Holding Back - 13. Chapter 13

‘We’ve made the papers.’ Peter holds up a copy of The Daily Bugle so Wade can see it. On the front page is a photo of the two of them in costume, apparently leaving a crime scene. Wade has his left arm around Peter’s shoulder. In his right he’s carrying one of his swords. There’s clearly blood on it. The picture is taken at night, but wherever they are there’s enough light from the street lamps and nearby buildings to see them by just fine.

‘Hey, I look pretty good!’ says Wade with a grin. ‘Not as good as you, clearly, but still.’

Pretty good? Man, we are ripped as fuck! No wonder Peter likes us!

‘Yeah, you look great,’ Peter says. ‘This picture shouldn’t really have been taken, though. And the article accompanying it . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s not good.’

Wade takes the paper from him and scans the page. ‘Why? What’s it say?’

‘Basically that the menace that is Spider-Man has teamed up with the even greater menace that is Deadpool, and that it’s only a matter of time before people start getting dead. Clearly they haven’t gotten wind of the ones that got dead already, or this piece would be a whole lot worse.’ He takes the paper back and reads out loud, ‘“Deadpool is a mercenary who operated for many years as a gun for hire, killing indiscriminately. His body count, which is not inconsiderable, includes everything from criminals to innocent bystanders, and there are few superheroes he hasn’t fought. Whether he is being paid by Spider-Man or someone else is currently unknown, but either way the public needs to ask itself what Spider-Man is doing together with this bloodthirsty killer.”’

‘Ah. Yeah, that does sound pretty bad.’ Wade scratches his neck self-consciously. Once again it seems his past is coming between him and Peter. ‘I’m sorry.’

Peter drops the paper to the concrete rooftop beneath his feet. He takes off his mask and closes the distance between them, before rolling Wade’s mask up to his nose and kissing him softly on the lips. Wade’s heart leaps.

‘Not your fault,’ Peter whispers. ‘This sucks, but we’ll deal with it.’

Wade slips his arms around Peter’s waist and nods. As much as he loves it, he doubts he’s ever going to get used to this closeness. He breathes in Peter’s scent, of soap and autumn rain, and wonders for what must be the hundredth time today alone how he ever got to be this lucky.

Man, why does he even like us?

What’s not to like? We’re awesome! Did you see that picture in the paper?

No, we’re not. We’re a mess. We shouldn’t rule out the possibility that the past week has been one long on-going hallucination. Or maybe we’re being fed fake memories again.

Wade ignores the boxes. ‘Who, uh . . .’ He clears his throat. ‘Who wrote the piece?’

Peter shrugs. ‘Some nobody columnist called Trever Tate.’

Wade files the name away in the back of his mind for later. Clearly he has some googling to do when he gets home. If this guy’s a threat, he needs to be dealt with.

‘Well, whoever he is I think we’ve wasted enough time on him,’ he says brightly. ‘Let’s go fight some crime!’

Peter smiles and delivers another chaste kiss to his chapped lips. ‘Well, if you insist.’

* * *

Two muggings and three drunken brawls later (for a Saturday it’s pretty tame), the two of them are sitting at the edge of a roof eating hotdogs, as though eating hotdogs on rooftops at four in the morning is the most natural thing in the world. Which it is, and Peter wonders when that happened. He doesn’t mind at all, of course. At some point, this became one of his favourite things—sitting on a rooftop with Wade, sharing a meal and listening to him ramble. Another one of his favourite things involves rather less clothing and preferably a bed. The thought makes him smile, where just days ago it would have made him blush.

When Wade, for a rare moment, shuts up, Peter takes his gloved hand and entwines their fingers. He doesn’t know what they are, isn’t sure he needs to define it, but he loves this, loves having Wade near him like this, touching him and listening to his voice, even when he’s just rambling to himself. It feels silly to admit it, makes him feel like a kid, but whatever this relationship is, he wants it to continue.

‘Anyway, Logan totally set me up, let me catch him to lure his son to him. Man, amount of people who wanna kill Wolverine is almost as high as the ones who wanna kill me . . . I know, I said almost. Not selling myself short, here. Least I’m not one of them anymore.’

Peter raises an eyebrow and smiles. ‘Really?’

Wade shrugs. ‘Dude, I haven’t wanted to kill Logan in a long time. Well, not seriously, anyway. Everyone wants to kill their brother every once in a while, right?’

‘Brother?’ Peter’s other eyebrow joins the first.

Another shrug. ‘We share a healing factor. Figure that makes us as close to family as I’m likely to get. Was still kind of a surprise to see him again, though.’

Peter frowns. ‘You’ve seen him recently? I didn’t know he was in New York.’

