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Peter tumbles onto the padded floor with an oof, skidding to a stop on his side against a wall of the training room. He gets up gruffly, rolling his shoulders and staring straight at Steve Rogers.
“You have to try harder than that, Peter,” Steve says. And it’s the way he says it that hurts Peter. Steve is like a father to Peter, he really is. So when he sounds disappointed, it’s gut-wrenching for Peter. Tony, sitting on a chair in the far end of the room away from the violence of training is not-so-sneakily pretending to be engrossed in a book, but is really watching Steve and Peter train.
“I am trying,” Peter insists, resuming his defensive stance.
He should be lucky. Here are two Avengers who care for him, and help him, and love him, and they’re trying to pass their skills onto Peter. They know his identity, and his powers, and they really, truly care about him. But Peter is only seventeen. He’s young and tired and his abilities are still very much new to him.
“You need to stop curling your punches when you swing,” Tony comments from the side.
Peter clenches his jaw, wiping sweat from his brow. “I have to curl my punches. I - I could hurt you.” He gestures to Steve. “My strength is -”
“Your strength,” Tony persists, “is something that can keep you alive in a fight.”
Peter blanches, throwing hands to his sides. “But this is training! I’m not trying to hurt you!”
Steve watches Peter fondly, with all the understanding in the world. “But you won’t be fighting us out in the rest of New York. They won’t go easy on you; they won’t be training,” he urges. “If you’re in danger, you need to learn how to hit with your strength. All of it.”
Peter fidgets with his web-shooters in a self soothing gesture, the tap tap tap comforting to him. They mean well; they want him to be prepared, to be safe. But sometimes it’s just - a lot.
“Again,” Steve says, giving Peter no time to prepare. He surges forward, swinging at Peter. Peter jumps backwards onto the wall, clinging with his hands and bare feet, scrambling up and flipping off the wall, landing behind Steve. He kicks his legs out from under the larger man, and Steve falls to the ground. Peter pins him down, but Steve plants his feet on Peter’s hips and tosses him backwards.
Peter winces but stands quickly, just in time to dodge a punch from Steve. They go back and forth in close-combat fighting, until Steve pushes him back far enough for Peter to kick him square in the chest.
He takes the opportunity to bring the fight to the several layers of sturdy wooden balconies lining the walls of the training room; he feels more comfortable in the air, higher up. Steve grabs hard to Peter’s ankle and yanks. He manages to land on his feet.
“I know you can do more. I’ve seen you use all your abilities during real fights,” Steve says through panting breaths, sparring with Peter.
And something just snaps.
Peter stops defending himself, but Steve’s punch is already flying. His fist connects with Peter’s belly, and Peter stumbles back but stays planted on his feet. He can feel the already-raw skin burning, and he isn’t surprised if the strength of the punch broke through skin. His vision swimming with both pain and anger, Peter grits his teeth.
“This isn’t a real fight!” he screams. Steve and Tony go silent. The room is still.
“Peter -” Tony starts.
“No!” Peter shouts, but swallows his feelings up quickly. “No, I - sorry. I’m just - I’m gonna go…” Peter murmurs, and leaves the training room in nothing but his t-shirt and gym shorts, bare-foot and sweaty.
He all but sprints out of Stark Tower, pushing his way through the guarded revolving door. He yanks his mask on from inside his pocket, and launches himself into the air, shooting webs at buildings farther and farther away until he’s put at least a mile between him and the Tower.
He lands on a tall, desolate roof top on the outskirts of the city. It’s not until he collapses and sits on the ledge does he realize how freezing he is, and how his eyes are burning with unshed tears, how his head is pounding, and how his side is throbbing in pain.
They try to understand - they really do. But they’ve had more time to come to grasp with their abilities, and they already have their morals and beliefs established, and they already know who they are. And between that, his senior year of high school, being bullied in class, and having to patrol the city streets every night? Sometimes it’s unbearable, and Peter needs a god-damned break.
Peter peels his mask off his face, wiping his eyes furiously and sucking in a hitched breath.
“Uh, excuse me,” an offended voice begins, “this is my abandoned rooftop for brooding and taco consumption.”
Peter scrambles to pull his mask back over his head, and turns to face the voice, bracing himself for possible danger. Deadpool looks back at him, fully suited with a bag of takeout food in his hand.
“Oh. Hi, Wade,” Peter says dejectedly, curling his knees to his chest and staying on the roof’s ledge. He sniffles, looking up to greet the recovering mercenary.
Sure, Deadpool teams up with Spider-Man and the rest of the Avengers when they need intel or extra help. But if Steve and Tony knew how often Peter and Wade met outside of regular missions, they’d probably have a collective aneurysm.
“He’s dangerous,” Tony always says.
“He’s… unreliable. Erratic. He means well, but…” Steve would always trail off.
That’s just not true, though. Sure, Deadpool’s beliefs don’t always align with the Avenger’s, but they both have the same goals and intentions.
