Warning: Some VIOLENCE mentioned.

Then it'll hurt like hell.

For the next four days, Peter tried to stay calm and keep himself distracted. During the daytime, he did every day normal life activities, and at night, it was with a more rigorous patrol.

On the days when he had classes, he went to every single one, not missing or skipping any, even when he knew the content, he attended. Afterward, he'd go home again, where he'd do whatever he could to keep his mind occupied, like doing some studying or, if he had anything outstanding, he'd do some university work. When he had no school work, he'd try to focus on some interest reading, or he'd play games on his phone, or he'd work on some gadgets, some for his new suit, some just for distraction. Anything to keep himself busy until the time came for him to go on patrol, which, when he did, he threw himself into until he was thoroughly exhausted and would pass out dead asleep once he got home again. On two of the days, he'd even gone out a little earlier and returned home 'later', just because he'd felt too restless, impatient and had needed something to focus on. Only on one of the four days, he'd broken that routine to visit the closest convenience store, where he'd picked up some basic groceries. Not that he was doing much eating, which he knew wasn't good...

But really, if he was honest with himself, the sad state of his life was not unalike how it'd been before Wade had showed up, except, the one consistent thing he'd had in his life before, was missing.

In four days, he hadn't heard from May other than when she texted once a day randomly, to check if he was okay, or when he texted her after patrol to say he was home safe, and then she'd just reply with a thumbs up emoji. Their communication had become limited to just making sure the other was alive, which really bothered Peter, but it was in a muted way, because he too, was still angry and upset over everything that had happened, for more reasons than he even wanted to unpack. So he didn't unpack it, instead, like with many things that had messed him up emotionally over the years, he just repressed it and kept going.

Although, he did make more of a point to not forget to text May at the end of every patrol, since part, or the entirety, of the reason Wade had seemingly taken off was because May had shown up at his apartment, with MJ, to check on him after he'd forgotten to text her. And yeah, that, Wade being AWOL, was the biggest part of why he needed distraction, of why he needed to stay busy, and of why he was upset.

The man seemed to be totally ghosting him, for real that time, and because of the sensitive and personal circumstances surrounding the situation, it was more upsetting. But Peter was making a point not to cry, mope or be moody about it, each day making an effort to ignore his feelings on the issue, figuring he'd leave it to be dealt with when Wade finally showed up again, because that was what he'd had to do every time the man had been uncontactable previously.

He was more alone this time though, seeing as how his relationship with May was being strained, specifically because of his comp-ugh, screw that word. Because of his messed up relationship with Wade.

Yeah, that was it, everything was just so messed up.

On the fifth day in the late morning, having woken up feeling a little more down and irritable, and before deciding to go to university to pass some time in the labs, Peter tried calling again. The dial tone connected...and then it rang and rang and rang until it went to automated voicemail. Peter didn't leave a message. And when he once again checked to see the status of his sent texts, he found they were still unread.

He really had no idea what was going on with Wade. And yeah, okay, he understood that Wade was probably upset, he was upset too, but he was also so confused about the lack of contact. And a part of him still felt a little guilty, because of his fault in not telling Wade about MJ being around and still being a small part of his life, leaving him worried about Wade's state of mind after finding out, and worrying that Wade was hurting himself.

But with every new hour that went by during which he tried, and failed, not to think about Wade choosing not to contact him, he started wondering more and more, whether the thing with MJ unexpectedly being in his apartment with his aunt, was really a good enough reason for Wade to have disappeared without a word? And the more he thought about it, the more he felt it really wasn't justified for Wade to just go off and ignore him when they could easily have discussed it. Neither of them were particularly good at talking about their feelings, but damn it, they could have tried !

It was really crappy, feeling the way he did, especially since trying to ignore it was only becoming harder as time ticked on, and with his doubts and anxiety mounting, slow but surely, Peter was starting to feel genuinely angry at Wade.

That same Friday, a few of his peers at university asked him if he wanted to get a drink.

And Peter didn't drink, or, he had once, just some champagne at some social gathering he'd gone to with MJ one time. But even after just a single glass he'd been embarrassingly tipsy, and despite the fact that it didn't last too long in his system, it'd messed with all his senses and had made him feel quite generally awful. He knew though, that champagne, or bubbly alcoholic drinks of any kind, were generally inclined to cause intoxication faster than other alcohols, but he still chose not to drink since that time.

So he didn't change his mind about not drinking, but he agreed to go out with his peers, only because being alone in his apartment, while frustratingly missing someone he was angry at, was starting to get to him. After all, he could only do so much at home to avoid miserably overthinking things, and if he went out too early on patrol, he'd just end up sitting on a rooftop somewhere, waiting for some kind of crime to happen while still miserably overthinking things. So, yeah, being around other people seemed like a good idea. Like a good, active distraction!

But no. Nope.

It turned out to be an awful idea. With everyone else drinking, and everyone being so jovial and talkative and often encouraging and pulling each other to go dance, it was stressful to be around them. Also, it was noisy in the bar-club place they'd ended up at, which was hard on his senses on a good day, let alone with the way he was presently feeling. So, Peter just sat in the small group, drinking non-alcoholic Heineken beer and declining every offer to dance, also barely contributing to the various conversations going on. But it was after one girl, a chem major who was a year old than him, who'd kept flirting with him the drunker she got, started to come on really strong, that Peter finally decided to make an excuse to leave, before she could start becoming any more insistent or any bolder with her hands.

He'd never been the hooking up type after all, let alone to do so with someone drunk, it just wasn't his thing. And he hadn't wanted her to embarrass herself, or him. As he was leaving though, he realized that the whole thing might have been some kind of set up. The girls and other guys in the group he'd gone out with had all been looking at him oddly when he'd decided to ignore her advances and had chosen to leave. The other girls had seemed annoyed that he wasn't into their friend, and the guys had looked confused, probably because she was quite pretty and had been so obvious about her interest. But even after realizing that, Peter really just didn't feel bad, because he hadn't been interested anyway.

It was just his luck though, Parker Luck®, that even when just trying to go out and take his mind off everything going on in his life, it would result in him making the few peers he usually got along with on campus, possibly dislike him or think he was stuck up.

Peter accepted the setback for what it was though, like he often did in most of his weak attempts at socializing, and he didn't look back as he left, opting to walk home from the bar. His apartment was not really close by at all, but it was only just after 8 PM and he figured he could use a nice normal walk in the nice cool evening air.

Of course, it was not to be, since less than halfway through his walk home, his spider sense went off. But he was grateful for a much needed, real distraction, and without hesitating, he stealthily ducked into an alley and activated his Iron Spider suit, before rushing to the source of the trouble.

His night only got worse though, because despite welcoming the distraction, it was a crime distraction, and someone bastard had decided to run into a 'mutant friendly' night club and start shooting it up.

When Peter swung onto the scene, it seemed the shooter had already left, and the club goers and other people from around the area were gathered outside on the sidewalk and street. Some people looked injured, many were crying, and others were on their phones, some making calls, some texting and probably some posting on social media. From above the street, clinging to the side of a building, Peter cast his senses out, listening beyond the loud dissonance and relative chaos of the fearful crying and talking down below, and when he successfully noted the sound of approaching sirens in the distance, he shifted his focus to wondering about casualties. It was obvious though, from looking down at all the different mutants and non-mutants, or maybe just mutants who appeared non-mutant, all gathered or scattered around in various states of upset and shock, that there were probably some people inside the club who had been fatally shot.

He felt sick to his stomach thinking about the senseless crime committed, more than likely a hate crime, and his temper flared. He really wanted to catch the person who did it, and fast! It felt insensitive to shout to be heard though, just to ask the people crowded around for some idea of who was responsible, if they knew or saw anything. So instead, Peter crawled and jumped down to ground level, and calmly asked someone near the edge of the crowd, who was also upset and shaken, but seemed calmer than the others. And he was relieved that the guy was able to tell him that the perpetrator had run out of the club after the shooting and had apparently taken off on a motorcycle.

That was all Peter had needed to know before he thanked the guy and was jumping and webbing away. As he swung and flipped around a corner, he checked the police scanner he'd linked from his phone to his suit, for any news. And as he'd hoped, there were reports of a motorcyclist, who, while erratically fleeing from his crime through traffic, had caught the attention of many people who had already been calling in the dangerous disturbance to the police.

Peter immediately started moving in the direction that was being announced on the scanner for police units to respond to, knowing he could catch the guy faster.

It took him about ten minutes of web slinging and swinging, while listening to the updated directions on the scanner, until eventually Peter was on the perp's tail and a further few minutes later, he caught the guy.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little rougher than usual with handling the asshole. First, when he yanked him –along with his motorcycle- right off the street, and then somewhat roughly dropped the webbed bundle down out of the way of the traffic, on the sidewalk, causing people walking by to halt, surprised. Then next, with the typically curious New Yorker's gathering around to watch, he landed on the sidewalk and he handled the guy with a tighter grip than necessary when he separately webbed the man up, making sure to pull his helmet off so everyone could see his stressed, angry criminal face. Peter didn't even have anything funny to say as he dealt with the guy, and after he'd webbed the motorcycle down too, just in case someone tried to steal it while the police were in transit, he jumped up onto the building right above.

He was fully aware of all the chattering and phone camera shutter sounds and flashes going on below as he climbed, but eventually, he'd crawled and jumped up until he was out of the sight of people, and high up on a corner ledge of the building was where he waited for the police to arrive. While he waited, Peter busied himself with checking his phone to see what updated news was available about the shooting, and of course, the internet and social media were fast enough that he was able to find out that most of the mutants who'd been in the club were okay, or were going to be okay because of their mutant abilities, but three people, two mutants and one non-mutant, were not so lucky.

Peter swallowed down his rising anger. He didn't personally know too much about mutants, but he was aware that over the years they'd been the target of a lot of hate from certain kinds, and groups, of people. People who didn't understand or care to accept others who were different from them. He couldn't fully relate, since in his everyday life no one knew he was a mutate, but he still kind of knew how the mutants felt, because while mutates had a slightly less hard time, they still caught flack from people and media. Hell, as Spider-Man all Peter did was try to save lives and he was still often the target of people's ire. Although, a lot of the time people, like that jerk who owned the Daily Bugle, would mostly take issue with the fact that no one knew who he was, claiming it meant he was hiding something. And yeah, duh, he was hiding his identity so he could lead a somewhat normal life!

