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Wade Winston Wilson doesn’t get along with people.
He knows the problem is him. He’s loud, crass, rude and completely, undeniably insane. He also spends a good deal of his time unaliving people for money. And that’s not even mentioning the horrific scars that cover every inch of his skin (yes, even his dick), the scars that ache and burn with each beat of his cold, rotten heart.
[Ok. Now you’re just being needlessly dramatic.]
{This isn’t a pity party!}
Oh, and did he mention the voices?
[White.]
{Yellow!}
[Hello.]
{Howdy!}
But back to the point. Wade – Deadpool, as he’s known in the world nowadays – doesn’t get along with people. They don’t like him, and there are multiple, rather fantastic reasons for this. And for the most part, Wade is quite happy to be alone.
[That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.]
Okay, so maybe he gets lonely. Sometimes.
{Liar, liar, pants on fire!}
[We have crippling social anxiety, but we crave company. Go figure.]
Anyway. Wade is prepared to continue on alone for eternity, and with his healing factor that was certainly looking like a possibility. He’d probably go on forever, unaliving people and swimming in cash and tacos. It's what he deserves.
{The dream is real.}
That isn’t, of course, to say that Wade hasn’t had relationships. He has – not very healthy ones, he knows, but they were relationships and at this point in his life, Wade wasn’t exactly sure he deserved, or deserves, any better.
[Besides, I’m pretty sure half of them were hallucinations.]
So Peter fucking Parker was a complete surprise. (And no, 'fucking' isn't actually his middle name. It's Benjamin.)
{You’re telling it wrong!}
[Start from the beginning.]
Right.
So one night, Wade is busy unaliving a group of bad guys in an alley – he’s forgotten, by now, if they were actually bad guys, but he likes to think they were (it helps him sleep at night) – when he’s suddenly stuck to the brick wall by something that looks suspiciously like webs.
Before he can cut away at the offending stuff – and he’s seeing fucking red, because if this shit stains his suit he is not going to hold himself back – he realizes that the remaining bad guys are stuck to various parts of the alley wall, only instead of looking confused (like Wade feels), they look resigned. Maybe even a little bit scared.
And it’s true, he’s been out of New York for a while – travelling the globe, meeting new people and unaliving them. He heard about the aliens, Loki, the Avengers… But as far as he can recall, none of them have webs.
This all flits through his mind in seconds, enough time for a lean figure in red and blue spandex to drop silently into the alley.
“Aw, you guys forgot to invite me to the party! Did the invitation get lost in the post, or were you being purposely rude?” The figure pauses, and Wade is stuck staring at this perfect, divine ass as the figure turns around. “Please, don’t all speak at once.”
And Wade can’t help it – his mouth drops open and words just pour out of his mouth. To his surprise, the figure – who is obviously some new hero Wade missed out on – responds, keeping pace with Wade’s motor mouth.
He doesn’t want to, but the moment he cuts through the webbing he’s lunging to attack, because he’s Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth first and foremost, and Wade Wilson last. But the figure surprises him again – with a particularly sensual display of acrobatics, he flips up… And sticks to the wall.
“Hey! No getting handsy before the third date!” the guy says playfully. “I’d love to stick around,” he gets extra points for the horrible pun, “but I hear the cops coming. The boys in blue still try and catch me, and I am way too pretty for jail. See ya!”
And then he is gone.
And so Wade decides to do some research.
He is bitterly disappointed with what he finds, which is the approximation of nothing. No one knows anything about the web guy that Wade hasn’t already figured out, except that he’s called Spiderman, of all things.
Wade wonders if the hero made it so simple because it was easy to remember, or if he was taking a shot at the collective intelligence of New York. Either way, the hero’s relatively simple name makes searching for him easier.
He finds pictures. Hundreds of effortlessly brilliant pictures that capture Wade’s Spidey in motion, long limbs stretched in flight. They all share two things in common – one: they have all been published in the Daily Bugle, and two: they were all taken by the same photographer.
He goes to the Daily Bugle office the next day and catches his first glimpse of Peter Parker.
He looks young, and there is an innocence about him that makes Wade not want to approach lest he stain him. His hair is brown and shaggy, and he has a habit of running his hands through it every two seconds. His glasses are huge and out of date, but he makes them look good.
[He’s fucking adorable.]
{And he’s wearing skinny jeans!}
“Dat ass,” Wade agrees. The kid - he's probably not a kid, but he looks young so he gets the honorary title - is dressed like a hipster, and unlike the majority of the schmucks that live in the world, he actually manages to pull it off.
Wade follows him home – only he realizes too late that it isn’t Peter’s home. A little old lady lets him in with a hug and a kiss, and Wade is left watching the house for the better part of two hours.
