Chapter Text
7. waking up
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Peter’s whining in his sleep.
Sweet sex hangs in the air like a warm blanket over the room, the smells of them mixing to the point where Wade can’t pick out one scent from the other. It’s all rich and warm and heady, an air of calm he’s never smelled in his apartment before. He’s also sticky as fuck, though, sweat-soaked and hard, dick pulsing in between his legs. It makes for a stimulating, breathless mix of uncomfortably comfortable, and if the situation weren’t so – so damn sad, then Wade might be as blissed out as his alpha is. Instead, as soon as Peter’s whines wake him up, his brain comes alive thinking Not Nice thoughts, and he simultaneously wants to dart from the room to find a hoodie to disappear behind and reach over to pull Petey closer, scent at his neck.
Instead, he just lays there, stiff and aching. Curls his hands into fists to resist reaching out.
Peter must have moved away from him in his sleep, is curled up by himself a few feet away. Probably got sick of touching Wade’s skin, which feels even itchier than it usually does, all red and inflamed. He wiggles a bit on the sweat-damp sheets to scratch that itch, but the movement just makes it worse, pulls at the scabs. Peter murmurs something, then, shifting a bit, and Wade sucks in a breath to keep from moving again, to keep from waking him.
[[When’s the last time we were naked in bed with another person?]]
[Before Weapon X for sure.]
Oh, God. They’re not about to bring up –
[[That’s right!]] Yellow sounds positively gleeful. Wade tenses in the dark, whispers for them to shut the fuck up, but when have they ever listened to him, anyway? [[That beta who got a kick outa dominating the big dumb knothead who somehow thought he was good enough to stay in school. I miss the way he’d call us trash as he was –]]
[You remember how disgusted he was with the knot?]
[[He’d slap us around as he’d plow us from behind, calling us all sorts of –]]
IN THE JUNGLE, THE MIGHTY JUNGLE, THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHTTTTT
For some reason, the steady rhythm of uyimbube, uyimbube, uyimbube, uyimbube is the first song that comes to mind, so Wade thinks the melody as loudly and as obnoxiously as he can to block out the voices. The assholes know it’s never a good day when they bring up – that – and he’s in the middle of a heat with Peter. This needs to be a good day. As good a day as Wade’s brain can have, anyway, which buckles underneath the weight of an extremely low bar. The red glow of the clock on the nightstand says it’s only been a few hours since they fell asleep, but Peter’s stirring, now, moaning here and there. His brow is creased, mouth downturned. He won’t be asleep much longer. Wade breathes in and out a few slow, measured breaths.
Okay.
He can do this.
He can keep the alpha in check. He can help Peter not injure himself trying to fill himself up, stay in control and not feel like the worst sort of asshole in the process. But shit, they barely even know each other. If Peter’s ass wasn’t damaged, he’d have given the omega some toys to use and locked him in the bedroom, kept his alpha well away from someone who’s too compromised by the heat to say no. But Peter wouldn’t have been able to control himself, not like this. Wade’s smelled plenty of forced heats before, with that unnatural chemical twinge that scrapes against his senses with all the finesse of a sandpaper dildo. This heat’s different. It’s all the way sweet, pungent and strong. A real heat, maybe the first one Wade’s ever smelled. There’s no way Peter could reasonably be expected to stop himself from trying to relieve that ache inside him, and his ass is damaged. If he’s alone in his room, he’ll hurt himself trying. Shit, he almost did already trying to spread himself on his own fingers earlier. So Wade’s staying. He wants to pretend he’s staying only to help Peter, only to make sure the omega doesn’t hurt himself. He wants to pretend he’s doing the right thing here, but his alpha is – is happy. That can’t be a good sign.
safe, mate, take care
[[How many times are you going to repeat those same fucking words?]]
[I don’t think the poor thing knows any other words.]
[[I can’t wait to hear what it says when pretty Petey flat out rejects us.]]
[Ooh, maybe it’ll know other words then.]
[[Words like pitiful, and pathetic, and loser.]]
