Chapter Text
This is Where it Starts
“Nice of you to dress up for the occasion,” Stark says, his mouth twisted in a grimace as he looks Peter’s suit up and down. “You dig that out of your old man’s closet?”
Peter can admit, the suit isn’t the most fashionable of men’s wear. In fact, it was already out of fashion when he found it at the thrift store seven years ago and he hasn’t had the time to sew patches over where the brown fabric has faded to tan on the elbows, but it’s the only suit he owns and he couldn’t show up to a wedding in nothing but his Spidey suit.
“You don’t like it? I picked out the tie special for your big day.” He smooths a red-gloved hand down his chest and bites back a grin at Stark’s puckered expression. In reality he’s owned the gold tie with the little Iron Man helmets on it for far longer than he’ll ever admit and he couldn’t waste the opportunity to flaunt it in front of the tin man himself.
Stark hums in the back of his throat and gulps a mouthful of champagne. “Well this has been fun. Remind me to set up an appointment with my guy to get you a real suit. We can upgrade your spandex while we’re at it.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“We’ll see. Where’s my wife?” He scans the room and his whole demeanor softens as he spots Pepper. His lips curl into an unconscious smile as his feet carry him toward her like he’s being pulled by a magnet. “Take it easy, kid,” he calls over his shoulder. “Stay away from the bar. You know I don’t condone underage drinking.”
“That joke went stale half a decade ago,” Peter yells after him but he’s pretty sure it’s lost under the dull roar of dozens of conversations and the whine of the string quartet set up next to the stage. It doesn’t matter that he’s rapidly approaching 30. Tony, like most of the Avengers, refuses to accept that he’s a full-grown adult now. That’s the drawback of having been on the superhero scene since he was a squeaky little 15-year old swinging around the city in a ratty homemade suit.
He considers going to the bar and getting shit-faced out of spite but it’s so much work to get drunk and he doesn’t want to stay much longer anyway. He has to work in the morning and he’s been pushing his luck lately with Jameson. He can’t afford to show up hungover.
Not for the first time he quietly curses Tony. Only the filthy rich would see no issue with getting married on a Tuesday. Actually, he’s pretty sure it’s some kind of power play. If not for Pepper, he’d have had no qualms laughing in Tony’s face and ignoring the invitation entirely but Pepper was the one who cornered him after a team up and she personally handed him his invitation. She’d spouted off some PR reasonings about it helping his perpetually spiraling vigilante rep to be seen bumping elbows with the Avengers in a social setting but she also smiled and touched his elbow and told him she’d love to see him there.
He talks a big game, but he resigned himself to attending the moment he pinched the cardstock between in his fingers. It takes a stronger man than he to deny Virginia Potts.
Potts-Stark, he reminds himself. He supposes he’ll have to get used to that.
He glances over at the couple in question and grimaces. In typical soulmate fashion, they’re forehead to forehead on the dance floor, lost in their own little world despite the gobs of people surrounding them. It took them longer than most to work their way to this moment. They’ve known for at least a decade that they’re soulmates but Pepper refused to date him until Tony cleaned up his act and cut back on first, the drinking and partying and second, the suicide missions.
Her refusal to budge seems to have finally paid off. They look radiant and he doesn’t mean the designer wedding dress and tux.
Happy. They look happy.
Ugh, maybe the bar isn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Hey, Spidey!”
He turns and finds Scarlet Witch—Wanda, as she keeps asking him to call her—waving at him from a table on the edge of the dance floor. Val and Franklin Richards, Cassie Lang, and the Barton kids are all at the table with her, laughing and looking effortlessly glamorous in their Sunday best.
“Come sit with us!” Wanda shouts to him.
He waves back and pretends he can’t hear her as he books it towards the bar. Does she know he has enhanced senses? Probably not? Most supers don’t seem to realize the full extent of his abilities and he’s not in a hurry to clue them in. The more they learn about him, the more they expect him to get… chummy. Not that he has anything against them but he has a secret identity to maintain and there’s no reason to make it harder by making friends with people who can only ever know half of him.
Not to mention, the last thing he needs is be caught at the kid table. He’s an adult, dammit. Exempting Wanda, they’re the children of other heroes so they’re always going to be thought of as “the kids”, a title he’s been desperately trying to shuck for the past decade. It also doesn’t help that they all have soulmates. Watching the ink appear on their skin as their special someone writes them little notes across their forearm or doodles across their palms always puts him in a sour mood. It’s fine when they’re all suited up fighting baddies, but at events like this when showing off your ink is basically part of the dress code? Well, let’s just say his secret identity isn’t the only reason he likes being fully covered.
No sooner has he sat at the bar than a glass of lemonade is set in front of him, complete with a bendy straw and a little pink umbrella.
“Uhh, I didn’t order this,” he tells the bartender, a balding man with dark ink swirling up his forearms and disappearing under the sleeves of his black t-shirt. Idly, he wonders if they’re his tattoos or his soulmate’s. Or maybe he doesn’t have a soulmate so he got his own ink to make up for it.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered doing the same. Then maybe his perpetually blank skin wouldn’t get so many pitying stares.
“Stark’s orders,” the bartender says without looking at him as he starts mixing another drink. “Unless you show ID, you’re on the lemonade diet.”
Of fucking course. Trust Tony to think he’s hilarious and block him from getting wasted. In hindsight, he probably made the comment about underage drinking because he knew it’d drive him straight into his private little joke. He glares at the lemonade.
The song ends and everyone claps politely as the quartet sets aside their instruments and Tony steps onto the stage, microphone in hand. Oh no. Is it time for the speeches already? People drift towards the stage while Tony greets the room with an off-color joke just this side of unoffensive in true Tony Stark fashion.
He hates the speeches. He hates the lovesick looks the couples always share. He hates the mushy getting-together stories. He hates the inside jokes. He hates weddings.
He stands. He did what he came to do. Appearance made. Congratulations given. He doesn’t need to stick around for this.
He leaves the lemonade on the bar but plucks out the little umbrella and tucks it into his breast pocket because he’s man enough to admit it’s cute as hell.
~*~
He collapses onto the couch—sans party suit but still wrapped in spandex—and stretches his arms across the back. His head drops back with a relieved sigh, mask dangling from his fingertips while he rolls the little pink umbrella between the finger and thumb of his other hand.
Home sweet home. No speeches, no annoying socialites, no lovey-dovey couples. Just him and his thoughts.
The mildew smell from the bathroom wafts over him as the clock in the kitchen marks each passing second. Next door, his neighbor slams a door and yells something about a parking ticket. One floor up, a toilet flushes. It clogged. He can tell. Don’t ask.
Staring up at the Obama-shaped water stain on the ceiling, he gives it another ten ticks before he sighs and tosses the little umbrella on the coffee table. In the same motion, he yanks his mask over his head.
“Make sure the roaches don’t overrun the place while I’m out, Mr. President,” he says, then wrenches open the window and leaps into the stagnant summer heat.
~*~
This is more like it.
He arches back into a flip then drops into a steep dive, only thwipping out a web at the last second before he becomes road pizza and then he’s whipping back up into the black night sky, the lights of the city splayed out before him. He’s light as air. Nimble as the fingers of a seamstress. As carefree as a kid in a bodega with ten bucks burning a hole in their pocket. Life is good and he’s ready to kick some ass.
A clang and a muffled curse draw him towards a rooftop a block over and he effortlessly changes direction. He swings through the shadows and lands lightly against the wall before climbing the rest of the way up to peek over the edge. There’s a group of darkly dressed figures huddled around the roof access door. He spots two crowbars, a couple of knives, and a gun and that’s really all the information he needs before he pulls himself onto the roof with a fun little flip.
