Work Text
There’s something to be said for adrenaline and jealousy, is really all Frank can think. Something about getting into a fist fight with a mercenary who laughed off a fucking gunshot to the head, something about pinning the wiry little shit to the ground while he’s bleeding so profusely down his face that it’s all he can taste. Being laughed at when he told the bastard to stay down, because they both know at this point that, short of sitting on him, there was no way for Frank to make him. The little puke grabbing him around the shoulders and sitting up to kiss him, through his fucking mask.Something, maybe, about the hard press of a very large gun against the back of his head, about a growling voice telling him to stand down.And honestly, sometimes certain things just happen and you roll with them. Everything’s so fucked up about the situation already, might as well let it get weirder.Having the infamous and obviously insane mercenary wrap his arms around his shoulders and hold him to keep him from trying to stand up, having his face smashed in the repeated approximations of a kiss through that idiotic red spandex; that qualifies as one of those moments.“He’s mine, Nate, get your own murder boy! I call dibs, we had this conversation already and I know I said it was gonna be Griff from Baby Driver but that’s because we’d just watched that movie and --”“If you shoot me will it shut him up?” Frank growls, and the bastard with the gun -- Frank’s pretty sure they call him Cable, but he’s not exactly been focused on the cape and cowl crowd lately -- he grunts a sound that is somewhere between a dismissal and a laugh.“You realize he wants to kill you?” Nate or Cable or whatever the fuck he was supposed to be called said, and Frank needed a moment to register that it wasn’t him being warned, but Wilson.Really he only realizes it when Wilson huffs and flops back onto the tar paper of the roof they’re on, rag-dolling like he just can’t be bothered to move anymore. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. Frankie here only kills bad guys, which I am not being today.”And Frank feels something, not exactly unpleasant or painful but almost like a cool breeze inside his head, like someone left a window open in his brain and let in a draft; it makes him tense up and bristle like he needs to fight back. And then, as quick as it started, the sensation is gone.“Yeah, he wants to kill you,” Cable grunts, but he sounds vaguely amused now. The gun has not moved from the back of Frank’s head.“Well, then explain the shockingly generous firmness I feel pressed against mine own nubile body, Nathanial.”“It’s called a cup, you fuckin’ depraved --”Frank cuts himself off, going very still at the sudden crash against the back of his head. He can’t fully process what’s happened before he’s falling, head splitting with pain, to one side, curling reflexively into himself. He thinks, for the moment left to him in which he can think, that he’s been shot. That the asshole fucking shot him.“Damnit, Nate, that’s so rude!” he hears as his eyes close, and the start of an argument. It doesn’t matter. He wonders, briefly, if when his body is found up here, they’ll stick him in the empty grave he’s already got, or if they have to dig up a new hole. What’s funerary procedure for a man on his second… third? Death.He’s indoors when he wakes up, and his head feels like an explosion. He’s used to migraines, but this is a whole new caliber.It’s dark. There’s a television droning somewhere nearby. Someone is yammering at it, but they shut up when he opens his eyes. He tries to sit up, but that’s a mistake; his head swims and he feels an intense wave of nausea roll through him even as he lays carefully back down.Somehow, he’s in a very neat, sparse bedroom. The bed is comfortable, and he’s just been laid out on top of it, not actually covered or anything.“Oh, heeeey.”Fuck.He hadn’t even heard anyone approaching the room, but suddenly Wilson is standing there in the doorway. He’s still wearing his stupid mask, but otherwise he’s dressed in a pair of dingy sweatpants and a shirt decorated in frolicking cartoon ponies. Frank only notes this because it’s an extremely weird look.“Okay so, first off, sorry for Nate. He doesn’t like people that aren’t him trying to kill me.”Frank grunts in response to that and tries to sit back up, but Wilson approaches the bed and pushes against his shoulders. He talks the whole goddamn time.“So like, second of all -- jeeze you are just, like, solid muscle huh? Zero percent body fat, what a snacc -- second of all, I think he gave you a concussion? Maybe? When he clocked you in the head with his gun. Which is why you’re in his room, not mine, cuz that was super his fault.”A pause, Frank glowering up at the mask, while Wilson seemed to drift in his own thoughts.“Okay, also because my room is not fit for human habitation, that’s fair. Anyway, brings me to point four: there were cops coming, and I figured you would rather wake up pissed off and not arrested for trying to shoot that Nazi prick than, you know, the opposite. So you’re welcome! Also, I got your guy for you, he’s super dead, and I’m gonna buy a Pop! Figurine of you to commemorate our first collab.”“Do you ever shut up?” It makes Frank’s head hurt all the worse to actually talk, and he’s really not enjoying being loomed over by the mercenary.