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“Daddy, I love him!”
Wade’s insides felt like they were dusted with cinnamon and sugar, a feeling he was starting to get used to (addicted to? [probably]), as he watched Peter look at his new toy with shining eyes then rub his face into its extra-floofy fur. Wade had selected it specifically for its extra-floofy-ness, knowing that he’d get to see his sweet kiddo rub his cheek into it and hum adorably, just as he was doing now.
He wasn’t crazy about clowns (was anyone? Were there people out there who were enthusiastic about clowns? except for, like, actual clowns?) but this was a monkey clown, so that was chill. Nothing bad had ever come from monkeys. (Except…AIDS. And also the monkeys from Wizard of Oz, which now that he thought about it looked a bit like clowns.)
But, again, this monkey clown had the floofiest fur he’d ever seen on a stuffed toy, and judging by the way Peter threw his arms around Wade’s neck and started placing little kid kisses all over his face, he’d made a good choice.
“Yay!” Wade cheered, hugging him back. “I thought you’d like him, baby.”
“Love,” Peter corrected, earnestly, in his slightly-higher-than-usual Little voice. “I love him. Thank you thank you thank you!”
In his excitement, Peter gave the floofy clown monkey a mighty squeeze, and the extra-gay smile on Wade’s lips morphed into a grimace of utter horror as the stuffy let out the most chilling sound that Wade had ever heard in real life or imagined in his darkest nightmares.
Peter gasped, delightedly. “Daddy, he talks, too!”
Wade attempted to wrestle his horror-grimace, which felt like it would be frozen on his face forever after what he’d just experienced, into a semblance of a smile. “Did he --,” he faltered, “was that – talking?”
Peter looked at Wade like he needed to catch up, which was somehow even cuter when he was Big but still cute when he was Little. “Yeah, he talked! Didn’t you hear?”
Oh, he heard. Would that he could un-hear. To help him along, Peter squeezed the toy again, causing it to emit a somehow more horrific hellish utterance. Wade nearly started to cry. “Wha – what did he say, buddy?”
“I think he said, ‘I love you,’ and before he said, ‘play with me.’ Let’s see what all he says!”
Peter gleefully began squeezing the toy (abomination) and giggling in delight at every new phrase it said. Wade seemed to lose time as he watched his little kiddo, his tiny Spidey, who seemed to be possessed by this monster.
This thing was fucking speaking the Black Tongue, except evil-er. He still couldn’t make out words, as Peter seemed to be able to, just guttural utterances mixed with tinny cries. It sounded like it was telling his baby about the fire that would engulf the world and the horrors that would come when the Old Ones finally returned to this realm, and Peter just laughed and laughed, occasionally burying his face again in the floofy fur.
Goddamn floofy fur. It hadn’t even occurred to Wade to check if the thing made noise, let alone contained a demonic being. Wade knew demonic beings – intimately – so the fact that this one chilled him to his core was terrifying.
Peter played with that monkey all. After. Noon.
He introduced it to April and the Turtles and T-Rex. Knowing these people as he did (they’d spent a lot of time on Fire Island together, after all) Wade was sure that Peter’s other toys mistrusted the Hell Clown Monkey as much as he did. He wished they would voice their concern, but alas, they were but plastic, and mute.
Peter continued to dote on his new friend, seeming to fall even more in love with it the longer he played. Because it was possessing him. Wade was very proud of himself for not screaming in horror even once all day, and he must have done a decent job covering when he was asked to help play, because Peter didn’t seem to notice his distress. Because he was in the beast’s thrall.
After about the 88th time the Monkey Clown growled “let’s play a game” at his sweet boy, Wade knew the thing had to go. He would call a priest. He would call Stephen fucking Strange. He would burn it with sage or cilantro or whatever the fuck you burned evil shit with to make it die for good.
Peter had fallen asleep still Little, and so happy, clutching his new toy. It broke Wade’s heart to look at his blissful, sleeping face crushed into the devil monkey’s fur, but he was doing this for him, because he loved him, and because it was his fault this thing had come into their lives.
Peter had to go in to work tomorrow (which Wade did not understand because they both had more money than they needed even after giving huge amounts of it to orphans and such, but Peter insisted that having activities outside of violently punishing bad people was important or some such rubbish), so Wade would dispense with the monstrosity while he was out. Then he was meeting Peter for tapas before their Thing (violently punishing bad people), so when they got home Peter would be very Big and all hopped up on adrenaline, and he’d tell him he’d burned the Satan Monkey and had its ashes sent to a hell dimension where it belonged, and Peter would say “cool whatevs” and fuck the daylights out of him.
Aaaah. The thought was so pleasant that Wade was able to let himself sleep, shooting one more glare at the monkey. “You’re finished, asshole,” he whispered to it.
As Wade’s eyes drifted closed, the Devil Clown Monkey’s toothy, devious grin seemed to widen.
*~*~*~*
“Where is Sing-y Monkey?”
