There's suicidal behavior from a random New Yorker in this chapter, and an attempt. Please don't read if that will trigger you.

I rewrote this chapter a lot. I am really sort of rolling over and just giving up on it. I saved every draft I made of it otherwise. Maybe I'll do something with that later. I just need to get this out and over with. I even have their entire semi-fight written out.

Wade was both reminded of Hospice and also trying to sabotage Peter getting close to him by trying to push him away. It wasn't really a conscious thing for him. Wade self-sabotages himself a lot.

Chapter summary: Peter goes to class and has a very... upsetting evening.

Chapter Ten: Life Goes On

They spent the rest of the night talking straight into the morning. Wade, after hearing Peter's stomach growl like some kind of cryptid beast, got up to make them breakfast. Peter was surprised Wade could cook at all, even if it was something as simple as pancakes. There wound up being enough to feed a small party worth of people, but the two of them worked through the entire stack by themselves - even though Peter regretted it when his stomach started hurting afterward. Turns out not eating properly for as long as he had, and then not eating basically at all really messed up his organs. But besides that, it turned out Wade was… actually really enjoyable to talk to. Sure he was crude and morbid, but by this point Peter was used to that much by now.

Well, at least, until Peter revealed that he was in school for biochem. Wade got weird after that; he was much more critical of everything Peter said, and he kept making passive aggressive comments. It really grated the young adult's nerves, and they wound up splitting up on a somewhat bad note because of it, with the hero pulling on the rest of his suit, getting his webshooters back, and webbing his way back to his own apartment.

He had a few hours before class started, and so he hopped into the shower, and brought his suit with him so he could wash out the stink of body odor and city smells that stuck to the spandex much like he himself stuck to walls. Long after the water went cold, he was still upset and obsessing over the semi-fight they'd had. The more he thought about it, the more angry he felt. He'd been trying to open up on a personal level to the other man, and the Merc had the gall to start making fun of Tony Stark after Peter admitted that he wanted to intern at Stark Industries. He had to not only deal with Wade's sudden shitty attitude, but also the memories of Harry, and why he had to switch to Stark when he'd grown up thinking he was going to work at OsCorp.

Needless to say, his entire day had been soured early.

He showed up to class physically strained and tired, and he was already mentally exhausted before the professor even showed up. He slumped into a seat in the back and didn't even bother to straighten his stack of notebooks and the very well-worn copy of the required book that the teacher had probably written himself and then made profit off of poor college students who had to buy the stupid thing for his class. Peter couldn't get his attention to stay focused on the teacher even after he got a copy of the syllabus. He thought about what Wade had said.

"What, do you want to cure cancer or something?"

"And what's so awful about that?" he'd snapped back.

"Everyone goes in wanting to cure cancer."

Wade had started off so condescending and then… he'd muttered the last part in a volume that was barely audible at all. Then he went off talking to himself afterward, about how no one stays a saint for long, or something along those lines. After that he'd tried to dissuade Peter with talk about how Tony Stark was a selfish prick who only wanted to do good because he felt personally guilty for shit he'd started himself. How Peter could do so much better in a different field - what about computer tech or something equally as nerdy? What the hell did Wade have against Peter wanting to go into the science field and help people?

Then he thought about Doctor Connors. That man had started off wanting to make breakthroughs for human limb regeneration. Peter had helped make that dream a reality - before the entire thing collapsed in on itself. Instead of giving Doctor Connors his life back, he took it away from him completely.

Then he remembered the file on Wade. How he was in and out of healthcare for years.

Then he remembered the mysterious black hole in the mercenary's life.

Peter felt a cold chill creep along his spine and down his limbs.

The professor was now talking about how this isn't a class you can bullshit your way through, missing homework assignments and absences will not be tolerated, and if you can't handle that, then maybe you should go to your counselor and get your classes changed, yada yada yada. Peter slid lower in his chair. He already knew he was going to hate this class, and he just wanted to get this day over with. He felt nauseous because he couldn't stop thinking about freaking Deadpool of all people. He was so tired of thinking about Wade at this point. He knew that it was better to just not to entertain the possibilities that he was coming up with of what could have happened. He dutifully pulled the top notebook off of his pile and a pen and started to take notes that were being written on the dry-erase board in an almost illegible scrawl. The professor went over what previous classes should have taught them, and what they would be diving into immediately after this refresher.