He wondered though, as he sat looking at pictures of the shooting aftermath with a sad tightness in his chest, if he was a coward for hiding. But Peter couldn't imagine being like the people in that club, so open about their differences. He could assume he'd feel some relief of the pressure of secrecy if he was ever outed, but he doubted the relief would make up for all the dangerous exposure and drawbacks it would bring. And honestly, Peter liked having a clear line drawn between his two lives...but on that subject of thought, he couldn't help but to think of how Wade was the total opposite. Wade had no lines. Wade was Deadpool and Deadpool was Wade, in and out of his suit, and anyone who wanted to know who he was could easily find out, if they didn't already know.

With Wade back on his mind so easily, Peter sighed and lightly shook his head, frowning under his mask as he tried to stop himself from having negative thoughts about the missing merc, specifically trying not to think of how Wade's well-known identity could be difficult for him, as himself and as Spider-Man, to deal with relationship wise. The last thing he needed was to start thinking about all the cons of being with Wade, because once he started picking at the problems, he was afraid he'd start taking his doubts seriously, and they'd all turn into second thoughts. Or more like third and fourth thoughts, and then it'd all unravel and he really didn't want that. But with how Wade just kept disappearing or leaving like he did, Peter was finding it too easy to slip into a cynical state of-

The sound of police sirens blared as a few cars came around a corner into the street below, snapping him out of his gloomy thoughts. Peter focused on the street below, watching from his spot on the building's ledge as the cars pulled up and the people still gathered in the street moved back to make way. He sighed again as he watched the police begin the process of dealing with the webbed-up killer, and his anger flared up, but only briefly before it faded away just as quickly, leaving him feeling defeated and a little useless. But he usually felt that way when there were casualties of a crime, it was nothing new, and so he resigned himself to just trying to do better as the night went on.

Standing up, prepared to continue with patrolling, he glanced at his still lit up phone, which was open on a news feed of the shooting's aftermath. And Peter was about to lock his phone, when he paused and then blinked hard under his mask, the lenses closing with a soft 'zzt', before he reopened them and gave in. He typed in a search for Deadpool.

He'd avoided it so far, five whole days of putting it off, but wondering if there'd been any new sightings or news of the man for the umpteenth time, he couldn't put it off any longer. And he braced himself to be angry, just in case he found something and it was upsetting...but there was nothing, and that was somehow equally upsetting. Then, pathetically, and with his stomach feeling tense and over all feeling foolishly disappointed, he took it a step further and logged into IG, navigating his way to check the fan accounts and even Weasel's profile, but there was nothing new about Wade on there either.

Just nothing.

Peter swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat right then, and had actually been forming, on and off, all week. His emotions were so messy, he hated it. He was upset, sad and angry and confused and anxious all at once, and then on top of that, he was also still worried about Wade.

Right then though, his feelings settled more on the side of sad, since people had died that night and that always just made everything worse for him.

When he got home after staying out on patrol for the rest of the evening and early morning, it was after 4 AM already and he was exhausted, and the stupid lump that had formed in his throat earlier had been lodged there more or less the entire damn time.

Peter was so fed up with it, he just felt so tired of being sad and stressed about Wade . And he hated that he was unable to do anything to find out if it was even necessary to be sad and worried over the merc. Seriously, he was so emotionally exhausted that he wasn't sure how he was going to react if Wade showed up and said something about forgetting his phone, or about getting stuck on a job, or any of the other inadequate excuses he'd used before. It wouldn't be enough. Peter just knew it in his gut, he wouldn't be able to accept that BS again. Something was different about the state of upset he was in.

After sending off a quick text to May, Peter dragged his feet from his bedroom window to his bathroom, deactivating his suit and then slowly starting to strip off his clothes, just leaving and dropping the items as he went, he started to think that maybe...maybe he'd underestimated how strongly he felt about the consummation of their relationship. Maybe, since he'd never been in that situation before, he hadn't known it'd mess with him that Wade had disappeared just the morning after they'd slept together for the first time.

He'd just hit the light switch to his bathroom when it sunk in, and he stopped and stood in the doorway. Having stripped down to nothing but his boxers, his upper body was visible from where he stood, clearly reflected back at him in the bathroom mirror, and he just stared at his lean, pale self as he realized that he was hung up on feeling like a bizarre one-night stand. Like them sleeping together hadn't really meant anything to Wade. As if the man didn't think it was a big deal to take off like he had. And even though Peter knew the issue was bigger than that, far more complicated , and that Wade probably didn't see it that way, he couldn't help feeling, just...shitty. He didn't have major self-esteem issues, not really, but then again, he'd also never been all that confident about himself either, so the whole thing was just making him feel even more pathetic.

Ugh.

Lump still in his throat, and feeling a little bigger, Peter forced himself to get moving, and he went through the process of taking a shower on autopilot. He didn't even bother with eating afterward, even though he was aware he felt hungry and that his energy reserves were majorly low. But eating was hard when he felt so crappy, that's why he hadn't been eating much all week. He knew he was running on fumes and that it wasn't good at all, but even knowing that, and even feeling hungry, he just crawled into bed after pulling on a shorts and T. His hair was still too damp and he didn't even pull back his rumpled covers, just laid on top of them, starting to sniff the moment his head hit the pillow.

He lied like that for a while, face down, face half in the pillow, mind wondering of its own volition to thoughts of how this situation with Wade was making him feel so terrible, how he couldn't stop playing it all over and over in his head. Going between thinking of their night together, when they'd had sex and it'd been so comfortable and fun and goofy and intense and sexy...and then comparing the way he'd felt so giddy and happy, to the way he felt so awful right then. Why was he so sad anyway? Why had the sex mattered so much to him? Why did Wade matter so much? After MJ had left him, he'd been down and unhappy, but he felt like that made sense because he and MJ had been together for longer, way longer, and they'd known each other longer, and as friends.

And yet, he was hurting and feeling just as messed up, if not worse somehow, over Wade.

Had he really fallen that hard?

Frustrated, and still sniffing and swallowing around that stubborn lump in his throat, Peter rolled over onto his back abruptly and felt around for his phone on the bed where he'd tossed it earlier after texting May. He found it near his hip and brought it up to eye level, squinting into the brightness of the screen as he unlocked it. Having broken his streak earlier, he didn't bother trying to keep himself from checking for Wade on social media again. But obviously there was nothing, it'd only been a few hours. There were still no sightings, no change on Weasel's IG, and the redundancy of checking quickly made him feel angry at himself, made him feel like an idiot!

He sighed loudly then and rubbed a hand down over his face, before he rolled over partially onto his side in order to shove his face in his pillow, where he cursed loudly and angrily a few times...and then he felt like crying again, and he fisted his free hand in the side of his pillow tightly as he fought the feeling. It didn't really work though, because it'd been five days, and his feelings were catching up with him. So, after a minute of too loud breathing and clenching his teeth, Peter rolled back onto his back, eyes wet and face tensed in stubborn frustration to not start actually crying.

But despite not wanting to cry and feeling angry, he somehow ended up tapping his way into his music app, and directly into the song list 'For Wade', which only had the one song, the song he'd sang to Wade. The song he'd sang to Wade which had essentially been a damn love confession. Ugggh. He felt so stupid! So, so stupid...and he was still so stupid, that he played the song and then just laid there, letting it play, listening to it and remembering and feeling even more stupid, as well as pathetic and sad.

He'd never done something like singing to someone before, something so lame and cheesy and dumb, and yet he'd felt so happy and good at the time when he'd done it, and so confident that Wade would like it, would be happy too. And he had been, Wade had liked it, and it'd been a really good moment, just so great. Wade's smile had been unchecked, genuine and attractive, his laugher too...the teasing and the tickling, the wrestling, the kissing...then sleeping next to each other. And all that after the sex.

It was like they'd skipped all those levels of normal relationship development based purely on some ridiculous amount of chemistry, and Peter had fallen so hard, and now he was totally hung up and his eyes were just getting wetter listening to the song that he hadn't even wanted Wade to hear originally, because Wade would know how he really felt just listening to it.

That he'd fallen for Wade. That he was in love with him.

But Wade had heard it, and Wade knew, and he'd still bailed ! What the hell!?

"What the hell, man." he said his thought aloud, face a little scrunched up, voice quiet and a little pitchy in the dark space of his room. It had been almost a full damn week and nothing from the man! And Peter was angry, but still so sad too and he had all these shitty conflicting emotions, and...and, God, he hated it. He was so tired. So tired...but still hopeful.

He exited the app with a quick tap, cutting the song off and going straight to his call log, where he tried calling Wade again. It rang and rang and rang, went to voicemail. He sniffed again, took in a breath, let it out, absently wiping away some wetness that had slipped down the side of his face. Then, like the fool he was, he went right back into the music app, into his other playlist, the one he'd compiled of songs Wade had played and sang for him.

He didn't know why he was shuffling through them. He didn't understand why he listened to some of them completely and cut some others off. Probably did the latter because they made him feel worse, especially when he eventually got to Please Forgive Me by Bryan Adams. He let it play though, because it'd been the last one Wade had actually sent to him in text. There were others though, the ones Wade had sung on the night they'd slept together. Peter hadn't thought to add them in the days past, hadn't been in the mood for music at all, but right then, stubborn and feeling stupid, he looked for the two songs he actually recalled enough of to find in the app, and he added them to the list, chewing on his bottom lip sorely, a little angrily, as he did so.

Thing was, he felt like it mattered to remember the songs, because Wade liked to use music to express himself and Peter had really become used to it, fond of it, he'd actually come to like that about Wade. Personally, he'd never really gotten into music so much before Wade came along with his music-for-the-moment falsetto singing. But since getting to know Wade, he'd become more interested and he'd felt more affected by music, and it was for that reason that he found himself looking through the songs the app was recommending to him. He knew it was a mistake, but he did it anyway.

There were a lot of older songs being recommended to him, because of his recent searches and saves, so he decided to click on the really popular ones. The first one he clicked on was a song called 'Time after Time', by Cyndi Lauper. And as it started to play, he realized that he'd heard it before, maybe in a movie or something, but he'd never really listened to it. But he barely made it halfway through the song before the lyrics were hitting him a little harder than he expected. He closed the song quickly, and had to sniff and clear his throat as he moved on to something else, ignoring that his eyes were even wetter.

