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Remus is swinging towards his apartment after a night of a tranquil patrol when he hears yells in an alley. He almost fakes not to have heard anything but of course, with a huff of annoyance, he shifts to the left and jumps on the roof to look down and assess the situation.
A masked man has one of his two katanas out and pierced into the right shoulder of a crying man. He’s talking too low to understand anything from up there, so Remus drops down, mouth opening ready to tell one of his lines and it’s only thanks to his spidey senses that his head has no hole between the eyes.
The bullet gets stuck in the wall behind him. Through the metal staircase, Remus can see the hole fuming.
“Has your mother never taught you not to interrupt people?” He asks or he would if a shrill of delight hadn’t cut his words off in half.
Interrupted twice, what a lovely start.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! It’s Spider-Man! It is him, look, Steve! It’s him!”
The pierced man, Steve, moans in pain, tears disappearing in a crusty-looking beard as the masked man shakes him with force, katana rattling in his body. “Do you mind if I ask for an autograph, Stevie Steve? I’ll be quick, I swear,” the other pleads, jumping on the toes of his red and black boots. “It’s not every day you meet your jerking-off material in real life!”
And before Remus’ web meets the red leather of the suit, the guy has shot Steve in the kneecaps twice with an unnatural speed and efficiency. Steve plunges with a shout, back slugging on the wall and falls side-ways as the masked man’s back hits the wall. Remus’ web sticks well enough but he shoots twice more to be sure, before kicking the gun off the man’s hand.
“So, what’s the problem here, children? Want to share with the class?”
The mask covers everything about the man except black waves of hair, long to the shoulders and he wears a little braid closed with a pink hair tie and, “Fu-uck, one of my fantasies started this way, wait! Am I in another wet dream?”
Remus' hand shoots back to his side, in a safer area, away from the man, at those words.
The man looks left and right, down at Steve, “Ugh, I’m not or you wouldn’t be here, Steve,” he kicks the shot leg with the thick boot, which gets a new scream. “Sorry, man. It’s not me, it’s you. Being a rapist is such a turned-off! Ever tried CNC? What would your safe word be? Consent! Mine is–”
“What did you say?” Remus stops in his tracks, the idea of wanting to help with the wound dies down.
“That my safe word–”
“No! Not that! Why would I want to know that?!”
“You are right, I wouldn’t use it with you. You can do everything to me, weblicious that you are!”
Remus blinks behind his own mask and decides that he is too tired to unpack anything of that conversation. “Are you a rapist, Steve?” He questions, instead, a hand on the man’s shoulder where the katana has been pushed inside the flesh, cutting the hoodie there. The handle is the only thing sticking out from the front. The man on the ground does a whine that is neither a confirmation nor a denial, so Remus quirks his head to the side, eyeing the masked man who has his leathery white, unblinking eyes on him. It makes his spidey sense go wild in alarm. “Are you lying to me?”
The man takes an enormous intake of air, shock palpable even when the mask stays in the same expressionless view. It stretches just a little on the edges of the mouth and the hair moves slowly with the wind coming from the main street. “Oh, Spidey! I would never lie to you! I swear it on the most precious thing I own!”
“Which is?” And he knows it’s a mistake the second he feels more than sees the shock becoming a grin behind the red leather and he face-palms at, “Your juice ass, baby boy”
Remus gags. And covers the shot wound with his webfluid so the man won’t die from bleeding and pats Steve on the sounds of whines like, ‘Stevie! How does it feel to live my dream?! Being touched by Spidey! Steve, do not ignore me!‘, until, finally, the wallet is found.
His name is not Steve but studying the paling face, “You don’t look like a Kyle, man.”
He takes out his phone from the inside pocket of his spandex trousers and in a blink, he’s speed-dialing his contact with the police. He doesn’t turn away, not trusting the masked man. There are no hints that there is an escape planned being formed but the low mumbling is suspicious enough and Remus' senses are loud.
“What’s your name, used tampon?”
“Me?” He tries to point at himself but his arms are blocked by webfluid. “Oh my God, Jamie! James! Spidey is talking to us!”
Remus doesn’t have time to furrow his eyebrows and ask if Steve-Kyle has received another name for himself, because his contact answers.
“Yup, Mr Man. What can I do for ya?”
“Hey Mary, quick request, can you research a,” he read the name from the ID, “specifically if there are charges for sexual assault? And also on… your name? Please, just tell me your name”
The man takes a big, big, big breath of air and, “Guess,” chuckles like a child. “Shh, Reg, don’t spoil the fun”
Remus has the instinct to shut him up and let him die there on the wall, or hanging upside down from the Empire State Building. “Do you know any talking-alone red and black leather man with katanas and guns?”
“Er… what? Wait, they have just brought back– Oh, shit gotta go!”
“Oh! Send an ambulance and cops to my location. Thanks!”
“No worries,” there is a pause where Remus can hear the entire precinct in the background, “A squad is arriving. Gotta go!”
