Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Peter Parker gets a view of Deadpool’s face, it stops him right in his tracks.

It’s not until much later that the full wave of guilt comes crashing down on him, thinking of how he’d ripped the guy’s mask off in broad daylight. He’d heard plenty about Deadpool before ever meeting him. He knew about the jobs Deadpool’s done for a few bucks, the people he’s killed, the voices he hears in his head. Peter has a tendency to see things in black and white, and so the fourth or fifth time a fellow superhero tells him about the crazy merc with a mouth, it’s cemented in his brain. Deadpool is a bad guy. That’s it. The end.

So at the time, he doesn’t feel even a drop of shame when his fingers tangle in the bottom of the mask and rip it off Wade Wilson’s face, all in the pursuit of a successful ‘your mama’ joke.

(That’s right. Peter uses Wade Wilson’s own messed-up face as the punchline for a ‘your mama’ joke. And it doesn’t even occur to him that that might make him a terrible human being.)

Wade Wilson’s face isn’t pretty. There’s no beating around the bush - his fine bone structure and strong jawline can’t overcome the pitted skin and shifting scars. He looks like he started with a face full of acne and tried to cure it by setting himself on fire. It’s a shock to see it so suddenly, enough that Peter nearly misses the way Deadpool’s eyes go wide for a split second. Only a second, and then Deadpool’s throwing his arm up over his ruined face and dragging the t-shirt off a kid nearby to use as a makeshift mask, already picking up the dropped line of jokes and ignoring the way Peter’s hand falls to his side, mask nearly dropping from his fingers.

Even then, Peter doesn’t feel any shame. He gets that Deadpool covers up the incident with humour and that it’s just a front. But he still doesn’t feel bad, because Deadpool is a bad guy. You don’t give sympathy out to people on the wrong side.

And then Deadpool is gone. Just like that.

Possibly, if that’s where it had ended, it would be alright.

But it’s not. Because Peter does it AGAIN.

Deadpool’s nearly fast enough to dodge Peter’s fingers this time. Nearly, but not completely. The mask comes off again and Peter gets a glance of that terrible scarred face. This time, it’s like Deadpool is ready; underneath the cloth, he’s grinning; the smile pulls at the pits and whorls of flesh and makes them even more apparent.

“Now Spidey, if you wanted to fawn over my beautiful face, you could have just asked.” Deadpool says, plucking the mask from Peter’s fingers and tucking it into his belt for safe-keeping. Peter has the other one at home, stashed away in a shoebox for reasons he can’t explain.

“Try not to get murdered while you’re busy taking in my stunning features, alright sweetcheeks?” Deadpool adds, turning back to the situation at hand.

He keeps his mask off for the rest of the fight, and because of that Peter gets a good look into the dark, bloody hole left behind when Deadpool gets shot in the eye. The sight makes his stomach turn. Peter doesn’t make a habit of murdering the villains he’s trying to apprehend so he’s not really used to gore.

In the middle of the fight, Deadpool just grabs the half of an eyeball that’s dangling out of the socket and snaps it off, like it’s a loose hair that’s bothering him. Peter nearly loses his dinner.

Despite Deadpool’s sudden lack of eyeball, they take down the group of gang-bangers easily and with no more damage. Deadpool protests mildly when Peter tells him not to murder anyone, but surprisingly complies.

“We are such a good team. Like Bonnie and Clyde. Sherlock and Watson. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Deadpool says gleefully as he slumps the last unconscious body up against the backs of the others, ready to be webbed and strung up for the police.

“Four of those people were outlaws, and one of the others was a psychopath. Not a good comparison.” Peter whips back exasperatedly as he webs the gang-bangers together into a big bundle. There’d been no more bloodshed, but one had gotten a good hit in on his leg and it throbs mercilessly if he puts weight on it. Getting back home today is going to be a bitch.

“Sherlock is a high-functioning sociopath, not a psychopath, Spidey. Don’t you watch BBC?” Deadpool calls back. “Hello, ma’am, are you - wow, that was unexpected. What do I do with this?”

There’s a high-pitched shriek and then a thud. When Peter turns around, Deadpool has an armful of unconscious middle-aged mom. Her grocery bag is overturned on the ground, oranges rolling every which way.

“Do you want it?” Deadpool says, holding out the unconscious women. Peter fights the urge to throttle the man and starts chasing down the renegade oranges instead.

“Just...lean her up against the wall or something. The police will help her when they get here.”  He says, as calmly as he can, wondering if it’s more acceptable to cause bodily harm if the recipient has a healing factor. On second thought, Deadpool has some weird type of eye jelly smeared across his suit, and Peter doesn’t want to risk touching that, so the urge fades.

“You got it, Spidey. Hey, can I pose her? What about - oh shit, what time is it?!”

When Peter turns, Deadpool is staring down at the back of his (naked, non-watch-bearing) wrist, the unconscious mother laid up against the alley wall. Deadpool yanks the sleeve of his suit back down and pulls the mask back on over his face in one fluid motion. Not before Peter catches a glimpse of his half-regrown eye though.

“Well, it was fun, babycakes, but Daddy Deadpool has to run. Don’t look too sad, I’ll be back before you know it!”

The suited maniac waves, as if he really thinks Peter will miss him, and then takes off into the darkness, leaving him with an armful of fruit and a raised eyebrow. The only sign he was ever there is the giant blood stain on one side of the alley wall from when he’d been shot, pieces of brain sliding down it still to pool on the concrete. Gross.

--

Later, in some of his rare free time, Peter looks up BBC’s Sherlock. It’s surprisingly a good show, and he binge-watches the whole first season on Netflix without even thinking about Deadpool.

--

It’s a mixture of the Sherlock marathon and Deadpool’s sudden departure from that fight that gets Peter curious. In his mind, villains spend their free time thinking up new diabolical plans to take over the city, not watching detective shows. And where could Deadpool have possibly needed to be at eight o’clock on a Wednesday night? It nags at him for three days straight before he decides to do something about it.

Really, it makes sense to do some reconnaissance on Deadpool. He’s a wild card, a loose cannon, and if he’s still taking jobs (which Peter is pretty sure he is) and causing trouble (which Peter KNOWS he is), then it’s better that Spiderman knows about it. For whatever reason, Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, looks up to Peter and sometimes Peter can get him to reign in his destructive tendencies.

Know thy enemy. And Deadpool, scar-faced, crazy Deadpool, is definitely an enemy.

--

It takes him a few weeks to get an opportunity. Deadpool is like a stray cat; he shows up when he feels like it and seems to disappear at will. Following him is usually out of the question, because he’s good at taking his leave while Peter’s distracted with something else. So it’s a stroke of luck when Peter catches him on a Monday, dressed in regular clothes and walking down the street like any old Joe.

He’s got the his hood pulled over his face and a gym bag slung over his shoulder. Peter almost doesn’t recognize him, but something about the twitch of paranoia in the broad shoulders and the unusually warm clothing in the middle of summer catches his eye.

That’s how he finds out that every Monday (and Thursday and Saturday, it turns out), Wade Wilson goes to the gym.

Peter tails him down the street and to a dirty warehouse. They’re in a pretty rough neighborhood, one that Spidey usually patrols for trouble, but he doubts that Wade has any trouble around here. Not with his looks, his size, and the weapons that Peter’s sure Wade has hidden on him somewhere. The guy lounging in front of the warehouse door nods at Wade with a slight smile and holds his fist out for a bump, which Wade returns enthusiastically. Then he’s through the door and into the warehouse, out of Peter’s sight.

Peter’s not fazed. Old warehouses are easy to break into.  It’s child’s play to find a broken window around the back and crawl through, and only slightly more difficult to find a spot in the rafters where he can sit unseen and observe. The inside of the warehouse is filled with the scent of rust and sweat. The front is taken up by boxing equipment and a ring, where two guys are busy beating the shit out of each other. Wade ducks past that area and heads further into the maze of benches, dumbbells, and weights.

It’s almost a paradox, to see someone Peter thinks of as a villain doing something as average as working out. Wade gets more than a few nods from other guys in the gym, and then ducks into a rack and starts stacking weights on a barbell, ear buds tucked into his ears and mouthing along to whatever he’s listening to. It’s so weirdly normal, but it makes sense, because Deadpool doesn’t have enhanced strength like Peter does. Every pound of muscle on his frame (obscured right now by his hoodie and sweatpants, but still very much apparent by the breadth of his shoulders) probably came to him the old-fashioned way. Peter’s never been a gym rat, has no idea how much weight Wade is lifting, but he knows from experience that the man is almost inhumanly strong and the way that the other guys eye him surreptitiously confirms it.

Even without the suit, if you lined Wade Wilson and red-suited merc up, you’d never doubt they were the same guy. He’s constantly moving, talking, dancing, even stopping once or twice to yell something at someone else or push them into a pile of mats. Seeing a normally-homicidal mercenary singing and dancing to Katy Perry between sets is giving Peter whiplash.

Peter tries his best to pay attention, and he really is impressed by the way Wade piles the weight on, but he’s gotten about three hours of sleep in the last few days and it’s hard to keep his eyes open when he’s stationary like this. His eyelids get heavy, and it feels good to slump against the strut holding the beam up.

When he wakes, Wade’s gone. Peter blinks, vision still bleary, and slips out of the warehouse to head home. He’s still got calculus homework to do if he wants any chance of passing this semester.