Wade can physically feel his alpha drawing in on itself, curling up inside his chest. It feels a little hard to breathe, which isn’t anything new. It’s either a really good thing or a really bad thing that Peter takes this moment to finally roll toward him, panting in the dark as he throws an arm over a frozen Wade’s chest and burrows his sweaty face into Wade’s shoulder.
“P-please,” Peter whispers it through panted breaths. His hips gyrate against Wade’s side.
Wade’s alpha is instantly alert.
“You’re okay,” Wade says for the both of them. He sucks in another breath. Peter must be fully out of it not to even seem to notice Wade’s skin at all right now, pressing full-body into him like he’s a normal person who isn’t textured like ground beef. But his alpha croons in his head and doesn’t seem to remember the whole skin thing, either. It’s getting in Wade’s way right now that he’s fighting himself, warring with the alpha. He can’t seem to make himself move, can’t seem to press through the sudden spike of terror and insecurity and give Peter what he needs. But Peter can’t want this. It’s biology. They didn’t discuss this prior to the heat, when Peter would have been able to think, would have been able to tell the big ugly alpha off for even suggesting he help the omega through this heat. He shouldn’t be here in this bed, his body shouldn’t be responding to these panting breaths that don’t belong to Wade, they’re just, this isn’t –
“Alpha, p-please,” Peter’s saying, over and over, his breath hot on Wade’s shoulder, lips wet and warm against his ruined skin. “Need yo-ou, please. Know I’m just a – ‘m a slut, sorry, ‘m used but I can, my mouth, please, please –”
[[He thinks we’re rejecting him.]]
White’s an endless string of curse words.
safe, protect, safe, mate
Thoughts turning off, giving way under sheer instinct, Wade turns his body and wraps his arms around Peter, holding onto him while the smaller omega shakes and writhes. His alpha feels soft like melted wax inside his head, low to the ground as it frets over mate, mate, safe, soothe. Wade smooths a trembling hand over Peter’s tangled curls. He rubs his nose over that hair, breathing in that sweet, rich blend of them, crooning out whispered praises he can’t honestly remember one moment after he says them, his head too full of endless praises for the boy in his arms to figure out which ones he’s saying and which ones he’s thinking and which one’s he’s feeling. Peter is so brave to go through a heat with Wade, to turn into him instead of cower, so brave to be using his voice, what a pretty voice, sweet Peter has such a sweet voice –
“Take care of you, don’t worry.”
Wade unfolds from around Peter and gets them into a better position, has Peter lay his head on the pillows and then gently guides the omega’s hands to the sheets, to grab a fistful of them and spread himself out. Peter’s limbs move willingly, obedient, and when Wade kneels in between his legs and taps on each leg, Peter spreads them and shows his wet hole without hesitation, all loose and sloppy and twitching in the open air. He grips the sheets in both hands as he rides the waves of the heat pulsing through him, begging Wade to touch him, to fill him, please, he’s so empty, please, it aches –
“Shh.” Wade runs one of his scarred hands over Peter’s trembling thigh. “I gotcha, pretty Peter. You’re doing so well for me, honey, so well. Look at you, so open and ready, your slick smells like heaven, like honey and warm and wet and sweetness. You’re perfect, I gotcha, you’re okay. Can I taste you? Feed that pretty hole my tongue?”
Peter’s eyes are wide and unfocused, tears wetting his lashes. “P-please, please.”
“Good please or bad please?”
Peter’s hips lift off the bed a bit as he wiggles, humps his penis into the air. “G-good, please, I need – need, please –”
“Shhh, I gotcha.” Wade’s hand soothes over Peter’s thighs again, warm trembling skin like fire under his hands. He’s whispering praises about how brave Peter is, about how good he’s being, how trusting and open and good, all the way up until his breath is warm against Peter’s pulsing hole and his face is pressed in between the omega’s legs. One of Peter’s hands unfolds from the sheets and blindly reaches down to lay across Wade’s head, and he keens out loud and shakes when Wade’s tongue traces around his rim, warm and wet, warm and wet, points of connection that force Peter’s eyes closed as he bites his lip and tries not to make too much noise. His slick pulses out of him in a slow, slow stream that Wade’s tongue catches. He swipes a slow stripe over Peter’s hole, swirls his tongue, Peter shaking from the effort of being silent, eyes leaking from the overstimulation, from the want, need, want that hovers in the spaces where they aren’t connected. He can’t make sense of it but something inside him aches to drag the alpha up and latch onto him, to press into him full-body, to be filled and full of him as they wrap themselves into each other. Heats make him thirsty, his whole body on fire as it craves being filled. Heats haven’t ever made him want to – want to – wrap himself around the one taking him, though. It feels like a whole other level of want he’s never experienced before, his omega reaching out for Wade, crying out for him, wordless and stilted and scared.
