Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6136734.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Spider-Man_-_All_Media_Types, Deadpool_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Peter_Parker/Wade_Wilson
  Character:
      May_Parker_(Spider-Man), Peter_Parker, Wade_Wilson
  Additional Tags:
      Wingfic, Wingfic_Spideypool_Party_of_'16, Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics,
      Secrets, Which_Peter_Hoards_Like_Candy, Alpha_Wade, Protective_Wade,
      Peter_Feels, Social_Anxiety, Spideypool_-_Freeform, Sort_of_Underage_at
      the_Beginning_Except_Not_Really, Put_the_Warning_There_Anyway
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-03-01 Updated: 2016-06-16 Chapters: 4/? Words: 17943
****** Cold Hands ******
by StumblingBlock
Summary
     In which Deadpool needs an in with the Avengers and Peter needs an
     alpha to take to his cousin's wedding, the Greek tragedy.
Notes
     Let's see who will put up with a prologue for the sake of a fake
     boyfriends wingfic AU.
***** Prologue *****
The air is stiflingly hot, and just the way everything sticks together with
sweat, slow slide and pop makes it feel more sultry still. Every impending
separation threatens to turn Peter into shrapnel in the worst way. Peter could
be pressed up against a brick wall and he might not notice the difference. It’s
wet, or he’s wet; humidity clouds everything and rivulets gather in the small
of his back and between his feathered shoulder blades in searing pools, trapped
by spandex and an alpha’s body crushed along his. The muscles are hard and
thick slabs he’s cemented against either way, leaving his hands to seek for a
handhold whether he likes it or not.

It’s better now that they’re close. He’s stifling most of his noises.
The muscle mass Peter is crammed up against breathes, an avalanche in
miniature, stones shift, and Peter’s breath catches for the impact over and
over but Deadpool is just holding him, hands oppressively huge and the only
points of cold on Peter’s body. There’s no posturing to drag at Peter’s already
fractured attention; the closest Deadpool has gotten to a display is the half-
spread wings guarding overhead. But even as he marshals his focus to try to
peel his hand away, Peter is losing the battle not to grind on Deadpool’s
thigh. Deadpool is letting him.
Deadpool. Jesus. You know, Peter never really envisioned his first time going
through this particular shitstorm being with—with someone so—
One hand successfully pried away, ha! Peter’s heartbeat soars.
Deadpool rubs his palm unerringly over the small of Peter’s back, only there,
seemingly unconcerned with the leg humping, letting Peter test the limits of
his control. “Breathe,” he prompts. Peter’s pulse flutters wildly. His hand
shakes where he’s yanked it just an inch short of the alpha’s hard waist. He
fights in a frail thread of oxygen and it’s the elation of success that
shatters his focus. His hand plasters back against the alpha, his thoughts
soupier than ever, lips unable to close, crying out as he finally remembers how
to push air back into his lungs. His tongue tastes too much like himself. He
scrabbles in vain for that handhold, fingers full of downy, clumpy coverts when
there’s nothing else to cling to. Sound comes out whimpering and shocked as
oxygen gets past his sopping mouth and overhead he can see the alpha’s inky
feathers flaring out in the instinctive response to a mating cry.
So he can feel it, Peter thinks treacherously. My heat does affect him, even if
he’s not—
“Gonna die,” Peter moans. Deadpool pulls at one of the hands Peter is clawing
him with, replacing the handful of feathers with his hard, sinewy hands. Their
fingers lace. Peter squeezes down compulsively, breathes, and feels his knees
go liquid. Tremors fold down his spine and Deadpool is literally all that is
holding him up, because Peter’s body is in full agreement; he needs to be on
his back, and he needs to be there yesterday. In a pool of sweat and slick and
covered by the hot, heavy blanket of his alpha, to overheat and fuck his
wetness away. His wings ache beneath his costume, resenting confinement. But of
the reasons that might explain why Deadpool hasn’t taken spectacular advantage
of the situation, ego is the most likely, and Peter isn’t inclined to test him
for the relief of being able to show off.
“Please, what kind of anticlimactic finale are you talking about here?”
Deadpool’s thumb rubs at the back of Peter’s hand. “A heart attack? Gimmicky.
It’d be rewritten in under thirty seconds. And you’d be a boring dead guy.”
Peter’s chuckle goes pained and whining in his throat. “Bet I’d make a
fascinating coma patient, though—”
He chokes on his own tongue and Deadpool has to order him to breathe again, has
to ramble into the gaps left by Peter’s desperate panting. Deadpool’s smell is
like paprika and chili pepper. The harder he tries not to breathe, the worse it
gets, because Deadpool smells so, so alpha, in a way that checks every box for
Peter’s rampaging hormones. This is the only viable mate in Peter’s hiding
space. His instincts know what has to be done.
His instincts can jump off a bridge, frankly.
“Can comatose people talk? I mean, it’s just like being asleep but with a bunch
of tubes doing your shit for you. Maybe that’s why they can’t talk, because of
the tube that deals with breathing? Maybe someone could give you one of those
finger-twitch things—or wait, are you saying you cannot contribute to
conversations? Spidey, Spidey, Spidey-widey.” It’s all throaty alpha croon, one
that makes Peter’s spine arch and his teeth clench—but it gives more sanity
than it takes and Deadpool cheats with his healing factor to limit the breaths
he takes. “What have we discussed about letting bad people lower your self-
esteem?”
Peter asphyxiates on a jolt of bitter laughter, then struggles to curse at
Deadpool when everything inside his abdomen goes wild at the sensation,
vibrates inside out until the slick is trickling down Peter’s thighs, all spasm
and shake as he tries to fight it back and his eyes catch on the alpha’s half-
mast wings. They’ve pulled higher now, like a lazy declaration of interest.
Deadpool is fighting it. Peter’s breathing starts to pick up and Deadpool calms
him with his hand curled against the back of Peter’s neck. For a moment, Peter
hears himself and wants to die. He’s getting violent against Deadpool’s leg,
sobbing as he struggles to get it over with, dragging his cock through its own
mess.
The words are bitter, “This could not be less about my self-esteem.”
“Respect the bitching monopoly,” orders the alpha.
“There is no bitching monopoly,” Peter wheezes, because the worst thing he can
do now is be quiet. “Try and fuck me. I’ll prove it.”
“Naughty word!”
Sure. Peter grits his teeth in frustration and Deadpool’s hands linger
unwaveringly off of everything burning for his attention, so close his wingtips
burn with sensitivity. Peter’s brain is trying to twist the situation into a
sure loss, but that’s good. That’s very, very good, and far better than Peter
could have dared to hope for, since he’s doing this with company. He presses
his face closer to the alpha and sucks in as much of the heady, wildfire scent
as he can bear. He sounds a little firmer when he spits, “Quit being nice.”
“Now you’re reaching. We’re too awesome for ‘nice’.” Deadpool’s hand shifts up
between his shoulders, a little firmer, and goes back to petting him with only
a heartbeat’s hesitation.
You’re not awesome, gets vetoed, and when what follows is, I don’t need you
here, Deadpool, Peter settles into an uneasy silence. Alpha scent is coating
his lungs. He’s shaking so hard his teeth seem to rattle. He knows why Deadpool
keeps shifting his grip.
“Let me try?” Deadpool finally coaxes, voice pitched soft to the nervous omega.
Peter winces his eyes up and tries not to look like he’s scared out of his
mind. “What? Don’t I look fine to you?”
Deadpool’s grip slides unobtrusively to the base of his skull and tightens just
enough to demonstrate that struggling would be a very bad idea, even if he
doesn’t call Peter a liar. “Let me,” he repeats, decisive, and leans in, wings
faltering higher—jerking back down, fighting the urge to put on a mating
display for the young omega at his mercy. Peter tenses, fists coiling tight.
Deadpool wants to scent mark him. It’s like the intimacy of flock doesn’t exist
to him, like being that vulnerable (and gross. And everyone will smell alpha
all over him for weeks afterwards) for another person is excusable. It can also
suppress heat—if Peter accepts that Deadpool is dominant, if Deadpool refrains
from having sex with him for long enough, if Peter doesn’t force the issue, if,
if, if.
Scent marking requires contact with Peter’s throat, which is, surprise
surprise, the exact same place an alpha can place a claiming bite—the one thing
that has been drilled into Peter that cannot be undone, not ever, that will
mark Deadpool as his mate for life and make Peter need him. Need him for
exactly what his body wants right now, but unable to banish that need ever
again, not even when he’s allowed to start taking his pills; his blood will
still light on fire and every one of his impulses fused into the single
intention to have someone mounting and breeding him because he’ll be owned for
that express purpose by his blood and his wings and his cruel instincts.
It could be anyone who found him like this. But of course he’s alone with
Deadpool. His stomach turns over again.
For the love of god, it’s not like Peter can help it; he can’t think of
anything but being touched. Touched until he can’t be touched anymore at all
without screaming from sensitization, from pleasure at having his alpha’s
attention consumed by him. Scent marking him will subdue him for that bite,
that claim, and anything else Deadpool wants. If the heat isn’t suppressed,
that will be because Deadpool has taken him and bred his new mate full, given
Peter’s body his child to bear. Peter’s instincts are so far past controlling,
but he hangs on with his teeth and thinks he can hurt Deadpool—keep hurting
him—so the alpha won’t regenerate fast enough to do anything. Peter’s eyes are
burning.
“Shhh,” Deadpool purrs down, and Peter hears himself again, and feels utterly
sick when he realizes he’s threatening Deadpool with itout loud. “Shh. I know.”
His reassurance prompts another breath, another cascade of needy slick; Peter’s
insides are contracting painfully tight. “Look, just nothing too extreme,
because I still have to rip out spines and beat people with them if anyone else
decides they want a piece of the action—not nobody but me gets the pleasure of
your company. You mind starting with the legs?” Go ahead and kill me a few
times if you’re worried, it’s alright.
Peter swallows convulsively and squeezes his eyes shut before Deadpool can
touch him more. “I wouldn’t kill you.”
The alpha strokes his exposed throat and squeezes Peter’s hand firmly, warning
the omega again; he’s not supposed to struggle. He’s not even supposed to talk.
Deadpool addresses him again, growling. “No one’s going to fuck you, Spidey.”
Peter gasps in defeat at another surging in his belly, legs shaking half-
terrified, half-relieved from a fresh river of slick. His voice is coming out
an irredeemable whine. “I can handle this—“
“And all of us are impressed, alright?” Deadpool growls. “You did good, you
fight like a motherfucker, you—” His arms are the most solid things in the
world, and squeezing with them threatens to break him. Peter moans, what little
strength he has left snatching sugar-coated words as his insides flush and
rearrange and bite down on nothing at all. Through the mask, Peter can feel the
outline of Deadpool’s lips pressed to his forehead. “—please, for the sake of
all things holy and deep-fried, let me take a turn. I got this.”
Peter’s hips rock faster as he feels the first warm cloud of breath at his
skin, mired in cloying, syrupy urgency and fighting against the current for all
he’s worth. He takes a breath without being told and carefully sounds out the
correct syllables this time, “Promise—“
Deadpool’s grip tightens. “Anything.”
Peter’s throat gags off miserably. There’s nothing Deadpool can promise him
that matters. No leverage. No plan. He’s sixteen, he can’t control his first
heat because his uncle is dead, and he’s trapped with an adult alpha. What
happens next is entirely up to everyone but Peter.
“Do it,” Peter says instead, tasting copper as he bites into his cheek—and
And Deadpool surges the hard edge of his jaw against Peter’s throat. While
Peter gulps air, the alpha nuzzles delicately over the spandex, tacky and
dragging. His intoxicating scent rises thicker with intent. Peter gets one
breath in.
From deep in chest, paralyzed and trembling as the alpha scent marks him, Peter
keens. Even with their costumes preventing skin from meeting, it’s the most
amazing combination of pheromones and sweat and Deadpool. Peter can still feel
his belly clenching harder and thank god he can’t move. He can’t jerk himself
off, no matter how urgent it feels. Peter’s desperation is razor-edged into
focused pinpricks, waiting for any hint of teeth. Deadpool keeps his mouth
away. Peter’s pulse races.
