Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“So why’s Spidey a… howdja say it? Curmudgeon?”

“Cormorant,” says Peter. He looks down at their feet, walking in time with each other, and smiles.

“Yeah, so tell me about that.”

“They’re these big heavy fish-eating water birds that suck at flying but are great at diving. They’re strongest in the water, even though their feathers aren’t even waterproof and they have to dry off at sunset every day so they don’t freeze at night, and their bodies float super low in the water because they’re not made for it like ducks are, but they’re still really strong and intense swimmers…”

“So Spidey is strongest in a difficult and foreign element?”

“Basically.”

Wade looks up at the sun breaking through clouds, face pinched in thought. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Yeah, I could see that. I like that way more than the albatross anyway.”

Peter loops his arm through Wade’s and touches his head to Wade’s shoulder as they enter the building. The elevator spits them out on a familiar floor and they help themselves to coffee.

They’re not alone, though.

Wade tried to refuse to join Peter in answering Tony’s insistent, but-you-promised invitation to the Tower and now Peter’s starting to wonder if that wasn’t the right choice. Clint won’t stop staring at them.

“I thought I didn’t get you before,” Clint says to Peter, “but now I don’t get you so officially I’ve got the decoder pin and everything. It doesn’t work, by the way. The decoder pin. I can’t decode this.”

“Oh, go crawl into an air vent.”

“No wait, that came out wrong. I mean this in the most heterosexual way possible, Spidey, but you’re cute enough and smart enough. Why him? No offense,” he adds, to Wade. “You know you’re my bro.”

“No, I’m with you,” Wade says. “I don’t ask it to make sense. I just cherish my luck.”

“Makes perfect sense to me now,” Pepper says breezily as she passes through the room, “and it would to you too if you were paying attention like a good little spy,” and she’s gone again.

Clint points to where she disappeared. “Someday she’s gonna learn to only be in one place at a time,” he says.

“It’s not that complicated,” says Peter. “It’s just kinda hard to explain. It’s like. You know how when you drop an ice cube in water, the ice cracks?”

“Yeah…?”

“And sometimes it happens right away, or sometimes it takes a few seconds, but until it does, it just doesn’t feel right? But then when it does, it’s profoundly satisfying? Like, popping-every-bubble-on-an-entire-sheet-of-bubble-wrap satisfying?”

“If you say so.”

“And on the rare occasions that it doesn’t happen, everything feels just a tiny bit off, and you don’t even want the water anymore but you drink it anyway because you’re thirsty and you need it? And it still satisfies that need, but the satisfaction doesn’t feel satisfying?”

“If this isn’t a metaphor I’m going to become very annoyed, very fast.”

“It is. When Wade grins at me there’s this pop in the back of my head and it sounds just like an ice cube cracking.”

“Ugh, I was afraid you were gonna say something like that. And it’s not the homo, Webs, and it’s not the fact that it’s Wilson you’re talking about. It’s that godawful Meg Ryan Lifetime Original Hallmark bullshit of a lost, rambling metaphor.”

“Well to be fair, I am a tall drink of water,” says Wade.

“Nobody asked for your opinion,” says Clint. “Especially not your opinion of yourself.”

“Yeah,” says Peter. “Shut up and let me talk about you.”

“But I’m right here.”

“And?”

“Jesus, you’re already married,” says Clint.

Peter’s head goes a bit quiet, and so does his face.

“Then why don’t I remember the honeymoon?” Wade says. “And why didn’t we get a bunch of free cookware and stuff?”

“Oh, and you have that ‘happily married’ brand of entitlement issues, too,” says Clint. “Look at that.”

“Says the bitter divorcee.”

“Easy there, Captain Glass Houses.”

Wade wraps both arms defensively around Peter’s waist and sticks out his tongue. “If you shut up three sentences ago, we’ll let you housesit in our luxurious chateau when we go to Rio in the spring.”

“Sure, get your kicks in before you accidentally adopt three kids.”

“We’ll be starting our family with a dog first, I’m sure. We can take a plucky teenager under our wing after our brand starts to get stale and needs fresh blood to maintain the interest of the youth.”

“I see what you’re trying to do.”

“Just makin’ conversation. Not commenting on your personal life in an attempt to shift the focus away from us because you’re embarrassing my man at all.”

Peter doesn’t say anything. His brain trails away through the murky concept of marriage, toward nothing in particular.

Clint raises a finger to his ear for a moment. “I’d love to stay and continue to give you shit,” he says, “but duty calls.”

“I don’t think it does,” says Wade as Clint gets up and goes. “I think you just faked a phone call to get out of a conversation, but like, super-spy style.”

“Not acknowledging you…!”

”I will not be denied!”

Peter puts a hand on Wade’s arm. “Settle down, you can play with your little friend later,” he says. “Let it go.”

“I don’t wanna! Barton! Get back here and play with me now, dammit!” Wade freezes, then makes a whoa-slow-down gesture with one hand, tapping his ear with the other. “…I just heard what I said there.”

“Better late than never,” says JARVIS’ voice from the ceiling and at least two walls. “Mr. Stark is in lab 32A, if you’d like to follow the blue lights…”

They exchange a look. Wade shrugs.

“We did come all the way here,” says Peter.

“After you,” says Wade. “As enthusiastic as he usually is to see me…”

“I got him to lift the permaban against you. That’s pretty enthusiastic, relatively speaking.”

They stop outside the lab door. Peter peels off a glove to test his palm against the biometric lock; it opens for him. That’s kind of sweet.

Tony is standing in the midst of the holo-projection equivalent of a mass of dissheveled papers, primarily occupied with one central schematic. “Webs!” Tony calls, opening his arms in welcome and accidentally sending the 3D model spinning through the air. “You’re alive! That’s good, that’s a great start.”

“Of course he’s alive,” Wade says as if personally affronted.

“Calm your tits. It didn’t look like such a sure thing after what I saw on the dragonfly feed.”

“They just caught me off guard,” Peter says. “Of course I’m alive.”

“I know. I saw the footage. By which I mean I saw footage of you walking outta there alive. Didn’t quite catch what happened while you were actually inside the building…?”

Peter sidesteps the press for details. That would require thinking about the details, and he’d really rather not. “We won,” he says instead, hoping his tone brooks no argument and leaves no openings.

“You won, you survived, you just hate me.”

“Hate you? Tony, I don’t—“

“Well what am I s’posed to think? You never write, you never call — even after you say you will, which is troubling and rude—“

“That was supposed to be for work-related stuff,” says Peter, “and that all ended up working out… differently.”

“‘Differently’, yeah, you could say that I guess. And yeah, I remember. I had a hand in your rescue, remember? Or did you not tell him?” He looks at Wade, scandalized. “You wanted to take all the credit and earn all the trust points?”

“Hell if I remember,” says Wade.

“He told me,” says Peter. “I asked. I don’t like knowledge gaps.”

Tony finally stops the model’s free spin and swipes it away with hasty gestures. “So do I!” he cries. “See we’re so much alike. And yet you avoid me like you’re drowning in freewheeling self-hatred.”

“Tony, I don’t hate you.”

“So you thank me for my gracious aid by ignoring me for another month? Don’t say you were busy. Don’t lie to me. Nobody’s busier than I am who’s not in charge of a country.”

Peter and Wade share an involuntary look. Peter feels like his look might be a little on the guilty side.

“Oh don’t say it,” says Tony.

“I was… preoccupied,” says Peter.

“Don’t say it!”

“With. Stuff.” His look at Wade turns shyer.

Even Wade rolls his eyes, so hard Peter can tell through the panda-mask. “Yep, that sure is what the kids are callin’ it these days,” he says, innocently.

“Oh. Ugh. I didn’t wanna know that.”

“Shouldn’t have asked,” says Peter.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have. I had a suspicion and I should’ve trusted my gut but I was just hoping you’d tell me there was another bomb threat, anything, something different. Now I can’t stop picturing it.”

Wade’s pretending to examine his fingernails through his gloves. “Don’t like it, don’t look,” he says.

“I’m trying. It’s in my head, oh.”

“So what’s that you’re working on?” Peter says, loudly.

“Ugh, gah. Not wholesome. Not family-friendly.”

“Some kinda new project?”

“Project, the project, yes, thank you,” says Tony, shaking a you’ve-got-it finger at Peter. “Prosthetics upgrade for Cap’s psycho boyfriend,” he says, pulling it back up and zooming out until it stops looking like detailed, symmetrical machine comoponents and instead like a human arm, rotating it so Peter can see.

“Who?” asks Peter.

Tony waves. “Eh, you’ll meet him eventually. Or not. I dunno. I don’t know the future, Webs. I’m not a Magic Eight-Ball. If you shake me up you won’t like what comes bubbling up to the surface. What I do know is that at this stage in my life I am, evidently, nothing if not supportive of my friends’ and allies’ romantic choices, no matter how dubious. I wasn’t so sure, before, but now I am. Sure. Now I’m sure. Or at least I’m sure if they are. And you are? I mean, are you? You’d better be.”

He turns back and forth between Peter and the glowing blue arm, mostly making eye contact with the latter and loosely hugging his elbows.

“Sure as sugar,” says Peter, internally wincing at the corny Aunt May-ism.

Tony touches the tip of his nose as if to scratch an itch but too briefly to actually do any scratching — another tic. “Good to know and duly noted,” he says before bringing the image down with both hands.

“Again, I’m right here,” Wade reminds them, looking up from the box labeled SPARE GOOGAHS he’s been digging around in.

“You just stand there and look pretty,” Peter says. “The science guys are talking.”

“You only get to say that if you’re actually talking about science!”

Tony looks at Peter. “We could do that.”

Peter shrugs.

“Tell me what you learned in bomb school and I’ll tell you how I used to do it better.”

