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They were almost ready to go when it happened. More than almost. They were walking out of the door, Peter bundled in mismatched mittens and a pom-pom laden scarf that Wade had picked out for him, and Wade in a cannibalized Santa suit that was really just his normal Deadpool suit with white fur sewn around the cuffs and in a line down his chest as if there were buttons there, and a Santa hat with the fluffiest pom Peter had ever seen. They were stepping out of the door, one foot across the threshold, when a full-body shudder wracked Peter’s body.
He stopped, and Wade, hyper aware of Peter’s every movement, stopped as well.
“Don’t tell me,” Wade warned, fiddling with the pom of his hat. He worried his lower lip between his teeth.
Peter met Wade’s gaze with an apologetic expression. “Spidey senses are tingling.”
Wade’s shoulders dropped. “Can you ignore it? Just this once?” he asked plaintively, not really believing Peter would.
Peter grimaced. “It won’t take long. Probably. Come with me to help out and I’ll wrap whatever it is up even faster.”
Wade flopped against the wall dramatically. “But Peeeteey! I don’t want to be late for Aunt May’s!”
Peter patted a single green mitten against Wade’s shoulder. “Me too. But she’ll understand, and she’d probably be more upset if she found out that we, you know, blew off saving, I don’t know, a single mother and her child from murderers in order to get first dibs on her spiral ham.”
Wade opened his eyes wide, pleadingly. “But ham, Petey. Ham.”
Peter paused for a moment, examining Wade’s expression, before he broke into a wide grin. “I’ll let you keep the hat on.”
Wade spun on his heel, grabbed his mask from the drawer in the end table by the couch, and was back by Peter’s side in almost no time at all. He pulled the hat off his head only long enough to don the mask before slamming the red velvet back on.
Wade pointed his Chin at Peter’s chest. “Your turn, baby boy. Suit up. The sooner we get out there and save the universe the sooner we can get to Auntie May’s and gorge ourselves on ham and fruitcake.”
Peter made a face because, ew, fruitcake. And then sheepishly unzipped his parka, revealing his suit.
“A little over-prepared, don’t you think?” Wade asked.
Peter rolled his eyes. “Considering that something actually did turn up, I’m going to go with no this time. Not over-prepared. Just prepared enough.”
“Does that mean you’re wearing the Spidey gloves beneath your mittens?”
Peter shook his head and unzipped an inner pocket in his parka, pulling out his suit’s gloves and mask. He quickly shed his mittens to put on his gloves and pulled the mask over his head. “Done.”
Wade pointed dramatically at Peter’s blue jeans and his bright red parka. Peter sighed and quickly unzipped and stepped out of his pants, revealing his suit, but looking down at his fluffy, red, parka he made a face beneath the mask.
“But, baby it’s cold outside,” Peter sung, because he didn’t really want to go out there without his warm overcoat.
Wade chuckled and sidled closer to zip up the parka over Peter’s suit. “Alright Petey-pie, let’s go save Christmas.”
***
As it turned out, that was exactly what they had to do. To an extent.
Swinging through the streets with Wade clinging to his back like some deranged Santa turned cowboy, (with Peter playing the horse, because why the hell not, right?) Peter realized that he probably should have kept his pants on. It was cold. It wasn’t snowing… yet (dreaming of a white Christmas), but it was the kind of sharp sunny day that was going to leave Peter’s lips chapped even beneath the mask and his ears numb.
But, it was Christmas, and Peter was willing to forgive the chill, and the chapped lips, and Wade clutching to him and yee-hawing, but what he wasn’t able to forgive were the two mean-spirited women, dressed as Santa’s elves, who were robbing an apartment on 8th St. Especially since, as Peter launched the two of them onto the fire escape outside the living room window, Peter could hear the sound of scared children whimpering and crying somewhere in the home.
“There are kids in there,” Peter whispered into Wade’s neck as the man knelt to jimmy the window open.
“Messing with kids on Christmas!? What kind of Scrooge are these chicks? That’s just downright mean!”
Peter took another look inside the building. “Not scrooge. They’re dressed like elves.” He squinted. “Pointy ears and everything.”
“I’m going to deck them right in the halls!”
Peter snorted in surprise. “Misuse lyrics on your own time. Now your job is to focus on opening that window.”