--

Peter makes an educated guess that Wade lives near the gym he frequents, so the next Monday, he catches him coming out the front and follows him home. It’s a short trip; a few blocks away and Wade enters the front door of a dingy five-story building, the front covered in graffiti. The whole thing looks like it might collapse any minute and there’s a pile of dirty stuffed animals and what appear to be used condoms in the alleyway next to it when Peter makes his way through. For the millionth time since being bitten, he’s absurdly grateful for the ability to climb walls, which are usually free of the grossness that cover the places he patrols. Wade, as expected, doesn’t appear to be bothered by the used-condom-stuffed-animal-pile or the half-naked sleeping old man he has to step over to get through the front door.

It’s kind of strange, that Wade lives in a dump like this. He makes good money from his merc work, Peter’s pretty sure. Peter himself lives on a meager stipend from his college scholarship, but even that’s enough to get him a slightly nicer closet-sized space than this. At least he has hot water - Peter’s not entirely certain he’d trust anything coming out of the taps here. It’s strange too that Wade’s not more concerned about people following him home - then again, with a healing factor like his, he doesn’t have to worry as much about waking up to a gun to the head or a sword in his chest.

Peter’s in his Spidey costume, so instead of following Wade through the front door, he crawls around to the side and starts carefully checking windows. Most have the curtains shut, but a few are open to the space inside so he can peek over the sill. If all else fails, he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to pick up Wade’s voice if he’s talking.

And really, when isn’t Wade talking.

He hits the jackpot at the fourth window to the left, fifth floor. Just as he’s about to glance into the glass, the curtains slam open and Peter ducks down with a bitten-off curse. But Wade doesn’t open the window, just moves away and flips a few lights on. Peter adjusts his grip and carefully levers himself into a comfortable position where he can see the inside of the apartment but still duck out quick if he needs to.

The view from the window shows a living room, part of a kitchen, and a shadowy hallway that he assumes leads to a bedroom. The whole place is dark and shabby; a roach crawls over the window right in front of him and he can see stains in the carpet even in the dim lighting. The living room holds an ugly green couch with a mountain of clothes on one end, scarred coffee table, and a TV sitting on a couple of boxes. There’s at least a couple of six pack’s worth of empty beer bottles scattered within reach of the couch. None of this seems to bother Wade, who emerges from the kitchen with an open beer and a shaker bottle and flops down gracelessly onto the cushions.

He would be the kind of guy who doesn’t shower after going to the gym.

Peter’s not entirely sure what he’s expecting, but it’s definitely not three straight hours of Borderlands 2. Aside from replenishing his beer, Wade doesn’t move from the couch. The most interesting thing about the whole episode is his constant yelling at the TV screen and the fact that he’s wearing hot pink socks.

It’s so... normal.

Peter is having a hard time with normal, coming from Deadpool.

After three and a half hours, Peter gives up and leaves. It’s clear nothing more nefarious than the possible destruction of a Playstation 4 (judging from the way Wade keeps dying over and over) is going to happen tonight.

The whole way home, Peter can’t help but think about those hot pink socks and the fact that he and Wade like the same beer.

--

It’s around this point that a niggling thread of thought worms its way into his head when he’s not paying attention, one that gently suggests that Wade might be slightly less of a bad guy than Peter previously thought. It’s been three weeks since he’s started monitoring ( stalking) Wade Wilson, and so far all he’s seen him do is go to the gym, play video games, chase stray cats in the outside alleyway and try to pet them, and drop water balloons on the heads of some punks that were causing a racket outside of his window. To be fair, Peter can’t devote 24/7 to Deadpool-monitoring, which means that there’s whole days that he could be murdering innocent children or robbing banks, but so far his findings have been way less typical bad guy than he was expecting.

And then Spidey gets introduced to Emiliano.

He knows that something is up when Wade comes home and starts cleaning. From what he’s witnessed so far, Wade isn’t a slob, but he’s prone to leaving shoes and dirty clothes around, piling his laundry on any flat surface he can find, and amassing truly amazing amounts of beer bottles (which he makes castles out of when he’s bored). But this day, Thursday at 3 o’clock, Wade is running around the house like a madman throwing clothes in hampers and shoving deadly objects (of which he has many) into a trunk, which gets locked very securely. He darts out of sight, down the hallway that Peter assumes contains his bedroom, and Peter hears the tiny click of a lock just before a knock comes on the door.

“Heeeeeey, Señora Hernández! Buenas tardes, como te va?” Wade says to someone on the other side of his front door. Peter can’t see past him, but he hears a woman respond, and then there’s a little shadow ducking around Wade and running into the living room.

It’s a young boy, probably six or seven, round-faced and smiling, with a mop of black hair that sticks up every which way. He takes a flying leap onto the couch, bounces a few times, and then runs back to the door and jumps on Wade’s back, nearly sending the man stumbling out the doorway.

“Hey, no worries, Señora. I’ll see you at eight. Adios.” Wade says, hoisting the kid up onto his back. The little boy waves to the woman in the doorway as she leaves and Wade shuts the door behind her. Peter is speechless as he watches someone willingly leave their small child alone with Deadpool , but (concerningly) this appears to be a normal thing.

Wade carries the kid over to the couch, spins around a few times in a circle, and then collapses back onto the cushions, pretending to squish the small boy against them. The kid shrieks in laughter, crawling out from behind and sprawling out over Wade’s lap like a puppy. He’s not the least bit fazed by the ugliness of Wade’s face.

“What’s up Nano? You ready to party with Unkky Wade?” Wade asks the kid, tickling him through the cloth of his t-shirt. The boy laughs and babbles something in Spanish that Peter doesn’t catch, but it makes Wade smile.

“Alright, I gotta tell you a secret. Uncle Wade forgot to buy dinner for tonight, so we have to go to the store. What are you thinking, goblin soup? Fried toes? Meatloaf?”

“Noooooo,” the kid whines back, “Chicken nuggets. And MAC AND CHEESE!” with this exclamation, Nano rolls over sideways and off the couch, landing in a heap at Wade’s feet.

“Dude, the dinosaur-shaped ones?! This is why you’re my main man, Nano. You really know how to live it up. Alright, vamonos, Unkky Wade needs to find his shoes.”

Peter is half certain he’s dreaming. But after a few minutes’ wait, Wade comes striding out the front door of the apartment complex, hood in place, Emiliano’s hand in his. Peter shakes his head in disbelief, but like a train wreck, he can’t look away, so he follows.

Luckily, today he’s brought street clothes with him, having intended to hit the library for a couple hours after his Wade-watching session. So when the pair duck into a grocery store a few blocks away, Peter finds a deserted corner in the alleyway and hurriedly changes into jeans and a t-shirt, stuffing the suit into the backpack. He can’t in good conscience abandon Deadpool with a small child, so it’s up to him to make sure Emiliano isn’t returned to his mother in bite-sized pieces.

The nice thing about wearing a mask as a superhero is that outside of the mask, you essentially become invisible. Peter could probably walk right past Wade right now and not get a second look, though he’s not going to try it. He feels pretty comfortable lounging on the other end of the aisle though, picking up random cans and boxes so as not to look out of place.

Wade gets one of those little training shopping carts for Emiliano, and in the middle of the freezer aisle, he climbs into the basket and directs the six year-old to push him to the chicken nuggets.

“Nano, I can’t do this without you man, I need your help. Push harder, you can do it.” he says seriously. The boy leans his full body weight on the handle of the cart and pushes. Unsurprisingly, the cart doesn’t move.

“You’re too heavy!” Emiliano whines, shoving at the cart filled with 200-plus pounds of muscle forlornly.  The cart itself bulges from the strain of containing the man, but thankfully doesn’t break.

“Man, we gotta get you to the gym. Alright, let’s try it this way, come here.” Wade picks the kid up, settles him in his lap, and then uses his hands to push the cart down the aisle. They look ridiculous. Peter, against his better judgement as he studies a bag of brussel sprouts, has to bite back laughter at the sight of it. Who would have thought that Wade Wilson, regenerating degenerate and generally obnoxious masked man, would be good with kids?

In the back of his mind, the little thread of doubt niggles again.

Trouble comes in the boxed goods aisle, as Wade and Nano are searching for the Spongebob-shaped macaroni and cheese. A thick man in a dirty wifebeater slams into the little toy cart that the pair are still seated in, flipped it on its side and sending them sprawling across the tile. Nano looks up at the man in disbelief, and even from the opposite end of the aisle, Peter can see the tears start welling up in his eyes.

“Hey what the fuck, man? You got something against cartoon pasta?” Wade says angrily, climbing to his feet and pointing a box of mac and cheese at the guy. The man must get a good look at Wade’s face at that point, because his own screws up in disgust and he takes a step back, like he’s afraid that it’s catching.

“With a face like that, you should lock yourself in your apartment and never come out.” the guy shoots back, scratching at the side of his dirty wifebeater with one hand. “Whoever let you be around their kid should be shot. Unless you stole him. Huh? You steal that little brat?”

At this, Emiliano really does start to cry, still sitting on the ground and overwhelmed by the meanness of the man in front of him. Wade’s grip on the box of mac and cheese tightens, denting it, and then he throws it on the ground and goes to Nano to help him up.

“Hey little man,” he says softly, checking him over and evidently finding him alright, “can you do me a favor? Go stand next to that nice-looking guy over there with the backpack, okay? Uncle Wade needs to have a talk.”

Emiliano shakes his head stubbornly, still crying, but Wade gives him a little push and he takes off out of the line of fire. Peter realizes far too late that the ‘nice-looking guy with the backpack’ is ... him .  Suddenly there’s a wet-faced little boy with a grip like a limpet attached to his leg while Wade advances on the man who knocked them over, talking too softly to be heard.