Which turns out to be a surprisingly interesting way to pass an early afternoon. Tony finds Peter’s descriptions of his learned processes “cute” but other than that doesn’t get too condescending about it. The subject sets Peter’s stomach on a tilt at first, but Tony’s impatience for information forces him past that, and once Peter gets up to speed (and Tony slows down a bit to meet him in the middle) so that the discussion flows evenly between them he finds that talking through the procedures is less… evocative than he at first feared. By 1:45 his words are failing their descriptive function and he’s digging through the GOOGAHS box for spare parts to make demonstrations instead. Tony lays a hand on the edge of the box and slowly lowers it.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Webs,” he says. “I’d just have to defuse them later anyway.”

“Not if we take them down to your super-special reinforced testing lab in the basement and set them off,” says Peter.

Tony looks at him askance. “Now I’m not one to judge,” he starts.

“But you’re about to be judgmental?”

“I’m about to express some concern over your psychological well-being if you’re this eager to build and set off explosives all of a sudden.”

“I haven’t been getting out much,” he shrugs.

“So go play laser tag with your boyfriend or something. You don’t have to resort to drugs or homemade incendiary weapons to get your kicks. This is the voice of experience speaking.”

“If that’s how you’re gonna be then I can just take my good company and leave. You ready to go, Wade?”

Wade, cross-legged in the corner, looks up from the most-of-a-deck of cards fanned out in his hands and casts around. DUM-E, sitting across from him, drops an 8 of clubs onto the discard pile. “Oh, we’re leaving? I thought we were gonna raid the Iron fridge?”

“That was before my questionable coping methods were questioned.”

“So you agree they’re questionable,” says Tony.

“Of course. They absolutely are.”

“Then why won’t you let me question them?”

“Because it’s gonna take a lot longer before I’m willing to trust your judgment with my well-being,” Peter says. “Until then you can keep your questions.”

“I thought we were past the whole… y’know, that whole thing?”

“That whole kidnapping thing?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Forgiven, not forgotten,” says Peter. “You’re smart. You can see why I might very much agree that you’re not one to judge.”

Tony holds up both his hands in surrender. “At least promise to stop by for lunch sometime in the near future.”

“I just did.”

“I mean and actually consume food with me instead of playing Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. Talk about regular life maybe instead of old builds. Talk about new builds, even. Something current. Something relevant to your life as it presently is.”

“Nice reference, by the way,” says Wade, standing up and dropping all his cards to the floor (DUM-E’s arm droops). Tony looks at him like he forgot Wade was there. He very well may have. “If you’re gonna have a long argumentative goodbye, baby boy, I’ll meet you at the ground floor.” He puts his hands on his lower back and arches until it pops, and saunters out.

Tony turns squarely to Peter. “Let me be your friend, dammit. Do you have any idea how rarely I even try with people? And do you have any idea how much I’m trying with you?”

“I’ve got a rough idea,” says Peter. “And I’m trying too, okay? Do you know how awkward it is for me to make or accept advances of friendship under normal circumstances, much less when there’s a history of kidnapping involved? I’m not, no, I’m not mad anymore, but that doesn’t make it easy, either. You’re just going to have to be patient.”

“I’m so bad at that.”

“And I’m bad at friends. We’ll have to make do.”

“Don’t like it.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got to work with.”

A smirk. “You have a real way with words.”

A grin. “You’re a real asshole, Tony.”

“I try.”

“I’ll see you Thursday or Friday,” says Peter. “Saturday on the outside.”

“Well now you’ve gone and spoiled the surprise.”

“I didn’t realize surprise was a factor…?”

“Don’t worry. You haven’t ruined anything. I’ll have forgotten by tonight.”

“You’re a weird one.”

“Really? You see Deadpool as boyfriend material and you call me weird?”

“I never said I wasn’t. But you are too.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t resist my friendship.”

“I’m not resisting!”

“I’m just messin’ with you.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t make wishes. It’s a waste.”

Peter doesn’t ask what it’s supposedly a waste of, because this exchange could go on forever if he keeps biting the conversational bait, and Wade is waiting for him. He just scowls (Tony answers with a shit-eating grin) and opens the door.

Pepper is standing in the hall outside the lab when Peter steps out. She’s swiping this way and that on a tablet that’s tucked against her forearm like a clipboard. Peter ducks around her, feeling his face shut like a fortress.

She looks up and reaches out a hand as he passes her, not to touch but to ask him to wait. He does, but automatically, without deciding to. He’s not sure he would’ve complied if he’d taken time to think about it first. He may not be angry at Tony anymore, but Tony’s been trying; Pepper’s another story.

Her gaze coasts just past Peter’s face and lands on his ear. “Spider-Man,” she says, “please, you deserve to know that I’m. I’m really sorry.” She blinks once; something about the blink looks weird, like she did it to disguise a tic. “Truly.”

Not many people can use the word “truly” in a sentence (much less as a sentence) without sounding scripted. She, evidently, can. Peter nods solemnly, mostly to himself, and searches her with what can safely be presumed to be very expressive eye contact. Which always feels risky.

But for a short but glass-clear moment, it feels worth the risk, and bearable.

Pepper’s always used her own kind of powers to be good to people in general, and to people who hang out in the narrow radius of Tony’s personal life in particular. (She takes care of Tony on multiple levels.) And Peter’s reasonably certain she does like him, and for his part he can’t help but admire her, most recent experiences with her notwithstanding.

“I would like to talk to you later,” Peter says with peculiar emphasis and pretty much all his heart. “Pepper,” he adds, for conversational symmetry and really nothing else.

“Actually, you know, I think I’d like it if you called me Virginia, if… that’s alright with you. It is my real name. And I’d really like to get to know you outside of us both knowing Tony. Schedule permitting.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

She shrugs. “I’m game if you are.”

He looks at the wall and considers a moment, which is (unsurprisingly) a moment too long for her sense of conversational rhythm.

“I think I might actually really admire you,” says Pepper. “Not in, like, an ‘inspirational’ Special Olympics kind of way, so much as how you made yourself into a superhero before you even finished high school.”

“I appreciate your using finger-quotes over ‘inspirational’.”

“I thought you might.”

Peter can sense his lingering reservations and his benefit of the doubt settle into a stalemate.

“Whether we actually end up friends or not,” says Pepper, “and I’m not suggesting we absolutely will or somehow have to, I feel like we each owe it to ourselves to at least be willing to explore the possibility.”

Nobody’s so rich they can afford to turn down a friend, Peter, says Aunt May’s voice in his head.

It would be worthwhile to learn more about the only other person besides Bruce or Col. Rhodes who has any degree of persuasive influence over Tony. And if she was able to learn how to speak Tony, probably she could learn how to speak Peter, too, if she cared to. She’s certainly smart enough.

Maybe if she does, she’ll learn to stop talking almost every time Peter tries to take a minute to think.

Which might be good for her, too. Her responsibilities don’t seem to leave much room for just… stopping and processing. It must be tiring for her. Peter doesn’t see how she can stand it and stay on her feet.

“Virginia,” he says, and makes a face. “…It doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Yeah, well, it’s what I’ve got.”

“Okay.” He hesitates. “But we can have that conversation later, right?”

“I can’t think of a better way to start.” She’s brightening. “I’ll text you, and we can meet up somewhere?”

“Sure.” He starts away, then before he can second-guess himself, says, “It’s Peter.”

He’s not sure how to interpret the way her smile changes. “I know,” she says, sounding vaguely apologetic.

“You do? Wait. Of course you do. No, I mean — I’m saying it’s Peter.”

“Oh, I—“ She bites down on whatever she was about to say next. “Peter.” She smiles it.

He’s in the elevator when Virginia says, ”That’s why you’re amazing, Spider-Man.” The door closes before he can ask her what she means.

He shakes his head. Always gotta be cryptic at the last second, don’t they.

The elevator pauses and opens for someone at a floor midway down. Dr. Bruce Barn Owl Bananer is standing in front of the door with his forehead wrinkled and his eyes wider than usual. They widen even more when they see Spider-Man there, and Bruce crowds into the elevator with no preamble and just throws his arms around Peter.

Peter takes one step backwards before the panic freezes him and he registers what’s happening. Bruce’s stale-coffee-and-sweaty-uncle smell comes through as familiar, a lifeline through the suffocating-surrounded feeling. Then it’s over.

Bruce steps back, nodding over and over, almost in tears. “I uhh heard you were in the building,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Peter responds, on autopilot.

The door closes, and the elevator keeps going down, and Peter wishes that he’d said the same exact thing, except not on autopilot.

He didn’t plan to cram visits with everyone all into the same week, but if he had planned it, this is exactly the order he would’ve done it in: saving the most familiar for last, for when his social spoons are at their most depleted but he’s still got momentum on his side.

Peter wouldn’t normally ring the doorbell — so formal, so distant — but it has been a while, and he does have Wade in tow, and while those things aren’t necessarily spanners in the works, Peter can’t predict the future, especially considering all the current factors in play. Even though Wade does have, by way of peace offering, plastic bags straining with a cargo of sushi and a bottle of rice wine… and even though Wade’s wearing a nice burgundy cashmere sweater over a collared shirt and there’s no bloodstains on his khakis (“interview pants,” he’d called them, with no small amount of derision)… and even though he’s freshly showered and shuffling his feet with shy nerves, he’s still military-straight-backed as some baked-in defensive gesture, and he’s still — inevitably — A Lot To Take In.

Too much for Peter to just open the door and come home like normal.

Aunt May makes a loud sound when she sees Peter and has him in a flattening hug before he can even say “Hey.” Her hugs still feel powerful even now that he’s become used to Wade’s. She baps the side of his face with her fingers in effigy of a slap and says, “And just where in the blue do you think you’ve been that’s so important you don’t even call me for months? You don’t answer my messages? You don’t come by for your birthday? What was I supposed to think?”

