Chapter summary: Peter's a little bit slow on the uptake, but things finally start moving forward for them.
(Peter's somewhere between ace and demi in this, he's not sure what to even call it. So there's definitely some disconnect with a lot of stuff, hence this going so far over his head.)

Chapter 14: Every Time We Touch

Peter had almost completely forgotten about his glasses, phone, and food, but in the end they wound up leaving with everything in tow. Peter took off his makeshift superhero costume, gave Wade his jacket back, and put his own shirt back on (properly). He put his glasses on, and wondered where the smudges had come from when he'd been so careful to keep from touching them with anything. Oh, well. His shirt was too sweaty and gross to even attempt to clean them, so he'd just have to wait until they got somewhere. Wade (who'd taken off his mask and put it away somewhere) watched him as he covered his leg in another layer of webbing for the trip back.

"Ready?" the Merc asked, and Peter nodded without much energy in the action. He sighed from deep his chest.

"Yeah," he said, and Wade took the leftovers bag and knelt down so that Peter could climb on his back. Peter did so, hissing and biting back some choice words a few times as he had to bend his leg or stretch the muscles around the bullet. His body's healing factor would just force that out on its own - it had done so before - but until then, he had to keep the wound taken care of. The bullet wasn't any danger to him, since the heat during firing killed any and all bacteria on the metal, so it was effectively sterilized. Once before when he'd been shot, his body had pushed the bullet out and it cut an artery in the process… so all of a sudden a rush of blood started spilling out of his side, thankfully not while he was at school or work. That had been… well, an experience for sure. Glad he hadn't traumatized May with that mess.

He used his sticky hands to latch himself onto Wade safely until they had settled into better position between the two of them. Wade's arms hooked under his knees to give him something to sit on.

"How's your leg?" Wade asked, his voice a little gruff.

Peter let his head fall onto the back of Wade's head, resting his forehead on the other man's baseball cap. "Ow," he responded.

Wade huffed. "No shit," he chuckled, but it sounded pretty humorless. "So where the hell're we going again?"

Peter pursed his lips. "My place. Go back to where we met up and and then keep going straight for seven blocks."

Wade was quiet for the first few steps. "So you're really gonna let me see your place?" he asked.

Peter nodded against him. "Yeah." He went silent for a second. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but I do trust you."

Wade immediately scoffed. "Sure."

Peter inhaled and closed his eyes to focus. "I'm serious. It's just..." His hands formed fists, clenched and unclenched.

"It's just me," Wade cut in before he could continue.

"No," Peter said, and his sounded annoyed. "No, it's the guns. I don't like them. My… my uncle was shot and killed in front of me."

Wade's step faltered and he came to a quick stop, breathed a few times through his mouth, and then uttered, "I'm sorry."

Peter's head leaned a little harder on Wade's crown. "Thank you," he said softly. He really did appreciate the seriousness that Wade was giving his admission. "It's still hard some days," he went on, and his heart sank as he said it.

"Was it recent?" Wade asked, and they were back to trekking along the sidewalk. No one seemed to care much but one person did eye the blood that was soaked through Peter's jeans.

"No. It was…" He paused to think, and he was surprised to find that time had actually been moving forward at a steady pace. "God, it was eight years ago."

Wade grunted in response. "Sorry I triggered any bad memories," he murmured, and he really did sound honestly sorry. Well, until he realized what he'd said. "Okay, so poor choice in wording, but I really didn't know."

Peter didn't find that pun too funny, and he didn't say anything about it. The other sentiment, though, he thought about it, let those words sink in, and he chewed on his bottom lip. The general malaise that came with feeling depressed had settled over him like a thick blanket and he didn't like it. "No, you didn't know. But you do now." Change was hard, he knew this from personal experience, but it was the actions from here on out that determined whether or not Wade was actually sorry or if he only felt that way right now. Peter hadn't done too hot a job backing Wade up when he'd needed it, or about thinking the best of him even now, but he was trying. He just… needed to try harder. And maybe with both of them working together on it, they truly could reach a better place to settle into with each other.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Wade replied in a deadpan. "So do we get in some more character development before we get to your place, or what?"

Peter wasn't really in the mood for jokes right now, but it did help him smile, even if it was a tense, melancholy-looking one. "We've got a good fifteen-minute walk, so sure, why not."