‘Well yeah, he came to—’ Wade cuts himself off suddenly, as if he’s said something he shouldn’t. ‘You know, it doesn’t matter. He stopped by to say hi is all. Daken’s in town, so he was really here to see him.’

Peter isn’t quite sure he believes that. From what he knows about Wolverine (which admittedly isn’t all that much, as he’s only met him a couple of times and only professionally) he doesn’t seem the type to make social calls. At the same time, he can’t see why Wade would lie to him, and he doesn’t want to distrust him.

Wade seems to be reading his mind, because he sighs and squeezes his hand. ‘Look, it’s really not important. There’s some mutant shit going down, so Logan wanted to give me the head’s up, cause we’ve teamed up together lots of times and he felt like he owed me or whatever. But you and me, we’re not mutants, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Okay?’

Peter nods, and leans into Wade’s side. ‘So, what’s going on?’

‘Just anti-mutant groups stirring up trouble, business as usual. Shouldn’t affect us, and the X-Men and X-Force are pretty much on top of it, anyway. You’ve got enough to worry about, so . . .’ He trails off.

‘You didn’t want to worry me.’

‘Exactly.’

Peter nods again. ‘Okay. I guess I can appreciate that.’

Wade chuckles softly and shakes his head, glancing sideways at Peter. ‘You’re too good to me, baby boy.’ He cups his cheek and leans in to kiss him. He tastes like hotdogs. Peter doesn’t mind one bit. Wade’s supposed to taste like junk food.

Lips and tongues seek each other, deepening and intensifying the kiss, and by the time they come up for air Peter feels warm and flushed and there are so many things he wants. He wants to invite Wade to his place again, wants to take him into his bed and do dirty things to him. But it’s already late, and he has plans tomorrow. A sudden inspiration strikes him.

‘Hey, Wade . . . I promised my aunt I’d have lunch with her tomorrow, so I should get home soon.’ He sees Wade’s face fall slightly, and presses on quickly, ‘But tomorrow’s Sunday, and it’ll be a slow crime day anyway, so . . . You wanna just come to my place tomorrow, instead of going out patrolling? I mean, I could, like, cook or something. I’m not a great cook, but . . . Like, we could have dinner and watch some TV or whatever you want and just, well, hang.’

While Peter speaks, Wade’s face splits into a wide grin. ‘Are you asking me on a date, Parker?’ he purrs softly once Peter’s finished.

Peter grins back. ‘Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, just a night in, but . . . Do you want to?’

‘You have to ask?’ Wade kisses him again, more gently than before. ‘I’d love to.’ He lets go of Peter and stands. ‘If you’re gonna have lunch with your aunt you should probably get home and get some sleep. I’ll come by around seven?’

‘Yeah.’ Peter stands too. ‘Seven should be fine.’ He gives Wade one final kiss and readies his web-shooter. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night, then!’ Then he swings away, giddy as a school girl, with what feels like a permanent grin plastered to his face, because tomorrow he has a date with Wade Wilson.

* * *

Wade snuggles down in his blanket fort and opens his laptop. A quick Google search reveals little of interest on Trever Tate. He has a Facebook profile with very little public information, a Twitter full of mostly civil political tweets and otherwise pictures of food, and a blog where he posts about the dangers of mutants going unchecked. He seems like your regular garden-variety anti-mutant activist.

Impossible. He has an alliterative name. That means he has to be important.

Unless the writer’s just throwing us a red herring.

Herring? Where?

Wade follows a few links from the blog and clicks into an anti-mutant subreddit. It contains pretty much what you’d expect—spurred on by the anonymity of the net, folks are spewing vitriol and hate, though there’s an active and vocal minority who discuss civilly and reasonably. They express concern for the safety of their children, should mutants choose to abuse their powers, and calmly discuss options for subduing them if they do. There are some references to the AMDL, as well as other anti-mutant groups.

Trever Tate is among the reasonable ones. His discourse is almost annoyingly civilised, peppered with smiley faces and bland jokes, giving him every appearance of being utterly harmless.

Unless some of these angry haters are his sock puppets.

‘Hm, a definite possibility, of course . . . Make yourself out to seem nicer by making other people appear the opposite.’ Wade closes the reddit tab with a sigh. ‘Doesn’t seem like we’re gonna find anything this way. I’m not that net-savvy, anyway.’

We should just jerk off and then go to sleep.

Good idea. Masturbation always cheers us up.

It’s tempting, but Wade shakes his head. Instead, he sends an e-mail to Domino, asking her if she’s heard of Trever Tate and if she thinks he may be part of the trouble that’s brewing. Then, as he can’t think of anything else to do (as tempting as jerking off is, he’s not really feeling it tonight), he goes to sleep. He’s going to see Peter tomorrow. He needs his beauty sleep.