Evolution

Wade woke up with a funny taste in his mouth. He smacked his lips, but it wouldn't go away so he got up to slouch to the bathroom. It was still dark outside so spider-boy was still sleeping inside his little lair. The teen had a quite deep sleep so the merc hadn't to worry about waking him up. The bathroom itself was so dark that Wade couldn't make out a single thing. He closed his eyes before turning on the lights. He put his hands on the sink to support himself and washed his face with another one.

The merc opened his eyes immediately, looking into the mirror in front of him in shock. All of a sudden he had six fricking arms.

Wade started to scream only to wake up on his couch. Still confused he looked around. Everything seemed normal; no additional limps, giant spider-web still in place, Peter sitting in front of the couch reading one of Wade's porn magazines.

Wait. What?

“Peter.. what are you doing there?” The merc asked groggily. “I.. read.” The teen stated seriously. “Oh, please – that's why you're holding it upside down?” Wade rolled his eyes and got up, looking around for more appropriate reading matter. “Oh..” Peter said disappointed, turning the magazine around instantly looking at it with full concentration.

A little later Wade took it away from Peter who growled in frustration, but the merc handed him one of his Captain America Comics. “Read that instead.” Peter seemed curious and the various colorful images seemed to fascinate him, but the way he looked he wasn't able to understand one bit. So Wade sat down next to him, reading out loud. He spoke more slowly then he used to so Peter had enough time to understand everything. At some point however the former spider started to point at letters or smaller phrases, wanting to know what they meant and so Wade ended up teaching him to read with the help of Americas most favorite super-soldier. By the end of issue three Peter was able to understand pretty much everything, except maybe for words he hadn't heard before. They spend the rest of the day sitting on the floor, reading Wade's Comics only taking small breaks in between and it was really hard to tell who had more fun.

A few days later, when they had finished Wade's massive Comic collection Peter started to read them all over again and because Wade did not want his roommate to lose interest in his new hobby he started to take him to the library, where Peter could lend out any book that caught his attention. At first he only picked books for children, but after Wade had shown him some classics like 'Alice in Wonderland' and the 'Wizard of Oz' simple stories with colorful images became uninteresting. So he soon switched to the likes of 'Anna Kerenina' and 'Pride an Prejudice' . He finished 'The Lord of the Rings' in two days and basically inhaled every book he would get in his hands. He was so fascinated by them that it soon became the only thing he did most of the day – he even stopped taking naps and settled for a normal day-and-night-rythm only to avoid taking too many breaks while reading. Wade was a little worried at first, but in the end reading was better then just sitting around doing nothing all day long. He took him out for the occasional walk of course and sometimes they would spend hours exploring the city, taking tons of photos, but they couldn't do it all day long. Peter reading was also one of the most beautiful things Wade had ever seen. He would narrow his eyes ever so slightly, moving his lips while reading in silence, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Usually they would sit on the couch together, Peter lost in his books and Wade watching some cartoons, but sometimes Wade just stared at his roommate for an undefined amount of time admiring the sight.

It didn't take long and Peter started reading books about quantum mechanics and speculative metaphysics. Hell Wade didn't even understand the titles of a few of them, while he was a hundred percent positive that Peter knew exactly what was going on, even if he couldn't speak in coherent sentences yet. He was a genius; Tony-Stark-level-genius and that was simply astonishing.

It made Wade wonder what Peter would be able to do, if he had the possibilities. He would probably cure cancer and acne and he would build all kinds of fancy devices. Some of his imaginations however frightened Wade. What if Peter would become like the scientists that actually made him? What if he would use his brain and all of his spider-powers for doing bad? What if he would look at Wade one day, seeing in him not a friend, but a lab rat he could experiment on?

So he asked Peter.

“Hey, Pete. Say, if you would ever become a big bad scientist, would we be partners or would you turn on me, making me one of your experiments?” Wade joked nervously. The boy looked up, obviously irritated by what Wade had said. Peter probably had an incredible intelligent and philosophical answer in mind, but since using vocal chords was still difficult for him he answered in a more simple way.

“We.. partners. Like Batman and Robin. Cap.. and Buck.”

“Like Bonny and Clyde?” Wade asked hopefully.

Peter nodded in agreement.

“Romeo and Juliet?”

Peter looked at him in confusion.

“Ugh.. Romeo and Benvolio?” Wade tried again.

The teen nodded.

"Well, that's good enough I guess."