Original Prompt: Wade owns a popular bakery/coffee shop/taco stand or mexican restaurant/etc and Peter comes in almost everyday. They flirt and stuff. Then one day Peter doesn't show up. One day turns into one week. One week turns into one month. Wade has no clue what happened to him. Powers or No powers AU.
The taco truck had started out as a pet project. He had been working as a chef at a greasy spoon since he was in high school and, while Wade had loads of fun there, being contained to their simple menu was starting to chafe. When a friend offered to sell him an old box truck on the cheap, the idea just came to him. Never being someone who let himself over think things, he bought the van for $500 cash and parked it in the alley behind his apartment.
It had taken weeks of work to make the old piece of shit fit to drive and then months after that to save up the money required to fully outfit the van with all the equipment needed to transform it from an old dry cleaning delivery truck turned shady drug lord van into a honest to jesus food truck. There were late nights spent lying in puddles of garbage juice working on the undercarriage and somewhat terrifying moments with a welding torch, but it was all worth it to finally stand back and look at his very own food truck.
In the end, he had decided to keep it simple. He had paid a starving college student a modest sum to paint a mustachioed taco on the side of his pale brown truck with the words 'mexcellent' in blocky font above it. It was fucking perfect.
At first, it had just been a side job. He took his truck to fairs and local baseball games on the weekends, enlisting the help of teenage dishwashers and occasionally his friend Weasel to put together tacos, burritos, or whatever he could scrounge together on short notice. It was Weasel who set up a twitter for him, telling him that his absence of virtual presence gave him hives.
It was the beginning of something really crazy. Wade was able to tweet where he was going to be and people would show up. The same people too. It was completely wild and, before Wade knew it, he was making so much from the taco truck that staying at the greasy spoon just seemed stupid.
Wade had his own business to run.
Wade settled into a pretty predictable weekly schedule. He got a permit to park his truck in a small park that sat between a bunch of big office buildings. He would go there every day and park himself between the korean bbq and waffle ice cream trucks and wait for the lunch rush. After the lunch rush, he would pack up, take a few hours break, and then head downtown where he would park outside of a buddy's bar and pick up business from people coming in and out of the bars and shops late at night.
He would still go to fairs and games on the weekends, but he had enough money that he could stand to take a day off if nothing was going on. He really had it made.
Except for this one tiny thing. So tiny. Itsy bitsy. He felt like an ass every time he felt bad over it. His life was so good otherwise, how could he complain about this one thing? He was living the dream!
If only he wasn't neck deep in love with one of his customers.
His name was Peter Parker and he was possibly the cutest and dorkiest thing Wade had ever laid eyes on. With an ass, like, damn girl shut the front door. Bounce a fucking dime off that ass, Wade swore to god.
Not only was he attractive appearance wise, but he was witty. Wade and Peter could trade barbs over tacos, burritos, or enchiladas. It seemed like Wade could hardly throw out an obscure pop culture reference that Peter couldn't catch and toss back.
Honestly, it was true love. Nothing could be better.
Except maybe if Peter reciprocated his feelings even the slightest bit.
"Double meat tacos, extra sour cream, hold the tomato made with extra love for my sweetest baby boy!" Wade called out, presenting the two tacos with a flourish to the bespectacled young man waiting patiently outside his truck.
Peter smiled wide, showing off straight white teeth and the beginnings of wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, "Thanks, Wade," he said, taking the small paper carrier and trotting over to a nearby picnic table where a pretty red head was sitting with him.
"Anything for you, lover!" Wade called after Peter, before sighing heavily and propping his chin in his hand on the edge of the window.
"Man, you're totally pathetic," Weasel snarked from where he was sitting by the open doors of the truck with his laptop balanced in his lap.
"Says you," Wade pouted.
"That's right, says me," Weasel snapped back. "Since when you have you been shy? Just tell the guy how you feel so I can stop listening to your woebegone sighs."
"I have!" Wade exclaimed, throwing his hands up and hitting the roof of the truck with a loud noise. He grunted and slid down to sit on the floor of the truck with Weasel, cradling his smarting hand in his other less damaged hand. "I tell him he's hot, I ask him out on dates, I profess my undying love! He just laughs, like, he just thinks I'm joking."
"And, you do nothing to dispel that misunderstanding," Weasel added with a sly look at his friend.
Wade sighed again. "So, I'm a coward. I'm not paying you for today, you didn't do shit," Wade added sternly, with a finger pointed at the greasy nerd.
"Pfft! Like I care," Weasel said, but shifted uncomfortably, telling Wade that he was right to make that clear now.
"Besides, I'm pretty sure the red head he's sitting with is his girlfriend," Wade said, trying to sound unconcerned about, but hearing the despair in his own voice. "He's been sitting with her almost every day this week and they don't work together. She comes into the park from a different direction than him."
"Well, what can I say," Weasel sighed in commiseration. "There's plenty of ass in the sea, or something. Don't get too down."
"Yeah, yeah," Wade waved him off.
"Also, I'm out of here if I'm not getting paid," Weasel said, gathering up his laptop and stuffing it into a foul smelling bag. "Fuck you, by the way," Weasel said by way of goodbye.
