hunger

Peter makes the pasta stretch for a few days. He feels better about eating it when he knows he’s saving money by doing so. He savors every forkful, not knowing whether or not he should be surprised by Deadpool’s amazing cooking skills. His run-ins with the merc become more frequent, and clearly, Deadpool expects that to mean that they’ll be having dinner together more frequently as well. Much to his chagrin, that is not the case. 

“One more pasta night, Spidey, come on, it won’t kill you!” Peter sighs, looking down at Deadpool from his vantage point on a streetlight. 

“I’m busy.” He insists. “A lull in crime for the past two minutes doesn’t mean it’ll keep going for the rest of the night.” 

“Baby boy, that streetlight would crumple under the weight of most people your age. You need to eat.” Deadpool puts his hands on his hips. “Didn’t you see that article from the Daily Bugle yesterday?” 

Of course I did, I’m the one who had to write the damn thing, Peter thinks to himself. He also knows that it was one of their best-selling papers of the week, in which Peter critiziced himself for “endangering the citizens of New York” with his “lack of self-preservation”. The photos he used didn’t even need any editing. The skin-tight spandex made his ribs more prominent than he’d like, and it made his knobby knees stand out. He looked almost as scrawny as he did when he started Spider-manning back in high school. 

Just this same morning, he’d had to placate Ned and Mr. Stark, reassuring them that he was fine, it was just some harsh editing on the Bugle’s part, and no, Mr. Stark, you do not need to sue for defamation, it’s fine.  

“Fake news.” Peter replies. “The lighting was unflattering. I’m just as alert as ever.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Deadpool says disbelievingly. “That’s why I was able to sneak up on you two days ago.” 

“That’s not the same.” Peter grumbles. “We can have dinner together some other night, I have to patrol tonight.”

“If I patrol with you, would it lighten the load?”

Peter wants to snap an immediate no, but he pauses. As much as he hates to admit it, he has been getting more sluggish. Criminals have been landing too many hits for his liking, and having anyone on his side would be such a relief. Even if “anyone” is a certain mercenary with a taste for blood. 

“Fine.” He sighs. “I still can’t do dinner tonight, though. Or the rest of this week, for that matter.”

“Next week, then.” Deadpool says. “And if you try to slip out of it again—”

“You’ll drag my unconscious ass to the nearest taco place, yeah, yeah, I know.” 

“Sweet unconscious ass.” Deadpool clarifies. “Don’t downplay yourself.” Peter laughs, leaping his streetlight to the nearest building. 

“You coming or not?”

Dodging Deadpool’s dinner offers becomes a part of Peter’s nightly routine. They do almost every patrol together, now, save for the days when Deadpool is off on a ‘job’. Peter knows better than to ask where he’s been, but he still dutifully patches up Deadpool the day after, lecturing him on making better life choices. 

“Okay, yeah, I know, but that guy deserved it, Spidey. He had it coming!”

“You got something coming if you don’t sit still, dipshit. Stop tearing my stitches.” 

“You know I don’t even need those, right? I’ll be fully healed in just a few hours.”

“Your arm has been separated from your body. ‘A few hours’ is too many.”

It’s catching up to him, though. The Bugle article seems to ring truer with each passing day. Deadpool takes more and more hits for Peter to make up for his lagging spidey-sense, and even then, Peter comes out of each fight with twice as many injuries as he used to, which now take twice as long to heal.

“You can’t keep doing this, Webs, look at yourself! There’s not enough bandages in the world to keep Spider-Man together these days.”

“I’ll heal.”

“You’re still healing a twisted wrist from last week. It’s never taken you more than two days to heal something like that.” 

“It’s fine.”

“Both of the boxes are worried. Both of them! Do you even know—”

“Drop it, ‘Pool.” 

Peter tries to take Deadpool’s sudden disappearance one week as a blessing. He texts him after the third day, immediately receiving a simple reply: “on a job, out till next week”. 

Patrol that week is quiet without Deadpool talking to his boxes or berating Peter for not eating enough. Karen has begun to make an appearance more often, though, telling him that he should go get his suit adjusted since it’s gotten so loose. Peter knows it’s her way of trying to get him to go to Tony, to get help, and he appreciates it. Unfortunately for her, she’s just an AI, and can be easily muted with the click of a button.

Peter chugs sugar-free energy drinks and diet soda like his life depends on it, because at this point, it kind of does. He hasn’t eaten a full meal for several weeks, and hasn’t had any solid food since Deadpool went MIA a week ago, so he can’t even pretend to be shocked when his patrol ends with him collapsing on a roof instead of his shitty mattress. He gracelessly tumbles onto the concrete and skids for a few yards, coming to a stop a few inches away from the chain link fence surrounding the edges of the roof. His suit protects him from the potential roadburn, but he still winces at the heat caused by the friction of his sudden landing. 