“Oh man, did all of you forget your keys?”
They scramble away from the door, some towards him while others stumble back in shock.
“It’s the Spider!”
“Fuck! Don’t let him use his webs!”
“Shoot him, Owen!”
Adorable. He’ll never tell anyone but he secretly loves it when the call him The Spider. It makes him feel like such a badass. He attaches a line of web to the chest of the idiot who thinks he has a say in whether or not he uses his webs and yanks himself into the fray.
They go down easy, all things considered. Owen doesn’t even get a chance to fire his gun before he whips it out of his hands and webs it to the ground. He almost wishes they would’ve put up more of a fight. Okay, full honesty? He totally wishes they would have put up more of a fight, but that’s not a very heroic way of thinking so he tries to ignore it. There will be others. Maybe the next crime he stumbles across will present more of a challenge.
He raises his wrist to fire a web at the rooftop across the street when his Spidey sense suddenly flares in a directionless spike of warning just as a wolf whistle pierces the still night air. He spins around but doesn’t have to look far.
Deadpool is leaning against the bricked up roof access on the next building over.
Peter groans. “Not you.”
He’s never had the… pleasure of meeting Deadpool but he’s been briefed a la S.H.I.E.L.D. about what to do if the mercenary shows up in New York. Fuck. There goes his quiet night on the town.
Either Deadpool doesn’t hear him or he ignores him. “Damn, Spidey. I love watching you work, babe. You’re rougher than I thought you’d be. Not that I’m complaining! I’m totally turned on, don’t worry. But I think you broke baldy’s collarbone and Mr. Face Tattoo is gonna be walkin’ funny for the next week and not in a sexy way.”
Peter glances at the unconscious criminals webbed to various surfaces across the roof and feels a spike of shame. He was a little more uh, forceful than he typically is with petty criminals. Usually he saves the heavy hits for the actual villains and tries to take down the nonviolent criminals with as little physical violence as possible.
“What are you doing here, Deadpool?” he asks, shoving his guilt aside to address the problem at hand.
Deadpool squeals and fans himself, bouncing on his toes. “Oh. Em. Gee! He’s heard of us! Oh wow, I’m not prepared for this. Maybe we should— No, you’re right, you’re right. Play it cool. We’ve got this.”
S.H.I.E.L.D.’s file covered Deadpool’s obsession with him in mortifying detail. It was the whole reason they sought him out to brief him on the mercenary in the first place. They assumed (rightly, it would seem) that this would happen should a job ever bring Deadpool to New York.
They also mentioned his tendency to talk to people that aren’t there.
“Right. Umm, so what are you—,”
“Hold on!” Deadpool shouts. “I’m coming across.” He backs up several steps and makes a running leap across the alley between his roof and Peter’s. He sails through the air and at first Peter thinks he’s going to make it, but then his toes hit the lip of the roof and he slips. “Woop!” he exclaims and then plummets out of sight.
“Oh, come on!”
Peter sprints the short distance between him and the ledge and leaps down the chasm of the alley just as Deadpool’s body hits the concrete below with a wet crunch. Using a web to slow his momentum, he lands lightly beside the crumpled red and black suit.
For a second, he thinks he’s dead but then Deadpool groans and shifts onto his back, both of his legs turned at unnatural angles and the bone sticking out of his left forearm. Blood pools under him.
Peter looks away from the exposed bone, mastering his gag reflex, to Deadpool’s masked face.
“Are you okay?” he asks stupidly.
The file went over Deadpool’s insane healing factor in as much detail as possible. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t know the full extent of it but they have it on record that he’s taken fatal blows more than once and essentially walked them off. So he knows in theory that he’ll be fine in a matter of hours, if not minutes but still… he just fell two stories. It’d be wrong not to ask.
“Shit, this is so embarrassing. I knew I’d fall apart if I ever met you in person.” He snickers as he wrenches his leg back into place with a nauseating crunch. “Hey, actually this is the perfect meet-cute. When we tell people our get-together story we can say I fell for you the moment we met.” He giggles again and snaps his other leg into place while Peter watches in morbid fascination. “And then we’ll tell them about how you were a hard nut to crack but I eventually wore you down with enough promises of sensual back massages after hard nights fighting baddies. Pure romance!”
He has to look away while Deadpool pokes a finger into his arm to lift the flesh out of the way. There’s another sickening crunch as he presumably sets his arm and then Peter chances a glance down at him and finds him looking back, his mask stretched into a wide grin.
“Aww baby boy’s squeamish. That’s okay schnookums. I know it hurts to see the ones you love in pain.”
“That’s not— Would you cut it out with the pet names? What are you doing here?”
“You don’t like the names?” Deadpool pouts, his mask contorting into the expression with horrifying dexterity. How does he do that? “Or maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet. I’ll work on it. Anything for you, pumpkin butt.”
“That’s— I don’t— Ugh!” The file did say he’s a master at distraction. He just didn’t expect this to be what they meant. “Answer the question.”
“I did!”
“Not that one! What are you doing here?”
“Ohhh, well see there’s a taco truck around the corner and I’m trying to find the best Mexican place cuz I’m gonna be here a while and so far—,”
“You know that’s not what I mean!” He does, right? He knows? He’s not actually crazy? The file said he’s intelligent but… well he’s gonna reserve judgment on that one until he sees some evidence first-hand.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry, Webs,” Deadpool says. He slumps back against the wall and presses the back of his palm to his forehead like a swooning damsel on the silver screen. “My brain just gets all in a fog after I’ve taken this much damage. It’s the healing factor you see. I’m afraid I’m going to be all over the place until I can get some food in me.”
Peter glares down at him. He’s lying and he’s not even trying to hide it but what else can he do? He needs to know why he’s in New York so he can report back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and then Deadpool can be their problem.
“What kind of Mexican?” he asks through gritted teeth. “Authentic or with enough grease to kill a horse?”
For just a moment, surprise shows through on Deadpool’s mask, but it’s there and gone so fast it could have been a trick of the light.
“Grease me up and slow roast me on the spit! Baby boy, I am yours. Is this really happening or am I hallucinating again? No wait don’t answer! I want to enjoy this while I’m almost convinced it’s real.”
Ignoring his babbling, Peter takes advantage of his distraction and webs his uninjured arm to the wall. “Stay here.” He doesn’t wait for a response before shooting a new web and hauling himself out of the alley and above the street.
“Definitely a turn on,” he hears Deadpool say behind him. “You think this stuff comes out of him? Kinky. Just wait ‘til I tell Weasel that Spidey shot his spider gunk all over me.”
This is a mistake.
Still, he’s got a job to do and if tacos are what it’ll take to get Deadpool to cooperate then… Well, rent isn’t due for another week. He’s got time to make up the shortage.
Ten minutes later, he returns to the alley to find Deadpool silent in a way that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. For a moment, he thinks he’s dead. Then his foot scuffs against the ground and Deadpool’s head snaps up.
“Holy shit he came back. Looks like we aren’t mutated sewer rat dinner after all. Oh my God, and he brought us food. Yeah I know I’m definitely hallucinating. Shut up and let me enjoy it!”
Peter glances at the ripped strands of webbing hanging from the wall, then to Deadpool’s free arm, then to the twin swords sheathed on his back. Right. He probably should have expected that.