"Fuck you too, little buddy!" Wade yelled after him with a grin and a wave.
A few days after his enlightening (or more like disheartening) heart to heart with Weasel, Peter Parker, who had been one of the most steady customers of Wade's lunch crowd, failed to show up for lunch. Wade had even stayed in the park an hour after his permit allowed hoping his brunette love interest would rush in late for a quick bite, as he sometimes would, but it was all for nothing. He got a few stragglers, but no Peter.
It was the same the day after that and the day after that. No Peter, no matter how long Wade waited.
Wade knew what building Peter worked in. He often saw him coming out of the tall glass building that apparently was owned by Stark labs, Wade had learned from talking to Peter. Peter had told him he was a researcher working on the fifth floor. If Wade wanted to, he could maybe go there and ask if Peter was okay. Was he coming to work? Had he quit? Did they know where he was working now? Maybe if Wade found out where Peter was working now he could get a permit to sell tacos nearby? Maybe he would just bumble into Peter and could make up some story about how that was a better lunch spot (even though the one he had now was excellent)? Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Wade talked himself out of it. It would be too weird. He could put Peter off permanently. There was still the chance the Peter had taken vacation and didn't tell him. It's not like he was obligated to do so. Wade was just the guy who selflessly made tacos exactly how Peter liked them every day for the past two years. Nobody would have blamed Peter for not mentioning he wasn't going to be around for a while.
A week after Peter had disappeared, he finally reappeared at Wade's truck. Wade's extreme joy at seeing Peter's familiar figure approaching his food truck was severely curbed once he saw Peter's appearance.
Peter's hair, which usually looked thick and soft, looked lank and tangled. His skin looked sallow and he had large bags under his eyes. His shoulders were folded in and his steps shuffled. He looked tired and defeated.
He started to walk toward Wade's truck, but hesitated just at the edge of the picnic tables, as if rethinking his decision to come at all.
"Peter!" Wade called, leaning out the window of his truck to wave at the other man.
Peter froze, his eyes on Wade, but didn't move any closer.
Not letting himself think too hard about what he was doing, Wade ducked back into his truck and ran out the back. He kept running, dodging around picnic tables until he was standing in front of Peter in a stained apron, breathless but not from the run.
"Peter, are you okay? I haven't seen you all week! You look like shit, like you haven't slept all week! Fuck! Do you want me to make you tacos?" Wade rambled, his hands up and twitching toward Peter but not quite brave enough to bridge the gap.
Peter stared at Wade for a moment, looking slightly confused, before a smile broke over his face.
He snorted in laughter and Wade froze. "Hi, Wade," Peter smiled.
"Hi, Peter," Wade said faintly, consciously forcing himself to put his hands by his sides. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Peter frowned and looked down. That one question seemed to wreck him and Wade wanted to kick himself for asking.
"Not really, but it's okay. How are you?" Peter said after a moment, his voice sounding a little caught when he spoke.
"It's not okay," Wade replies sharply, too sharply, and immediately regretted it after seeing the shocked and confused look on Peter's face. "I mean, is there anything I can do?" Wade said in a quieter voice.
Peter looks up at Wade for a long moment, his expression curious and drilling. Wade struggled not to fidget, feeling like Peter was trying to peel back the layers of his flesh to see into his fucking soul and was probably succeeding.
Eventually, Peter said, "Those tacos sounded good," with a slight tilt to his lips and Wade grinned before darting back to the truck.
The pair of tacos that Wade made then were both the fastest he had ever made a set of tacos and also the most meticulously. If only Peter could make all decisions about him based on how beautifully these tacos were assembled, Wade was sure he would fall head over heels for him.
Breaking his usual routine, Wade went out the back of the truck to carry the tacos out of the back of the truck and over to the picnic table that Peter was sitting at. It was around 11, too early for most people to be eating lunch, so they were lucky to have the park mostly to themselves.
"Two tacos, Peter special!" Wade announced with a grin and a flourish that was only slightly stiff compared to his usual way of calling out orders.
Peter laughed and smiled anyway, taking the tacos and sitting them in front of himself. Wade thought he probably should head back to the truck. He had prep to do before 12 o'clock hit and the lunch rush started. But, he stayed still and hovered while Peter stared indecisively down at his food.
"Actually," Peter said hoarsely, looking up at Wade over thick black plastic frames, "I'm not sure I have a big enough appetite to eat both of them. Did you want one?"
"Are you sure?" Wade asked uncertainly.
"Yeah," Peter replied with a smile, looking less strained already.
Wade cautiously took a seat on the opposite side of the table from Peter. He waited until Peter picked up the first taco before picking up the second one. It felt a little bit like sacrilege to eat a taco that he had made with so much care and fervor for Peter alone, but it was also food that Peter was offering him, even if he was the one who made it. Wade figured that about evened it out, so he tore into the taco with abandon.
The taco was delicious. The meat was moist and salty, the picante sauce tart and spicy, the sour cream and cheese cooling the heat of the sauce down enough that it was pleasant rather than sweat inducing. It was perfect. He had done it. He had made Peter the perfect taco.