Then Wade’s tongue presses against his pucker.
Peter’s toes curl. He’s pretty sure he cries out loud, cries something unintelligible.
One of Wade’s hands smooths over his thigh, petting him as he works.
It’s slow torture, sensory overload that turns the whole world hazy around them. The heat lasts days longer than it feasibly should, days and days where Peter aches, cries because he’s empty, Wade shushing him and whispering little praises here and there. By day four, they’re exhausted and wrung out, high off the scents, a little lost in their own world. Wade manages to put in a grocery order on his busted up old ass laptop because they’re running out of food and he can’t find his cellphone, but his alpha doesn’t want to open the front door even for a moment, doesn’t want to risk anyone smelling how potent and delicious Peter’s scent is. Peter watches Wade pace in front of the door where he’s sprawled out on the couch, head propped up on pillows from the bedroom. He’s naked under the blanket they’d dragged off the bed, naked all except for the collar. He plays with the d-ring with a finger as he watches the alpha, listens to him talking to himself, eyes half-lidded as he admires the way the man prowls from side to side, admires the way his muscles flex. After four days of heat, the alpha’s grown less aware of the fact that he’s unclothed, seems less bothered showing his skin off. Loose sweatpants hang off his hips in a way that reveals just enough to captivate, and captivated Peter is. He can’t seem to keep his eyes off the way those sweatpants hug his ass as he’s prowling in one direction, can’t seem to keep his eyes off the way they show off those hips of his as he’s prowling in the other. The alpha is built like a wall of muscle, all agile grace in the way that he moves. For someone so big, he’s light on his feet. Prances, skips, jumps up and down like an eager child when he’s excited about something.
His omega is all curled up and – sated.
It’s – so weird.
So very, very weird.
He feels – sticky and gross, though. Could use a shower. Wade’s showered a couple times while Peter rested off and on over the past few days, each time returning to the bed smelling a little less like Peter for his omega’s comfort. Even in his sleep, Peter hadn’t liked it, had sensed the change and nuzzled close to fix it, to get his scent back on the alpha. But Peter’s been too strung out to be able to stand in a shower, and he isn’t allowed a bath until the stitches in his asshole dissolve and he’s healed down there. Wade’s given him sponge baths instead, which was weird. Weirdly – alluring. Weirdly sensual, the big alpha taking care of him, washing away his filth while he’d talked and talked and talked.
Somehow, the alpha makes all this bizarre stuff feel – almost normal.
He’s so casual about it all.
Giving an omega a sponge bath?
Nobody else would have done that. Nobody.
“I think it’s safe to open the door,” Peter croaks from his safe little cocoon on the couch.
Wade’s pacing screeches to a halt, head tilting in Peter’s direction. He immediately switches his trajectory toward the kitchen, pours Peter another glass of water and brings it to him, helps him sit up to drink it. Peter does because he’s thirsty, producing all that slick having taken its toll, and this should feel weird but doesn’t, the alpha waiting on him like this, so quick to enter his space like he belongs there and Peter so quick to let him. Wade smooths a hand over Peter’s head while he drinks, apparently incapable of resisting the urge. Similarly incapable, Peter presses his head into it, leans into the touch, closing his eyes on a sigh and breathing deep of the alpha’s scent. It lingers in the air as the alpha returns to the door.
He’s eyeing it. “We’re safe in here,” Wade says, almost whining.
“Your food won’t be safe if you leave it out there, though.”