Uncomfortably, Peter pats the boy on the head, and Nano buries his face in Peter’s jeans and starts babbling in broken Spanish. Peter sets a hand on his shoulder, looks up, and finds that Wade has the other guy backed up against the bottles of condiments, one hand hidden in the pocket of his hoodie like he might have something in there he doesn’t want seen. Peter wants to go over there and stop whatever’s about to happen, but he can’t do anything with a sobbing six-year old glued to him. So he just stands there and watches, hoping really hard that Wade doesn’t shoot, stab, or otherwise dismember anyone in the store while he’s watching.

He doesn’t. Whatever he says to the guy in the wifebeater, it makes him go pale, and then he’s hurrying out of the store like his life depends on it. Peter watches him go, breathing a sigh of relief, but when a shadow falls across him, he remembers that he has a bigger problem to deal with. Literally bigger. Much, much bigger.

“Hey, my man.” Wade says softly, kneeling down to Emiliano’s level, where he’s clutching at Peter’s jeans. “¿Estás bien?”

Nano sniffs, but nods, and slowly he lets go of Peter and transfers his grabbiness to Wade, who stands up and picks the kid up to set him on his hip. Peter doesn’t really know what to do, so he just sort of stands there awkwardly, until Wade sets his sights on him. He feels like he’s caught, for some reason, despite knowing that there’s no way Deadpool could recognize him. He doesn’t see any recognition in the other man’s eyes, so that’s a relief.

“Thanks. I don’t make it a habit of responding to douchenozzles when it’s just me, but that guy needed his cunt punted, you know what I mean?” Wade says flippantly. Peter blinks.

Oh, really? Not a habit?

“Uh, sure?” he says, unthinkingly, then winces internally. No one may recognize his face, but they might recognize his voice. He drops it a register before he talks again. “I mean, yeah, glad to help. It was rude of him to knock you guys over like that.”

Something about that seems to put Wade at ease. He sees a little flash of caution slip from his gaze. Maybe it’s the fact that Peter isn’t cringing at his face; considering the amount of times he’s seen it bloody, dismembered, and in pieces by now, it’s practically beautiful in comparison at the moment.

“Yeah, well, the threat of cutting his balls off, boiling them, and feeding them back to him in a stew seemed to take care of any future incidents.” Wade replies distractedly, bending over to pick something up. “Oops, did I say that out loud? Silly me. You dropped your pickled beets, wouldn’t want you to walk out without those bad boys.”

Wade hands him a can, and Peter takes it mechanically. Pickled beets? Really? He sucks at this recon thing.

“Yeah, they’re good in, uh… cocktails.” he says hurriedly, then kicks himself. Cocktails? What?

“Sounds like my kinda time.” Wade replies, mercifully unquestioning. “Well, me and the little man have some dinosaur nuggets and mac and cheese to purchase. Thanks again. Sorry about the battle scars, I’m 90% sure he doesn’t have anything contagious but maaaaaybe get an STD test just to be safe. Can’t be too careful.”

Wade points to Peter’s jeans, where Peter sees a wet spot, probably from where Emiliano had been shoving his tear-streaked face into Peter’s leg. By the time he looks back up though, Wade’s already walking away.

--

Peter gets that people have different sides, but the more he thinks about it, the more difficult it is to reconcile the hooded guy carrying a six year-old crying child with the crazy masked mercenary that Peter realizes he’s actually only met a few times on the streets.

Most of his information about Deadpool comes from other people. Sure, there have been some deaths that Peter didn’t condone, and a higher-than-average amount of violence. But the other stuff, the stuff that really made him hate Deadpool - all that information came from other people. And, well, maybe other people aren’t as reliable as Peter thought.

He tries to stick to his black-and-white outlook, tries really hard, but different images keep popping up his head - Wade in pink socks, drinking a beer; Wade unfailingly locking his weapons in a trunk every Thursday so he can babysit Nano; Wade pulling his punches at the last second just because Spiderman asks him too, so he can leave breathing bad guys for the cops instead of corpses.

He starts asking around, but hits dead ends every time. “Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.” he gets from Captain America. “Go away.” is all Wolverine says. The other X-Men give various colourful responses, depending on how familiar they are with Deadpool, but all of them boil down to the same thing. He’s crazy. He kills people. He’s a bad guy. He can’t be trusted.

Peter thinks about it a lot, and comes to no conclusions.

Until the dog.

--

Saturday night is prime-time for fighting villains. Peter’s not sure if it’s because most of them have day jobs to pay the rent, or if they just like to wait until the weekend for the increased crowds, but Fridays and Saturdays are usually the nights that he’s up until three or four AM, defending the city and dodging the reporters that follow him looking for new and exciting ways to slander his name.

So far, he’s caught two purse-snatchers, a car thief, and he’d been on his way to back Iron Man and Captain America up against some type of giant mutant snake, but they’ve got it tied in knots by the time he arrives and so he just gives them a wave and moves on.

He’s contemplating calling it a night - he really needs to get started on homework - when there’s a pitiful howl somewhere in the distance, followed by a sharp ‘yip’ of pain.

Followed by cursing, and a cry of pain that definitely doesn’t come from an animal.

Peter rounds the corner and immediately dodges when a body comes flying his way. The body, a kid of probably 16 or 17, hits the cement wall of the alley and slides down into a pile of trash, groaning.

“Wow, you guys are right, this IS fun! Who wants to be the next helpless little dog?”

Deadpool, in all his red-suited glory, stalks towards another kid who’s backing down the alley towards Peter, unaware that he’s trapped. His hands are up defensively, but that doesn’t stop the man from pursuing. His katanas are still sheathed, and so are his handguns, thankfully.

“Here, lay down on the ground and let me kick you a couple times. You don’t need both of those legs, am I right?”

The kid backs straight into Peter, lets out a very shrill noise of surprise, and jumps about ten feet into the air. Looking frantically between Peter and Deadpool, he clearly assumes that Peter is the lesser threat and scrambles around him. His friend stumbles out of the trash pile and follows, leaving the two suited men alone in the alleyway.

“Ah, Spidey, why’d you let them get awayyyyyy?” Deadpool moans, watching the retreating backs of the two punks wistfully. One hand reaches out and twitches forlornly.

Peter resists the urge to bury his face in his hands and looks around for the source of the pained yip that had led him here.

“Want to tell me why you’re out here terrifying teenagers, Deadpool?” he asks, one eyebrow raised even though the other can’t see it through the mask.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to just terrify them, Spidey. I was going to break every fucking finger they have and then possibly feed them a few, if time permitted. Actually, lucky day, one left his wallet, so I guess that means I still have a chance!” Deadpool says happily, snatching a black wallet from the ground and picking through it for an ID.

“Not sure that’s at all nece - oh. Geez.”

As soon as Peter steps forward to snatch the wallet from Deadpool, he sees what has the man so agitated, and is immediately more sympathetic to Deadpool’s plan to break bones.

There’s a dog, a puppy really, leashed to the side of a dumpster, hidden from view until you step far enough into the alley. It cowers in the corner with one terrified eye on the two of them. There’s duct tape around its snout, probably to keep it from biting, but the poor thing doesn’t look like it’s in the mood to bite anyone. Both of its back legs are bent at unnatural angles, and Peter can very clearly see bone sticking out on at least one of them.

“Say the word, Spidey, and I’ll track them down.” Deadpool says. His eyes carefully avoid the broken dog, instead fixed intensely on Peter’s masked face like the sight makes him uncomfortable. It sure as hell makes Peter uncomfortable.

Peter shakes his head and crouches down next to the dumpster, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t deal with broken bones, especially in animals. Normally, he just leaves injuries to the professionals, but there’s no ambulance for dogs. Would the boys in blue take it to the vet? Who would pay for it? Would it end up in the pound?

“No, we’ve got to get this little guy to the vet. That’s first priority right now.” he says firmly, carefully reaching for the leash that’s keeping the dog in place. It doesn’t make any attempt to defend itself, just curls in further to the corner and whines low in its throat. The sight breaks Peter’s heart.

“Great idea, baby boy! Listen, I’ll track down the nearest open vet and you can get Fido there all taken care of. Juuuuuust a minute.”

Deadpool whips out his phone and starts typing as Peter carefully wraps his hands around the dog’s torso and picks it up, trying not to jostle the broken legs too much. Besides the previously obvious injuries, the dog is covered in cuts and dirt and looks pretty emaciated. It doesn’t even struggle as Peter brings it carefully to his chest, just lays its head down and stares into the distance.

“Here we go! Four blocks thatta way!” Deadpool sings, pointing back the way Peter came and tucking his phone back into one of his various pouches. “Anyway, thanks for the help snookums, I’ll leave you to it, buh-bye - “

“Not so fast, “ Peter replies, grabbing the back of Deadpool’s suit before he can disappear. “You’re coming with me. You’re the one that found it, after all.”

Deadpool could easily pull out of Peter’s grip, but he seems to know that it would jostle the dog and so he doesn’t. He does, however, side-eye it, and the slant of his shoulders becomes tense.

“Yeah, look, I don’t really do clinics of any type. I’m allergic to antiseptic, gives me hives like you wouldn’t believe. So I’mma sit this one out if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. You’re coming.” Peter says firmly, then blinks. “I mean, with me. To the clinic. For the dog. Not in any other sense of the phrase.”

The red-suited man turns and waggles his eyebrows at Peter. Peter’s pretty sure he’s physically incapable of letting an innuendo pass by un-commented on.

“We’ll save that type of coming for later. Will you yell at me then too?” he says, with just a hint of hopefulness. Peter sighs and pushes past him in the direction of the clinic. Thankfully, Deadpool follows.

The receptionist, clearly experiencing a slow night, is understandably startled when two spandex-suited men come in the front door, one carrying a clearly very injured dog. To his credit, he handles it well and tells them to wait while he gets the vet on duty. They stand awkwardly in the waiting area, the puppy’s whining much louder in the silence. Deadpool eyes the room, then turns his attentions to the dog, rubbing it on the head with surprisingly gentle affection.