Yeah, it was a really bad idea, but he kept looking through the recommendations.

The next two songs he played weren't so bad, old songs, pleasant enough, not really love songs, and they served as a minimal distraction, but then he tapped on a song by called 'Nothing Compares to You'. It also sounded vaguely familiar to him, which wasn't surprising because he was clicking on popular songs, which meant they'd be relatively well known in pop culture, but again, he'd never listened to the words with any real attention before. And wow, right in the feels. That lump in his throat had his subsequent swallows clicking before the 'nothing compares to you' chorus even hit, and Peter exited the song before the second verse had fully played out.

Then he laid there, in the deafening silence, clenching his teeth and listening to himself breathe, mentally repeating to himself that he needed to not cry, or, stop crying. He needed to stop wanting to cry and crying because yeah, he was kind of crying, wetness trickling down from his eyes and over his temples.

Damn it. He was an idiot.

But something about actually feeling, what he'd been trying to suppress for days, was easing some of the pressure in his chest, so he went back to the music recommendations. But he played it a little safer and clicked on a less popular song, which went well. It also wasn't a love song, and he almost listened to the whole thing before he skipped to the next one on the list. He'd expected to have better luck with less popular songs, thinking it'd take a few tracks before coming across another feelsy one, but the next song called, 'Stay' by someone called Shakespeare's Sister, was another one that caught him off guard. Except...he didn't skip it. He listened to it, he listened to it all the way through, because for some reason, the oddness of it, the vibe and the lyrics and everything just made him think even more of Wade.

He ended up adding it to the 'For Wade' playlist.

That song changed the timeline of recommendations a bit though, because the year was not quite as old, so he ended up clicking on another relatively popular one, called 'More than Words'. The music itself sounded more upbeat, but wow, still unlucky, because it was another love song and while it wasn't so harsh, the words were still hard on him.

He felt worse and better at the same time as he listened to it, and he wondered if music was always like that? Able to evoke so much emotion, able to make people feel things they didn't even know how to express feeling? Was that why Wade loved music? Peter had no idea, but maybe...maybe that was why Tony had always been playing music in his lab and his workshops.

He added that last song to the 'For Wade' playlist too. Still sniffing, heart heavy, but also feeling a little lighter on his chest.

Peter saw Mariah Carey's name was next, and since even he knew who that was, he clicked on the song suggested, called 'Vision of Love'...like an idiot. Really not a smart move for his feels. He didn't know much about Mariah Carey, but he should have guessed she was another major love song singer, famous for a reason. Still, he didn't skip it, the song played, he let it play, and while it played, he dropped his phone on the bed and rolled over to be embarrassed into his pillow as he started tearing up again, mumbling a muffled ohmygod as the song played out. He was blushing very soon, and feeling all weirdly emotional and it was somehow better and worse than the shitty way he'd been feeling before. And really, all the music was doing was making him miss Wade even more! Was that supposed to happen?

When the song was over, and had ended on such an awfully contrary note, Peter stayed with his face in the pillow as he blindly reached around for his phone. When his fingers landed on it, he got a hand around it and brought it up to his face, the lower half of which was still stuffed into the pillow. His eyes felt wet and a little irritated but he ignored it as he shifted his head a bit so he could look at the screen with at least one eye. He decided to totally avoid Mariah Carey, but the mistake was already made, because the recommendations updated again, and it turned out there were other singers who made music that was going to majorly mess with his feels. Brandy's, 'Have you Ever' legitimately made him sob, face stuffed back into his pillow.
He felt so ridiculous.

By the second chorus, he cut that song off and decided he needed to get off the fast track he was on to never living down the self-embarrassment of crying over 90s pop love songs. He had no idea what he was doing! And he didn't trust jumping backwards, so he jumped forward, looking at the years of the songs and choosing something not in the 90s. He found a really popular one by a singer whose name he didn't recognize. It was called, 'Hero', and the title didn't seem like anything too lovey dovey, also, it made him think of Wade playing 'I Need a Hero' on his fire escape that night, which evoked very confusing and silly butterflies fluttering around in his empty stomach as he thought of how he wanted to be Wade's hero.

In the end, he couldn't stop himself from playing the song, of course, he immediately kind of regretted it, because the intro was so soft and emotional sounding and the guy actually started by saying 'let me be your hero'. Then the guy started singing...and then the lyrics were just...well, ouch...but Peter let the song play, just burying his face in his pillow again, and by the end of the first chorus, he was crying into his pillow. Actually crying, more earnestly, and he'd let go of the phone so he could squish and bunch the pillow up under his head.

He had no idea what he was doing, but he let himself cry. Softly and tensely as ever.

When the song finished, Peter just lied that way in the silence for a while, for however long, he didn't even know. But by the time the worst of his emotional aches had subsided, the sun was rising, casting some gloomy light into his bedroom. He swallowed with a soft click as he finally shifted, moving around until he was under the bed covers almost completely, curled up on his side and holding his phone close to his face.

He still felt ridiculous, like he was a teenager dramatically crushing on someone, but he couldn't change how he felt, and no one would know about his personal embarrassments anyway. He was alone. Just alone. A miserable but familiar state. But he embraced the feeling for what it was, and after letting himself cry over his many messy emotions about Wade, he accepted those feelings too, and allowed them to lead him into attaching the song link to a message...which he sent to Wade.

He locked his screen and put his phone face down after the message was sent, and then he just lied in the quiet of his slowly brightening room, sniffing and occasionally blinking his sandy, puffy eyes, until he eventually fell asleep.

When he woke up several hours later though, he was furious.

Furious at himself and furious at Wade, and all the sadness was just gone .

The previous night had done nothing but make him feel pathetic, like, cringeworthy levels of pathetic. And Peter figured that what he'd done the night before was his equivalent to how some people would go out and do something like get drunk, or have rebound sex.

He was apparently a wallower. He'd been wallowing in his relationship blues.

"I'm Spider-Man. I don't wallow, I can't wallow." he told himself resolutely as he sat in his bed staring at the message he'd sent, the message with that song link, the message he couldn't take back. The message that was unread...it was the sixth day, and still nothing from Wade?

Screw that.

Peter hadn't done anything to deserve this. Even if Wade was upset with him about his ex-girlfriend showing up, even if Wade was upset about being lied to, even if Wade was upset in general about whatever, he had no right to be such an asshole to Peter! No right to treat him that way!

Clenching his teeth and glaring at his phone, Peter tapped back out to his call log, and swearing it'd be the last time, he tried calling again, and once again, it rang, over and over and then went to voicemail. He abruptly cut the call with a harsh tap and shook his head, muttering a curse under his breath as he tossed his phone onto the bed and got up to start his day.

He did try calling again, but only after a further three days, and only because, for the first time, May had actually asked about whether Wade was okay. Peter had answered her with a lie, that yes, Wade was fine, that everything was fine. But in fact, when he'd called Wade, it'd still gone to voicemail.

There was still nothing from Wade.

On day ten, blue energy guy showed up again.

Peter was mostly ready for him, he'd been expecting another showdown, but unfortunately, his new suit wasn't ready. He'd increased the resistance to energy attacks with a few upgrades in the suit using conductive materials in certain places, but he couldn't do much using just standard stitching and normal spandex material. He'd decided that at some point he was going to have to start from scratch, probably would have to produce his own base materials, using spandex as well, in order to make his future suit as durable as possible. Of course, that would take money and time, and he'd have to do it on his own.

Without Tony's fabricator, which utilized highly advanced technology, it was a struggle, but he had ideas already, and he was building on them slowly. He was getting there, all on his own.

But the suit wasn't ready yet.

And he needed to deal with blue energy guy as quickly as possible, there was no way Peter could let him get away again, or do as much damage as he had last time.

He needed efficiency, versatility and strength. So, he opted for the Iron Spider suit.

Blue energy guy was not only back, but also bolder. But Peter wasn't surprised, that was how it usually went. It wasn't his first rodeo, and swinging onto the scene to find the guy tearing up a busy street in Midtown Manhattan in the middle of the day, didn't faze him, not beyond annoying him at least. Watching him from a fair distance from the side of a building, Peter recalled the fact that the guy had caused deaths the last time he went on a violent spree, and so he put all his quips on the back burner, just charging right in with a leap and swing, going straight for a knock out kick. He was hoping to hit the baddie once, just hard enough to take him off his feet, before he could destroy anything else, or hurt anyone else!

And Peter didn't know if he was somehow faster, or if the guy was less alert, but he actually managed to land the kick just before the guy could phase out. It sent him sprawling a bit hard along the street and into the side of a stationary car, but that was the momentum of it rather than the force because Peter was trying to keep his temper in check. Mutant or not, Peter didn't know how much the guy could withstand a beating, especially since he'd noticed the last time that the dude wasn't very physically strong or durable. This time around though, his energy use and control were more powerful, which made sense for the former, since it was daytime and there was so much more activity for him to draw from. The control though? Peter wasn't sure where that came from.

As Peter watched him struggle back to his feet beside the slightly dented car, he crawled and jumped and prepared to swing right over to the guy and beat him into submission in the nicest way he could manage. And he was just about to leap to close the gap, mentally noting that it was the first time blue energy guy was attacking during the day, when the man suddenly turned and targeted him directly. Peter quickly had to dodge a slew of much more accurate beams, which had him leaping and swinging fast across and along the sides and fronts of almost a block of buildings.

It was like the dude had been practicing! His range was reaching much further, and he was much more on point with his aim, keeping Peter on his toes, keeping his spider sense pinging as he moved and moved. But Peter wasn't messing around, he was determined to stop the guy, and so still evading hits, he abruptly changed direction on a slung stretch of web, trusting his senses to guide his movements as he swung back around and dodged a few more beams in midair. Unfortunately, the beams hit one of the buildings, which sent concrete debris and glass falling down below, making Peter wince and clench his teeth in anger, since there were still some people fleeing in the streets below.

Peter was unable to take a moment to make sure no one got injured though, because blue energy guy kept attacking. Dodging again, and taking in a quick breath, Peter returned the action and went in for another attack, webs first. The guy dodged, but the webs had been intended as a distraction, because a second later Peter landed on the ground much closer to him, and then leapt at the man to attempt hand to hand combat.

