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Requested by Holding Out For A Hero

Beta'd by WithinHerHeart :)

Peter/Wade. Peter has been cutting himself and Wade finds out.

Part 4 of my 'Key To The Heart' series.

Wade can handle scars. He has his own, of course, far too many for him to remember exactly how each one occurred and it was probably best for what little sanity he had left that he didn't try to recall each one. They covered his arms, his legs, his torso, some even burned into his skull; deep and painful and permanent. Although he hid them behind the latex mask of Deadpool, he wasn't ashamed of them. They were just…there.

Yes, he could handle scars.

But not on Peter.

Never on Peter.

He'd shown up unexpectedly at the Rogers-Stark household when he found out. It wasn't an uncommon situation. Wade wasn't exactly good when it came to keeping appointments or telling time, but he knew that he was supposed to be working that night and when that fell through – or rather, when his target fell through the roof – earlier than he had planned, he thought he would use the free time to curl up with Peter in his large bed. It was one of Wade's favourite pastimes, just behind severing heads, of course.

He'd come through the window – Iron and the Captain were hardly his biggest fans – and just paused. The room was empty, but the bed was messy, as if someone had climbed out of it in a hurry, and the door to the en suite bathroom was half open, the bright overhead lights shining through into the main bedroom. That's where he had found Peter, back pressed firmly against the glass of the shower, a knife hovering over his wrist in shaking hands, the blade already slightly imbedded in the skin. He froze when the door swung open, eyes wide with fear and panic, but Wade had no eyes for that.

No, he was too busy watching the well of blood that bubbled before sliding down the curve of his arm, dipping into marks – some faded and others not – different lengths and angles across the expanse of milky flesh that were highlighted by the florescent lights, and fuck, it made Wade's stomach churn.

Peter began to stutter words of explanation, telling him that "I can explain" and "it isn't what it looks like", like it could be anything else, but the older man really wasn't listening. He grasped the pocket knife roughly in his hands, slicing through his glove by how tight he held it, and threw it violently into a faraway corner of the bathroom, where neither of them could reach it. It clattered on the tiled floor.

"Wade, I…" Peter started again.

"No," he growled out, his voice sharp and angry in a way that he had never used on Peter before. The teenager winced and seemed to recoil away, but Wade wasn't having any of it. He grasped the teen's wrist, holding it so tight that Peter had to stifle a small cry at the pressure on the self inflicted wounds, but he held it in. He knew better. He'd only ever seen Wade this angry once before, and let's say, it hadn't ended well for the other guy. He didn't want to believe that Wade would do anything to hurt him, but the look in his eyes was so enraged, so dangerous, so desperate, that Peter wasn't sure what he should believe anymore.

"Tell me why," Wade continued his voice dark. Peter seemed to hesitate, and that only irked Wade further. "Tell me why!"

The voice circled his mind, making him desperate and needy, a reminder of what he had found out in the worst possible way. 'Peter no scars. Nope, no scars. Peter is a pretty thing – should have no scars. Peter no scars…' the voice whimpered.

Peter looked at Wade with pathetic puppy dog eyes; the type that screamed defeat, the type that expected to be abandoned, the type that wanted to suffer. Peter should never look like that, Wade decided.

"I…I let him die…" Peter's voice croaked under the weight of the emotion, "…He was…He didn't expect much from me, and he'd done so much, and then I just, I just ran off, and left them, and he followed me, searching all night. He just wanted me to come home…of course, he was too fucking noble for his own good. If he'd just walked away, not tried to intervene – if I had intervened when I had the chance, I could have – maybe he would have…"

Wade didn't need to ask who Peter was talking about. The teenager had told him about it before, on ones of those quiet evenings around the time of the anniversary of the destruction in their lives, and they'd been desperate for each others comfort. He had a lot more of those moments than Peter did, but he remembered thinking that Peter was really broken up about his Uncle's death. The man clearly meant a lot to him – much more than Wade had ever cared about anyone, except maybe Peter – but he didn't realise…he never noticed he blamed himself so much, he didn't realise he was ever this bad. To take a blade to your skin, to try and hurt yourself, to want to feel the pain…

Wade's grip on the boy's wrist relaxed slightly, enough to twist his hand so he was grasping the fingers and rose the limb to his lips. Peter shivered when his tongue, rough and wet, licked soothingly across the open wound, cleaning the blood that had begun to stain the skin. Peter watched the actions with wide eyes, darkened with pain and lustful interest, and let out a shuddering breath.

It would be later, when Peter and Wade were lying under the warm cocoon of the teenager's sheets, breathing synchronised and Peter's face buried into the numb skin of Wade's bare neck that Wade would tell his lover that it wasn't to happen again.

It would be later that Peter, tears beginning to well in his gorgeous eyes, would mutter that he was not sure whether he could, not now, not after so long.

It would be later that Wade, after some few choice words that he couldn't really control, would say that he wouldn't take that for an answer.