thirty-nine.
Peter smiles widely when his eyes fall on Wade and his red suit. His voice comes out as a gasp as he quickly rises from the bed, tripping over the blankets as he does so. "Wade!"
Wade steps around Widow to catch Peter before he falls. "Hi there, Petey baby."
Peter's smile is wider than Nat's ever seen it before. Peter's dainty looking hands gripped Wade's biceps as they just stood there together. "What are you doing here, Wade?"
Wade brushes Peter's hair back and pulls his mask up to give him a kiss on the forehead. "I heard you were sick and I came to check up on you."
Nat didn't say anything against this because technically true. Wade was here because Peter had been sick, Nat just didn't know why. Wade paused and sighed. "And there's something that I have to tell you."
Peter paused, smile momentarily fading. "You're not disappearing to Italy for 10 years or anything, are you?"
Wade laughs at the use of their inside joke but then shakes his head with a frown. "No, it's nothing like that, but... I know why you're sick... Peter, we were found out by some really bad guys when we ran away... They took me into the woods and I couldn't get back to you in time to stop them from doing what they did."
Letting go of Wade, Peter took a step back. "What'd they do?" Upon getting no response, he spoke again, this time louder and more urgently. "What'd they do to me, Wade?!"
Wade reached for Peter, who backed away and crawled onto the bed to stay out of the merc's reach. He didn't want to be touched, he wanted answers. He wanted to know what'd happened to him and who'd done it and why. "And I don't want any of your excuses, Wade, I want the truth!"
Wade pulled his mask back down and sighed. "They injected you with a type of serum... That's the blood anomaly that Wizard dude found in you. It only altered you a little, from what I can gather..."
"What does it do? What'd it do to me? Why am I sick?" Peter's hands were starting to shake as his watch began to vibrate.
"Life... It gave you the ability to make life."
Peter, who seemed more confused by Wade's talk just shook his head. "I could already make life! I'm not asking to hear more of your cryptic bullshit, Wade!"
"It gave you the ability to CARRY life, Peter. A human being, inside of you, almost like the way mothers do." Wade's heart skipped when he saw the way that Peter was looking at him. His eyes were wide and he looked so afraid.
"So, what? Am- Am I pregnant? Is that what you're saying?" Peter felt his heart drop. Kids were always something that he wanted in his life, and this could certainly be considered a gift in a way, but what would it mean for him? That he was pregnant with Wade's child? He and Wade weren't even a couple of any kind, they weren't stable enough for a family yet, even if they were a couple. But to be pregnant so early in his life? To be pregnant at all? Peter knew the impossibility of it all, but if Wade was telling the truth, then he could be pregnant.
But why? If the bad guys did this, why would they do it at all? Why make him able to carry children? Was it a mistake? A trial serum? Or did the bad guys have a bigger plan in mind for them? Did the universe?
This time it was Nat who spoke, "There's only one way to know for sure..."
Peter watched her as she walked into the bathroom and came back out. She handed him a plastic package with a soft sigh. "It should work... The instructions are on the sink."
Peter understood what it was and nodded slowly, glancing to Wade. Wade pulled his mask up to give him a soft smile and with that, Peter went into the bathroom. Wade turned to Nat, who stared ahead while she picked at her nails.
"Why do you keep those?" He asked her gently.
She took a shaking breath. Wade seemed to know everything there was to know, so she saw no reason to try and lie to him. "In the Red Room, where I was trained they have this... Ceremony when you pass. It's not sterilization, it's a serum. It did to me what the other serums did to Steve and James. Mine just worked differently on me... Made it impossible to me for have kids... I can um... I can get pregnant, just not carry to term with them. My body won't let me... I keep those to prepare myself for the hurt. To prepare Steve and James too."
She let out another shuddering breath and wiped away a tear before it got the chance to escape her eye. Wade didn't say anything, just put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up at him.
"If he really is carrying a child..." She started. He held a hand up to stop her from speaking.
"I'm not going to leave him. I know what it's like to lose a child, and I wouldn't leave another one. Or Peter."
She turned her full body towards him. "You had better mean that, or so help me, God, I WILL find you and I WILL make you regret it."
He lets out a chuckle and is about to speak again when he hears a soft wailing from the bathroom. It's quite obvious that Peter's trying to conceal it, but the sound makes Wade's heart climb into his throat and then drop into his stomach. It was all he needed to hear to know the truth.
But he knocked on the door anyway, and when Peter opened the door, tears on his cheeks, Wade was going to console him. Tell him that everything would be okay and that their child would be alright.
But then Peter hugged him, clung onto him like a small child to his mother's leg. And Wade took the test from Peter's hand, and suddenly the air made its way back into his lungs.
And when he glanced over his shoulder to Widow, he shook his head. And she understood.