“Hi, Deadpool,” Wilson say, touching his own chest and extending the other hand toward Frank as if introducing himself. “Merc with a mouth, maybe you’ve heard of me? Shutting up is very off brand.”Frank looks at the hand still held toward him, like he’s still expected to shake it. The skin has the waxy, uneven texture of badly burned flesh that’s healed poorly. There are no nails on any of Wilson’s fingers, which is honestly kind of horrifying in a weird way. Hands have fingernails; not having them is just… unpleasant to think about.Wilson slowly retracts his hand and Frank looks back at his masked face.“Skin thing bothering you? Just be glad I’m keeping the mask on, that’s the real barf-fest. Gonna make it real hard to get this porn on the roll though if you’re sincerely that grossed out by the scars.”He squints up in the dark at the mercenary, trying to figure out what exactly that was supposed to mean. He really almost wished he would pass back out. Just to get away from the constant babbling.“I mean, the writer is clearly at the very least nudging us toward it. And I mean, come on, a convoluted reason for me to bring you back to the safety of Casa de Wade? Hello smutfic. With a dab of crack. Oh, fanfiction tropes, how sweet thou art. Maybe some bedsharing? Scooch over, make room.”Yeah, that’s about enough of that. Frank might be concussed, and his head might feel like it’s splitting open, but he’s really not about to let this jackass start climbing on him.When Wilson moves to try getting into the narrow bed with him, he grabs him by the throat. He puts force into it, as he sits up and shoves Wilson back, and almost immediately regrets it when the idiot groans and pushes into his hand.“Oh, absolutely! Can I call you Daddy?”How he manages to speak so clearly when Frank is clenching this hard on his neck, Frank doesn’t know. The words themselves make him squeeze harder for a second (mistake; Wilson’s hips buck forward and he whimpers like this is some fucked up foreplay) before he lets him loose. Even in the dimness of the little room, Frank can see the bruises bloom and heal almost instantly on Wilson’s throat.“I realize now that calling you Daddy, given your man-pain backstory, might have been in poor taste.”“Please shut up.”Wilson almost sounds apologetic when he says, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.”Frank glares at him and he puts his hands up like he’s placating him, and steps back when Frank starts to swing out of the bed.“Okay so, like… probably letting you leave is, like, medically inadvisable, and also like, contrary to the spirit of the fic tropes we’re in right now, but I’m going to just say you owe me one and let this happen.”“I owe you one?” Frank growls, shoving past Wilson and out into the hall. Wilson follows, unbothered.“Well, I did kill your guy, clean up your gun, stash it so it wouldn’t get collected as evidence, and convince Robocop to bring you back here with us, so yeah. You owe me at least one.”Frank grits his teeth against the urge to snap at the masked idiot. The fact that none of that would have been necessary if it weren’t for Wilson getting in his way to begin with simmers in his chest and very nearly needs to be said, but he stops himself. He’s not going to argue; he’s just going to leave . “Fine,” he growls, hand on the door.He can hear Wilson clap softly in delight at the acquiescence. “See you around then, Frankie! Remember: favor! You owe me!”There have probably been worse things Frank has had said to him in life, more threatening things. Right that moment, stepping out into the corridor of a strange apartment building and heading for the stairs, Frank can’t think of a single example. His head hurts too much.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Frank knows immediately that there’s someone in his apartment. He doesn’t need superpowers to tell him that because (suck it Red) he’s got eyes that work and his lock is scratched to hell and back.
Scowling, he pushes at the door, pocketing his key, and it opens without much force. Just swings open, like the jackass who picked it didn’t even bother latch it all the way. Stepping into the apartment, he reaches for the gun he’d have holstered at the small of his back if he weren’t coming home from work just now. There is, of course, nothing there, and he feels a little like an asshole for going for it when the weight isn’t even there, but it’s reflex.
“Oh, honey! You’re home!”
The man that comes out of his kitchenette, grinning, is wearing huge sunglasses and a baseball cap, the hood of his oversized sweatshirt pulled up over the hat. The lights are out in the apartment still, but it’s 3:30 in the afternoon and Frank’s lucky enough to have a decent sized window in his living room, whether it opens on an alley or not. It’s plenty bright enough to see the scarring that breaks across his flesh, his uneven teeth on full display as he grins.
“You know, that’s a good fucking way to get shot,” he grumbles, shaking his head. Given that he’s dressed in civvies just hanging around Frank’s apartment, Frank assumes Wilson is here to cash in his favor, not fight. “What d’you want?”
“Straight to the point. Great, love it. So look, how do you feel about a free blowjob?”
Frank sighs through his nose, hands on his hips and jaw set. “Why?”
“Because I’m good at it and because it’s free.”
“No.” Frank is focused on remaining patient. He’s not going to fuck up his apartment because this idiot is dead set on pissing him off. “Why are you
asking me
?”
Wilson steps toward him, and while he wants to keep as much distance between himself and the mercenary as possible, he refuses to back up. Wilson’s grin is wolfish, pointed and predatory, and even with those stupid sunglasses on Frank can feel the look that crawls over his form as Wilson takes him in. “Because you’re home alone on a Friday night and that’s sad. And cuz you owe me a favor, right?”