“Oh come on,” Peter croaks through his teeth out of sheer panic, “Now is not
the time for you to explore the gift of silence; since when don’t you want to
make fun of me?“ Peter really doesn’t have the lung capacity to be saying this,
because his wheezing is rapidly transcending asthmatic “—Speak, your master
commands you—ah—“
Deadpool pushes up against his ear and rumbles, alpha-dominant and rhythmic,
primal, like grating rocks. Peter’s mouth falls open. There’s no buildup, just
the sound going into him like a key in a precise lock. He comes helplessly and
instantly, untouched and unmoving as his body convulses inside and his cock
spreads its stain further. No buildup, and no resistance, just pleasure searing
out of him. Deadpool, utterly unconcerned, tilts Peter’s head fully to the side
to nuzzle his scent in again. Grants himself access to the vulnerable area like
it belongs to him. Blood surges up, and Peter can feel it pulse, so sensitive
Deadpool’s breath is like a caress, his touch is like asteroid collision. A
bite there would end him.
He’s still coming, thoughts devastated as quickly as they form behind a wall of
pleasure.
No one is talking and Deadpool’s wings are up all the way, arched high overhead
in a magnificent display of dominance and challenge. Peter’s eyes blur. The
alpha’s cool hand is holding him by Peter’s feverish throat. Peter doesn’t even
know what’s up with his mouth right now. He can’t feel his tongue.
“Not working,” he slurs, tremulous and pitched-high with desperation.
Deadpool’s response is another guttural grunt. He’s beyond words.
And suppression will take hours, hours more than Peter has. Pheromones mix in
the air, lush and demanding. Slick trickles down his thighs. He’s ready to be
bitten or fucked. Deadpool nuzzles again. Peter arches involuntarily, dragging
himself up the alpha’s powerful, present body. Arousal surges so hard in that
instant the world contracts completely out of alignment, his control buckles,
and he screams this time, when orgasm tears its way out.
He can feel Deadpool’s growl rumble against him, sharp voice slicing through
the cry of a desperate omega, “Spidey.”
Deadpool is everywhere. As Peter’s fever burns hotter, Deadpool is ice itself,
words lost in the ragged edge of Peter’s cries, holding on tight, scent
thickening the air in his lungs until it feels too heavy to move, detonating
epicenters of pleasure into every point of contact. He sees stars when the
alpha seizes his hips, only then realizing he’s moving again, rubbing languidly
at Deadpool’s leg, nuzzling back against the alpha, mixing their scent further.
He’s—he’s writhing, plastered close and begging for it, realizing with a bubble
of panic that he can’t stop, that the pleasure is in the way like a physical
barrier; cutting him off from his movement. Deadpool growls, restricting his
motion, bathing his throat in contact, and Peter’s eyes roll up as orgasm finds
its way into him yet again, too hard, too much, and he maybe blacks out for a
little while.
Peter comes back down in a cascade of giggling.
“You are a giddy drunk,” Deadpool reports to Peter seriously, the words tinny
and distant in his ears. Still, they register. Peter can process them again.
“This is hilarious. I should be recording it for YouTube.” And Peter, because
he’s conscious enough to understand English, but totally stripped of the filter
keeps him in check, purrs deeply.
Something happens where Deadpool is curled around him, nuzzling his throat
again.
It tingles and spreads like a blooming flower and feels deliciously cool. Peter
moans in appreciation, and Deadpool’s answer is a guttural, throaty growl which
continues after Peter’s purring chokes off into a feeling like sandpaper in his
throat. The alpha leaves his neck wintergreen and frigid, and what he does next
encourages Peter to regard him with genuine adulation.
Water. Peter’s shaking hands can’t hold on, but his involvement isn’t something
Deadpool requires. The alpha thumbs Peter’s mask up enough to jab a straw into
Peter’s gums—ow—and then there’s a curse, fumbling readjustment, an artificial
taste and Deadpool’s thumb over his pulse point, teasing until Peter swallows
and lukewarm water spills into his throat. It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted
and Peter drags a shaking hand up to clutch at it—thermos, gloriously sweet
water, while Deadpool holds it steady for him.
“Hey, not all at once. You’ll puke on me,” Deadpool cautions, “Way too many
people puke on me.” He pulls the thermos away. Peter’s protest starts him
coughing instead, hard enough that he nearly succeeds in bringing the water
right back up. His body seizes the opportunity to send about a thousand
complaints at once. When he can breathe, Peter lets his head fall to the side,
inviting the alpha back into the chilled space at his throat before he really
knows what’s he’s doing. Deadpool buries his face there indulgently and Peter
relaxes into the sensation of being rubbed at. He giggles creakily, softer,
aware that the tension in the overheated core of his body is beginning to give
up and slow down.
“…Izt over?” Peter mumbles, voice so hoarse he barely recognizes himself.
“Expecting trumpets?” Deadpool’s hand is in the small of Peter’s back again,
rubbing these little circles as he continues to meticulously spread his scent,
utterly comforting. “Yeah, Spidey. Should be a little less party in your
pants.”
Peter swallows, throat still grating—he wants more water, but he doesn’t feel
like he’ll perish without it. The rest of him is—drenched. Oh, gross. His
costume is soaked throughall over, and from the smell he knows that below the
waist, the majority of this is slick and come. He makes a face. “And how
long…?” He’s sore and he can’t even feel his feet.
“Just a couple of hours,” Deadpool assures him, voice muffled. He’s turned into
Peter’s throat so the young omega can feel his mouth moving against him. “You
started winding down before the sun set. Hit send on your phone like you wanted
and I didn’t even peek at the message. Yellow wanted to, but I was like, ‘say
whaaaa? We have mad respect for the nerdy spider and can’t read his personal
shit!’”
Peter’s mouth twitches into something like a smile. “I’m sure it was a trial.”
“It was a magical individual experience, baby boy. Your milkshake brings all
the alphas to the yard, if you know what I mean. Very impressive. Like the
eleventeenth wonder of the world.”
Peter cuddles closer, pretending it’s because he needs to cough again. His eyes
are kind of burning. Deadpool’s arms tighten around him just as wordlessly,
protective and cold. He has Peter. Right. He said that before.
He knows it doesn’t balance the scales when it comes to notifying Aunt May that
he’s alright, or, or any of the things Peter can’t even face right now. They’re
not relatives. It must have something to do with healing factor, since Peter’s
pheromones didn’t drive Deadpool into a frenzy, but it’s not like he doesn’t
feel things. Peter didn’t have sex. Deadpool didn’t even touch him. Peter can’t
imagine how hard that was.
All Peter can do is murmur again, voice breaking as he tries to wring the
inadequate words out,“Thank you—“
“Nah, don’t,” Deadpool cuts him off.  “Shh. Come on, let me finish topping you
off, baby boy; it’s going to feel even better in a minute.”
This time, Peter bares his throat without giving it a second thought.
It’s maybe three am when he finally hauls himself home, feeling remarkably less
insane. Peter about scrubs his skin off in the shower, and passes out facedown
in his bed, head whirling with ideas of how best to explain away his first heat
(specifically, how he’ll bargain his way into suppressants now that his mating
cycle is set and healthy). And homework, and Deadpool, and whether he can tell
Gwen the truth, and whether he wants to, and how long it will be before the
alpha scent that clings to him (no longer cloying and overpowering, but
reassuring in a gut-deep way that Peter knows means something, but can’t work
out what), fades into a distant, strange memory.
That’s sixteen. It goes a lot better than Peter would have expected.
.
There was this one fight where Peter had a running count of who he’d downed and
who he still had left to deal with. Deadpool, who he did not know very well at
the time, was in the middle column. The one for people whose allegiances
probably got decided by coin flips and today’s flavor of coffee.
More accurately, Deadpool was the middle column.
That day he was on Peter’s side (sort-of) and expressed this by not trying to
shoot Peter in the back of the head except for the first time, which was either
a greeting or a mistake. Peter still had to keep him from shooting other people
in the back of the head, but hey, you know, small favors. Once he’d dragged his
selection of criminals from the groaning pile of bodies Peter was dutifully
webbing to the concrete, Deadpool flapped over, towering heap of muscle that he
was, and said in this booming deep voice, “Do you pine for me, omega?”
[WGZmHE.png]
And Peter discovered that he was not too tired to throw a punch.
That was also sixteen.
.
Place Peter in a room full of people. Wait ten minutes and come back; observe.
He’ll have relocated himself to the nearest empty corner. Repeat until test
results are conclusive.
That’s something serious for an omega, something that comes with elaborate
accusatory terms like obsessive social dysfunction complex and antisocial-
evasion disorder. But Peter just thinks best in the quiet, is all. He likes to
talk, sure, but he’s been forced into therapy enough to have heard himself
explain only half-sarcastic; “they keep everybody distracted. Feels safer that
way.”
Right.
Deadpool is where safe goes to die.
Peter has spent long hours in his room, glassy-eyed and staring into
nothingness, sat on his bed, and thinking very, very hard about whether he’s
allowed to like a villain.
Mostly a villain.
At least 70% a villain.
Definitely not, he’s concluded, and then is trying to steal Deadpool’s food
again next Tuesday.
“You’re sixteen,” Deadpool said after the debacle with Shield and all the giant
cyborg goats, “You’re a kid.” Peter stared and Deadpool’s mouth twisted. “I
didn’t know that.”
Peter snorted. Deadpool’s tone implied sixteen might as well be in kindergarten
as high school.
“I shot at you,” Deadpool interrupted before Peter could quip at him. “I don’t
shoot at kids.”
“It’s the costume, right?” Peter said dryly. “Gotta be the costume. Just pisses
people off.”
“I put you in danger.”
“I put myself in danger,” Peter countered. Deadpool glared at him. Peter glared
back.
“Maybe youshouldn’t.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Peter drawled at him, “Shoot me? Ammo’s in
the left pocket. I’m sure we can find a tumbleweed somewhere.”
Eating dinner with Deadpool while he was sulking was, Peter determined,
hilarious.
“I refuse to hit on you ever again,” the alpha whined after they’d thrown the
trash away, “Ever. My brain hurts from all this nope. Scratch that—my brain is
gone and it is on a rocket bound for the moon. This is killing like 30% of my
spank bank material.” He thought about it. “Okay, maybe 25%.”
Peter patted him on the shoulder. “There’s always Captain America.”
Deadpool perked up. “Ooh, yeah—“ Suddenly he wrung his hands. “You are but an
innocent child! Are you even old enough to have this conversation?”
“I mean,” Peter shrugged a shoulder uncertainly, tilting his head as he
pretended to think very hard about this. “Do you have enough thoughts that
aren’t about hitting on people? Brain death is a very serious issue.”
Deadpool eyed him and said, with impressive sarcasm, “Spidey, you are a true
hero.”
Peter dialed his smile up to blinding. “No kill rule. It applies.”
And Deadpool pouted—actually, visibly pouted—that one time when Peter showed up
late with the drinks. Peter, for his part, gave up on pretending Tuesday wasn’t
his favorite day of the week.
If Peter were inclined to believe in things like fate, maybe he’d find some
special significance in how, even though Spiderman being an omega is basically
the worst-kept secret in New York, it’s a Tuesday when he goes into heat.
Deadpool is instantly at his side, before Peter even really knows why he feels
so terrible, urging Peter into the defensible confines of an abandoned
building, bristling in readiness for unseen threats as he sidles his way into
Peter’s personal space. He won’t leave. Peter can’t even see Deadpool’s eyes
behind the mask, but he can feel their unsteady weight skidding around him and
carving him into the air, and it’s heavier than usual. Peter’s heart flutters
up to his throat and trembles and his body confuses everything about this alpha
and the familiar lies are as fragile as glass so that for an instant, Peter
knows every rotten little undercurrent to this thing he has with Deadpool, and
knows why this time he can’t throw the punch he probably should.
But that’s just sixteen, thank god, and by the time Deadpool has suppressed
Peter’s heat the one time, the new instincts that form are far easier to
handle. As for anything as insignificant as what he felt at sixteen, well.
Deadpool doesn’t know and Peter no longer feels it, so it never happened.
That’s what growing up is all about; growing out of old feathers and exchanging
them for the new.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter should annoy everyone who read the prologue first. I
     feel pretty good about it.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The pounding in his head threatens to topple him over, forcing Peter to
sacrifice a hand to brace against the wall. His thumb stutters the last of the
numbers into his cell phone. It takes two tries and then he has it smashed
against the side of his cheek, pinning it there with his shoulder as it rings,
chest swollen tight on the hope that maybe, against all odds, he’s not too
late—
But the voicemail message comes on. Peter closes his eyes for a moment, then
wrangles out a smile.
