What Was Dead Was Hope

Because he can't die he likes to pretend others can't.
Which he knows isn't true because he's a fricking mercenary.
Wade stopped counting the kills a long time ago.

But when he finds out Peter is dead he doesn't know what to think. His voices have gone quiet too and he's never felt so acutely alone. Somehow he' expected Peter to keep on living beside him.

The worst part is how quickly things had changed. They went from Wade trying to kill him to team ups to beer and pizza to.... damnit, what should he call it? They meant something more to each other than all of that.

He thinks about the nights he crawled in Peter's windows and made himself comfortable in bed. Wrapped around Peter, he could pretend this would never end.

Wade looks down at Peter's broken body and takes off Peter's mask. Even in death, he's not willing to risk Peter's identity leaking although he suspects it will. He takes his own mask and pulls it over Peter's face. When he puts the Spiderman mask on his own, he pretends he's Peter looking down at Wade's dead body.

It's a strange feeling to realize you'd die for someone. He has never been the kind of man Peter deserves but he's always wanted to try.

How many years had gone by and how many people had tried to persuade him to be different? Peter is-was- he corrects himself, was the only one who saw goodness in him.

Wade sits down next to Peter's body and he doesn't know what to do. The pulse is long gone and he can see rigor mortis setting in. He grabs his hand and squeezes like it'll somehow bring him gasping back to life.

"I loved you, you fricking idiot. Why didn't you call me?" He thinks about his pulse and regenerative powers and how he'd give it all away to talk to him one last time.

Wade hopes Peter knew how much he cared about him. He's never been good with feelings but Peter took it all in so easily.

Peter would read to him, stories and plays and books and Wade always shrugged it off and pretended he wasn't listening. Right now, the only thing he can think is

Each man kills the thing he loves.  

"Forgive me," he whispers. "For all of it."