“That I dropped my phone in the toilet and couldn’t afford a new one?”

“Try again.”

“Uh…”

“Well don’t try too hard.” May’s face turns wry and her fists drop from her hips as she eyeballs Wade up and down. “I can clearly see that you’ve been distracted.”

Peter’s shoulders come down from around his ears, slowly. “And you’re so glad to see it that you just can’t stay mad?”

She smirks. “Wanna bet? You still haven’t introduced him yet.”

“I don’t know how these things are supposed to go!” Peter says. Pause. Take stock. You’re not a teenager anymore, Parker. There’s nothing to be defensive about. “Aunt May, this is Wade. He — we’ve been together since November.”

Her brows go up. “Well, at least you made it home before St. Patrick’s Day,” she says. She appraises Wade with a slightly squinted eye. “Are you military?”

Wade chokes at first. Then he says, “Former. Canadian.”

Peter blinks. He always forgets that about Wade.

“Well you’re standing up straighter than Forrest Gump,” says May. “At ease, soldier. You’re among civilians now and I feel creaky just looking at you. Is that food?”

“From Oishi Sushi,” says Peter.

“Not bad,” says May. “I accept your offering. C’mon in, boys, take a load off. I’ve just got to clear the table. You caught me in the middle of sorting old photos for the album. Nothing of interest to you in this box here, though, mostly old friends from when Ben and I were dating. No one you would’ve known. So? Come on, don’t leave me hanging. What’s been happening in the amazing world of Peter?”

For now he sticks to giving her the lowdown on his current situation. This is planned: start with the happy ending so she knows everything’s turned out alright, then go backwards and regale her with the rocky path that led here — and try to make it entertaining, so she doesn’t lose her head. (He hasn’t planned out when exactly to drop the big one, but he’s sure it’ll come up sometime. Sometime when he’d normally lie to her.)

Her hands pause in their tidying for just a moment when he tells her he’s been living with Wade, but that’s the only hiccup. Well, that and her general disappointment over Peter’s unemployment.

“Oh Peter. Again?” she says, placing the third wineglass and pulling out a chair. They all sit down and Wade starts slowly doling out the food containers, trying not to call any attention to himself.

“I keep busy,” Peter says, defensively.

“Of that I have no doubt,” says May. “I guess as long as you’re staying safe.”

He can’t help but share a weighted look with Wade.

“Oh no,” says May.

“About that,” says Peter.

May starts to say something, then stops, decides to wait in expectant silence instead.

Peter takes a long pause while his brain spins down the intricate flowchart of potential routes this conversation could take, mentally rehearsing each possible exchange in frantic flashes of thought just one last time until the only thing left to do is to say it, to tip that first domino and you’re mixing metaphors, Parker, you’re beyond nervous you’re terrified. He squeezes Wade’s hand, gets two squeezes back.

“I’m Spider-Man.”

May breathes out through her nose and her eyebrows give a little twitch. “And?”

And Peter’s brain, poised on the brink of approximately eighty-six thousand different conversations, misses that first crucial step entirely and falls into the gap. He knows he’s blue-screening because he feels fuzzy, like he’s going to pass out. Wade adds his other hand and presses Peter’s hand flat between his palms.

Aunt May laughs. “Well did you expect me to be surprised?” she says. “Peter, honey, you know I love you more than anything, but you’re a terrible liar — and always have been.”

Peter’s taking deep belly-breaths. “And here I was, thinking there was a chance you might faint,” he admits, slouching sideways and resting his head on the back of Wade’s shoulder, hiding his eyes away from the swimming colors and May’s dancing facial expressions. It’s not enough; he pushes his chair back and folds over, putting his head between his knees.

“Oh please,” says May. “I’ve known for years, Peter. Since you were still in high school. If you wanted to keep it from me so badly you should’ve been better about keeping up with your own laundry. I’ve only been pretending not to know out of good manners.”

Peter makes unintelligible, froglike sounds.

“Maybe you could take some lessons from her,” Wade tells Peter, “in keeping secrets.”

“You could do worse,” May agrees. “You’ll have to work a little harder if you wanna surprise me, Peter. Now what about you?” she asks, turning her attention on Wade. (Peter can feel Wade’s spine go army-straight again.)

“Me? What about me? Aquarius with Cancer rising.”

“What’s your story?” says May. “Superpowers? Secret agent? Alien?”

“I, um, heal.”

“So you’re like a magic doctor? Or a radioactive therapist or whatever, something?”

Wade looks like he’s swallowed a toad and is choking on it. “No, I mean I’m the only — I mean I heal. From things?”

May nods, then quirks a brow. “Ah… Don’t we all?”

“From, like. Death and dismemberment.”

“He can’t die, Aunt May,” says Peter, sitting back up, glad for the conversation to be moving on, even if this is where it’s going.

The way she’s looking at Wade changes.

“Not permanently, anyway,” says Wade, looking at his own knees.

There’s a long pause during which Aunt May’s look changes two or three more times, then she says, “I see. Well, aren’t you the lucky one. And now this is the part where I embarrass you both by asking just how old you are, really.”

“Thirty-eight.”

Peter headtilts. Did he know that? (Does it matter?)

May hums and pops a slice of ngiri into her mouth, and for a long moment just chews. “Oh, that’s much better,” she finally says. “I was afraid you were going to say two hundred or something bizarre and immortal-sounding like that. Well. I’ve seen bigger gaps work out just fine,” she adds, a little guardedly. She’s going to have a private “chat” with Wade later, Peter can already tell. Wade probably can, too. His back is still stiff.

Peter tells the rest of the story, very carefully, but May’s biggest reactions are of pity, and those aren’t overly dramatic. It makes him feel like he’s been overreacting to everything for months. The part about the cult surprises her, a little, but after his anticlimactic Spider-Man confession, nothing seems like too big a deal for her to take in, or for Peter to tell. He stops talking when the food runs out and May is quietly sipping her wine (she’s the only one who has any left).

Wade coughs.

“Peter,” says May, “come help me clean up.” There’s no room in her voice for argument.

“Boy, you really wanted to get the jump on me somehow tonight, didn’t you?” she asks once they’re alone in the kitchen together, scraping loose rice off plates and into the trash. “Anything else up your sleeves that you think is going to be news to me? No? You know you forgot to tell me you’re bisexual, too. Which is also not a surprise,” she says, cutting off Peter’s embarrassed and probably nonsensical protests.

“Nothing else. I thought between Wade and me being Spider-Man…”

“Well I would’ve liked to hear about the boyfriend before meeting him, but mostly just for the sake of knowing how many people I’d be hosting for dinner eventually. Sorry, kiddo, but the only part of Wade that’s even a bit of a shock to me is his age. And, well, you know.” She waves her hand in a loose circle around her face and lowers her voice, leans in. “I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking…”

“It’s kind of weird,” Peter says. “He has cancer, and the healing factor keeps it from killing him but doesn’t stop tumors from growing.”

She digests this for a moment. “Learn something new every day…”

“It’s good you didn’t ask him. I actually kind of like it, but he doesn’t. At all.”

“Sounds like a tricky subject.”

“One best avoided,” Peter agrees.

“Anyway he’s mostly not a surprise,” May says at normal volume, backtracking a little the way she does when she wants to seal off a conversational tangent into its own forgotten little footnote. “Sorry if that disappoints you, on the heels of not being able to surprise me with news of your being Spider-Man. Wade’s barely a blip, either. Not his gender and not his overall… type, if I’m honest.”

Peter tosses a set of disposable chopsticks toward the bin but misses, and they rattle across the floor. “You mean ‘type’ as in ‘superpowered mutate’ or…?”

“Oh… sure, hon. Let’s go with that. Whatever makes you feel comfortable.” She winks and Peter feels his blush reach his hairline. “You gonna pick those up?”

It takes him a minute to realize she means the chopsticks, and he scrambles to get them into the trash while she laughs. He’s laughing, too, by the time he completes his task and straightens up.

“But if I can be a little more serious for a minute, Peter…” She lowers her voice. “How sure are you about this guy? Is he good to you? Treat you alright?”

“No one’s ever treated me better,” Peter says.

“Better than me?”

“No one’s better than you, Aunt May,” he says, and kisses her on the cheek.

“Oh, good answer,” she says. “Glad to see you’ve still got your wits about you, anyway.”

“I have to. How else can anybody keep up with you?”

“You’re on a roll, mister. Now take your victory and go on out there and keep your boy company. I’ll finish up in here.”

(Peter doesn’t overlook that she called Wade his “boy” and not his “man”, and tries very hard not to wonder what else she picked up on.)

Wade’s standing in front of the mantel, staring at framed photos. Peter comes up behind him and takes his hand. “I took that one,” he says, pointing to the one of May and Ben standing elbow to elbow at the kitchen sink, facing away from the camera and washing dishes in a slant of evening sunlight from the window.

“That’s your uncle?”

Peter nods.

“You never talk about him.”

“You’re right,” says Peter. “I don’t.”

Wade searches him for another few seconds, then hums and returns his attention to the pictures, rewrapping his fingers around Peter’s.

“Peter, why don’t you head on upstairs now and see if there’s anything you wanted to get,” says May. “Wade, you can stay here. Let’s get acquainted.”

Something about the way she says acquainted leaves no room for doubt that she’s about to interrogate Wade and possibly give him a shovel talk, and something about the way Wade’s eyes scream at Peter for help says that it’s going to be one hundred percent effective.

“You’ll be fine,” Peter promises him, and kisses his forehead before heading up to his old room.