“How long until you can walk?” he asks. He’d rather not eat in this dank piss-soaked alley but he’s not going to hang around for hours waiting for Deadpool’s healing factor to get him back on his—
Deadpool jumps to his feet so fast that Peter jumps back and nearly drops the sack of food as he falls into a defensive crouch. Deadpool stares down at him, arms at his sides, looking as nonthreatening as someone with that many weapons strapped to that many muscles is capable of—clearly not attacking.
Peter straightens up, feeling like an idiot.
“Damn,” Deadpool says, his playful tone falling away for the first time. “I’m not hallucinating, am I?”
“No,” Peter says slowly. “What gave it away?”
“If this was all in my head you wouldn’t be scared of me.”
“I’m not scared of you.” Wary, yes. But scared? Pfft. He’s Spider-Man! He can—
Deadpool lunges at him and this time he does drop the bag of tacos as he springs away, latching onto the wall, ready to launch off of it and into a fight if he needs to, but Deadpool doesn’t come after him. He stops next to the fallen food and crosses his arms over his chest as he turns to regard him on the wall.
“Scared.”
“Am not!” He shakes his head. What is he? Five? “You’re a killer. I’m not stupid enough to let my guard down just because you act crazy.”
Deadpool laughs without an ounce of mirth. “It’s not an act, Web-head.” He picks up the sack of tacos. “Thanks for dinner.” He turns and starts walking toward the street.
He should let him go. He should take the loss and report to S.H.I.E.L.D. the meager details he was able to pry out of him and then go home with the assurance that Deadpool is no longer his problem.
He should but… his tacos.
He sticks a web to the bag and yanks. The bag tears but quick as a whip, he fires a second web with his other shooter and seals the hole before yanking with both arms and bringing the webbed up bag safely into his lap as he sticks crouched on the wall by only the balls of his feet.
Deadpool whirls around.
“Half of these are mine,” Peter says. “If you want your half they’ll be on the roof.”
He doesn’t give him a chance to respond before he pulls himself up and out of the alley. He half expects a gunshot to follow him but his Spidey sense and the alley below stay silent until he’s safely on the roof next door to the webbed up criminals. Which reminds him, he still needs to call the cops to come collect them. Maybe he should choose a more distant rooftop to eat dinner on, but he’s not trying to lose Deadpool yet and he didn’t drop thirty dollars for cold soggy tacos. He’ll call after he eats. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.
That decided, he puts his back to the roof access building and plops down to sort out the tacos. He’s not 100% sure Deadpool will show but he’s annoyed enough that he doesn’t care one way or the other. He figures he’s done his due diligence as far as collecting intel for S.H.I.E.L.D. goes. He might as well get some dinner in him before he goes home. If Deadpool decides to eat with him then he can suffer his company a little longer on the off chance he’s able to glean some more information on what he’s doing in New York.
He has already scarfed down one taco when a grappling hook sails up into the air and catches the lip of the roof. He balls up the wrapper and drops it in the bag before unwrapping a second taco. He chews and listens to Deadpool grunt with effort as he hauls himself up two stories. His head pops up over the side just as he’s about to start in on his third taco. Pretty impressive time.
Deadpool seems surprised to find him there, mask rolled up over his nose, lounging comfortably against warm brick, grease soaking into his gloves. Peter doesn’t say anything to him and tips his head towards the pile of tacos strategically placed a few feet to his left.
Deadpool glances at Peter and then to the tacos as he winds up the long lead on the grappling hook and tucks it away into a pouch. Maybe it’s the light, but that pouch doesn’t look big enough to fit a hook that size.
“Didn’t think you’d stick around,” Deadpool finally says before sitting beside him closer than he’d like but not inappropriately close.
He shrugs. He doesn’t feel like explaining his methodology to Deadpool. Especially when it’s a simple as wanting all the bang for his buck.
“How does the spandex hold up against the grease?” Deadpool asks as he peels the foil from one of the tacos in his pile.
“It doesn’t,” Peter grumbles, briefly examining his greasy glove. “I’m gonna smell like taco grease for weeks.”
“Sweet ambrosia,” Deadpool snickers. He still hasn’t raised his mask even though his taco is primed and ready to be gobbled up.
“Only to you and every stray dog in New York. Better taco smell than blood though.” He cringes but instead of getting uncomfortable like everyone else does when Peter gets too real about what it’s like to fight crime every night, Deadpool laughs.
“Amen to that, sister.” He holds out his taco like it’s a champagne glass, waiting for a toast.
Peter pretends he doesn’t see and stuffs the last of his taco in his mouth and leans his head back against the brick to gaze up at the clouded-over night sky. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Deadpool finally lift his mask, just enough to expose his mouth. The taco is gone in two bites and the next rapidly follows.
Jesus. The eating noises alone are repulsive but coupled with the speed at which he hoarks them down, it makes for a grizzly sight. He can’t tell if he’s intentionally trying to gross him out or if he’s just… like that.
He must be starving. Whenever Peter’s healing factor has to take care of major injuries he always comes back out the other side ravenous. In a matter of minutes, Deadpool healed at least three broken bones and however many internal injuries he sustained in his fall. Four tacos will be lucky to take the edge off.
He plays with the foil wrapper on his last taco for a moment and then with a quiet sigh, he sets it next to Deadpool’s knee. Soft-hearted idiot.
“Uh-uh,” Deadpool says through a full mouth. He knocks the taco back towards him with a flick of his finger. “‘S yours. Eat up, baby boy.”
Well, if he insists. Peter’s never been one to turn down food. As soon as the taco is gone, he tugs his mask down over his chin and stretches out his legs with a content sigh. Dubious company aside, this is way better than being stuck at some stuffy wedding.
Deadpool tugs his own mask down to cover the scars Peter knew would be there and drops his wrapper in the pile between them.
Peter breaks the silence after only a few seconds. “Are you here to kill someone? You know I can’t let you, right?”
Deadpool scoffs. “You think you could stop me?”
“I’d have to try. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done. Murder isn’t the answer.”
“Why not?” Deadpool barks like it’s a question he’s asked a million times and has yet to receive a satisfactory answer to. “Why do they deserve to live? All those assholes out there hurting people and wrecking the world. Why do they deserve to live?”
“Maybe they don’t,” Peter says. “Doesn’t give us the right to decide who lives and who dies though.”
Apparently that wasn’t what Deadpool had been expecting. He stares at the side of Peter’s face long enough for him to grow uncomfortable in the silence.
He crosses his arms and asks, “So who is it? A gang leader? An unfaithful spouse to some rich asshole? The mayor? Who did someone else decide was too bad to live?”
“I’m not here on a job,” Deadpool finally says.
Peter snorts and turns to look at him. “You expect me to believe that? Why are you here then? Taking a vacation?” he asks scathingly. “Seeing the sights?”
“Believe what you want but it’s the truth. Needed a change of scenery and thought, why not New York? Lots of food options in New York.”
“Bullshit.”
Deadpool’s posture grows stiff. “I don’t need your blessing. You can’t stop me from doing whatever I want.”
Peter leans towards him and says in a low tone, “This is my city. My people. I’ll do whatever I have to to protect them.”
“Seems like a big job for one person.”
It is. Too big. That doesn’t mean he’s going to quit though. He can’t turn his back on them.
He gets to his feet, snatching up their bag of trash as he does. “No killing or you’re gone.”
“I liked your tie,” Deadpool blurts before he can web off into the night. “At the wedding. I wasn’t invited obviously but I caught most of it through my scope. Not nearly as uplifting when you can’t hear the vows. Had to make them up myself. I never knew Miss Virginia Potts was so openly kinky.”