But the guy phased out.

Peter clenched his fists in frustration as he did a half turn, looking around the empty streets,

"Not a fighter, huh?" he asked loudly, "You prefer to just hurt helpless people from a distance?" he continued looking around, and then he turned abruptly left when his spider sense ticked up, the guy appearing again a few meters away and Peter added, "Dick move, buddy." as he immediately shot out two lengths of taser webs. One managed to graze the guy, who seemed genuinely stunned when it shocked him, making him stumble a bit. And it was enough of a distraction for Peter to shoot another normal sticky web at him, trapping his foot to the ground from the calf down, and one leap later, Peter landed in front of him and punched him right in the face.

It wasn't that hard, but it was super satisfying! And once again, the guy seemed stunned and even a little panicked, eyes wide as he weakly tried to pull at his stuck leg. And Peter was about to trap his other foot to the ground too, and then maybe punch him unconscious next, but he was totally caught off guard by what happened next. It happened so fast too; blue energy guy grabbed him by his upper arms and held him as tightly as he could. Which wasn't tight at all to Peter, but in the second Peter took to pause and finally get a proper look at blue energy guy, the too pale, green beady-eyed young man opened his mouth, as if he were going to say something.

But he wasn't trying to speak...

Inside his mouth was very inhuman, a purplish red cavern with small sharp teeth, some strings of spittle and seemingly no tongue, which was maybe why the guy hadn't ever spoken before, possibly couldn't speak. And Peter watched, mask eyes widening, as a veiny network of blue energy lines lit up inside his mouth with an escalating, charging hum. It made his spider sense go haywire! And it might have been a bad situation for him if the guy were any stronger, but he really wasn't strong at all, so Peter easily broke his hold. And as he flipped away to the side, he kicked the guy so he fell backwards, off balance, right when the energy build up discharged.

As Peter had hoped, the beam went off upward into the open air, some of it catching the side of a building, but it mostly dissipated harmlessly, not hitting anyone or anything else. But it had been a serious blast! If he were anyone else other than a super strong superhuman, it would have taken his head clean off! Blue energy guy clearly wasn't messing around. His destructive abilities were escalating and he seemed to be intentionally going for the kill. Peter watched a bit warily as the guy scrambled with more haste to get up, awkwardly moving with one leg still webbed in place. He was keeping his distance though, because there was a weird energy distortion in the air around the guy. Maybe it wasn't even kinetic energy anymore, because it seemed more alive, volatile and it was hotter too. Maybe blue energy was starting to learn to harness other forms of power. Crap, that wasn't good at all.

Peter didn't bother asking his A.I for an analysis though, he just wanted to stop the guy.

"Let's do this." he said to himself, releasing the four mechanical spider arms of his suit, all outstretched and at the ready, and he crouched, was just about to leap-

-but then his first step faltered and he came to a stop, mechanical limbs and his arms lowering a bit from their offensive position, as he looked up to where a quinjet had appeared beside a building nearby. Or, no, actually, as he looked at it properly Peter realised it wasn't a quinjet. He'd seen it before on TV and in Avenger's files. He recognized it as being the X-Jet. The X-Men's Blackbird.

Peter's heartrate sped up suddenly and he took in a tense breath, because if the X-Men had showed up, it had to be because of Wade, right? Did that mean Wa-

He frowned as he caught his focus slipping, exhaling in frustration and shaking his head once to clear away thoughts of Wade. It wasn't the time to be thinking about that. He needed to stay focused. Taking another breath, he looked away from the jet to blue energy guy, who was presently staring up at the jet with wide eyes, and Peter noticed he looked angry, but also worried. And just when the hatch beneath the quinjet opened, he seemed to start panicking, more aggressively struggling against the webbing holding him down by his one leg.

Peter's spider sense had calmed to a low hum because blue energy guy was totally distracted, but then it changed to the hum of possible danger for others when some people started descending from the jet's hatch. The hum was still low though, so Peter relaxed a bit, looking up and counting six X-Men coming down, four rappelling and one flying while carrying another person, who seemed to be one of the mutants who didn't have a human appearance. The one who was flying was descending faster than the rest and was heading straight in the direction of blue energy. Peter stared, and he was admittedly kind of fascinated. He'd never seen any X-Men outside of media and Avenger's files, and he didn't know very many even just by name, and in the group presently coming down to the ground Peter recognized exactly one of them; it was Dom.

Dom had just touched down with the three others when the flying mutant set down the person she'd been carrying, which diverted Peter's attention, because she'd left him very near the blue energy guy, who was glaring, panicked and anxious. Then when the woman just stepped back and flew further away, Peter felt his spider sense flare and he took a few steps forward, holding up a hand to say 'watch out' and maybe to shoot a web...but then he noticed blue energy guy just kept struggling and baring his inhuman teeth. But he wasn't trying to attack, or, no, he looked like he wanted to, but he seemed unable to do anything?

In fact, he looked like his struggles were getting weaker.

Peter was really confused, and intrigued, and he started walking forward, but then to his right he heard,

"Woah, Spider-Man, you might wanna' keep your distance!"

He stopped walking and turned to the side to find Dom jogging up to him. She was still a few meters away when he'd turned to face her, but seeing her properly as she came closer for the first time, he felt a twinge of misplaced jealousy in his chest, followed by a feeling of relief knowing she hadn't ever been involved romantically with Wade in any way. It was bad enough that Wade's deceased girlfriend had been so damn attractive. If Wade had an ex that looked like Dom still involved in his life, Peter wasn't sure he'd be okay with that. Of course, that made him feel shitty all over again, thinking of how Wade must have felt after seeing MJ in his apartme-

"-hat's Leech," Dom said as she came to stop a few feet away, looking relaxed with a small smirk on her face, hands settling on her hips, "he can suppress mutant abilities, temporarily nullifies all powers as long as he's in a certain range." she explained casually, and Peter looked over again at the green skinned mutant kid just standing and doing nothing while blue energy guy weakened and glared. "Obviously I don't know what you are under that suit," he looked at her again, realizing she was eyeing his still extended mechanical spider legs, "but I wouldn't want him messing with whatever powers you have by accident." she finished, sounding somehow sincere and sarcastic at the same time.

He just blinked at her, his mask lenses narrowing and widening in an attempt to keep up, and then he just stared at her, finding he had no idea what to say. Somehow, knowing who she was while she had no idea that he knew who she was, made him feel awkward, so he just nodded once at her after a too long lapse of staring, before ignoring the small crease that formed between her eyebrows when he turned to look away again. He focused back on the scene across the distance, where the mutant boy was just standing while one of the other mutants stepped up to blue energy guy, moving to put some kind of high-tech cuffs on him. The others all kept their distance though, including Dom, who stayed where she was, standing a few feet from him.

Peter was really curious about the strange handcuffs, and he was also fascinated thinking about a mutant with powers that could just stop another superhuman's powers. 'Leech' was small, and while his mutation had plainly disfigured his human form, he didn't look dangerous at all. Was his only power the ability to stop other's powers? The way Peter saw it, being able to do that could actually make him really dangerous in the right, or wrong, circumstances, and he had so many questions! But he didn't ask any of them, because he didn't feel it was his place. What he did ask was,

"Where are guys gonna' take him?" making sure his Iron Spider voice modulator was activated. It was different from the one he'd put in his new suit. It was preset to one of Tony's choices, which was more natural sounding, only distorting his voice just enough to make it unrecognizable. Tony was good like that.

She hadn't answered immediately when he asked his question, but after a moment of watching blue energy guy being taken into her teammates' custody, she turned to look at him and loosely folded her arms over her chest, eyebrows raised in a facial shrug,

"We'll take him back with us first, see if we can talk to him, try to find out what's his problem, see if he needs help," a pause as she looked around at the destruction in the street, then added, " if he can be helped." and Peter noted that she spoke about the whole thing with a certain air of detachment. It made him wonder why she'd become an X-Men member. From what he understood, she'd been a merc before, and she was probably capable of killing people without batting an eyelash. Even right then, she sounded more like she belonged with mercs, so nonchalant and so insensit- "Deadpool let us know this guy was a mutant." he tensed just hearing 'Deadpool', "He said you'd figured it out?" she sounded like she was asking.

Peter took a second, took in a silent breath, then he turned his head to look at her, nodding one time again before looking away, mentally deciding that speaking less might just be better overall. Although, he wasn't expecting her to continue speaking to him at all, but she surprised him, saying,

"Thanks for not hurting him." and when he looked at her again, she had that same half sarcastic, half sincere vibe about her, "I know you have super-strength, I've seen the news." she tipped her head, her afro bouncing softly with the movement, "I'm guessing you could have easily kicked the shit out of him if you really wanted to." she glanced over to where blue energy guy was being ushered away toward the rappel ropes. Peter glanced over too, and then looked back to her, shaking his head once,

"I don't do that." he said. And when she looked at him with an eyebrow hiked up, he clarified, "I mean, I don't kick the shit out of people. That's not what I do."

Dom made an 'oh yeah' expression, which somehow managed to come across like she thought he was a dweeb, absolutely riding that sarcastic vibe, and then she said,

"Right, yeah, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man thing. You're a really good guy I guess."

"If he's such a good guy, why's he been hanging out with douche pool?" another woman's voice asked loudly, interjecting her question into their vague conversation. Peter looked over to see a young woman approaching from the same side Dom had. She had short dark hair, wore dark make up and she looked pissed off about something, chewing aggressively on a piece of gum.

Dom had barely glanced over, and she seemed unfazed by the woman's attitude, saying,

"I don't know that they've been hanging out exactly, Wade never described it that way." she shrugged her shoulders. The short haired woman came to stop close to Dom, further from him, and she gave him a blatantly unimpressed once over with a frown on her face.

Then she took a moment to eye his mechanical spider legs dubiously, and Peter decided to purposely move them a bit, watching her eyes follow the sharp tips, before she dropped her gaze to look at his mask.