There are two giftwrapped boxes waiting on the bed for him, one blue and silver with snowflakes, the other green and yellow with little teardrop-shaped birds. It’s a lonely little display and Peter knows the stab of guilt he feels at the sight was absolutely intended for him. He briefly debates opening them now or taking them home as is, but May will probably be expecting thanks on his way out, so better do it now.

The bird paper — birthday gift — is hiding a really nice camera bag from Timbuk2 with lime green lining; the snowflakes — Chanukah — reveal very nicely double-framed photos, professionally framed, one of his parents with him as a toddler, the other of May and Ben with him as a small child of about six. The latter must’ve been taken not long after he came to live with them. Peter’s never seen it before. He wonders who took it.

His eyes linger over Ben and May a lot longer than they do over Richard and Mary.

He fishes his old backpack out of the closet and places the gifts inside, wondering where the hell in Wade’s squat he can safely display the photos where they won’t get broken within a month. Then he moves around the room in slow circle, fitting this and that into the backpack — his old web fluid kit, his stuffed giraffe Slendy, extra socks, that set of folding headphones he hasn’t used since high school. It’ll feel good to have some of his own stuff around him, even if it’s mostly stuff he hasn’t touched in ages.

A quick stop in the bathroom and he goes back downstairs with loaded backpack. It’s been about twenty, twenty-five minuntes — seems like it should be enough time for May to have gotten everything out of her system, and hopefully not so long a time that Wade is traumatized.

Halfway down he hears both their voices raised in laughter and it’s so surreal he nearly misses a step. Both those sounds are so achingly familiar, each in their own way, and to hear them together is to bring two separate galaxies’ worth of memories and sense impressions into confusing collision. Is this what the exploding brain meme feels like?

“Petey!” says Wade when he catches sight. “She’s not scary — she’s a firecracker! I think I got her figured out now.”

May rests her chin on her fingers. “I don’t think ya do, Jawline, sorry.”

“Close enough for horseshoes?”

“Does this look like a Victorian garden party to you?”

“Christ, woman, gimme a break! I just met you! It takes time to develop comedic rhythm.”

“You’ll never catch up,” May says, grimly, “but keep trying anyway. It’s fun to watch. It’s cute. Like a fat kitten trying to climb up a set of stairs.” She looks up at Peter. “You get everything you need, hon?”

“For now,” says Peter.

“Well how much do you need?”

“A little more than usual, since the fire at the storage unit.”

She whaps him on the forearm. “You didn’t tell me about that part.”

“It’s been a long year. Not even a year. It’s been a long nine or ten months. I’ve got stories to last three or four visits at least.”

“Mm, just as long as you don’t make me wait so long in between those visits.”

“Of course not. Thank you for the presents.”

“You’re welcome, hon. Now come over here and let me hug you.”

Peter obeys as Wade gets to his feet. “You too, Wade,” says May, turning to him with determined arms. Wade has to fold nearly in half to give her a proper hug. Peter’s brain glitches a little at the dissonant sight. He always forgets how small May is (he never forgets what a massive hunk of beef Wade is).

“One last thing before you go, Peter,” she says. “Do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Something, you know.” She waggles her fingers. “Spidery. I’m sorry, I’ve just got to see it for myself.”

Peter glances at Wade — they exchange subtle shrugs — then sets the backpack down and jumps up, flips midair, lands feet-first on the ceiling. His hair is an instant mess, but the evening’s wrapping up anyway. “Ta-daa,” he says, doing a jazzy little wave.

May goes just the slightest bit paler, and laughs with nerves. “Oh my,” she says, pressing a palm to her mouth, then the other palm. “My god.” She waves him down. “Alright, that’s enough, come down, I just… Whew! Of course I’ve known for years, but it’s really real now, know what I mean? It’s one thing on tv, with that silly costume, but…”

“It’s not that silly,” Peter says, inverting and dropping back to the floor.

“It is pretty silly, babe,” says Wade.

“Well you’re one to talk.”

“Mine isn’t spandex.”

“Well mine isn’t a knock-off.” Peter sticks his tongue out at Wade and pulls the backpack on over his shoulders. They say their final round of goodbyes, and get their final round of May hugs, and then they’re out the door, walking slowly to clear the last of the wine from their heads, hand in warm hand.

“Just one more stop,” says Wade.

“Are you kidding? It’s already late enough for—“

“You won’t regret it, I promise! I just wanna show you something real quick. It’s not really ready yet but I still want you to see it anyway. It’s been a really good night and this’ll just be the most perfectest ending! It’s not far.”

“Wade…”

“It’s not far! If we go now it’ll save us a trip later. We’re in the neighborhood!”

“Forest Hills?”

“Okay well, we’re in the ballpark anyway.”

Peter shivers and lifts Wade’s arm up, tucks himself into the warmth underneath. “How big is this ballpark?” he asks. “Do we have to take the train?”

“I mean we could… Actually, yeah, we probably should. Should we? Author’s too lazy to learn about how New York works…”

“Wade. You’re drifting.”

“Whaddaya want, Spider-Pete? I just got grilled by your aunt. I’m psychologically exhausted.”

“All the more reason to put off this… whatever this is.”

“No, no! It has to be now!” He starts jumping from one tiptoe to the other. “Pleeease?”

“You look like you have to pee,” Peter says.

“Well? I really wanna go!”

Peter laughs. “Alright, fine. Lead the way, you big baby.”

Turns out it really isn’t that far, but they take a cab anyway just to get out of the cold and “speed along the plot,” as Wade puts it. Peter wonders what medium they’re being rendered in, in Wade’s head. Comic book or Netflix Original serial drama seem equally likely, but he wouldn’t rule out Adult Swim series or bad fanfiction, either. Peter would ask, but something tells him that answering that question might break Wade’s brain a little bit.

Wade actually pays the driver when asked. He’s either in a good mood, or desperate to impress, or both. Probably both.

Both is good.

Peter gets out of the cab and puts his hands against his lower back, under the bottom edge of the backpack, arching his spine until something cracks.

“Aw,” Wade says. “I was gonna open the door for you.”

“Snooze, you lose,” says Peter.

“That’s okay, I’ll open this one for you instead.” He skips across the sidewalk and into the vestibule of the actually pretty nice-looking building they’ve stopped at and fiddles a key — no, not that one, a second key — no, not that one, a third key into the main door. Then he glomps Peter’s hand and pulls him up the stairs, and doesn’t stop pulling until they reach the fourth floor. “What the heckle-’n’-jekyll, I’ll open this one, too,” he says, and fits the key — no, not that one — “And remind me to mark these damn keys somehow.

“Elevator’s broken, by the way,” he adds, “but the guy’s supposed to come on Thursday, and if he doesn’t, I’ll be coming for him, ‘cause only plebs take the stairs and I will not be ignored, Petey, I won’t.”

“I think most people have a hard time ignoring you,” says Peter with an indulgent smile.

“And that’s by design.” The lock clicks back. “Oh, and I’m getting at least two more locks put on here. Close your eyes a second.”

“New safehouse?” Peter asks.

“Kinda, I mean hopefully, but it’s — why aren’t your eyes closed?”

Peter closes them, hears the door open. The inside of his eyelids turn black to red as lights come on inside, then Wade’s grabbing his wrist and pulling him forward a few steps. “Okay, now.”

Big! Big space! Not compared to the factory squat of course, but big enough to accommodate an impressive sectional sofa in black leather, layered with fluffy cream-colored sheepskins across the back and piles of throw pillows in different kinds of green. The huge area rug is in geometric greens and golds. The TV is nearly half the size of the exposed-brick wall it’s mounted on and it presides over an orderly shelf of gaming consoles, including two Switches standing side by side on the highest shelf. Game cartridges are organized on a shelf to the left of this, movies and shows to the right.

“Hire a decorator?” Peter asks, impressed with the orderliness and high standard of cleanliness more than anything.

“I know a guy,” Wade replies, idly picking lint off of his sleeve.

The curtains fall all the way to the floor in layers of pale gauze and a print featuring black-and-white vintage-looking scientific illustrations of birds. The view beyond them isn’t the most impressive or colorful, but it’s clear and open by New York standards and will let in a lot of light during the day. Peter wonders which compass direction the window faces, whether the light will be there morning or evening, what kind of plant life it might be able to support. He runs his hands down the curtain fabric — smooth. “Birds, huh?” he says. “Interesting fabric choice.”

“You like that,” says Wade, but it doesn’t sound like a question, exactly.

The window itself is enormous, almost a patio door. It would be very easy to get in and out of, if you’re Spider-Man or Deadpool.

The kitchen has an induction range and full-sized fume hood, and the kind of fridge with the freezer part on the bottom that’s so hulking-huge it makes Peter feel like someone very small when he stands near it. “It’s the size of the breakfast-fridge at Tony’s,” he says.

“Is it? Well this one doesn’t come with a voice in the walls. No Alexa here, no sir. I don’t like surveillance unless I put up the camera and microphone myself. Oh, speaking of, they’re still not done soundproofing in the bedroom or spare room, so the tour will have to be a little bit abbreviated.”

Peter doesn’t care; he’s still preoccupied with the size of the fridge. He opens it: eggs, bacon, sausage, juice, some fruits in their own bowls…

“It is a breakfast-fridge!”

“Oh please. Brunch-fridge if anything.”

Peter closes it and pokes at the magnets stuck on. There’s already at least two sets of rainbow-colored alphabet magnets and a ton of those little poetry words scattered across its silver surface. Right around throat level he reads:

hand s creep ing across naked red sheet s
a tender question

The bathroom is a soft dove-grey with white and mint-colored tiles. The tub is big, and is the kind they make for disabled people with a tight-sealing little door in the side so you don’t necessarily have to step over anything to get in or out.