“Our food,” Wade corrects, almost absent-mindedly. “I think I know it’d be fine to open the door on some level. It’ll take like three seconds to bring all those bags in, two if I’m speedy. And if there’s anything I’m good at, it’s speedily bringing in a grocery order to avoid having to interact with pesky neighbors. They’re mostly betas and they mostly leave me alone anyway. But I also don’t want to? We’ve been safe in here. We’ve been – it’s been good. And your scent’s like hell and heaven smooshed together to make a fantastic little bliss baby. That fantastic little bliss baby shouldn’t be subjected to the outside world. The world’s out there. My alpha – um. I don’t like it.”
“Is that who you talk to?” Peter asks. His heart beats fast at asking the question, instincts yelling at him to shut up, shut up, he’s got no right to speak or ask questions or exist. He tries to ignore it. “When you’re talking to someone? Is it your alpha?”
Wade’s shoulders slump forward, head ducking. “Sometimes.”
“It has a voice?”
“Sometimes.”
Peter hesitates, but the alpha looks so suddenly stiff and uncomfortable, facing away from him. He wants the confident prowling to come back, so he ignores his own racing heart. “My omega feels like something other, sometimes, too. An awareness outside myself? I… don’t usually hear it as a voice, but I can see how it could manifest that way? For me, it’s more like a – presence? Feelings and senses that sometimes don’t belong only to me. A weak, cowering thing that likes to curl into itself and hide away. It’s either a ball of nerves or a ball of – of need, or both at once in the back of my mind.”
“Shit, Peter, that’s not how I see your omega at all.”
The matter-of-fact tone stops Peter short.
He swallows. “You – don’t?”
Wade turns to look at him, those pretty brown eyes wide and earnest, sparking in the light of daylight that streams in through the window. “Course not. Look at it this way – I basically just admitted that I hear voices, and instead of that scaring you away, you use that pretty voice of yours to tell me something personal about you. Evening the playing field and shit, tryin’ to make me feel better. I can tell you’re scared of me, sometimes, but you still talk to me like I’m a person. Never had an omega talk to me before, did you know that? Shit, I even scare betas off.” He taps on his head, grins a little. There’s some melancholy to his expression that calls out to Peter, makes his omega whine. Peter’s hand clenches into the blanket, the urge to get up and cross the room to press into the alpha almost too strong to resist. “I’ve got enough voices up here to form an off-key quartet. In fact, we do form an off-key quartet sometimes. Yellow’s got the worst taste in music, oh em gee. We don’t even agree on the normal shit. Yellow thinks socks and sandals together is gnarly, the bastard, and White makes fun of pineapple on pizza. But – shit, Pete, it’s unanimous up here when it comes to you. All four of us thinks you’re brave as fuck.”
pretty mate, safe, comfort, protect
[[We also unanimously think he’s gonna run once this heat ends.]]
[The alpha doesn’t. Poor dumb nut thinks we’re fated or some shit.]
[[It’s almost funny how pathetic that is.]]
[Like someone as pretty and brave as Pete would get stuck with a loser like Wilson.]
[[One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever dooooooo.]]
[Two can be as bad as one, but there ain’t no number like the number one!]
[[Four’s pretty bad too.]]
[It’s definitely too crowded up here. That dumb alpha’s stolen all my elbow room –]
[[Can’t masturbate without elbow room –]]
“Somebody’s walking this way.” Peter’s voice cuts through the boxes, that muted, subdued tone as the omega props himself up on his elbows on the couch enough for the alpha to freeze up and listen to the outside world. He can’t hear anything besides the cars on ground level honking and tires rumbling over asphalt, a muffled engine backfiring. But Peter’s looking a little spooked, his bruised, pale face wide-eyed as he watches the door. His heat’s tapered way down, spikes of it a ghost in the air, his scent all calm and breezy, but it sours a little as they listen at the door. Wade peers through the peephole and sees bags of food on the mat, not a soul in the hallway.
Still, Peter says somebody’s coming. Not sure how the kid knows, but it’s always good to get a heads up. His alpha’s on high alert at the news, growling in the back of his mind, eyes bleeding red as he shoves himself to the forefront. A wave of his alpha stench rolls off him, pungent and lingering as it spreads throughout the room and coats all the fabrics. Peter seems not to notice, doesn’t even flinch. It’s unreal.