“That was good thing you did back there. Minus the intention to break their fingers.” Peter says, surprising himself.

“And feed them to them.” Deadpool corrects absently, scratching the dog under the chin. “Wait - was that praise?! Oh hallelujah, the day has come. I knew we were going to be besties, it was just a matter of time before you figured it out too. I’m thinking we celebrate Taco Tuesday after this, what do you say?”

There’s a lot of dramatic hand gestures involved in this speech. It’s easy to see how people fail to take Deadpool seriously, because he’s just so ridiculous all the time. Is that what makes him such an effective mercenary? Maybe the ridiculousness throws off people’s aim.

“First, it’s not Tuesday.” he says, instead of voicing any of these thoughts.

He plans to address each of the parts in turn, but he’s interrupted by the vet hurrying out into the lobby. She’s got a lot more steel in her than her receptionist, because she doesn’t even bat an eye at either of them, just takes in the dog’s mangled back legs and motions Peter to follow her.

“That’s going to take emergency surgery. Be careful, don’t jostle the legs.”

Deadpool makes no move to follow. Peter, unwilling to prolong the dog’s pain to have this fight, settles for glaring at him and pointing warningly at a bench. Hopefully it’s enough to keep Deadpool around. He’s not holding his breath though.

“What happened? Put her there on the table, on her side. Careful with the legs.” the vet instructs curtly, when they reach the right room. Peter lays the dog down as gently as he can and backs away as an assistant in a mask and glasses practically pushes him out of the way.

“Uh, we found it with some kids in an alleyway. That’s all I really know, my friend got there first.” he explains awkwardly as the vet dons her own protective gear. The room is suddenly a whirlwind of activity and Peter just wants to slip out so he’s out of the way.

“We’ll take care of her. The surgery will take a few hours at least, depending on the severity of the breaks and whatever other damage there is. Go sit in the waiting room. And don’t leave.”

Peter sees the look on her face, swallows, and nopes out of there as quickly as he can.

When he comes back into the waiting room, Deadpool is surprisingly still there. In fact, he’s sitting on a bench quietly, appearing to be...reading a magazine. Peter is instantly suspicious.

And it’s confusing to him when the realization that it’s a skin mag actually puts him more at ease.

“How’s the pooch?” he asks cheerily, closing the magazine and tucking it away. It’s like he’s talking about the weather, instead of a severely injured animal.

“It’s in emergency surgery. That’s all I know.” Peter says, shrugging. It occurs to him that the next activity on his list is going to be sitting in a waiting room with Deadpool, at one o’clock in the morning, for an indeterminate amount of time.

The list of things he’d rather be doing is already ten items long, starts with ‘fighting ANY combination of super villains  - while naked’, and only appears to be growing.

“Man, not having a healing factor must SUCK.” Deadpool starts as Peter slouches down on the opposite side of the bench. “Could you imagine a dog with a healing factor though? That would be the perfect sidekick, you could make it a little suit and take it with you to fight crime -”

“Seriously? Crime-fighting super-dog?” Peter asks, and he hopes the tilt of his head makes Deadpool understand how far up his eyebrow is raised. Being snarky while in costume is so much more difficult.

“Says the crime-fighting SPIDER. You’re not even a real insect, you only have four appendages. Well, we could say five, I could think of one more that might count if it’s long enough -”

“Okay, FIRST,” Peter says loudly, cutting off that train of thought before it goes too far, “Spiders are not insects, and part of the reason is that they have, in fact, eight legs. So kudos to you for failing elementary school. And secondly, at least my name makes sense. I’m Spiderman because I got my powers from a radioactive spider . Clear connection there. What does Deadpool even mean? Did you just make it up?”

Deadpool flinches backwards and throws one hand over his heart exaggeratedly.

“Spidey? You don’t know my tragic backstory? Have you read any of my comics?” He plows on before Peter can question this strange statement. “I really thought we were besties, but I can see that this relationship is clearly one-sided - “

“-one-sided as they come -”

“But in the interest of bringing us closer, I’ll tell you. And I want you to know that I won’t hold it against you when you decide to change your superhero name.”

“You’re not a - “

“SO,” Deadpool says loudly over any possible comments Peter could have been about to make, “There once was a sexy motherfucker named Wade Wilson. Wade was tricked into becoming part of a project called Weapon X, which involved lots of needles and other pointy objects. Under other circumstances and with the right people Wade would find this totally acceptable, but in this circumstance it was less fun. In fact, it was so little fun that people routinely died from it!

“So in the interest of taking their minds off their quickly approaching death and because people as a rule are huge douchenozzles, the patients at Weapon X started a betting pool on who would be the next to die. A dead pool. And let me tell you, they were all PISSED when I strolled out of there all still alive and covered in blood. Serves them right for gambling. And that is how I got my name.”

Deadpool makes a ta-da gesture as if he’s just finished some type of act. Peter just stares at him, trying to keep his jaw from dropping.

“That… is awful.” he says slowly. “Why would you go through something like that? Money?”

Deadpool lets his hands drop and gives Peter a long look. Throughout his little story, he had stayed surprisingly upbeat and relaxed; now his shoulders tense a little, and all the weight of that comes down squarely on Peter.

“Wow, Spidey, I know you think I’m an asshole, but I didn’t think you expected me to be that much of an asshole. Give me some credit here.”

“Credit for what?” Peter snarks back, crossing his arms. “You kill people. Or, alternatively, you maim them. Whole buildings get destroyed wherever you show up. And everything you do, you do for money. And you expect me to think this was different?”

Peter very immediately regrets that whole statement. Deadpool’s shoulders droop. He looks hurt. He drops his gaze from Peter and stares at the ground instead, arms hanging woodenly at his sides.

“I’m trying, you know.” he says to the floor. His voice is quiet. “I get that there’s a lot for me to make up for - shut up, Yellow - but I’m really trying. And if you’d just help me, or just let me work with you sometimes -” he stops talking. One of his hands curls into a fist at one side. “You know what, forget it. Whatever. Give the pooch a pet for me.”

Wade turns to the door and strides out. Peter tries to follow him, a protest already on his lips, but the door slams in his face.

Peter stares at it for a few long moments. Then he sits down on one of the benches and thinks very hard about what he just said.

--

The vet tells him that the dog will makes a full recovery, and lets him borrow a carrier to take the dog home. When Peter explains haltingly that he doesn’t have any money - wallets ruin the line of his spandex (not that his wallet has any money in it anyway) - the vet rolls her eyes and waves him off.

He takes the dog to Aunt May the next day. She takes one look at the poor thing, both of its legs in casts and weakly wagging its tail, and absolutely melts. Of course she’ll take care of it. And of course she’ll tell everyone it was Spiderman who gave it to her. Peter sighs in relief and goes with her to the pet store to pick up supplies. She names it Bingo, and takes special delight in buying it a tiny floral collar and a whole stack of toys.

And, of course, Peter asks around about Weapon X, and Deadpool.

“Why are you suddenly so interested in Deadpool?” Tony asks suspiciously when Peter approaches him. Peter makes up an excuse - know thy enemy, blah blah blah - and actually gets an answer for once.

“Apparently, he joined because he had some type of terminal cancer. They told him they could cure it - and they did, kind of. His healing factor is always fighting the cancerous cells so his body is in a constant flux of breaking down and healing. Thus, the scarring.”

Peter doesn’t follow Wade anywhere for a good week after that. He sleeps a little extra, does his homework, and spends a few extra hours patrolling. Mostly, he just sits around and feels like an asshole.

--

On Sundays, Peter goes over to Aunt May’s for an early dinner, so she can ask him awkward questions about classes and the girls that he’s not dating. She always sets aside a chunk of time to worry over his secret past-time too, especially if he’s been in the news recently for something.

This Sunday, he gets the surprise of his life.

When Aunt May opens the door, she absolutely beams at him - and turns to block the doorway, so he can’t enter.  

“Oh, Peter, it’s good to see you!” she says, pulling him into a hug. When he’s wrapped up tight, she turns her head and whispers into his ear.

“The superhero who helped you save that puppy saw us when I took her out to potty earlier. He’s in the living room.”

Peter pales and pulls out of her embrace.

“ What? Aunt May, are you serious? Does he know? ” he hisses lowly. Luckily, the living room is set back from the hallway that leads to the front door, so if Wade really is in there, he’s both out of sight and earshot.

May gives him a disbelieving look and settles her hands on her hips.

“No, of course not, Peter. What kind of aunt do you think I am? I told him that I ran into Spiderman and offered to take the dog for him. And he looked so happy to see her - I couldn’t just say no, could I?”

Peter drops his head into his hands and groans. Perfect. Just perfect.

“You really should’ve.” he mutters to himself.

“Well, let’s get this over with, then.” he says aloud to her, and follows her into the living room.

He’s half-hoping it’s an elaborate prank, right up to the moment he sees the familiar red-and-black costume seated on his grandmother’s couch. Wade looks up from the dog in his lap and Peter sees the cloth over his mouth stretch as the man grins.

“No way! What a coincidence!” he chirps when he catches sight of Peter. When Peter gives him a weird look, Wade slips a hand under his mask and yanks it off, to reveal the familiar messed-up face that Peter-who-is -not- Spiderman would definitely remember from the grocery store.

“This HAS to be fate. Who runs into the same person TWICE in the matter of a month?” he says, carefully moving the dog onto the couch so he can stand up and approach Peter. The dog whines at the loss of attention but then drags its tiny body into the warm spot Wade had just left and closes its eyes to nap.