“Hi, Aunt May. Sorry I didn’t make it. Work ran over and I didn’t realize my
phone was dying…” Lie, lie, lie. Peter’s stomach knots. He digs his palm a
little harder against his side, and no, it’s not because it’ll staunch the
blood flow. The pain injects a level of dismal cheer into his voice. “I know, I
know. I’m really irresponsible. Next time I’ll—” He fumbles the words and the
silence stretches for too long, demonstrating that there is no one on the other
end of the line, “—sorry it’s late.” Peter definitely passed ‘decent hour’ a
while back. “—just. Happy birthday, Aunt May.”
Maybe she didn’t wait up for him. He’s probably broken enough promises that she
didn’t.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Peter says, taking a deep breath. “If
youhavetime—!” But the beep goes off and he’s not sure whether or not it
actually went through. He groans a little. He fishes the phone out from the
crook of his shoulder, but his fingers are slippery and it hits the ground with
a clatter, skidding a good two feet across the concrete. Peter just stares at
it.
Like magic, the screen lights up and it proceeds to vibrate enthusiastically.
Not broken, then.
Peter isn’t exactly motivated about collecting it because who calls at this
hour of the night?, but then he sees his Aunt’s caller ID and nearly rips it in
half in his haste to get it open.
“Aunt May?”
“Peter!” She sounds so delighted that Peter winces. “I’d almost given up!
Should I expect you tonight?”
Peter swallows. Moving has sent fresh blood out of his wound and he should
probably do something other than apply topical pressure to that. “Sorry,” he
says. “Don’t think I can make it.”
“You’re always so busy,” she chides, gently.
“Well, you’re—I’m not keeping you up?” Peter sinks back against the wall,
propping the phone against his shoulder again. He spreads some webbing over the
wound. It stains pink dishearteningly fast.
“Not at all, dear. I got caught up talking to your aunt Laura. You remember
her, don’t you?”
It might come as a surprise that an omega who went through his first heat both
unsuppressed and totally absent any adult alpha relatives to protect him
actually does have other relatives. They exist! That’s about all there is to
say about it, because the only things Peter has in common with the entire group
is two eyes and the ability to breathe oxygen.
“Yeah,” Peter murmurs, his mouth tipped up in a smile in spite of himself, just
because Aunt May is happy for once. “I do. What did she have to say?”
“Oh, Peter, I told you the week before last,” Aunt May huffs. “You’re such an
intelligent boy, really, but you have no head for dates.”
“Remind me?”
“Andrew is getting married.” Peter wracks his brains for the name. One of Aunt
Laura’s sons, or maybe her mechanic? He’s no longer shivering. That seems like
it should be a good thing. He adds more webbing to the stained mess of his
side. “Oh, you should see him, Peter! He’s glowing. The wedding is coming up so
soon—just this Friday! Can you believe it?”
“Good for him?”
“It is,” his aunt agrees. “Weddings are such a happy occasion. Peter,” her
voice softens hopefully, “I would love it if you would make time to come.”
Peter blinks hard, correcting his see-sawing vision. “…What?” He’s not sure
whether he heard correctly. He’d expected a subtle attempt to tell him that at
nineteen, it’s about time he settles down with a nice alpha of his own, isn’t
it?
“It’s alright if you’re not able to make it,” she assures him. “I know how hard
it is for an omega to pursue higher education in this city. It’s just we don’t
see each other enough and I worry, especially with you all on your own in that
apartment…” She trails off.
An apology crawls into his throat. It’s obvious Aunt May still doesn’t
understand why he left.
And how could she? Peter hasn’t explained himself. “It’s actually a nice
place,” he assures her. “Very… quiet.”
Aunt May quickly moves past the subject. “I just don’t see you often enough
these days and I’d rather not go by myself. What do you think?”
Well, Peter has two essays due next week, and he’ll have to give Jameson
something if he intends to eat without resorting to raiding the Avengers’
fridge (again)—
—but Peter also has nothing else to offer but a shredded scarf and yet another
set of bruises for her to panic over. His mind is made up at once. “I’ll be
there.”
“Oh, Peter. That’s wonderful!”
“I have to go now,” Peter says, carefully and precisely; his mouth feels
sluggish. That’s not an excuse to pass out in the middle of a phone call. “You
should sleep too.”
He doesn’t quite hear her response, but she’s the one who hangs up, so job well
done. Peter stays slumped against the wall for a good while, trying to convince
himself to move. It’s cold.
He ran out of medical tape last week. He needs more. It will have to be home,
to get his wallet, then to the pharmacy, then back again. His head lurches
unpleasantly as Peter inches away from the wall. Just think of it in steps, he
tells himself, That will make it doable.
He still nearly loses his grip on the webbing mid-swing—gasps at the shock of
fire that crawls up his injury and kneels down on the first roof he can reach
to breathe. Green Goblin is a menace. He has a sadistic streak wider than the
Potomac. Peter could smell it on him, bright and savage as Peter bit back a
yell, chemical communication howling out yes, yes, yes, put the omega on his
knees, break him. What a prick.
Peter makes himself take a running start for the next jump.
He has to fight the foggy effects of blood loss and jagged pain for control of
his limbs. If he pushes, he can keep going, but he’s not navigating as well as
usual. It’s inevitable that somehow he finds himself stuck to the wall of
Deadpool’s apartment building. Peter has to roll his eyes. This isn’t even in
the right direction.
It’s closer, though, isn’t it? A treacherous voice in the back of Peter’s head
points out that Deadpool could have medical tape. And asking is free.
Peter’s rejection never completes itself. Instead, dizziness washes over him,
abnormally sudden, and then Peter can’t open his eyes. He tries to make a sound
as a bubble of panic swells up in his chest. He painstakingly feels his way to
the familiar window—it’s unlocked, as always—and shoves it up enough to stick
his head into the dimly lit apartment. He’s clinging to the windowsill and
desperately squeezing his eyes shut against the reeling world around him.
Whatever you do, don’t pass out.
“Wow, you’re up late,” he calls a little desperately, covering the dizziness
with attitude. “Accidentally watch a horror movie on AMC or what?”
“Yo, Spidey!” And that exclamation can only be Deadpool. He comes springing off
of the sofa in a noisy flurry of sooty feathers and flailing limbs—Deadpool is
a complete wreck in enclosed spaces—as Peter answers the shit-eating grin in
his voice with a queasier one. “If I say yes—” He cuts himself off. Through
eroding vision, Peter can make out the alpha’s wings spreading in alarm.
“It’s not bad,” Peter guiltily splutters before Deadpool can say anything.
“But, uh. Can I borrow your first aid kit?” He must reek of blood.
He hears Deadpool suck in a breath. “Show me,” he commands. Peter offers a
deferential, masked smile, inching inside enough to swing a leg over the
windowsill. He carefully keeps his bleeding flank angled away.
“See? Harmless.” There’s just a particularly nasty scrape on his shin from
thrown down a brick wall. Deadpool advances, eying it unhappily. Peter wiggles
his foot. “But I don’t want it to get infected.”
“Who tried to skin you?”
“Skateboarding accident,” Peter scoffs, and he loves these little chats, he
really does, but he’s so tired. “I fell. Look, can I have some bandages or
not—?”
He hasn’t realized how close Deadpool has gotten—a mistake—and a wing flicks
around him, scissor-fast. Peter can’t twist out of the way on time. It shoves
him hard, Peter tumbles forward, inside, directly into Deadpool’s waiting arms.
Peter growls with wearied irritation, and Deadpool investigates the side Peter
is favoring. His careful, red fingers come back stained and wet. He glowers at
Peter, who sighs deeply.
“It’s really not that bad,” he says, stubborn. “Want to see a cartwheel? I’m
good for it.”
Deadpool just stares at him until he’s embarrassed, and then decides, “Yep.
You’re staying for dinner.”
“I have a life,” Peter protests. What he means is, I have homework.
“Bzzt, wrong.” Deadpool successfully steers Peter into the couch. “You can
organize your beloved pocket protectors some other night. Nerd.”
“No,” Peter grumbles.
“You’re too weak to fight me off,” Deadpool tells him, succinctly, with a sharp
twist in his voice that makes Peter swallow. Deadpool hasn’t let go of him.
He’s gripping onto Peter’s bruised shoulders too tight and breathing heavier
than he should be. Deadpool can’t be faulted for his instincts. Peter hears him
take a deep breath before letting go and forcing his wings to drop. “Come on.”
“You’re the one who pushed me onto the sofa,” Peter grumbles, up and mutinously
shuffle-stepping behind his friend. “I know where the bathroom is. Don’t act
like this is my fault—” Deadpool keeps the medical supplies under the sink,
huh? Peter webs them out of his hands. The look of wide-eyed ferocity this
earns him is easy to ignore. “—get out,” Peter says tiredly. He may be swaying
on his feet, but he’s hanging onto the bandages in a white-knuckled grip.
And Deadpool really does have amazing control, because his cheer sounds hardly
artificial. “I’ll get the grub!” He goes stampeding out of the room, leaving
Peter to shut the door.
So far so good about the passing out thing. Peter reaches down to unzip his
costume.
 
.
 
It takes Deadpool maybe twenty minutes to bring the takeout back. Peter has
relocated to the couch, having proven unable to justify sneaking back out the
window. The threadbare upholstery is soft and warm and Peter is halfway asleep
when Deadpool crashes back inside, doing a backflip to sprawl over Peter with
the grace of an overzealous terrier. Immediately, the alpha begins stacking
Styrofoam takeout containers in Peter’s lap.
“Do I look like the table?” Peter questions, and Deadpool just scoffs at him,
trying to hand Peter about nine tacos at once.
“Nonsense. The table wishes it was you. Open wide, my hungry little spider!”
Peter rolls his eyes beneath his mask and takes one. Deadpool watches him
intently as he chews, periodically rearranging the food containers he’s
provided Peter’s lap with, and only when Peter finishes one does Deadpool start
to wolf down his own.
“Thanks,” Peter murmurs. Deadpool ignores this. Peter relaxes just a little.
As they eat, Peter balances the tower of food against Deadpool’s leg, leaning
close, the alpha’s thermal-warmed wings lapsing over them in an iron-weighted,
territorial blanket. Deadpool winds up using Peter’s head as an armrest and
Peter’s legs are halfway in Deadpool’s lap in his effort to not drown in
feathers. It’s pretty cozy. Peter is too exhausted to talk, and it’s only
because Deadpool gets a proprietary arm around Peter’s waist that he realizes
the food is gone. Peter is stuffed.
He also knows immediately what Deadpool is up to. He frowns warningly.
“You know I can’t stay here.”
Deadpool growls assertively. “You are perfectly cuddly and have to not ever
budge from this spot.”
“Really?” Peter raises an eyebrow. Deadpool grunts, but otherwise withstands
the knee currently dug into his gut.
“I refuse to be left alone,” the alpha growls at Peter. “I have explosives.
What about the other people in this apartment complex? Do you even have a
conscience?”
Peter snorts. “Deadpool, the trash can is five feet away.”
“Noooo.”
This is what he puts up with—Peter hears himself laugh, drained or not. He
eventually succeeds in throwing the trash away, but only after he webs
Deadpool’s hands to the sofa.
When he comes back, there’s an awkward moment where he doesn’t remotely know
what to do with himself—this isn’t like stopping by for a snack or Deadpool
trying to teach him poker—this crossed a line. Peter came here in need and
Deadpool took care of him and it makes him fidget and chase imaginary speeches
in his head.
The alpha looks up at him. He’s recovered the usual wide grin now that Peter
isn’t bleeding and a wing unfurls, opening a place for Peter at his side. “Not
that slack-jawed isn’t adorable on you, but you’re pretty full, right? Do you
really need the flies, bug boy?”
“Oh, shut up,” Peter grumbles, shuffling over. “You’re lucky you’re warm.”
So basically, it’s business as usual.
Deadpool puts on some TV as Peter settles into Deadpool’s side. Drowsiness
comes over the omega in slow waves, threatening, but never succeeding in
bringing him under.
 [fJZ9bb.png]
“You know what the world could do with less of?” Peter growls idly. “Villains
with smoke bombs. Reality shows. And weddings.”
The alpha’s wings giving a benign spasm against him. “You’ve got my undivided
attention,” Deadpool says. His voice has gone a little high-pitched.
Peter snorts. “Not my wedding.” He kneads at an eye beneath his mask.
“Oh. Yeah. That’s good,” Deadpool says slowly, then clears his throat, “Your
future alpha and me, you know, we’ll explore some Russian interrogation
practices, that kind of thing. For justice.”
