The panic racing through his very bones was nothing Wade Wilson had ever experienced before.
He had been in countless threatening, dangerous and downright fatal situations before, but he had never felt like this. Had never been this…
…broken…
…vulnerable…
…human…
All too human and too open and too…
The chimera hissed, confusion dominant, and it prowled restlessly around the confines of its human shell. It shied away from exploring the tiny form of intimacy it already shared with Spider-Man, that fledgling connection Deadpool could feel and neither wanted to have, or really wanted to miss again.
He buried his fist in a wall, breaking every bone and watching it knit back together again with a detached air.
Inside, the charred remains of his broken preternatural heritage whimpered, twisting and turning like a leashed thing.
Spidey had offered.
Spidey had revealed himself, shown him his face, given him his name, and he had offered the chimera… everything.
But Deadpool… Wade… he couldn't bond any more. He was dead. It was something that didn't recover.
Liar, liar, liar, something inside of him chanted, nasty and dark, and he curled away from it with a groan.
It had been so long since that time. So many deaths and returns. So many broken parts arranging themselves back into the monster that he was, the disfigured thing that was no longer Wade Wilson.
He was Deadpool.
And he couldn't…
Can, too! Can, too! Can, too!
He hadn't been human in such a long time. Just a collection of altered DNA, thrown together, given a good shake, watching it turn into the thing they had wanted. His skin was a reflection of his soul.
No, he hadn't been human ever since…
Now… now he was… what?
Still Deadpool, but now with a weakness. His Spidey was a weakness. He hadn't had one in too long either.
He craved it.
He wanted it.
It gave him a thrill like nothing else.
He wanted this man in his life.
It was a hunger he couldn't explain, couldn't feed unless he hung around his favorite hero, his idol, and now he had a face… a beautiful, smooth, human face, to go with his fantasies.
It wasn't healthy, but his life had never been.
Peter had kissed him. He. Had. Kissed. Him!
The chimera was extremely confused by that act of intimacy. Sitting close together, yes. Copping a feel, sure. But Peter, not Spider-Man, but he was Spider-Man, not just Peter Parker… Wade gave a groan.
Spidey-Peter had kissed him.
It had been incredible; breath-taking. Like the man himself.
He made a soft, keening noise, echoed by the vortex. The chimera, for all its ferocious nature and killer instinct, the apex predator of the preternatural world – maybe even of the supernatural world – had been reduced to a confused little presence that was lashing out and trying to hide itself in one.
The kiss, the intimacy, the offer had been all Deadpool had ever wanted, presented to him on a silver platter, and he had… run. He had bailed out like the coward he was, and he was…
He was lost. Adrift.
Cue Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.
"Fuck."
The single word seemed to lance through him, cutting his mind apart. With an extreme effort he managed not to just curl up and crawl into a corner.
He wanted to shoot himself in the head.
He wanted to drive his katanas into his gut and be done with it.
But, fuck his life! He wouldn't ever be able to end himself.
Not that he really wanted to anymore. His death wish had long since withered away and ever since Spider-Man, something new was driving him. Something blossoming slowly, unfolding like a horrifying piece of origami coming apart, stretching and growing, wanting to break out of its original shape.
Deadpool let himself fall face first onto the ratty old couch.
"Fuck it all sideways!" he moaned.
SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSC
Within twenty-four hours he knew everything there was about Peter Benjamin Parker, single, no relationship status to speak of, twenty-three years old as of a few days ago.
Deadpool wasn't the best of the best because of just his mouth. Yeah, that was a bonus and kept his mind from overflowing and finally breaking completely. He loved to talk endlessly, even through getting shot, stabbed or even beheaded. The last wasn't all too much fun, but it had happened more than once.
People had dumped acid on him had dismembered and gutted him, but he had always had his mouth, except for that one memorable moment where he hadn't.
Yeah. Not fun, with a running commentary going through his still present brain and no outlet.
Go figure his crap life.
So he was good. He wasn't a tool to be pointed at a target and told to fetch. Deadpool was his own man. He made his own decision, what job to take and which one to tell the client go stick up his own butt. He had connections, he had contacts, he had informants, and he had whatever he needed to find out what he wanted about a target.