“Brilliant,” he hangs up, putting back his sturdy old but modified Nokia in the hidden pocket. “So, I would have made a joke about using strong manners to get your name but I think you’d like that”
“Oh, darling, you know me so well! My horoscope was right today! Ugh, shut up, Reggie. It’s not my fault if your horoscope is shit like your face,” he goes on, head ticking to the left and Remus wants only to go home, go to sleep because tomorrow he has the morning shift at his job and he still needs to finish his last paper.
“Who is Reggie now?” He mumbles, slapping his hands on his cheeks and drags them down in exhaustion.
Dumb question. They are in New York where the sane people are the insane ones. Who the fuck cares who is and who isn’t this Reggie with a shitty horoscope?
“You could try and see if you find a wallet on me like you did with Steve! I gave you a hint,” he snickers in his mask, “It’s in my back pocket,” fake-whispers.
Remus sighs. “Are you lying about the back pocket?” And for another snickering, he gets a, “Maybe! I guess you need to find it out for yourself!”
Remus, obviously, doesn’t do anything of that, steals Steve-Kyle-possible-James’ phone and after opening it with facial recognition, and after controlling he’s still with them, Google is clicked and put into use to search:
Red and black masked man with katanas
Two seconds is enough to have a match.
“What the fuck, did you die in a pool or what?”
“Not me, Reggie drowned though”
And it is said so effortlessly like it’s nothing, as if they are just talking about how the sky is blue, that Remus’ only response is to apologise after a quite long silence.
“Oh, it’s fine! Reggie got over it, it happens to everyone!”
“To drown?!”
“Never did it before? Man, I love some breathing sex play! If you want, I can teach a few things”
Remus doesn’t know how but he knows there is a wink at the end of that proposition.
“Okay, listen up, Deadpool–”
“Fuck, baby boy, say my name one more time!” He thrusts his hips forward. Remus is speechless but thankfully, his phone does a thrill and it’s his police contact with a text that confirms that Deadpool is telling the truth: Steve-Kyle-possible-James is a rapist, a wanted rapist.
Remus doesn’t think twice about switching the setting of his webshooter and shoots an electric one to the man’s groin. His mask hides his smile at the scream.
He is the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man but never friendly with rapists.
Deadpool stays silent. Never looking away from Remus, who senses the air build up to an intensity that itches down his spine. It doesn’t help calm him down even if Deadpool is trapped against the wall by multiple shots of his webfluid. It makes him wary to be on the ground and not above everyone’s head where it is more difficult to hit him and easier to hit back. He jumps backwards to attach himself to the fire escape, not as high as he prefers but enough to feel mostly comfortable.
“I don’t like a mercenary in my city. Your intention?”
“Bad guys, just like you, honey”
It’s less a chuckle, less energetic and the most real sounding the other man had spoken until that moment. As if it’s a fact, an honest one. No jokes, no innuendos. Pure and Remus quirks his head sidely, studying him, trying to read anything but gets nothing in return. More electric silence and curiosity get the best of him.
“Not like me,” he says. “You kill them”
“And you electrify them”
Touché…
But Remus cannot have a mercenary on a killing spree in his city. Supervillains already do that any day of the week and petty criminals are also a thorn in his side, without adding his college classes, maintaining his secret identity, trying to have a sleeping schedule that won’t help him die in his thirty and knowing that is failing on that specific issue. His job, bills, rent, food… Remus is booked and fucking busy.
The police sirens are getting nearer and he crawls upwards, not yet out of earshot. For as much as the police and Spider-Man work together, Remus has always been wary of them and his wariness has only spiked since he was bitten and decided to be a hero.
And a few policemen are not fans of his, so…
“I can’t have you go around shooting people, bad guys or not. My city my rules, Deadpool. Do anything bad and I’ll be back,” he puts his web-shooter on the solvent setting but doesn’t shoot yet. He is really not sure why he would free the mercenary. Remus should let him rot there; let the police take him away so he will have one less worry on his shoulders.
“Please, baby boy, don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“I’m not a boy. Spider-Man! Man!”
The name-calling ticks the scale towards one choice. Remus doesn't dissolve the webfluid. With a roll of his eyes behind his mask at the mercenary calling him back, he disappears on the roof as the cops run into the alley.
Swinging back to his apartment, he takes the long way back, circling a few times around the buildings to be sure he’s not been followed.
He doesn’t talk through the electric silence and the spidey senses going wild. He stays up later than he should, just shifting, questioning his sanity.
He is alone when googling Deadpool while hiding in the staff room after the morning rush and reading how he escaped custody.
Just himself and a bag of chips when the real name of Deadpool is dropped so casually on the internet and even more shocked when it comes out the man is Sirius Orion Black The Third, the lost older son of the founders of Black Corp.
"Holy shit," he says in the emptiness of his college library.
There is no one to witness how his eyes look for red and black during his next patrols and how he waits for the Order to send him a call about the mercenary and when nothing comes, Remus takes a sigh of relief that perhaps, he won’t need to understand his sanity because the root of the problem has skipped town after their first meeting.
He doesn’t talk it through because there is no one to talk it with.