“What are you doing here?” someone snarls from behind him, and he whirls around to see none other than Spiderman crouched on the roof.
Wade blinks – partly because he’s stunned someone actually managed to sneak up on him, and partly because he wonders if the other man knows what that pose is doing for him. The spandex clings to the lean, muscular frame, highlighting the strong muscles in his legs and chest. A more drool-worthy sight Wade has yet to see.
“Holy hell, Batman, you are the sneakiest mother fucker this side of sanity!” Wade says in greeting.
Spiderman’s head tilts to the side. “What?”
“We never had a chance to introduce ourselves!” Wade continues, jumping to his feet and offering the hero a curtsey. “I’m Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth, Wade Wilson at your service.” He adds another curtesy for shits and giggles. “And you’re Spiderman!”
“I am,” Spiderman agrees. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I was actually trying to find you,” Wade begins, absently noticing the way the other man tenses, the line of his shoulders becoming sharp. “And I thought, ‘hey, if anyone’s going to know where I can find Spiderman – that’s a mouthful, by the way, I’m calling you Spidey from here on out – it’s gotta be Peter Parker’. Because, you know, he takes all your photos.”
The tension slowly eases out of Spidey’s posture, and Wade’s pretty sure he’s missed something important, but before he can try and figure it out, Spidey’s talking.
“This isn’t where Peter lives,” he says, gesturing to the building Wade’s been watching.
Wade huffs, indignant. “I know that. I meant to follow him home after he left his grandma’s house and threaten – I mean ask – him about you.”
[Smooth.]
{Good job, moron.}
“Shut up,” Wade growls in response.
“I didn’t say anything,” Spidey replied, bemused.
Wade shakes his head. “Wasn’t talking to you, baby boy. Hey, that’s a good one!”
“I think I prefer Spidey.”
“Well I like baby boy. And since I made them up, I get to choose.” He folds his arms and pouts, the expression exaggerated for Spidey’s benefit.
Spidey tilts his head. “You have a point,” he admits. “Are you hungry?” he asks, and Wade is completely thrown by the change of subject because really, he was expecting Spidey to kick him off the roof.
(Later, when all is revealed, he tortures himself with the thought that Spidey was probably just trying to get him away from his Aunt’s - not grandma's - house, and the sole occupant within. But at the time, he thinks there are two people in the house, and he's just been asked out on a date by Spiderman, so he's in seven states of ecstatic and mostly forgets that there was ever a reason he gave his attention to anything other than the man in front of him.)
“I could eat,” he replies after a pause.
“Cool,” Spidey says. “I know a taco place a couple of blocks away.” He waves a hand in the general direction. “Want to meet there in, say, ten minutes?”
“Yes,” Wade spits without thinking, the enthusiasm in his own voice making him cringe. But Spidey doesn’t seem bothered, and nods at Wade before jumping from the roof and swinging away.
When he is gone, Wade stabs himself in the stomach repeatedly until he is convinced that this isn’t a dream or a hallucination. After that, it takes him fifteen minutes to find Spidey.
They (somehow) become friends. Taco Tuesday’s become a thing they do, and they alternate paying each week. (Only, Wade's pretty sure Taco Tuesday is never on a Tuesday, and sometime Taco Tuesday happens two or three days in a row, so he's not really sure why they call it Taco Tuesday.) When they eat, they have to roll up their masks, and at first Wade is very, very careful to only take bites of his food when Spidey is distracted.
Eventually, though, he grows comfortable and forgets the mess that is his face. It’s a new occurrence, forgetting about his face, and neither he nor the boxes realize he's got his mask rolled up until Spidey says, in a very amused tone, “You’ve got sauce on your chin.”
So Wade wipes his chin, mouth running on about Milky Ways and Star Wars ("The movie is a lie, Spidey - the stars don't go to war! And chocolate does not taste like space dust, it's a sham, I tell you!"), stopping in horror when he realizes what just happened. He stares at Spidey, mouth dropping open to reveal his half-chewed taco.
Spidey’s mouth scrunches up. “That’s gross,” he says, and Wade is almost relieved, because that is a normal reaction that he can totally (not) handle, until Spidey adds, “Chew with your mouth closed, you uncivilized slob.”
“Why aren’t you freaking out?” Wade asks, voice a little too shocked and broken for his liking. He doesn’t need to clarify, he knows he doesn’t. His scars are horrifying, stomach emptying marks that mean Wade spends more time than is probably healthy trying to skin himself.