Narrowing his eyes and scowling, Frank does his best to focus on his breathing, on keeping his heart beat even, the little things Curt has tried to teach him to mitigate anger before it became overwhelming. He’s not particularly good at it. “Not that kinda favor, I don’t.”
“You prefer, what, backbreaking labor? Fuck, man, I thought Daredevil was the self-flaggelating Catholic.”
Frank can feel his trigger finger twitch, but it’s better, he supposes, than his hands curling into fists. He scowls when Wilson laughs.
“Frank, come on. As a favor to me,
please
let me suck your dick.”
The idea of allowing himself to get into any kind of compromised position with this guy just sounds Wrong, on a basic and fundamental level. Wilson could very easily be the kind of guy who uses sex as a lure, a way to get the guard down. Frank would rather not die in some kind of post-coital surprise attack. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Throwing his hands up and spinning away on his heel, Wilson paces away, for all the world behaving as if Frank were the one behaving unreasonably. “How do you walk so calmly with a stick that big up you ass?” He asks, sounding incredulous. “I swear to God, to
whatever matters
that there’s no trick here. I
just
wanna suck your dick. Why is that such a big deal?!”
Agitated, Wilson is a lot like a cat. He’s noisy and he knocks things off the counter in a series of abrupt gestures; nothing breakable, thank Christ, but the AeroPress and several stir sticks can evidently eat shit.
Enough.
“If you’re gonna act like a fuckin’ child, would you do it somewhere else?”
When Wilson stalks back toward him, mouth set in a pissy thin line, Frank reacts in what he assumes is a predictable manner. He punches him, hard, feeling the satisfying snap of the bridge of those sunglasses snap against his knuckles, and Wilson reels back, hands flying up on reflex to clasp his bloody nose. His glasses fall to the floor, and they will remain there until Frank kicks one half in passing and remembers to pick them up and throw them away, long after Wilson has left.
“Fine,” he snaps, blood dribbling through his fingers. “But you still owe me, Frank. I’m gonna cash in.”
And again, Frank is sure more ominous things have been shouted at him, but it’s still awful hard to think of a single example.
He considers, slamming the deadbolt home after Wilson stomps out, putting in a request for a better lock. In the end, he decides not to bother, because Wilson seems like the type to escalate if Frank shows any sign of being bothered by him.
-*-
Wilson starts showing up, nights when Frank is out running around in body armor and shooting murders, kidnappers, human traffickers; people worse than he is. Wilson doesn’t try to get in his way, or distract him; sometimes he makes himself useful, if there’s a fight to be had, but mostly he just talks.
Frank doesn’t know what to make of him. He reminds him at first, gut-punch response, of Bill. It’s an easy parallel to draw; the extroversion, the willingness to chatter, the teeth bared in a grin that promised laughter and violence in equal measure.
And the thing is, Frank has fallen for that particular trap once already. Just like with Billy, it would be easy to fall into a sort of tense camaraderie, the sort that bleeds into friendship, when one buys into the bullshit anecdotes and idle self-deprecation, the easy violence and cutting wit. Where once he would have slowly but almost certainly relaxed into comfort around that behavior, now it sets his teeth on edge. He can think only of Bill’s shark-like grin and his daughter’s screams, the raw meat where once her face had been. Bill may not have pulled the trigger, but he’d known the gun was being aimed. He’d approved.
Setting up a shot, Frank can’t do much more than tell Wilson to shut up, while Wilson lounges around and banters. Frank frowns and does his best to ignore him, and sometimes he succeeds. Some nights though, when it’s just them alone on a roof, Frank finds himself actually listening. There are a few moments where he’s got his face ducked to keep track of a mark through the scope, where he allows himself to smile.
Wilson is willing to talk about anything, and he switches track without any traceable or predictable logic or reason. He’ll change subjects like flipping a damn radio station if Frank says to talk about something else -- he doesn’t comment on Frank’s acknowledgement, he just does as asked, and that sort of nonchalant accommodation makes Frank think more of Lieberman than Bill; something that makes him, if anything, more uneasy.
He starts to be able to pick up on Wilson’s moods, surprised in a dull way to realize that the ever-present snarky humor is as much a mask as that stupid red and black thing. He is as much a developed person as anyone, which shouldn’t be news but sort of is. And as much as he tries to smother everything in a dumbass gag or joke, it’s not long before Frank is forced to accept two facts into his awareness of this man.
The first is that Wilson is, while obnoxious and mouthy and very violent, not a bad guy. He’s impulsive and can be motivated by money, and he’s perfectly willing to kill or maim people if there’s a paycheck in it, he’s no more morally dim than Frank himself. So hating him on the principle of his being talking scum is sort of out.
Second, and by far a more worrying realization: Wilson is lonely.
This fact occurs to him when Wilson starts blathering on about the networks (plural, Jesus Christ) of super powered contacts he has; heroes and villains he’s worked for, with, and against. When Frank asks (against his better judgement) why the masked asshole doesn’t go bother one of them, Wilson laughs in a way that flirts hideously between actually amused and incredibly pained.
