Wade is a slave to the memory of milky skin and brown eyes.
He can't stop seeing Peter on his knees, looking up at him with spit and come slicked lips, the fear and pain within him dwindling as Wade's presence burned everything else away. The memory of the boy's sharp and slender body laid out beneath him, the feeling of Peter's phantom weight pulling him down, is forever branded on his mind.
Peter's taste has faded and he never realized how his mouth tasted of ash before the boy's kiss left him knowing another flavor. Peter's lips on his was like sinking below the jade waves of the ocean and watching sunlight ripple on the sand. His kiss was not only redemption, it was a resurrection. It's something Wade needs to feel again.
He imagines cupping the boy's jaw in his hands, caressing his skin in a gentle way that wasn't reflective of the demanding kiss he wants to steal. He knows it would be too much; smothering. Peter might push weakly against him before melting in his arms. Wade would make his knees tremble.
Or perhaps another scenario was altogether more likely. Peter might realize Wade had taken no binding claim on him, recognize that he truly had no obligation to the demon. If Wade's advances were unwanted Peter might flinch away from him, use his strength and quickness to strike. This fantasy is more entertaining than the previous, and Wade allows himself to indulge in it.
He imagines those doe eyes gleaming with righteous fury, a beautiful anger pinching Peter's features. And if he chose to attack Wade just might let the boy win. And he just may feel something like pride for his angel who would rise above all that was beneath him without Wade's heathen desire.
Wade thinks of Peter falling into him, of how he had surrendered himself to the demon's will. He knows that submission was not in Peter's nature, and yet how easily he had relinquished himself.
For a greater good, Wade reminds himself. Peter did what he had to raise May from the dead.
He lets himself pretend that hadn't been the case. In his fantasies Peter seeks him out for another reason. The boy is as enraptured with him as he is with Peter. The same flame that has been lit within Wade burns too in Peter and he knows what Wade does. That, no matter how impossible, they once knew each other. Had been entangled together in every reincarnation, were born of the same star dust and drawn inexorably to one another in each new body.
Because their souls were conscious in a way minds could not be.
It's you, Wade's spirit seemed to whisper when Peter was in his arms. You're the one I was made to love.
Of course, this is nonsense. Wishful romanticism.
That doesn't stop Wade from daydreaming about Peter. The devotion that forms between them is tentative and slow, and he isn't sure why he imagines it this way.
He could have had the boy, staked an undeniable bond that would have made Peter helpless but to obey his will. Peter spoke the words that made a thrill shiver through Wade, "I'm yours." He said them willingly, and as he did his body swayed closer to Wade like a flower following the sun.
The declaration at the time had sent a pulse of arousal to Wade's cock. As he thinks of them now they cause a different feeling. It's an emotion he hasn't been acquainted with for centuries-affection. Peter inspires a gentleness Wade couldn't remember having. Even when he was human.
In truth he remembers little from when he was a man. His humanity had been all but swept away in the hot wash of blood he bathed himself in. And damnation contorts the soul until it shares no resemblance of what it once was.
Sometimes, when he sits to think of nothing, flashes of memory will burst through his mind. The inklings are most often fleeting, but over the years he has strung the shattered bits together.
He remembers a woman with long, flaxen hair that has been dulled over the years. Her eyes are a warm hazel that smile when they look at him, but otherwise they are tired. His mother, some part of him knows, but it's hard to make the connection. Anything else regarding this nameless woman is hazy or non-existent. He thinks he recalls that she died when he was young, leaving him in the care of a man who helped shape Wade into the killer he became. He reflects, with no small amount of satisfaction, that he murdered this man.
There are other pieces he brings to mind. A woman, her memory nothing more than a smear of dark hair and olive skin now.
He remembers a stranger's reflection staring back at him from a dirty mirror. Stubble on the cheek, lines of age and shadows of exhaustion taking the place of scars. Startling blue-gray eyes stare out from the glass. Eyes that have witnessed pain and death. Narrowed critically as a target begged for their life, never looking away when his finger pulled the trigger.
Sad eyes.
Wade wonders what made this man look like that.
What made madness glitter in those eyes?