“Okay, first of all, no,” Peter argues, “No Russian anything.”
There is momentary silence, and then Deadpool says primly, “White says you lack
creative vision.”
“White can put his creative vision back where he found it,” Peter answers.
“Okay.” And then, “Whose wedding?”
Peter’s mouth twists. “My cousin’s.”
Deadpool squints at him hard, like he’s picturing it, “So Spidey’s getting all
dressed up for a wedding. And there will be cousins? Marriageable arachnid
cousins.” Peter throws Deadpool a skeptical look, not at all sure of what
Deadpool is imagining, and receives a blinding leer in return. “I choose to
imagine you in a dress. It is my right.”
Peter would usually be goaded into a good round of banter and he knows that is
just what he needs right now—sarcasm and frustration and laughing until his
stomach hurts—but instead he blurts, like an idiot, “I’m in breeding plumage.”
Deadpool’s grin falters. “What?”
“I, uh, didn’t notice I was molting,” Peter exhales, ignoring Deadpool and his
dropped jaw. “But when I was patching myself up...” He flails a hand. There
they were. All the wrong feathers to not get him in trouble. “Yay.”
“So you do have wings?!” The alpha mock-gasps and pretends to swoon. “Oh
golly!  Non-imaginary ones? Holy crapballs, Spidey—what color are they?” As
Peter snorts at him, Deadpool makes grabby hands. “Give me a feather. I can
help you determine whether you’re in your breeding plumage.”
“Ha,” Peter pronounces dryly.
The alpha’s reverberating growl is pure, evident frustration and then he has
plastered himself to Peter like an enormous wet dishcloth. “I want to see,” he
whines. “You can’t just mention that and then not show me. I may explode. This
qualifies for domestic abuse. I am revoking your hero card.”
“Oh the horror,” Peter answers, “What ever will I do without that.” He’s fully
prepared to kick Deadpool off of him if this is a sneaky bid to feel him up. In
the meantime, he tolerates it. Deadpool’s own wings droop listlessly.
“I want,” Deadpool whimpers, sounding like a man in a great deal of pain, but
all he does is prod Peter in the back of the head. And make sad cooing noises.
Peter casts his eyes skyward. “Look, they’re just—they’re distinctive. I’d be
putting my secret identity in danger.”
“Distinctive,” Deadpool laments, “That definitely means awesome.”
Peter can’t be expected to resist. “People have been known to stop and take
photos on sight. It’s pretty cool. I might be some kind of celebrity!”
Deadpool pouts. “Stark doesn’t hide his wings.”
“Tony Stark also has his face plastered on half the tabloids every day of the
week, suggesting terrorists come take cheap shots at him.” Plus Tony is a
hummingbird. He’s the first alpha to have such shiny wings in half a century.
That’s not distinctive, it’s apocryphal. Peter scoffs. “He’s nuts.”
Deadpool whines low in the back of his throat. “But I want.”
“There’s always grief counseling?” Even as he teases, Peter realizes he’s
tempted to keep going—to complain to Deadpool like the alpha can in any way
solve his problems. He’s been enough of a stereotype tonight, so Peter snaps
his mouth shut and spends a minute just stewing in frustration.
He must be tired, because he usually doesn’t underestimate Deadpool this much.
The alpha feels Peter tense and frowns.
“Wait,” he says, and Peter knows the tone well enough to understand that
Deadpool just put two and two together. “You—if you’re in breeding
plumage—wait. Who’s escorting you?”
Peter fidgets.
This time it’s Deadpool who tenses. The alpha sits fully upright so fast it
makes Peter gasp. Peter assumes Deadpool isn’t flaring his wings like that on
purpose, but still refuses to flinch away from the display. His hands ball into
preemptive fists. “Look, I don’t like it either,” Peter mutters, glancing
towards the window.
Of course the one time Peter has to display his wings—spirit of celebration and
all that—is also the only time it would be fully acceptable to keep them
hidden. Now that he thinks about it, how could he be in anything but his
fricking breeding plumage? How could he begin to imagine this would go well?
“You can’t go,” Deadpool says flatly. “Your aunt will understand.” When Peter
doesn’t answer, he growls. “Spidey, don’t mess around. Your safety comes
first.”
Peter’s side aches. He growls back and tries to shrug away from Deadpool,
abruptly restless—but the alpha moves too quickly.
Deadpool drops his chin on top of Peter’s head, jarring the omega closer and
hugging him there, wrapped up in wings and warmth. Peter takes a breath.
Deadpool smells like an upended spice cabinet and Peter feels a little of the
tension drift away, a buzzing in his ears dimming into heavy quiet. Deadpool
nuzzles at him clandestinely, and Peter allows it because clearly that is what
Deadpool needs from him right now.
“Then take Cap with you. He likes you and he’s happily mated, so he won’t care
about your feathers.”
And look like I can’t handle my shit in front of the Avengers? No thanks.
Peter’s mouth twists and he shoves up a little closer to Deadpool even though
he means to be moving away. He sounds too defeated when he answers, “They want
me in a flock. I can’t give them reason to believe that I need one.”
Deadpool chuckles, his mirth sounding a little panicky. “You say that like you
wouldn’t enjoy family.”
“Not everyone has your hero worship,” Peter snaps, and Deadpool gives him a
gentle squeeze before he can lose his temper.
“Yeah, sorry. My bad.” Peter’s fingers curl into a fist and uncurl just as
quickly. “Then what’s the plan, Spider-man? Let me in on it.”
Peter suddenly feels like he’s not demonstrating his independence very well by
cuddling the nearest alpha. “Stick to really public spaces and don’t get
cornered?” He inches back until they’re no longer touching. “I’m on
suppressants. It’ll be fine.”
“Alphas can be aggressive with or without pheromones,” Deadpool says, very
carefully holding still, like something bad will happen if he moves. “When
they’ve got a really hot omega in front of them, other shit stops mattering
real fast. They might think you’re advertising on purpose.” He doesn’t say the
obvious part, about how displaying breeding plumage basically is, well,
problematic.
Peter throws him an irritable look—Deadpool isn’t helping—“I can handle a few
grabby alphas.”
“Spidey, if they go for you, they won’t stop,” Deadpool says, making Peter
grimace. “And you’re stupid about civilians. Can you promise me you won’t pull
your punches? Even if someone gets hurt?”
“It’s not going to come to that,” Peter says firmly, emphatically. His wings
flare ineffectually beneath their bindings, making him grimace. “I’ll handle it
because I have to.”
Deadpool is quiet for a long moment. “And you’ll be careful,” he says softly,
“Right?”
“I’m always careful,” Peter answers. “Can’t you tell?” He starts to grin away
Deadpool’s concern, only for Deadpool to seize him by the chin and make Peter
look at him for real.
“You have to,” Deadpool says, sharp and clear, like it’s a blade he’s holding
to Peter’s throat. Peter blinks at him. “I need you to.”
Peter shivers. His side twinges, just enough to shut him up.
Deadpool doesn’t quite let go of him. Peter is so used to seeing the shit-
eating grin through Deadpool’s mask that it’s more startling than the
scars—Deadpool’s mask is still halfway up his nose from dinner—he suddenly
looks so severe. He’s frowning at Peter, and Peter can see the hard line his
lips form.
Peter realizes he’s staring at Deadpool’s mouth. He lets his eyes drop before
that gets more awkward.
He then spectacularly shatters the moment—rips into a squeaky yawn that lasts
until it feels like it will compress his eyes to jelly. “’m done for tonight,”
Peter mumbles, ducking away dazedly. “Better head home before I can’t see
straight.” Deadpool presses closer and Peter nuzzles absently at the warmth. He
has no idea how to disentangle himself. “I’ll pay you back for the food.” One
day he will have money.
“The hell you will,” the alpha says gently, cupping Peter’s head as it lolls
back in another yawn. “Stay over tonight.”
Peter squints at him. “I have class, you idiot.”
“Yeah,” Deadpool answers patiently, “At noon. I think you’ll make it.”
Peter tries and fails not to be disturbed by the fact that Deadpool has
apparently memorized his class schedule.
Deadpool pets at the nape of his neck with his thumb. “Think of it this way: if
you stay here, I won’t have to follow you home.”
Peter glowers, even with his eyes watering. “If you even think about it, I’m
putting you in a cocoon.”
“Relax, baby boy. I’m not after your secrets.”
Oh, but if he wanted them, he’d have them already, is that what he means? Peter
doesn’t always have his guard up around this alpha. If Deadpool ever decided to
let himself into Peter Parker’s life—yeah, Peter would probably deserve it.
“Everything is depressing,” Peter mumbles to himself.
Deadpool wraps his broad hands carefully around Peter’s wrists, hauling him to
his feet. Peter sways tiredly, allowing the alpha to herd him into the bedroom.
In contrast to the worn couch, Deadpool has the nicest bed. It’s huge. Deadpool
is already lowering him onto the sinfully cushioned surface before Peter can
protest—his suit isn’t clean—and after that, there’s no more objecting. The bed
dips with Deadpool’s weight as Peter curls into the pillows. Peter only shifts
enough that Deadpool can dig the covers out from under his legs, his feet brush
Deadpool’s under the covers as he huddles back into the soft warmth, and
Deadpool makes a sleepy rumbling sound before swinging an arm over Peter and
tucking him closer. Deadpool’s scent fills his mouth and Peter hooks one ankle
around the alpha’s.
This is hardly the first time they’ve shared a bed, so Peter has no qualms
about nestling close. He feels immune to death here. The shelter of Deadpool’s
wings shifts with every breath.
Sometimes Peter isn’t certain of what his relationship with Deadpool is, since
this kind of friendship isn’t supposed to happen between alphas and omegas—he’s
supposed to be on the receiving end of the alpha’s lust, not his jokes—but
whatever it is, it’s uncomplicated. He likes what he has. As long as he doesn’t
need it, he’s fine.
Deadpool rubs Peter’s shoulder soothingly, avoiding his strapped-down wings
like always, and Peter sinks comfortably into unconsciousness.
.
 
In the morning, Deadpool insists Peter eat breakfast before he goes to class.
He’s got the apron on and everything. Peter’s only protest is: “Okay, but you
have to warn me if you develop an interest in cannibalism. It’s only fair.”
Deadpool next approaches him with a stacked plate and a wicked smile. Peter is
going to be so late to school.
(And it’s worth it.)
“So hey. Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.” Deadpool flops into the seat across from him with the maple syrup.
“If I need an escort,” Peter begins, taking a deep, deep breath so he can do
this in a straight shot. “Uh. You know, it’d have to be someone I trusted,
right?” He swallows. “Someone I don’t have an effect on…” With effort, Peter
makes himself look up at the alpha.
Deadpool is squinting at him in bewilderment and chewing at the same time,
cheeks bulging.
Peter has to pause again, having choked for real on that one.
“Look, I think I know where you’re going with this,” Deadpool says, and when
Peter looks up again, he’s being smiled at. “And guess what, Spidey? You’re in
luck.” His friend nudges Peter’s leg underneath the table, tone softening to a
redundant promise, “I’ve always got your back.”
Peter’s breath catches.
And then Deadpool explodes out of his seat, recovering his spatula to brandish
grandly at Peter. “I have made you a list of my suggestions this morning! It’s
organized by trustworthiness, suitability, and ease of erasure from the face of
this planet.” His attempt at an innocent smile is somewhat marred by being full
of pancake.
Peter, after a moment’s consideration, drops his head down on the countertop
and doesn’t move.
“Oh come on,” the alpha whines, “You haven’t even looked at it yet.”
“No one is getting killed.”
“But Spidey, they deserve it!”
Peter decides he’ll ask Deadpool tomorrow.
Chapter End Notes
     Careful, Peter, your issues are showing.
     And for when the link to the image inevitable goes kaput: this
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter has feelings in it. Warning, danger, all that jazz.
     Also, I know that all of you were super disappointed before because
     the sole reason you read Spideypool fics is for the fight scenes and
     I am here to tell you: rejoice. Your prayers have been answered.
     You're welcome.
After class on Wednesday, Peter throws himself into the stunted secondhand
couch, fumbles for the lamp, and hunches down over the bullet list of
scribbles. It is like every Wednesday ever.
There’s no TV to distract him—not much of anything where Peter lives; a stooped
two-room single with closed blinds and bare walls and enough furniture to
sustain take-out boxes. The parametric opposite of a nest, no matter what Peter
writes down when he’s filling out paperwork in the doctor’s office. Aunt May
never needs to see it, but in his defense, he does have a real one. Full of
creature comforts and soft places, welcoming as a hug. The perfect place to be
soothed.