Peter left the two-hour long course with a list of what he was supposed to write a ten-page essay about. Fun stuff. Really. No sarcasm involved in this whatsoever. (Spoiler alert: Much sarcasm is involved. Writing ten-page essays suck. All it really is, is getting as much filler words in as possible around a single page of actually interesting and unique information.)

After he wrote a paltry half a page and was left staring at his computer for an hour and some odd amount of time not doing his homework, he decided to call Aunt May and talked to her for about forty minutes, just catching up on the past few days for her, and Peter doctoring details about his own. He broke down and told her that he and the person he'd gone on a date with had a fight, and that was really why he'd been distant. Aunt May took that surprisingly well. With that done, Peter, feeling much better now that he'd heard her voice, went to pull on his air-dried suit that he'd slung over the bar holding up his shower curtain. It smelled a lot better than it had, even if he could pick up the scent of the dollar-store soap he'd used to wash it with.

He was out his window and swinging within ten minutes, and he felt any lingering stress of the day wear off, like it was being peeled away by the wind whipping past him. He shouted a happy call as he swung low over traffic. It was just getting dark enough that lights were being turned on, and the sunset mixing with them was a beautiful sight indeed.

That is, until he heard a voice over the police scanner say that there was a possible jumper who'd made their way up part of the Manhattan Bridge, and he veered suddenly, turning in a ninety-degree direction change. He got there just before the police did, which he was thankful for, because while they could handle this sort of problem, people tended to trust Spider-Man a little more than a random officer. Not that said officers cared any less, but it was so easily overwhelming when they intervened…

Because the sun was setting off to the side of his vision, Peter couldn't make out much about the person besides that they had a small frame. A few people had stopped their cars and were looking up at them, all with their phones out and ready to film the scene, whether or not it took a good turn. He heard one person shout his name once they noticed him.

Spider-Man crawled up the thick, metal cables holding the bridge up, body moving unnervingly between them like the arachnids he was so named after, and slowed down once he neared the top of one of the arches. "Hey, there!" he called out, but he made sure not to let his voice be too loud. The person's head whipped around towards him. They looked like a young woman. "Just letting you know I'm here," he went on, and he pulled himself to sit on the metal ramp with her, but at a respectful distance. He tapped his fingers against the dip in the metal, fingering one of the gigantic bolts holding it in place. "Are you just up here enjoying the view?" he asked. This subject was one that was very hard to approach, because what worked on someone would absolutely make another person worse.

The girl stared at him, before she slowly angled her head out to look at the sunset over the water. He almost missed the shake of her head.

"You don't have to tell me anything. But I'd like to sit here with you. Is that okay?"

She seemed to be frozen in time for several long seconds - Peter counted eleven - before she nodded. He let out his held breath in a silent sigh.

"Thank you," he said gratefully, and he turned to gaze over the darkening cityscape on their right. He didn't want her to feel like he was staring at her, or putting her more on the spot than she already was with everyone making a ruckus below them.

"How do you do it?" he heard a quiet, trembling voice ask. He looked to the probably-teenager, and he cocked his head slightly to let her know he was listening.

"Do what?" he questioned. There were certainly a lot of its in his life that he pushed himself through doing.

"How do you keep going out and doing so much for people when they're always calling you a monster?"

Peter thought about it. "Well," he began, and he tapped his fingers repetitively. He wished he had something to properly hook his foot on, some kind of pressure he could use to ground himself. "I'm not doing it for the people calling me a monster." He gave a few seconds of pause before he continued. "At first that kind of thing really got to me. I mean, it's pretty awful, I'm not going to lie about that. But I learned that they were just unhappy themselves, and they were taking it out on me. Even the police are pretty amicable to me by this point. They used to shoot at me." Had shot him. Several times. It hurt just as bad every time. Maybe more, because it kept piling on and on what he already had on his too-full plate.

He had been hoping maybe he could get a laugh out of her over that. Apparently not.

"So it just stopped hurting you?" she asked, and her voice was extremely hushed. She was frowning hard. "You just stopped caring one day?"