Peter Parker was his target.
His adorable, 'I'm-fucking-robbing-the-cradle' target.
He knew about his life, his family, his education, his jobs, his lack of true funds in a woefully empty bank account. He looked into his history, saw the amount of student loans that needed to be paid, the lessening income as of last month.
The bank was biting at his heels.
Explained why he didn't eat right, part of him mused. That kind of income was just above poverty level.
Poor baby boy.
That cemented the fact that he would bring food to their crime-fighting outings. Taking care of his little spider, offering what little he could, aside from his endless wit and charming personality. And the firepower to end the scumbag who dared to hurt his Spidey.
Deadpool drew himself out of his musings. He knew Peter's address already, had checked out all the prior addresses. No new secret revealed there.
What was his angle? What did the geeky kid that was Peter Parker, biophysicist, get from being best buds with the likes of Deadpool?
What did Spider-Man?
Spidey was a goddamn, true, down to the very bone and marrow hero. He was essential good, all pure, all tasty and delicious, wrapped up in tight, body-defining spandex.
What was it?!
Deadpool sat in front of his laptop, staring at the intel, fingers tracking along the edge of the machine in a mindless pattern.
His mind, though, wasn't just tracking. It was jumping all over the place and trying to look at the information from every angle.
No one would gain anything from trying to connect to him, the hellhound. That broken wreck of a man. He wasn't useful anymore.
The Avengers hired him to do the dirty work, never associating with him openly if they could help it. He had had run-ins with Black Widow and Hawkeye, had gotten the stink-eye from Tony Stark, the cool, distant, downright judgmental one from Cap.
He would never be good enough.
Not even by loose association with Spidey.
His hero.
Who was more now.
Who was Peter Parker and so much more.
Wade drew a sharp breath, leaning back into the old, ratty couch, burying his hands into the pockets of the too large hoody.
The numbness had made way to a distant ache. Like an analgesic that had worn off, the ache was getting stronger with each day.
The chimera had always been strong, but now it was growing more confident, more assured in its existence. It had gotten a taste of something it wanted.
It was hungry.
And with his preternatural side, Deadpool was yearning for something that shouldn't be possible, that shouldn't be his anymore. It had been erased, remade, destroyed. They wanted a clean slate to make him into what they had wanted.
Wade Wilson had looked into the amazing brown eyes, that youthful, amazingly handsome, downright beautiful face, and all the other amazing attributes… Yes, amazing. All of him.
Peter. Spidey. Petey.
He smirked a little to himself.
The yearning was gnawing at the wreckage of his soul, all those tiny splinters, those charred bones, blackened and dead, left over from a time when he had hoped to find the one person to trust.
Vanessa had seemed like the perfect choice.
They had made her like that. They had made him want her. Weapon X had manipulated his drugged mind, had twisted his DNA to accept her as his bonded handler. Wade wasn't sure he would have consciously let her be that one for him if he hadn't been plagued by hallucinations, half starved, close to asphyxiated, yearning for release and fighting to survive in the same breath.
Peter wasn't Vanessa.
He simply wasn't.
For one, he was male. Very much so. Very, very manly in all the right places. That part of him smirked, fangs showing behind hungry lips. A man after his own, dark heart.
But he also hadn't been created for him, made perfect for Deadpool, to bond to the chimera and control it.
But he was.
So perfect.
So tasty and sweet.
Wade dropped back his head and stared at the ceiling.
His very soul ached, a phantom pain in someone who was soulless and incapable of forming a connection his kind was capable of achieving.
Phantom pain.
That ache that wouldn't go away. And the thought of Peter's touch, his expression, that touch of bare lips against his masked ones.
Deadpool closed his eyes with a soft groan.
He wanted. With a passion that he hadn't felt… forever. This was real yearning, real need. Nothing induced by drugs.
He was in deep, deep shit.
Really deep.
SDSDSD
He wasn't stalking Peter.
Nope.
Just watching.
From a distance.
Completely not creepy and completely normal.