He just doesn’t, well, live there.
He memorizes the notecards just fine anyway, bouncing his leg and breathing a
little too fast. He has two days left, so he’s written out available
strategies. Before, see, Deadpool offering his services as an alpha seemed so
tritely predictable that without it, the whole pattern of Peter’s understanding
has ruptured. He’s trying to recreate the formula on how Deadpool’s mind works.
Peter isn’t good at it, though. Focusing in too much leaves him feeling like
another person.
His best effort equates to an hour of sitting still. Then he snaps his costume
into place with a sense of relief, and slips out the window in the early dusk
light—the skylanes overhead are already illuminated and wing traffic has
relocated appropriately. The thin layer of space against the sides of buildings
is maybe the last isolated point in a world that ran out of empty places a long
time ago. The added cover of darkness cloaks him utterly.
Peter breathes in exhaust-choked air from the road traffic and New York’s
particularly antagonistic form of noise pollution riots in his ears; his wings
give an abortive twitch against their bindings. Only when Peter fires a web,
does he stop being invisible. Only just.
Well below the legal skylanes, the dark spaces between buildings take him in.
No infrared vision here, but Peter has an early warning system to keep him from
crashing. The wind whips along his sides. A crackle along his Spidey sense
beckons like a smile. Someone is in danger. Peter immediately fires a web to
veer towards the disturbance—and three blocks over, Deadpool’s scent hits him
like a lick of fire. There’s a fever-bright jangling of nerves.
Whatever it is that Deadpool is doing on top of a flagpole surrounded by
unhappy alphas with semi-automatics, this is still Peter’s job.
If pared down to a science, and what Peter does is very unremarkable. The
situation before him triggers an instantaneous cascade of responses. He knows
that his wings, if they were free, would pull down, bringing him steadily lower
to the ground, that his circulatory system is seething with a boost of oxytocin
and serotonin, promoting the nurturing, peacekeeping instincts. Blood is
rerouting to the communication centers of his brain to promote eloquence in his
pleas. His reproductive system is warring against suppressants, trying to prime
for receptivity should his negotiations fail and the alphas require a prize
after competition.
These are the subtle machinations making Peter exactly who he is, defining him,
and controlling. Nature’s answer to the hypercompetitive alpha: an omega.
Simple.
“Hi guys,” he shouts down, sending out another two lines of web to turn his
momentum in a lingering half-circle orbit. “Your target practice needs some
work.”
“No, actually they’ve gotten me a few times,” Deadpool calls up. Peter fires a
line of web.
“Moving targets, anyone?”
Two of the alphas take off at him. Their growls rattle in his skull, kicking
Peter’s omega response into overdrive—if he can’t mediate with hostiles, new
instincts erupt. Submit, defer, get safe. Adrenaline flood—run. With their
broad wingspans and increased muscle mass, they’re going to outpace him no
matter what he does—they can generate force, and all Peter has to go on is
dwindling momentum. He’s going to be caught. They may be grinning as they close
in, picturing how best to have an omega apologize once he’s at their mercy.
These alphas have had a lifetime to perfect flight; they haven’t had a lifetime
to get used to people who don’t fly.
Instinct, meet intellect. Peter releases his line, they overshoot, and he
plummets out of reach with a grin. Peter webs them in the thick meat of their
shoulders. Surrender before you get hurt, heartbeat spinning out of control
like a crashing jet, skin prickling, but the secondary urge to halt conflict
remains. Peter just happens to be very clear on how to do that.
A flick of his arms smashes the alphas together in midair. The back of Peter’s
mind coolly reaffirms his strength while the omega in him gasps safe safe safe.
He lets the alphas fall as he lands on the surface of the nearest building. He
attaches the police bait to a windowsill for later. He climbs up to find
Deadpool wrestling with a third alpha, the fourth already on the ground.
His instincts have something to say about that too; how it feels to watch
Deadpool defeat the weaker alphas, Deadpool’s own guttural challenge snarled
into the shivering air—
The thrum of safesafesafe beneath his skin shorts out into another pulse of
adrenalized alarm. That’s how the Spidey sense interrupts. Peter throws himself
down on the rooftop in time to see two smoking bullet holes erupt in the
concrete in front of him.
“Sniper!” Deadpool exclaims, then coughs in a particularly wet way as a bullet
gets him in the throat.
“You seriously need a hobby,” Peter mutters, trying to lift his head enough to
scope out potential sniping spots. Another spray of bullets makes him duck.
“Jesus! All of you need a hobby!”
Deadpool gasps in mock offense. “This is my hobby!”
“Ever heard of Sudoku?” Peter retorts. He leaps, wired on infusions of
adrenaline and endorphins, purely comfortable in his own skin, his weight, the
way the air holds him to spin as he falls. He feels the instant he lines up a
clear shot. Fire. Fall. Brace for it.
Three, two—
The line goes taut as Peter drops, yanking the sniper down with him.
Freefall with a screaming, flailing alpha is what finally makes his Spidey
sense retreat into a soothed purr. Peter is secure in the night, all threats
neutralized, and the city belongs to the citizens once again.
Just like any omega, right? Down to a science. Peter must be living proof that
it’s better not to fight your instincts.
(Sarcasm.)
Peter draws up short only because he’s giving himself vertigo. The sniper joins
his friends in a pendulum of police-wrapped webbing. Deadpool is appropriating
the other alphas’ semis.
“Funny that you mention it about new hobbies,” the alpha exclaims once Peter
has ventured up. The firearms are slung over one bulky shoulder. “I think I
might enjoy gun collecting! What do you think?”
“I think pretty soon you’re going to run out of places to sleep,” Peter answers
dryly, eyes cataloguing the blood and bullet holes on the alpha’s broad body.
They’re closing themselves. Seeing it makes Peter’s shoulders loosen slowly.
“I’ll buy a new apartment,” Deadpool concurs, and then, casual, “How’s the
side?”
Peter answers with a backflip, kicking off the edge of the building and
sweeping into the nighttime abyss. What do you think? Deadpool whoops after
him, wings thrashing in the air noisily. His instincts leave him with no
respect for personal space, so feathers brush Peter’s shoulders; Peter weaves
away and the alpha chases. Their swerving game of tag is reflected in brief
gleams of darkened windows.
When he spies one of his better vantage points, Peter’s doesn’t sling his next
web line. He plummets, making Deadpool splutter a frenzy of curses and bank
furiously, because Peter has just led him into a wall. Peter, with nerves and
notecards chewing through his skull, hears his own helpless laughter biting at
the chilly air.
The city is lousy with landing platforms to make takeoff and landing easy from
any building, but Peter never goes near them. He prefers perches that are both
more precarious and more private. He hoists himself up with practiced ease.
Deadpool settles haphazardly, swaying back and forth to keep his balance on the
thin railing Peter has chosen. He drapes a wing around Peter lazily.I win, the
gesture says. I caught you.
Please. Peter has outmaneuvered and escaped him a hundred times before.
He tolerates this for a moment, taut with this oppressive need to duck away and
protest closeness. In the span of three heartbeats Peter’s bristling cuts
itself off in a dopey yawn. The familiarity of scent and cookie-cutter
perfection at fitting into the empty space at Deadpool’s side can’t help but
trigger new responses. He’s got the seat of honor by the alpha in charge, after
all, the one who takes care of him and all the others in his flock—except
neither of them have a flock and Deadpool isn’t even in charge of the voices in
his head. But hey, these are the same absurd instincts he’s had since he was
sixteen. Peter’s gotten used to their making no sense.
Deadpool yawns too and heaves a groan skyward. “I need a nap.”
“Well, you did decide to let some people play target practice with your
internal organs.”
“I think they had more fun than me,” he complains and lets his head droop back
with a crack of vertebrae. “Do I get to pick the next fun activity? If so, I
say we punch Nick Fury in the balls.”
Peter presses a hand to his heart in astonishment. “Who is even paying you for
my death?”
“Please. If you had a hit on you, I wouldn’t hand you over,” the alpha flaps a
hand. “I’d hide you in my basement and make you crochet spider silk doilies.”
Peter risks asking it in their code, “Avengers shenanigans?”
Deadpool grumbles. “So many shenanigans.” Peter grimaces in sympathy. If he
ever successfully manages his own problems, he’ll write a book. Until then, the
last thing he needs is to start trying to manage Deadpool’s life (even if
Deadpool’s latest attempt of impressing his heroes apparently involved standing
on a flagpole and getting shot at like a clay duck).
Instead Peter elbows Deadpool companionably and keeps his mouth shut. They
stare up at the bustling skylanes, Peter leaning back on the alpha’s wings so
he won’t overbalance. Deadpool sighs and pushes into the contact. Peter’s own
wings struggle sympathetically against the bindings, eager to play at
consolation of their own.
“…Just try not to get shot at too much in my city, okay? The blood doesn’t wash
out well.”
“Only if you promise to get stabbed less,” Deadpool answers, which has the
unfortunate side-effect of making Peter glance down at his side to make sure
it’s not bleeding. When he looks up, Deadpool is wearing a smirk that conveys
both smugness and this sort of savage urgency to find the Green Goblin for
reasons that won’t make the Avengers like him any better.
“I’m fine,” Peter stresses. “I’m always fine.”
He can probably use this as a nice transition into the topic of weddings and
specifically how much more fine he’ll be with his alpha friend in tow, but he’s
enjoying the night air and Deadpool’s warmth radiates through his scent. He’s
easily quantifiable in this moment. Peter doesn’t want to ruin the illusion of
understanding.
“Oh, right,” Deadpool says, shattering the quiet, “I thought of another one.”
Peter glances over at him and gets a cocksure grin. “Daredevil.” Peter rolls
his eyes, albeit fondly.
“He might still react.” Breeding plumage isn’t just about color—it’s textural
and it’s scent and no one really knows how Daredevil’s second sight works
anyway. Peter argues, “Besides, he’s not mated.”
“Oh, hell yeah he is,” Deadpool answers matter-of-factly. “I can smell it on
him. If it hasn’t happened already, it’s going to happen soon. There’s an omega
he’s completely gone over.”
Peter shrugs a shoulder. “Wouldn’t really know.” He might be able to learn
things by scent from his omega counterparts, but standing close enough to test
that out generally requires friendship. Peter and his social skills are doomed
to ignorance. Deadpool swings his feet like he’s kicking someone in the ribs.
“Rather have you hang out with me anyway,” the alpha says, completely
unprovoked. “You’re good times, Spidey.”
Peter swings his legs as well. “You have such low standards.”
“Or very high ones,” Deadpool says, which is so utterly untrue Peter has to
laugh, and when he’s done, Deadpool’s tone has softened like butter, “And I
never smell other alphas on you but the ones we work with. Please don’t say
you’ll go alone.” He touches Peter’s arm. “I actually don’t want to lock you in
my basement. Also, doilies confuse me.”
Because that’s definitely the first resort, Peter thinks, and mumbles, “I don’t
just smell like other alphas.”
“Betas don’t count.”
Peter’s face heats. “No, I don’t just smell like other alphas. I smell like
you.”
Deadpool is now very still. “Uh,” he says. “Well. That might have a hint of
truth. But.”
“No offense,” Peter goes on, “But if this is your boxes telling you that I
don’t really like you, I will make another flow chart, and you will all have to
sit through the full-length lecture. And this time? Notes. You will take them.”
Deadpool lets out a huff of laughter. “Careful, that’s almost sweet.”
Peter finds himself fumbling the words—should have brought the frigging note
cards “—I just want to be with someone I trust, and I trust you.”
There’s a silent, tense moment. Peter’s thoughts surge with variable unknowns,
because Deadpool still isn’t doing as expected; patterns veer and he’s nearly
holding his breath. Then, abruptly, the alpha snaps his wings out. “I actually
have this thing I have to get to,” Deadpool announces, and “so, toodles!”
Before Peter can muster up offense at the brush-off, Deadpool has already hit
the air.
He’s trying to pick up to top speed in his haste to get away. That’s a pretty
effective statement. Peter stares after him. After a moment, he thumps his head
back against the wall.
“When did you stop making sense?” He grouches, but let’s face it; Deadpool has
never made sense. Peter heaves a sigh and jumps off the railings. There’ll be
no keeping out such useless thoughts as: what part of escorting me would be so
awful? Deadpool and I have fun, right? Would having fun in public really be so
much worse? He’ll outrun the teenage angst instead.