Wade came into the bedroom with the choco tacos he’d been retrieving from the freezer (because all he could think about since tapas had been how much he wanted tacos, especially tacos made from ice cream) to see Peter, standing already half-out of his Spidey suit, scanning the bedroom with sharp eyes.
“Who?” Wade asked, lamely.
Sharp Spidey-eyes fixed on him, and Wade gulped a bit. “Sing-y Monkey. That you got me. He was with April and the Turtles because they’re raiding Studio 54 tomorrow.”
Wade had never found a way to tactfully ask Peter if he was being campy on purpose or if he was actually too young to know what Fire Island and Studio 54 were, partly because he didn’t want to know the answer.
“Oh,” he began, unwrapping Peter’s choco taco to use as a distraction that would surely lead them away from monkeys and towards the lurid streets of Sexy Town, “I got rid of it because I’m pretty sure it was inhabited by an Eldritch Horror. Choco taco?”
Oh.
“You did what?”
Bad.
Wade had never seen anyone age down so hard or so fast (he’d done this a couple of times before, but not with his heart all wrapped up in it like this). Peter’s Giant Eyes of Power filled up with furious tears and he clutched the sides of his head with hands still stained with bad-guy blood. Wade, forgetting the bad-guy-splatter on his own suit, swooped in to bundle his little guy to him, but was pushed away.
“What the fuck? Why would you do that?”
Uh-oh. Peter’s insides were super Little, but his grown-up brain was still fighting for control, which meant he was so mad. “I’m sorry—“
“You gave it to me!”
“I thought it was eating your soul!”
Peter let out a disgusted noise, throwing his hands up, too frustrated for words. Wade felt like a shit stain on the underside of the shittiest shit truck in Shitsville. Except shittier.
“That’s ridiculous, it was just a toy, my toy –“
“I’m sorry, Peter. I’m so sorry, baby.”
Peter lost his grip on his feelings just a bit, enough for Wade to re-try bundling him. This time, to his immense relief, when he carefully got his arms around the angry Spidey, Peter instantly curled into him, letting out a proper little-kid sob. This was entirely unlike the silent, manful tears Wade had seen Big Peter cry only once in a moment of utter despair, which had been awful, but awful in a very different way than the couple of times he’d seen Peter cry when he was Little. But Little-crying he could do something about with the strategic use of cuddles and juice-boxes. Usually.
This was more than a nightmare or a scraped knee. This was a betrayal. He had been so focused on defeating his Lovecraftian nemesis that he hadn’t considered the possibility that Peter would be really pissed off and sad that he’d gotten rid of his new favorite toy, which Wade now realized was supremely stupid of him, and to his panic, he wasn’t extra sure he could get it back.
Wade scooped up his tiny Spidey and carried him to the bed, sitting with Peter on his lap. Peter was crying heart-brokenly into his shoulder, clinging to him in a way he never had before, adult or Little. Shittiest. Shit. Stain.
“Daddy’s so sorry, baby.”
That seemed to make him cry harder. Goddamnit. “Why did you do that, Daddy?” Peter hiccupped into his neck. “Was I bad?”
Wade was preeetty sure that last comment was on purpose to make him feel like even more of a cum-dollop than he already did, but he deserved it.
“No, sweets – Daddy was dumb and made a stupid mistake. I should have talked to you about it first.”
Peter nodded against him, his tears tapering off in a resigned, defeated kind of way that made Wade want to vomit hot lava. “I’ll get him back for you.”
Peter sniffed, wetly, then lifted his head to look Wade in the eye. Even Little, his Spidey’s bullshit-detector was always turned up to 11. “You will?”
Wade looked right back into his eyes, hoping he wasn’t making Giant Mistake #2 of the past twenty-four hours. “I will. I promise.”
Something about Peter’s expression suggested he still didn’t quite believe him, but then, with a sigh, he finally released Wade from the Giant Eyes of Doom, dropping his head with a quiet, “ ‘kay.”
Wade pulled his guy in for a kiss on the forehead, and Peter let him, leaning into his chest as Wade held him tight and rocked a little, trying to comfort them both. This was fucking horrible, Wade berated himself, and there was no way they would get anywhere in the vicinity of Sexy Town this evening, or possibly ever again if he couldn’t back up his bullshit promise.
But for now, Peter was sagging tiredly against him. When offered his choco taco, Peter forlornly shook his head, and Wade discovered he didn’t want his anymore, either. No sex, and no choco tacos.
He got Peter the rest of the way out of his Spidey suit, then gave him a quick bath (Peter didn’t want bubbles and only went through the motions of playing with Squeezy Sub-Mariner), got him into his favorite pa-jimmie-jams, then cleaned himself up and changed into sweats and crawled into bed with his little kiddo, who was not asleep yet but pretending to be.
When Wade tentatively put his arm around him, though, Peter snuggled back towards him ever so slightly. He was okay for now. Wade drifted to sleep developing his Game Plan.
