Chapter Text
Threads were stupid.
That was twenty year old Peter Parker’s very valid, mature opinion on the threads of fate he couldn’t see. It was an opinion that had been with him since he’d turned sixteen, met Gwen, and had her tell him that his thread wasn’t attached to hers.
Of course Gwen could see them. Of course MJ could see them. Of course every single one of his love interests could see the obnoxious red thread around his pinkie finger. And of course they could all see that the end of his thread wasn’t attached to their pinkies.
Peter couldn’t see the threads himself. Neither could Harry, but MJ had told him straight away that he was hers. And after she wore Harry’s initial disbelief away, Harry turned into the kind of sickly sweet, sappy in love person he and Peter had used to make fun of.
Peter wasn’t even sure what finger his thread was on. Gwen hadn’t told him before she’d… Before she’d died, and MJ had lost the ability to see the threads of unbonded people when she and Harry had finally gotten together.
Peter sighed and held up both his hands, glaring pointedly at his pinkies. “You suck,” he muttered.
“Oh baby boy!”
Peter jerked his head around, glancing over his shoulder in time to see a very muscular, very familiar figure clambering awkwardly onto the roof behind him. Peter blew out another sigh.
“Deadpool,” he said as neutrally as possible.
“Heya Spidey! I saw your feet, thought I’d come up and say hi!” The mercenary bounced towards him, talking a mile a minute. “But what are you doing, sitting here? Shouldn’t you be swinging through the city, jizzing on – sorry, webbing – the bad guys? Oh, I know! You’re Tarzan!” He took a deep breath in, before letting loose an extremely loud, amazingly accurate, Tarzan yell.
“Huh,” Peter replied, poking his ears beneath his mask. “That was loud.”
“Baby boy, I am always loud. You should hear me during sex!” The mercenary paused. “No, seriously. You should.”
“I’ll pass,” Peter said easily.
Deadpool whined. “But Spiiiidey…” He dropped down to sit next to Peter, the warmth from his body immediately blanketing Peter’s left side. “What are you doing up here all by your lonesome, baby boy?” he asked. “I mean, it’s a nice view… If you’re into that sort of thing?”
Peter smiled. “Just thinking.”
“About anything in particular? No wait, let me guess! Hmmm… The mysteries of the universe?”
“Nope.”
“Damn. About why dogs are better than cats?”
“No. I like cats better anyway.”
Deadpool gasped. “Blasphemy!” He paused. “Coke vs Pepsi?”
“Guess again.”
“Left or right!”
“If you say up or down next, I’m going to push you off the roof.”
“But Spiiiidey!” Deadpool pouted. “Tacos vs burritos?” he asked a second later.
Peter sighed, amused despite himself. “No, Wade.”
Deadpool pretended to fan himself. “You said my name! I know, he said my name! How do you know my name? Are you stalking me?” He gasped, almost falling from the roof as he leant further into Peter’s space. It actually didn’t make him as uncomfortable as he expected. “The great Spiderman is stalking Deadpool?”
“What? No! I’m not stalking you! If you Google “Deadpool”, Wade Wilson comes up.”
Deadpool made an excited noise. “You Googled me?”
Peter groaned. “Shut up,” he said half-heartedly.
Deadpool was bouncing again. “You did!” he exclaimed. He abruptly froze. “Wait, why did you Google me? Were you going to hire me? Baby boy, if there is someone you want dead, I’ll do it for free! As long as you’re, like, 3000% sure. Because I don’t want you beating yourself up over something stupid like that –”
“No, Deadpool. I didn’t Google you so I could hire you,” Peter replied. “I don’t have a reason why, alright? I was just… Trying to distract myself. Maybe.”
Deadpool tilted his head. “From what’s bothering you now?” he asked, surprisingly intuitive.
Peter didn’t see any point in lying. “Yes.”
“Well, I tried guessing. Apparently I’m no good at that, so now you have to tell me!”
Peter tilted his head back to stare up at the sky. “The stupid threads,” he muttered.
“You mean the shit around your pinkie?” Deadpool asked. “Can you see who you’re paired with? Whoever they are, they gotta have some mad luck to be at the end of your thread!”
Peter turned to stare at Deadpool. “How do you figure?”
Deadpool paused, frown obvious beneath his mask. “Whaddya mean, how do I figure? You seen your ass in that suit, baby boy?” He wolf-whistled, and Peter blushed beneath his mask.
“I don’t really think whoever is on the end of the thread will be happy because my ass looks okay in spandex,” he muttered.
“Okay? Okay? Baby boy, your ass is magnificent. The best. Perfection. I would worship that ass a million times a day. I could wax poetry about your ass –”
“You already do,” Peter said with a sigh.
“And it is great poetry, am I right?” Deadpool grinned. “In addition to the ass of perfection,” he continued, “you’re also a good guy, you’re funny, you’re fucking Spiderman for crying out loud!”
Peter couldn’t reply to that. He understood what Deadpool was saying, but he wasn’t just Spiderman. He was Peter Parker too, and Peter Parker was the one who needed to be worried about any potential soulmate person.
“So you can’t see your thread?” Deadpool asked.
“Nope,” Peter replied.
“Huh,” Deadpool said thoughtfully. “Totally thought you could see it.”
“You were wrong.”
Deadpool snorted. “Yeah, I am a lot. I can’t see mine, either.” He was quiet for a moment. “Not sure I have one anymore.”
Peter looked at Deadpool curiously. “Anymore?” As far as he knew, there wasn’t a way to lose a thread… Unless the person on the other end died. “I’m sorry,” Peter babbled immediately. Of course he’d be an insensitive shit at just the right moment. “I am so sorry. I didn’t – shit, that was so rude. I’m sorry.”
“Why’re you apolo – oh! No, baby boy, you got it all wrong!” Deadpool turned fully to face Peter, shaking his head. “It’s not – I’ve never been able to see the thread,” he explained, “but I was… I fell in love with someone anyway. Properly in love, not just one of those annoying little crushes. We were going to get married and everything. Adopt a cat. Steal a child. Or was it the other way around?”
Peter blinked. “That… That can happen?” he asked, because the way the media told it, getting with the person at the other end of your thread was the only way to live happily.
“Of course. What, you think people who lose the person on the end before they even meet them live their lives in solitude and misery?” Deadpool snorted. “If that was the case, we’d have more monks and priests and nuns swearing themselves to God or whoever. Nah, baby boy, people like that? They adapt.”
“But you… You had a thread? Weren’t you… I don’t know, worried about the person on the other end?” Because even if the idea of falling in love of your own violation was appealing, Peter didn’t want to forget about the other person.
Deadpool shrugged. “Like I said, I couldn’t see the thread. Ness couldn’t see mine either. Hers… Hers was black and twisted before she learned to walk. She lived with it, you know? She used to tell me my crazy matched her crazy.” Deadpool laughed, the sound soft and affectionate. “I asked that little fox to marry me.”
Peter felt like he was prying. Deadpool was never this open. His past was something he didn’t talk about, not even on pain of death. Peter opened his mouth, worried that Deadpool might not actually want him to hear all this, but Deadpool spoke again.
“And then I got the cancer,” he said quietly. “The rest you know, I guess. I figure with the amount of times I’ve died… Well, the person on the other end of this thread must be pretty fucking pissed if we’re still connected, am I right?”
Peter shivered a little at that. “I think they’d have figured out who you were by now, if they could see their thread die and then come back,” Peter replied honestly. “Maybe they just can’t see it either.”
“Maybe,” Deadpool said, but he didn’t sound like he was agreeing with Peter.