I'm Not Who I Used To Be

Peter Runs Away

It had been 8 years since Peter Stark had run away. 8 years since he had seen his parents and 8 years since he had been anywhere near New York.

You would think that having Tony and Pepper Stark as your parents that everything in life would be just peachy but no.
Peter always felt like he would never be good enough, that he couldn't live up to the Stark name.
So, on the 23rd of July, he faked his kidnapping.

In hindsight, this was not a good idea. His parents were literal superheroes and would anyone hunt anyone that could be harbouring their son.
During the first few months of Peter's escape, he was hunted by his parents who thought that they were chasing his kidnapper.
Finally, after a few months on the run, Peter ran into his first smart idea in months.
Peter decided to fake his death.
It was a difficult task as he was very much against killing anyone for his gain. Eventually, he ran into a friendly ex-merc who had a certain immunity with death.
Together they set up a video of Peter's "kidnapper" (Peter) and "Peter" (Wade). With Wade's money, they hired a VFX artist that sculpted Wade's face and did the deed.

The video was sent to the Starks on an untraceable link the next day and Peter felt a great weight lift off his shoulders.
He was free.

On the 13th of November, Peter moved away to the California coast where he became a scientist interning at a small ocean life science company whilst taking online MIT classes. Although he much preferred doing engineering like his father, he felt accomplished that he was doing good in the world.

His life was good, although he never spent much time missing his parents, occasionally he would wonder what would have happened if he hadn't run away. He would always quickly shake himself out of it though, as he knew what he had done was for the best.

Peter and settled down in a small flat on the coast, as Peter was only interning he hadn't been able to afford to live in a big place but his MIT scholarship had had enough money for accommodation. He used to intern there every day from 4 pm-10 pm on weekdays and then 9 am-5 pm on the weekends. Now that he worked there, his hours were a lot more intense with minimum weekly hours needing to total 56 hours but the stress came from often having to work overtime, sometimes pushing the total up to over 70 hours.

A few months after settling in his shitty San Franciscan apartment, Wade came round to see him. Wade was a child soldier recruited by HYDRA and was only two years older than Peter. Wade would come to see Peter almost every day and a relationship began to emerge from the ashes of their faults. Wade and Peter moved in together a few months after they started officially dating. Peter chose the building. It was the tallest in the area and it made it easy for Peter to go out as Spiderman once he got bitten. When they moved in, Wade would often exclaim that the height of the building was making up for Peter's own height disadvantage.

Peter and Wade were happy for the peace they had obtained. Wade unalived people as little as possible to make Peter happy and to get by... well more than get by, they were loaded. Still, they enjoyed their work. Wade worked as a merc, 'preferring' to threaten them with or use extreme violence without death. He later stopped this and started to volunteer with SHIELD anonymously as Deadpool. When Peter found out he was scared for Wade and that SHIELD would find out about him, but he loved Wade and trusted him with his life.