"Fall's coming fast (oh, baby); d'you do Halloween? Go to parties, dress up? Oh, please tell me you go as Spider-Man, that would be too much!"

...Peter was beginning to think that Wade actually has ADHD or something. At least the topic wasn't something that lingered on the darkest memories possible, and actually did a good job of steering the conversation away into something much lighter. Peter shook his head. "I don't do any of that, no," he admitted. "I used to dress up when I was a kid, but parties aren't my thing, you know?"

Wade shrugged. "Yeah, you don't seem the type. But fuckin' seriously, you should go to a costume contest dressed as Spidey and win a shitload of money, or a yacht, or a trip to China!"

Peter's right eyebrow rose. "You're thinking about some Wheel of Fortune-esque prizes there," he said, but actually… that wasn't too bad of an idea.

Wade canted his head and agreed, but then he backed up some. "So fuck English, there's tons of silent letters and shit that don't make any sense (just like French, those assholes gotta hold up their got-dang aesthetic), but if you say yacht the way it's spelled, you don't sound intelligent, you just sound like a cat with a hairball."

"Well, you're not wrong," Peter said and he held back just this once about how Wade never sounded intelligent. The guy certainly made him think about things that didn't cross his mind often, and some of the sadness lifted off of him and dispersed like steam.

They waltzed up to Peter's apartment building in almost no time, and Peter was busy debating how much he hated himself versus how much he didn't want to walk up several flights of stairs painfully slow (literally). "Is this it?" the mouthy Merc asked, pointing at the… not super expansive building. Peter sighed and pushed his nose against Wade's hat, hiding himself a bit more. He didn't even want to know what his neighbors were going to start saying about him next after this. The rumor mill was intense, especially with all of these nosy people.

"Yeah, fifth floor, room 514."

The other obediently started up the stairs, having given the elevator death trap one look before he made the right decision, and the going was tedious and hurt Peter's thigh more than he would ever admit. He'd bitten a red crescent into his lower lip by the time they reached his apartment. Peter let Wade know he wanted down, and he shakily took out his keys and unlocked the door.

Wade took one look at the cramped space as he sat the leftovers down on the carpet and whistled. "You know, my place is a shithole, but what the fuck, Spidey?" Peter shut the door behind them and gave Wade a look. Wade threw his arms out in response, wildly gesturing to the place that had absolutely no sitting space besides the computer chair and the bed, and didn't even have a television. "What?! You live in a shoebox. Like, Jesus, I know you're poor, but-?"

Peter regretted taking this loudmouthed idiot to his home, now. Well, no, not home. He'd never really thought it if that way. His place of residence, the place he put his head down when he was tired… those were better descriptions for it. Aunt May's place would always be home to him.

"Thanks," he said, and he pushed past Wade to go over to his closet. The only sectioned off room in his studio was the bathroom, and so he grabbed a pair of clean boxers and shut himself up in there.

"You know I'm not trying to be mean," he heard Wade say, muffled, through the door. Peter closed his eyes for a few seconds to calm down, but sucked in a breath of intense pain as he tried to peel his pants off. He had a pair of scissors in there for varying reasons, and so he took them off of the back of the toilet and tried to wedge it under the webbing for leverage. When that didn't work, he groaned and just gave up and started cutting the damnable fabric off of his leg, leaving only the strip around the wound like a bandage. Peeling the shredded denim away from him when it was attached firmly to his skin and leghair wasn't exactly pleasant, but after a few hitches he was able to get it all off. The pants were old and ruined anyway, even if he got the blood mostly out. His webbing would dissolve completely on its own in two hours, so he just had to wait it out.

"Nothing you can say about the place that I haven't before," he snapped back as he stared down at his shredded former jeans. He left them on the floor of the bathroom - the blood would be easy to clean off the tile whereas a pain in the butt to try to get out of carpet -, and he gently pulled on the fresh boxers that weren't stained red.

But now he had a dilemma: He was going to have to walk out pantsless in front of Wade, who appreciated his rear aloud quite often, who had recently called him a 'hottie', and, well… Peter liked him, maybe. He wasn't a very sexual creature by any means, but he did enjoy Wade, relationship bumps aside. He hadn't really let himself think on it if he could help it, because he always overthought, and just…

Well, when Wade had called him attractive at the restaurant, he'd… he'd felt warm all over and his heart did a weird thing, the same thing it did when he got crushes on someone. That definitely meant something, because that's what had happened with Gwen, and what had happened with… well, the only other person he'd dated had been MJ, so those would be the only ones he'd list.