Watching.
That wasn't really stalking, right? Right?!
Sure, he had taken a peek through the windows into the nerdy apartment with its stacks of books, papers everywhere, a laptop on the coffee table, a desk overflowing with geek stuff, but he hadn't broken in.
Deadpool had a limit.
Then again, not really.
But he watched and he waited, and he didn't so much as glance at the red and blue figure dropping gracefully on the roof beside him. Wade was too much aware of him anyway. Too intensely, too acutely, too minutely. Every cell in his body responded to the nearness of the other man.
Reach out.
Touch.
Feel touch in return.
Skin on skin.
Watch him turn and run as he finally saw the wrecked skin and hollow man underneath the cool mask.
"In anyone else I'd call it creepy," Spidey remarked casually and settled down on the low balustrade. "In you? Normal behavior."
"Getting to know the objective."
"I'm an objective?"
Deadpool turned at the teasing note, taking in the tilt to the head, the almost playful aura around the younger man.
Who had kissed him.
Who had offered.
Who wanted… Deadpool? He had to be out of his mind.
"With a great ass," he commented with equal playfulness, pushing all the darkness and scathing thoughts back into their cold, dark and dank cesspit of his mind. "Great assets, too." He winked.
Spidey chuckled. "You could come in, y'know," he then remarked. "You're invited. Just in case that's what it takes to get you across the threshold."
"I'm not some fucking vampire," he grumbled. "Sure, I'm kinda undead, but then again, not really. Heartbeat and all. I also have a reflection. Not one you'd wanna see, but I got one. So not a vampire. But hey, maybe they put some of that into the mix, too. Who knows? Might have lost their notes. Didn't read about bloodsucker on top of the other shit. Do you think real vampires exist? Never met one, though there have been some suspicious characters I could have sworn…"
"I'd like to."
Deadpool blinked, rambling coming to a full stop. "Huh?" Oh, smooth. Really smooth.
"I'd like to see you. At my place." Peter shrugged. "You know who I am. You probably researched me."
He knows me.
He kissed me.
He wants… he can't understand what he wants!
"And it isn't like that big of a step to get my address, right? Just in case you didn't have that one already."
Spidey nodded at the building.
Deadpool watched him silently, all kinds of scenarios running through his head. Then, when Spider-Man dropped over the side of the roof and swung to his own, he followed.
Automatically.
Not really thinking.
The chimera purred; pleased. It stretched through the ruins of his soul, darkness oozing out of the void and curling happily around the charred ruins. Milky eyes held a silver glint, watching Spider-Man with fascination and longing.
He was so fucked.
Fucked up and fucked in one.
The phantom pain was back and it felt no longer like a phantom at all. It was a clamoring noise, a scream to follow his instincts.
SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSD
It became a thing.
Between them.
Just without the kissing. Neither spoke of that incident again, the closeness and Peter's offer.
Deadpool could feel it, though. That invisible connection, the way he leaned closer without physically moving, and how it affected him to be with Peter.
Deadpool would be Wade, would be spending time with Peter, not Spider-Man, though they were one and the same, and then again they weren't.
He would bring over pizza or Mexican food, sometimes sub sandwiches and a family bag of chips, would sit on Peter's old couch and watch the younger man work, or they would just enjoy a TV show, play video games, make fun of B-movies…
Normal, and then again not.
Peter would sit in his jacket or sweater, in old jeans or sweat pants, he would give Wade bright smiles or just shoot him quizzical looks when the runaway mouth made short work of normalcy. He understood Wade's TV references, from way back in the Seventies to today.
But it was normal. For them.
Peter didn't run. He didn't hide.
Like Wade did all the fucking time. Hiding. Hiding himself.
He also wore glasses.
Large lenses, plastic frames, nerd glasses.
He looked like a fucking college boy, not someone who had already finished school and was struggling in the job market.
What have I gotten myself into, brain? Deadpool wondered. And when? And why him?
What was so special about this man that the chimera was so focused on him, gave in to Peter, calmed down and curled up into a fluff ball of terror?
What power do you wield?
tbc...