Wade will never know for sure. He will never be privy to the facts of his life. Vanessa's name, how he loved her, these things are forever out of his grasp. He'll never know how, when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer, she made him travel the world in search of a miracle. He won't suffer the memory of watching the woman he loved crumble as hopelessness wore her down. Won't remember how, when he gave up on medicine, he let Vanessa drag him to a cockamamie witch doctor who wasn't so cockamamie after all.
And he won't remember selling his soul for a few more short-lived years with her.
These things he won't know. And that is a mercy he'll never be able to fully appreciate.
But he knows himself well enough to know that he is not the sun Peter should follow. Wade is darkness, and if he were to take his angel Peter's light would surely die. Everything he loved about the boy he would destroy. And he would enjoy doing it, too.
Perhaps once Peter lay in a crumpled heap at his feet, broken, he would feel guilt. After the high of murder had subsided maybe Wade would hold him in his arms and weep for the smote angel.
He doesn't remember where he heard it, but a saying pops into his mind. "In the name of love, an angel goes through Hell." Of course Peter does not love him. Should not love him. Could not love him. He is a monster and Peter is an embodiment of goodness. If Wade were to reach out and touch him again, he would leave a stain in the shape of his fingertips.
His resolution of distance wavers a bit each day. The basalt walls of his spacious cavern are marred with tally marks carved by his claws. It's something he had abandoned decades ago, for the longer he was here the more he knew how pointless the measurement of time was.
When one had what was akin to eternity it was futile to count down something as small as days. They trickled by like seconds to his kind, but since meeting the boy every day seems to stretch on.
Peter's name rests always on the tip of his tongue. He finds himself turning over in the last moments of sleep, his arm flopping out with the intent to draw a body that is not there closer. When he stirs awake he expects to see a peaceful, sleeping face.
But he is alone. Has been for longer than he can remember, not counting the two voices of his madness that emerged from the depths of Hell's silence when he was new to damnation.
They are distantly familiar, tones he feels he would have been able to place in life. He names them Yellow and White. He's not sure why the names suit them. Yellow is vibrant, passionate, impossible to ignore. White is deadpan and indifferent, coldly logical. They don't get along.
The voices bicker most about Peter now.
Yellow resents him for allowing Peter to escape the brunt of their abusive desires. Says they should have made taxidermy out of the angel. Taken his life and mounted his wings on the wall like a macabre trophy. When Yellow speaks Wade can feel an atrocious ache in his bones, the thirst for blood drying his mouth.
The voice knows this, and when he stoops to dip cupped hands into a pool of endless water for a drink it takes a sneering tone. Says they should have made Peter scream until his throat bled and crimson threads trickled from his perfect lips. Wade can all too well imagine lapping the blood away, swallowing Peter's sobs in a bruising kiss.
Yellow insists they should have starved him, beaten and used him up to the last morsel for their pleasure. It paints a delicious picture of Peter bruised and broken, naked and bound to a four post bed with his arms spread and his legs forced straight.
His body crucified even while at rest.
Heat rises beneath Wade's skin, the same maddening urge that caused him to kill hundreds seizing him. Yellow's voice distorts and static scrapes inside his skull, the buzzing of angry hornets. He can feel bloodlust burning through him like hellfire as his fingers splinter into claws. The taste of copper floods his mouth as his teeth rip his gums in their abrupt, uninvited transition to fangs.
Ragged breaths tear from Wade and he can almost feel Peter's skin slicing under his claws like silk. Hear his sweet voice crying out, begging for mercy-
Another vision. One he can not be certain of the origin.
He lays on rough pavement, one arm cushioning his head. The sun is blocked and he cracks an eye open to see Peter looming above him, hands on his hips and bent forward at the waist. A shower of glorious sunlight halos brown hair and he grins at Wade, free and easy. Peter, not as young as the boy who had summoned Wade weeks before, extends a hand.
"Wake up, sleepy head." The vision says, clear and so much sweeter than pleas to be spared agony.
As suddenly as it had come the vision flees.
"Did you see that?"
The voices don't know what he's talking about.
Wade tries to recall who he was lifetimes ago, tries to place the impossible familiarity he feels with Peter. He has delved into the memories of those who summoned him before, but never has he felt a connection forming. No, not forming. Awakening. A remembering.
The demon racks his brain for anything concrete, asks his voices if they know anything. They do not.
Peter is not an elusive memory. He's a feeling, and it felt as though Wade had been aimlessly adrift on a violent sea. And Peter was the port he was sailing for.