“Is somebody about to steal our groceries?” Wade will gank somebody over the bag of pop tarts out there.
Also, to keep Pete safe. That too.
But the pop tarts.
“It’s a man,” Peter says. “Dunno who. But he’s walking up the stairs and mumbling under his breath about you. I assume it’s you? Wilson’s your last name, isn’t it?”
“You can hear into the stairwell?”
Peter’s eyes flick to the floor, darting away. “Um, yeah? I guess. He’s one floor away.”
“That is so fucking cool.” Wade keeps an eyeball in the peephole, waiting to see who’s about to pop out of the stairwell. Someone using his last name could mean anyone at all. Likely nothing good… probably not an assassin after Deadpool though, so. Do all omegas hear this well? Or is this a Peter-specific thing?
[[Oooh, do I smell a plot twist?]]
[Whoever smelt it dealt it.]
[[… I can’t stand you.]]
It turns out to be the landlord who stomps through the doors down the hallway and stops in front of Wade’s door, breathing hard and red-faced. Elevator must be out. He’s an older man with all of eight teeth and a receding hairline, potbellied and greasy. A beta, of course, because you can’t be a landlord and be anything else. Or maybe an alpha could become a landlord in theory, but it wouldn’t work in practice. Who would the tenants be? Other angry dumb knotheads who can’t string six words together? No thanks. The man leans over their groceries to bang on the door as he scratches his stomach through a wrinkled button-up. Wincing at the sound so close to his face, Wade takes his eye off the peephole and shuffles back a step, shrugging at Peter’s wide-eyed, frozen face.
“It’s just the landlord,” Wade whispers. “He’ll go away if we’re real quiet.”
“Wilson, you asshole!” The man bellows through the door. Peter visibly stiffens, hand gripped tight in the blanket, his other frozen on his collar. Wade’s alpha stench rolls through the room all over again, pheromones screaming back-the-fuck-up and stop-scaring-Peter. Not that Dewie can smell it through the scent blockers in the apartment, but he never claimed his alpha was smart. It just knows that it doesn’t like the look of Peter scared, especially not here, especially not during a heat. So it reacts, sending those strong pungent signals wafting through their living room. He’s expecting the smell to make Peter recoil, to make him even more afraid, maybe. Maybe he’ll run into the bathroom to escape it, to escape Wade.
Wade holds his breath, waiting for it. Braced.
Instead, Peter breathes in a deep inhale and his shoulders relax. His hand plays with his collar, eyes on Wade.
The landlord is ranting. “You’re not being real quiet and I’m not going anywhere until you get your slimy friend to answer his fucking phone! That body’s stinking the whole first floor up!”
“Body?” Peter mouths.
Wade waves a hand in the air like he’s batting away a fly. “Did you use the number I gave? He always answers that one.”
“Yes I fucking well did, and no he fucking well didn’t answer!”
Weasel always answers that line. Even in the early morning hours when he’s grumpy and borderline homicidal.
“… Did you leave him a message?”
The landlord’s response is both colorful and descriptive. He ends his tirade with a definitive, derisive, “If that body’s not gone by tonight, I’m calling the cops.”
He stomps back toward the stairwell, his steps loud enough for Wade to track all the way down the hall. When he’s gone, Wade turns back toward Peter. Wordlessly, he gets the omega another glass of water, moves the boy’s feet so he can sit himself under them and prop them up on his lap, hand on one of Pete’s ankles as they sit in a strange silence. The boxes expect an axe to fall any second. They’re placing bets on how brutal it’ll be. But Peter lets Wade sit beside him, lets him set a scarred hand on his ankle and just rest it there. He makes no move to leave or question or say anything at all.
Wade’s braced, though. He can’t sit still or stay silent for long. “So… I kind of killed an alpha that was trying to get in here when your heat first started? I’m pretty sure the world’s better off though, to be fair.”
Peter’s silent.
Wade can’t make himself look over to see what his face might be saying.
His eyes stay fixed on Peter’s feet, on how bony they are.
[Gotta fatten our boy up, yo.]