“Yeah, I’m sorta on the outs with, uh, pretty much everyone lately?” He says, and Frank doesn’t need to look away from the shot he’s setting to know Wilson’s shrugged himself up like he’s trying to make himself smaller. “Why, you getting tired of my dulcet tones, Frankie?”
“Been tired of them since day one.”
“Ow! Straight through the
heart
, that’s so cold!” He can hear Wilson flop back on the rooftop, probably clutching his chest as he goes into theatrics. “What happened to our burgeoning friendship? We were bonding, Frank, I could
feel
it! Oo, hang up your rifle, you’ve already taken one life tonight.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You’re a monster, Mr. Castle. No wonder your aim is so steady, you don’t have to worry about shit like breathing or your heart beat. You’ve got ice in your veins. You’re --”
“New topic, Wilson.”
“You ever think about Daredevil’s ass? Like that is the
definition
of bubble butt. Look the term up on urban dictionary it’s just a grainy photo of that red-leather booty going straight at the camera.”
“Christ,” Frank says, but he’s laughing; he can’t help it.
“I’m jealous, frankly. I mean the parkour bullshit aside, he must be getting offers like
constantly
.”
“Choir Boy’s Catholic,” Frank intones, tracking his mark now as the man finally moves from a car toward the docks. “Not like he’s using his ass for anything.”
Wilson’s laughter is so loud it almost masks the sound of the gun going off. He laughs like a man desperate for someone to joke with, and Frank’s not that guy, he’s really not, but it’s weird, the way you can fall into a role for someone without meaning to.
-*-
Twice more, Wilson breaks into his apartment, but never while Frank is home and he never sticks around to talk to Frank again. Evidently talking to Frank is now restricted to times when Frank’s hands are too busy with a gun to deck him.
The first time, he leaves a note. “You owe me new sunglasses.” It says, signed with a doodle that is fairly recognizable as a simplification of Wilson’s mask. This he finds on his counter by the AeroPress and a dirty coffee mug that’s not one of his. He waffles between throwing the strange mug away and just washing it and ends up with it on his dishrack, where it sits, strangely accusatory among his few other dishes.
He buys a pair of cheap aviators and carries them in the pocket of his coat, tossing them to Wilson the next time he shows up on a rooftop to talk Frank’s ear off. Frank considers saying something about the mug, maybe telling Wilson not to leave his shit around Frank’s apartment, but there’s no way of mentioning it that doesn’t sound like an invitation to keep breaking in.
Sometime after that, he comes home from work and finds a baseball cap with the Punisher skull embroidered on it, a bottle of beer that’s well on its way to being warm, and a note that said “thought of you! Do you get royalties cuz I don’t.”
The hat gets thrown in the closet and will likely never be worn, but the beer he ends up drinking with dinner that night, and it’s surprisingly good.
David, when Frank mentions the break-ins, suggests he moves. He says it with that weird smile that says he’s joking but not, and looks a lot more concerned than Frank thinks he has any reason to. He scoffs at the idea, saying Lieberman would tell him to move if he was having a spider problem, and David nods. “If the spider you’re talking about was large, murderous, and refused to die, fuck yeah I’d be telling you to move.”
And Frank sees his point, really, but David doesn’t have the whole picture. Frank’s not going to explain that Wilson is pretty much harmless, no more than he’s going to explain that Wilson’s initial break-in was accompanied by a sexual proposition, but he’ll do David the favor of not complaining about the intrusions again.
-*-
He wakes up one night to the sound of his window being pried open. He’s out of bed, pistol in hand, when a body thumps onto his floor, and he recognizes Wilson’s cursing immediately.
With the light flipped on, he’s treated to the sight of the mercenary in full dumbass getup crumpled on the floor by the open window. At first he can’t make sense of the angle Wilson’s left arm seems to be pinned at (he’s, admittedly, a little distracted by all the blood) and then he realizes he can’t make sense of it because the arm has been separated from Wilson’s body about midway up from his elbow.
Hence, he supposes, all the blood.
“Do you have any duct tape?” Wilson asks by way of greeting, pulling himself up slowly. Frank sighs, cursing under his breath, and sets his gun on the end of his bed.
He could kick Wilson out. Wilson is in no position to really fight, judging by the tender way he’s limping when Frank gets an arm around him and helps him into the bathroom. Instead, he goes for his first aid kit and, after some hesitation, the tool kit that has his duct tape in it. He helps Wilson peel that ridiculous suit off to the waist and they essentially skin the severed arm like a banana to free it from the leather, and he duct tapes it back to where it belongs while Wilson holds it in place.
It’s not a pretty process and Wilson curses and complains the whole time, but it’s done soon enough. Easier, and faster, according to Wilson, than waiting for the limb to grow back.
When he asks what happened, Wilson shrugs. “Real bad guy with a real big knife. Super dead now. Sorry to wake you, but you were closer than home and Nate’s a bitch about blood on the carpet.”