Which was romantic dribble. There were no conceivable circumstances someone like Peter would ever want to be with someone like Wade. Not now and not ever. Even beasts in fairy tales had more redeemable qualities than a literal demon.
So Wade uses his connection to the boy to watch him, fantasizes about what he can never have. Hungers for another time and another place where Peter loves him and they live happy lives.
He wonders if he can stand to whittle away eternity in this way.
By his count, Wade's resolve lasts for twenty one days before he visits Peter.
The room is dark; nighttime. The window he so often crawled in and out of is open to let in the cool air. Lights from passing cars flash on the walls and there's an ever present glow cast from the street lamps below. Outside stars twinkle in the city sky, twittering with the cosmos' gossip. Hung like a silver ornament is a new moon, glowing warmly against New York's light pollution.
In Wade's domain there was no discernable day or night. Only darkness or dim light cast by the fire he conjures from nothingness. But in the mortal world time dictated almost everything about the humans woefully short existence.
Tonight there are many sinners slinking out of the muck, taking full advantage of Spider-Man's sudden disappearance. Peter's suit is stashed away in his closet, hidden in an unassuming biscuit tin for when he's ready to leave May's side. To divert Tony's suspicions about his seemingly sudden change of heart regarding vigilantism Peter uses the excuse that he needs to focus on applying for college. And indeed his desk is cluttered with admission papers. His frankenstein of a computer, made from salvaged parts gutted from other units and carefully put together, has been replaced by a new, sleek laptop. A graduation gift from Tony Stark, Wade knew from all his spying.
He glances over all these things, sees a scattering of elaborate lego creations, a vintage Star Wars poster, and an autographed one of Iron Man. Such high esteem his angel held Tony with. Wade wonders if Peter could ever regard him with half that affection.
He doubts it, and he knows for certain that he was undeserving of such adoration.
Wade pulls back to look at Peter's room as a whole. It's messy. Clothes piled on the floor and garbage overflowing from his desk side trash bin. Everything about it is a proclamation of youth. Peter is young, far too young for Wade to be paying attention to. He is centuries old. Has not walked the earth in human form for several lifetimes. Peter would always be too young while he was alive. Perhaps fate would bring them together again in the future, when Peter was a reborn angel with glorious wings extending from his shoulder blades and glowing with celestial beauty.
He might stumble across Wade by chance, feel the familiarity between them that the demon feels now.
If he could wait Peter might seek him out for the right reasons.
If he can keep this last illusion of distance between them he might evade the Hell that has yet to truly catch up with him. He stands beside Peter's bed, unmoving. If he holds his breath, he can resist the temptation of taking his angel. If he stays like this, perfectly still, it will be like he's not here at all.
Wade wonders when Peter will take to the crime riddled streets again since linking his heroism to his aunt's death. He could tell the boy that no blame should weigh on him. Every human had a timer counting down to the day they were destined to die, and May's had hit zero. It was a simple thing to add a few decades onto a life as long as the human was of no great consequence. Had the woman been of cosmic importance Wade would probably have had to face some kind of repercussion. But May was a speck of dust in the cosmic sense and if she died forty years later than she was meant to, well, no one would notice.
Like Peter, May is asleep. Even if she were to wake and peek into her nephew's room there would be no cause for alarm as Wade has taken a form no human could perceive. His tangibility, too, phases in and out depending on his wishes.
Soft breaths puff past Peter's slightly parted lips and in sleep he has kicked off his sheets, leaving him exposed. He wears only boxers, the fabric faded and stretched. At the same time it leaves too much and too little to the imagination.
Peter's ass is plump and ripe, on display because the boy favors sleeping on his stomach with his legs obscenely spread, one of them higher than the other and hooked. Wade stands motionless even though he doesn't have to. He stays that way for a few agonizing minutes while two disagreeing sides of him war.
The craving that he should ruthlessly suppress wins and Wade runs a calloused hand along the length of Peter's spine. The boy's skin radiates warmth and Wade continues his exploration of the supple flesh. His scars catch on the smoothness of Peter's skin and the sleeping human shifts, unconsciously following the touch.
That is a treat in itself. The moan Peter gives is godsent.
