropped you a couple times. Dropped both of us as soon as I made it to the front door." He takes another sip.

"How long was I-"

"Just a few hours."

"And you?"

Peter looks at him, eyes lidded; bags hang under his eyes like they'd been glued there and his skin is a shade paler than it's supposed to be. He's not shivering anymore, and his lips aren't blue, but he doesn't look warm either. He's too stiff, his limbs curled tightly inward like he's trying to conserve body heat. Wade grabs the blankets, to open them and invite him in, but Peter also looks closed off—body turned away, fingers tight around his mug—so Wade pulls them tight around his shoulders instead.

"Me?" Peter repeats like it's an unfamiliar word. He shrugs. "I'm fine."

The silence that follows sucks all the heat out of the room. Hot chocolate suddenly doesn't sound good and Wade wants to throw it all back up. He was supposed to be taking care of Peter. That's what this whole thing was about. And here Peter was, dragging his sorry ass out of the snow, warming him up, and making him cocoa. Emotion rises in Wade's throat, but he stubbornly swallows it down. It rises again, and he clears his throat to physically fight it off.

It wins. His eyes sting, and his head hangs, shoulders hitting the floor. He grips his mug so tightly it cracks. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

Peter makes it worse by putting down his mug and turning towards him, eyes tired, voice dulled. "It's okay. I got us both back to the house."

"Not about that," Wade says, scratching his nail against the side of the mug's edge. "But, yeah, that too, I guess." He looks away, miserable. "About...what happened in the basement. I should've cut back sooner. I'm...I'm just making this worse for you. I-"

"Hey," Peter says, firmly. "It was working, Wade. We just took it a little too far."

"I took it too far," Wade says vehemently, finally looking at him. "I was responsible for you in spiderspace. I was supposed to keep us from going too far. And I-" his voice cracks. "I hurt you. I left you. You were by yourself for - for I don't even know how long, stuck in spiderspace, freaking out of your mind, while I was a useless fucking corpse on the ground."

He heaves a breath, angrily wiping tears from his eyes. "I left you like that. I was supposed to take care of you and I didn't. I'm the reason this failed."

Peter sits back, hands between his legs, at a loss. He still looks like he's about to pass out, and here's Wade word-vomiting all over him. They're both lucky Peter hadn't collapsed in the snow. They both would've frozen out there till spring, all because Wade couldn't get himself together. He was destined to be a colossal fuck-up since the consumption of his origin story. A piss-poor copy of a different character, with no memory of who he was before Weapon X scrambled his brains like a disgusting pan of powdered eggs—the ones cheap-ass restaurants use because they can't afford real eggs. Or they just don't want to.

Powdered anti-hero, just add water. Disgusting and slimy, and no one in their right mind would order it.

Peter opens his mouth, but by some grace of a non-existent god, Wade's phone buzzes and he throws the blankets off, bare-ass buttcheeks be damned, and snatches it from the table, knocking over the plate of cold, soggy hotdogs that had been left there. Wade shakes his head. So fucking stupid.

There are several missed calls from Tony, and even more messages, all telling Wade to call him back ASAP or he's flying over here himself. Wade might actually throw himself in a frozen lake if Tony dropped in for a visit.

He brings up the contact, turning away because he can't bear to see the look in Peter's eyes—Tony picks up on the first ring.

"It's about fucking time," he snarls. "I was about to send the Mark VII to grab your ass and haul you back."

"That's what we call sexual harassment and a felony," Wade says, tracing the bricks of the fireplace with his finger. "And we're still in the middle of treatment." A bald-faced lie, but whoever said Tony Stark was smart?

"Forget treatment. You guys need to head back NOW. This is a code fucking red. Like, you should've been on the road an hour ago, code fucking red."

Wade looks back at Peter, wide-eyed, and Peter stands up.

"What?"

"Pack your bags," he says, ending the call, stopping Tony mid-rant. "We're heading back to the city."

A/N

Chapter warnings: Suicidal thoughts, suicidal pressure, self-harm, and attempted suicide.

They way I like to depict the voices in Wade's head is less like the thought boxes in the comics, and more like a bunch of insecurities and bad thoughts given sentience. They're not nice. Not to Wade, not to the people Wade is around, not even to themselves. They prey on him when he's at his lowest and chip at him until he sinks even lower. They're at their most vial when they're soft and sweet. They don't want what's best for him.