Wade turned and waggled his eyebrows as he silently slid the window up.
Peter let out a huff. “Alright, I take it back. Now get in there and rescue those kids, you freeloader!”
Wade sketched a bow before launching himself through the newly opened window with a “You better watch out! You better not cry (out in pain)! You better not pout (when I punch you in the face)! I’m telling you why.”
Peter took a quick moment to force his indulgent smile off of his face and then followed his significant(ly deranged) other into the house.
One of the elves was throwing ornaments at Wade’s head, which he was dodging expertly, and the other elf was trying to escape into the hall with a sack full of stolen goods over her shoulder. Wade was heading that one off with the ornaments thrown from the first one, and was singing “Silver bells,” which made sense as soon as Peter noticed that all of the ornaments were silver.
“This is no singing time, Deadpool. These elves are trying to wreck the halls.” Peter shot a web at the doorway, blocking the elves’ exit, and the elf with the sack of goodies made an irritated noise.
Wade pouted. “If I can’t sing, you can’t pun.”
Peter harrumphed and dodged when the escape-artist elf tossed the entire sack of goods at his head. He caught it at the last moment to stop anything inside from breaking when it hit the floor, and lowered it carefully to the ground. The elf made another screechy noise and lunged at him.
The elf throwing ornaments paused to look at her compatriot, and in that moment, when the rain of ornaments had paused, Wade took the initiative to launch himself over the sofa and kick her in the face. “O’er the couch we go, laughing all the way! Ha, ha, ha!”
Peter didn’t bother looking at the elf coming at him as he webbed her to the wall. She was angry, and continued making shrieking, animalistic noises even when Peter webbed her mouth shut. The elf Wade had kicked was out cold.
Peter stepped over to Wade and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good job not using your guns today.”
“Well, I know how you despise property damage. And I thought, well, how sucky would it be to be rescued from a robbery only to find that your insurance won’t cover the bullet holes in the walls or the blood stains in the furniture?”
“You’re a true hero.”
Wade shrugged and stepped over to the web blocking the doorway. “It’s a burden, but one that I bear silently,” he explained as he pulled out a katana and sliced the web away.
“How noble, Good King Wenceslas.”
Wade gave a little tip of his hat. “On we must go. I promised Auntie that I’d be home for Christmas,” he half-sang as he stepped into the hall. They both followed the sound of crying children down the hall as Wade continued to hum I’ll Be Home for Christmas. At the door behind which the children were crying they paused.
“What do you think is behind door number one?”
Peter shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Guess there’s no time like the Ghost of Christmas Present!” Wade said swinging open the door with one hand, clutching his sword in the other.
“That one was stretching it a little,” Peter protested, despite the large grin he was sporting beneath his mask. However the grin dropped at the sight that greeted them from within the room. There was a skinny guy, sallow-skinned and shrunken eyed, dressed in a Santa suit holding a 9mm to the head of a little girl, maybe seven or eight, who was holding what Peter assumed was her baby brother. She looked terrified. The Santa also looked terrified. And also twitchy.
“Usurper!” Wade screeched and without a second’s hesitation swung his sword at the guy at the same time that Peter shot a web at the small gun and swung it out of the man’s hand.
The guy jumped back with a small “eek,” and tried to jump out the window. Wade caught him by the back of his ill-fitting Santa jacket and jerked him back.
“You Christmas-ruiner!” Wade shrieked and pulled him, struggling, backwards out of the room, past the shocked faces of the children.
Peter stepped forward and knelt in front of the children. He tried to visually check to see if either of them had been injured. The girl was wearing a bright green flouncy dress and she had tear streaks down her face, but she didn’t seem to be actually wounded. Her brother, who, upon closer look was wearing a bib that said “Elf-in-Training,” seemed equally unharmed. Just to be sure, Peter asked, “Are you both ok?”
The girl nodded, and the child abruptly began wailing. She tried to comfort him, but she was young yet and still shaken, and Peter’s babysitting instincts kicked in and he automatically reached for the boy. “Shh, It’s alright little guy. It’s fine now,” Peter said softly as he rocked the child in his arms. The girl wiped more tears from her face as Peter comforted the baby, and once the child had quieted he asked her, “What’s your name?”
