baby boy

It felt like weeks since Peter had seen Deadpool, despite the fact that it had only been five days since their last encounter at the restaurant. The 24 hours in his day started to feel like triple its numerical amount and yet it still wasn’t enough.

The final exams that decided the entirety of Peter’s future were in one week. One week. Seven days. 168 hours. And all of Peter’s free hours, which should’ve been allocated for sleeping, were spent hunched over his desk, looking over the millions of papers and tests he had done over the course of the year.

He had looked like he was on the verge of death recently; dark eyebags, unruly hair, permanently slouched posture. Peter was, truly, a sight for sore eyes.

If you couldn’t tell from just looking at him, he was absolutely, not, taking care of himself. Peter had pulled several all-nighters in the past week and his diet had been resembling that of a person unable to eat solid foods, considering 95% of his nutrition derived from coffee, tea, and energy drinks.

The stress of these exams had started taking a physical toll on the boy too.

His spidey sense had been weakened, leading to an increase in successful attacks against Peter. Two nights ago, some mugger had sucker punched him right in the ribs, almost shameful how easily he did. Injuries like this usually heal themselves in less than three hours, but the purple patches on Peter’s ribs had remained for over fifty hours.

Gently avoiding touching his torso, Peter attempted to put his suit on as best as he could. He had thought hard about not patrolling the week before exams in order to revise. A list stared at him from his desk. Pros: Better chance at getting a scholarship, spent my entire schooling years for this, one week isn’t too long. Cons: crime doesn’t wait for anyone, people will get hurt if I do this.

Peter stares at the list while opening his bedroom window. A short second after, he crawls out and tugs his mask on.

Crime had maintained at its average level in Queens, but Spiderman’s capacity to handle it had not. The handful of encounters he had, were enough to knock him off his feet, receive a couple blows to his body again, and just, crush his spirit. It was almost pointless for him to be out on the street, fighting crime, when all he really did at the moment was become its newest punching bag.

Peter’s not sure how he ended down on the ground in a dark alley, being pinned to the floor by three men having turns at punching him. One minute, he was helping an elderly lady cross the road, and the next, he was getting beat into another dimension. It couldn’t really come as a surprise anymore. All he could think about was how blows to his face were going to be a pain to cover up.

“Gee, I woulda thought that this so-called superhero would have, ya know, superpowers?” A rough, dangerous voice bursts out. He receives a blow to the face shortly after this.

“Are you sure this is the real Spiderman? I’ve watched clips of the kid and… Well, he could probably take the three of us on by himself.” A cautious voice responds.

“Man don’t be ridiculous, just, hold him down, we can’t have him telling anyone what he saw us do.” The third voice says, and pushes his shoulder down as if he intended to break them.

He just closes his eyes to somewhat lessen the humiliation of giving up. As soon as Peter does this, a clang of metal breaks the rhythm of the punches.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” A new but familiar voice booms out.

Peter slowly turns his face to lay against the floor, blinking his eyes open. To nobody’s surprise, it’s Deadpool. The latter visibly recognises him moments later, eyes widening and hands shooting up to his head.

“SPIDEY. THIS IS WHERE YOU’VE BEEN? Give a guy some warning next time! I thought you full on died.” A blurry vision of red exclaims. Peter thinks he sees Deadpool bring his hands down to clutch his heart. He’s getting sleepy.

The rough hands previously holding him to the ground disappear and Peter can hear vague grunts and punches. Maybe the ringing of his ears were still there, but he swears he can hear the slice of metal against air too. His exams were in a week goddammit. The sounds last for a couple minutes, maybe more, he can’t really tell, but Deadpool’s loud booming voice snaps Peter from falling asleep.

“BABY! Don’t fall asleep. Lemme check for a concussion first.” Deadpool half shouts, half whispers. Gentle, gloved hands cradle Peter’s head and he’s quickly moved to rest against a dirty wall. His eyes are squeezed shut.

“STAY WITH ME SWEETUMS! DADDY’S HERE.” He yells stupidly loud, a twinge of both humour and concern. Peter laughs softly in response to this since his face is not even ten centimetres away from the mercenary.

He manages to blink his eyes open just to shut the larger man up. With a chuckle, Peter murmurs out what he can.

“Wade. I’m fine, thank you.”

The pain from his bruises had reemerged. What a way to make a man contradict himself. Peter wraps his arms around his stomach and winces.

Wade sends him a questioning look and tells Peter to follow his finger with his eyes. This carries on for a while and it surprisingly seems like Deadpool’s done this more than once.

