Kitchen Fork - SpideyPool

Ch. 29

The cafe was all but empty as the two overly tired college students sat in one of the window booth across from one another. The muted instrumental music played in the background as Lily was downing one of her cups of coffee. It seemed that no matter when Peter saw her, she always had two cups, often offering the second to him if he looked rough enough. She had that, tired but nice big sister energy about her. He remembered back to when they met. How he was paired up with Eddie and Gwen for a project in one of their general classes. He had just gotten back from a fight with sandman, safe to say he was sore and exhausted. He even had a black eye forming. The other two voiced concern but he told them that he just fell, and they believed him. Halfway through the meetup Eddie spotted Lily and hollered at her, the two already being friends. She came over and introductions were made. He remembers the way she carefully looked him over, and without a word, offered her second coffee. She stayed and worked on her own homework, but the four bonded. Now here he was, tired and sore, and Lily got him coffee.

Peter was so lost in the memory, that he didn't realize it had been a while since he's said anything.

"Hey. You doing ok Pete?" He was dragged to reality with her words.

"Hm? Oh. Y-Yeah, I mean, kinda. Maybe? I don't know really..." He drifted off.

"Hey, I know that you have a lot going on with your personal life. You don't need to say anything if you don't want to. Love her to death but, I'm not Gwen, I'm not going to push you." She assured with her usual tired but concerned smile, now moving on two her extra coffee, drinking this on more slowly.

"Thanks Lily... it's just... hard to explain? And some of it involves my job, and you know I legally can say anything about things regarding that... but I need to work out my thoughts." Peter rambled as she sipped her drink.

"Well just use made up names for the people involved, and don't mention exact details. I can work from there." She mused the idea with a glimmer in her eyes.

"O-Ok. Well..." He pondered how he was going to do this. "So I'm working with this guy... W... and at first W was kinda weird and said things that were not appropriate. And my boss... T, was really annoyed with him. But then W and me started actually working together, and we work really really well! Like better than any other person I've worked with! He's super funny and we can talk forever about the most random things. But then I found out something about W that both scares and worries me. I just... think he doesn't care if he's hurt, no... I know he doesn't. I had to clean some of his blood up because he didn't care... but he should value himself more!! He has this air about him, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop or something. But he needs to know that he matters, even if he thinks otherwise. But... I don't know how to tell him without it getting weird... and on top of all that I can't help this weird feeling in my gut when I'm around him."

Lily sat quietly, soaking up every word Peter said with careful consideration. After a moment of thought she spoke.

"You're worried about him, you already made up your mind, and it sounds like you're looking for confirmation, not advice." She mulled out. "I'm not a therapist, so I don't know the right thing for you to do... but maybe if you're there for him, be his friend, he'll open up and give you more of the picture. You can't know everything about someone in the span of a day or two after all. But like I said I don't know what you should do."

He kinda figured she'd say something along those lines. She was right about this being more about confirming his feelings than anything else.  He knew he wanted to be friends with Wade, but he also knew he didn't want Wade hurting himself, healing factor be damned.

"I do want to be friends with him." He answered honestly. Lily smiled more with her eyes.

"Then you got nothing to worry about Pete. You're the sweetest guy I know. He'd have to be heartless to not want to befriend your cute lil babyface~" She cooed in her normal teasing tone, booping his nose as she does. She really felt like a big sister sometimes.

He let out a sigh.

"Thanks Lily. Sorry for dumping on you." He felt deflated, would Wade even want to be friends?

"No problem! But, um, I think we should head out of here." She said the last part in a hush tone.

"What? Why?" He was now panicking, why wasn't his Spidy-sense going off?

"Cuz that guy in the red suit has been watching us for a while now and I don't think it's a coincidence." Now he was really nervous. His mind now running. Peter could clearly see the danger in her eyes she glared at the man, clearly ready to fight if necessary. Peter knew from Gwen that Lily was not shy to violence on occasion when it came to her friends safety. He remembers the word feral being used when Eddie describe it. She didn't know he was Spider-Man. She didn't know he could fight. She would go all out to protect him. This was no place to get in a fight and he needed to keep his secret identity.

Quickly but carefully he turned to look at the man. What he saw drained all color from his face.

It was Deadpool.