“Uh, a lot of people? Peter says sarcastically, before remembering that that’s not how normal people talk to other people they don’t know that well. “I mean - yeah, big surprise. How’s the kid doing? Not too traumatized?”

“Who, Nano? Naah, he’s fine. He speaks mostly Spanish so the particulars of what I told that guy I’d do to his insides went right over his head.”

Uh… that’s good, I guess.” Peter says awkwardly. He’s intensely aware that he’d really hurt Wade’s feelings the last time they’d spoken, and here he is pretending to be a completely different person. It’s really hard not to immediately say whatever comes to mind, and he keeps almost forgetting to lower his voice. He’s probably acting like a crazy person. But he guesses that’s not new to Deadpool.

“Boys, time for dinner.” Aunt May calls from the kitchen. Peter blanches and glances over at Wade.

“Dinner? N- I mean, surely he’s got somewhere to be.” Peter says reasonably. He’s not entirely sure he can make it through a whole dinner with Wade without messing something up. God, if Wade knew that May was Spiderman’s aunt… his opinion is not so changed as to think that’s a good idea.

“No sirree, muchacho, the only place I have to be is right there at that table, enjoying your aunt’s fine cooking! Let’s not keep her waiting!” Wade says gleefully, heading for the table. Peter sighs, gives the dog a pet on the head, and goes to join them.

Aunt May already has the table set for three. There’s a bowl of macaroni and cheese and a basket of foil-wrapped potatoes in the middle; Peter goes to grab the green beans while she carries the pot roast over.

If she’s surprised by Wade’s suddenly bare face, she doesn’t show it. Peter doesn’t give her much credit, but she’s good under pressure. Unflappable. She’d sort of had to be, with a trouble-making nephew like Peter, always getting beat up at school and getting dropped off by the police for being where he wasn’t supposed to.

The three of them sit down and pass the dishes around. Wade prattles on about the food and how good it is as he’s eating. Aunt May graciously ignores his atrocious table manners and and thanks him for his praise. Peter spears a piece of pot roast and tries to ignore the whole thing.

“So, Mr. Wilson, I understand that you’re a superhero. That must be very exciting.” Aunt May says conversationally as she cuts up her potatoes. Peter nearly faceplants into his plate. His aunt doesn’t respond to his very pointed look.

“Weeeeeeelll, kinda sorta? I mean, I’m pretty super, but most people wouldn’t call me a hero. Something about breaking too many things and my body count being too high and all. I say, what’s another dead criminal? You’re just gonna put them in jail anyway! But the other guys don’t feel that way.” Wade senses after his monologue that this is probably the wrong thing to say and switches tactics quickly.

“But I’m working on it! Cleaning up my act and everything. Spiderman is helping me out, and I’ll be a hero in no time. You’ll see him on the front papers in no time, tandem superheros out saving the city!” Wade strikes a pose and the green bean on his fork nearly flies into the curtains.

Aunt May smiles. “You and Spiderman must be good friends.” she says casually.

Peter takes a deep breath and does NOT think about throttling his aunt. Please lie, please lie, please lie…

“I mean, not really.” shit. She’s going to run him through the ringer for this one. “He actually kind of really hates me, I think. Every time I show up to help him out, he yells at me. He can be surprisingly mean.”

Aunt May blinks, and then turns the full force of her ‘disappointed face’ on Peter. Peter swallows and tries to hide his face in his macaroni and cheese.

“Well,” she says back to Wade, “maybe Spiderman just hasn’t spent enough time with you. After all, you did rescue that poor dog and make sure she was taken care of. I’m sure he’ll come around, dear.” here she sneaks in another reproachful glance at Peter.

This is the worst. He can’t even defend himself. Aunt May is going to think he’s a total jerk just because Wade got his feelings hurt. How unfair is that? He takes another sullen bite of potatoes and smushes down any urge to butt into the conversation. He’ll just talk to her afterwards and explain the situation.

They finish the meal on less tender conversation topics. Wade helps them clean up afterwards, but begs out from dessert.

“Gotta go patrol and make sure everything’s safe!” he says in explanation when May asks him to stay for pie. “Spidey’s never out and about Sunday nights, so somebody has to pick up his slack! Thanks for the grub, May-May, I’ll swing by again sometime!”

He yanks his mask on, gives the two of them a cheery wave, and disappears off into the night.

Aunt May immediately turns to him.

“ Peter. ”

“Okay, no, Aunt May, listen to me,” Peter says immediately, before she can get started, “Wade Wilson is crazy. Literally crazy. He talks to voices in his head! And , and , he kills people, like, all the time. Any time he shows up, whatever enemy we’re fighting is bound to end up dead.”

He sees absolutely no sympathy on her face. None.

Peter had really hoped he could just come over, have dinner, eat some pie, and take home some leftovers so he wouldn’t starve to death this week. He’d even brought the tupperware back. A brow-beating was nowhere in this plan.

“Peter, I understand that you have reservations,” May says gently, turning to the pie sitting on the stove, “but if that man really asked for your help and you turned him down, I’m disappointed in you. Who knows what he might have gone through to act that way? And if he’s really intent on changing and becoming a better person, and you don’t help him, you become partly responsible for what he does. If you want to be a superhero, Peter, you have to act like one.”

Peter takes the pie that she dishes out and slumps back down at the table, sighing. Why does Aunt May always make so much sense? Where does she even get the authority to talk about what a superhero should or shouldn’t do? Was she secretly running around in a spandex suit in her younger years too?

“You’re right, Aunt May. Next time I see him, I’ll tell him that I’ll help him out. Okay? Can we stop talking about this? Look at this pie, why don’t we eat this pie instead.”

She lets him drop the subject. But when he heads out the door an hour later, loaded down with  leftovers, she kisses him on the cheek and gives him a look that says she’ll be asking about Wade Wilson next Sunday.

--

“Okay, who invited the giant lizard out to play?” Peter calls when he catches sight of the thing that’s ravaging Central Park. The lizard is roughly thirty feet tall and purple; as he watches, it hisses at something on the ground and swipes. A bicycle goes flying through the air, thankfully without any people on it.

“It’s a salamander.” Black Widow calls out from behind him. “And apparently it spits poison, so be careful.”

“Ah, it spits poison. Of course. This would be too easy otherwise.” Peter says under his breath sarcastically. There’s a distinct lack of buildings to web his way off of here in the park, so he has to take to the ground to approach the salamander.

It stomps towards a frightened family, hissing menacingly. Peter tries to throw himself onto the creature’s skin to crawl up and attack its face, but he thuds right back to the ground and realizes that approach won’t work. Regular salamanders have moist skin and this one is no different; he can’t get enough of a grip to climb.

Instead, he lunges for a webbed foot and yanks on a toe to gets its attention. Up top, an arrow catches it in the shoulder and embeds in its slimy skin. Between these two annoyances, the salamander stops its approach on the family and turns to take care of business.

Peter finds very quickly that while a salamander’s skin is moist, its toes are quite suction-ey. The salamander lifts its foot, taking him with it via attached arm, and flings him through the air in a large arc. He looks desperately for something to web to, but there’s nothing in range. He’s going to go down hard on this one.

Something catches him right at the pinnacle of his arc and wraps around his waist securely. He looks back and sees a familiar black-and-red mask grinning at him, just before they hit the ground.

Deadpool hits first, taking almost all of the force of the fall. Peter lands on top of him and rolls off quickly.

“Hey Spidey, what’s happenin’?” Deadpool asks with a groan. He looks down and sees that there’s a sharp branch poking directly through the muscle of his calf. Blood is leaking out at an alarming rate.

“Well, shit. That’s annoying.” he says irritably, and rips his leg off the branch. It comes free in a spurt of blood. Peter makes a strangled sound.

“So, giant lizard huh?” he asks conversationally as he watches the flesh in his calf knit back together.

“Salamander, actually.” Peter replies automatically, his eyes also fixated on Deadpool’s regenerating flesh.

“Oh, neat! We’ve got something in common then. Salamanders regenerate limbs too! We’re practically related!”

“It also spits poison.” Peter points out as they take chase after the lizard. Deadpool looks up at the raging amphibian and shakes his fist in anger as they approach.

“Seriously? You have to one-up me like that? We are so not friends. ”

The salamander isn’t amused. Turning to them, it hisses and then spits a glob of something grey and goopy-looking. Peter doges one way, Deadpool the other. The goop hits the grass and immediately begins sizzling.

“Hey Deadpool? Maybe don’t antagonize the fucking giant salamander. ” Peter hisses. Deadpool gives him an exaggerated salute and pulls his katanas.

“Loud and clear, Spider-power. He may be able to grow limbs back, but trade secret” - Deadpool springs towards one of the salamanders front legs and slashes - “losing one will slow him the fuck down!”

The leg comes off in a spurt of dark blood. The salamander screeches and staggers; Deadpool ducks again just another gob of poisonous spit flies through the air, exactly where his head had been. Already, Peter can see a small nub protruding from the end of the amputated limb.

“Deadpool, cut the other one! Spiderman, catch!” a female voice calls from behind him. When Peter turns, Black Widow throws something small and dark at him. Peter catches it reflexively and looks the bomb over, confused.

“Get that into the salamander’s mouth pronto! Before its legs grow back!” she calls to him. There’s another ear-splitting screech from behind him as Deadpool cuts the other leg off. The ground shakes as the salamander crashes down, nothing to hold its front end up, and writhes back and forth. Its mouth is still too high for Peter to reach, not without being able to climb.

Captain America sprints in, spots Peter and the bomb, and crouches down, shield raised above his head. Peter gets the idea immediately. He takes off at a sprint for Cap, and when he’s almost reached him, bounds into the air to catch one foot on the shield. Cap springs up and levers Peter into the air like he weighs about as much as a rag doll.