“Generally, so am I.”
“You have hardwood.”
Wilson stretches out in the tub and seems to relax, and Frank can’t really argue. “I should make you mop that shit up,” he grumbles, sitting on the ledge of the tub, and smiles a little when Wilson shushes him.
“I’m healing. Don’t talk about chores. Shh.”
Frank ends up mopping the floors (and the walls, and windowsill). Wilson sleeps in the tub.
-*-
He’s gone when Frank goes to work the next day.
-*-
Really, Frank should expect it when Wilson shows up a week later with a six pack of beer and a bag that smells like Chinese food. Surprisingly, it proves to be full of cartons of unopened Chinese food, rather than the garbage Frank expected to find when it was shoved at him.
They do not mention Frank taping Wilson’s arm on, or Wilson spending the night. They drink and eat and Wilson talks about pretty much everything else under the sun. Somehow, and maybe it’s unavoidable, the subject of dead wives comes up.
“Me ‘n Ness weren’t
actually
married yet. But like, it was gonna happen. She wanted to have kids, whole nine yards.”
Wilson only shuts up when his mouth is full, and sometimes not even then. Frank tries to let the words roll off him, but sometimes it’s very difficult.
“Used to be, for a while, if I died, then I could talk to her. Like, just for a few minutes, and she was always
super
cryptic, which, I guess, fair. Like, if you’re dead, you might as well have fun with it.” Wilson smiles, like talking about getting killed so he could talk to his girl is a fond memory. Maybe it is. “Anyway, it doesn’t work anymore. Now it’s like, I dunno, turning off for a minute. Kinda sucks, but whatever.”
Frank does not think about seeing Maria in the dark, between bouts of agony while Rawlins had him tied to that chair. He does not think about her asking him to come home, or how easily he could have taken her offered hand and gone with her. He doesn’t think about how he’d flat-lined twice, once in a hospital and once on that basement floor before Lieberman got to him, and he certainly doesn’t think about telling Maria he was already home, watching her leave him to the war he’d never be able to set aside.
“I think the dead just want us to be happy, if they want anything.”
“Are you?” Frank asks, surprising himself just as much as Wilson. “Happy?”
Wilson’s smile is twisted up and bitter. “Fuck no. But like, I try to be.”
They finish eating in silence, and Wilson complains about there being no television, and when he leaves, Frank considers telling him to take that mug with him, which still sits in his dish rack. He doesn’t, though, and Frank finds himself staring at it for a long time before he gets up to get ready for bed.
-*-
Frank gets migraines, and when he calls into work two days in a row with one he can’t shake, he is so frustrated that he almost answers the quiet knock on his door with a gun. Wilson stands in the hallway grinning and holding up a his hands like he knows, and Frank scowls as he steps aside to let him in.
“I was worried I didn’t see you skulking around that construction site. Big man with a heavy hammer, it’s fun to watch.”
Frank grunts and puts on water to make coffee. Wilson seems to take the hint and sets out two mugs -- the one he’s left here and one of Frank’s from the cupboard. He stands too close and Frank glares at him and he takes the press and starts putting grounds into it.
“You sick?”
“Migraine,” Frank grudgingly admits, and Wilson nods sagely.
“That’ll be the PBI. You know coffee can make it worse?”
The glare Frank levels at him is met with a smile, and Wilson takes it upon himself to do up the coffee the rest of the way on his own.
He babbles while they sit on the couch, but he keeps his voice soft and calm. Frank is halfway through his coffee before he asks what Wilson is here for, and feels almost bad when Wilson blinks like he hadn’t realized he needed a reason.
“Nate took off last month on some dumb political no-kill thing, so. I dunno. The apartment is weird when I’m alone and also maybe blew a fuse because the electricity is not working.”
I’m lonely and you put up with me
is the obvious translation, and Frank sighs, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
Wilson is quiet for a moment. Just a moment.
“Massages help with migraines.”
“No.”
“Acupuncture?”
“New topic, Wilson.”
“Orgasm, I’ve found is absolutely the best migraine relief.”
“Are you seriously still on about that shit?”
Wilson laughs -- but he laughs quietly, mindful of Frank’s pain. It’s weirdly considerate, and Frank isn’t sure how to feel about it. “You’re like one of the most stupidly hot people in the biz and you laugh at my dumb jokes and actually talk back sometimes. Yeah, definitely still on about that, Mr. Zero Percent Body Fat.”
Sighing, Frank tries to sort out, mentally, how they’d come so far and yet gone nowhere at all. And when, exactly, he’d stopped being bothered by the idea that Wilson wanted in his pants and more just decided to be tired about it.
“And, you know, you didn’t puke when you saw my face, so that was a plus too.”
Frank, who had essentially erased a former friends face against a broken mirror with his own hands, who had stared at the glittering remnants, the torn and flapping flesh, the exposed bone and raw musculature, looked at Wilson and wonders exactly what he was supposed to find so repulsive.