[[Have we forgotten all about the groceries out in the hall? Isn’t there milk out there?]]
[Shh, this is more important! Peter knows we kill people!]
[[Speak for yourself. I for one am gonna want a glass of milk to drown myself in when Peter runs for the hills.]]
[Dude, screw the milk. We’re totes gonna eat a bullet.]
[[… point.]]
[Yay!]
[[I still want that fucking milk, though.]]
“He was an asshole,” Wade says, desperate to drown out the boxes. His alpha is a quiet rumbling in the background, too proud of protecting Peter to care about the current conversation, satisfied by the contact of his hand on Pete’s ankle. Such a simpleton. Not that Wade isn’t just as satisfied by it, because he is. But… he’s not exactly looking forward to it going away, is all. Has he ever had somebody he’s needed to explain this to before? Everybody he knows just – knows already. They either hide bodies for him or they pay him to take someone out or they magically luck their way into sneaking Deadpool out of prison. How can he gently break the news that he kills people for money and sometimes for free to an omega who’s relaxed so much around him lately? Peter’s going to fear him all over again.
All their progress, shanked by Dewie.
[[All by myselfffff, don’t wanna be –]]
[All by myselffff!]
His hand wants to grip Peter’s ankle and hold on tight, but he relaxes his hand instead, keeps it loose in case the omega wants to bolt. They’d moved to the living room for a change of scenery and because Wade changed the sheets on the bed, but now he wishes they could be back in that room with its heady, rich scent and its pillows and its comfort. Peter’s heat scent is weaker now, a cooling ember as he comes off it slowly. He’d stopped producing slick earlier this morning, his hole loose and tender but not as sloppy. Turns out it’s a good thing, too, because he’d hate to try having this conversation if Peter were still too out of it to say much more than groaning pleas and panted whines.
Wade sighs out a whooshed exhale and bites the bullet. “I kind of kill people sometimes? It’s a whole – but I mean, I only off bad people. Like, really bad. Shit stains that deserve it. The world is just – it’s a fucking nightmare out there. You – you probably know that better than I do, huh? But I can’t just – I can’t see it happening and not try to do something? I know it doesn’t actually help. Nothing really helps. Kill one sick fuck and two more pop up in their place. Think evil underground organization, only magnify it by six billion and cross out the underground part. But – but it’s all I can do besides wallow in self-pity and get high, so I do it.”
“What kind of –”
Not expecting the voice, Wade’s eyes dart to look at Peter without his permission.
Peter’s biting his lip, looking through his fringe of wild bedhead at him. Wade hurries to look away again, squeezes Pete’s ankle in silent encouragement. Waits.
[[Good dog.]]
[Ruff ruff.]
Finally, Peter tries again. “What kind of people do you – kill?”
He falters over that last word, clearly uncomfortable with it, laying very still. It’s – good though, right? That he’s asking. That he’s brave enough still to ask. “I get paid to take out all sorts of bad guys. Mob bosses who evade jail time, rapists, drug cartels or human traffickers… rough jobs a normal person couldn’t pull off, but I’ve got that pesky healing factor so it’s usually cake for me. Gross chopped-off body parts sort of cake, but when someone’s paying you to eat cake, you can’t complain when it tastes like shit. That’d be rude.”
“Wade?”
“Yeah, baby boy?”
“I get that this is a hard conversation to have, and it’s – we should have it, thanks for – for telling me all this. You don’t have to tell me anything at all, I shouldn’t even have a voice right now, so. Thanks and all. But –”
[There’s always a but.]
[[Butts, ha.]]
“Could we just – go back to the bed now? Deal with all this – later?”
Wade swallows. Everything feels tight and wrong, his skin pulling wrong every time he moves, and his chest feels like there’s a fist inside it squeezing his heart, wringing it out. Peter sounds – tired. But not… but not afraid. Just very, very tired. The heat took a lot out of him, still must be. He finally musters up the courage to look at the boy, and he looks worn down. The bruises that line his face have yellowed, now, into that last gnarly stage before they heal. Wade isn’t sure if this is just a temporary reprieve or if Pete actually means to stay, but he’ll take what he can get for as long as he can get it.