(It reminds him of Gwen and Harry, back when they still hung out on a regular
basis, how they’d take turns point out that smarts and social incompetency had
done nothing to limit Peter’s capacity for teenage melodrama. None of Peter’s
friends understand him. He’s so alone.)
In the end, Peter spends most of the patrol coming up with reasons to not seek
out Daredevil. It’s that kind of night—slow, and a poor distraction. And then
he gets it. Like a brick to the head, seriously gets it. He wishes he could
figure things out without needing six fricking hours of self-reflection first,
but better late than never, right? So off he goes scrambling to Deadpool’s
apartment in this state of appalled horror because he really needs to just have
someone following him around and pointing out when Peter has royally screwed
up.
Deadpool is home when Peter arrives. He’s also pacing: rapid, tight lines back
and forth from one end of his apartment to the other, growling under his
breath, wings all tightly-contained shuddering and anger. Peter makes it fully
inside the room before Deadpool even notices him. He jerks to a stop. He
freezes. Peter freezes.
Peter then blurts before his brain is even slightly caught up with his mouth.
“In my defense, I’ve said way worse.”
Deadpool’s wings slump. “You asked me out,” the alpha mutters rapidly. “I
think? I could have imagined it. It could have been mind control. Did you ask
me out?”
Peter takes a faltering step forward—how he hates his instincts at moments like
this. He wants to give Deadpool a hug. He’s 99% sure Deadpool needs one. He
doesn’t want to wait for permission. “I think I was trying to make you ask me
first, honestly,” he admits, sheepish. He can’t quite resist lowering his head
just a fraction of an inch out of shame. “How pissed are you?”
“Not really my response to getting hit on,” Deadpool answers, tone carefully
controlled and Peter takes a deep breath.
“You don’t like people seeing your face,” he murmurs. “And I, in effect, told
you to suck it up. I’m sorry.”
There’s a long beat of silence, in which Peter stews in his self-loathing and
his wings twitch and his fingers keep knotting together, and then Deadpool
says, very softly, “Spidey, look at me?”
Let it be clear that the only reason Peter doesn’t put up a fight about this
command is because he’s feeling guilty. Deadpool smiles at him just a little.
“I’d take off my mask in a heartbeat for you.”
Peter feels his brow wrinkle. Not what he expected.
Deadpool takes a step towards him. “People can bitch and whine about it all
they want, but if I was keeping you safe? Worth it.”
Peter has seen evidence to the contrary, involving bombs and hysterical
laughter. He holds his ground. “But,” he begins. Squints. “…Then is it about
formal wear?”
“I don’t know if you’ve thought this through.” Deadpool takes another step.
“You’d have to have your mask off in front of me.” Another step. “And I’d be
seeing your wings. I’d be meeting your family.” Another step, and he’s right on
top of Peter, towering and bright. “There’s a limit on what I can do to respect
your privacy after that.”
Peter feels a pang of cold at the notion of Aunt May coming into contact with
this world, but he swallows it down. “I know that,” he says. “I’m not stupid.”
“You’re not at all comfortable with it either,” Deadpool says softly, and then
his hand is on Peter’s shoulder. “You’d hate it.”
Peter blinks at him, hearing something in those words that rings true. “I
wouldn’t hate you,” he scoffs. “I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do that
before, but we both know I’m kind of bad at it.”
Deadpool’s smile deepens. “So you could take off your mask in front of me right
now? You trust me that much?”
He sounds like he already knows the answer—or thinks he does—and Peter’s
tolerance for whatever this is has just been exhausted. “On three?” He says,
pinching a corner of Deadpool’s mask. “You can do mine.”
Deadpool’s breath catches and Peter feels a tremor run through the hands
resting on him. “Spidey—“ He cuts himself off.
Peter takes a breath, and then tries on a nervous smile. “It’s Peter,” he says.
“Peter Parker.”
Deadpool grabs his shoulders and stops him before he can pull the mask away.
“No,” the alpha says with quiet, unquestionable authority, “Stop.”
And Peter does. It’s immediate. “You are mad.” He growls under his breath, but
yeah; at least this part he’s predicted correctly—and Deadpool snarls back in
response. “What part—?”
Deadpool’s grip tightens. “That nice little omega kid you’re protecting from
everybody isn’t mine to know about. You know that. I’m not safe, Spidey.”
Peter feels ridiculous talking about himself like two different people, but he
still pushes, “So right now, I’m yours?”
Deadpool scowls furiously. “No,” he says after a long moment. Then, just as
quickly, “Just don’t tempt me.”
And Peter kind of gets it—he’s not an alpha and he doesn’t know how it works;
he has no social skills and no experience and no guardian to explain it to him,
but he knows Deadpool. He knows the alpha’s hands are shaking and that his eyes
are darting under the mask and that’s enough for a hunch, enough for Peter to
push back into his hands and lean up, forcing his way closer, pushing his
strength against the alpha’s and reminding them both that Peter and helpless
aren’t friends.
“It’s okay,” he hears himself say. Deadpool shudders and Peter smiles.
“Seriously. I’m not giving you my secrets because you’re special. I’m giving
them to you because I want something.”
Deadpool goes beautifully still. “Huh?”
Peter grins. “I want a favor, don’t I?” As quickly as the idea forms in his
mind, his mouth is off—really, he’s had worse ideas, “The last time you did me
a solid, no one heard about it. This time can be different.”
“Do I get my very own newspaper article?” Deadpool says, very seriously. Peter
kicks him in the shin for interrupting.
“I’d say guarding an omega in breeding plumage probably would count in your
favor,” he says with relish. “Shows how controlled and compassionate you are.
Even to the Avengers.”
Deadpool blinks at him.
Peter raises his eyebrows.
“…Huh,” the alpha says after a moment, contemplative.
“If you guard some—and I quote—‘nice little omega kid’ when he’s helpless and
vulnerable, you come out looking like a champion. Spiderman can just happen to
stop by and see it happen.” Peter sweetens the deal with a shrug. “And we will
both be able to personally vouch for you.”
“It would have to be a success story,” Deadpool points out, “For there to be
bragging rights.”
Peter scoffs. “You planning on jumping me?”
“This could work,” Deadpool says with the same uncharacteristic seriousness.
“No fingers would be laid on Peter Parker, or no bonus points in club Avengers.
That will keep me in check.”
“Plus you clearly have forgotten the name already,” Peter mutters, rolling his
eyes.
“We still have to factor in the inevitable. We can’t hide it from Spidey
forever,” Deadpool mumbles. “And no, we cannot casually blind him for twenty-
four hours, so shut up—” And then he’s somehow torn his mask off. Peter doesn’t
see it coming. He stumbles a step back.
Peter has seen Deadpool through the holes in a battered costume too many times
to count. He’s seen the mask rolled up for Deadpool to eat. He saw Deadpool’s
shoulders once, where warped and ravaged skin melts into translucent feathers
as thin as a breath of wind, like a no-man’s land between ugly and perfect.
He’s used to it.
This isn’t like that.
The shape of his head makes logical sense. The curve of his brow, the angle of
his jaw. It’s jarringly familiar to look at this face—but it’s not skin
Deadpool is showing off.
It’s this squirming network of injuries, lesions and fissures erupts along it,
melting into rippling, puffy scars too quickly to keep track of. Peter’s
stomach churns. He’d be more messed up if he could look at this and not feel
nauseated.
God, it’s like watching this half-familiar person being mutilated in slow-
motion right in front of him. He wants to look away. If he looks away he’ll
feel better, and Deadpool knows that too, right? Under the damage, he looks so
resigned. There’s nothing shallow about his ugliness.
But at the same time, Deadpool’s smell is thick through the air, settled around
Peter like a security blanket. He inhales automatically and there’s no more
blood scent on the alpha than usual. Peter’s stomach calms a little. Deadpool
isn’t hurt. Deadpool’s wings are in a threat display, flared and combative,
telling the lowly omega to cower away.
Peter’s world comes back into focus. Orders, right. That’s easy. All he has to
do is ignore them.
So he swallows and then sets his jaw, moving forward—taking tiny steps to let
Deadpool decide whether he’s going to jump away. He hears a telltale ripping of
fabric as the alpha nervously claws his mask, but Deadpool doesn’t give any
ground. Then Peter is in front of him, frowning as his eyes trace the tragic
wreck of this alpha’s face.
He’s automatically trying to imagine it without scars. That probably makes him
a horrible person, doesn’t it? Peter raises a hand, brings his fingers to the
gnarled flesh of the alpha’s cheek, and finds his eyebrows going up.
“Ah,” Peter mutters, mostly to himself. “You’re warm.” It makes his fingertips
tingle through the gloves.
Deadpool’s breath goes rattling out. “Well. That’s what happens when on is not
presently dead.”
Peter smirks, inexplicably pleased with himself. Deadpool doesn’t look
terrified anymore. “You’re warm without the spandex,” he explains. “You’ve
never felt warm before.” He rubs his hand absently against the alpha’s skin,
hears Deadpool suck in a breath. Peter has never felt quite the same
combination of queasy and utterly fond, but Deadpool’s wings are going down and
his fists are unclenching. Peter grimaces when Deadpool decides to return the
gesture, fingers on his cheek, plastered there. Deadpool’s eyes greedily search
for a refusal. Peter breathes, and Deadpool lets him, lets him touch and wait
and maybe shiver just a little bit before Peter crooks a slow nod against the
cold hand weighing upon him. Deadpool begins to roll up his mask.
He’s infuriatingly slow about it—carefully making fold after fold until Peter
is half out of his mind and growling, nervous and jumpy. “Deadpool, just get it
over with.”
“I don’t want to mess up your mask.”
“I swear I will web you to the—“ Peter begins hotly, fingers curling away from
the alpha, all of him shifting away; but then the mask pulls free and his eyes
squeeze closed. “—ngh,” Peter chokes off. Shoulders up, and he can’t believe
how quickly he started to panic, but he definitely is panicking. He wants to
sit down. He takes deep breaths instead. In and out. Deadpool’s little gasp
makes him want to fight his way out of the room.
Peter hears spandex creak, the tensile fabric moved out of the way to purposes
unknown, and then a hand cups his cheek.
It’s warm.
Skin, Peter realizes. Both of them. Skin to skin.
Has this ever happened?
The texture of knotted, writhing scars communicates past the layer of fear and
Peter squints an eye open. He’s curious. This is weird. A thumb rubs at him,
feather-light. Peter hears himself sigh. With effort, he blinks both eyes. He
kind of hates being touched.
Deadpool looks a little queasy himself, and Peter instantly feels better.
“So,” the alpha says, murmuring. “Hi, Peter Parker.”
“…Hi,” Peter says after a moment, because ridiculousness is contagious.
“It’s Wade, actually.” His thumb stops moving. They’re left mirroring each
other, hands resting on skin, staring, and very, Peter realizes, very close.
“You know, for the date.” Peter blinks again. Deadpool’s eyes are brown, but
different than his.
“Hi,” Peter says, throat dry, “Wade.”
There’s the briefest, flickering tremor in Wade’s hand.
Peter’s wings give a slow, relentless stretch against their bindings, he winces
away, “So, you sure you’re not mad? Talking out your feelings is super
healthy.”
“Yeah,” Deadpool says gravely, “It can give you cancer.”
Further proof that Peter is horrible: he laughs so hard he chokes.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter exists because of every person who spent their time
     encouraging me. I have gotten so discouraged over it, and I genuinely
     do not believe how many times I started over (six times, full-length,
     edited, just kill me now)--not out of the belief that I could write
     the next chapter well, no--but because I really, really wanted to try
     because of you people.
     I hope you're not hugely disappointed, but let's be real; at least
     the story is progressing. Finishing it badly would be better than
     dumping it because I'm too scared to keep writing.
     Edit: Okay, apparently I'm kind of an idiot and should spend less
     time rocking in the corner and more time actually writing. : D
      
     I have sent a collective prayer to every deity I know that the next
     chapter of PMF is nowhere near this horrible to get done. So. We have
     that.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Deadpool is just as bad as he is, though.  The alpha looks so pleased with
himself to have gotten that laugh, and he’s managed to sidle closer again.  He
pokes Peter in the face.
“Okay, stop that right now,” Peter says, sensing the beginning of a trend that
he’s not going to appreciate—Deadpool cackles and flares his wings out—yes,
omega, compel me—and suddenly he is everywhere.  Peter’s got that super speed,
but Deadpool has the superpower of annoying.  Who’s going to use his webs
either?  Webbing doesn’t grow on trees!  Shouldn’t be squandered—why is
Deadpool this fast.  Peter swats at the fingers attempting to plaster
themselves over him, but warmth connects over and over, skin to skin as Peter
fends off the alpha’s barrage. 