He realizes, right about then, migraine pounding and body begging for sleep, that he’s somehow gotten himself fucked without ever getting in bed with anyone.
Ah, shit
.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This isn’t the weirdest thing Frank’s done, probably.Surely, at some point there’s been something stupider, stranger, and/or more impulsive than this. Though, honestly, can he really attribute any of this to impulsiveness anymore when it’s been brewing for weeks?It’s certainly not something he planned for though. Frank’s not really the sort to throw caution to the wind. He does his best, in fact, to keep himself under rigorous check, because it has proven true again and again that it was when he allowed himself to lean into impulse that he got himself into the most shit.“God,” he says, sitting there while Wilson stares at him with something between hope and anxiety. He closes his eyes, breathes a few deep, slow breaths, and tries to settle himself into what he’s gotten himself into. “I’m not doing this while I’ve got a fucking migraine, Wilson.”“Doing what, exactly, and is that implying that ‘this’ would, in a non-migraine situation, be acceptable?” Wilson asks, immediately spoiling any play at innocence there might have been by tacking on, all in a rush, “Please say it’s sex.”Another deep breath, slow exhale. Frank can feel nausea blooming low in his stomach, the pain in his head blinding. His face hurts, his eyes feel like stones pressed into his head, and he’s having a fucking rational conversation about sex with Wade Wilson. This is happening.Fine, then let it happen.“Sex. It’s not happening like this.” Frank grunts, turning his head against the back of the couch -- the roll of pressure feels kind of good, so there’s an unexpected win to the day. “I feel like shit. It’s not gonna happen.”Wilson grins at him, a little teasing but mostly a giddy sort of hope that’s, situationally, a little sad. “I mean, if you let me suck you--”“No,” Frank growls, and Wilson mercifully drops that particular thought.Then, a moment later, “So when you don’t have a migraine…?”Frank just sighs, staring at his ceiling. The coffee is playing hell on his stomach, and he’s thinking maybe Wilson jinxed him after all with that comment about caffeine. But he nods, almost reluctant. Who the hell knows, he thinks, listening to Wilson start babbling about condoms and flavored lube, maybe it’ll even be fun. -*-As far as Frank’s concerned, you say it flat out when you plan to have sex with another person. You make it clear, reasonably explicit, and if there’s a conversation to be had about preferences and wants, you have that discussion, fully clothed and maturely as possible, beforehand.It would absolutely never occur to him, weeks later -- the topic so thoroughly dropped between that day and this -- that Wilson inviting him over the day before Thanksgiving would have anything to do with sex, because Wilson just says, “There’s beer there, and an actual working TV, so like, you know, sit around your shithole in silence or luxuriate with me in mine, but I’m definitely going where there’s television.”It’s actually so completely devoid of innuendo that Frank should have been suspicious, come to that.Anyway, he’s utterly unprepared to, upon knocking on Wilson's apartment door and having it unlatch and swing open. He steps inside, apprehensive on principle, tensed against his desire to reach for his gun, and walks in on Wilson sitting in his roommate’s lap, hand definitely in the other man’s trousers, both of them utterly focused on each other in a way that somehow reads as performative as well as passionate. Metal fingers bite so deeply into Wilson’s neck Frank thinks it has to hurt, and the whole scene is so bizarrely alluring and Frank is so utterly unprepared, that all he can do is turn around and head toward the door, hoping furiously that the semi he’s sporting will die before he hits the street.He hears Wilson call his name as he’s leaving the apartment, and then the thunk of a body hitting the floor. He’s halfway to the stairs before the roommate catches up to him, looking both stern and tired.“He didn’t tell you what he wanted,” the guy says, and Frank wants to keep walking but he doesn’t. He really couldn’t say what keeps him there, much less why he turns back to face Cable. He just does it. Cable stares at him, assessing; his eyes are narrow, like he’s trying to make up his mind about something, and then he says, “Look, if you’re gonna walk out on this, that’s your prerogative, but this is like… I don’t know, Christmas to him. And he’s gonna keep gaming for it, unless you start trying to kill him. Even then, you know, he likes you, so, good luck.”“You got a point here?”The words come a little more irritable that Frank intends, but Cable hardly seems to care. Frank wonders if the bastard is picking around in his head -- Wilson had clarified that it was a thing Cable did -- because there’s a little smirk pulling at the man’s lips, and Frank doesn’t like it.“Point is, Wade wants this, and it’s pretty clear you do too. So if you want to keep up the self-denial thing, go for it -- no skin off my back. But you’re upsetting him for no fucking reason.”Frank scowls, and Cable returns with this tight, mean little smile. “I didn’t ask to be dragged into whatever the fuck you two got going on.”