Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hello, you’ve reached one-eight-hundred-hot buns for hire, this is Mr.Wilson speaking!” 

Wade’s voice piped over the phone’s speaker, barely above a whisper. It was a cheap flip phone, a burner bought off the corner store down the block. The phone crackled as Wade breathed, listening to the silence. This phone only had one number on speed dial. 

Across the cell tower waves a crackle of a cough, followed by sputtering and whimpering and Pete’s small voice, smaller than Wade had heard it in awhile said,

“H-hey baby, I n-need you.” 

Wade’s eyes clenched shut as he heard Pete groan, the sound of someone’s body weight dropping down onto something concrete? A roof? The sidewalk? It was the end of patrol, Wade knew, and Peter should be only a few blocks away. The ping in the back of his mind scrambled to remember the route, desperately visualizing buildings, alleys, as he started into motion.

“Fuckshi-baby boy you sound like the meat grinder invited you to dinner, where are you? I’m coming” 

“What about Ellie..” Peter's voice, still straining, taking on that paternal empathy that drove another pang through Wade’s heart, as he shifted the phone to his ear, pinned between his shoulder. Ellie wasn’t so small anymore, but he could still bring her sleeping body to the bedroom quickly. 

“She is already asleep baby, don’t move, I’m coming” Wade whispered, straining to hear Pete’s wispy breaths over his pounding pulse. “Whose house do I get to arson once we get you safe and sound?” He asked, anger simmering with white hot fear.

Peter chuckled, his breaths coming slowly before he mustered, “Wrong place, wrong time, I think” and Wade knew it was probably worse than he was imagining, which felt really, really bad.

He’d stayed behind since they’d been trying to spend more time with Ellie when she visited, so taking turns on patrol, and tonight was Peter’s night out. Wade wished he’d tried harder to convince him to take the night off, anxiously patting down for the bed and shifting Ellie down. Wade swept Ellie’s dark hair off her forehead, pulling the soft blankets up over her. As he listened for a half a second, her breath, and pulse he noted, were steady. 

Next to the bed sat the ancient, but effective baby monitor, always on and clipped to Deadpool’s belt. Peter had wired up some transmitter into his suit, too good to swing with a baby monitor on old spidey’s suit. Activating the apartment’s alarm took only another second, a quick press of a button and no one would get through the door without them knowing.

In an instant, with his daughter settled and secure, Deadpool sprung into action, haphazardly pulling his mask over his face, grey sweatsuit strapped with katanas as he swung out the living room window onto the fire escape. 

“Peter, I need you to focus, you sound wrecked, and not in the super hot sexy fun way - where are you?”

The line stayed quiet for too long, before Peter’s choked voice carried through the speaker, “I made it to, I’m, ugh fuck” and Wade could hear Peter suck in a deep breath, heard the wince and groan and felt his hands grow cold. The panic would seep in if he didn’t start moving again.

“Okay, I’m- I’m in the alley, across from Maldonados”

“I’m two seconds away baby boy, hang on”

Wade’s panic pricked his hands, his feet, at the back of his neck as he climbed over the side of the building and swung himself down onto the next level. He dropped hard to the ground, feeling a bone give out in his ankle, cursing to himself. 

“What was that?” Peter’s voice came through the line.

“Fucking noth-terrible things these human meat sacks are Pete, I demand a refund honestly”

“Tell me about it, I could use a replacement meat sack right abou-” Peter’s voice stopped, the phone’s speaker still glowing in Wade’s hand.

“Pete? Peter! Spidey!”

No response.

He broke into a full run, the ankle bone mending just as quickly as it had shattered, gasping hard, pushing air into his lungs as he made it the two city blocks in less than a minute. When he spotted the yellow glow of the taco truck’s lights on the street, his legs stopped pumping as he rounded the corner.

It was too dark to see well, and the mask certainly didn’t help. His general clumsy persona was only half persona, the rest was being actually unable to see so well through the dark lenses. Wade followed the smell of iron, the metallic taste coating his tongue as he breathed deep trying to calm his pulse.

A foot off of the spider’s suit was just scraps left of blue and red fabric, clinging to the side of a dumpster. Behind it, Peter was slumped over into some boxes. His eyes closed and swollen, chest heaving, and a mangled hand was gripping the burner phone to his chest. There was blood running from his nose, his ears, and a gash to his forehead. His brown hair was plastered back with blood pooling onto his collarbones and soaking into the suit. The exposed foot looked like shit, all black and blue and swollen and Wade was sure that was the least of the damage.

Wade knelt down in front of Peter, gently stroking his bruised cheek, closing the phone in his hand. 