Wade is inappropriate, definitely, and crude and spontaneous. But he is, admittedly, a good friend.
He’s never made Peter fear for his life, and that’s all he can ask for, these days. Wade is funny and nice, in a way, and they have an odd compatibility that only unsettles Peter a little bit. He has an astonishing modicum of respect for Peter that baffles all the Avengers.
“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Wade asks flippantly, but he sits down beside Peter, dropping the bag of food between them.
“Just Steve and Tony being… Steve and Tony. They mean well, but it’s too much sometimes, and they just don’t know,” he says lowly.
Wade hums in thought, swinging his legs and digging in the bag. He begins munching on his food, sighing contentedly.
“Well,” Wade says, swallowing, “isn’t that, like, what parents do?”
Peter makes a sour face, scrunching up his nose. “I guess,” he huffs. “I wouldn’t know too well, but my Aunt is definitely less pushy than they are,” he says finally.
“Alright,” Wade says with an air of authority, “spill. What’s going on in that Spider head?”
Peter doesn’t say anything at first. He doesn’t know where to start, and when to end. He doesn’t even know why Wade cares, but he can’t say he minds.
“Steve and Tony push me to train too hard, and I’m afraid to use my full strength because I really don’t think they understand what a minimum of 10 tons of force feels like, and I get bullied in school and can’t fight back because I could kill someone, so I have to let them knock my books down and slam me into lockers and give me reverse wedgies - which hurt.” Peter sucks in a breath before continuing. Wade winces in sympathy.
“And I come home with bruises after patrolling sometimes and my aunt is worried for me but I can’t tell her anything, and I don’t like seeing her stressed, I have to make time for school, studying, patrolling, and training. And it’s bullshit,” he surmises, turning his face and pulling his mask up to wipe at his eyes again.
Wade says nothing, slurping at his Taco Bell soda. “And how did you get hurt?” he asks after a moment.
Peter stills, turning to him. “I didn’t -”
“Yeah, right. Your hands haven’t left your stomach since I got here,” Wade says with a snort, a glob of taco filling falling between his legs and landing on the ground far below them.
Peter flushes. That’s another thing people always underestimate about Wade. He can act as comical and as oblivious as he wants. But everyone - including Peter - forgets that Wade is a mercenary, and was in the army. He’s basically paid to be observant of others.
“‘S nothing. Steve and I were sparring. I got angry and stopped defending myself mid-swing,” he murmurs, lifting his shirt up tentatively.
Wade peers at it and makes a sound of disapproval, which is rich, coming from Wade.
His stomach is mottled with blues and purples and reds, splotchy and angry and throbbing. There’s a small gash at the center of the bruising. It probably would’ve broken Steve’s wrist if he weren’t enhanced, too.
“Ouch, Little Bug,” Wade huffs sympathetically.
Peter nods in overall agreement, lowering his shirt and laying down carefully on the ledge of the roof. Wade continues to chomp on his food, the smell of tacos filling the air around them. Peter pulls his mask up to his nose to breathe in the night air unfiltered.
Smog hides the stars, but the city lights in the distance glitter brighter than stars would anyway. Wind whips against his face, and the sound of Wade humming dances around Peter’s ears as he shuts his eyes to the world.
“I’m gonna stay here for a while,” Peter says belatedly.
Wade nods. “Yeah. That’s cool. Take a break.” And his hand tentatively comes to rest on Peter’s head. When Peter doesn’t object, Wade rubs his thumb in careful, soothing arcs across Peter’s exposed cheek.
“I’ll tell you a story,” Wade says after a minute, turning to face Peter, one leg over the ledge and the other behind it. “...So it was me and Hawk-Guy-”
“Hawkeye,” Peter injects, eyes shut but a smile on his face despite the pain in his belly.
“-Right, sure, Hawkeye. So it was me and Hawkeye, right? Well, we were clubbing at some bar downtown. It’s goin’ great, we’re having fun… but then, I totally forgot what happened next. I blacked out. Me, Hawkeye, and - get this - Daredevil - wake up in the totally empty bar, in only our underwear, tied to the barstools. So, obviously, we try and figure out what the fuck was going on. But they took Hawkeye’s hearing aids! Dick move, right? Well, I had to try and pull my mask up with my mouth so he could read my lips. And Daredevil is Blind. So we’ve got a nasty mercenary, a Deaf Avenger, and a Blind vigilante…”
And as Wade speaks about everything and nothing, Peter finds himself being lulled to sleep by the animated story and his careful fingers against his face. Peter’s leg hangs off the ledge of the roof, and he doesn't miss how Wade places his other hand right behind Peter, to catch him if he falls in his sleep. The angry fire in his chest is only steam now, and his belly isn’t aching as violently. His tears have long since stopped, and his breaths come in slow and paced.
And he sleeps there, calmer and more serene, as Deadpool tells his rambling but comforting story and takes watch.