He didn't move, didn't blink, so she would have no idea what his face was doing, i.e. he was staring at her with an amused frown on his face, and after a few seconds she turned to look at Dom,

"Well, whatever. Deadpool is the kind of guy who beats the shit out of people, and then he usually kills them." she also folded her arms over her chest, making a face and adding flatly, "Sometimes he just kills them." she paused, chewed, then frowned again, "I don't even get why he'd help a superhero in the first place, he always had bad things to say about superheroes, and the X-Men." she scoffed, shook her head, turned to watch the other mutants.

Peter just kept quiet, listening to and watching them, glad that thanks to his mask, they probably couldn't really tell whether he was looking at them or no-

Dom huffed a laugh, her teeth actually showing when she smiled,

"True, but this is Spider-Man he's helping." she looked at the other woman and gestured to him as if he was just there for reference, "Or maybe you weren't around enough to hear him talk about Spider-Man."

"Thank God." the other woman said blandly with half an eyeroll, talking around chewing.

"Not what you're thinking, I bet." Dom piped up, sounding amused, "Surprisingly, nothing ever truly vulgar," Peter could feel his ears getting warmer, "it was actually more, uh," she made a face, "gushy than anything else." using a fake 'it was sweet' voice.

"Still gross." the other woman commented.

Peter started to feel really awkward then, especially in the beat of silence that followed, and he was just considering leaving when Dom said,

"Actually, funnily enough, he wasn't gushing about you the last time I talked to him," and she was talking directly to him then, looking at him. Peter stiffly turned his head a bit more to look at her, "so you don't have to feel too weirded out about his fanboy crush on you." she seemed amused, and Peter could only assume she was trying to joke. Or maybe she was being serious? He didn't have a chance to respond, thankfully, because the moody one snorted and looked from Dom to him and back,

"You said Wade's got a boyfriend now, right? So, he shouldn't be gushing over anyone else." and she sounded very serious about it too. Peter raised his eyebrows, wondering if, like him, she respected labels like 'couple' and 'exclusive' and 'monogamous', and if so, he could appreciate that about h-. "I still can't believe he's dating a guy." moody was frowning again, shaking her head, making a face.

Dom was smiling, arms still folded as she talked,

"I was a little surprised too, although after I thought about it, I'm not sure why. Weasel wasn't surprised though."

Moody rolled her eyes, chewed her gum, cracked a smirk,
"I guess it's actually not that surprising, he used to flirt with Colossus all the time, remember?"

"Yeeaah, but he used to flirt with Cable too, after the whole trying to kill each other thing, when they became friendly," Dom was saying, but she sounded skeptical as she went on, "but I don't think it was real flirting, not with Cable or Colossus."

Moody turned to look at her, actually sounding curious when she asked,

"Why?" and Peter was curious too, but he just kept quiet and listened. They seemed to be dismissing that he was even there, so he would just quietly take what he could get when it came to random information about Wade.

"I dunno', seemed too forced, too intentional. Like, you know how Wade used to do and say things just to be annoying. Just to be an ass." Dom explained. Moody made a humming sound, frown still in place,

"I guess, maybe. I mean, that makes sense." and Peter thought that was all she'd say because she sounded so flat. Dom had thought so too apparently, because she'd looked away from Moody, but had to look back when she went on, "I only met Vanessa a few times, and I didn't actually see them together in a couple way much, not for long times either. But, yeah, when he was around her, he didn't act like how he did with Cable or Colossus, not really." she had an odd expression on her face then, like she didn't want to be talking about the topic, but in a slightly less moody tone, she still added, "He was still super annoying, but, like, not so extra."

Peter's mask lenses made a small 'zzt' sound just then, betraying his frown and the narrowing of his eyes, but luckily neither woman seemed to notice, and he was glad, because they were talking about Vanessa, who Peter both did and didn't want to know more about. It was obvious now that she'd been familiar with supers who knew Wade, since the moody one had just said she'd met her more than once. It also made sense to think then, that Dom might have known Vanessa too. And he figured he probably shouldn't be so surprised about some X-Men people knowing Wade's former girlfriend personally, after all, the merc's S.H.I.E.L.D file had mentioned he was affiliated with the X-Men. Heck, even that name, Cable, that had been in the file too. Peter didn't know who Colossus was though, and he had to ignore the little niggles of jealousy he felt over Wade apparently having flirted with those guys.

He knew it was super dumb to be feeling jealous at all , so he tried to keep his face from doing anything else revealing under his mask and instead he focused on the fact that Dom and Moody had referenced Wade having a boyfriend in the present tense .

Did that mean anything?

Wade had been gone for days without word already, and Peter was ten kinds of angry and annoyed and hurt, and not even sure where he and Wade stood at that point as 'boyfriends'. But what Dom had said about the last time she'd talked to Wade, had him wondering whether Wade had or hadn't said anything to her recently . And he hadn't wanted to be involved in any real conversation with them, but his desire to know anything new about Wade was too much. He had to ask.

Still, he tried to keep his tone of voice light and impersonal when he asked,

"Has Deadpool been around lately?" and immediately they both turned to look at him, like they had actually forgotten he was there. He just played it super cool by being totally stiff, and then cleverly adding, "He didn't even tell me you guys had agreed to help out with this energy dude." he vaguely gestured in the direction of the other mutants, and he added, "Would've been useful to, uh, to know." to make it sound even less personal.

He also made sure to face forward and not look at them, even as he watched them out of the corner of his eye. He just had to be cool, only seeming interested in a detached way. That was the ke-

"Ah, yeah," Dom raised her eyebrows, "Sorry Spider-Man, you're not Wade's priority anymore." and okay, wow, ouch much. Peter was so glad his mask hid how much that comment affected him, causing an ache in his chest quite suddenly, and he was pretty sure he paled, "He's presently only focused on that boyfriend of his, and something's going on right now that has him acting like a dumbass."

Oh... oh. Okay. Yeah, right. He was Spider-Man, she was talking to Spider-Man, who they didn't know was Wade's boyfriend, was him, the same person. Yeah. Right...okay, but, but even as the ache lessened, his chest was still hurting, and his next swallow hurt as well. God, he was way too emotional still. He really needed to keep his shit straight and not be so easily thrown off, dammit. He needed to remember people didn't know Spider-Man and Wade's boyfriend were the same person, remembering that was important for secret identity keeping reas-

"He always acts like a dumbass." Moody commented, but she was once again curious, and also actually sounded a smidge concerned when she asked, "What did he do this time?" chew, chew, chew.

Peter swallowed sorely again, listening as Dom, looking and sounding amused, asked her,

"You really care, huh? Is it just because you're both, like, LGBTQ members or whatever?"

"Jesus." Moody said exasperatedly, eyes rolling again, and Dom kept grinning. But as Peter hoped, she did answer the question,

"I don't really know what's going on, I just asked him how things were going with his boyfriend when I talked to him last time and he said, uh, it was something really stupid and cliché about 'if you love someone let them go', then he changed it to, 'they probably won't come back but', uh," she paused, clearly thinking about what exactly Wade had said, before she raised a hand to snap her fingers, "'but, it's the right mother fucking, cock sucking, hurts like a bitch, thing to do'. Those last words are verbatim."

"No kidding." Moody quipped, eyebrows bobbing.

Dom sighed and slipped her hand back into the fold of her arms,

"I didn't even ask what the hell that was supposed to mean." she was shaking her head.

Moody was shaking her head too,

"He must have fucked up somehow."

Dom nodded,

"Duh."

Moody kept shaking her head, and neither of them even looked at him, but Peter was glad for that.

Because he was angry and hurting, silently clenching his jaw and fighting the burn in his eyes. Wade...Wade was doing exactly what Peter had assumed originally. The older super had gotten the wrong idea about MJ being in his life, or the merc had decided that since MJ was still around, he needed to back off, or whatever it was, he had it all wrong, and so now he was choosing to walk away because he thought he was doing what was best. It was-

His train of thought was cut off when he glanced to the side and noticed both Dom and Moody were looking at him, which made him realize how tense he was. Peter slowly loosened his clenched fists then, also relaxing his raised mechanical spider legs. That was probably how they'd noticed him tensing up, metal made noises that fabric did not.

He already had enough problems though, and he didn't need them drawing their own conclusions, so after taking in a quiet breath, to cover his behavior, he said,

"That guy caused a lot of damage," grateful for the steadiness of his voice modulator as he made a show of looking around the damaged streets, "at least this time no one was killed, but he still hurt a lot of people." and thankfully the sound of ambulances around the area were audible, which really helped carry off his point.

Dom seemed to accept his cover, nodding, and Moody actually looked angry about it.

"Don't worry, we'll sort him out. He'll either get help that'll keep him from going out for a long time, or he'll get prison time, it depends on his situation and circumstances." Dom explained in that detached way of hers, and Moody nodded,

"He won't get a chance to do this again." she sounded sure.

"Yeah, you can relax." Dom added, looking at him with something like a smile. Peter was still forcing himself to relax, but he nodded, so it seemed like he was relieved by her response, even though his tension had nothing to do with blue energy guy. He was already certain the X-Men would handle that.

He had other personal issues to contend wit-

"We'd better go." Moody piped up, and just as abruptly as she'd showed up, she started to walk away. Peter looked over to where the other X-Men had been, noticing they were all out of sight, having all returned to the Blackbird, which it seemed had stealthily landed somewhere out of sight at some point.

"Yep." Dom agreed, taking a few steps to start following, but she wasn't as rude as the moody one, so she glanced back to say, "Nice meeting you, Spider-Man. And, uh, good looking out for mutants, most people wouldn't bother." she smiled with less sarcasm that time, then she saluted loosely before turning and jogging to catch up to the other woman.

Peter didn't say anything, or do anything, he just stood there and watched them go. And even though what Dom had said to him was nice, he wasn't even thinking about it, didn't even feel glad about having helped. He was too upset, too angry, and it was like the hurt was starting all over again, his stomach shaking lightly. Peter let out a shuddering sigh the moment he felt they were far enough away, and he blinked wetness out of his eyes, muttering,

"Dammit, Wade." to himself, voice tight and throat sore, the stupid lump in this throat lodged right back where it'd been before. Wade's hasty reasoning was exactly what he'd suspected! But even knowing that, he still had no idea what he could do about it! He couldn't even contact the man!