Peter shook his head. "No. It's a conscious effort." He shrugged. "I have to think of it, like… I have to picture it in my mind, that I'm wearing a raincoat, the ones with hoods and they go almost to your feet? And that what they're saying are just drops of water. All I have to do is shake myself off, and their words have no real traction to hold onto me so they just disappear, because none of it's true. Just big, scary words to make people want to buy their gossip mags or newspaper to find out whatever conspiracy is clearly going on."

She had her head down now, with her chin almost touching her collarbone. "But what if they are true?"

Spider-Man didn't say anything for a while. "What're you really asking about?" he wondered. He wasn't trying to push her or belittle her. His voice was gentle and he truly wanted to help her. He just didn't understand.

It was her turn to shrug. "There're these girls and…" She stopped suddenly, and she turned away. She wiped her hand harshly over her eyes, probably because she'd started tearing up. Peter wasn't about to fault her for it. "They keep spreading rumors about me, and I just… I just can't…"

Peter wasn't sure if she would mind touching or not. When he would get into this state himself, sometimes touching and sounds were just too much stimulation for him to handle. He leaned more forward, so that she might be able to see him better. "I got bullied a lot, too," he said softly.

The girl sniffed and wiped her nose. "Really?" she asked, like that was almost a ridiculous thought. After all, who would bully a man who could lift a fully-sized car with minimal effort?

"Yeah," he confirmed. "It was hard. Made the idea of getting up to go to school the next day a hard-to-conquer nightmare. There were even days where I faked being sick just so I wouldn't have to face them."

The girl had leaned in slightly, her weight fully on one arm. "Yeah?" she asked. She'd probably done that herself at least once, too. "Did it ever stop?"

Peter sighed again, but this time it felt heavy. "No. Well, yes. It stopped after I graduate high school." A beat. "Have you told your parents…?"

The girl made a guttural sound and it startled Peter so badly he jumped into a defensive position. She looked so defeated. "Ofcourse I have! That's the first thing everyone says! Tell your parents, tell your teachers! Well, they don't do anything about it!" That was when she threw herself forward, and Peter acted before he could think past his brain blaring alarm bells at him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back in with his weight, and he cradled her protectively with his arms.

"God, please, no, don't do this, please," he begged against her hair. She started wailing then, and she held him back. He tightened his hold to comfort her. "Please don't take your life."

She didn't answer him for a long time. She could only cry, and he sat there with her the entire time.

"I almost did it," she said, and she started sobbing as she finished those words - like she was absolutely terrified that her life had almost ended minutes earlier. "God, I almost-"

"Don't worry, I've got you," Peter assured. "I won't let go until you want me to."

She buried herself in his shoulder.

It felt like it had only been a few minutes after that, but it was more like an hour that the two of them were up there talking. It went from the serious topic of bullying to them laughing about silly memories and talking about homework and classes. Then, he helped her down when she was ready, anxious and reluctant at first to accept the help of the strange men in uniform who hadn't been bonding with her through a very dark time in her life, but were there for the aftermath regardless. "I can swing you home," Spider-Man had offered. "So you don't have to get put in the spotlight down there, or have someone catch your face on their phone."

She wound up telling him it was alright. It was her decision to enter the awaiting blanket held out by the firemen, and the police who came to question her as they checked her for injuries. Peter waited for a little bit, watched them care for her, and then he caught the girl - Briana - looking up at him and he waved to her. Then he webbed himself away, into the night that had fallen like a thick blanket over the busy cities. The sun was completely gone under the horizon now, and Peter felt… well, he felt like a weight had been lifted from him in turn. He was so proud of Briana for talking about it with him, for letting him help her. She wanted to become a nurse when she was older. They'd talked about their ideal future careers, about her dog, about her parents telling her they were thinking about getting a divorce next year.

He spent the next few hours looking around the red Gyms, trying to spot Deadpool anywhere. He came up short, and he thought that next time they met up, they needed to exchange some form of contact information. He decided that he would stop by the Merc's apartment tomorrow. Peter felt a restless wriggling in his chest that would only be calmed by knowing that Wade was alive and well.

He had oddly vivid dreams that night about talking to Deadpool on a bridge.