“Lillian,” the girl practically whispered and clenched a swath of her dress in a small, white-knuckled fist.
“Hello Lillian. You can call me Spiderman. I’m here to help.”
She let out a short breath but was already nodding when she said, “I know.”
“Ok, Lillian. It’s all going to be alright, but I need to ask where your parents are.”
She sniffled a little before speaking, and Peter took that time to look down at the baby he was still rocking in his arms. The boy’s expression had evened out and he reached a hand out to pat Peter’s cheek with an itty bitty hand.
“Mama and Daddy went to do last-minute shopping before we go to Nana’s for dinner.” She hiccupped and another tear slid down her cheek, which Peter wiped away with a soft swipe of his gloved index finger. “The bad-Santa said they saw Mama and Daddy leave and thought the house was empty.”
“And they planned to take all of your stuff. Yes. But don’t worry, we stopped them.”
Lillian gave him a watery smile. “Thank you Spiderman,” she said as Wade entered the room, his katana resheathed on his back, “And thank you strange Santa.”
Wade turned to Peter, his eyes wide with excitement. “She called me Santa!”
“Strange Santa,” Peter and Lillian said in unison. They met each other’s eyes and Lillian giggled.
“I’ll take it!” Wade exclaimed.
“What did you do with, uh, bad-Santa?” Peter asked, but Wade didn’t answer. Lillian’s baby brother had caught Wade’s eye, and Wade stepped up to Peter and the little child.
Wade reverently lifted the boy from Peter’s arms and held him aloft, very reminiscently of Simba in the beginning of the Lion King. “Glory to the newborn King,” Wade crooned to the child.
Peter’s smile softened. “What did you do with bad-Santa, Strange Santa?” he asked quietly, reluctant to disturb the scene before him, but wanting to make sure Wade hadn’t, you know, killed him or something. He probably hadn’t, but just to be sure.
Wade brought the child to his chest and let the boy play with one of his fingers. “I tied him up, yes I did,” he sing-songed, still facing the baby. “I hog-tied him and left him in the hall, yes I did, oh yes I did.”
Peter rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the swelling he felt in his heart, watching Wade with a child in his arms.
Lillian grasped Peter’s hand, and he looked down to see that she had wiped away all of the tears from her face. “His name is Jackson.”
Wade looked at the girl. “Is your father’s name Jack?”
Lillian frowned. “No.”
“Then I don’t get it,” but he turned back to Jackson and tickled his tummy, and crooned, “But I forgive you, yes I do.”
Peter laughed and swung the hand twinned with Lillian’s forward. “Alright, Lillian. As the children are playing,” Wade made an affronted noise but didn’t say anything, “it’s up to you and me to phone the police to let them know that they have some bad guys to pick up.”
“Tis the season to go to jail-y,” Wade sang.
“That was awful.”
“Oh go call the police, you stick in the mud.”
Peter and Lillian exchanged a look and they both giggled as she led them to the kitchen where a phone was sitting in a charging station on the counter. He picked up the phone and gave it to her.
“Me?” Lillian asked with wide eyes.
Peter nodded. “I’ll be right beside you if you need me.”
Lillian put on a determined face and dialed 9-1-1. Peter listened as she politely informed the operator that some bad people had invaded her house. She gave her address, told them her parents were out shopping, told them she’d been rescued by a Strange Santa and a Spiderman in a big coat, and smiled when she kindly thanked them for their time when she hung up.
“They’ll be here soon,” Peter said, “New York’s police department is pretty speedy.”
Lillian nodded, and then she gently guided them back to the room where Wade was playing with Jackson. She reached her arms out and Wade reluctantly handed over her brother.
“I want one,” Wade pouted as they watched Lillian take Jackson over to the window and started pointing streets and street decorations out to him.
“Not till we tie the knot, you big lug.”
Wade sighed dramatically. “You never let me adopt anyone,” he whined.
“Look!” Lillian said, an excited tone in her voice. “It’s snowing!”
Peter and Wade joined her at the window, where they could indeed see snowflakes starting to flutter down from a graying sky. “Oh the weather outside is frightful,” Wade sang, “but the fire is so delightful.”
“What fire?” Lillian asked.
“Don’t worry, we can find something to light up,” Wade assured her.
“No arson!” Peter said.