“It’s Potts-Stark now.” Then the implicates of what he’s saying sinks in. “Are you threatening me?”
“What? No! I’m trying to say I know you’re being all Oliver Queen right now, I must protect this city, but I know you’re secretly the kind of guy who wears an Iron Man tie to Iron Man’s wedding and cracks jokes at criminals as he beats them to a pulp.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I think we’d make a good team. You can teach me how to be good and I can pick up some of the slack in helping you keep the city safe. Win-win!”
Peter stares at him. For all that Deadpool seems genuine, he can’t believe he’s actually serious. Is everything a joke to him?
“I’ll see you around, ‘Pool,” he says after a beat. It’s been a long day and he’s done trying to parse words with a crazy mercenary.
“Oh c’mon! Don’t split up the dynamic duo already!”
“I hate to break it to you, but the dynamic duo is more like the dynamic uno,” he says and then steps off the roof.
“I understood that reference!” Deadpool shouts after him as he swings away.
If that brings a smile to his face that’s between him and the pigeons.
~*~
Getting debriefed with S.H.I.E.L.D. takes just as long as he expected it would. Meaning, he crawls through his living room window far past the wee hours of the morning, the rising sun nipping at his heels. There’s no point in sleeping. While his duties as Spider-Man come to a stand-still in the light of day, the duties that (theoretically) pay the bills do not and he couldn’t afford to take a day off before he splurged on enough tacos to satisfy two enhanced individuals.
Speaking of tacos…
His stomach gurgles, reminding him that it’s been hours since he’s last eaten. Still, he goes to the coffee maker first. There’s some in the pot from yesterday morning and he’s neither beggar nor chooser—he skips the mug and the microwave and drinks it cold, straight from the pot.
Mastering his gag reflex, he starts a fresh pot brewing and digs through his cupboards for anything edible. His search turns up some stale saltine crackers and a can cream of mushroom soup which is basically an entire meal. He gets the soup in the microwave as his stomach lets loose a different kind of gurgle that has him rushing to the bathroom.
Once the tacos and coffee have finished having their way with his body he finds himself in front of the sink in his boxers and mask, contorting his face into different expressions. It doesn’t matter how he moves his face under the fabric, the mask remains stoically impassive. He rips his mask off in disgust and throws it on the floor with the rest of his suit.
How does he do that?
Whatever. He’s done thinking about Deadpool. He’s going to eat his stinky soup and then he’s going to go to his stinky job, make nice with his stinky boss, then return home to his stinky apartment at which point he’ll go out and hopefully by then Deadpool will be out of town and no longer his problem. It’s the perfect plan.
~*~
“You can’t fire me! I have rent due!”
“Not my problem, Parker,” Jameson snaps. “Get clean and then see about coming back. I won’t have you dragging my reputation through the mud with your little drug problem.”
“I’m not on drugs! Test me, dammit! I’m clean!”
“Watch your mouth, kid. I don’t know what you’re on but it’s not normal to look and act like you do.”
“I just need sleep. I pulled an all-nighter and— What do you mean how I act?”
“You were talking to the coffee pot, son.”
“I was— It’s a delicate— That doesn’t mean I’m on drugs! You have no proof! I could sue you.”
Jameson laughs. “Betty, bring me the numbers. Let’s see… You’ve been late every day for the past two months. You’ve disappeared in the middle of the day a dozen times over the past three weeks alone and you’ve had seven no call no shows. You’re fired, Parker. Now get the hell off my property!”
“You’ll be begging to have me back in a week. You know no one else can get the shots I can.”
“Of Spider-Man?” Jameson scoffs. “I don’t need photographs anymore.”
Peter goes still. This isn’t the first time he’s been fired by Jameson but he always hires him back because it’s true; no one else can get consistent, high-quality photos of his alter-ego. He makes sure of it. It literally pays to have a Spidey sense.
But if Jameson thinks he doesn’t need the pictures anymore…
“What are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you paying attention? The industry is changing. Adapt or die! Papers don’t sell. Everybody and their mother uses ad-block these days and running a blog isn’t going to keep bread on the table.”
“So, what? You’re selling the Bugle?” Impossible.
Jameson snorts. “Don’t be an idiot. Podcasting is the future and the Bugle is leading the charge, mark my words.”
“Hold on,” Peter says, putting a hand to his forehead like that’ll stop his mind from reeling, “you’re firing me so you can get into podcasting?!”
“Officially, I’m firing you because you’re an unreliable flake with some serious time management issues and a possible drug problem. Unofficially, yes. Now get the hell out! If I never see the bags under your eyes again it’ll be too soon!”
He slams his office door in his face and Peter can’t do anything but stand there with his camera bag cradled against his chest and stare at it in shock until Betty gently takes him by his elbow and steers him toward the door.
“He’s not gonna hire me back this time, is he?”
Betty bites her lip and then shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Pete. You gonna be okay?”
“Of course,” he says.
What’s he gonna do? He’s out of food. Rent is due next week. He’s still behind from last month and after splurging on tacos he doesn’t have enough to cover this month either. He’s going to lose his apartment. He can’t feed himself. He’s fucked.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?” Betty says and he knows she means it. She’s good people. She’s something of a friend considering they’ve weathered working for Jameson together for almost a decade.
“What about you?” he asks. “He’s not going to fire you next, is he?”
She shakes her head with a sad smile. “He still needs someone to handle the administrative pieces whether he’s printing papers or yelling into a microphone. As long as the Bugle is bringing in money I’ll have a job here.”
“Good,” Peter says. The Bugle may be a constant thorn in his side but he hopes Jameson’s latest venture succeeds if only so his friend can keep a roof over her head.
“I’ll see you around, okay? You take care of yourself.”
“I will. Thanks, Betty.”
He’s fucked.
~*~
When he gets back to his apartment he sits on the couch in silence, staring at the black TV screen. His patrol phone chimes with a notification from S.H.I.E.L.D. telling him that Deadpool was spotted heading toward the docks in Greenwich. He stares at his phone long after the screen goes dark.
It’s 10 am. He hasn’t slept. He needs to buy groceries. He needs to apply for unemployment. He needs to find a new job. He needs to eat something other than coffee and canned soup.
The very last thing he should be doing is putting on his suit and chasing after Deadpool. Someone else can do it. S.H.I.E.L.D. has the resources. They’d rather he do it because Deadpool is a huge Spidey fan and they don’t want to risk their agents, but Deadpool probably wouldn’t kill them, right? He seemed unhinged last night yeah, but not murderous. Besides, it’s 10 am. Who kills a person at 10 am? Right? Right.
He digs his laptop out from under the couch and opens the folder titled “Job Search Crap” then pulls up the most recent copy of his resume. His stomach clenches and there’s a sour taste on the back of his tongue as he stares at the document. ‘Modified December 2010,’ stares back at him, a yellow eye in the underbrush on the side of an empty highway. Job interviews, small talk with new co-workers, explaining his frequent tardiness—it all bears down on him like the maw of a beast clamping around his neck, cutting off his breath and taking him in a death roll.
He slams his laptop shut and all but throws it to the floor in his mad scramble for his suit. He’s gotta get out of here.
~*~
“Hello? 911? I’d like to report a party pooper.”
“Excuse you, I’m a wet blanket. All my friends say so.”
“Ah ha! Friends, huh? So he does have a life outside of being New York’s sexiest vigilante.”