“Good for injuries,” Wade says. “And post-death baths.”

The shower curtain has a pattern of yellow rubber duckies on. The fixtures are brushed silver and look spanking new. The mirror is in three panels, the kind where the two outer panels rotate away from the wall so it’s easy to see the sides or even back of your head if you have to.

There are two toothbrush holders.

“So I know the main color palette seems a little off-brand for me,” Wade’s saying from out near the kitchen, “but I thought I remembered you saying you like green (because why else would I be carrying around a mental image of a green Spidey-suit, blech) so that’s why all the pillows and shit are green, and I got the black for me, to hide all the bloodstains, because if I got red for me after I’d already gotten green for you it’d look like December threw up all over everything.” He coughs, hard. “Not, I mean, not that I went and bought the place for you, I mean—“ More coughing. “Everything the light touches is my kingdom and don’t you forget it, but I guess I figured since you spend so much time basically living in the squat with me then you’d probably be even happier basically living in a respectable, responsibly sourced and tastefully decorated condo. Which is mine. That I bought for me.”

He leans his head into the bathroom, but doesn’t look at Peter. “Just thought since we were near the neighborhood, I thought, I mean, I wanted to show you this place I just bought ‘cause you might like to see it and wish you lived here, no big.”

The words are all hooked onto feelings which are all balled up in the base of Peter’s throat. He comes out of the bathroom and follows Wade to one of the side doors. Inside is an empty room save for lots of plastic on the walls and construction dust on the floor. “I dunno what this room’s for yet,” Wade is saying. “Never needed a guest room myself, or a home office, or, shit, I dunno, a craft room or a zen room or a room for twenty cats to play in or something. Normally I guess I’d just use it for an armory, but I promised myself that with this place I’d stick to keeping my kit in the closets and trunks only. Nothing but respectable. I wanna be able to invite Captain America over without feeling shame. I even ordered an actual gun cabinet off some small-time artisanal LL Bean-type artist site, classy as shit, all like, mahogany and free-range oak or something, I dunno, but that’s coming in like three months or something ‘cause they build that shit by hipster-hand and it takes forever so for some reason they charge you four times more for the privilege of waiting a dog’s age to get it. Anyway not that any of this is for you but if you happen to come up with any ideas of what this whole extra room could be used for, y’know, my suggestion box is always open…”

Peter’s already thinking darkroom but, even with the invitation, it feels like an imposition to say so. At least for today. Maybe when he’s less overwhelmed. Less likely to start weeping freely if he opens his mouth.

“My only decorating rule is no singing fish on the walls, though jackalope heads are okay, as long as they don’t sing. Actually no singing decor at all, thanks, that’d be for the best. Interferes with the security systems and also with my capacity to maintain.”

“So…” Peter runs the tip of his index finger across the putty-colored wall. Oh they are so going to be painting in here. “You bought a condo, huh?”

“You say that like it’s the first time. I still got property in San Francisco, too.”

“Can I ask how?”

“How… what?”

“How you got the place. It’s just, I’m trying to picture you sitting across from a mortgage loan officer,” Peter says, head tilted. “Image is really fuzzy.”

“I had my guy hook me up with—“

“Your ‘guy’?”

“Yes, my guy. I got guys. Don’t look so shocked. You’ll give me a complex.”

“Alright. Your ‘guy’ hooked you up. With. Condo?”

“With papers from a recently deceased uhhhm associate who happened to have an inexplicably excellent credit score, considering his lifestyle. So I didn’t even have to slum around with the kind of sellers who are willing to take literal cash for real estate. Actual licensed realtors have way better selection, turns out. Buuut yeah it’s all clean and above board, give or take a little victimless identity theft. Now we just gotta wait for the contractors to finish up with the soundproofing and replacing the bedroom window and installing the sex swing and we’re good to go. I mean I’m. I. I am the singular, solitary one who is good to go.”

Peter opens his mouth to answer but it just turns into a bit of a stupid-looking grin instead (that he hopes is cute or endearing — a wish he makes with unprecedented frequency these days). “Uh-huh.”

“Walk-in closet’s practically a third bedroom. It’s got two doors.”

“Both for you, huh?”

“Casper mattress. Washer ’n’ dryer. Dishwasher. Central air.”

“Looks like you’ve got it made.”

“Yep, it’s pretty sweet.” Wade stretches his arms; his fingers brush the kitchen doorway. “Kinda lonely though. Thinkin’ of maybe gettin’ a cat and one of those chairs that vibrate.”

Peter looks up from the neat lines of game consoles. “A cat.”

“Yep.”

“Really.”

“That’s right.”

“What if I want a cockatiel?”

“My condo, my cat.” Wade’s looking out the window. “Might call it Klaus. Or Brunhilde. Something German, I dunno why. Just feels right.”

“Not French?”

“No. Maybe. Why? Is that better?”

“I dunno. Cats. Fancy, delicate. French.”

“Nah. If I get a ferret I’ll call it something french. For the irony. Cat’s gotta be German. Dog’s gonna be Japanese, maybe Russian.”

“Gonna have a whole menagerie, huh?”

“Just like the lesbians do it.”

Peter closes the distance between them, takes his time about it. Wade’s playing with the edge of the window curtain. He seems particularly focused on an illustration of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Peter knows Wade doesn’t know enough to appreciate the joke there. “You gonna name all the mice and bugs that find their way in, too?”

“Well the mice will all be named after Disney characters, obviously,” says Wade, giving up and putting his arms around Peter’s waist. “And the spiders… can probably have a nice Jewish name. In honor of my all-time second-favorite superhero. I’ll throw each one a tiny little bar or bat mitzvah when it spins its first web.”

“That seems unnecessary and probably difficult.”

“I just like the part where they lift the chair.”

“You’re a weirdo. But yeah, everyone likes that part.” He pauses. “Wait. Second favorite?”

“By default! Captain America was promised top billing for life back when I was about seven years old, so you never had a chance. I can’t do anything about it now, Pete, I took an officially sanctioned fan club oath. They hook you when you’re young, y’know, they’re absolutely devious. It’s not personal, Spidey. It’s about honor.” He presses his fist to his chest and sticks out his chin, scowling with the Srs Bsns of it all.

Wade’s Not-For-Serious Serious Face is adorable. Like baby-buffalo-with-a-flower-crown adorable. Peter pushes him back against the window. The curtain of birds falls shut behind Peter, revealing them to the world outside the window but shielding them from the warmly lit condo, so it feels weirdly like privacy. Peter’s breath steams the glass over Wade’s shoulder.

“I wanna cover the walls in ramps and scratching posts and shit so Germankitty has the biggest bestest playground and never touches any of my stuff,” says Wade. “And I can save money on a laser pointer by just using sniping kit!”

“That sounds like an extraordinarily bad idea.”

“I know! I can’t wait to try it out.”

“Not on my watch.”

“Your watch? And when do you suppose that will be, what with me being the sole only lonely resident? …Gosh, do you think I should get two cats? Then I can train them to fight like pokémon…”

Whatever game Wade’s playing in his head makes Peter worry for a second that he won’t let Peter kiss him.

…

What a stupid worry that was.

“So are you just trying to get me to say it first?” Peter asks.

Wade lifts his brows, far too mildly. “Hm? Say what?”

“Or are you trying to trick me into thinking it was my idea and not yours so you can blame me if something goes wrong?”

“What was your idea? You have an idea? Do tell, I love your ideas.”

“Well you’re not gonna win this one,” says Peter. “If you want it, you need to ask for it.”

“Ooo, daddy gonna make me beg?” Wade grins.

Peter half-laughs. “I might later, if you keep pushing me now.”

“That’d better be a promise. I’m taking that as a promise. You can’t stop me.”

“Oh, you are so gonna have to earn what you want later,” Peter says, and he’s shaking his head but he’s smiling, because how could he not be happy? “You’re gonna have to do a whole lot more than beg.”

“God save the queen, I love me a challenge.”

“You love a challenge,” Peter says. ”I’m not in the mood for one.”

“Boy, did you pick the wrong boyfriend.”

That does it. “Dammit Wade, stop being an obtuse brat and ask me to move in with you already! Don’t make me invite myself. I’ll feel like an asshole for the entire time I’m here.”

“Yikes. Well now I have stage fright.”

“Wade…”

“Yes?”

“If you make me beg, I will punish you in a way that you will not enjoy. And that is a promise.”

“Jesus. I roll out the red carpet for you and it’s got your name embroidered on it and you still need me to verbalize it? Alright! Peter Spidey Parker, will you please live in sin and sodomy with me in this dope-ass condo I bought, furnished, and at least partially decorated to your taste?”

“Duh-doy, Wilson,” says Peter, and kisses him again. This time he doesn’t release Wade for quite some time. He only stops because the window is cold and it’s getting uncomfortable; he pulls them back into the room and the curtain of birds falls softly shut across the city.

“Y’know,” says Wade, not quite looking at him, “you might be just slightly too young to have experienced this part of queer culture, but before marriage was legal, getting a place together was getting married.”

“I never experienced that, no,” says Peter, “but I heard about it.”

“It’s really ingrained,” Wade says, knocking his knuckles on the side of his head with a helpless expression that Does Things to Peter. “I know the zeitgeist has shifted an’ all, but this still feels like a really big deal to me.”

“Wade. You bought what must be a Very Expensive condo for — correct me if I’m wrong — the express purpose of cohabitating with me.”

Wade does not correct him.

“It is a really big deal,” Peter says. “You got bird curtains and everything…”

“Wait’ll you see the bedsheets.”

“As long as they feel nice.”

“Twelve hundred threadcount.” And the next is a blurt: “I just really want you to be happy.”