“I like the way you think,” Wade says.
“My heat’s… almost gone, I think.”
Another conversation Wade hopes they can delay. “Yeah, I noticed too.”
“Can I still –” Peter cuts himself off, bites his lip again, turning it rosy in between his teeth.
“You can ask questions, Pete.”
Peter looks down at the blanket, fingertips still running over that collar he never seems to stop playing with. Wade had suggested he take the thing off a few days ago, but it’d been a mistake because Peter took that to mean ‘I don’t want you here anymore’ and had panicked mid-heat, begging to be allowed to stay, please, please, he’d do better, he’s healing, he’ll be healed soon, just a little longer and he can be used again –
Yeah. Mistake.
To be honest, he likes seeing it there anyway. Likes seeing Peter wear it.
Likes seeing Peter like it.
“Can I still – stay?” Peter rushes out with. His foot is tense and unbendy under Wade’s hand. “I know I’ve been horrible the past few days. I was a mess, I’m a needy mess, but – but you were... you’re such a great alpha, I’d want to – I mean, if I do better, could I still stay here? With you? I’ll be quieter, I’m not usually – I swear I don’t usually talk this much. And I’ve – I know I’ve been eating too much, not contributing, but I can – I liked getting you off, during the heat? I’d like to – I mean, if you liked it too, I’d like to do that again? I can. Any time you want, I’ll use my mouth until I’m healed. Or my hands. Both? I can contribute.”
[What the fuck?]
[[What the fuck?]]
Wade doesn’t even know where to start. But White and Yellow have the right idea. “What the fuck?”
Peter’s scent is souring now, his face kind of crumbling. When he blinks, wetness falls out of his eyes and slides down his cheeks. He wipes at his face, quick to apologize. His fingers tremble as he grips the collar around his neck, holds onto it like a lifeline. “’m sorry, sorry, I’m not used to being allowed to talk this much, I’m not saying any of it right –”
“Well yeah, you’re not!”
“Sorry, sorry, alpha please –”
Wade slides out from under Pete’s feet, scoots on his knees on the ground toward Peter, who’s sitting up and wide-eyed, tear tracks trailing down his cheeks. The silent cries are the saddest, Wade thinks. To be taught to keep silent, to be taught that you shouldn’t take up any space, not even space enough for tears. He’s not as careful as he maybe should be as he grabs the hand Peter’s got clutching the blanket and tugs it toward him, pulls Peter off the couch so they’re on the floor together. Peter oofs as he falls, tangled in the blanket. He squishes the omega to his chest, then, wrapping him into a hug that engulfs him. Pressed into him, Wade nuzzles his nose into Peter’s hair, breathing him in. Real, real, he’s here and he’s real and he’s safe. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
He doesn’t know he’s saying it out loud until Peter’s murmuring a sniffled, muffled, “Is it?”
Wade huffs a little laugh. “Well, no. Nothing’s okay and everything sucks. But you’re awesome, okay? You’ve got a home here forever, literally for fucking ever because I can’t die and Dewie the landlord would if he tried kicking me out.”
“But I’m –”
Peter cuts himself off again, his breath warm against Wade’s gnarly chest as he exhales. He probably doesn’t appreciate being pressed against all this exposed skin. This was a bad idea, horrible idea, Wade should let him go and get something to cover up with, he’s – okay, no. Peter’s got enough problems for the both of them right now, Wade’s not about to add all his issues to the mix. Peter hasn’t minded his alpha stench at all. He’s been quick to touch him during the heat, not shy around Wade’s skin. It’s fine. He’s fine. Everything’s fine.
“You’re what?” Wade says, instead of the millions of insecurities running amok in his broken-down noggin, White and Yellow adamant that he needs to back the fuck up off the omega and run for a shirt. “Adorable? Brave? Tolerant? I could keep going –”
“Broken,” Peter says. His voice is a quiet, tired murmur. “Used up. Worthless. I – I could keep going, too.”