“Pete, Petey-pie, it’s Deadpool”

Peter’s eyes did not open, but his lips, chapped and broken, dry from blood loss pressed together in a faint hmm. It was enough to make Deadpool’s stomach drop.

“This is…definitely gonna hurt like fuck, I’m so so so so so sorry” Wade whispered as he lifted Pete into his arms, the smaller man’s body tightening instantly as he screamed at the movement. Wade’s eyes glistened and he started to pray Peter would pass out, at least for the trip home.

Hailing a cab, whose driver honestly could have stood to be a bit more skeptical of the whole scene, Wade held Peter to his chest tightly, trying to press the wound on his forehead, to staunch the blood loss. Pete still hadn’t opened his eyes, and his pulse was thready, and every second felt like a minute that was actually an hour. 

Wade’s mind raced as he tried to talk to Peter, keep him conscious, alternating between banter and pleas “Damn Spidey, if you wanted to get me outta the house, all you had to do was ask. I wasn’t gonna say no, especially if it meant skipping the musical version of frozen for the eleven-hundredth time.” 

“If you open those beautiful eyes right now I won’t even make you wear the jack skellington onesie for Halloween this year”

“I’m really looking forward to our staycation, since you clearly are going to be on bed rest for a few days. What do you say, manis? Pedis? The works?”

“I shouldn’t have left you on your own tonight, fuck baby boy, you’ve gotta hang on, please baby.”

Not like he was expecting one, but the lack of response brought Wade’s worries front and center as the cab stopped in front of their building.

Leaving behind a fat tip and a business card, solo-mercenary’s always on the grind, don’t’cha’know, Wade pulled Peter into his arms and cringed as spiderman cried out.

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck baby boy I’m so sorry, we’re almost there”

Hurrying into the building, he heard Peter gasp for air, his lungs sounding wrecked, and knew they’d have minutes before things got much more serious. He hoped. He hoped they had minutes.

The apartment’s door swung open, the security system disabled, and one very small, very awake Eleanor Camancho was standing, first aid kit in hand as the two men stumbled into the room.

“Dad!”

Chapter Text

Eleanor was a master of the dark arts of deceiving her Dad and Papa. Papa might be super strong and can never be killed for real, but she had learned a thing or two about deep breathing. She could probably get an award for being asleep but awake. Maybe two awards. She was double digits now, so double awards?? Dad was harder to fool, since he had such special hearing anyways, but she’d managed it once or twice before. 

She’d overheard the rustling when Papa had answered Dad’s call, the “icky sticky bubblegum” song from her preschool days was hard to miss. She’d followed his footsteps, getting dressed, checking on her, and listened as the alarm was set to away for the apartment. 

Eleanor wasn’t a super hero, but she did know some first aid, she’d been learning from some videos online, and from wikipedia. Papa always said wikipedia was written by a community of people for the greater good, so it was the best source. And she couldn’t use Reddit because it was a community of narcissists, another word she had to use wikipedia to understand.

Her family helped a lot of people, so she knew it was important for them to have basics like gauze, bandages and disinfectant. Her family was also good at getting “super” hurt, because when superheroes fight, it’s not just scrapes and bruises. 

Knowing this, she found the heating pad under the sink in the bathroom and plugged it in. She also filled the electric kettle on the counter, and turned it on - it only took a few minutes to boil and in Papa’s show “call the Midwife” they always yelled for hot water when the mom’s were having babies and that helped with the blood, she was pretty sure. She also found the “secret” medicine kit that included some sharper tools, super glue for skin and some thread and needles for stitching big cuts that needed gauze. There were a few bags of special liquid, like water but for spiderman that helped Dad heal faster, not as fast as Papa but better than normal, better than Eleanor.

Ellie looked around the apartment and felt her little heartbeat speed up, she’d forgotten to turn off the baby monitor when she left her room, and now she wanted her Dad. She wanted Papa to come home quick and also to not notice she wasn’t in her bed. With the lights on, her apartment seemed extra big and lonely, but before she had time to panic even further, the door opened in a slam, and her Papa was there, holding her Dad, and he wasn’t awake.

“Dad!”

Wade felt his insides scramble when he saw Ellie’s face, already so small and pale from the shock of seeing Peter injured. In the next second he saw what she’d done, prepping their first aid tools for whatever the emergency would be, just as the kettle began to whistle. 

“Ellie-bellie! That’s so weird, I thought you were asleep? Are you sleepwalking? Sleepwalk back into that bed right now please, babe!”