It's not like he could have asked Dom about it either, Dom whose calls Wade apparently had been answering!? Hell, maybe Dom had even actually seen Wade! That made him angry all over again, and furious, hurt and offended! He sniffed, and sniffed again, then he heard someone call out to him and he glanced around, noticing more people and emergency services were starting to show up. He spotted the person who'd called to him when he turned to look behind him, seeing that it was a cop approaching. And there was a time when Peter would have hung around and tried to answer the polices questions, but that had been years ago, before Mysterio had made people start to seriously mistrust him.

These days he almost never did, because the cops usually tried to turn whatever they were asking about on him. And right then, he was not in the mood to deal with that crap, so he ignored the cop and took off, retracting his mechanical legs as he jumped, shot out a web and swung away.

Around the corner and a block down, Peter landed on the side of a tall corporate building and started climbing up, up, up, until he reached the rooftop of the building and he hopped over the parapet. He paused to glance around when he noticed it was one of those fancy terrace types of rooftops, with plants, some lounge furniture, pretty lighting, as well as walkways and pebbles underfoot.

Feeling on edge, he took advantage of the opportunity and walked over to sit on one of the fancy single loungers, right on the edge though, because he felt too wound up to actually relax. Taking his phone out, Peter unlocked it and navigated to Wade's number. He started bouncing his leg very soon, as he stared down at his phone, his thumb hovering over the call button. He was so sick of calling and getting voicemail, and he hadn't even once left a message yet, but right then, feeling so angry, but also so hurt about what Wade was doing, he was actually considering leaving a message, letting Wade hear how upset he was...dammit! He hated feeling so pathetic, and yes, okay, he'd been wrong not to mention he was in contact with MJ, and he knew that, but he'd own that, and he wanted to apologize for it and make it up to Wade! And it wasn't even like anything had happened between him and MJ! Wade hadn't even given him a chance to explain!

It wasn't like he'd cheated! He hadn't even known MJ would come to his apartment! And in fact, he very specifically had not cheated! He was not a cheater! Thinking of how he'd avoided MJ kissing him that night they'd eaten out together had him shaking his head, clenching his jaw, feeling even more angry about how he was such a sucker, to be so dedicated and ready to commit while Wade was just so damn, just so damn inconsiderate and stupid and such an asshole! Seriously, Wade had assumed MJ was back in his life and that he wanted to get back together with her, and so he'd just bailed!? No questions asked? And the merc was apparently ignoring his calls, ignoring him specifically, because Dom had clearly spoken to him after Wade had bailed!

Ten days, ten days! It was the longest time Wade had been gone without contact since they'd started seeing each other...why, why was he...what...

Peter sighed shakily, still staring down at his lit up phone screen, his call log showing Wade's name over and over and over. He was really hurting just then, in his throat and chest, because more and more, everything about Wade's actions seemed to point to the idea that the man wanted them to break up. Even what Dom had mentioned, about Wade saying 'if you love someone let them go', was a major hint at that. Because what else could it mean? Surely Wade didn't expect him to just hang around, waiting? Or did he think they might just eventually run into each other again. In a month, maybe a year, maybe years? And then what? They'd just see what happened then?

No. No way. No damn way! Peter wouldn't wait. He was done waiting! Had Wade not been a dumb, selfish jerk, had he just answered his phone, Peter would have apologized immediately, he would have explained and would have been totally honest with Wade. But just taking off, and the radio silence? Making Peter wait and hurt? That wasn't fair. That wasn't right! Peter had done a lot of waiting and he'd done a lot of compromising and he'd been doing a lot of hurting, and even after so much of Wade's sporadic, unreliable bullshit, every single time Wade had needed to explain himself, Peter had let him, had listened to him. But Wade couldn't have given him the same courtesy? Screw that!

He tapped the call button at the same time as he stood up and paced away from the light, toward the parapet, tears welling up in his eyes even before it started to ring and ring and ring. Of course it went to voicemail, because of course it did . But that time Peter didn't hang up, and after he heard the beep he deactivated his voice modulator and said,

"You know what," voice vulnerable and shaky, but angry, "I know how you said you are an asshole, Wade, I remember it clearly, but I also remember you said you wouldn't be an asshole to me, you wouldn't try to hurt me." and then his voice just sounded pathetically emotional, "Taking off like this, right after-" he cut himself off from saying that out aloud, swallowing sorely before he sniffed, "You didn't even...God, you are such a dick." he emphasized each word, voice breaking a little, and then he got angry again, "I'm not gonna' keep letting you tr-treat me like this. Just...disappearing and, and I-" he had to stop, because he was trying not to cry, but he wasn't gonna' make it, so he ended the call.

Peter took in a deep breath, and then he crouched down as the tears started to fall, and it wasn't the first time he'd cried inside his mask on a random rooftop, over losing someone he loved, but it had been a while. So he just crouched there, crying as silently as possible, shoulders bobbing slightly as he sobbed quietly. He felt so stupid, like he'd been played, because he couldn't get it out of his mind that Wade had just left him, right after-

Peter felt really nauseous suddenly and he had to stand up again to start pacing, breathing more loudly, swallowing down the nausea, chanting 'pathetic' in his head.

It wasn't the first time he'd done that either.

But he was pathetic, right? If Wade had left him just the morning after they'd slept together. And maybe him leaving didn't even have anything to do with MJ, maybe Wade had just needed any excuse he could get. Maybe Wade had only been interested in sex and after he'd gotten what he wanted, he'd taken the quickest out he could find!

"Oh my God." Peter breathed out, voice breaking again, while the knuckles of his free hand cracked and the iron plating of his suit clicked as he clenched his fist very tightly. If that was the case, if Wade had taken all that time and said all those things and gotten so far under Peter's skin, just to sleep with him, wow...that was too fucked up, right? It didn't even make any sense, and Peter was a very sensible guy. But with his emotions reeling, he wasn't sure he could trust what he thought did and didn't make sense anymore! He was too angry, too anxious, too confused, with more and more tears collecting in his eyes and his jaw hurting from being clenched, chest tight and stomach shaking.

Had...had Wade really just been looking to get laid? Had he really just wanted to sleep with Pet- no, with Spider-Man? Had he really used Peter that way? No, that...

"It, it can't be. That doesn't, it doesn't make sense." he breathed out, shaking his head to himself, mask lenses narrowing to slits as he frowned, his anger deflating to painful disbelief. Peter sniffed and bit his lip sorely as he looked at his phone again, more tears leaving his eyes, making his face feel damp and itchy inside the iron mask, his vision blurring a bit. But ignoring that, ignoring everything but his disbelief, Peter tapped the call button, dialing Wade's number again. He had to ask, even if he was going to be leaving the question on voicem-

" Hello ?"

Peter's heart leapt into his throat, nearly making him choke when someone actually answered the phone...someone who wasn't Wade,

"H-hello?" and he knew his voice sounded pitiful, but he was really not in a good pla-

"Man, do you have to sound like such a wreck, it just makes me feel worse." the man's voice said, not sounding affected at all despite his words, but it absolutely made Peter feel worse about his current state, causing him to blink more tears out his eyes as he frowned under his mask. "Peter, right?" the guy asked when he didn't say anything.

Peter swallowed sorely and nodded weakly, breathing out,

"Yeah." then he sniffed, and made an attempt to scrape together some dignity, since he realized that he recognized the voice. When he spoke again, his tone was more collected, "Yeah, it's Peter."

"Yeah, so, uh, Peeeter," awkward pause, "I answered the phone because I was starting to feel kinda' bad that you've been calling, and calling...and calling." another pause, in which Peter made a disgusted face at himself for his behaviour, "But honestly, mostly it's because the sappy, heartbroken ringtone has been getting on my fucking nerves." the man deadpanned.

And he went on to say something about how it shouldn't be possible to end up hating any song by Journey, but Peter was thinking that it shouldn't be possible to get so pissed off at someone he hadn't ever even met before. Yet Weasel, who was definitely the person he was talking to, since he remembered the nasally voice from that night outside the apartment where he'd dropped Dopinder, had very much pissed him off. What a callous a-hole! No wonder Wade liked to hurt him, Peter had only been talking to him for 30 seconds and he wished he could punch him in the face! Ugh. Dammit.

Dammit, because even though he was pissed off, he refused to hang up now that he'd gotten through, so, having to pretend like he didn't know who Weasel was, as evenly as he could, Peter asked,

"Who is this?"

"Don't worry!" bizarre amused tone, "I'm not a love rival." what? "Even though I do handle Wade's hardware very often," clenching his teeth, Peter once again made a disgusted face at even just the punned idea, "it's definitively not the same hardware you've been handling."

Jesus Christ.

Peter closed his eyes and breathed through his irritation very quietly, seriously wishing he could hang up. He was feeling so shitty, and he was so not in the mood to deal with someone like Weasel.

Already beyond done with the conversation they had yet to even have, Peter chose to ignore Weasel's avoidance of giving him his name, because it's not like it mattered. All he wanted to know was,

"Where's Wade?" and his voice was firmer then, authoritative and no nonsense, fueled by annoyance.

"Wohohohoah, okay." Weasel still sounded bizarrely amused and unfazed, "That's an unexpectedly aggressive tone. Cool your jets, okay. I don't need you telling your boyfriend I upset you. I wasn't even supposed to be touching his phone in the first place, and I really don't want to get pistol whipped again any time soon." Peter just frowned and swallowed down his irritation again, his lack of response giving Weasel room to keep talking in his nasally, odd cadence, "Look, seriously, I don't know where he is." and strangely enough, Peter felt like he wasn't lying, "He came in here, I think, last week some time, looking really pissed off and homicidal. And I generally prefer to steer clear of him all the time if I can, but especially when he looks that pissed off, and homicidal, and then he left again and I haven't heard from him, or seen him." he finished flatly.

He frowned to himself, feeling inclined to believe Weasel, because something about the explanation rang true, but he also had to wonder how likely it was that Weasel was lying to him. He could always just be a damn good liar, after all, the man had accepted being called a nickname like Weasel. That didn't exactly scream 'trustworthy'. Feeling unsure, Peter asked,

"Where's here? Why do you have his phone?" in the same firm tone.