“I am,” Peter says, and it’s true. “I can’t wait to have a whole proper domestic life with you. You’re my favorite idiot and I don’t wanna eat anyone else’s pancakes but yours for the rest of forever. I love you.”

“I love you. You’re my favorite freak. You know I wasn’t fucking around when I said you’re the best part of my life.”

“I know. You’re not subtle.” Peter glances toward the bathroom door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Peter smiles. “I know you will.”

[Toldja he’d love it.]

“You said it would scare him away, you dirty dirty liar and piss-poor prognosticator.”

{Well? You do come on too strong for most people.}

[And you do scare most people away, one way or another. If it’s not your face, it’s your everything else.]

Wade sticks his tongue out. “Petey’s not scared of me. He wasn’t even scared when I had a gun on him.”

[Superheroes aren’t known for their common-sense survival instincts.]

“Oh, knock it off. You’re not ruining tonight.”

[Don’t tempt us.]

{It HAS been unusually perfect so far…}

“You’re enjoying it, too. Just lay back and let it happen.”

Petey picks that moment to come back from the bathroom. “Say what now?” he asks with a crooked brow.

Damn, he’s beautiful.

{Your man just asked you a question, dingus.}

“Nothing, baby boy.”

Petey leans into Wade’s body and wraps his arms around his waist. “They being mean?”

“No. Well, they’re trying to. Really they’re just being idiots.”

[Hey!]

“They think this is all too much and gonna scare you off.”

“What? Wade, this is the best night of my life!”

A surge of heat spirals up Wade’s core and explodes fireworks-style into a moronic grin. “Really?”

“Without exaggeration. Bend down, I wanna kiss you.”

“Oh, yes sir.”

He tastes minty.

{Was he brushing his teeth in there?}

[Sexy-sense is tingling!]

{Should we go brush ours? It still tastes like wasabi in here…}

Petey sighs through his mouth as he pulls back, and traces his fingertips along the base of Wade’s throat, smiling quietly to himself. Wade swallows.

“Uhm,” says Wade.

{Good start.}

“Should I go, uh…”

“You should go nowhere,” Petey says. A shiver thrills up Wade’s spine.

[OH, that’s his Daddy voice.]

Yes. Yes it is. Wade’s mouth goes dry.

[Does he know yet that he’s a Daddy?]

{Shut up, it’s getting good.}

Petey’s tracing the seams of Wade’s sweater. “You clean up really nice, by the way.”

He can feel his back break out in a sweat. “Only the best for you.”

“I like that,” says Petey, simply, and for some reason that’s what takes the firmness out of Wade’s knees and puts it… elsewhere in his body. He exhales hard and has to chase down his next in-breath.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes.”

Wade licks dry lips. “What else would you like, baby boy?” he asks, and spreads his hands. “I’m at your disposal.”

Petey answers that with a wicked little grin. “I like that, for one thing,” he says. “You at my disposal.”

“At your service, even!”

“Mm, keep going.”

It’s hard to, now that Petey’s sort of rubbing his everything on Wade and backing him up, step by step.

{Try anyway.}

[Please. He wants it.]

“I wish I could zap myself with a shrink ray and crawl inside your pocket and you could carry me around and rub me with your thumb like a rabbit’s foot whenever you worry about something. You could put me in a hamster wheel at night.”

Petey laughs, softly. “Weirdly, I like that idea, too,” he says, “if only in theory. Full-size Wade is both my jelly and my jam, though.”

Wade’s knees dip involuntarily and he wheezes a nervous laugh of his own. “In that case you could put me on a chain and stake me out in your yard so I could protect you from villains and Jehovah’s witnesses. Then you can bring me in at night and I’ll sleep on your feet to keep ‘em warm and protect you from nightmares.”

“I just had an idea about a rolled-up newspaper,” says Petey.

“I like that idea,” says Wade. “We’re a regular think tank over here.”

Petey tilts his head, eyes roving all over Wade’s face, smile full of delight. “Now here’s a question I find interesting: what all would you let me do with, for, or to you?”

His hand’s found the back of Wade’s neck now, thumb trailing lightly up and down the vertebrae. Warm tingles flood up and down the rest of Wade’s spine in time with it. He hums, feeling a smile soften his mouth. “It might be faster to list the things I wouldn’t let you do,” he says.

“And those are?”

Wade breathes in deep through his nose and hums thoughtfully, dropping his hands down to Petey’s hips, round the back, just shy of his ass. “Nonexistent,” he says eventually.

“I don’t know if I believe you,” says Petey.

“Well I believe,” says Wade, stooping down to clutch at Petey’s plush ass, “that anything that makes you happy is gonna make me, like, four times that amount of happy.” In this posture, his chest is leaning against Petey’s shoulder, and he angles his head to brush his lips across the skin below Petey’s ear. “And we did promise the readers a happy ending,” he says, 40% breath and 60% whisper.

{That’s the least subtle double entendre you’ve ever…}

Petey shudders under him and tightens his grip on Wade’s nape. “Whoever they are, let’s not disappoint them.”

“Never. It’s my life purpose. Aside from Give Petey Whatever He Wants.”

“I want you,” says Petey, “to turn around.”

Wade purrs and obeys, slowly, to find himself knees-first against the edge of the sectional. Petey’s hand drops from his nape to between his shoulder blades and shoves him with enough force to send a dump truck skidding. Wade lands elbows-first on the couch, which slides a good foot and a half across the hardwood.

“Keep your head down,” says Petey, and then hands are lifting Wade’s back half up by the shins and dropping him on his knees on the cushion.

The surprise knocks the wind out of him. He turns his face sideways and pants into the crook of his elbow. Hands trail up the backs of his thighs and knead greedily at his ass. The khakis feel tight.

Petey kneels between Wade’s knees and folds his body down over Wade’s back, around the curve of him. His arms snake around and wrestle with the button on the khakis before losing patience and ripping it open; from the corner of his eye Wade watches the button fall into the crack between cushions.

{Welp. That’ll be there until the end of time.}

Petey brings his arms up to Wade’s chest and hugs him, claws at his chest through the sweater, before righting himself and sliding the pants down around Wade’s ass and leaving them bunched in the crooks of his knees.

Impatient hands hike the sweater and shirt all the way up Wade’s back, leaving them in a huddle of soft fabric across his nape. Chilly air and hot breath coast across his bare skin. Wade groans and arches into the featherlight fingertips tracing down his spine, around his waist. Petey palms him through his boxers and his hands are hot through the cotton; Wade makes a broken sound.

“When you say I can do anything to you,” Petey says, voice a little rough, “it makes me want to do all kinds of things. Just to see if I can get you to make a sound I’ve never heard before.”

“Baby boy,” Wade breathes.

[If he ever calls YOU “baby boy” we’re gonna die for real and real happy.]

{Shut up, you’re breaking the rhythm.}

“I’ve heard that one before,” says Petey. Then, lower — Wade has never heard a voice like this out of Petey or Spidey — “But I love it every time I do.”

Wade moans before he even feels it building in his chest.

“Oh,” sighs Petey, “you love making me feel good, don’t you, Wade?”

“So much.”

“And that feels good.”

Wade hums, content down to his toes.

“You really are mine, aren’t you?” asks Petey. He makes it sound so innocent.

They both know better.

“I can’t let you go to waste, can I,” Petey says. “You’re my responsibility.”

[So possessive!]

Wade purrs and snuggles his face into his elbow to hide his smile.

Petey slips his fingers into the waistband of Wade’s boxers (the ones with stompy little dinosaurs on) and coasts them down Wade’s thighs. The unheated air in the condo makes his balls tighten but his cock would sing a paean of freedom if it could. Clever fingers brush teasingly up the length on their way to his ass; Wade inhales, sharp, through his nose.

“What am I gonna do with you…?” Petey asks, and the tease in his voice suggests he already knows good and goddamn well exactly what he’s going to do.

But now he’s got Wade wondering.

[I see you shiver… with antici…]

“Thy will be done,” Wade says.

Petey’s hands pause, and then he lets out a held breath. “You blasphemous little horndog,” he says, sounding impressed. He grips Wade’s ass with both palms and digs his fingers in deep, making Wade’s spine tighten. “Am I your god now, is that it?”

“Lemme kneel at the altar of your body,” says Wade, “and I’ll worship your cock with the unthinking fervor of a right-wing zealot.”

“I prefer you kneeling in this direction for now,” says Petey, spreading him open with his thumbs.

“Sunny-side up?” Wade gasps.

Petey laughs. The sound makes Wade’s feet wiggle. “Idiot,” Petey huffs, and Wade can feel his breath on his very exposed asshole.

That’s all the warning he gets before something soft and hot slathers its way up and around his hole. Wade hiccups in surprise and his body jerks forward. Petey growls and grabs him by the hips, yanks him back into position and buries his face in Wade’s ass, cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek.

“Ah — ba — baby boy…”

Petey hums acknowledgement and doesn’t stop working his tongue against Wade — he can feel his ass tighten and loosen in pulsing turn, and he thanks the lords of hell that he was so careful to shower so thoroughly this evening. A palm strokes soothing circles round one of his cheeks, asking him to relax, and god is he trying to. His clenching begins to slow as Petey drags his tongue around, forming the shapes of eldritch alphabets on delicate skin.

Wade’s back doesn’t feel cold anymore. His chest is damp with sweat.

He chokes on a moan when Petey forces his tongue inside.

It only lasts a few seconds before Petey pulls his face away. ”Damn, those are some hot sounds you’re making,” he says. He sounds out of breath, and a little broken himself.

“You — hahh — you get all the credit,” says Wade.

“No I don’t, but I’ll take it anyway.”

“Take it all,” says Wade, heatedly. “Take everything you want.”