Peter snorts. Hardly. What little life he has is crumbling around his ears but he came here for the express purpose of avoiding dealing with that. Instead, he’s on the edge of the dock. Next to Deadpool. Who is sitting with his legs dangling over the water. Throwing pebbles into the river. Like a child.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. He sounds like a broken record at this point and he sort of hates himself for it. “At the docks, I mean.”
“What, a guy can’t hang out on the waterfront without getting the third degree for it? Check out that view.”
Peter doesn’t have to look to know all he’ll see is the murky brown of the Hudson and the smoggy New Jersey skyline running parallel with the river. Throw in a few seagulls, some trash, and whatever is making that rotting fish smell and you’ll get nothing resembling what he’d call a vacation destination.
And yet New York is constantly flooded with tourists. Hmmm.
“Is someone else here?” Someone you’re planning to kill?
There are dockworkers milling around as they’re wont to do in the middle of the day on a Wednesday but no one that screams ‘assassination target’.
“It’s just me and you, mi amor.” He sits up straight. “Sort of like a—,”
“Don’t say date.”
“Couples retreat!”
Peter groans. Why is this his life? Why didn’t he stay home and let Deadpool be S.H.I.E.L.D.’s problem?
Then he remembers his horrifically out of date resume and all at once sitting on the edge of the dock with Deadpool doesn’t seem so bad. He plops down beside him and digs up his own handful of pebbles and chucks a few at the water with unnecessary force.
“You’re really not here to kill anyone?”
“Depends. I could absolutely murder a hot dog right about now.” He turns to look at Peter and somehow he can tell he’s lifting an eyebrow through his mask. “You in?”
Peter’s stomach growls. “You’re buying this time.”
“It’s a date!”
Peter rolls his eyes and drops his pebbles in the river. Getting free lunch is sort of like getting his life together. At least it’s one less thing to worry about and if he can make sure Deadpool stays out of trouble for a little while longer then win-win, right? Right.
~*~
They end up taking their hot dogs onto a roof facing the waterfront to eat. He’s pleased to note Deadpool didn’t skimp and got half a dozen dogs with all the toppings to split between them.
Same as last night, Deadpool chatters incessantly as Peter works through his share of the meal. He waits until Peter is done eating and is peering over the edge to the bustling sidewalk below to lift his mask and scarf down the remaining dogs at a dangerous speed. His mask is back in place before he swallows down the last bite.
For both of their sake, Peter pretends this is normal.
“Is it just me or are you acting less crazy today?”
Deadpool snorts and sprawls on his belly with his head over the lip of the roof and a balled-up hot dog wrapper in his fist. “Crazy is an outdated term that perpetuates social stigma against neurodivergent people.”
“Uhh.” What the hell? That sounded not just intelligent but… conscientious? Is this the same Deadpool he met yesterday?
“The boxes are quiet today,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. Then he sucks his gloved finger between his lips and releases it with a wet pop. It shines under the sun as he holds it aloft. He nods slightly, then adjusts his wrapper ball to the left and releases it, his upper body hanging over the edge as he watches it fall.
“Hey!” Peter scrambles forward, a lecture about littering on the tip of his tongue but as he cranes forward over the lip of the roof, he spots the trash can several stories below them. The wrapper lands neatly inside while the people crowding the sidewalk remain oblivious.
Deadpool lets out an excited whoop and reaches for another wrapper. Peter watches in silence as he repeats the process and makes another perfect shot. He shouldn’t be able to feel the wind through his glove just like he shouldn’t be able to make that shot twice in a row by luck. It’s possible, but not likely. Three times would cinch it.
“Do it again,” he says.
Deadpool twists around to grin up at him, his mask forming the expression in that infuriatingly impossible way. “Oh? You like that, baby boy?”
“Just shut up and do it again.” He gets down on his belly beside him and watches Deadpool with an eagle eye, looking for any tricks, not that he can think of a single thing that would help him pull this off that wouldn’t require a hell of a lot of foresight and planning.
“So bossy,” Deadpool murmurs. “Gets me going.” He drops the wrapper and they both lean over the edge to watch it fall impossibly, perfectly, into the trash can.
“Did I impress you?”
“You’re the calculating air resistance and crosswind speed in your head.”
“Is that a yes?” Deadpool asks with that infuriating grin.
“Fuck you. Do it again.”
Deadpool laughs and happily obliges until they’re all out of hot dog wrappers.
“GET FUCKED YOU RAT WITH WINGS!” Deadpool screeches, shaking his fist. “THAT WAS IN, GODDAMMIT!” He reaches for the gun in his thigh holster.
“Hey, hey! Cut it out! We don’t shoot pigeons!”
Deadpool crosses his arms under his chin and glowers murderously at the cluster of pigeons pecking around the base of the trash can. One of them is pushing around the wadded up hot dog wrapper it knocked out of the air just before it could make it into the trash. “Can’t shoot people. Can’t shoot pigeons. What’s left, huh? What makes life worth living?”
“Uhh tacos?”
Deadpool rolls onto his side and slaps a hand over his heart. “Ohmigod, you’re my soulmate.”
Peter goes stiff and forgets to breathe for a heart-stopping moment before he realizes Deadpool is speaking in hyperbole. He’s not actually declaring that they’re soulmates. He’s just messing around like usual.
Deadpool ticks his head to the side and loses his playful aura as he squints at him. “You’ve got a soulmate,” he says, poking Peter’s chest.
“Cut it out,” he says weakly, shoving at his hand. Most people have soulmates. It’s not weird.
Deadpool clicks his tongue. “But you don’t know who it is. How does that even work? Isn’t the first thing people do is write their name on their arm?”
Right. The weird part is that he hasn’t met his soulmate even though he’s been an adult for almost a decade now. Most parents make their kids wait to meet their soulmate until adulthood, wanting them to have time to develop their own interests and become their own person, but it’s pretty much unheard of to not share names and addresses after turning 18. In fact, Peter’s is the only soulmate he’s ever heard of ignoring the bond entirely.
Whatever. It’s all bullshit anyway.
Peter regards Deadpool curiously. “You don’t have a soulmate?”
Deadpool snorts and rolls to his feet, slapping dirt from his suit forcefully. “Can you imagine? What kind of asshole would fuck up bad enough to get landed with me?”
That’s a valid point. He can imagine it would be something of a shock to find out you’ve been paired with a mercenary. Then again, he shouldn’t judge. What does it say about him that his soulmate hasn’t once ever reached out or written back? Clearly there’s something wrong with him too, only he wasn’t granted the small mercy of never being matched with anyone in the first place.
~*~
Rooftop meals become something of a thing after that. The routine goes: Peter gets a text from S.H.I.E.L.D. notifying him that Deadpool is doing something weird, he tracks him down and finds him doing something mundane, Deadpool suggests food, Peter insists Deadpool pay, Deadpool jokes about it being a date, and so on and so forth.
He’ll never say so but some days these impromptu meals are the only meal he gets.
Things on the home front, well… They haven’t improved. His final partial paycheck from Jameson was enough to stave off his landlord but he’s still waiting on that first unemployment check to come through. While he hasn’t been kicked out of his apartment yet (a minor miracle) it’s only going to last so long. His landlord sort of hates his guts and he’s not sure he’ll be able to placate her much longer. He only needs to hold out until that check comes and then he can blow the entire thing on rent and continue slowly starving to death but with a roof secure over his head.