*~*~*~*
The next morning, Wade let Peter sleep in because he didn’t need to go in to the office and it was Blintzy Tuesday. He snuck quietly out of bed, squeezed into his leather, fished his teleporter out of the junk drawer, and bamfed away. When he bamfed back, the sun was steadily climbing into the sky, and Peter was still in bed.
“Babe?” he heard Peter’s sleepy voice as he made his way into the bedroom, presumably awakened by the bamf. “Did you go get breakfast? It’s Blintzy Tuesday, I bought mascarpone—“
Peter was cut off by his own surprised gasp when he saw what Wade was holding out to him. “Oh – oh, honey –“
YES. YAS, as the kids say. Peter only called him “honey” when he’d done real good. He proudly brought the Hell Spawn Clown Monkey, which was only slightly flecked with ectoplasm or something, over to the bed and into Peter’s waiting hands.
Peter, who’d awakened grown up, smiled indulgently at the thing and stroked its floofy fur. “Is this the exact same one?”
“Same one. Should remember right where it left off with April and the Turtles.”
Peter turned his happy, loving smile on Wade, which made Wade’s inner goddess dance. (They’re good books. [Shut the fuck up.] {oh christ they’re awful, awful books.}])
“You didn’t need to do that,” Peter said.
“I did so!” Wade insisted, pulling off his mask and sitting next to his boyfriend. “I gave you something and then got rid of it without talking to you because I was overcome by weird Catholic-residual-creepies or something, which I guess means I was Catholic at some point, which is new and I don’t know how I feel about, but it would explain some of my sexual proclivities, but –“
Peter shut him up with a kiss, which was his favorite way to be shut up. “Thank you,” he said, fixing him with gentle, sweet Big Eyes of Death.
“Don’t thank me,” Wade begged, grimacing. “Last night was the worst fucking thing that’s ever happened to us as a two-some, and it was all my stupid fucking fault.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I got so upset,” Peter said, taking his hand.
“What are you sorry for? For being betrayed and traumatized?”
“Well, yeah, kind of.” Peter sighed, steeling himself. “This is stupid, but – I got really attached to this thing really fast because it reminds me of this toy I had when I was an actual little kid, that my mom and dad gave me.”
Peter hid his face in the monkey’s fur, adorably embarrassed, which made Wade want to encase him in a cocoon of gossamer, which was possibly the gayest thought he’d ever had, which was impressive.
“Your mom and dad who are dead?” Wade asked, helpfully.
Peter finger-gunned at him affirmatively, face still in the monkey’s fur.
Somewhere from the depths of Wade’s usually-unreliable-but-sometimes-super-accurate memory he recalled Peter saying he was five when his parents died. Which was about how old he aged down to, usually. That was as far as Wade wandered down that thought path because a) it was never good to psychoanalyze people’s kinks and b) he might cry.
Wade gently pulled the monkey away so that he could see his boyfriend’s slightly red face. “I’m so, so sorry that I took away your Special Mom-and-Dad Clown Monkey from Hell.”
“That is kind of a creep-tastic voice for a kid’s toy, I admit,” Peter grinned.
Wade turned a flip off the bed, making Peter laugh out loud. “Yes! Yes. Thank you. But I’m sure its trip to wherever it went has cleansed it of any actual necromantic business.”
“What did you do with it?” Peter asked. “Or do I want to know?”
“You don’t,” Wade replied, jumping back onto their bed. “But we owe Dr. Strange a favor.”
“Ah!” Peter actually yelped.
“No, no,” Wade reassured him, “he’s just trying to move from the Friend Zone to the Bend Zone with somebody and he wants us to go on a double-date. No biggie.”
“Oh,” Peter sighed, collapsing back onto the bed, “I thought we’d have to wrestle a space worm or carry some kind of mystical chalice into a hell dimension or something.”
“Like cosmic drug mules?” Wade asked, lying back beside him. “I bet my ass can hold more mystical power objects than yours. Actually, that might be useful to know for the future, perhaps we should experiment.”
Peter poked him in the nose. “I love you. Thank you.”
“Of course, but I don’t think I’ll stop feeling guilty about this shit until I see Clown Monkey take his rightful place in the kingdom of Studio 54.”
“Yeah, we gotta get on that,” Peter said, seriously. “I’ll disable the voice box, though. He can be Floofy Monkey instead of Sing-y Monkey.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Blintzes?”
Wade placed a hand on Peter’s hip, squeezing in a way he hoped would finally, finally lead them to Sexy Town’s towering spires. “Would you like to stuff me with cheese first?”
Peter groaned mournfully into the pillow. “Also, did you say ‘from Friend Zone to Bend Zone’ earlier?”
“…..No.”
“I’m leaving,” Peter said as he made quick work of his pajamas.
“This was your apartment first,” Wade reminded.
“Don’t care,” Peter shook his head, making even quicker work of Wade’s Deadpool skin. “I’m leaving. This is good-bye sex.”
Wade sighed as Peter smiled at him lasciviously around the two fingers he was busy slicking up in his mouth. He wondered, not for the first time, if Really Happy only felt this good right after Really Sad. Probably.