“Yeah, but you ain’t so slick, either. So you need an invitation, this is it: you’re invited. Call it paying back a favour owed or whatever you want to.”Part of Frank -- a significant enough part that it almost feels like the right option -- wants to keep walking. He’s definitely not worried about that weird arousal anymore, and it would be nothing -- nothing -- to go home and pretend this hadn’t happened.He finds himself falling into step behind Cable instead, stepping into the apartment and hearing the door lock behind him as soon as it latches.Wilson is sitting on the couch with his knees drawn up when they come in, huddled on himself like he’s upset before he suddenly brightens, eyes locked on Frank in a way that makes Frank vaguely uneasy. There’s a lot of conclusions being jumped to in that look, and Frank hasn’t even taken off his coat.Pushing up from the couch in a movement that’s extremely fluid for a man so often graceless, Wilson brushes past Cable and steps into Frank’s space. He’s grinning, eyes bright and focused as he reaches slowly for the zipper at Frank’s throat. Frank, uncertain what else to do, lifts his head and lets it happen. Wilson insinuates his hands between Frank’s shirt and the coat, sliding it down his arms much too slowly. He laughs when Frank shrugs him off and jerks the jacket off, holding it awkwardly in one fist.He just about drops it when Wilson shoves in close, pressing their mouths together in an off center sort of kiss. Strong, broad hands skate from his shoulders down his chest, and there’s really no sugar coating the fact that he’s being felt up by an insane mercenary.Like on the rooftop that first night, when Wilson had, mask on, clutched onto him and kissed him again and again, Frank has one of those world-turning sorts of moments. Everything in his world is already so fucked up; really, what did it matter if he went ahead with this.Then Wilson’s hands are up his shirt, hot and dry against his chest, clutching at his pecs as he leans away, grinning. “Big titty boy,” he says, really almost rather coos. “God, I love a big titty boy.”“Do you have to make this weird?” Frank asks, and really Cable’s laugh should tell him all he needs to know on the subject.Really, it’s bound to be weird. Wilson is absolutely lost in feeling as much of Frank as he can get to with his shirt in the way. He feels over scars and half-healed bruises (when Frank flinches at the press of a hand against a mark on his ribs, Wilson digs his fingers in, deliberate and hungry), then pushes the shirt up as far as he can, trying to tug it up off over Frank’s head before he can lift his arms.He huffs and pulls back, away from Wilson’s greedy hands, dropping his coat and pulling his shirt off. Wilson stands back and actually claps his hands when the shirt ends up on the floor too. “Be still my beating heart, I think I straight up died just now, and I’m not talking a little death either, though for sure I’m definitely getting hard. Is that weird -- Nate, is that weird? Like, he’s definitely boner-worthy, right?”“Christ,” Frank grumbles, feeling distinctly objectified even as he moves forward, grabbing Wilson by the sides of his face and dragging him into a hard, impulsive kiss. It has the desired effect of shutting the merc up totally, so he’s humming verblessly, hands fluttering against Frank’s shoulders before clinging, like he needs something to hold on to. His mouth is hot, and when he shoves himself against Frank, pushing his tongue into his mouth, it feels more than a little desperate, like Wade’s been after this for a long time.Really, Frank should just accept that that’s the case and mentally move on, but it’s weird. All the talking, all the seeking him out, the weird late night arm-reattachment -- how much of that was just Wilson breaking himself against the walls Frank has up, looking for a way in? It’s hard to think of Wilson as having his shit together enough to pull any kind of long con but --He hisses, the sound sharp and undignified, when Wilson grips his hair and yanks at it. Immediately, he has Wilson by the wrist, twisting his hand sharply against its intend rotation. “Don’t fuckin’ do that,” he growls, but the effect is a little spoiled by the way Wilson arches against him, utterly thrilled by the rough treatment. On impulse, he twists a little harder, until Wilson openly moans, and Frank bares his teeth in a sharp little grin.“That what does it for you, huh?”Wilson’s dick is hard against Frank’s thigh and the wiry little shit writhes against him as he squeezes, as he twists just to the limit of breaking. He’s not cruel, he doesn’t hurt people for fun, but it’s sort of another matter when the effect of pain is so obviously pleasant to the recipient.“You like it rough? I can give you rough, but you don’t fuckin’ yank on me, got that?”Nodding furiously, hips hard against Frank’s, Wilson makes quite a picture. His face -- and Frank can see, this close up, where Wilson might once have been classically handsome, but he still finds it hard to see what Wilson means about being so hideous with the scarring -- is all naked desire, eager hunger, twisted up and so close to bliss you’d think he was on the edge of orgasm from having his arm sprained.