Peter’s breathing was shallow, his blood hadn’t begun to clot, so Wade saved any further chastising for later and gently placed him on the couch, where Ellie had already brought a blanket and some towels. Wade pulled off his mask, turning to send her to bed before she cut him off-

“I want to help, please”

In her small perfect voice, with her enormous brown eyes, Wade felt that face fill him with the courage he needed to take care of Peter. He was scared, Ellie looked scared, but they needed to be brave for Peter, together. 

“Okay, but you are only an assistant nursing student today, I am the registered nurse, so you do what I say you can do, and nothing else? Okay?” Wade said firmly, trying to lighten his tone as he began working off the spidersuit, supporting Peter’s body as he laid him down into a horizontal position.

Ellie nodded as she carefully lifted Peter’s feet onto a few pillows at the end of the ouch, elevating them. 

Wade said, “That’s good Ellie girl, real good. Can you bring me the tweezers and some glue please?” And the two of them worked quietly, speaking only to share tools, or call out another bruise or cut or broken bone.

It was a few hours later when Peter’s pulse, temperature and heart had remained steady enough that Wade could turn off the monitors. Even just a temporary oxygen saturation monitor had been a lifesaver more than once when they had caught covid.

Ellie was asleep, having made a nest on the floor near the couch, to stay close to her dad. She was under three blankets, atop a cushion and had three stuffies under her arms. She had one hand reached up, setting gently on Peter’s wrist, she’d fallen asleep feeling his pulse get stronger as his healing factor kicked in and he stopped losing as much blood.

Wade moved to the bathroom, carefully locking the door behind him before he vomited into the toilet, barely managing to lift the seat up before he spewed his guts. He was shaking, he felt clammy and angry, and terrified. Pete’s pulse had all but disappeared the first eight minutes in the apartment, while Ellie watched and sobbed as Wade started to stitch up the worst of the gashes, bandaging Pete’s head and setting the bones in his feet. 

Ellie sobbed because Peter wasn’t quite conscious, but made grunts or cries of pain as Wade worked, it was horrible. Wade felt horrible, like it had to have been some nightmare he’d dreamed up for funsies. 

Running the faucet, Wade washed his hands, his face, and took deep breaths until he felt his vision come into focus, the blurriness subsided enough he could stand. 

He left the bathroom and set up a mat on the floor to sleep, next to Ellie and Pete, close enough he could hear both their steady breaths while he lay there in the dark. Listening to Ellie’s soft breaths and snores between Peter’s breathy, uneven ones was unnerving. Wade lay awake in the dark, watching the glow-in-the-dark stars he covered the living room ceiling in from the floor, hoping he’d have his partner back before morning.

Chapter Text

The last thing Peter remembered hearing was his partner’s anxious tones, words indiscernible, coming through the speaker phone as his vision faded to black, breaths coming fast and shallow. Internally he sighed, knowing this was the exact sort of situation he was supposed to avoid, especially when out on his own for patrol, when Ellie is in town. His last thoughts before he faded out were kicking himself, frustrated to take ‘Pool away when Ellie was sleeping.

** three hours earlier **

Peter sat perched atop a highrise, listening to police scanner chatter on a radio he carried at the top of patrol to get a sense for criminal activities happening. Spiderman hated fucking cops, but the scanner was a useful tool to know what was getting reported, where, and how quickly people were responding. Spidey was no cop, but he’d adopted a philosophy of malicious compliance whenever he had to work alongside new york’s finest. 

Within twenty minutes it was clear that there was a commotion happening at the abandoned warehouse near 67th and 30th, it was always an abandoned warehouse, slightly outside of his typical beat that caused havoc a few times a week.

This week was unusual, a collective of superminds, supervillains? Seemed to be working on something important, there was heightened security that told Peter there was more to be discovered. He figured he’d do some short recon, bring back notes for Deadpool and they could sort out the situation together another night. Just observing, no getting involved on his own.

Big womping fucking failure that plan was.

Peter climbed quietly through a window that was ajar, and seemingly right into a trap. Guns, knives, and some electric cattle prods were all pointed in his direction as a group of his least favorite villains to encounter on their own, were formed as a group. 

“Picked a hell of a time to unionize, but I’m not sure I like the looks of this proposal” Peter quipped, reaching for his emergency burner as he simultaneously began to thwip webs. He didn’t have time to be defensive with his attack, just reactive. 

It was over pretty quick, Peter knew better than to get back up when he’d been this sorely beaten. As best he could, be played dead and then vanished into the shadows, retreating back into his usual patrol route, hoping to be spotted by one of his vigilante pals. He’d crawled to the corner nearest his favorite mexican food joint, and speed dialed Wade.

**present 

Peter had never had much luck waking gently like a sleeping beauty type, no picturesque sunshine, perfectly moisturized lips kissing him awake. The dark in his mind faded quickly into blinding white light that consumed his first thoughts, pain, fear, Wade.