It’s hard to say anything back. There’s a lump in his throat and he’s pretty sure he’s crying too now, because it’s all just – a mirror, isn’t it? Wade knows he’s broken and used up and worthless and no matter what anyone said about it, he’d keep right on believing it. Not that anybody tries telling him he’s not those things… but still. Peter’s brave, but he’s a little broken, too. Nobody goes through the shit he’s gone through and comes out on the other side okay. He’s not okay. Fact. Leaning his back against the couch, he tightens his arms around the omega and holds on, rocking them a bit, the small back and forth motion a soothing rhythm against the tidal wave of emotions. It’s bright outside, but Peter’s head is pressed snug against Wade’s chest so he might not notice. That’s what he needs. Outside. Sunshine. Something other than these four walls to show him that the world’s big. It’s bigger than they are, bigger than their issues. There’s got to be somewhere they could go that’d – feel freeing? Liberating? Put things into perspective? Oh, God. Wade doesn’t know what he’s doing.
They both need so much fucking therapy.
“It’s okay to be broken,” Wade finally lands on, talking into Peter’s hair. “It’s not your fault. And hey, it just means you can’t go anywhere but up from here. Broken people turn into the strongest ones. We just need to apply a little gorilla glue to all the cracked bits.”
“Are you talking about people or pottery?”
“… pottery. But we’ll fix you up too, Pete, dontchu even worry about it.”
-
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Wade cuddles him for what feels like hours on the floor in front of the old yellow couch. His arms should be constraining, big and muscled and holding on tight, but Peter can’t feel anything except grateful for the contact. Grateful for a lot of things. He’s not sure how Wade came to be this way, not sure how the same world churns out horrible alphas like Harry Osborn and good, kind ones like Wade Wilson. The two feel like completely different stratospheres. He’s on the other side of a real heat cycle with an ass that was too damaged to function properly, and he’s alive to tell the tale, for one. That’s – that’s. There are no words for what that is. Peter still can’t wrap his head and heart around the past four days of constant need. He’d been out of his mind with it, begging like a slut. He’d even begged for Wade’s knot at one point, which makes zero sense. Knots hurt.
But in that moment, his omega had craved it.
God, he really is a slut. He’s everything everyone says about him and then some. A mindless whore good for only one thing, put on this earth only to be bred and claimed and filled at both ends. He’s – he feels like he could be sick thinking about it. Has he ever actually wanted to be knotted before? No, no, absolutely not. But he’d begged Wade for it, begged and writhed and ached for it, brain all clouded, every nerve on fire as the need pulled him under. Why is Wade keeping him around? He can’t even be fucked properly. Can’t do anything right at all. Even knowing that Wade kills people for a living feels like a muted background fuzz behind all the self-disgust. Shouldn’t that be the bigger concern right now? What the hell is wrong with him?
What’s wrong is that maybe he’s – relieved.
At least somebody is trying to fix this crap heap of a world.
At least somebody else sees how wrong it is. Finally, finally Peter isn’t alone.
The cursed Parker luck somehow swung right around to Wade Wilson finding him in that alley. An alpha who’s big and scarred and chatty, who takes care of him with sponge baths and rim jobs and who’s never tried to – to use him, not even on slick-damp sheets in the dead of night when anybody else would have. Arms wrapped around Wade’s middle, head on his chest with that heartbeat thumping under his ear, on the scratchy carpet of this broken-down apartment, Peter Parker swears to himself that he’ll hold onto this somehow. That as long as Wade keeps being Wade, Peter’s going to have to find a way to find Peter again. To find himself and fix himself and keep this.
He listens to Wade’s heart beating, hears the alpha’s quiet murmur above his head as he talks about needing to put in another grocery order, where’s his fucking phone, anyway, how’d he manage to lose the thing when they haven’t even gone anywhere, Weasel’s the guy who hides bodies for him and it’s hella suspish that he isn’t answering Dewie’s calls… Peter zones out listening to these things. Hyper focuses on them to block out the loud, horrible world right outside Wade’s doors. The omega below isn’t being used right now, but he’s crying all alone. Chains rattle as he wipes his nose with the back of his hand, sniffles. His owner must be out.
Peter should not be able to hear all that.
His arms tighten around Wade. He listens to his heartbeat, to his soft, soft voice.
There’s at least one good person in the world.
And that?
That means there’s hope.