Wade plays with his floppy curls and he really doesn't intend to do more. He's not a rapist by nature. Taking advantage of Peter before had been just that-taking advantage. Peter could have decided to go and Wade would have let him. But as he's combing his fingers through silken locks, gently tugging knots out while he tries to push away the memory of gripping Peter's hair to put him on his knees, Peter starts rutting into his mattress.
Wade's control snaps.
He knows it's wrong, and that hardly slows him down as he presses an open mouthed kiss to Peter's nape. He leaves a trail of kisses down the line of his spine and doesn't hesitate to slide the boy's underwear down over the curve of his ass. Unaware of it, Peter's hips angle up to let Wade pull the underwear all the way off.
The demon inhales sharply, going still as he takes a moment to sincerely appreciate Peter's body, as he hadn't been able to their first time together. Peter's legs are long and toned, ropes of strong muscle below the skin of his slender thighs. He's beautiful.
While Wade won't risk kissing Peter on the mouth, he will do something much more violating. He thumbs apart lush, heavy cheeks and licks a stripe over Peter's centre. He briefly laments that Peter hadn't been sleeping on his back, because the thought of swallowing his angel's cock makes his own twitch and swell. He hadn't been able to savor that part of Peter their first time together, although it had fit perfectly in his hand. Wade is confident he could swallow Peter whole, suck him down until moans of pleasure turned into wet sobs from the overstimulation. Wade could keep Peter in his throat for hours.
The demon wonders what Peter's refractory time would be, given his powers and age. How many times could he come until Wade was forcing dry orgasms out of him? He'd love to find out, but for now that remains a question better left unanswered.
Wade might not be able-or willing-to answer those queries, but what he's taking is enough to sate his needs for now.
Greedy fingers grope Peter's ass as an impatient tongue prods at his puckered hole. He sucks and thrusts inside shallowly, licking and tasting his unwitting lover.
Peter's hips push back against his mouth and Wade slides a finger into the tight heat. He pulls down on the rim and thrusts his tongue in, backing away to admire the fluttering hole. Peter's moans grow louder and more desperate. His lips close over the boy's sweetness and he sucks hard.
Peter's hips stutter as he moans, high-pitched, into his pillow. His release splatters on his bed sheets. Wade covers his nakedness with a blanket, leaves the come to cool. After all, it's the only way he can leave a mark on Peter without leaving the purple of bruises.
Wade watches Peter every night and almost every day. He learns that the boy makes his coffee too strong and adds extra cream and sugar to compensate.
Peter favors old jeans and cotton T-shirts, and at the bottom of his dresser drawer are two T-shirts he only wears to bed. One is red with Iron Man on it; the other is blue with a character called Captain America on it. The Avengers, they're called. Peter is obsessed with the team, and it's a bittersweet thing to see his angel gush about the hero's to Ned.
The demon's heart beats faster when Peter's face lights up with excitement as he talks about the Avengers. It's a beautiful thing to witness, but then Wade reminds himself that his angel admires heros. People who are saviors. It's one of many nails in the coffin that is the relationship Wade is trying not to hope for.
Peter couldn't harbor love for a monster, and if he did, his goodness would be tainted.
This knowledge is enough to keep Wade at bay.
His hands ache to reach for Peter, to pet unkempt hair and rake his nails down strong shoulders. Forcing them to stay at his sides is a herculean effort.
Watching is what he allows himself to have, and he soaks up all that Peter does. The boy can lose himself in hours of science and math equations, but has to go to May for proofreading because grammar and spelling isn't his forte. He struggles to sit still, and when he's doing school work his left leg bounces up and down ceaselessly. If he gets frustrated he'll stomp to his bed, flop onto the mattress and groan. Sometimes he'll lay there for long stretches of time, staring blankly at his smoke colored wall.
Wade studies him, tries to discern the thoughts flitting behind glazed over eyes. Does he think of May's body, submerged in pink tinted water? Or perhaps he thinks of others lost. Dead parents and uncles. It's possible he thinks of the night he courted death, bare feet slipping in gritty, cold sand. Screaming and resisting the man he loved so much, begging for the sweet release of death. If he had succeeded, would their paths have crossed? Suicide would not equate to automatic damnation, as Wade understands many human religions preach. Peter was destined to become a holy creature, a herald of something greater than the demon could comprehend.