Peter felt the pain behind his eyes first. He tried to ascertain what was radiating the most, some from his chest, his shoulder, his head and especially his foot. He was warm, but hungry, and with a migraine setting in he felt his elevated senses begin to scream. 

He flexed his hands, moving them slowly along his chest, up to his face, trying to remember the fight, the damage, and how he got onto this couch. As he registered the couch, he felt the weight of a small hand slide off of his near his side. He also felt the sudden loss of weight across his legs. 

Opening his eyes to squint in the still-dark apartment, He saw Wade’s outline  first, having sat up from where he’d been kneeling, watching Peter come-to. Wade’s eyes were dark and stormy, his face hard to read before he switched on a lamp behind the couch. Shedding just enough light for Peter to see him grimace when the details of a few of his injuries became abundantly clearer.

Pete’s eyes immediately began to well up, and upon seeing this, Wade leaned in quickly, wiping gently with his thumb. “Hey, shh shh. Please don’t cry, unless you’re in pain, are you in pain?” Wade’s softest voice asked, the voice he only used when things were hospital-serious. And based on how Peter felt, they probably were that bad.

Peter tried to speak, but his voice caught the first time, and choking on air he felt his ribs grind as he double over trying to breathe. Wade caught him, and held him, brushing soothing hands over the back of his head as he tried to calm down, tried to breathe. 

When Peter was able to sit back again, Wade quickly handed him the tablet, with their adaptive communication app pulled up, Peter using it to type instead of speak. 

“I’m okay. I hurt, I’m so sorry. I scared you” Was what he wrote first, as Wade watched and nodded. He turned towards an IV that was hanging above Peter’s head, and increased the flow of the drip. Within seconds Peter’s metabolism processed the relief, and he felt himself relax back into the pillows.

“You did scare me, baby. And Ellie, she saw just about everything. I was so scared she was going to watch her Dad stop breathing, you nearly did.” Wade’s pained whisper was harsh and hurting as he spoke, rubbing a soothing hand across Peter’s scars along his chest, the top surgery scars were old, faded, and soft, but it was a self soothing technique Peter used often when he was overwhelmed; now it helped his senses calm, helped him focus on Wade’s voice. He felt himself becoming more grounded through the fuzzy pain relief meds working their magic.

“Ellie?” He wrote next, instantly following Wade’s gaze down to the side of the couch. He saw immediately she was sleeping, curled beside his makeshift sick bed with her sparkling unicorn, pudgy pie toaster stuffie and orange gorilla. All her favorites, except for Mrs. Potts, from her favorite movie, who was wedged into Peter’s armpit, keeping him safe from bad dreams while he healed.

Peter sighed, tears of relief falling easily as he reached to grip Wade’s hands in his lap, holding him closely. “I’m so sorry, I got in a bad spot, had to fight my way out. But it wasn’t the plan, I wanted to come home to you, to you both”

Wade rested his head along Peter’s lap, not releasing his hands, and nodded as he listened to Peter recount the ambush. Deadpool was simmering beneath the intensity of Wade’s listening, his shoulders tense, flinching when Peter described being injured, climbing to safety.

“You did good Pete, but this superhero shit is a lot less fun when you can actually get killed. I’m not going to be letting you out of my sight, spideysuit or not, for a few weeks while you get healed up” Wade said, reaching up to pull Peter’s chin towards him, making eye contact.

Peter felt the weight of the promise, and some relief as he squeezed ‘pool’s hand and smiled. Just then, a raspy small voice spoke up and said, 

“shit is a swear” and Eleanor’s sweet face popped into view. Wade grimaced while Peter grinned, leaning to hug Eleanor, trying to silence any grunts as he squeezed her tightly.

“I’m so sorry I scared you Ellie, and you, Wade” Peter said, his voice wrecked, but clear as Ellie leaned into her Papa, holding Peter’s hand gently.

“I know, I know you didn’t mean to” Ellie said sympathetically, “Papa was the most scared, I helped though”

“Big talk from someone who was supposed to be asleep this entire time” Wade said, blowing a raspberry at Ellie when she frowned at him. 

“It was a ‘mergency, all hands on deck for family” Ellie said proudly, crawling tentatively into Peter’s lap on the couch, with Wade’s help, nestling into both of their laps, her little feet atop Peter’s, now resting in Wade’s lap as the family leaned together, breathing deeply together. Safe and sound.

“All hands on deck for family” Wade echoed, his hand reaching to rub across Peter’s chest as he began to slip back under into sleep. Ellie’s snores followed closely after, and Wade could finally relax enough to allow himself the same luxury.