They then read each paper carefully and when they agreed that they were as good as legit ones, Wade and Peter went to the city to have their pictures taken for the documents and Ids. When they went to the bank to reactivate and withdraw money from Wade's account, the lady at the desk looked at him warily but asked no further questions when Wade passed all of the security measures and protocols. He was given a debit and a credit card with extensions of each for Peter and after withdrawing some cash for personal use, they took a taxi and headed to Queens, bought two new phones and cheered when they discovered that the Mexican restaurant they usually went to back in their Queens was also in this one. They stopped there for lunch and discussed what they should do next.
"There's no guarantee they will let us stay. At least me," Wade said as he stuffed yet another burrito into his mouth. "No one wants a mercenary under their roof, not even former ones so why bother coming back? Maybe this way they will hurry and repair the teleporter so they can kick us out of these universe and hang a 'No Deadpools allowed'. It wouldn't be the first time I've been banned from an entire fucking universe."
"We don't know that yet, Wade." Peter shook his head and took another bite of his quesadilla. "And even if they don't want nothing with us, we still owe them for the time they let us stay with them. After all, they gave us place to stay and food. We have to repay them." Wade grumbled something unintelligible as he chewed his food but to Peter, it sounded like an agreement. "Chiron said we should go back for dinner, so we have until then to look for a place for us. How about we go to our street and see what's there for sale once we finish lunch?" Peter offered and took a sip of his beer, smiling when Wade's eyes darted to meet his and a huge grin appeared on the older man's face, pieces of chewed meat and vegetables falling onto his plate. Peter scrunched his nose up in amused disgust at the sight.
"You surely know what to say to make a lady fall for you, Mr. Parker." They finished their lunch and decided to walk to their "old" street. It was a forty minutes walk – and just five minutes when swinging, which they spent bantering and trying to guess how different the movies could be in this universe and if they should check them out - they'd definitely do it. They tried not to get their hopes up. "Their" house could not be for sale or could simply not exist at all.
The first thing they noted when they got to their street was that it was different from the one they had lived at. There were a couple more buildings next to the houses and the fenced looked a bit duller than the ones they knew, but the similarities hit them hard and they felt a wave of nostalgia pooling on their hearts.
Their house was still in the middle but this time, a building towered over it, casting a shadow over the brick walls. A big sign read "For Sale" in the front lawn. Peter called it fate, Wade "Writer convenience", but started dialling the number written on the sign as he laced his fingers with the hero. He didn't wait for the voice at the other side of the line to finish greeting him, he outright asked for the price of the house and that he would offer a 25% more if they could sign the papers in the next two hours. By the time the previous owners of the house and the real estate agent arrived with the contract, Wade had already ordered all the furniture and appliances and had payed extra for everything to arrive before six.
At five thirty, Peter and Wade had closed the front door and slid to the wooden floor, surrounded by piles of boxes, with Wade sitting on Peter's lap, holding each other tightly. They both knew they were just putting on a pretty band-aid over their wound. This place looked like their house but it was not their home.
"We need to go back to the camp, Wade." Peter drew circles on Wade's back the entire time and trailed kisses from his neck to his shoulder reassuringly. "It's almost dinner time and we need to get to Long Island in thirty minutes so Jason and Percy can pick us up." Wade just nodded but refused to get up.
"Going back means I have to face everyone's rejection and I'd rather pass on that. Thank you very much. We should go on patrol tonight, y'know? Like the old times." He threaded his fingers through Peter's soft hair.
"Wade…"
"I'm serious, baby boy. You need it."
"We'll talk about this later, okay? We need to get going and we can't swing there." Peter patted Wade's thighs and urged him to get up. Wade pouted but got on his feet and helped his spider up. They locked the door behind them and headed to the avenue, where they hailed a taxi. The driver was more than excited to take them to Long Island. Wade and him soon engaged in a conversation where both of them talked and none of them listened to the other during most part of the trip. Peter looked at the buildings out the window, thinking about Wade's words from earlier. He sighed. Yeah, he missed the rush of adrenaline every time he jumped off the rooftops and the wind roaring on his ears as he swung across the streets.
He could feel the itch beneath his skin, the one that yearned for his hero job.
No sooner had he finished that thought that his spider-sense triggered and made Peter instinctively grab Wade's arm and push themselves to the floor while yelling "Get down!" to the driver. The windows got smashed and glass flew everywhere; they hissed and cursed loudly as the shards pierced their skin.
Forceful arms grabbed and threw them out of the car and onto the asphalt. Peter jumped back on his feet and took a look at their attacker. There were two of them. From the waist up, they had the face and torso of strikingly beautiful women, but instead of legs, they had two long serpent tails. They hissed and lunged forward, their swords raised.
"Where are the demigods?!" they hissed, extending the 's' sound.