It’s all the height he needs. Taking careful aim, Peter slings the bomb just as he passes the salamander’s wide open maw. Before he even hits the ground, there’s a wet explosion behind him. Something soft and slimy slaps him on the shoulder.

He turns and sees that there’s only blood and pulp where the salamander’s head was. They all watch, breaths held, to see if it will continue regenerating. But the headless body of the salamander just sways and then collapses into the ground.

“Good work, team.” Cap says, as they gather next to the headless corpse. Cap gives Peter a separate nod and a star-spangled smile. “Thanks for the assist, Spiderman. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“And without meeeeeeee!” Deadpool calls, zipping up from the other side. He slaps Cap on the back and ignores the way the other man shrinks back. Captain America looks pained, but as far as superheroes go he’s incredibly polite and so he doesn’t say whatever it is he’s clearly thinking.

“Yes, Deadpool. Thanks for not, uh… murdering anybody.” Cap says awkwardly, shuffling away from the man. Peter tries not to laugh at the uncomfortable look on his face.

“That’s right, this is Deadpool 2.0! Now with 50% less murder! 60% less if you buy the special edition, and it comes with a sexy lingerie outfit.” Deadpool continues, clearly pleased with Cap’s praise.

This must be the point where Cap can’t handle anymore. He says something quietly under his breath and backs away as quickly as humanly possible, leaving Peter and Deadpool alone next to the headless salamander. Deadpool turns to say something to him - and then stops and turns back away quickly. Aunt May pops up in the back of his head, chiding him again with that disappointed look on her face.

“Hey! Deadpool - uh, good job out there. You were helpful. And all.” Peter says awkwardly. Why is this suddenly so hard? Still, it’s enough to get Deadpool to stop walking away. He turns halfway, like he’s listening, but not ready to fully invest yet. Surprisingly, he’s quiet.

“So… I was thinking… I’m… pretty hungry? Do you… want to go get something to eat? With me?” he continues, when no reply is forthcoming.

The change is instantaneous. Deadpool bounds back instantly, his whole demeanour instantly changed again. Peter has no idea how he flips from emotion to emotion so quickly. It would make him tired.

“Tacos with Spidey~~ Let’s go, baby boy, I know just the perfect place!”

--

Despite thinking that he was going to get serious food poisoning from his first glimpse of the food truck, Peter is - enjoying himself. The tacos are actually really good, and it’s a nice change to eat six in a row without somebody giving him a judgemental look. Superheroes clearly do enough work to warrant 2000 calories worth of tacos. Skinny college-age men in geeky t-shirts? They just look like slobs.

“Hot sauce. Gimme.” Deadpool says demandingly, holding his hand out and opening and closing it rapidly. Peter rolls his eyes, but throws a couple packets at him anyway. He’s been trying not to notice the way Deadpool keeps sneaking glance at his uncovered mouth. Peter had realized ten minutes into dinner that Deadpool was just going to keep talking, mask firmly left on, if he tried to watch him eat; so instead, he keeps his eyes trained on the street so that Deadpool can roll his mask up and wolf down tacos in peace.

He wonders if Wade would be so sensitive about showing his mouth if Spiderman hadn’t made so many cruel comments about his face. Probably not. Wade Wilson wasn’t scared of Peter Parker or Aunt May seeing his face. It was only Spiderman the shit-talking jackass that got the careful treatment.

“What number are you on?” He asks the next time he looks over, seeing that the pile of tacos in front of Deadpool has diminished rapidly since he’d last looked. Deadpool stops in the middle of chewing and starts counting on his fingers.

“Thirteen? Fifteen? My record is thirty-two in a row, if you must know, but I’m thinking I can top that by at least four more.” He says as soon as he’s swallowed his giant bite of taco. Peter hopes he’s not thinking of going for that record right now. He’s not keen to see what they’ll look like coming back up.

“Hey, listen.” He says haltingly, fixing his gaze on the half-eaten taco in his lap. In his peripherals, Wade stops and looks at him curiously.

“I’ve been too hard on you lately. You’ve been trying to clean up your act and I respect that. So, do you think we can… start over?”

Whatever he’d expected to come out of that statement, it had not been a lapful of Deadpool. He manages to throw the half-eaten taco out of the way before impact, so luckily there’s no greasy mess being smooshed into his crotch, but Deadpool is still heavy and awkward and making some type of high-pitched noise like a girl as he flutters his feet and wraps his muscular arms around Peter’s neck.

“Oooh, Spidey, I knew you’d come around! You’re so cute when you’re all flustered and being nice.” The red-suited man croons. He wiggles some and Peter nearly drops him straight on the concrete. Thank God for Spidey-strength, because he’s pretty sure the old skinny Peter Parker wouldn’t have been able to handle 250 pounds of man on his lap.

Oh, geez. As if this situation couldn’t get any worse, that’s where his brain had to go?

“Geez man, lay off the Mexican food! You’re crushing me with your fatness.” Peter says, to hide his sudden and very apparent interest in the situation at hand. He tries to shove Wade off and onto the ground, but Wade still has his arms wrapped around his neck, and so they both go down in a heap, Peter on top of Wade, a knee jabbing him in the stomach.

“Well, this got interesting real quick. Spidey, I never knew.” Wade says, waggling an eyebrow. Their new position isn’t anywhere close to sexual - not unless you enjoy a knee to the gut and a possibly dislocated thumb - but Peter scrambles off quickly anyway. He can feel his flush under his mask. Nobody teases Peter Parker about sex so it’s an awkward topic for him.

“Don’t get any ideas. Taco sharing is not consent.” He says seriously. Still, he extends an arm and helps Wade up.

Despite his best efforts, they do in fact have a taco-eating contest that night. And even as Peter is lying in bed the next morning, clutching his stomach in pain, he realizes that Taco Tuesday has been the most fun he’s had out with another person in a long time.

--

In spite of their new-found camaraderie, Peter doesn’t stop his Deadpool-monitoring. If anything, it increases. He wants to be sure he’s not putting his faith into Wade Wilson prematurely. But everything settles into a rhythm, and that’s nice. He visits Aunt May next Sunday, and as expected, she grills him on Wade. Peter assures her that they’ve ‘made up’ and he’s doing the best he can to help the man out.

Alarmingly, the next Sunday May informs him that Wade has been visiting. Never at any time Peter’s there, but he nearly dies of a heart attack when he comments on the bouquet of flowers in the kitchen and hears the words, ‘Wade brought those over a few days ago’. She’s not amused when Peter asked if Wade destroyed anything and Peter decides to drop that subject before she retracts her offer of cornflake chicken for next Sunday’s dinner.

And Taco Tuesday becomes a weekly thing, though it’s not always on Tuesday, and it’s not always tacos. Some of the other superheroes start giving him a side-eye when they notice him leaving after fights with Wade, but Peter tries not to let it bother him. If they ask, he’s got a good reason.

As much as it sounds like, Peter Parker’s life does not actually revolve around Wade Wilson. He goes whole days without a thought about him. He takes a couple of midterms, gives a presentation in one class, goes on a terrible date with a girl that spends more time looking at her phone than talking to him (strangely, she’d asked him out, but he thinks maybe the disconnect happened the first time he caught himself ranting about the new camera he wanted). He takes a few new shots of Spidey for work and keeps up his patrols. He has a whole life that’s free of red spandex-wearing scarred mercenaries. He supposes it was bound to end sometime.

A knock comes on his door Thursday afternoon, just as he’s come home from class and finished taking a shower. Frowning, Peter wiggles into a shirt to match his sweats and goes to the door to look out the peephole.

Wade looks back out at him, once again clad in jeans and a hoodie, arms full of small child. He’s got a bag slung over his shoulder. As Peter looks out at them, he smiles and blows the peephole a kiss.

Jesus. What the hell was Deadpool doing at his apartment? How did he find out? He supposes that if Wade’s brought the kid, he’s probably not here to blackmail him, right? Plus, he’s not wearing the suit. Both good signs. He thinks. You never know with Deadpool.

“Wade. Hey. When did I give you my address?” He asks casually, trying not to sound suspicious. He gives a little wave to Nano, who turns and buries his face in Wade’s shoulder shyly. Wade just grins at him.

“Heya, Petey! Sorry to barge in on you, buuuuuut…. I sorta need a favour? I called up May-May but she’s at bingo or gardening club or whatever it is old ladies do on Thursdays, so she told me to hit you up instead.”

Petey. So his secret is safe (he thinks). Still, he’s going to kill Aunt May. Or at least give her a stern talking to.

“Wait. You have my aunt’s number?” He says in confusion. Wade nods.

“Yeah, she gave it to me a few weeks ago. She’s a sweet old bird, reminds me of a friend of mine only less old. And black. And blind. Well, maybe they’re not really alike at all. Can we come in?”

Peter can’t do much but move out of the way.

Wade steps through and looks around Peter’s little apartment. Peter, despite having seen where Deadpool lives, feels a little embarrassed by its bareness. He’s not here much, so he only has the basic necessities - couch, tv, computer desk, table to study on. There’s a couple of posters tacked up on the walls and his lime green bean bag is sitting in the middle of the living room from when he’d been playing Assassin’s Creed last night, but otherwise it looks like nobody even lives here.

“Nice place. Way cleaner than mine. So listen. My neighbor has to pull an extra shift tonight and doesn’t have anyone to watch Nano here, but I gotta work, and my work isn’t exactly kid-friendly if you know what I mean. Soooooo…. Think you can help me out? Just for a couple hours?” When Peter doesn’t reply right away, Wade does a little dance. He’s not entirely sure what the purpose of it is, but he does appreciate the jazz hands.