“Alright, I’m prettyyyy sure you don’t have a concussion. But I’ll probably have to follow you around to make sure you don’t fall asleep just in case.” Deadpool comments, slightly pleased at that.

Peter feels too sluggish to say anything in response, and lets the man ramble on to himself until a question arises:

“Spidey, you wanna go get ice-cream?” Deadpool asks earnestly. Peter thinks that his eyes are attempting to form puppy dog ones.

The question is so random he wants to laugh, but the movement would hurt his stomach so instead he just nods.

“Alright.” Deadpool smiles at himself, picking Peter up bridal style this time, cautious of his torso. They move slowly through the streets so as not to aggravate any pain Peter may have in his head. He enjoys hearing Wade talk about anything and everything, it quietens his head, and he doesn’t have to think about anything.

Peter doesn’t speak for the twenty minute journey except to reply to questions Deadpool asks for his opinion on things. It’s comforting, and there’s nearly nobody on the streets, this late at night.

The taller man drops Peter down gently to stand on his own, but he’s still a little shaky and leans against Deadpool for support. The older man wraps an arm around him, weirdly domestic, but greatly appreciated.

“Alright. Whaddya want sweetcheeks?” Deadpool asks excitedly.

“Um, could I get hazelnut please?” Peter replies, choosing the first flavour he reads out.

“Sure thing. Cup?” Deadpool deduces. He doesn’t think Spidey would be a cone person.
Peter nods at the question and murmurs a thank you out.

Deadpool asks for a total of four scoops and three toppings in a cone. A worker hands over their scoop of hazelnut in a cup and Deadpool’s rainbow, pink, purple and blue ginormous concoction of sugar and milk, not to mention the various toppings that were on the verge of falling off. He miraculously manages to not drip anything.

The two of them sit at a bench at an abandoned park.

“Soooo you wanna tell me why you haven’t responded to any of my texts, Spidey?” Deadpool queries, focused on shoving the ice cream and wafers down his throat.

Peter freezes. It’s going to sound ridiculous if he says he genuinely doesn’t use his phone apart from his alarm in the morning.

“I don’t really have anything to say, Wade. I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not exactly sure where my phone is right now.” Peter responded apologetically. It did have an element of truth in that; he came to school late yesterday as he lost his phone somewhere.

“Oh. That’s ok. I was just worried for a bit,” Wade pauses his ice cream rampage, “Have you been taking care of yourself?” Peter can feel worried eyes on him.

The mood has shifted and Peter feels called out. He wants someone to talk to about this. Even if it was just for a second.

“I’ve erm. I’ve got my finals in a week. Exams don’t usually affect me this much but I think the stress has gotten to me. It’s so stupid really, don’t worry about it. Peter explains quickly. He would feel selfish for being the reason why Deadpool had to make some unnecessary kills, carry him half across the city, and pay for his ice cream.

“Hey, that's not stupid. Really. Have you thought about taking a break though? C’mon sweets, you’re in no condition to be out here at night, you’d be doing more harm than good,” Deadpool replies with unexpected wisdom, “Besides, I don’t think any of the Avengers could even fight crime on a daily basis, and study for their finals. That right there is a superhero.” Deadpool points at Peter.

He feels an overwhelming urge to cry right there. Nobody appreciated him like that before. Not in a verbal manner before. He holds back his tears, and just blurts out:

“Peter. My name is Peter, you can call me that.”

Wade looks back at him with a massive grin. They had known each other for a few years and it was always unspoken knowledge that Peter had kept his identity a very close secret. He remembers Spiderman telling him that nobody knows his actual identity, and even though it was just his first name, Wade felt infinitely closer.

“Pe-ter. Pete. Petey. Peterkins. That’s a cute name. Petey. Can I call you Petey now? It’s so adorable.” Wade giggles.

Peter’s grateful that the previous topic of conversation had dropped, and he feels a slight worry from telling Wade his name, but he also likes the way that he says it. Petey.

The night passes by quickly again, the peaks of sunset drawing closer, and it’s time for the both of them to return to their homes.

“Petey boo, I mean it this time, reply to my texts, it’s killing me.” Deadpool fake cries, resulting in a smile from the boy.

“Alright Wade. I’ll text back. As soon as I find my phone, I promise.”

“Pinky promise?” Wade asks in a higher pitched voice.

Peter doesn’t say anything in response, just linking his pinky finger with the man. The boy walks home feeling the calmest he had in weeks.