sixty-one.
It hadn't even been a full 30 seconds after the door had closed after Wanda's exit that Peter turned to the scarred mercenary. "So, even after they blow your brains out, you get to keep your memories?"
Said scarred mercenary chuckles softly and nods, "Yeah, unfortunately."
Peter, in the midst of biting into his sandwich, repeats the last word, which all sounds like gibberish. Wade nods and mentions that not all memories are things worth keeping. Peter quickly realizes where he's coming from and says he'd prefer not having any memories to keeping the ones that he's got now. Wade leans back on his hands and doesn't even try to hide the chuckle he lets out.
Peter's nearly a quarter of the way through his sandwich when he speaks again, this time quietly asking Wade what they did to him back at Hydra. The merc shakes his head. "They can kill me sure, but I won't stay dead. They thought it was hilarious just killing me over and over again. They didn't even ask me anything, really. Just needed a laugh I suppose. Who better to laugh at than the comedy experiment, huh?"
Peter watches the way that Wade raises his hairless brow and frowns. "Is that all you think you are? A joke?"
Wade pauses like he's never really thought about it or put too much effort into thinking of himself as anything more than what others thought of him. He slowly lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. "My whole life has pretty much been just that. Some sick joke."
Peter puts his sandwich down, suddenly more interested in the man in front of him than his meal. "What was your life like? Before you were like this? Do you remember?"
Wade just stares at the angelic boy sitting in his presence for a moment long enough that Peter begins to wonder if he's done something wrong. "Should I... Not have asked?"
Wade just shakes his head and sits up a little straighter, "Oh, no, you're okay it's just... Nobody's ever asked me that. You know, what my life was like? Nobody's ever wanted to know more about me than what I look like under the suit." He lets out a laugh, but it sounds more nervous than anything, so Peter is quick to say that he doesn't have to tell him anything if he doesn't want to.
Wade shakes his head once again before taking a breath. "What do you want to know?"
Peter just thought for a long moment, deciding that he just wanted to ask the most unimportant questions. Maybe they were unimportant to others, but to them, these may just be the most important questions that could be asked. The questions that made them feel more human, as though they were more than what had happened to them.
And they were. They were human and they were different and broken. But they were still people.
And so they went on back and forth, asking the questions that maybe nobody else cared about, like what color Wade's hair used to be, or if Peter remembered any of his old friends. And the answers to those questions came as easily as breathing did and they were churning out answers like dirty blonde and the girl named MJ. Peter asked Wade if he remembered any old family, and in turn, Wade asked him the same.
Wade easily said that it'd been a really long time since he'd seen any of the family he used to have. He was in his teens when he left them, he was sure they'd either moved on or passed on by now. He wasn't sure if he cared which.
Peter hesitated, saying he remembered a woman named after a month, June or something. He says he thinks that's her name, but it feels wrong on his tongue. Wade gently offers May as a substitute and suddenly it's like a bright flashing neon sign in Peter's head that yes, that's it and he's wondering why he couldn't remember something so short and simple.
Wade tells him that usually, people exposed to extreme torture have troubles remembering things clearly. In fact, torture can make the subject forget the information you want to get from them. It's not uncommon, but with the high levels of torture that Peter must've endured, it's likely that they were able to make him believe in things that were completely false or even falsify things that were 100% true. For now, they couldn't know.
Wade quickly changed them off of the family questionnaire in favor of helping Peter to bed and starting a movie.