Wade was standing in a second, his katanas unsheathed and blocked the serpent-women blows with them. He rapidly went to the offensive. They had attacked Peter! He would send them back to Tartarus in the most painful way. He moved quickly, throwing blow after blow to the monsters, but they were fast and nimble, always moving away from his blades at the last second.
"Deadpool!" Peter shot his head up in time to look Nico and Lou Ellen emerging from a dark alley. He did not have his web-shooters nor any kind of weapon with him and since the monsters were focused on his boyfriend, he run up to the demigods and explained what had happened.
Nico nodded and started running towards Wade as he shouted, "Lou Ellen! Make sure the Mist covers us!" She nodded and motioned Peter to come next to her as they scanned their surroundings, making sure there were no more monsters before the flicked her wrists and distorted the area around them so that mortals saw anything else but the battle Wade and Nico were currently engaged in. Peter couldn't help but admire the way both of them moved, synchronized, anticipating each other's movements and not getting in each other's way as they lunged at the monsters.
Suddenly, taking advantage of an opening, Wade used both of his katanas to pin one of the monsters down and took a bronze blade from the inside of his boot and buried it on the creature's eye socket. The serpent-woman screeched as she turned into dust under Wade's hands. He stomped on the pile to scatter it in the wind and prevent them from regenerating anytime soon, just as the demigods had explained to him.
He then turned to the other monster just as she went berserk and started slashing at him erratically. Wade found himself struggling to block and return the blows at the same time that two more monsters appeared and started attacking Nico. They were eight foot tall with heavily tattooed arms and pointy yellow teeth. They wore leather armour and iron clubs.
"Laistrygonian Giants! Styx!" Lou Ellen cursed. "Peter, we have to move fast. I'll take you to the camp and I'm bringing back reinforcements." She did not wait for Peter to answer, she invoked more Mist and opened a portal and pushed Peter inside. In less than a minute, they appeared on the Blue House, where she left him and ran towards the cabins and looked for Percy and Jason. "We were ambushed. There were Scythian Dracanae and Laistrygonian Giants waiting for us at the meeting point," she explained as she, once again, opened a portal. She grabbed both demigods by the arms and let the Mist envelope them. "Nico and Deadpool are battling but they won't last long if we don't hurry." Just before the portal closed behind them, they could hear Peter's voice calling them, asking them to wait.
They landed in the exact same spot she and Peter had disappeared from… Just in time to see Wade jumping in front of Nico and taking the Scythian Dracanae's sword instead. Wade went limp in a matter of seconds and the monster, sneering, threw his body to the Giants. Percy ran towards Nico, Riptide in hand, and slashed at the monster, giving Nico time to get up and start attacking at the same time. The serpent-woman found herself at disadvantage, fighting two children of the Eldest Gods at the same time. Nico killed her by decapitating her.
Jason and Lou Ellen went straight for the Giants, who were… Oh Gods, they had teared the ex-mercenary's limbs and took a bite out of them, but scrunched their faces in disgust. They raised their clubs and brought them down on the fallen man. Jason gagged at not only the sight but to the sound of the clubs hitting flesh, the splashing of blood and the strong scent of death. The son of Jupiter readied his gladius and lunged forward, the air filled with electricity. He summoned a storm and when the monsters looked up, startled by the sudden thunders, he struck one of the monster's down in one swift motion.
The last Giant tried to run away when he realised the battle would be four against one. He did not get very far. The wind howled as it dispersed the piles of dust.
The four of them stood there, their breathing ragged, as they look at the puddle of blood, flesh and bones they had shared breakfast with that same morning. They looked at each other and started discussing in hushed voices what they should do with the body. They would not leave it there, that was for sure but… Should they take it back to camp and burn it? He had died protecting Nico. He had had a hero's death. They remembered Wade's words from the previous night. He could not die. They had seen him regrow his limbs, sure. But they had a hard time believing that he could just come back from the dead like it was an everyday occurrence.
Above all, they discussed who would tell Peter about this.
In the end, they decided to travel through the Mist, each of them taking as many pieces of the ex-mercenary's body as possible. They appeared on the farthest corner of the infirmary, and placed the bloody remains on one of the beds and asked one of the satyrs to fetch Will. The harpies would have a fit cleaning the sheets.
Will came as soon as he could and listened to the group's story and grimaced when they showed him Wade's remains. He quickly but thoroughly checked and bandaged their wounds and sent them to have showers before reporting this to Chiron. They left at once but on the way back they ran into a distressed Peter who demanded to know what had happened. They looked at each other before having Nico explain the situation.
"He saved my life but…" Nico trailed off, unsure of how to say what he needed to say.
