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"Peter, come on."
He doesn’t answer, he doesn’t know how to respond to something like this because this is so monumentally huge that the sheer weight of it all is crushing his rib cage. Peter lets his back slide down the locked door, fingers shaking as he lets his head fall into his hands. The bathroom tiles are cold against the skin of his feet, there are goosebumps raised on his skin and he thinks he should have at least locked himself in the bedroom.
"Peter, please.”
Has he ever actually said ‘please’ before now? It really took this much for him to use a rudimentary gesture of politeness—it would be funny if it were any other time but now. Any other time but Peter so overwhelmed with the little letters screaming up at him on his wrist. He’s a war between conflicted opinions, his biology and instincts flushed with satisfaction, his mind and free will barking that this isn’t right, that this is not only betrayal but against everything Peter has built for himself.
"It’s not like it wasn’t genuine."
His voice trails off, like he’s racking his brain for something that will mitigate the violent reaction ten minutes from before. Because Peter knows him better than he ever would have before—which he knows is the reason why, he knows but he still can’t help but feel as though he’s been burned by the flame he’s been playing with—and Peter knows that he can’t articulate his emotions in a way that doesn’t offend anyone.
There’s a long, heavy silence that falls between the threshold, Peter focusing on the air flowing into his lungs on one side of the door with Wade’s face pressed to the wood from the other. It’s not really enough to separate them, not with super powers. A flimsy piece of wood won’t keep him out if he really wants to get to Peter, but Peter still clings to this barricade like a lifeline, he just needs the makeshift barrier like it will erase the branding on his skin.
"Peter."
"You should have told me sooner, Wade," Peter finally says and he finds himself struggling to organize his thoughts, having a million things to say and not knowing how to let all of them out without having them gush entirely.
Saying his name is bizarre, because it’s acknowledging that it’s more than the seal on his wrist but now it has a personified, tangible form. Now it’s the flesh and muscle on the other side of the door, the one that Peter has grown attached to without that brand. And he doesn’t know how to connect the two concepts together. He doesn’t know how to link Deadpool to Wade.
"You think it was that easy?" Wade snaps, and god does he snap easily. He’s this unstable particle waiting to break down, Peter just wishes this was like any other problem where he could solve for its half-life and know when he would fall apart instead of tiptoeing at the lines in the sand and prodding until he explodes.
"You’re my Soul Mate, I think that you could have found a way sooner," Peter says with a sharp tone, because Wade isn’t the only one who can get a bit volatile.
His wrists burns and the scars prickle at his skin.
For three months, Peter has thought that maybe he’s going to win. Maybe he’s going to beat out fate and fall in love with who he wants. Because he blocked out any worries over Wade refusing to show him his Bond Name, because if it was someone else’s name then that called for later catastrophe and if it were blank—he doesn’t think he could handle a parallel to Gwen all over again.
"It wouldn’t have been the same," Wade murmurs, voice muffled through the door and it’s actually the most genuine he’s ever heard him. "You wouldn’t have learned to put up with me or enjoy my pop culture references or make Taco Bell runs after fighting bad guys."
Peter hates that he’s right. Because this isn’t what he had planned.
"And I know you’re mad, because you did that thing where you scrunched up your eyebrows and I get that but we can’t just ignore this. Peter you’re making me sound like the reasonable adult here, something is wrong."
Peter doesn’t tell him that he’s mostly terrified. That he doesn’t know how to face what he’s been running from for 19 years or that the pretty little facade he had set up has been shattered so hard he has the wind knocked out of him. He lets his head fall back against the door with a thud.
"Can we at least try to talk this over on the couch or maybe have a really angry make out session and avoid it until you care again?" Wade asks, and he can hear him kicking at the bottom of the door.
"I need time to think," Peter says honestly, because the shock is still heavy and disorienting.
"I’m going to sound so clingy and shit but can we not be apart? Not right now?" Wade asks with a nervous laugh, and it has something to with the Bond, and Peter realizes that he’s not the only one who’s terrified. That Wade is terrified that needing time to think means he’s being pushed away.
And Peter feels the sink of guilt when he realizes he hasn’t thought much about how Wade feels about this.
"Let’s put in a movie then," Peter finally offers, "No talking and you have to stay on your side of the couch."
Wade doesn’t listen, of course, because halfway through Sweeney Todd, Peter finds himself tucked under his shoulder and the scarred name on his wrist being traced by Wade’s callous thumb. And it’s not perfect and they need to talk at some point, but for right now it isn’t terrifying.