Steve's voice was still ringing ominously in Peter's ears as he realized that Steve wasn't the only one to be joining them this afternoon.

"What's going on down there?" Tony's voice echoed up, and Peter hastily tugged his mask all the way down before the rest of the Avengers stumbled into the room, coming to a halt behind Mr. America Angry-Pants.

Peter's shoulders slumped and he muttered "Why does this keep happening?" to Wade out of the corner of his mouth. Wade shrugged and took a step farther away as Natasha reached for her gun.

"Not again," Peter groaned, and considered once more fleeing for his life.

Thor stepped forward with a morose expression on his face. "Wade. Friend. I—you promised to not squander your relationship once more."

Wade, for the second time that day, drew silent, and Peter decided to cut this off at the head.

"Ok guys," he put he hands out in a placating gesture, "I promise this is not as bad as it looks. See, the funny thing is—"

"THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY," Thor roared, turning on Peter, "ABOUT COMMITTING ADULTERY! HOW DARE YOU?" A crash of thunder shook the building and Peter took an involuntary step back.

"Woah!" Wade said, stepping forward, "don't take this out on him!"

At the same time, Peter said, "We don't deserve this shit."

"Oh," Thor said, a dark expression clouding his features, "you do deserve our ire. You have lied to us time and again, and you have betrayed the sweet young thing whom we have vowed to protect! He might, at this moment, be awaiting your return, and here you are, ruining the sanctity of your relationship!"

Peter squared his shoulders. "If you would just let me explain!"

This time Natasha stepped forward, and her expression was compassionate, her arms were held out as one might to a piteous crying creature, Peter wanted to break down at how ridiculous this all was. Jarvis had accepted who he was, maybe the Avengers would too. If only he was given the chance to tell them. "Spiderman," she said softly, and stepped forward again, "I know you think you love him, and I know you think he loves you too, but the mistress always thinks her lover will leave his wife, and he never does."

"Yeah," Tony exclaimed with a snarling expression, and for the first time Peter noticed that they were all cleaned and dressed in their civilian clothing. "Only neither the mistress nor the wife deserve the slimeball they're both somehow attached to."

"Hey!" Pete shouted, because 1) he was not a mistress, thank you very much, and 2) Wade was not a slimeball.

"Please," Bruce said, kindly, "Spidey, the Hulk likes you, Natasha likes you. We know you aren't a bad guy, but this isn't good."

"If I could just explain!" Peter said again, he turned to Clint who was standing silent and was the only one who hadn't spoken yet. "Cl—Hawkeye! Help me out here."

Clint mimed zipping his mouth shut, locking it, throwing away the key, and then shook his head. Then he miraculously broke the lock and the zipper with just the strength of his lips, and said, "You had a point with the thing about me not giving you a second chance, and don't get me wrong, I totally regret shooting arrows at you, but you had your second chance and you blew it." He made a tsking noise and Peter debated the merits of webbing his mouth shut permanently.

"We can help you out, Spidey," Natasha offered, nice and slow, "help you get away from this guy. Deadpool is not good for you any more than he is for his fiancé."

Peter groaned, loudly, in defiance of everything that was happening. "Shut up," he moaned, "before you guys say something you will regret when I finally explain!"

"Speaking of Deadpool not being good," Steve said, and his tone was still ice cold, "I think it's time that we talk about your place among the Avengers, Deadpool. This is not the sort of thing we condone—"

"Let me talk!" Peter screamed. "It's me! You don't have to be pissed at Wade because he's not cheating because—"

"Excuses!" Steve said stonily. "These are all excuses. As much as you're saying you haven't done anything wrong, you and I both know that's not true. Deadpool has betrayed more than one trust with his misdeeds, and we cannot condone that!"

Out of the corner of Peter's eye he could see how Wade's shoulders had slumped in defeat and resignation, and Peter cracked. How dare he hurt Wade like that? How dare he?

With an inhuman growl Peter leapt at Steve, his right arm swinging forward in a feigned punch, one which Steve dodged, which left the captain wide open for Peter's left hook which connected with Steve's cheekbone with a sickening crack. The crack had, awkwardly, come from Peter's hand and not Steve's face, which still looked as pristine, if more pissed, than usual.

Peter's sudden bout of anger left him as Thor lifted him by the throat and held him there, feet dangling in mid-air.

"That was very stupid," Peter scolded himself, and he hooked his right hand over Thor's, which was not tight enough around his neck to cause serious pain, in order to gain better leverage. The other hand, his left one, he shook out a little and winced as a shock of pain went through it.

"Yes it was," Steve said darkly and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Hey now," Wade said, and his tone held that wily quality that he always used when he was trying to weasel himself (or Peter in this case) out of something, "why don't we just put the itty bitty spider down and talk about this like adults, huh?"

"I don't know," Tony said, "if we let him down he might start punching us all in the face," at the same time that Peter said, "Really, Wade? Itty Bitty? I'm not that small."

There was an awkward moment where no one spoke, and Peter, for all that he was still hanging at least a foot off the floor, thought that he would finally be able to just tell them and then he could deal with the awkwardness of people realizing that he was Spiderman, rather than the awkwardness of people hating on his boyfriend because he hadn't been able to just own up earlier and reveal himself. But, as was his luck, that moment was yanked away from him by Bruce saying, "I actually think I agree with Wade about this for once in my life. Why don't we all just calm down and talk about this. No more yelling," he turned to Thor, "no more punching," he glared at Spidey, "and no more making wild accusations without using our inside voices," he looked each person in the eye individually, "then I think we can get through this in a more dignified manner."

"I like him," Wade muttered to Peter, but definitely loud enough for everyone to hear.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Obviously. But I like him too. He's pretty chill." Peter looked down at Thor and sighed when he saw that Thor's expression was just as stony as ever. "Look, I'm sorry for trying, and succeeding, to punch your leader in the face. Trust me, I already regret it. My emotions were running high, words were said, there was yelling, I'm sorry. Don't you think you could let me down? I promise to behave this time. Please? Of all days, today, the day of your daughter's wedding—"

Clint snorted and then immediately tried to compose his face back into a serious expression, but Peter couldn't help but notice the corners of his mouth quirking in mirth.

"My daughter's wedding?" Thor questioned, and lowered his hand slowly, allowing Peter to stand on his feet. He released his neck and recrossed his arms. "I do not have a daughter."

"As far as you know," Wade and Tony said at the same time, and Tony shot a glare at Wade who was smiling gleefully in Tony's direction.

Peter smiled and tried to stretch his hand in an inconspicuous manner, but winced as pain shot through it. He tried to massage it, working the kinks out, but through his glove he wasn't able to see how bad it was. He glanced up in time to see Wade's smile drop.

"Babe," Wade said, all serious, and stepped forward to take Peter's hand in his. Peter winced again as Wade tried to feel if any of the bones were broken. "What did you do to your hand?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "You saw exactly what I did, you idiot."

"You're the idiot for trying to help me out by punching Captain America."

Peter winced this time, in non-pain. "Do you think it's broken?"

"Oh my god," Tony said, in quiet awe, "Deadpool is comforting Spiderman about a hand he possibly broke punching Captain America while standing in my tower."

"Right?" Peter asked, "That's pretty much what I'm like all of the time. Like, woah! I just got picked up by Thor, after getting verbally smacked down by Hawkeye, and coddled by Black Widow, punching Captain America in the face in Iron Man's Tower. And fricken Bruce Banner played referee! How sweet is that?"

"That's…" Natasha said slowly, "not the reaction I was expecting."