And Spidey smiles, a little secret smile, and Wade is suddenly sure he’s seen that smile before, on a face with glasses and brown eyes and a cute nose. Spidey doesn’t answer, and Wade, for once, doesn’t bug him for one.
Before he was Deadpool, he was Wade Winston Wilson, an only child born to a broken couple in Canada. His dad was a monster, a monster of anger and alcohol and pain, lashing out at Wade and his mother with the empty bottle in his hand.
He runs away when he turns eighteen and joins the military. His mother died of cancer when he was seven, leaving him with eleven years of abuse under his belt and a plethora of scars he ignores most days. They don't hurt, they're just there, reminders of the past he wishes he could forget.
(He never does.)
He gets discharged – some bullshit about chain of command and following orders – a year later. But he’s good at unaliving people, always has been (no one had ever found his father’s body, no siree, because by the time Wade is finished with him, there's nothing left that's identifiable as a body) so he becomes a mercenary. He gets paid to travel around the world and unalive people, and he enjoys it. It’s something he’s good at, something he can feel proud of, because more often than not his targets are bad men and women, the scum of the earth.
A few years later, the news is grim – he has cancer, the same kind that killed his mother. He has months to live. All the money in the world can’t save him.
Hope comes in the form of the Recruiter, a smarmy government man Wade doesn’t trust as far as he can throw him. But he’s desperate, already weak and sick and waiting to die. What did he have to lose?
There are only three things that survive through Weapon X: Wade’s body, his (admittedly) twisted sense of humour, and his skill for killing people. Wade’s mind is broken, his sanity left in the ashes of the building he escapes from, his humanity smothered by the boxes that talk to him constantly.
Wade tells Spidey – he knows who he is now, he isn't exactly an oblivious idiot even if he acts like one the majority of the time, but can’t bring himself to say it, even in his head – his story one night as the pair sit and stare at their city. Wade's not sure when he decided to help Spidey protect the city, or when it became theirs. He’s not really expecting anything in return for the tale, because he certainly didn't plan to tell the hero about his past – he just talks, and between one breath and the next everything is pouring out of him.
When he finishes, they sit in silence for a time.
“Wade,” Spidey says, and when Wade turns to look at him, mask rolled up to his nose, Spidey leans in and kisses him.
“Wade!” Peter yells, and Wade wakes up blearily, slobbering onto the pillow. He blinks, pushing himself up, and stumbles out into the kitchen.
Peter’s standing there, arms folded and a frown on his face. Wade thinks he looks adorable, and the boxes couldn’t agree more, waxing on about the masterpiece that is, somehow, Wade's. Wade yawns, smiling softly at the man across from him, and his heart thumps with pleasure when Peter’s angry posture relaxes, shoulders smoothing out and expression turning soft.
“What’s up, baby boy?” Wade asks.
Peter doesn’t respond verbally – he points to the kitchen table, where Wade has left an assortment of guns and knives (not to mention his katanas) lying. Whoops.
“I forgot?” he offers, glancing back up at his boyfriend.
Peter sighs, running a hand through his thick hair. “No weapons on the kitchen table,” he reminds Wade, exasperated. “This is the last time I’m reminding you, I swear!”
Wade ignores the weapons on the table - he knows he's in the clear, knows Peter has a hard time actually staying mad at him. Just like he can never be mad at Peter (except for that one time Loki came back to New York with his alien freakshow, and Peter rushed off to help the Avengers without telling Wade. But that's an entirely different story.)
Wade stalks over to Peter, trademark smirk on his face, feeling like he's the hunter and Peter is his prey (and really, that's not exactly far from the truth, although Peter vehemently denies it every time. "Spiders are hunters, Wade," he says every time.) All he has on are a pair of red and black briefs, and he knows when Peter's eyes flicker down that they do nothing to hide his half-hard length. The other man watches him approach, arms still folded across his chest, and does absolutely nothing to stop him.
{That’s permission if I’ve seen it!} Yellow crows.
So Wade crowds Peter against the bench, pressing his lips to Peter’s throat until Peter's arms fall to his sides and he tilts his head back, offering more skin to Wade’s questing mouth. Wade grins, nipping at the soft skin before claiming Peter’s lips in a bruising kiss.
Peter looks deliciously dishevelled by the time Wade pulls back, lips bright red and shining, eyes growing black as his pupils eat his irises. Wade watches the pounding of Peter’s pulse beneath his skin and kisses him again, gentle until Peter bites his bottom lip with a desperate noise, wrapping his arms around Wade's neck and his legs around Wade's waist.
As Wade carries Peter back into the bedroom, web spinners tossed carelessly onto the kitchen table as they pass to join the assortment of weapons already covering its surface, Wade wonders what he did to deserve such a happy ending.