“You seem more maudlin than usual. Talk to me, Spidey. Lay it all on Dr. Pool and maybe when you’re done baring your soul there’ll be a happy ending in it for you.” He waggles his eyebrows through his mask suggestively but Peter’s gotten pretty good at ignoring his come-ons. After he caught him sweet-talking a scrawny balding Wolverine cosplayer, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually mean it. He just likes sexual innuendos.
He sighs from where he’s prone, arms akimbo, and roof gravel digging into his spine. “I lost my job. My… other job. The one that actually pays the bills.”
He doesn’t want to dwell on why he’s telling Deadpool of all people. Surely it has nothing to do with his desperate lack of friends. MJ is in California chasing her dreams, Harry’s undergoing treatment for his mental health and isn’t allowed visitors (not that it matters since they blacklisted Peter after last time), and Gwen… Well.
And it’s not like he can talk to Aunt May without her worrying about him starving to death under a bridge or something so… Deadpool it is. Man, when did his life get this pathetic?
Deadpool hums. “For some reason I never imagined you having to live off a paycheck. I always just assumed the good deeds would sustain you or something.”
Peter snorts. If only.
“You need money? I got money,” Deadpool says. “I can be your sugar daddy! Please, please, please let me be your sugar daddy, Webs! It’s a dream I’ve had ever since five seconds ago!”
“No! I can’t— I’m not— I’m fine. Everything’s under control. Just sucks, you know? I hate job hunting.”
Deadpool sits up and a heap of hamburger wrappers cascades off his chest. “I know a job you could do.”
“Being your sugar baby isn’t a job, ‘Pool.”
“No, not that. A real job at uh, Pym… whatever it is.”
Peter sits up. “Pym? As in Pym Particles? As in, Hank Pym? The scientist? The research lab? That Pym?”
Deadpool snaps his fingers and points a finger gun at his chest. “That’s the one! I happen to know they’ve got an opening in R&D. Or they will soon. You made your tech right? I bet you’d fit right—,”
Peter jumps to his feet as his heart jumps into his throat. “What the fuck? Are you taking out a hit on one of Pym’s scientists?”
“Nooo,” Deadpool says unconvincingly.
“Dude!”
“I’m not. I just happened to catch wind that someone is.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Listen, I looked her up. This lady is bad news. Like, experiments on puppies bad. She says shit like ‘All Lives Matter’ and—,”
“What does that have to do with anything? We have to stop it!”
“We?”
“Yeah, we. You let it get this far now you’re on the hook for saving this woman’s life. Come on.” He squats down and gestures impatiently at his back.
“Am I dreaming? A Spidey-back ride?”
“I will drop you in traffic if you say that again. Hurry up before I change my mind.”
Deadpool doesn’t waste another second before clambering up onto Peter’s back and wrapping his arms and legs around him.
“You’ll need to hold on tighter than that,” Peter says and then launches off the building.
Deadpool squeals in his ear and his grip turns suffocating as they plummet. Then Peter shoots a web and they swing up and away from the sidewalk. A breathless laugh ghosts past his ear and then Deadpool’s breath catches audibly as Peter releases the web and they begin to fall again. He thwips out another web and they begin another arc.
“WOOHOO!” Deadpool crows at the height of the arc, loud enough to make him flinch and to catch the attention of the people on the sidewalk below.
A reluctant smile tugs his lips. Yeah. Web swinging is pretty awesome. It’s kinda cool that someone gets it, even if it is Deadpool.
~*~
Peter flips back and pinwheels to the side to avoid the flurry of deadly looking laser beams. Red, violent, and wicked fast, it’s all he can do keep from getting hit while he’s the sole target of the beastly machine squatting in the corner of the lab.
“You said puppy experimentation, not mad scientist bent on world domination!”
“I was starting with the worst offenses!” Deadpool snaps back, stabbing a katana into a bank of computers. They spark and the screens go black but the death lasers don’t stop. “You’re the one that wouldn’t let me finish! Besides, if you hadn’t webbed up poor Marty and had let him do his job, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“He was going to kill— Ugh! Whatever. For future reference, next time someone builds a Death-Ray-Inator that’s the first thing I wanna know about.”
“Noted.” With a grunt, Deadpool rips free his katana and sheaths it. “Screw this!” He rips his pistol out of his thigh holster and aims it at the death ray.
“Wait—,”
He fires several times in rapid succession. The noise is deafening and the bullets ricochet around the room, rebounding off the metal-lined walls with deadly force.
Peter twirls, just barely avoiding a bullet to the abdomen as the heat of a laser skims past his nose.
“Dammit Deadpool! That didn’t work the first time, why would you do it again?!”
“I got frustrated.” He holsters his gun, pouting through his mask.
“No more shooting! I have an idea.” He webs himself up onto the ceiling, shifting to the left just in time to avoid a laser to his back and then scurries toward the far wall.
“What do I do?”
“Don’t move and don’t get hit.”
“Those are very contradictory instructions! What if I need to move to avoid getting hit? I don’t think you thought this through.”
Peter growls under his breath. Yeah he didn’t think this through alright. He should have left Deadpool on that rooftop and cleaned up this mess on his own.
“Just stay where I can find you!”
“Where you can find—,”
Only a few feet remain between him and the wall when his Spidey sense warns him to dodge. He leaps forward, avoids the deadly beam, and latches onto the electrical box hanging on the wall. Another flare from his Spidey sense has him dropping to the floor and throwing his arms over his head.
The laser beam collides with the electrical box.
Bang! The box explodes in a flare of green light and then the room goes dark. Hesitantly, Peter gets to his feet and breaths a sigh of relief.
“Uh, Webs?”
A laser fires from the Death-Ray-Inator, the red beam illuminating the white of the eyes on Deadpool’s mask before slamming into his chest and knocking him off his feet.
“Shit!” Peter stumbles over an overturned table, scrambling to get back across the pitch-black room where he left Deadpool. “‘Pool?”
“Still alive,” Deadpool wheezes. “Fuck, that smarts. Not much of a death ray though, huh?”
His Spidey sense flares and Peter rolls to avoid a laser. Jagged metal and glass tear into his back as he crashes through the refuse of the computer Deadpool slashed up but he bites back the grunt of pain and keeps moving.
“It must be hooked up to an alternate power source.”
“Ya think? Tell me the truth, Spidey. Are you tryin’ to off me?” Another laser shoots at Deadpool, but this time he manages to flinch out of the way, if only barely. “You know I’m scared to death of the dark. Geddit? Scared to dea—,”
“Shut up. Just shut up.” Peter ducks another laser and uses the red glow of its passing to spot Deadpool, flat on his back with a black scorch mark on his chest. He skids to a stop at his side. “Can you stand?”
“I can always get it up for you, baby boy.”
Peter considers leaving him but another laser narrowly sails over his head. As annoying as Deadpool is, he can’t leave him for dead… even if he does have a freakishly good healing factor. He hauls Deadpool’s arm around his shoulders and half drags him behind the overturned table. It won’t stop the lasers but hopefully, it’ll keep him from being targeted. And now that he knows the lasers won’t one-shot kill him he figures it’s time to go all in.
“Stay here.”
He doesn’t wait for Deadpool to agree before leaping up to the ceiling. He crawls as fast as he can towards the Not-Quite-Death-Ray-Inator, dodging beams of red hot energy, sometimes hanging by only his fingertips before swinging his feet back up and resuming his crawl. As soon as he’s close enough, he fires a web and it plasters over the barrel of the ray gun, barely visible to his enhanced eyes in the dark room.
“Yes!”
The gun blasts a laser, shredding through his webbing like wet toilet paper as two more barrels spring out from the sides of the machine and swivel towards him.