An exasperated sigh,

"I don't have his phone. He left it here." Peter kept frowning, Weasel kept talking, "He left the fucking thing on charge too, so the battery didn't die no matter how many times I had to listen to 'Who's Crying Now' whenever you called, over and ov-"

"Where's 'here'?" Peter cut off his rambling, useless nonsense, and Weasel didn't miss a beat,

"One of his safe houses, the one he's been staying in since his last place got trash-, shit, wait, look, I don't know how much you know about his business, so I'm not sure what I can, and can't say here. I'm not tryna' get fucked up."

It was Peter's turn to sigh in exasperation, but he supposed he could appreciate Weasel being cautious. So, he admitted,

"I know he moved out of his previous place, okay, and I know why."

"Okaaay, so, yeah, anyway," Weasel slyly didn't elaborate, apparently as wary of being lied to as Peter was, "he's got other places, other safe houses, and I'm in the one he's been using lately." a short but noticeable pause followed, before he mumbled, "But only because for some reason he hasn't kicked me out yet." mostly to himself. He sounded confused about it too.

Peter was glad the need to cry had subsided in the wake of being so suddenly annoyed, but his stomach was still a little shaky and he was beginning to feel a headache coming on. He squinted his eyes, mask lenses narrowing when he asked,

"He just left his phone behind?"

"Yeah. No fucking idea why." Weasel muttered the last part, "I didn't even know until you called him the first time, then I found it in his room. But I didn't wanna' touch his phone, because I never know what might piss him off. So, I ignored the ringing until I couldn't stand it anymore." he snorted dryly, and when Peter didn't say anything, he added, "So, yeah, I don't know what else to tell you, man." and Peter noted that Weasel sounded like he was truly not interested in getting involved.

Peter didn't want him involved either, but being able to talk with him was at least somewhat informative. Now he knew that Wade had left his phone at his safe house, on charge . The charge thing didn't really make sense unless Wade had intended to return to fetch it, right? Of course, Wade was totally unpredictable and not all of the usual logical reasoning for certain actions would automatically apply to him. In the end, the bottom line was that Wade was still uncontactable.

It didn't even make Peter feel better to know that Wade hadn't been receiving and ignoring his calls on purpose, because the merc ditching his phone wasn't any better. Also, even though Wade seemingly hadn't been in contact with himself or Weasel since he disappeared and ditched his phone, he had been in contact with Dom. Had he called her from somewhere? Or had he met up with her somewhere? She hadn't specified who'd contacted who, or how, and he hadn't been in a position to ask. And Weasel said Wade had been pissed off, while Dom had said Wade was being a dumbass, and those two descriptions painted two different pictures of Wade's state in Peter's mind...

...although, at least neither of their stories depicted the situation as Wade bailing after having added another notch to his belt.

God, his chest hurt just thinking about being used that way. It was a totally different scenario, personal in a different way, but it was still being used, just as Mysterio had used him to get to E.D.I.T.H , as if he wasn't even a person, as if his feelings didn't matt-

"Sooo, anyway," Weasel broke the too long silence, making Peter blink out of his runaway thoughts, "I figured I'd risk answering the phone to let you know you can stop calling, cause' he isn't here to answer. I swear, the depressing love song thing is so much more obnoxious than that K-pop shit he once-"

"Listen, man," he cut Weasel off again, the man's voice being the most obnoxious thing to him right then, "Wade took off ten days ago, and he's completely ghosted me." he ignored Weasel's grumbled complaint about not wanting to know anything about Wade's problems, steamrolling right on, "I think he got the wrong idea about me and my ex and now he's taken off, and I don't know if he's jealous or angry or if he thinks he's doing me a favor, but it's, it's really," Peter paused, huffed out a breath, and then said, "it's really effed up!" he finished emphatically.

There was a beat of silence that lasted a few seconds too long, and then Weasel snorted and said,

"Did you just say 'effed' instead of fucked?" and Peter cringed, because yeah, that had been really lame. Why the hell hadn't he just said fucked!?

"Can you just-"

"What the fuck are you doing with Wade if you can't even say fuck ?" he sounded amused and confused, "To Wade, fuck is like a verb, a noun, adjective, conjunction, shit, I think I've heard him use it as all the parts of a sentence before." another snort.

Peter took in a deep breath to keep himself from telling Weasel to shut the hell up, even crouching down again and putting his free hand on his forehead, half groaning out,

"Oh my God, dude, can you please-"

"Okay, okay, Jesus, you must really like him if he's got you sounding so hung up." Peter's face started to get red with embarrassment then, eyes narrowing, his chest and stomach hurting. He was starting to feel the urge to cry aga-, "I guess I get it, unfortunately, I have seen the size of Wade's dic-"

"Could you not be a complete asshole for ten seconds!" Peter snapped at a man he'd never even met, upset and unable to help himself because, wow, what a prick! "You don't get it, fine , you can't understand why I like him, fine, but you don't have to joke about it." then, childishly, Peter added, "I've seen your Instagram, dude, you're not exactly winning at life." and he regretted saying something so childish and mean the moment it was out of his mouth, also, he'd just given away that he knew who Weasel was. Although, it wasn't a stretch for Weasel to assume Wade had mentioned him, right?

Weasel surprised him with his chuckled response,

"Ho ho ho, there's some fire under that hood after all." and he sounded even more amused somehow, Peter could even hear the smile in his voice. He still felt bad though, and being himself, he was about to apologize. But Weasel spoke before he could, "Okay, you said he's been gone for, what? Ten days?" sounding a bit more resigned.

Peter nodded, moving to stand up again,

"Yeah, almost, to-uh, today, the end of today, m-makes it ten."

"Oh, okay, almost ten days." the man repeated, tone going right back to sarcasm, and Peter put his hand back over his forehead, closed his eyes, breathed, "Well, I'm not gonna' mince words with you," Weasel went on, Peter hearing the sound of a can tab popping in the background, "I'd say ten days is pretty fucking short, considering that after he found out he had cancer, Wade not only ghosted his previous girlfriend, but he actually walked out on her completely. Leaving her to think he was dead for, like, two years- shit! Dammit!" Peter had been listening with a tight ball of dread forming in his stomach, but he blinked and then frowned in confusion, wondering why Wea-, " Please tell me you knew about the cancer?"

Oh, oh right, Weasel was worried about spilling info he wasn't supposed to, and oh, Peter raised an eyebrow when it sounded like the man had just slapped himself, or maybe he'd hit his forehead? Peter kept frowning as he absently listened to Weasel curse to himself, and he didn't think to answer right away, his mind going back to what Weasel had been saying before. The dread ball that had formed in his stomach was made up entirely from the stress of hearing the words two years. Wade had let his former girlfriend believe he was dead for two years? That was cra-

"Hey! You there? I need to know if the C-bomb I just dropped is gonna' get me a beat down." Weasel sounded, well, not stressed, but not as deadpan or amused as he had before. Peter sighed and shook his head, answering distractedly,

"N-no, I knew about the-, he, uh, he told me about the cancer."

"Thank God." he sounded relieved enough, so Peter went back to their conversation, wanting to clarify,

"Did you say two years?" and he could hear the strained disbelief in his own voice.

Weasel sighed again,

"Yeah. I know, long time, huh?" he was back to deadpan, "He took off while she was asleep, and let her think he'd died of el cancer. Then he went on a revenge bender that took for-fucking-ever, and yeah, it, it was a whole thing." he paused, and Peter was forced to listen to him take a gulp of whatever he was drinking and then make an exhaled 'aaah' sound afterward, "But you mentioned an ex? Gotta' say, Wade doesn't really do the jealous thing, not from what I know. So it probably isn't about that." Peter opened his mouth to ask a question, but Weasel kept talking, "I mean, you can't exactly be the jealous type and end up falling in love with a hooker." Peter blinked. A...a hooker? Was he talking about Vanessa? Had she been a prost- "So, I'd say he's taken off from you for the same reason he took off back then, he probably does think he's doing you a favor. And I mean, he probably is." Peter clenched his jaw on his flaring irritation, "I don't know shit about you, Pe-ter," Weasel said the syllables of his name a little too pronounced, "but there's no way being with Wade is not a downgrade for you."

Wow, okay, so, really and truly, Weasel was a total prick. Jeez. Who talked about a friend like that? Or...was that just how Wade and Weasel talked to, and about, each other? Because, when he thought about it, Wade also hadn't spoken very nicely to or about Weasel. And Dom was similar. Moody too, hadn't had anything nice to say. Was that just how all of Wade's friends were with him? And was the merc the same to them? It confused him, but...whatever their dynamic was, honestly, it wasn't his business and also, it didn't really matter in regards to his present issues, and in fact, he'd heard all he thought Weasel would be good for telling him.

Deciding that, Peter opened his mouth to end the conversation, but when he spoke, what he said was,

"You're a jerk. I just really feel like you should know that." in a very casual, honest way.

"Uh-"

"Also," Peter wasn't done, apparently Weasel's offhand insults to Wade had irritated him enough to make him add, "I didn't know about his previous girlfriend being a prostitute. But I'm gonna' be sure to let him know that you told me. Thanks, Weasel." and then he hung up the phone on Weasel's sudden exclamation and took in a deep, deep breath, holding it in, his mask lenses closing when his eyes did.

He felt justified in saying what he had to scare Weasel, and marginally less irritable too, and when he let the breath out and reopened his eyes, he was also slightly less tense, even though his stomach was still shaky and his emotions were still unsettled. Weasel's excess crap talking hadn't helped. Yeah, he really didn't like Weasel, but even so, he wasn't actually going to say anything to Wade, because knowing anything personal about Vanessa wasn't his place to begin with. It didn't really make a difference anyway who or what she had been, she was a part of Wade's past, and none of what happened in Wade's past needed to affect the present...except, two years? Was that how long Peter was going to be waiting around. Not that he was going to wait...

But, two years.

Peter didn't even know what he was supposed to think of that amount of time. How had Vanessa forgiven that? She must have really, really loved Wade, right? Peter didn't know if he loved Wade that much, if it was even possible for him to love someone that much. And seriously, if Wade could disappear and let her think he was dead for two years, had he really loved her...?

Even as he thought it, he felt foolishly jealous and his emotions peaked again, because he knew the answer was yes and it brought tears to his eyes, although why it made him want to cry, he wasn't sure. But maybe it was because deep down he just knew that what Wade and Vanessa had together, had been some serious kind of love.

He doubted Wade loved him that way...

