Living With Secrets

Postponing

Spiderman let Wade slide off his back and onto the cold bathroom tiles of the small bathroom. Wade's apartment had been closer to the building than the tower, and Peter needed to get his arm wrapped ASAP.

Wade should have a first aid kit around here, he's Deadpool, the teen thought, rummaging through the drawers. He stopped, thinking about what had just happened.

Wade, tortured, MIT professor, Deadpool...

"Wade's Deadpool," Spiderman whispered softly. It was the first time he was really letting himself think about it. He pulled off his mask, letting himself breathe while Wade was still out cold. He was going to figure out what to do about his identity, to tell Wade who he was or not, later.

"You're not mad?" Peter spun around, only to see an old woman standing at the door.

"What?" The teen didn't bother putting his mask back on, he knew Al was blind.

"You're not mad at Wade?" Al put her hands on her hips. Peter didn't respond right away, just continued looking for something he could wrap his shoulder in.

"Oh, come on," Al huffed, gesturing for Peter to follow her to the other room. He did, and she pulled out a cardboard box with 'patch up shit' scrawled on the side in Wade's handwriting.

"Alright, I've wrapped a few of these," she said with a smile. "Sit down on the couch."

Peter sat down, still thinking about his dilemma, and retracted his suit to the ring around his arc. Al shuffled back over, sitting down with a heavy puff of air, and began to feel her way to Peter's arm.

"I'm not mad," Peter blurted out. "I'm not mad at Wade."

Al chuckled softly. "So what's the big deal? What happened tonight? He told me he got a call, he headed out, and then you're crashing through here with Wade all busted up."

"Yeah. I don't know how he got there, all I know is that I got an alert that something was happening. I was watching through the window, and he was being beaten by a bunch of guys. It was about a job he was supposed to take."

"The job to kill you?"

Peter looked at the old woman wrapping his arm. "You knew?"

"Yeah, I knew," Al chuckled. "He called me. I only put everything together tonight. He told me Spiderman was at MIT with him, and whenever you two are back in town, so is Spiderman. Don't worry about Wade, though, he won't put it together until it's right in front of him."

"Oh," Peter said. There was nothing else to say.

"They offered him a lot of money. But he couldn't do it. Wade's never really had friends and his girlfriend was killed last year. He had a rough go, getting over her..."

"What happened?"

"To Nessa? She was killed in crossfire, some dicks broke into Wade's old apartment and she was there. Spent a lot of time drinking in the bar on the corner, Weasel became a good friend, but... Wade decided to go to school partially because he was having a hard time getting up and doing anything. And then he met you."

"Why'd he turn down the job?"

"He couldn't kill someone he cared about. He sees you like a brother, you know?"

Peter smiled a little. Now that he was thinking about it, Wade was kind of like the brother Peter never had. Always knew how to pull him out of homework and how to annoy him.

"Anyways," the teen continued, shaking his head and falling out of his thoughts. "This guy comes in with a doctor's coat. He's a professor at MIT, apparently was the one to give Wade those powers. He starts being really mean, basically says how he is pissed with Wade for not taking me out, starts talking about some sort of... I don't know. It wasn't making a lot of sense. I swung in and everyone scattered, so I just grabbed Wade and left. Oh, and got shot."