“Awwww,” Wade said, sticking out his lower lip.
Peter rolled his eyes. “C’mon, W-Deadpool. Let’s go make sure bad-Santa and his helpers aren’t going to escape before we head out.”
“You’re leaving?” Lillian asked in a small voice.
Peter knelt before her. “Don’t worry. The cops are already at the building. I can hear them stamping up the stairs. And your parents will probably be here soon as well. But, well, you see, we’ve got Christmas plans,” he shrugged an apology, “and if I’m late to another Christmas dinner my Aunt’s going to tan my hide.”
“And don’t worry,” Wade interjected, “from now on your troubles will be miles away.”
Lillian giggled and Peter gave her a small pat on the shoulder. She stayed by the window as Wade and Peter stepped into the hall. In the living room Peter checked bad-Santa’s ropes, and Wade checked unconscious-elf’s pulse as they both ignored the angry-elf’s angrily muffled screeching. When they’d both assured that bad-Santa wasn’t escaping anytime soon, and that unconscious-elf wasn’t in fact dead-elf they stood. The cops were at the door, when Peter and Wade stepped out the window onto the fire escape.
Wade offered Peter his arm. “Would you like to join me and go walking in a winter wonderland?”
“If by walking you mean swinging, sure.” Wade climbed onto Peter’s back and Peter shot a web at the building across the way “Back home to put on some real clothes, and then to Aunt May’s?”
“Yes! Go don your gay apparel”
“Just because we’re gay doesn’t mean that our clothes are gay.”
“Pan.”
“And I’m bi.”
“And the clothes are gay.”
Peter could feel Wade tightening his legs around Peter’s waist as they swung closer to their apartment. “Jesus. Are you going to make a coming out of the closet pun? That’s it. Ok, no need to go on. I accept that when we get home I’ll don my gay apparel.”
Wade laughed and fist-bumped the sky in triumph.
***
That evening found Peter and Wade, wearing semi-normal clothes, (which in Wade’s case meant that he’d taken off his mask and straightened his Santa hat), helping Aunt May wash up after Christmas dinner.
Help, of course meant do. Aunt May was currently relaxing on her couch talking quietly with some neighbors and friends she’d invited over, downing the Eggnog like it was going out of style, which left Peter and Wade to finish loading the dishes into the dishwasher.
“I’m never going to eat again,” Peter moaned, scraping remnants of pumpkin pie from a small dish.
“Oh, can it. You’ll be snooping in the fridge for leftovers by midnight.”
Peter stuck his tongue out. “I admit it. I’m a growing boy. I have a high metabolism. It’s a thing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t stuff myself on Christmas, Mr. Grinch. Find some cheer, will ya?”
“I’ll give you cheer!” Wade said with a mischievous smile. He grabbed a clean glass from the cabinet, scooped some water into it from the sink and then tossed the water at Peter’s head.
“Hey!” Peter said, water dripping of the end of his nose.
Wade let out a strangled snort. “Have a cup of Cheer!” he half sang, half-wheezed.
Peter grabbed a hand towel off the stove’s handle and wiped his face. “Stop bastardizing holiday jingles for your own twisted entertainment.”
“Back at you, Santa Baby,” Wade said with a wink.
Peter reached a hand up and snagged the Santa hat from Wade’s head. He then deposited it upon his own head with a triumphant “Hah!”
Wade pressed a gentle kiss to Peter’s forehead and Peter beamed up at him, tugging at the back of the Santa hat subconsciously.
“Was it ok?” Peter asked. At Wade’s confused look he explained. “The party. I know you were probably wanting something with just the two of us and Aunt May. Was it ok even with Aunt May’s friends here?”
“Was it ok?” Wade asked incredulously, “It was perfect, Pretty-Pete.”
Peter’s shoulders relaxed and his smile became more playful. “It was everything you wanted for Christmas? Beating up evil elves and bad-Santas? Fighting old Mrs. Webber for the last crumb of Pumpkin pie and slowly watching my aunt get hammered on Eggnog? Washing up when all we want to do is fall into a food coma?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Is that what you wanted for Christmas, Wade.”
Wade tugged the front of Peter’s shirt until Peter was pressed against Wade’s chest. Wade rested his head on Peter’s shoulder and whispered, “All I want for Christmas, is you.”