“Oh come on!”
He drops, narrowly avoiding the volley of lasers that strike the ceiling where he’d been a moment before. He twists to get his feet under him and springs to the side as the lasers follow. He’s not going to be able to avoid all of them. He’s going to have to—
There’s a flash of silver and a red beam refracts away before it can slam into his shoulder, briefly illuminating Deadpool, a katana in each hand, feet braced apart, his mask set in a determined grimace.
“If that nancy-boy Skywalker can do it, it can’t be that hard, right?” he quips. Then he’s a whirl of silver, twisting and spinning his katanas with expert precision and no small amount of grace as the red beams flash towards them and then away creating a pulsing red light show in the dark room.
“If either of us gets to be the Jedi, it’s me.”
He positions himself over Deadpool’s shoulder, well out of range of his blades, and rapid-fires webbing over the main laser cannon. It continues to blast through it at first but then it finally starts gumming up until, at last, it explodes in a burst of red light. He whoops in excitement and starts the process on one of the side cannons.
“Puh-lease,” Deadpool says. His blades haven’t slowed but he’s starting to sound winded. “A goody-goody like you doesn’t know the first thing about handling a saber.”
Peter snorts but otherwise ignores the innuendo as the second cannon explodes. He starts in on the last one, plastering it with webbing. “I’ve got my Spidey sense. That’s sort of the same as being force sensitive.”
“You’ve got what?”
His Spidey sense flares painfully as the metal casing of the Death-Ray-Inator bulges.
“GET DOWN!” He ducks past Deadpool’s swinging katanas and tackles him around the waist. In the second before they crash to the ground he sends a brief prayer out into the universe that Deadpool will have the presence of mind to not impale them both.
The Death-Ray-Inator explodes as they hit the floor, sending a wave of scorching heat over them. He tucks his head next to Deadpool’s and clenches his teeth as shrapnel peppers his shoulders and back. He can’t hold back his gasp as the pain follows a handful of seconds later, crashing down over him like an anvil.
“Webs, you idiot!” Deadpool wiggles out from under him as he bites back a moan at the fiery pain radiating from his singed and torn flesh. “You don’t have a healing factor!”
“Do so,” Peter bites out, carefully lowering himself to the ground now. His forehead hits the polished concrete with a soft thump and he looses a slow breath.
“Your wimpy baby healing factor’s got nothing on mine and you know it. I should’ve taken that hit!”
He sounds more upset than Peter thought he’d be. He hasn’t been able to get a good read on him. He seems equally as likely to leave you for dead as he is to lend a hand when you’re in a bind. He never considered Deadpool would be the type to take one for the team or to get pissed that someone else did in his place.
“Hold still.”
Gentle fingers peel the remains of his suit from his aching skin but not gentle enough to stop the hiss of pain from escaping between clenched teeth.
“Do we have to do this now?” Peter snaps. “We still have a mad scientist to catch up with in case you forgot.”
“Let me— There’s— Bite your knuckle or something. This is gonna hurt.”
“What are—,”
“Three… two…”
Peter shoves aside his mask and stuffs two knuckles between his teeth, clamping down as something rips free from his back with a sickening squelch and a warm wave of blood that trickles down his sides. He cries out, choking on the pain and bucking away.
“Sorry buddy, it had to come out. Let me get a pressure bandage on this and then I’ll let you kick that lady’s ass, okay? That always makes you feel better. Not beating up women, but putting baddies in their place. We’ll clean up the rest later. I’ll even give you a sponge bath if you let me. That sounds nice, right? Get you all squeaky clean so that measly little healing factor of yours can work its magic.”
“Please shut up,” Peter grunts into the floor.
Deadpool quickly and efficiently bandages his back and then helps him to his feet. Peter makes sure his mask is securely in place and takes a quick inventory of his injuries. Besides the stinging of his fried skin and the dull throbbing pain in his back, he feels okay. He’s low on web fluid and he doesn’t have any more cartridges on him so hopefully that doesn’t become a problem.
“Breathing alright?” Deadpool asks, hovering like Aunt May used to after he had an asthma attack.
He shoves him away. “I’m fine,” he snaps.
Then he catches sight of a jagged strip of metal with blood soaking a solid four inches of its length. Yikes. Okay, maybe he should cut Deadpool some slack if he had that sticking out of him. He’s lucky it didn’t puncture a lung.
“So how the hell do we get out of here?” Deadpool asks, hands on his hips as he stares around the pitch-black metal-lined room.
The mad scientist lady hadn’t wasted a second shutting them in and activating some kind of lockdown mode that had thick metal sheets rolling down over the door and window. Even the lasers hadn’t been enough to more than scuff whatever metal this place is made of.
Except…
He takes his patrol phone out of the hidden pocket at his hip and points the flashlight at the spot of ceiling where three lasers hit simultaneously. It’s scorched black and charred all to hell. He’ll probably be able to get through it and then the ceiling after that and then hopefully into some ductwork. The only vent in the room is nowhere near big enough for a grown man to squeeze into.
Deadpool follows his gaze and his mask twitches. “That’s gonna be hell on your back.”
Peter rolls his shoulders and winces. “Yup.”
“I have grenades?”
Peter shoots him a flat stare that must come across through the mask because Deadpool shrugs and says, “Worth a shot.”
He hands Deadpool his phone for light then crouches low and releases a breath before leaping and sticking his hands to the ceiling. His shoulders scream as he curls his body until his feet find purchase. Clenching his teeth, he hauls back a fist and sends it flying through the weakened metal. Peeling back the metal is hell. Tearing into the ceiling is hell. Ripping through the air duct is hell.
When he’s finally through, he flops onto his stomach and catches his breath as shivers of pain pucker his skin and settle deep into his poor abused muscles.
“Don’t you die up there, bug boy. It’ll take me forever to retrieve the body!”
“Arachnid,” Peter croaks. With a grunt, he gets his palms under him and pushes himself up. There’s shafted light in the direction of the hall the evil scientist lady disappeared into.
“Hey! Don’t leave me here! I’ll send all your friends salacious texts! Don’t think I won’t!”
He ignores Deadpool’s shouting and peeks through the slats of the vent and down into the empty hall below. Good enough for him. He punches out the vent cover and it hits the tiles below with a brain-buzzing clatter.
Let them come. He’s dying to burn off some aggression.
He drops into the hallway.
“I take it back!” Deadpool’s voice echos out of the air vent. “You’re right, it’s arachnid boy. I mean, man! Arachnid man!”
There’s an electronic pad next to the door, like a high tech handprint scanner. He doesn’t have the time or patience to mess with it. He changes the setting on his web shooter and rips the pad off the wall before firing a burst of electrified web directly onto the exposed wires. There’s a satisfying crackle of electricity and a familiar burnt plastic smell and then the door slides open with a hiss.
The metal plating on the other side raises back up towards the ceiling to reveal Deadpool, highlighted by the light spilling in around Peter, his grappling hook in hand, reared back to throw up into the exposed air duct.
“It’s Spider-Man,” Peter says.
Deadpool stares at him, mask slack. Then his mask stretches into a grin and he says, “I am so in love with you. Your dramatic timing? Off the charts. Please please please teach me your ways.”
A reluctant smile tugs his lips. “Maybe later. After a nap and enough tacos to knock out a horse and we kick this lady’s ass into next week.” He pauses. “Not in that order.”
“Deal. I’ll even throw in some churros, on the house. Now how do we track her down? You got any cool spidey gadgets? Trackers? Drones? Don’t hold back. I know you like to tinker.”