The boy would be enveloped into heavenly arms, cradled and cared for when Wade was left to writhe in agony on the black, porous rocks of Hell. He died unprepared to meet his God, and he never did. No redemption existed for the soul he sold-the soul that had been forsaken. Peter would face no torment. He'd become the angel he was meant to be, and Wade might never have gotten to put his corrupting hands on the boy.
Perhaps Peter thinks of him.
When the day's mundane chores are done his angel goes to watch television with May, sprawling on the couch with his head cushioned on her thigh. She smiles down at him, combs her fingers through his hair absentmindedly while she watches whatever sitcom happens to be on. The glare of the television is reflected on her glasses.
While her attention is on the show, Peter's is on her. Wade can see the relief and love in Peter's eyes every time he looks at May, as if he thought she would disappear if he let her out of his sight.
Giving May new life had been righting a terrible wrong. But he had taken a beautiful thing and corrupted it, perverted it.
Wade lingers at Peter's bedside every night.
He's going to rot eternally.
Peter's life settles back into normality. He finds that in having his wish granted time was not rewound. The morning he awoke in his bedroom was not the day May died, but the day after he summoned Wade.
No one seemed to hold memory of the alternation that had occurred, although the next time he sees Strange the man's gaze lingers on him a little too long to be comfortable. Peter watches his microexpressions anxiously through the corner of his eye. His eyebrows pinch together and his lips purse for a moment, and then the signs of deep, troublesome thought vanish from his face.
Peter exhales in relief and tries to act normal. Strange doesn't pay him any extra attention. Tony does.
After they have taken care of the latest world-threatening villain, Tony ushers him away from Strange with no real sense of urgency.
"You okay, kid? You seem out of it."
The concern is casual, but it reminds Peter of Tony comforting him as best he could after May's death. Tony had tried so hard to help him. The man who had always seemed larger than life and too high up on a pedestal for anyone to touch had hugged him. Laid on the bed he gave Peter and held him while he cried. He let him dry his tears and runny nose on his shoulder and all the while he never stopped rubbing his back as Peter struggled to breathe through his fits.
Tony took him into his home, had seen the boy at his worst and let Peter see him at his most human.
He throws his arms around Tony. "I'm great, Mr. Stark."
Bewilderment falls over the man but he returns the hug, pats Peter's back awkwardly.
"Okay, kid."
Peter doesn't release him until Tony drops his arms and coughs. "You can let go now."
He does and smiles with a brightness that is only partially phoned in. "Training next week?" Tony asks hopefully.
Peter's smile falters. He recovers it a moment later. "Rain check." He assures.
Peter's heart remains hollow. Not the gaping maw May's death had torn open, but an ever present longing he couldn't place.
It's a feeling he could ignore when he kept moving, but the second he had a moment to think the yearning washed over him anew. Every time he looks up at the star strewn sky he feels like something dear to him had been lost.
No , he thinks. Not something he'd lost, for his life was the same as before. Still, there's an absence that wasn't there before. A quiet sadness, like standing at the shore of a dead sea and mourning it's emptiness.
He waits, searching for Wade's face in every crowd and expecting Wade to pop up around any corner. He doesn't. Peter feels like a caged tiger, pacing the confines of its prison and waiting for something-anything-to happen.
A month goes by. Wade has not revealed himself, and Peter wonders when he'll come around to exact his pound of flesh. He goes about his life as best he can, trying to forget the demons touch which clings stubbornly to his skin. He didn't-couldn't-be wanting to see that scarred face again.
Wanting to see Wade again was insane and he knew it. The demon had surely bewitched him. That was the only explanation as to why the memory of Wade lingered in the back of his mind. Wade had agreed to grant his wish in exchange for saying he belonged to the demon.
So why had Wade not showed up? Had the claim been on his soul? Had he inadvertently sold his soul? Peter groans, agitation crawling across his skin.
He was clearly linked to the demon. These emotions weren't his. Anything Wade had made him feel was the result of something supernatural. He would not develop feelings for a demon he met once. And in that first and only meeting Wade had used him.
Yet he had acted so gently, too, not at all in a way Peter had expected a demon would act. Wade could have done anything he wanted to, really, and Peter would taken any abuse to get May back. He could have broken his bones and left him within an inch of life if it pleased him. He settled for a much less debilitating payment.