Wade glanced up, eager to see Peter's reaction, and was somewhat crushed to see tears shimmering on the edges of Peter's dark lashes.
"Shit!" Wade exclaimed, letting his taco drop to the dirty picnic table without a thought. He stood up, only stumbling a little, and stepped around the edge of the table to kneel at Peter's side. "Shit, Peter, what's wrong? Is it the taco? Is it bad? Did I let something fall into it? I'm usually so good about that!" Wade bit out, angry at himself.
"It's not that," Peter replied in a thick voice, rubbing roughly at his eyes, which only served to make them water more and look more red than they already were. "Your food is always delicious," he added in a smaller voice.
"What is it, Pete? Peter? Petey? You can tell me, I'm probably the least judgemental person I know!" Wade exclaimed, hands out in supplication.
"It's-" Peter struggled for words, looking at the taco that was still in his hand rather than Wade. "It's my aunt," he finally said. "She's been sick and she's in the hospital and-" Peter's voice curdled in his throat and Wade saw the tears amass and threaten to fall again. He held perfectly still, as if the slightest breath would be enough to nudge them from their precarious place on the edge of Peter's eyelashes.
"My parents weren't around when I was kid. It was my aunt who raised me. She's the only family I have left and she's-" Peter tried to swallow a sob and failed, "and she's dying," he finished, pressing his free hand over his eyes as the first few tears started to fall.
"Oh, Petey," Wade sighed, his chest squeezing at the sight of the man he liked so much in so much pain. He was absolutely fucking terrible at comforting people, but for Peter he could at least try.
Standing on shaky legs, Wade took a careful seat beside Peter on the picnic bench and put his arm around the smaller man's shaking shoulders.
"I came to work because I couldn't just sit around and do nothing anymore," Peter said through his tears. Wade took the taco out of his hands and sat it back down in the paper carrier it had come in. Peter quickly used his freed up hand to help cover his face.
"I thought if I tried to keep busy it would help, but everyone at work knows what's going on and they just keep asking me questions and giving me these pitying looks," Peter continued, as if a dam had broken and he couldn't keep the words inside anymore. "I couldn't take it! I just had to leave, but I didn't know that to do. I told my boss I was coming back to work today. I just-"
"Hey, hey," Wade said as Peter crumpled forward into his hands. He wanted to sound firm but comforting, but the words just came out panicked. "It will be all right, Petey. I know everything looks like shit right now, but I'll stay with you 'til it passes, okay? You're not alone," Wade said, squeezing Peter's shaking shoulders.
His childhood was pretty shit and he remembered what it felt like to watch his mother die. He remembered that the loneliness, the feeling that the one person who would and could love him perfectly, was gone. They were the words he had wished someone had said to him back then, but they felt like they couldn't possibly be enough in this situation.
Peter took three more big gulping sobs before seeming to pull himself together enough to look up at Wade's concerned expression. Peter had taken off his glasses at some point and his eyes looked bigger without them. They were big and dark, edged in red angry skin and wetness. Tears tracked down his cheeks even as he looked up at Wade with confusion.
"You weren't joking," he said faintly and Wade froze as if Peter had just plunged a knife into his chest.
"What do you-" Wade started, struggling to pull his usual grin across his face.
"Those times you," Peter faltered, blinked, displacing more tears, and looked away. "Those times you asked me out and stuff," Peter muttered, not able to look Wade in the face when he said it.
A voice in Wade's head wondered if his proclamation of undying devotion and worship to Peter's ass fell under the stuff category, but the rest of him was totally frozen.
"Were you?" Peter asked, steel suddenly lining his voice. He looked at Peter and, even with wet red rimmed eyes, he looked determined. "Were you joking?" Peter asked again.
"No," Wade replied after a moment. His voice sounded hoarse and distant even to him.
Peter's face crumpled again and Wade wondered if that was the worst reaction he could have expected. The same voice informed him that a punch to the face was probably the worst, but tears were a close second.
Peter crumpled forward onto Wade's chest this time, but Wade quickly caught him and wrapped both arms around his back, hugging him close as he started to cry again.
He shot an angry look at a woman walking her dog that was giving them an odd look when he heard Peter sniffle, "I'm sorry," into his already pretty dirty shirt.
"What?" Wade asked against his better judgement.
"I'm sorry," Peter said clearer, sitting up a little to press his forehead into Wade's shoulder. "I shouldn't have laughed. That was terrible of me."
"No, it was- You thought I was joking."
"I did," Peter agreed, "but that doesn't make it any better."
Wade bit his tongue and pressed his mouth and nose into Peter's hair. "Apology accepted," Wade said into Peter's hair.
Peter hiccuped around a sob and snaked his arms around Wade's torso, the tears and sobs still flowing freely.
It was far from perfect, but what about Wade's life wasn't? It didn't matter. It was a beginning and that was all that Wade cared about.
Hope you guys liked it! If you did, let me know. If enough people like it, maybe I can work this into some kind of multi-chapter thing?