“Oh, I will.” He gives Wade’s ass a squeeze; Wade pushes back into it. His whole lower half feels smooth and loose, all the way up to his midback. “Since it’s so kindly on offer,” Pete adds.

He lifts his hand and gives Wade a not-so-light slap that makes both the windows and Wade’s ears ring. “AH — hhaannn…”

“You’re melting,” Petey remarks.

“What a world…”

Wade can hear Petey’s grin as he laves his tongue over Wade’s ass again. Despite the slap or because of it, there’s almost no more tightness left, and Petey dips his tongue in and out with lazy, hungry ease. Wade whimpers into his elbow and clutches at the back of his own head and spreads his thighs farther apart and tries not to cry with the goodness of it all.

He almost doesn’t notice when Petey stops, until he’s standing next to Wade’s head. He grabs the back of the bunched-up sweater and stretches it over Wade’s head, leaving it looped around his upper arms to create a kind of hammock for his face. Then he bends forward and sweeps his tongue up the side of Wade’s neck — Wade’s voice breaks — and around to his nape, where he bites down hard enough to make Wade grunt.

It’s a noble effort for Wade to open his eyes. He finds himself face-to-crotch with Petey, who’s somehow still wearing pants, though they’re hanging open and the swell of his cock is tenting the front of his underwear. Wade tries to reach out for it but the shirt has his arms trapped.

“Yeah, struggle,” Petey says under his breath.

Wade stops struggling, just to see what he’ll do about it. He sneaks a glance up at Petey’s beautiful face. It’s flushed and his eyes are wide and dark.

Noticing the attention, Petey turns sideways and cants his hip toward Wade, slipping slender thief’s fingers into his front pocket and drawing out a tightly capped bottle of lube.

“Wait,” says Wade, the surprise sobering him slightly. “You had that the whole time?”

“Yep,” Petey chirps.

“Right in your pocket?”

“Right in my pocket.”

“At your aunt’s house?!”

Petey grins and shrugs one shoulder, wiggling his underpants down and slathering himself slick. Right there in front of him! So close Wade can smell it! [SO unfair!] Wade tries to reach for it again, and again fails.

“You filthy, filthy little slut,” says Wade, duly impressed. “I am so proud of you right now.”

Petey leans down and claims Wade’s mouth. The angle’s uncomfortable and Wade twists his neck as hard as he can to get more. The tip of a tongue laps the inside of his upper lip and then it’s gone, and Petey’s sauntering back toward Wade’s ass again.

This slap is much lighter than the last but Wade still yelps in his throat. The surprise gets him every time. Then a wet hand is thumbing him wide to make way for a pair of swift, smooth, determined fingers that push their way into his asshole and push an elongated, high-pitched sound out of Wade’s throat. He gasps a deep breath and blows it out carefully through quivering lips, then another, while Petey waits and strokes his other hand comfortingly up and down the meat of Wade’s ass.

”Damn, baby boy,” Wade breathes. “You’re not takin’ any prisoners.”

“No, just you,” says Petey, and Wade sighs happily.

The fingers inside him twist, and the sigh becomes a coarse sound.

Soon Petey isn’t just stretching him, is finger-fucking him open and crooking his knuckles at their deepest to press against that spot that’s so electric Wade can’t time his breathing right to moan, can only gasp and choke and grunt all out of rhythm, voiceless like an animal.

Petey’s other hand leaves his ass to sneak underneath and take hold of Wade’s cock — Wade almost falls over at the touch even though he’s already on his shoulders and knees — and he strokes it, not in time or even half-time but very, very slowly. Wade can feel every inch of Peter’s slick palm gliding torturously up and down every inch of himself, and he lets out a needy, protracted whine. Petey chuckles and keeps doing exactly what he’s doing.

Wade’s hips don’t know whether they want to thrust forward to force stronger contact for his cock, or dip backwards to fuck himself harder onto Petey’s fingers. He tries it one way, then the other, then both ways at once which doesn’t work at all. The burning in his ass stokes a fire in his lower belly and he feels it building, dizzily hears himself “Ah — ah — ah —“ as it builds…

…and Petey’s hand abandons his cock, his driving fingers disappear. Wade can feel his ass opening up to nothing, trying to suck in something no longer there.

He buries his face in the stretched-out sweater and sobs.

Petey clicks his tongue. “Aww,” he croons, sweeping a hand in circles round Wade’s lower back. “Poor Wade. So close, and yet so far.”

Skilled as Wade’s mouth is, it takes some real stumbling to get words out. “Ah — buh da — uhmm, bah — wha — whatchu doin’ back there?”

“Oh, well, you see, that’s for me to know,” Petey says, sounding pleased as a cat with a gut full of canary, “and you to find out.”

”Mean!”

“Really? Here I thought I was being very, very nice to you.”

“Big meanie jerkface,” Wade mumbles.

“Why are you calling me names? You said I could do whatever I want to you.”

“You can.”

“So then why?”

“Nnn… never said I wouldn’t bitch about it.”

“That would be asking an awful lot of you,” Petey says. “Maybe next time I’ll ask for it anyway. With rewards or punishments on the line.”

Wade whimpers.

Petey slaps his ass. Hard. Wade yowls.

“Whassat for?” Wade cries.

Petey hums an “I dunno” noise, and does it again, the big jerk meanieface!

“I felt like it,” says Petey. “Why? What do you think you’re gonna do about it?”

“N… nuthin’…”

“Wrong.” Another smack — Wade catches the scream in his throat and swallows it whole. “You’re gonna take it, is what you’re gonna do. Because I want to give it to you and there’s not a damn thing you have to say about it. You’ll do it because you’re mine.”

Wade pants, cringing from another blow that doesn’t come. His cock is sore from throbbing. “Yuh… yours,” he whispers.

Petey lays a gentle hand on Wade’s back; Wade flinches.

“Color?” asks Petey.

“Green,” Wade says, immediately. ”So green, jesus poledancing christ.”

The hand rubs broad, slow circles. Wade hums and arches into it. “It’s not that I like hurting you,” Petey says quietly, “so much. I like making you feel things. I like that you let me. I like having you so open to me…”

He trails off, and his hand trails down Wade’s side and off his skin.

Wade feels two hands and a firm weight press up against his ass. Something nudges at his hole, slips in just the tiniest bit before his ass tightens and spits it back out.

“Open for me, Wade,” Petey says in a low, hoarse voice.

Wade breathes in through his nose and pushes back against the heat that’s pushing him, pushing into him, slow and aching. His cock drips onto the couch cushion.

“That’s right,” Petey whispers. “Good boy, my good boy, yes…”

“Yes,” Wade echoes, and Petey’s belly comes up flush against him. Hands hold him where thighs meet hips, kneading into tight joints, loosening him, softening him, making his cock weep. He’d be held forever if he could.

Petey pulses inside him, making him arch. Hand smooths up his back and down again. Wade screws his eyes shut and tries to think about his breathing, but thinking about anything but Petey’s cock burning him up from the inside is tricky business.

“Easy,” Petey soothes. “God, you’re tight. Just try to relax for me, babe. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“Yeah you do,” says Wade.

Petey shifts his weight a little, and that helps.

He doesn’t ask if Wade is ready this time, just draws slowly out — it feels like a loss — and sinks back in again, smoother this time. Pauses for another moment of adjustment. Wade knows this rhythm, and breathes his way through one more slow thrust and pause, then grips the wadded sweater fabric in his fists, curls his face into his shoulder, and braces as much as he can without tensing up.

On well-timed cue, Petey grabs the points of Wade’s hips and starts rocking in and out of him with comforting rhythm. It only takes a few thrusts before Wade’s ass finally gets the memo and stops trying to clench, just opens, just allows. Petey must feel the difference because he ramps up the intensity, pulling Wade’s hips back to meet his.

“Hahh… harder,” Wade says.

He gets another smack on the side of his ass in return and squeals as Petey fucks him through it. “You don’t tell me what to do,” says Petey.

“Ah — ah — asking.”

“Are you?”

”Please. Petey…”

Petey hums and buries himself in Wade, leaning over to cover his back with his body and stroke an arm up Wade’s chest. “Good,” he says, then rights himself and starts slamming into Wade like he’s digging his way to freedom.

Wade’s whole body rocks forward and back on the couch as Peter fucks him and the burning feeling returns. “Yah — nnn, yeah, yes, ye… than — thank you…”

“Don’t thank me ye — yet,” says Petey, and his voice is unraveling a little at the edges. Palms glide up Wade’s sides and drag back down in claws — Wade yelps and arches backward; Petey smacks his ass and he curls in on himself again. The fucking pauses for a minute while Petey bends over him again and kisses the middle of his back, loudly.

When he starts again it’s like the world is ending and the sound the earth makes as it cracks in half is the sound of slapping balls, obscene and transcendent. Wade couldn’t stop the high little grunts of pleasure if he tried, Petey’s forcing the sounds out of him to make more room for his cock. His head is buzzing and blissfully empty. When he tries he can’t open his eyes and gives in to the darkness instead. Sensation rockets through him so powerfully he can’t tell one limb from another.

“Yes… Daddy, yes…”

He can actually feel Pete throb inside him; that and Petey’s wrecked-sounding moan make Wade think at first that he’s coming from that, from hearing the word.

[Kink confirmed!]

{As if there were ever any doubt.}

Then: “Wade… I need to see you.” He pulls out and tears spring to Wade’s eyes, frantic at the loss.

But then hands are grappling at his thighs, at his shins, with bruising force they grab him and lift and twist him in midair until Wade lands with a deep thud on his back. The surprise forces his eyes open. Petey is staring down at him with something feral in his eyes, something close to panic almost; he rips his own shirt off over his head and throws it across the room. He lifts Wade’s legs, still bound together at the knees with his dropped khakis, and crawls beneath the pants so his warm, firm body is locked in between Wade’s hobbled thighs.