Peter waits, senses Wade's presence and spins to face the demon who is never there. The sinking feeling is one he convinces himself isn't disappointment.
That night, lying in bed, he thinks about Wade.
Peter exhales into the semi darkness of his bedroom. August warmth has made the room stuffy, and he's reminded of the heat Wade radiated. The smell of ozone wafts in through his open window, a clatter of sounds carried on the breeze. A dog howling, a couple bickering on the street below, the vroom and clunk of a truck shifting gears. And in the distance, the sad wail of a trumpet.
It's the typical noise pollution of the city, it shouldn't irk him. These are the sounds he's heard all his life. But tonight he can't stop thinking about the silence that came with summoning Wade. Can't stop thinking about Wade's voice and how he wants to hear it again.
He dreams of Wade.
The demon looks at him sadly, regretfully. He reaches to touch Wade and finds himself suddenly paralyzed. Wade touches him everywhere. Shame burns Peter when he opens his mouth to protest and pleas for more tumble out. Wade treats him like he's made of glass and forces every last bit of pleasure from his body.
It's wrong and so good.
Peter wakes up to see he had shucked off his underwear sometime in the night and orgasmed in his sleep. Nocturnal emissions, a wet dream. Peter can chalk it up to that and nothing more.
Until it happens again. And again.
He dreams about Wade every night and every night he's needier. In a particularly nice dream Wade lays beside him after making him shiver with orgasm, covers his body with his much larger one. Peter thinks he can feel the demon's weight at his back until morning rouses him into full awareness to see he is alone.
As the bleariness clears from his eyes the emptiness he feels gnawing at him more and more stretches a little wider. He looks out at his room, expecting to see something amiss.
Everything is as he'd left it the night before.
Heaving a sigh Peter grabs a new pair of underwear and pajama pants he takes with him to the bathroom. Steam fills the room. The showers hot spray does nothing to erase Wade's phantom touch and Peter sinks to sit cross legged on the floor. He sees himself reaching for the tubs plug, feels it click down into place along with the spigot, but he is almost not in control of his actions.
Water rises around him slowly and he lies back, a strange numbness overcoming him. May is in her bedroom, probably asleep with an open book laying on her chest. A compelling mystery she either couldn't resist binge reading or took to for comfort after failing to find sleep. On her nightstand is a cup of tea left to go cold, chamomile with honey. She'll wake within the hour and go into the kitchen wearing her tacky satin robe to brew coffee. When Peter comes out, hair wet and dripping from his shower, she'll ask if he wants eggs or pancakes because she always makes breakfast on Saturday morning.
May is alive and all of these things are possible.
Water covers him.
What if she wasn't alive? What if Tony had been a fraction too late and he had made it into the ocean that night, stayed under long enough to fall into a coma but not into the blackness of death? This could all be a dream, a ruse his mind created.
He doesn't notice that he hasn't been breathing until his lungs are aching. He lurches forward gasping, heart pounding. With shaking hands Peter pulls the plug. The water drains around him and he hugs his knees to his chest, shivering.
He's back in Tony's home, May is decaying in the earth. He's under the water while Tony sits outside the bathroom door waiting for FRIDAY to give the word.
Peter wraps himself in a towel and slumps against a wall. His hand rises to absentmindedly rub at the scar Wade had left behind and that no one else was able to see. His fog smeared reflection stares back at him. He looks serious in a way he hadn't before May's death, the lightness in his neutral expression replaced by something darker.
He knows what he needs to do.
That night Peter pulls his suit from the closet. Karen greets him happily. People wave when they see him. He stops two muggings, one armed robbery, and helps an elderly couple apprehend their rambunctious dog. The whoosh of air around him is a much missed feeling and Peter whoops as he swings from building to building. The stomach dropping sensation of falling through the air makes the emptiness he feels vanish.
He lands on a flat topped roof, breathing heavily from the adrenaline coursing through him. Being Spider-Man is something he hadn't known was missing from his life until he found it. Now he can't imagine being just Peter Parker. Spider-Man is an integral part of who he is. Something he stumbled into and realized, this feels right. This feels like it was meant to be.
His grin slowly falls as the adrenaline fades and his head tips back. Stars shine like diamonds scattered on black velvet and the hollowness returns with one thought.
Wade.