“If you snap his wrist, he’ll come in his pants and you’ll never get rid of him,” Cable says, and he sounds like he’s speaking from experience. “Dumbass likes the strength, it’s not really a pain thing. Is it, Wade?”Wade shakes his head, eyes locked on where Frank’s fingers were wrapped around his arm. “I mean, pain is a thing, for sure but yeah -- rough, I like it rough, god I’m close and you’re both way too well dressed for this.”He digs his fingers eagerly into the waistband of Frank’s jeans with his free hand, and the groan he makes when Frank shoves him back onto the couch is a beautiful thing.Frank knows, in a dim and foggy sort of way, that none of this is supposed to be something he wants. It’s not the sort of thing he does -- not just sex, which he hasn’t given much thought for since his wife was killed, but all the rest of this too, the teasing, the fun. If anything, this is repayment in some debased way for a favor he never asked to receive. That’s it, that’s all.Except it’s not, and he knows that too. He does want it and he is enjoying it, and he’s too caught up in it to remember to feel guilty about any of the usual bullshit. Even if everything between Wilson’s initial proposition and this moment was some kind of con, Frank utterly does not give a shit in the moment. He’s as touch starved and hard up as the next guy, and maybe Wilson had a good point about at least trying for happy.“What d’you want, Wilson,” Frank asks, holding the merc down, and it’s weird, knowing for once that his strength isn’t really the force holding Wilson down -- that Wilson is letting him have control. “Cause I’ll tell you, seems like what you want is your boyfriend and me to fuck you, yeah? Shut you up for a little bit, find a way to make you useful?”“Split me like a goddamn wishbone, yeah.”Wilson sounds giddy at the prospect and Cable, moving closer to the couch, is unsubtle in his own enjoyment, palming himself through his fatigues. Frank allows himself to smile, twists it to make the expression more a sneer, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Wilson likes. And really, this is about Wilson, however else it shakes out. Cable and Frank, they’re just indulging him, whether they get off on it or not.It’s perfectly natural, manhandling Wilson where he wants him. He gets the impression that Cable is used to command, but he’s a team player in this; they strip Wilson down, barely exchanging a word, and they end up arranged on the couch so Frank’s sitting with Wilson’s head in his lap, the rest of Wilson bent over the arm of the couch, ass in the air.Frank falls into an easy rhythm. Wilson has no hair to pull, but he seems to love being slapped around a little, and Frank can do that. Not his kink, but he can accommodate; it’s an easy act and Wilson’s enthusiasm for it is worth it. He grinds Wilson’s face into his thigh, feeling his mouth work at the hardness of his crotch through his jeans, when Wilson complains about them being too gentle; he watches the tremors chase over his mottled flesh as Cable fingers him, listens to his smothered, obscene noises as he drools against Frank’s thigh. When he yanks Wilson up by the back of his neck, fishing his cock out with his other hand, it doesn’t really surprise him to see that at least half of what he’d assumed was drool is blood, burst from Wilson’s nose from the force with which Frank had shoved his face into his leg.Weird that, between the three of them, Frank’s going to be the one walking away with bruises. He can feel the one blooming on his leg, deep and tender, and shivers hard when Wilson braces his palm against the bruise, twists, and gets his mouth on Frank’s cock.And Wilson, eager and noisy, swallows Frank’s dick like he was made for it. He only sounds approving when Frank shoves him down further, harder, making him take more. Everytime Cable thrusts in, and he’s working Wilson hard, Wilson jerks forward, against Frank, and Frank feels the head of his cock press hard against the back of Wilson’s throat. Wilson doesn’t even gag after the first time, he just takes it.Frank tries to be considerate, he really does. As soon as that tell-tale tension stars coiling in him, he tries to shove Wilson off. Wilson just makes this ugly, choked sound of displeasure and refuses to budge. Frank’s not stupid. He gets the message. Wilson swallows as he comes, drinking him down like he needs it to survive.He’s a little irritated with himself, after, Wilson letting loose of his cock and moaning as Cable continues slamming into him, for not having paid enough attention to know if Wilson got off or not. It’s clear enough, a minute or so after Frank finishes, that Cable does; he clenches so hard at Wilson’s hips that the skin under his fingers turns an awful muddied purple, and Wilson utters this perfectly wrecked noise as he pulls away.Frank doesn’t push Wilson, doesn’t nudge him, doesn’t even tell him to move, but while Cable is tucking himself away and straightening his clothes, Wade pitches himself off the couch and onto the floor, curling in on himself and seeming to immediately start drifting to sleep. Frank, isn’t exactly sure what to make of it, any more than he’s sure what he’s expected to do now.He watches Cable scoop Wilson up, cradling a man who's almost a full foot taller than him with the same care and ease he might have shown a child, and cart him off toward the bedrooms.“Don’t move,” Cable says, and Frank’s less disturbed than he’d have thought he’d be to realize he couldn’t tell if the voice was audible or not.-*-While Wilson sleeps, Cable gives Frank a beer and, of all things, thanks him. For his ‘handling’ of the ‘situation’.Frank doesn’t know if this is standard procedure for conversing with someone who just fucked your significant other into a stupor. He’s never been in that position. Or, honestly, the one he’s in now.“Wade won’t stop flirting, and he will leap at the smallest sign of interest from you, but he won’t try and call it a favor anymore. You’re off the hook as far as that goes, not that you were ever obligated.”He drinks his beer and nods and keeps his shit to himself. It’s the least he can do.“Of course, now would be the perfect time to discuss the favor you owe me.”