Everything hurts, and he can’t muster up the energy to even twitch a finger. It feels like his abdomen is sticking to his spine, creating a vacuum that makes it impossible to suck in a full breath. He tries to prop himself up on his shoulders, but falls back weakly. His head hitting the concrete probably won’t do wonders for his already darkening vision. 

He tries to take advantage of his unexpected opportunity to cloud gaze, but finds it too difficult to focus his eyes. The greyish clouds of the night pulse in and out of existence as Peter’s consciousness fails him.

He feels the roof vibrate with the weight of someone’s footsteps, but he can’t hear them over the static and ringing in his ears. He hopes it’s not a villain. There’s no more fight in him, there’s no more anything, just a howling stomach. 

As his eyes roll back into his head, Peter realizes that he doesn’t actually care all that much. He wonders if he’ll finally wake up in a taco place. 

Peter doesn’t wake up in a taco place, surprisingly. He wakes up on a familiar couch in a familiar apartment, which smells suspiciously like a taco place. 

“The Sleeping Beauty has awoken!” Deadpool’s voice is coming from somewhere across the room. Peter sits up, twisting his head to look over to the kitchen, and is greeted by Deadpool, toting a frilly pink apron over a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants. Several takeout bags litter the kitchen counter, a couple having ended up on the coffee table in front of Peter. Peter watches the most lethal mercenary of New York hum happily to himself as he removes containers from their plastic bags. His mouth begins to water against his will, and he swallows thickly. 

“Took ‘ya long enough, Webs.” Deadpool says as he finishes unpacking the takeout bags, plopping a generous amount of napkins, plastic utensils, and salsa containers onto the little space left on the counter. “Alright, I got us enough food here to feed at least a dozen people, which is the equivalent of two enhanced, plus leftovers! We got carne asada, tripa, lengua, and chorizo tacos, a bag of tamales, way too many tortilla chips—”

An unexpected sob breaks Deadpool’s enthusiastic rambling. It seems to shock Peter as much as it shocks Deadpool, but it’s just so much food, it’s so much money, it’s so much… weight.

“Webs? You good?” Deadpool asks nervously. Peter nods, pressing his gloved hands against his mask, as though to wipe away the tears already absorbed by the spandex. 

“Are you sure? It looked like you took a pretty rough fall, but I didn’t want to take off your mask or suit or anything, so I just left you on the couch even though I probably should’ve checked for injuries, shit, are you hurt?” 

“No.” Peter mumbles. “Not any more than usual, that is.” 

“That’s not good to hear.” Deadpool mutters. “Listen, Spidey, ‘not any more than usual’ is still pretty bad, especially since your human shield hasn’t exactly been around for the past week.” 

“I’m alright. I don’t need any help.”

“That’s a big fat fuckin’ lie if I ever heard one, right Yellow? White?” Peter ignores the last bits, knowing they aren’t directed towards him. 

“I’m not hurt. I’m not crying about being hurt.” Peter insists, sniffling and grimacing at the feeling of runny snot and tears rubbing on his face through the mask. “It’s just– the food, and the money, it’s gonna take me weeks to repay you–”

“Woah woah woah, slow your roll, sugartits.” Peter snorts at the nickname. “I’ve been saying ‘Dinner on me’ for ages now, and it’s finally my chance to make good on it! You don’t need to repay me.”

“But that’s not fair, I mean, I shouldn’t be making you do stuff for me like this—”

“Hey now, don’t hit me with all that ‘don’t wanna be a burden’ bullshit.” Deadpool shakes his head. “Community and allyship doesn’t work if both parties are too scared to lean on each other. How many times have you bandaged me up in the past month or two?”

“S-seventeen.” Peter whispers. 

“Oh. Well. I didn’t think you were counting.” Deadpool sounds vaguely embarrassed, muttering something about 'well I didn't think it was that much, I mean, the author just glossed over everything'. “Look, that’s not the damn point. I’ve relied on you a lot. And even if you hadn't helped me at all, your company is enough. You don't need to do anything to deserve a favor from me, it comes with the friendship contract! Now it’s your turn to get taken care of. This is just one meal of many to come.” 

“Okay. Yeah. Um.” Peter feels his face heat up at the realization that Deadpool is right. “Thanks?”

“It’s what friends are for.”

Peter should be nervous about getting so off-track with his diet, straying so far from his precious yellow journal, but for some reason, he doesn't think he would mind gaining weight from this. Some part of him hopes he'll gain weight from this. Hopes his body will make the best of it, maybe build some muscle or fat, reinforce his bones, help heal the cuts and bruises he's gathered over time. Hopes this meal will stay on him, carry him through the next few weeks.

“Yeah. Friends.” 

Something warm glows in Peter’s chest. It’s a lot softer and a lot nicer than the hunger pains he’s gotten used to.