Petey surges forward, planting his hands on either side of Wade’s ribs, and rushes forward to kiss him, deeply and hot with meaning. Wade’s arms are still bound by the sweater above his head, hands to elbows, so he can’t grab Petey’s face the way he wants to, but he can lift his head to meet him and open his mouth in invitation for more.

Caressing Wade’s chin and throat, Petey pulls back a few inches and searches Wade’s face with desperate bleary eyes. “What did you say?” he asks.

“Da — daddy,” Wade gasps.

It’s barely left his mouth when Petey crushes their lips together, to swallow the word and all the surrender carried in it.

They’re still kissing when Petey lowers an arm to guide his cock back inside Wade and thrust, slowly, but not gently. Their chests rub together and Wade curves himself up into the touch. Hot sweat slides between them and the planes of their bodies guide them against each other. Wade, bound knees pressed up into the air by Pete’s body, bound arms pressed behind his head, pressed into the couch by Petey’s strength more than his weight, can’t move and couldn’t be happier for it.

Petey’s mouth roves around his throat, his collarbones, his shoulders and chest, a nipple. His hair smells like dollar-store shampoo and sweat; Wade arches his neck to press his nose into it and inhale. Electricity rushes a steady current up his middle to the crown of his head and down to his toes. His throat is dry from crying out. The upholstery under his back itches, damp with sweat and precum.

And Petey’s starting to moan, softly. He hoists himself off of Wade’s body — the air is a shock to Wade’s belly — and takes Wade’s aching cock in hand. No teasing this time; he works it with focus and determination, staring at Wade’s face, red down to his chest.

“Come for me, baby,” Petey says, and god, he sounds as wrecked as he looks, hair all stuck to his brow, wildness in his dark eyes, and unknown ferocity in his expression.

Wade wails. “Yes — ye — yes, Daddy!”

And baby boy yells a startled “Oh!” and pumps him hard with his hand and his cock, slamming into him, and Wade doesn’t need to try to obey, he’s arching back and yelling and struggling against his bonds and spilling hot all over Petey’s beautiful hand, and Petey’s spilling into him, and they fall helplessly apart long before muscles collapse and Petey is draped across Wade’s stomach, come between them, twitching and shuddering and gasping through dry throats.

It takes a long time for them to catch their breaths.

Petey’s slowly stroking one side of Wade’s chest with sleepy fingers when Wade swallows and says, “Can I thank you yet?”

Petey laughs. “No need. I’m trying to thank you.”

Wade struggles tiredly against the stretched-out sweater; Petey reaches up and helps slide it off his arms, so Wade can wrap them around Petey’s naked back and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze. Petey hums contentedly in his hold and rubs his cheek against Wade’s chest.

“Can we just sleep here tonight?” Petey asks, thick-voiced.

“Whatever you want, baby boy.”

“Wade?”

Wade hums a question.

“You’re my favorite.”

Wade laughs, softly. “No, you.”

“Oh! Hey. Baby boy.”

Peter’s too tired to open his eyes, so he Vocalizes instead.

“Baby boy! Petey.”

“No,” says Peter.

“Come on, there’s one more thing I have to show you!”

“Sleep now. Thing later.”

”No, it has to be now. The story’s ending and I don’t want it to be over before I show you the thing! Pleeease? It’s the best part!”

Peter can’t decide if Wade is more like a puppy who’s decided that 4am is time to start chewing on its owner’s hands or like a kid, also at 4am, but on Christmas.

Peter’s lying on his side. Wade crawls on top of him, straddling the edge of his hip, and bounces, tugging at his elbow. “Come onnn, c’mon c’mon c’mon!”

Kid-on-Christmas it is.

“What else is there?” Peter asks, rolling over and dumping Wade off the sectional and onto the floor in the process.

“Ow. If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Peter yawns and sits up. “Do I get a hint?”

“It’s…” Wade looks left and right, then leans in and drops his voice to a stage whisper. “…a coincidence,” he says, and grins a cracking-ice grin.

Peter smiles back before he can help it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, still smiling.

“Then you’ll just have to come with me and see for yourself.”

“Where?” He stands up. “What time is it?”

“Time isn’t real. It’s on the roof.”

“Hm.” He looks toward the bird curtains, and they’re just freaking curtains but his stomach feels weird and his chest tingly when he sees them. “Good a time as any to test that window exit, I guess. If you’re not going to let me sleep either way.”

“That’s the spirit. You could also take the stairs, too, though.”

”You could take the stairs.”

“Nooo, we hafta go up together.”

Peter sighs, but he knows Wade can tell it’s a put-on. After pulling his pants up, he turns around and pats his own shoulder. “Climb on.”

Wade doesn’t climb so much as he takes a running leap. If Peter hadn’t expected something of the kind he’d have fallen smack on his face. But he did expect it, and the slight tingle of Spidey-sense that thrilled up his spine just before Wade’s body impacted his felt more like cozy ASMR tingles than like adrenaline. Wade’s arms are tight around his shoulders; Peter reaches up and strokes a forearm. Wade’s sweater is softer than what he usually wears. Too bad the neckline’s hopelessly stretched out now, sorry not sorry. Peter drops his head and rubs his cheek against the sleeve.

Wade answers by rubbing his cheek against the back of Peter’s head. “I do love me a spideyback ride,” he says, dreamily, and his voice so close to the back of Peter’s neck sends soft tingles flowing in the opposite direction, smoothing down the sharper prickles of Spidey-sense.

Peter fiddles the window lock open, then the window. It slides sideways instead of up and down. That’ll end the problem of accidentally banging it closed at three in the morning and waking up everyone in this condo and the next. Its opening is generous and wide, and he maneuvers them both through without banging anyone’s elbow on anything.

Their place (their place!!) is second from the top floor so it isn’t a long climb to the roof. Good; less opportunity to be seen. The brick siding is dark and poorly lit, the sidewalk below blinded by downward-pointing streetlights. No one on the ground would be able to see much beyond the lights. Fire escapes provide obscuring shadows. It’s about as much privacy as one could get on the outside of a building in NYC. It’s nice and quiet, too. A gentle cross-breeze plays with his hair.

It’s perfect. And the brickwork feels nice under Peter’s fingertips.

The roof is solid with a ledge tall enough to lean your elbows on. There’s a grove of TV antennae over there, and behind them someone has been tending to a container garden with a little DIY greenhouse made of corrugated plastic. There’s a propane grill half-covered by a tarp standing next to the stairwell. People spend time out here. Could be tricky, with Spider-Man. Could be super nice, with real live friendly neighbors.

Wade slides off his back and pulls him by the hand to the other end of the building, toward that sturdy-looking pigeon loft.

Wade drags Peter to a stop in front of the cage. It’s dusty but otherwise clean and empty. “Guess what came with the property when I bought the condo,” says Wade with the proudest, most glowing grin.

Peter looks from him to the bird loft, then back again.

“If you guessed door number zero, you’re right! Petey, the place came with its very own pigeon house! It’s legally part of the property. I didn’t even realize it until I was signing the papers! You can have your own birds and they won’t shit all over the condo!”

“…Mine?” Peter hazards.

“Yours! This part, this part’s yours. Not mine or ours. I don’t want a bird house. This is all for you.”

“…I can have pigeons?”

Wade throws his arms wide, nearly backhands Peter in the process. “You can have pigeons!” he cries. “Hell, you can have penguins if they fit.”

“I get to have pigeons?”

“Yes!”

“My own rooftop pigeons?”

“Yes!! And if you decide you wanna make friends with the neighbors, this’ll give you a good excuse to be up on the roof at all hours. Especially if you decide to take the stairs instead of the window sometimes.”

Peter throws his arms around Wade’s neck. “Thank you!”

“Heh.” Wade hugs him back, hard. “I’m happy to take the credit, but it really was a coincidence. I swear I didn’t know about this until I’d already decided on the place.”

“Then you’re the arbiter of good karma,” says Peter, “and as such, you’re entitled to a finder’s fee.”

“Oo, shiny. What did I win? Please say a brand new car.”

Peter props the point of his toes on the roof and twists his foot back and forth. “Would it be corny if I said ‘my heart’?”

“Yes. Extremely. Not that corny is a bad thing. I love corny… But I thought I already had your heart? As well as other anatomical features.”

“You did. You just won it all over again, though. You keep doing that. I don’t know if hearts are like cats and have nine lives to give, or if there are, like, different levels of heart ownership and you just keep level grinding, but you just keep doing it and if you don’t stop it’s gonna, like, lift me right off the ground like a Dragonball power-up or something.”

Wade rubs the back of his head. “You want me to stop?”

“Hell no! I want to defy gravity with the power of love!”

“Sounds like something we should do in Sailor Moon cosplay.”

“Only if I get to be Mercury.”

Wade grabs him up and spins him around. Peter tenses but the sight and touch of Wade Texture keeps him grounded. Wade’s beaming up at him when he stops.

“I must’ve said something right,” says Peter, grinning what feels like a very stupid-looking grin.

“Only what matters,” Wade says, and lets Peter slide slowly back to the ground but keeps them tight and flush against each other.

It’s getting lighter out, fast. Spring isn’t too far away now and the sun is eager for it. The sky over Wade’s shoulder is pale yellow. Peter strokes Wade’s rough jawline, fascinated. Wade studies Peter’s hairline, rapt.

A flock of starlings zips past, rising, lifting the night on their dark backs. The clouds above the skyline are peach and rose gold.

Peter kisses Wade deeply, and is still kissing him when the sun breaks over the geometric horizon, glittering over a thousand pieces of glass, even the broken ones shining bright as mirrors across the dusty shadows of the faraway city.