They hadn't even known each other that long. He snorted to himself, sniffed and shook his head,

"A few months..." he mumbled. Yeah, really not long at all, and they'd spent more time apart than together, but yet there he was, all messed up and stressing after only ten days, or almost ten days, and that was nothing compared to two years.

Peter knew he was in deep, maybe not Vanessa deep, but deep all the same. He just felt so confused, and full of contradicting feelings. Because he didn't think he was capable of being so patient, and yet, he was still looking down at his phone and wishing he had a way to get through to Wade, to apologize to him. He was holding on to some kind of hope for their relationship, quietly, inside, painfully, but the truth and fact was that Wade had...left him.

Peter sniffed again, and then blinked rapidly when his spider sense went off, zinging up his spine and making him clench his eyes shut and exhale a tense breath. He hadn't often felt like he just wanted to crawl into bed and not be Spider-Man for a while, usually he preferred the opposite when it came to dealing with his problems, but that's how he felt right then. His chest was still sore, his stomach still felt shaky and too empty, hollow, and his eyes were constantly threatening wetness while his throat felt scratchy and clogged with that persistent lump.

He felt like shit all over again, and then some.

But he couldn't turn away from his responsibilities though. He never would. Spider-Man was a part of him in every way, that was one thing that would never change. One thing he couldn't lose and wouldn't give up. So, despite feeling like utter shit, he put his phone away, ran toward the edge of the rooftop, shot out a web and swung off in the direction of the trouble.

On the twelfth day, Peter woke up to a text message from Sam Wilson, asking him about how he knew Deadpool. Clint had obviously decided not to mind his business.

Peter ignored the message.

SIX DAYS LATER

Peter fell into his bedroom window with a grimace and a hitched groan and hiss. He was still on his feet, but he was putting his weight mostly on his left leg and holding onto the window ledge for balance with one hand, while his other hand automatically went to gingerly hold the injury on his left side over his ribs. The wound was the result of fighting some thing that had turned up in the sewers. He had no idea what to call it, all he knew was that it hadn't seemed remotely human, it had a screech that left a lingering ring in his ears, and it had attacked him enthusiastically by spitting gross organic projectiles of some sort at him. He'd dodged most of them, but some had managed to land since fighting in the confined space of the sewers hadn't left him much evasion room.

He'd managed to subdue the thing with a lot of webbing, because while it hadn't been very big, it had been quite strong, and afterward, he'd put a notice through to S.H.I.E.L.D of its location so they could sort it out, then he'd gotten out of there and away as fast as he could. But the results of the fight were fractures in at least two of his ribs, although at least they weren't actually broken. Also, he had bruising and cuts in many places, a sprained muscle in his leg, a sore shoulder, and he was pretty sure that one of the projectiles that had hit him, with enough force to rip his new suit, fracture his ribs and draw blood on his side, may have contained some kind of mild toxin -or mild to him at least-, which was making him a little dizzy and nauseous. The smell clinging to him from having been in the sewers definitely wasn't helping either with the nausea.

Presently, breathing through the dizziness and achiness all over, he was pointlessly wondering whether he should have let the thing come out of the sewers to fight it, because it would have been easier to avoid injury, and it wouldn't have been so gross. But then, he hadn't wanted it to possibly hurt anyone. And yeah, he could have probably hit it harder, taken it down faster, but like usual, he hadn't wanted to hurt it too badly by using too much force, since he had no idea what it was, or who it might have been before it became what it was, which was sometimes the case. Of course, pain was the price he paid for trying not to hurt something that was trying to kill him. Standard stuff for him.

The smell was getting to him a lot more though, now that he was no longer out in the open air, so after letting go of the windowsill, swaying a bit from the ongoing dizziness, he stumbled his way into the bathroom, hitting the light switch as he entered. He took his phone out of his concealed pocket as he stepped up to the counter, setting it down with a bit of a clatter on the surface top before he crossed his small bathroom to get in the shower, just as he was, suit and all. Peter was breathing a little loudly, body hurting as he leaned against the wall inside the shower stall, letting it take some weight off his hurt leg as he shut the shower door. He grimaced next, his head spinning as he leaned across the stall to reach for the faucets, turning them wide open with uneven twists. The cold water hit him first, and harshly, but even though he gasped a few times and winced at how it made everything hurt even more, it had the opposite effect on the dizziness, clearing his head, which he was glad for.

He just stood that way for a moment, using one hand on the wall to steady himself as the water pattered loudly down over him, soaking his suit, a fine spray misting from the mask over his mouth with every deep breath he exhaled. When the water had mostly heated up after a few long seconds, and as his muscles warmed and the cold discomfort faded, he gave into his exhaustion and lowered himself to kneeling, and then shifted to sitting on the tiles, directly under the spray. The water ran a little too hot very quickly, stinging his skin and his wounds, but he sat there anyway, breathing loudly through it, shoulders hunched, legs crisscrossed.

He was aching all over, and the eyes of his mask were narrowed since his own eyes were half closed, but he was watching his own blood mixing with the clear water, quickly making its way toward the drain and going down in a swirl of pink...God, he was so tired. And when his stomach growled sorely just then, he realized he was hungry too. He frowned slightly, causing the bruises and cuts on his face to sting and ache anew, as he tried to remember when he'd last eaten. It had...it had been some toast, two plain pieces of toast with margarine, but that had been early in the morning before he'd left the apartment.

Sighing, Peter slowly reached up and pulled off his soaking mask with a slow, wet, sticking tug, keeping his reddened puffy eyes shut to the brightness of the bathroom once it was off. He hadn't been crying, he hadn't cried in about four days actually, but he wasn't not crying either. It was like he was on the verge all the time, crying but not crying. He was just...so tired, and so down . And after that fight, he was physically hurting too, which sucked way worse. Because it hurt to breathe, and the dizziness and nausea hadn't gone away entirely, and his chest felt tight too, but that last one wasn't from fighting the sewer thing.

That chest tightness hadn't left him for days. Was probably stress. The nausea? Maybe it was hunger. The dizziness? Maybe not a toxin. He hadn't been sleeping all that great, so maybe he was just so damn tired. He didn't even know. And his self-made suit didn't have an A.I built in to check and catalogue all of his injuries. It was just him. Just him, soaking wet and sore in his suit. Oh, and hungry. He was hungry. He needed to remember that...

He didn't sit for too long. After about five minutes, once his breathing had evened out and he felt a little less gross, he moved to stand up, wincing and muttering 'ows' as he stripped out of his suit, which was made more difficult since it was wet. Once he finally got it off, he wrung it out lightly and tossed it over the top of the shower door, doing the same with his underwear and mask, which, ouch much for his injured ribs. Damn. He decided he would have to deal with his wet clothes later, he was way too tired right then. He just wanted to get clean, take some pain killers and sleep.

Finally bare, pale, bruised skin exposed to the bright light, blotchy in places from the hot water, Peter tried not to look at the large shadowy purple and blue patches darkening his left side. Instead he just stared at the tiled wall and started the tedious, and somewhat painful, task of washing the stench of the sewers off himself.

When he was done showering some time later, he didn't feel much better, but there was some marginal improvement. He definitely got out of the shower more steadily than he'd gone in, and after grabbing a towel and dabbing off most of the water on his face and torso, he wrapped it around his waist and limped over to the bathroom counter where his phone was. Picking it up, he unlocked it and quickly typed a message saying 'all good' to May, even though nothing had been good in days.

He sighed a bit heavily, the bone-weary sound huffing out of him as he locked the phone again and unconsciously raised his eyes to look at himself in his bathroom mirror. Obviously he looked like crap, tired crap, but he ended up staring at himself for a short while, taking in the slight bruising and few cuts on his face, there was also some mild swelling along the right side of his brow and some more bruising on his sore shoulder. That would all heal fairly fast at least, it was mostly superficial and would probably be gone by the following evening. But...he dropped his gaze to the large bruise on his side and winced just looking at it, knowing that would take a few more days. Honestly though, while it definitely looked awful and it hurt, it appeared worse than it felt over all. He knew he'd be fine. Some pain meds would take the edge off for the first day, but after that he wouldn't even need them.

He'd had worse.

He was frowning and making a face as he turned a bit, raising his left arm to see that the bruising extended over his flank, onto his back, and it was then, standing in only the towel wrapped around his waist, that he looked at himself fully again and he could see that he was thinner than he should be. Peter dropped his arm, too fast, ouch, but he ignored the pain in favour of being annoyed at himself for having lost some weight, because even though he'd been eating here and there, it wasn't nearly enough or often enough.

He'd been lying to May about that too. He'd been lying about all of it, she knew nothing about anything going on recently, not a thing since the day she'd left his apartment. Even when she'd asked him at some point in a text about whether he'd found out if Wade was okay, he'd lied and said yeah, that everything was fine. Fine fine fine. She thought everything was fine. Or maybe she didn't, but she certainly hadn't pressed the issue. She was keeping in contact but keeping her distance. She was angry, disappointed, concerned...whatever.

"Better this way." he said quietly to himself as he left the bathroom, thinking that she didn't need his messy, miserable life interfering with her happiness. He was an adult, he was responsible for his own drama, he wasn't her problem anymore.

He crossed his room, going straight over to his wardrobe to get out some clothes to wear. The wardrobe, like his over all bedroom, was in a very untidy state since he'd been so disinterested in everything lately, but he managed to find a pair of clean boxers and a T to wear, which he put on after briefly toweling off his lower half. Adding to the mess, he tossed the towel up over the wardrobe door with an ached grimace, before he started looking for pajama or sweatpants to wear. And it was just when he was considering giving up and sleeping in boxers, unable to find pants and wanting to go in search of pain killers instead, when he heard a noise.

It came from outside his bedroom, but, but not outside the apartment. No, it sounded like it was coming from...the lounge. Peter frowned slightly and he turned his head a bit, listening with narrowing eyes to what sounded like the window sliding up, followed by the sound of a thump, an odd shuffling, scraping sound, and then a heavier thump.

Then silence.

Slowly, Peter turned to look at his empty bedroom doorway, into what he could see of the dark lounge. And as he listened for anything else, he became aware that his breathing was deep and a little faster, and that his heart rate had increased, but his jaw was also clenched tightly, and his hands followed next, curling into white knuckled fists...because Peter knew what that noise was.

He knew who that noise was.