#1 STOPWATCH

Chapter 16

__________

Wade

It reminded him of the experimentation. 

The burning. The water. The way every touch felt like it was made by the end of a fire poker, even if it was just droplets of water falling from Peter's hand or the brush of his fingers. 

The boxes had screamed at him during the entire experience, reminding him and reinforcing the fears he felt even though he knew they were wrong. All he could do was focus on staying calm. It was Peter. Spider-Man, he wasn't going to hurt him. He thought he was helping. 

Wade wasn't sure if he was, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Even when he was left alone to stare up at the water stains on his ceiling after Peter had set him aside to take care of his nasty bed.

 It was humiliating. Slightly embarrassing because Wade wasn't exactly on top of his house chores, but the state he was in and the repercussions of that paired with the grime that was already hanging around made him confident he was being judged. He probably was, and honestly, it was better to focus on that rather than his own thoughts.

[Why why why why why would he do this? How is he willingly standing here, trying to help? We don't let others help, we don't let others in. We don't let them know it hurts. We force ourselves to not care or pay attention. Why is he!]

(Maybe he does care.)

[I don't like this. It's wrong. People don't care, never have, and never will.]

(Well in my opinion it's a nice change!) White snapped. The box was in Wade's defense, but he wanted them all to shut up regardless. 

[Don't like it! He'll be here one second and just you wait. The next he'll be long gone not caring to give you a single thought after he's free! No one cares! ]

(I don't care if you don't like it! I do! We do!)

" Peter," Wade mustered to whisper when his soulmate passed him. 

His head jerked Wade's way, eyes attentive. Almost unnervingly attentive, not in a caring way . . . but almost in a predatory manner. It made Wade's skin crawl, but he was sure he was imagining it. He saw a lot of things that didn't exist. 

"Yeah?" He'd since moved Wade to the bed and was pacing around the apartment, dragging laundry this way and that, the washing machine running in the background and the dryer humming lowly.

"I think you should go." Wade muttered.

"Why?" 

Why? What did he mean why? "Because I know your going to leave anyway."

Peter looks at him, his eyes changing in a way Wade couldn't describe. "I'm not going anywhere. I take care of what's mine."

Wade fell silent for a beat, but the boxes raged on in his mind. "Yours?" He reiterated the word, unsure what to make of it. 

"Mine," Peter responded plainly with that same strange look that was no less predatory than the last. He wondered if Peter was even there, or if he was just imagining this. He really couldn't tell. Regardless how he felt about it, tears that burned his skin welled in his eyes.

He couldn't understand why Peter would think such a thing. Why would someone like Peter want anything to do with a soulmate like himself? He wasn't worth the time of day. The avengers even made a point to tell him this more than once. The only thing keeping him out of some high-tech prison facility was the fact that he was useful when S.H.I.L.D. wanted him to take a job against Hydra. Along with the acceptance that he would get out of the place no matter how high of security the facility was.

Why would Peter want anything to do with someone with this sort of status?

"It's okay. I'm not going anywhere." Peter said. He walked over to him and reached out, fingertips brushing Wade's cheek. The touch itself was jolting but it didn't actually hurt. 

"Can you do that again?" Wade asked quietly, confident that this Peter wasn't real. He might as well trick his own mind into doing something nice, right?

"This?" Fingers lightly ran across Wade's skin with a soft touch that hardly makes contact with his flesh, but just enough to send that small cold tingle across his skin.

Wade nodded.

It continued, the comforting rhythm causing the Merc to relax once more.

"Wade. Can I move to lay next to you so I don't have to stand here?" the Peter asked tiredly with a sigh that almost sounded real.

He fell asleep to the soft touch of his Soulmate.

__________

When Wade woke again, he noticed his skin had improved enough to consider it just a (9)- brutally awful day rather than a (17)- torturous one like the day prior. That is if there was a scale that took into account how much he hurt and how bad he looked.

And to top off the already not wonderful day, this was not how he had ever dreamed of waking up next to a beautiful person while in the nude. He was in pain, uglier than normal, and wasn't even remotely sexed.

(Not fair.) White pouted about the last factor. (All those opportunities gone and wasted.)

'I don't think I can walk.'

(Pft. Think of what could have been done to make Peter or us think the same for any other reason then the present one.)

"I don't think I'd have been emotionally or physically capable of doing that last night. Even now would be questionable." Wade mumbled as he turned away from the hallucination that hadn't yet run its course. This flare must not be over in that case.

Freezing hands pressed against Wade's back causing him to almost jump away from the sudden sensation. 

His eyes went wide and he sat up and looked over at the body laying next to him. That had felt unusually real. He reached out and pushed the imaginary body away from him.

Peter's eyes opened as soon as his hand made contact, but that didn't stop his body from being pushed right off the side of the bed. Peter yelped just before he hit the ground with a heavy thump that Wade felt.

Peter popped up a moment later to give him an incredulous look.

"The fuck?"

Special thanks to Patron Poiuytr23 for their pledge. Their support has brought to you this edited edition of Stopwatch. If you would like to see more of Stopwatch edited in the future, consider pledging $1 to my Patreon or any of my commission tiers.  Also, note that future fanfiction releases on Wattpad as I fully transition over to Ao3. If you want updates on what is coming out, follow me on tumblr, all links in bio.

(Originally published 2016, officially edited 2023)

Until next time~ Shadow-Assassin)

Original Note:

Thank you for 1K reads! In like three days I gained like three hundred veiws that's totally amazing. Thank you to all of you!

Cookies for everyone!