He gripped the doorknob, and finally, finally forced himself to turn it and step out. Wade was busy looking at the posters and photographs on his wall, and reading the magnets on his mini-fridge.

"Is this seriously all you have?" he asked, sounding about as impressed as Peter was with the other man's nagging questions about his lifestyle.

"Yes," he said. "Look, can you just stop making me feel worse for a few minutes?"

Wade turned and looked at him, and was about to snark something fierce when he noticed that all Peter was wearing was a shirt, some boxers, and a really shitty bandage. Peter forced his eyes to burn holes in his ugly yellow wallpaper while Wade openly admired him. It was when Wade wolf-whistled that Peter just told himself fuck it, and he walked over to his pile of overworn clothes that needed a desperate washing and pulled on a pair of sweats.

"Aw," Wade whined. "You gave me a glimpse of what Heaven's like, and then you take it away from me, just like that?"

Peter felt his face light up in a flame and he cleared his throat. "Are you being serious?" he asked, but he sounded somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. Wade heard the tone and sobered up some.

"Of course I am," he said. "Spidey, your bod's as hot as an Arizona summer, and practically all of the people on Reddit agree with me on that." He was waving his hands like this was going to somehow convince Peter that this was the absolute truth. It just made his face cook a darker shade, and he flopped onto his bed, taking the collateral pain from his bullet wound and covering his face with his pillow.

"No, honestly, I don't know what the fuck I did to make you swipe right on me, but damn, son."

Peter let out a cartoonish whine into his pillow. He couldn't help it; this was massively embarrassing and Peter needed time to let it sink in so that he could come up with the proper response. Especially since Wade had just brought up the dating app, and they'd just come back from their second date, and-

...Oh God. Oh good God, Wade didn't think they were dating-dating, did he? Peter liked him well enough to try to get to know him better, but this wasn't-! He'd swiped right to see where it went, to make new memories about the Pokémon Go app, to try to forget that Wade Winston Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool existed and that he had a really messed up and depressing file lying right on the open internet, and that Peter felt guilty about all of that mess from before, and…

He sat up, his hand covering his mouth, and he let the pillow fall down into his lap. It landed on his wound, but that wasn't anything worth worrying about right now. It was already healing and he could feel it.

"Wade, are we dating?" he asked, and he must have looked like he was staked out somewhere between mortified and curious.

Wade went quiet, and he caught one look at Peter's face and turned away, leaning against the one-foot of counter space between the fridge and the stove. He shrugged, then verbalized his response. "I'nno. You don't really seem so keen on the idea, so nah, we're just dudes bein' bros, you know?"

Peter looked at Wade, and the other man's expression was… upset. "Wade?" he asked quietly, but the mercenary didn't look at him. "Wade?" Peter pressed, more urgency in his voice.

"I'd just pull you down, we both know that," he said, but Peter was wondering if he was more talking to himself than to civvies Spider-Man.

The younger of the two got off of his bed and limped towards the resident chaotic neutral who was no more than five feet away from him. He reached out, and he paused, looking up at Wade for any kind of go-ahead. Wade didn't pull away, didn't back off, didn't jump out the window to get away. So Peter let his hand fall on top of the other's, and he curled his fingers around the large palm. He didn't hate the feeling of Wade's skin on his, it was just going to take a little while to get used to, and…

Oh, the thought that struck him so hard and fast that it left him absolutely winded.

Wade couldn't die. He couldn't die. The problem with dating Peter Benjamin Parker was the danger that came with it, the genetic bad luck, the trove of sob-stories that made up his past. He didn't want Wade to be one of those, to be a smudge on the calendar at this point in his life that he'd rather forget five years down the line when he thought about the two of them. He always sprung right back up, like some kind of daisy straight from Hell, and Peter started tearing up before he could stop himself. He didn't know what all sorts of baggage he'd been holding back besides the weight of Ben, or what connection his brain and heart had made without him in the loop, but he was left a blubbering mess against Wade's chest, and Wade held him there, wrapped his big, warm arms around Peter and held him close.

Wade wouldn't die.