“Owning you,” the alpha crows happily, “Spider reflexes ain’t got nothing on
this.  Ouch.”  Peter kicks him in the shin again; this is a more effective
strategy.  “Foul,” the alpha proclaims, driving Peter backwards with brandished
wings and a renewed onslaught.  “Foul, foul!  Fuck.”  There’s a minor crash as
Deadpool manages to trip over his own coffee table.  Peter webs a mug before it
can shatter on the floor.  Deadpool pouts and rubs his shin—
—and then launches at Peter to slap a hand on either side of his face.  “Ha,
ha, I win!”  Deadpool proclaims.  Peter is in danger of straining something if
he rolls his eyes any harder, and Deadpool is apparently trying to encircle
Peter with his wings, one of those flock behaviors that makes you blush if you
stumble upon it in the street, which he couples with an expression of utmost
concentration and his hands squishing Peter’s cheeks together.  Peter knocks
his wings aside, and Deadpool doesn’t even notice.
“Ooh, you are soft,” the alpha observes.  He adds a half-beat later, presumably
because of the look he is getting, “And your eyebrows go up really high.”
“Neat,” Peter agrees, “Wanna maybe stop playing amateur hour sculptor with my
face?”  Deadpool has managed to brush a feather against Peter’s ear, which is
somehow even more unsettling than anything skin-to-skin. 
“No fucking way,” Deadpool giggles, giving Peter’s face a little pat.  “You are
the ultimate stress toy.  I can feel my troubles evaporating away.”

“What troubles?”  Peter deadpans, and then, because he’s really awesome, his
kick sends Deadpool flying straight into the sofa cushions in a flailing mess. 
Peter grins to himself.
There’s a weak cough from the sofa.  “Those troubles, I guess,” Deadpool
states.  He unfurls a wing from over his face to squint at Peter.  “My god,
it’s even worse when you look devious.”
“What is?”  Peter asks, picking his way over.
“Your face,” Deadpool informs him.  “And you need to calm down.”
“Dude, I am so calm,” Peter says.  That isn’t going to last, but yeah, right
now, he’s just slightly out of his head.  Punch-drunk, that’s the term.  He
flops down next to the alpha.
“Not you,” Deadpool huffs.  “Duh.”
“My face freaking Yellow out?”  Peter guesses.  Deadpool throws him a look. 
His eyes are sort of unnerving amidst the scar tissue.
Sort of—well, perfect is definitely not the word.  It’s probably just that
they’re different from the usual blank white Peter sees in his mask.
“Understatement,” Deadpool mutters.  “You have no idea.  Hardcore shitstorm up
north.”
Well, the mask is still on the floor, so guess who gets to stand up again? 
Peter sighs.  “Fine, tell the boxes to think of pretty omegas like Bea Arthur
or something.”  He doesn’t make it that far—Deadpool wraps an oversized hand
around his wrist, and uses the insistent kind of grip strength.  Peter glances
back.
Deadpool is smiling, sort of.
“Should probably try to get used to it, though, right?  Your face will be at
the wedding.”
“Mm,” Peter agrees.
It’s a smile.  Deadpool smiles a lot. 
Just never using the lines of his face.  Or his actual eyes.
“Hey now,” the alpha goes, “Having your eyes fall out is only cute if the
healing factor can cover it, Spidey.”
Peter wrenches his gaze away.  When Deadpool tugs on him, he lets himself be
guided back onto the sofa.  Deadpool doesn’t let go of his wrist and Peter has
preserved a very conservative span of inches to separate them—until he’s
buffeted upside the head by an oversized wing, knocked gracelessly into
Deadpool’s shoulder.
“Trust me on this one, Spidey, you already showed what kind of guy you are,”
the alpha drawls, “It’s okay if it freaks you out some, you don’t have to keep
looking.”
“Oh shut up,” Peter mutters, inconsolably irritated; he doesn’t want to be
leaning on Deadpool and he doesn’t want gentle touching and he resents his
complete lack of interest in moving away.  He shoves his face into the crook of
the alpha’s shoulder to demonstrate.  Deadpool gets the hint and there’s a bit
of shuffling before he’s provided Peter with a comfortable surface to nestle
into, which Peter promptly does. 
“You are the most deceptive of all cuddlers,” the alpha intones wisely.  “Your
strategy is to feign indifference, but I know the truth.” 
“No power in the ‘verse can stop me,” Peter confirms.  He’s found a pleasant
space in the crook of two immense muscles and may never move again.
“So do you just not touch anyone?  How did you survive childhood without just,
I don’t know.  Going fully nuts?”
“I ate my Wheaties.” And that’s the end of that conversation.
Only then Peter goes, “Building things, sometimes.”
“Ooh, what kind of things?”  Deadpool prompts, while Peter kicks himself. 
“Spidey?” 
“Just, my uncle,” Peter’s mouth goes—moving and making sounds, like he’s in any
way okay with this.  “He used to—“  Peter’s hands strangle the air.  “—teach me
to fix things.”  Back when it was bad, just the sound of Peter’s own breathing
could trigger one of his meltdowns.  Tying his own shoelaces could transform
into this suddenly incomprehensible exercise in hair-ripping frustration, and
that was the lesson he’d learned eventually; if you can’t fix yourself, fix
something else.  Exercise control.
It had taken him a long time to learn how to redirect.  Uncle Ben had always
been really patient with him.
He changes the subject abruptly.  “It’s weird without masks.”
“Is it?”
Obviously.
Peter’s breath leaves him in a nervous rush.  “I don’t talk about my uncle.” 
Deadpool’s shoulder nudges into his.  The alpha leaves it there, resting heavy
weight against him.
“In the back of my mind,” the alpha says, “And I’m not talking about the boxes’
realm of unlimited bitchfest—it just feels like you took your mask off for me
because we’re closer and this is the kind of thing closer people do.”  His
fingertips stray over Peter’s wrist, but don’t linger there, instead lifting up
around his shoulders to hug him in.  “Logically, I know better, but you feel
like …”
               
“Flock?”  Peter guesses.  Deadpool sighs, wing sinking around Peter too; his
arm clearly isn’t enough.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, tone heavy, “I just gotta not let it go too far before I do
something fucked up.”
“So that’s how our behavior would tend if we were in a flock,” Peter muses,
“You’d be a big, disgusting sap, and I’d whine about all my problems.”
“I mean, that’s very different from what we already do,” the alpha says
innocently, and Peter snorts, thumping their knees together.
Flock comes with rules Peter could never adhere too.  That’s for the kinds of
omegas for whom just having a mate wasn’t enough.  They needed a whole social
sphere of people dictating their every move.
“I don’t like it,” Peter decides.  “Let’s just be normal.”
“You got it, Spidey,” Deadpool murmurs.  He then flops a hand on top of Peter’s
head and says, “But I still really want to touch you all over.  Is that cool?”
               
“What,” Peter splutters, head leaping up to stare at Deadpool.
“There’s all this you I’ve never gotten to see before,” Deadpool reasons, “And
I just wanna, you know, explore it.”  He squints at the dubious look he’s
getting.  “Look, an alpha’s got needs, Spidey—“
“Oh my god,” Peter wheezes, somewhat scandalized in spite of himself.
“I wanna touch you,” the alpha insists.  “Once this shindig kicks off,
everybody else will want to touch you too.  We can at least figure out what
you’re okay with now, by, like, heavy snuggling.”
               
“I am okay with nothing,” Peter insists, and then again, slightly shell-
shocked.  “Oh my god.”  A thought occurs to him and he nearly gives himself
whiplash he straightens so fast—“New rule: absolutely no saliva swapping.”
Deadpool starts laughing and alright, perhaps Peter relaxes just a fraction. 
But only just.
               
“Rude,” Deadpool wheezes, smacking Peter in the back of the head with a wing,
“—sorry.  I’d, you know.  Eat a mint first.”
“Your tongue and my tongue,” Peter says, “They remain in the mouths they belong
in.”
“Well, gosh darn it,” the alpha deadpans.  “There goes my secret machinations
of evil debauchery.”  His fingers knead at Peter’s scalp, which feels unfairly
nice.  Peter can feels himself relaxing, bit by bit.  “Promise I’ll wait until
after the wings come out to jump you.”
“You might still get punched,” Peter points out, “Even if you do make it sound
like a joke.”
“Yeah, I know,” the alpha murmurs to him, and his hand pulls back just for a
minute for him to nudge his chin over the top of Peter’s head, playing for easy
and comfortable.
But he’s not really doing that much better is he?  If Peter quits paying so
much attention to the strangeness of his face and the size of his wings,
Deadpool is stiff and twitchy.  Him flopping over Peter like this is Deadpool’s
version of defiance. 
“But then we get to laugh at the literal punch line.”
“Ha ha, I fractured your jaw?”
“Buddy, I’m so into the kinky shit.”  Deadpool pets at Peter’s head again and
then, softer, “It’ll get messy at the wedding if you act all stiff with me.”
Peter exhales hard and just nods.  Yes.  He knows that.  “It’s weird.  Like I
said.”
And then Deadpool goes, “I don’t ever think I’ve seen you scared before,
Spidey.”
Peter recoils, vicious words crawling to the tip of his tongue to prove just
how not-frightened he is.  Deadpool eyes him, looking like something crawled
out of a horror movie, gaze heavy and forcing that calm. 
Peter swallows.  His voice comes out rough.
“It’s the mask.  It makes me seem like I’m not.”
“Damn good job too,” Deadpool agrees, and cups Peter’s face again between his
hands.  Peter very narrowly escapes flinching.  A whine builds in the back of
his throat, which Deadpool pretends not to hear—Peter appreciates that.  Their
eyes stay locked. 
And Peter can feel each circuit in his brain shorting out one by one.  His eyes
widen.  He looks at Deadpool’s mouth again and can’t begin to understand what
his options are right now, and then Deadpool has thumped their foreheads
together, solemn as can be, eyes still hooked onto Peter’s.
“You’re brave,” the alpha tells him quietly.  “And all of my boxes actually
agree for once.  You can’t argue with that shit; you’ve been outvoted like, a
million to one.”
“Either I’m owed some introductions,” Peter murmurs, “Or you are full of crap.”
Deadpool grins.  “Naughty word!”  Peter’s eyes trace his face helplessly. 
Smiling again, huh?  It feels like falling out of the sky and realizing he’s
out of webbing, that there’s no way to go but down.  Deadpool’s hands are
warm.  This room, which Peter has been in a thousand times, feels impossibly
huge. 
“You’ve got me all wrong.”  His face gets hotter as Deadpool stares.
“Nah,” the alpha croons to him.  He lifts his eyes up slightly, faraway for a
moment, amusement playing on his lips.  “…I mean, somebody figures you’re
fifteen minutes from a wing display just because your own reactions piss you
off.”
“Shut up, White,” Peter grumbles automatically and knows he gets it right
because Deadpool snickers.  He adds, “shut up, Deadpool” because where was the
need for Deadpool to translate that in the first place?  The alpha grins at him
savagely, flashing his teeth, squishes Peter’s cheeks again, and thank goodness
Peter isn’t usually this predictable.  That would get annoying fast.  He drives
Deadpool back with his elbow. 
“For the record,” Peter mutters, “This might take me a little while.”
Deadpool snorts.  “As long as the first time I see your wings isn’t in a room
full of other alphas, we’re good.”
As far as motivational speeches go, that one… works.  Peter shudders.
He unzips—if he’s quick and efficient about it, his brain won’t have time to
interfere.  He’s managed to curl himself away from the alpha, automatically
shielding his back. 
He doesn’t like his odds on being able to turn around right now.  Deadpool will
deal.  Peter fumbles with the first set of straps.  Deadpool watches carefully,
resting his hands between them, his own wings squirming with obvious unrest.
“So,” Peter goes, “Before you see them—“
“Holy shit,” Deadpool breathes, which is how Peter knows the shoulders of his
wings just came into view.  Peter clenches his teeth a moment, and waits out
the impulse to bolt. 
“Fuck,” the alpha goes.  “Oh fuck.  Are they always—?”
“Yeah,” Peter takes a deep breath. 
All things considered, he’s not really panicking, so he figures he’ll undo
another strap before he hits a wall.  His wings shudder violently as the strap
gives way, muscles flexing, anticipating freedom.  Two down, two to go.