“I was kinda hoping she’d come to—,”
“What have you done to my death ray?!” A voice shrieks from the hallway.
“—Inator,” Peter says as he turns to face the mad scientist.
Oh joy. She’s decked out in a mech suit, thankfully much less sophisticated than Iron Man’s. It only encases her arms and legs with thick sturdy metal, leaving her torso and face exposed.
“If you’re going to go with the Doofenshmirtz aesthetic then you gotta stick with his naming conven—,”
A katana sails past his head and buries itself in her shoulder. She shrieks in pain and drops to her knees as blood rapidly stains the white of her lab coat.
“‘Pool!” Peter whirls to face him.
“What? I didn’t kill her!” Deadpool stalks past him into the hall and Peter follows hot on his heels.
“You said I’d get to kick her ass!”
“That was before I realized how pissed off I am! I’ll let you have the next one. How’s that sound, baby boy?”
Peter makes a sound of disgust in the back of his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. “I guess. But you owe me double dinner now.”
“Fine,” Deadpool agrees and then rips the katana from her shoulder, eliciting another scream. He wipes it clean on her coat before sheathing it on his back. “You gonna do the honors? Or do I get to practice my knots?”
With a sigh, Peter uses the last of his webbing to seal the wound on her shoulder and stick her to the floor. As he does so, a stern-faced woman steps out of the room across the hall and freezes in her tracks as she takes in her colleague quietly sobbing on the floor, bemoaning the loss of her weapon of mass destruction, and the two red-clad masked men standing in the middle of the hallway.
“Oh perfect,” Peter says. “Would you mind calling the police?”
“Why—,” she cuts off with a groan as she catches sight of the disaster they left in the room behind them. “Did you do that? That’s the only secured testing room we had! Where am I supposed to test my projects now?”
“Uhh…” Peter rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, she tried to kill us in there sooo…”
She shoots Peter a frosty glare and then sticks her head back in the room she just left. “Becky went dark-side and Spider-Man destroyed our testing room.”
It doesn’t seem fair that the second half of that announcement is the part that gets all the moaning and groaning.
“Deadpool helped! You’re welcome!” Deadpool shouts into the room. “You guys were probably the first ones on her hit list anyway.”
“She was definitely plotting to take over the tri-state area,” Peter adds.
“They don’t look so happy,” Deadpool tells him over his shoulder as he flips the bird to someone inside the room. “Should we apologize? Is that the heroly thing to do?”
Peter scoffs and says to the probably-not-evil scientist, “Just call the cops, okay? I’m sure you can file an insurance claim or whatever. C’mon ‘Pool. You promised me tacos.”
“That I did.” They fall into step. “I suppose I don’t get another Spidey-back ride. You good to walk down the street like that?” He gestures to his torn and bloody suit, matched by the torn and bloody flesh on his back.
He carefully shrugs a shoulder. “Not my first walk of shame. Won’t be my last. I’m out of web fluid anyway.”
Deadpool skips past him to get the door and holds it for him as he says, “We were a badass team in there, weren’t we Spidey? We should do team-ups more often.” He cups his hands around his mouth as he shouts past Peter’s ear, “By the way, your death ray sucks! Didn’t even kill me!”
“…Inator,” Peter mumbles.
Deadpool swivels to shoot him a look. “What’s your problem?”
He sighs. “No one understands me.”
~*~
“I have another idea,” Deadpool says, pausing in his ministrations with the tweezers while Peter sits hunched in front of him with a pile of tacos in his lap. “What are your feelings on strip clubs?”
Peter groans. “I’ll figure it out on my own. No more ideas. Please.”
“I’m just saying, dat ass on a pole?” He whistles and picks another sliver of metal out of his back. “I could feel your abs at work while we were webbing earlier. You’d make bank.”
“Secret identity,” Peter says, gesturing widely with his half-eaten taco. “Does that mean nothing to you? Nobody wants to see this on a pole.” He gestures at his ruined back.
Deadpool nods seriously. “You’re right. Anyone in New York would recognize an ass like yours in an instant. I’ll think of something with a less flattering dress code.”
“No! No more ideas! I’ll figure it out on my own. I’m fine.”
Deadpool hums like he doesn’t believe him and it pisses him off. Less because he’s humoring him and more because he’s right. He’s less fine than he’s been in a long time, but he’s not going to stoop to asking Deadpool of all people for help. Besides, if Deadpool gets too involved it could jeopardize his identity.
No, this is something he has to do on his own. If it really gets down to the wire he can always talk to Aunt May.
Ha! He cracks himself up. He’ll get evicted before he brings his problems to Aunt May’s doorstep. She deserves better. Besides, pride is his eternal sin. It pairs quite nicely with his guilt complex and he’d hate to shake up the dream team after so many years of cultivation.
He’ll figure something out. He always does. If he ends up crashing at F.E.A.S.T. for a little while, well… it wouldn’t be the first time.
“So when’s my first lesson, professor?” Deadpool asks out of nowhere as he tosses aside the tweezers and reaches for the antiseptic wipes.
“What?” Peter asks through a mouthful of taco.
“You said you’d teach me your ways!”
Did he? He wracks his brain. “I said maybe.”
“Aww c’mon. I’ve been so good… That doesn’t count!”
It throws Peter. Deadpool hasn’t been talking to his voices—boxes—nearly as much as he did that first night but it does happen sometimes. Usually when he’s upset.
“What doesn’t count?” he asks. God, did he kill someone? If he did…
“Nothing! It was nothing! I just… You know that cupcake ATM on the Upper East side?”
“Oh my God, that was you?”
“It was an accident! It gave me a cupcake with no frosting! What the fuck, right? I was well within my rights to beat the shit out of the thing! The audacity! I swear it did it on purpose.”
Peter can’t help it. He bursts out laughing.
“You’re not mad?”
Peter shakes his head, unable to answer as he wheezes. There was a week-long manhunt for the person responsible for busting up the cupcake ATM. The upper crust of the city was united behind a cause for the first time ever and it was just Deadpool being a hot-headed idiot the entire time. So many pissed off entitled rich people all because Deadpool’s cupcake didn’t have frosting on it.
When he finally gets a handle on his giggle-fit, Deadpool is staring at him, a funny expression on his mask.
“Tell you what, ‘Pool. You keep your nose clean and keep feeding me and I’ll let you tag along on patrols a few times a week.”
“Really?”
Peter shrugs. S.H.I.E.L.D. probably won’t give him too hard of a time for it. They’ve had a hell of a time trying to keep eyes on Deadpool. He’s slippery. He just hopes they don’t try to make him do any paperwork. He’s not part of S.H.I.E.L.D. so technically he doesn’t have to listen to them, but it pays to be on their good side when things get really topsy-turvy. And this is New York. Things are bound to get wild sooner rather than later.
“Yeah, why not. Absolutely no killing though. Or maiming. No one should have to spend more than a day or two in the hospital after we’re done with them.”
“I think the explosion rattled his brain,” Deadpool says under his breath.
Peter narrows his eyes at him. “Are you in or not?”
“Yes! I’m so in. I’ll be on such good behavior you’ll be wondering if I’ve been body-snatched.”
Peter snorts. “Alright. I need to make more web fluid but d’you want to meet here tomorrow night? Let’s say eight-ish.”
“I’ll bring chimichangas!”
Peter glances down at the discarded wrappers littering the roof. “How do you feel about Thai?”
“It’s a—,”
“Don’t—”
“—date!”
He groans. What did he just agree to?