"He died." Peter was not asking. The four demigods nodded. Peter ran his hands through his hair, clearly distressed. "...Did you bring all of him?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper. When they nodded, the young man walked past through them and barged into the infirmary, startling the young son of Apollo. He tried to shield the sight from Peter but Peter shove him aside, always minding his super-strength. "Please draw the curtains… Wade hates to be seen when he regenerates."
"Peter…" Will wanted to explain that it would be futile. The man was dead, his soul was already in the Underworld and, no matter how much Wade had claimed he could come back, the rules here were different. The Doors of Death were closed and Hades would never let a soul go back. Not even his daughter's was allowed to return, he thought with a frown.
"He's coming back, Will… He has to…" Peter whispered and turned to grab a nearby chair and draw the curtains himself. "He'll be back tomorrow," he said, mostly to himself. Peter stared at the bloodied mass with a throbbing pain in his chest as he carefully started placing the severed limbs on their rightful places. Wade's regeneration would be hard and painful as it was without having to regrow existing, albeit battered, parts of him. He tried his best not to think about what would happen if this time was different from the others. Wade died more often than not back in their universe.
"But this is not your universe, isn't it? Here gods are real, not aliens. Maybe the curse placed on Wade doesn't work here…" a voice in his head muttered darkly. "No, no, no, no, Peter. Breathe in deep, not too deep though." The bitter smell of iron burned his lungs and made his stomach churn uneasily as he tried to calm himself. It took him longer than planned, but after two hours, he grabbed a wet towel and cleaned the red of his hands before sighing a long sigh. He sat on the chair and pulled it next to the crimson bed, ready to wait whatever amount of time Wade needed…
He must have fallen asleep, because a rustling sound made his senses come to life and his first reaction was to feel around for Wade, the sticky feeling of the blood soaked blankets reminding him once again of the mess that had been Wade.
His eyes didn't really want to open, he didn't want to see the bloodied chaos, but the fact that his spider-sense did not trigger told him that there was no danger, so it gave him hope. Hope that it was finally Wade waking up.
Still, Peter could not help but hesitate before he opened his eyes. Straightening his back, he slowly lifted his eyelids and, looking from the corner of his eyes, checked the bed for motion, fearing he would be faced with a bloody mess that had not healed.
"Baby boy," a croaked voice called, "somebody better call God and tell him he's missing an angel." Peter tried not to groan with all his might, he really did. He failed miserably.
He laughed and buried his face in the crook of Wade's neck, hugging him tightly. He laughed until tears fell from his eyes and then he began sobbing. He did not realise how afraid he was until that very moment, when Wade draped an arm clumsily around Peter's shoulders. He paid no attention to the sticky blood seeping through his clothes, lost in the relief of having his soulmate back with him. "God you are so cheesy," he hiccuped. He could feel Wade's pulse on his neck and moved his lips to press them against the soft, bumpy skin.
After a few minutes, when he had cried most of his anxiety and fear out, Peter was calm enough to disentangle from Wade and grab more towels and water. He tapped the damped fabric gently across his body, carefully washing the dried brown blood away.
"... You got me scared for a while," Peter confessed when he threw the last towel into the reddish water.
"Petey…" Wade struggled to press his hand gently on the brunet's cheek, his body ached in four different ways in a million different places. "Not even the Fates would keep me away from you. You are stuck with me until the end of times." He flashed Peter his cheekiest grin, causing his lips to chap and his skin to break -it healed almost instantly but still hurt like hell.
Peter shook his head and got up to stretch his cramped muscles. He drew the curtains and let the moonlight filter through one of the many windows, caressing Wade's face. "Do you want to spend the night here on the infirmary?" Wade shook his head. "Then we'll have to be quick because your clothes were reduced to smithereens and I don't have any spares with me right now." And I'm not letting you out of my sight again, he thought.
He made sure the place was completely empty before he helped Wade sit up on the edge of the bed and his heart dropped every time Wade let out a pained groan. Ignoring his boyfriend's lewd comments with a roll of his eyes he sat between Wade's legs and wrapped them around his waist and his shoulders around his neck. Making full use of his enhanced strength, Peter got up and gave a piggy-back ride to his naked boyfriend like he weighed less than a feather. He carefully opened the door and stealthily sprinted upstairs until they were inside their room. He tried to place Wade on the bed but the ex-mercenary tightened his grip on Peter. "Wade. Let me go." Wade shook his head and placed a kiss on Peter's nape, sending shivers down his spine. "Wade…" He shook his head again. "Either you go to bed like a good boy or I'm taking you back to the infirmary."
"You wouldn't dare," Wade said against Peter's nape.
"Try me." They both knew we was not being serious, but Wade still let go of Peter, who quickly turned and tucked him in before undressing and getting into bed too. He snuggled against the other man and rested his head on Wade's chest, hearing with content his strong heartbeat. They fell asleep in each other's arms.