“I don’t know,” he says hesitantly, looking at Nano. “I’ve never babysat before. And I don’t even know any Spanish.”

When he looks back up at Wade, the other man is wide-eyed and his lower lip is jutting out ever so slightly. If he wasn’t 100% certain he’s looking at a mercenary and a stone-cold killer, Peter would swear that Wade is giving him puppy dog eyes.

And they’re… well. They’re kind of working.

“Come on, man, I don’t have anyone else to ask. You’re my lifeline here. Nano’s great, just turn on some cartoons and give him some cereal and he’ll be quiet as a mouse. Right Nano? You’ll be good for Petey, right?” Wade tickles Nano under an arm, startling a laugh out of the kid, and turns the puppy dog eyes back on Peter.

It’s a negative trait of Peter’s that he literally can’t say no to anyone if they wheedle enough. He’s doomed, and he knows it. Might as well give in.

“Yeah… okay. You want me to drop him back off at your place later?” He concedes. Wade’s face lights up like a candle. Adjusting his armful of child, he pulls out his phone and types something in quickly. Somewhere in his apartment, Peter’s phone buzzes.

“Holy shit, Pete, you’re really saving my bacon here. I knew you’d say yes, you’ve got a heart of gold just like May-May. I texted you my address, I should be back by ten o’clock or so. Here, I brought some dinner and a dvd for Nano and his favourite stuffed animal is in there and also some money ‘cuz I wouldn’t ask you to do this for free o-b-v .”

Peter doesn’t ask how Wade got his number. Instead, he just holds the bag awkwardly as Wade settles Emiliano on the couch.

“Be good for Peter, alright? No drinking, no drugs, no hard stuff. Peter will bring you back later tonight. Can you handle that?”

Nano looks unsure, but nods. Wade gives him a pat on the head and a punch to the arm and turns back to Peter.

“Thanks again sweetcheeks, I’ll see you at ten!”

Peter is suddenly left with a six year old boy and he’s not quite sure what to do with it.

He opens the bag and studies the contents. There’s a faded stuffed dinosaur that’s missing an eye, a Pokemon dvd, a box of Lucky Charms, and in the bottom - a huge stack of cash. Peter pulls it out and finds a huge wad of twenties crumpled together. There must be at least five hundred dollars there. He blinks and shoves the cash back into the bag. Then he turns to Nano.

“Hey there, Nano. My name is Peter.” He says awkwardly, holding out the dinosaur. Nano takes it from him and buries his face in it so only his eyes are staring up at Peter. How do you even talk to a six year old? Peter can’t remember being six. Peter can barely remember what he had for breakfast this morning.

“So, uh…” he starts, rubbing his neck, “What do you want to do?”

Twenty minutes later, they’re baking cookies.

The only reason Peter even has the ingredients to bake cookies is because Aunt May had insisted on stocking his kitchen at the beginning of the semester like she always does. Peter hasn’t even touched the bags of flour and sugar until now. Which is probably why half of the bag is now on the floor and across the counter top, and he’s pretty sure that the top for the baking soda is gone for good.

“Okay, so… sugar, butter… now we add eggs.” He says as he studies the recipe in front of him. Nano grins, cracks an egg on the side of the bowl, and dumps it in, shell and all. Peter huffs in amusement and fishes the bits of eggshell out, then picks up the next egg so he can demonstrate.

“No, like this. See, you crack it a little bit, and then you pull it apart. And then the shell goes in the trash.”

“This is fun!” Nano announces as he attempts to copy Peter with the last egg. He has flour in his hair and across his shirt; despite his best efforts, half of the egg shell still ends up in the dough. Peter just smiles and dumps in some vanilla. Measuring can’t be that important, right?

“What now, what now? Can I STIR IT?!” Nano squeals as Peter dumps some of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Peter nods and hands him a spoon, so Nano can go back to coating his entire kitchen in baking ingredients. Still, the dough does eventually get mixed, dumped on a pan, and put into the oven. Nano wants to sit on the floor and press his face to the glass to watch the cookies bake, but Peter decides that he has to feed the kid something other than cookies or Nano’s mother might kill him. He ditches the Lucky Charms in favour of some of the leftovers Aunt May gave him - fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn. All things that most kids like.

“Come on, Nano, you have to eat dinner to have cookies.” He says, setting the plate down. He’s a little nervous about what he’ll do if Nano says no or throws a fit - he doesn’t know the first thing about dealing with a stubborn little kid - but Nano does neither. He plops himself right down in the chair and picks up a piece of chicken to munch on. Peter fetches him a glass of milk and makes himself a plate too, listening and nodding attentively as Nano rambles on about the latest episode of some kids’ show and asks him intermittently when the cookies will be done. It’s surprisingly nice.

He hadn’t noticed how lacking in human company he’s been recently until just now. Besides taco Tuesday with Wade and weekly dinner with Aunt May, he doesn’t have a whole lot of time for socializing. Plus, once people get to be even casual friends with Peter, they start asking a lot of questions about why he’s always got random bruises and cuts and how come he cancels plans almost every single time they’re made. It’s just easier to not make friends in the first place.

It’s not like he’s ever had a plethora of friends to begin with, but still, he realizes he’s been a little lonely. Really lonely in fact, if having a six year old with potatoes smeared over his face is making him feel better. Luckily, the oven timer dings before he can start waxing too much poetic about his situation.

Nano is up like a shot. He scampers over to the oven and looks inside with mashed potato-faced glee. Peter debates making him sit back down to eat, but a glance shows that the plate is mostly empty and he doesn’t want to push his luck. You can’t web up six year old kids from the ceiling like you can criminals, and that’s about as far as his bad behavior-correcting skills go.

“Alright, alright. Scoot back, the oven is hot, remember?” Nano dutifully backs away and lets Peter wrangle the cookie sheet out of the oven. The cookies are very lopsided and maybe a little browner than they should be, but they look edible.

Despite his intention to be a responsible babysitter, almost all the cookies get eaten. Surprisingly, Nano leaves four and asks (with big eyes) if he can take them to ‘Unkky Wade’. Peter agrees grudgingly and slides them into a bag.

After that, they watch Pokemon for a while. Nano tells him about all the Pokemon in complete detail, including which ones he likes best. Peter, having been at one point a six year-old boy himself, knows an embarrassing amount about Pokemon himself and shares it. By the end of the second episode, Nano is asleep in Peter’s lap and it’s nine-thirty, time to pack up and head to Wade’s apartment. True to his word, Peter has a text on his phone that reads ‘Thanks baby boy ;) ;) ;)’ with his address after it. Wade had sent it before he’d even knocked on Peter’s door. Clearly he’d taken Peter for a sucker.

Peter reflects, as he attempts to juggle a sleeping child, a backpack, and his keys and wallet, that he is, in fact, a sucker.

They take the bus out to Wade’s neighborhood. Peter worries a little that someone might hassle him, being that he looks distinctly like he doesn’t fit in, but maybe the sleeping child makes them rethink it. He makes his way down the street, Nano drooling on the shoulder of his hoodie, and heads up the stairs into the apartment complex.

It doesn’t look any better on the inside that it did on the outside. A roach scurries by to hide in a corner as the door swings shut behind him. The hallway is bare concrete, painted a streaked and dingy grey. A set of stairs is off to the right; he sees no elevator. Sighing, Peter, hoists the kid up and starts up the stairs. For some reason, obtaining super-strength via spider bite hasn’t changed his hatred of taking the stairs.

They make it to the fifth floor and skirt past a tired-looking woman wearing a bikini top and a pair of cut-off shorts. Peter adjusts his armful and knocks tentatively on Wade’s door, hoping he answers quickly. Nano stirs, but doesn’t wake.

The door is yanked open. Wade, suited up in his Deadpool costume all but for the mask, stands there smiling. He opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it again when he sees Nano. Grinning, he waves them both in and shuts the door behind them.

“Heya, Petey. Right on time. Can you give me a mo to change? My suit’s a little dirty and I sort of don’t want to return Nano covered in blood.”

Peter blinks and notes that what he’d taken for a smudge of dirt on Wade’s cheek is actually more of a rust colour, and the front of his suit appears to be damp with something. He frowns and opens his mouth to say something, but Wade disappears down a hallway before he can and leaves him standing in the living room.

He’s already familiar with this part of the apartment - couch, tv, kitchen off that way, stacks of beer bottles. The trunk in the corner is locked, but a pink duffle bag sits on top of it, half unzipped. He sees gleaming metal through the opening.

It’s only another moment before Wade shows back up, dressed in his usual jeans and a hoodie. His face is now free of blood. Grinning at the sleeping bundle in Peter’s arms, he slips his hands carefully around the boy and takes him. Nano switches his grabbiness from Peter to Wade without even waking up.

“Thanks babe, you’re a doll. Don’t scoot before I come back, alright?”

And then Peter is left alone, really alone, in Deadpool’s apartment.

It would be a real waste to let this opportunity go. Peter heads for the hallway immediately.

There are actually three doors down the hallway. One leads to a dingy bathroom with a My Little Pony shower curtain. Someone’s drawn extra ponies on it in various coloured markers. The next leads to a bedroom, which isn’t much more than a mattress on the floor, a night stand, and a mess of sheets and pillows.

The last door is locked. Peter really wants to know what’s inside, but he doesn’t have that much time before Wade comes back, so he leaves it be.

The kitchen is similarly boring. It contains roughly the same things that Peter’s kitchen does: a fridge full of condiments and leftovers, dirty utensils in the sink, boxes of macaroni and cheese and hamburger helper. There’s a bottle of lotion and a stuffed unicorn sitting on one side of the counter. Peter doesn’t think about that too hard.