Peter can’t usually hear the sound of his breathing quite so well.  It kind of
pisses him off.  Deadpool is all but vibrating in front of him, hands clenched
white-knuckled beneath the writhing scars as he tries not to grab for them. 
“Are you seeing this?”  The alpha is hissing to himself.  “It’s literally
happening and they look like—like—no, shut up, that’s not even in question—“
               
Peter’s fingers tap together one by one and then he’s wrestling down another
strap.  It catches.  Of course it does.  He grits his teeth and forces it,
yanking harder than necessary, making his wings thrash, and one manages to drag
free of the last binding on its own, spasming outwards and collapsing down,
instantly exhausted by freedom.  Its weight yanks Peter forward, right into the
circle of the alpha’s arms.  The other wing squirms more lazily out of the
loosened strap.
There’s nothing Peter can do to hide them, and since they’re stretching out. 
Deadpool’s grip on him is so gentle—cradling him, really—and he won’t deserve
it when Peter fights him away for touching him because he’s never, ever okay
with being held when his wings are out—
“Can I touch them?”  Deadpool whispers, an avalanche of sound, and that’s how
Peter realizes how perfectly quiet he’s gone.
He snarls.  “No.”
Deadpool thrums to him, all reassuring vibration and Peter feels his wings
trying to pull up in response.  His face burns.  He doesn’t have to fight them
for very long before they collapse under their own weight again.
“Calm down,” the alpha says, petting Peter’s hair instead, compulsively, like
he’ll try anyway if he doesn’t keep his hands busy.  “Let them get some
circulation back in them, relax.”
“I’m trying,” Peter hisses, frustrated—but his wings keep trying to display,
and it’s probably pathetic, that Peter can’t tell if he’s trying to answer a
threat or flash for an alpha; probably worse that he doubts Deadpool can tell
either.
The bones have been broken in so many places that half the feathers grow in
crooked, and where the nerve endings were severed, atrophy has set in.  It’s
amazing they move at all, purportedly, although Peter still can’t help but wish
someone had done him a favor all those years ago and just cut the ruined things
off.
He doesn’t want to panic, he wants to be this brave person Deadpool imagines,
but the more his wings fight to move, calling attention like some blatant
demand for pity, the more hyperaware he is of Deadpool’s breathing and pulse
and two working eyes, and he still hasn’t lashed out and that is terrifying in
and of itself.  Deadpool’s huge hands squeeze at him, applying calming pressure
as the alpha murmurs to him—“I’m not freaking out, Spidey—“
Peter tries to convert the yawning silence into something constructive.  “Not
what you were expecting, huh?”
“Yeah, never really seen feathers like that before.”
Peter’s eyes burn.  He shoves his face against Deadpool’s chest. 
“Were they always translucent?” 
Peter shakes his head.  “The quill beds just got too damaged to carry
pigment.”  The feathers hanging off of what passes for Peter’s wings are semi-
transparent and colorless.
“They’re like mist,” the alpha murmurs, “Like a heat mirage.”
They’re a cloudy mess that can’t hide the mutilated structures holding them
up. 
“Are you sure I can’t touch them?”  The alpha murmurs.  “They keep twitching at
me.  They might calm down if I do.  I think I should.”
“Try it and die,” Peter snaps.
“Please?”  Deadpool whines.  “I can only look at them for so long and not start
making spider silk analogies, come on.  I’m really trying here.”
Peter snorts—how considerate—and doesn’t reply.  After a nerve-wracking moment,
Deadpool ghosts the back of his hand along the knotted surface of one feathered
shoulder.  Not close enough to the base to be insanely inappropriate, but
enough to make him yank his hand back like it burned.  Peter, to his utter
alarm, arches and gasps out a lungful of air like he just got punched in the
chest. 
“Sorry,” the alpha splutters.  “Sorry, it moved, I didn’t mean to—“ 
Peter’s head is still reeling—when he touches them himself he can’t feel
anything—and instead of stopping, Deadpool strokes further down, along the
coverts, making Peter’s eyes squeeze shut and his fists ball up.  Fire races up
the wing Deadpool is touching, intense and feverish, aching to the tips of his
outer primaries.  Peter’s mouth is hanging open in shock.  The wing not getting
attention is fighting its way up again, trying to summon the alpha.
Deadpool’s fingers do something delicate there, something impossible, taking
advantage of Peter being frozen, and why can Peter even feel it?  Peter lifts
his head and stares, mouth still hanging open.  Deadpool is biting his lip.
“Are you,” Peter begins, and has to actually pause, just because the word is so
absurd, “Preening me?”
“In this context, it would be most accurately called grooming,” Deadpool
responds primly, if you can call it that, when he growls like it’s his right to
slide his fingers along another feather, coaxing it straight and settling it
into the nest of its fellows.  Another arc of electricity drives down Peter’s
spine.  “Your feathers are a mess.”
Peter just might be losing his mind.  “You can stop now.”
Deadpool raises an eyebrow at him.  “Your wings are pushing into my fucking
hands like dominos.  Really?  Why should I stop?”
“Because,” Peter growls, “Or else?”
“I am immune to death,” Deadpool grumbles in retort, “Fucking fight me.”  His
fingers sink deeper into the mess of neglected coverts and Peter moans aloud
before he can get a hand over his mouth.  Deadpool’s other hand strokes
reassuringly at the back of his neck, pulling him closer.  “I’m not going to
hurt them, Spidey.”
Peter chokes on another moan and punches himself in the leg.  “Darn it.”  He’s
heard of omegas having sensitive wings, especially at the base, where they’d be
grabbed for mating, but this is ridiculous.  His back is rapidly going numb.
And he feels good.  Melting good.  And that is what he is doing, melting; and
it feels so amazing he just keeps whimpering in shock.

“Did you grow up in a fucking box,” Deadpool is saying, conversationally.  His
fingers are unfalteringly gentle, soothing the ongoing ache of damaged quill
beds and too long inside straps.  “You cannot tell me you haven’t been groomed
before.”
“Yeah, when I was a kid!”  And it definitely didn’t feel like this.  Peter’s
hands latch onto Deadpool’s shoulders as he chokes back what feels dangerously
close to purring.  “I think something’s wrong.”  Has to be.  All these sounds
want to come out of him, and he might be passing out; it feels like the room is
swimming, like he can’t possibly let go of Deadpool.  “You have to stop.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” the alpha snaps, and there’s a
real note of anger to it despite the alpha being so unfailingly gentle with
him; he rubs at the base of Peter’s skull and nuzzles at him, picking away at
the wrecked feathers.
In the tangled mess inside Peter’s head, he proceeds to the logical
conclusion—an alpha is getting aggressive and handsy with his wings.  Peter is
in breeding plumage.
And—and for some unspeakable reason, Peter is incapacitated.  Oh god, he feels
like he’s about to go braindead with pleasure.  He is not up for a fight.
“But—the feathers, I mean, they’re so freaky you can’t tell what plumage they
are, right?”  His voice tries very hard to crack on that last word.  Deadpool’s
hand stills.  Peter manages to breathe.
“You know I was kidding about jumping you, right?”  Peter lifts his head. 
Deadpool’s gaze is entirely too soft, something fond around his mouth as he
murmurs, “Spidey.  Grooming is supposed to feel good.  You can even like it.”
Peter swallows rapidly.  “Respectfully, you are still full of crud.”
Deadpool leans forward, like he’s about to just go for the feathers again and
Peter nearly sobs in frustration, but that’s not what the alpha is doing.  His
mouth meets Peter’s forehead in a shockingly warm, gentle kiss.  Peter
freezes.  It feels familiar.  For a long moment, he can’t place why and then
it’s coming back to him.  Sixteen.
Melting.
“Just for right now,” Deadpool murmurs to him, “You can let yourself be an
omega, okay?  Don’t worry about whether you’re submitting or not because it
doesn’t fucking matter.”  He traces one hand, then the other, down the mess of
Peter’s feathers, until Peter’s head spins.  “You don’t take care of your wings
and I need a better reason to stop than you having a problem with not policing
the shit out of your instincts.”  His voice lowered to a dominating growl as he
added, “I just saw your wings, Spidey.  That shit gets celebrated.”
Peter stares up at him in confusion, brain flitting from option to option,
totally incapable of sticking with one thought long enough to see it through,
and what comes out of his mouth is a grumble, “I keep making noises.”
Deadpool’s smile is glowing.  “Correction: you keep wheezing over hard you’re
trying not to purr.  Here.”  He takes one of Peter’s hands, pulling it away
from Peter’s death grip on his costume.  Peter latches onto Deadpool’s hand
hard.  He’ll keep that one away from his wings, thank you. 
His fingers encounter a soft mass of feathers as Deadpool pulls Peter to his
own wings.  “Shouldn’t you be grooming me too?”  The alpha murmurs.  Peter
blinks.

“I—is that allowed?”
Deadpool rumbles at him, nuzzling his cheek against the top of Peter’s head. 
“More than allowed,” he murmurs down.  “It would be pretty fucking amazing.”

Peter’s fingers twitch, and he tries to pinpoint a feather that looks askew,
only to end up staring at the alpha in concern.         
“I have no clue how to do this.”
“You don’t say,” Deadpool snorts.  He pats the side of Peter’s head.  “You do
something bad, and I’ll stop you.”
Peter can’t help the reproach, “But I can’t stop you?”
“You have literally no idea,”  Deadpool says with this soft little laugh,
“Spidey, your wings are basically trying to push inside my hands.  I stop when
they stop acting like they’ve never been touched before.”  So of course Peter’s
face is burning and he tries to force them down—succeeds just a little before
Deadpool runs a finger across one feathery surface and it immediately splays
up, and there’s a purr buried in Peter’s throat.  His fingers sink deep into
Deadpool’s feathers, reflexively clinging as another searing, overwhelming
sensation climbs up and down his spine.  Deadpool thrums at him and the purr
swells free, making Peter shake as he tugs the alpha’s wings closer and laces
his fingers deeper into the mass of coverts. 
The inside of Deadpool’s wings is soft and dry, almost dusty, like it could
suck the moisture from Peter’s fingers.  Glossy feathers tickling along his
forearms as he clings.
Had he touched anyone’s wings since Gwen? 
His purr deepens helplessly; Deadpool has found Peter’s secondaries and he’s
lining them back up, one by one, and each feels like a fundamental shift of
bone structure.
“And for the record,” the alpha murmurs in his ear, “Yeah, I can tell you’re in
breeding plumage.  They feel so insanely fucking soft, Spidey, like holy shit. 
You have no idea.”
Peter buries his face in Deadpool’s shoulder.  He can feel the alpha purring
back to him, content to be touched.
Unlike his, Deadpool’s feathers are silky and strong, like they should have a
razor edge. The more Peter touches them, the heavier the wings sag into his
touch, and the harder Deadpool rumbles against him.
Not that Peter is doing it right at all.  Deadpool moves too fast to be
remotely gentle and yet somehow is, both hands reaching to feathers Peter
didn’t know he even had, melting him to mush; Peter flinches each time he
manages to realign one of Deadpool’s.  He’s clumsy.  Maybe Deadpool has a
better angle.  That’s not fair; Peter is sort of getting the hang of this and
he’s not going to just let Deadpool win—
—never mind when this became a competition—
“Move,” Peter orders.  The alpha growls.  Peter glares back until Deadpool lets
himself be rearranged, leaning forward to allow Peter access, eyes drooping,
arm stretched out to torture each individual flight and covert at a mere
leisurely pace.  So Peter is in charge now—but it’s hopeless—his fingers just
can’t move right.  Deadpool allows him to try, purring encouragingly and
tipping his head back for him, and all of a sudden Peter gets flung back and
Deadpool is outright climbing on top of him.
“Well, that was cute,” he smirks, “but let’s get back to the main event.”
And Peter could kick him into the ceiling, but Deadpool cheats, tickles Peter
with sooty feathers until Peter is shaking, giggling himself breathless,
collapsed under the onslaught of Deadpool’s hands.  Deadpool purrs to him the
whole entire time, nuzzling them together with a huge, bright grin on his face,
hands so warm, and this time Peter can’t do anything but acknowledge the facts
in front of him.
He might just like the smile better without the mask.
Chapter End Notes
     P.S.: Petition to write a crack chapter where Peter and Deadpool get
     caught cuddling by the Avengers and it is basically a songfic to
     "It's Okay to Be Gay", yes or no?
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