“Petey? Aw, you didn’t leave, did you?” comes a tentative call from the front door.

“No, I’m in here.” he calls back. Wade’s face appears through the doorway with a grin.

“Checking out the digs? That’s cool. Mrs. Hernandez was very grateful. So grateful, in fact, that she gave us…” Wade holds up a paper sack and jiggles it with a significant look, “TAMALES!”

“Uh...yay?” Peter says weakly. He’s not entirely sure staying here is a good idea.

Wade looks put off by his lack of enthusiasm. “Just wait until you get a bite of these, Petey my man, then you’ll be more excited.”

Wade’s dishes consist of paper plates and plastic utensils. He doesn’t ask Peter’s age before popping the cap off a beer for him, and Peter doesn’t mention it. Maybe some alcohol will make this whole situation less awkward. They carry their tamales into the living room, where Wade turns on a cooking show and props his feet up on the scarred, broken coffee table.

“So, uh… what kind of work do you do? I thought you were a superhero?” Peter asks, just for cover (and maybe also to see what Wade says, a little bit).

Wade has a mouthful of tamale. Sauce is smeared across the side of his pitted cheek, which he rubs off on his sleeve. He takes a minute to swallow before grinning at Peter.

“Wow, what is this, a date? Did you prepare questions? I would have bought flowers if I’d known.” he prattles. Peter blinks. “ I, Peter my boy, am a mercenary. That means I kill people for money. But, like, bad people. I don’t kill little old ladies or anything, I am a discriminating mercenary. My most recent employer moved my deadline up a smidge and so I had to make an emergency house-call, which is fine because I was feeling a little itchy, knowwhatimean?”

Peter has no idea what he means. He’s never really gotten the itch to stab someone.

“That’s kind of…” he starts, and doesn’t know where to go with that. “Interesting.” he finishes. And shoves another bite of tamale in his mouth, before he messes this conversation up too.

“Geeez, now you sound like Spiderman.” Deadpool whines, slumping back against the couch. “He’s always all, ‘Don’t kill people, Deadpool, don’t maim people, Deadpool, quit graffiting the police station, Deadpool’. How’s a man supposed to have any fun?”

“I mean, those are all things you… probably shouldn’t do?” Peter replies, at a loss for what else to say. Spiderman would tell him explicitly why all of those activities were, in fact, bad ideas, but Peter is trying to keep Wade from drawing any connections in that respect.

Wade carefully sets his paper plate on the coffee table - and then throws his hands into the air and slumps back against the couch as if in exasperation. It nearly knocks Peter’s own plate off his lap.

“Everyone’s a critic.” Wade grumbles. He scrambles for the remote and turns the TV on, forehead creased in annoyance. “Are you going to be this critical when my movie comes out? Because I’m telling you, I need good reviews. Ryan Reynolds isn’t hot enough to carry it all on his own, you know.”

Peter has no idea what he’s talking about. Thank god for the tamale that keeps him from having to answer.

With a full belly, dim lighting, and the soft sound of the tv as background, it isn’t long before Peter’s eyelids start drooping. He lives on a diet of energy drinks and sleep deprivation - going this long without moving is guaranteed to lull him into sleep. It’s almost embarrassing, really, how quickly he passes out.

He wakes up the next morning in a panic and nearly brains himself on the coffee table. There’s a strawberry shortcake blanket draped over him and a little note on the table with a donut sitting on it that just has a kissy face on it.

Peter doesn’t realize until he stumbles into class fifteen minutes late that the jacket he’d thrown on is three sizes too big and smells like musk and something spicy.

--

After that, Wade disappears into thin air for three weeks. Peter’s used to him being gone for long stretches of time, but three weeks is unusually long. Long enough that he gets a quiet, broken-English phone call from Mrs. Hernandez, who asks him hesitantly if he can watch Nano one night so she can work.

He drops by Wade’s place once as Peter and knocks, but there’s no answer. He drops by again as Spidey and sneaks a peek into the window, but all is dark. He’d never say it out loud, but things get a bit… lonely. Nobody trades jibes with him like Deadpool does, and nobody knows how to veg on the couch for endless rounds of Mario Kart like Wade. Without him around, Peter is reduced to endless patrolling and the occasional bout of staring at the ceiling boredly. Did he have this much trouble entertaining himself before Wade?

There’s a hidden message in the phrase ‘before Wade’, but he doesn’t think about it too hard.

In the middle of week four, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, Peter decides to check on Wade’s apartment again. Mrs. Hernandez has asked him worriedly about ‘Uncle Wade’ and whether he would be able to babysit this week, so really it’s not just him being worried.

He stands in the dirty hallway and knocks on the door. No answer. Something shuffles around a bit behind the door to his left, but nobody peeks their head out.

Peter sighs and nearly leaves, but on a whim he checks the door handle first, just in case. The door is unlocked. Peter debates for a moment, then pushes the door open gently.

Everything seems in order when he first walks in. The living room is cleaner than usual, as if it’s not been used in a while, but Wade’s pink duffle sits next to the coffee table, katana handle sticking out. The kitchen is empty except for a foil-wrapped burrito on the counter that smells pretty rank. Peter digs a set of tongs out and uses them to transfer the burrito to the trash.

He wanders down the hallway and checks the bedroom tentatively, but it looks unused too. He’s pretty sure Wade is back - why else would his duffel bag be sitting in the living room? - but otherwise, his apartment looks abandoned. A last-ditch effort check of the bathroom leaves only one place unvisited.

The other door in the hallway has been locked every time Peter has checked it. This time, he’s able to twist the handle and push it open gently. At first, there’s nothing but darkness; Peter gropes for the light switch and pulls back when his hand slides in something wet on the wall.

He grimaces, wipes his hand on his shirt, and tries again. This time he’s able to find the light switch. He flips it, turns back to the room - and freezes in his tracks.

The room looks like an unused bedroom, but there are only a couple pieces of furniture in it. Against one wall, a dirty table littered with razorblades and knives sits. A knotted hangman’s rope dangles in the middle of the room, secured at the opposite end by a bar that must have been fitted in specially. And on the opposite side…

On the opposite side, a poufy chair sits. Peter can’t tell what colour it’s supposed to be, because it’s so soaked in blood that not a smidge of the original fabric colour remains. A shotgun lays on the floor in front of it, as if the person in the chair had dropped it.

In the chair sprawls a familiar body, clad in red spandex. Only the mask is missing. Wade’s face looks normal, tilted over as if in sleep, but the wall behind his head gives away the game. A blood splatter, clearly much newer than the ones it covers up, paints the ugly tan wallpaper. Bits of flesh stick to the wall as well. Peter finds himself darting for the chair and nearly trips in his haste.

When he tilts Wade’s head forward and checks the back of his head, there’s a gaping hole that’s only just halfway filled itself in. It looks as if Wade had shoved the barrel of the shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger, taking out the back of his skull. Peter feels anger bubbling up his throat and barely resists the urge to slam the man’s head back into the wall.

“Wade, you asshole.” he says instead, setting his head back gently and smacking him on the shoulder. “Wade, wake the hell up.”

Despite knowing that he isn’t dead, that he physically can’t be dead, something in him clenches when Wade doesn’t respond. He punches him harder this time. “ Wade. ”

The man finally stirs. Without opening his eyes, he reaches back for his head, touches the gaping hole, and winces. Then his eyelids crack a bit.

“...Petey…?” Wade says sleepily. He blinks a few times, and then his eyes go wide and he bolts up from the chair, nearly knocking Peter over.

“ Shit. Fuck, Peter, I - “ Wade turns and looks at the bloodstained walls and then back at Peter. He grabs him by the sleeve and drags him towards the door. When they’re both outside the room, he fumbles for the doorknob manically and locks it, pulling the key out and jamming it into one of the pouches on his suit. His hands are shaking like he’s coming down from a bad high. Then he sighs and slumps forward to rest his forehead against the door.

“Listen, Petey, I -”

“ Don’t. ” Peter cuts in icily. Wade surprised him by complying; instead, he turns from the door and stumbles into the living room to collapse on the couch. Just looking at him, you’d think his eyes were closed, but Peter can see a hint of his iris through his lashes, trained on Peter.

He flees into the kitchen to avoid the gaze. Bracing his hands on the counter, Peter leans forwards and takes a few deep breaths. He needs to be calm. He needs to react to this rationally. He’s not sure what that means in the context of ‘your friend regularly commits suicide, knowing he can’t die’, but it probably isn’t punching a hole through the drywall or breaking a chair.

After a few minutes, he feels better. Unrolling a long line of paper towels from the roll, Peter tears them off and folds them up into a pad. He carries them into the other room and holds them out to Wade stiffly.

“You’re going to get blood on your couch.” he says. Wade doesn’t take the paper towels until he shakes them a few times. Then Peter crosses to the unused section of couch and sits down. He doesn’t say anything.

It’s weird to see the merc with a mouth sit silently for more than a minute at a time. Deadpool has gotten worse injuries from this and it hadn’t stopped his monologues yet. Peter had seen him try to talk without a trachea once. It hadn’t worked, but the effort was still there. There’s no effort here, just silence and an ever-spreading red stain on the floral-printed paper towels under Wade’s head.

“...where have you been?” Peter asks finally. It’s an easier question to ask.

“A job.” Wade replies simply. The short sentence sounds strange coming from his mouth. “It was rough this time. Sometimes the things I see… well, they’re not pretty.” his face twists, as if in reply to some unseen voice, and he bats at the air like he’s trying to swat something away.

“Do I need to tell you that this isn’t a healthy way to deal with it? Please tell me we don’t need to have this talk.” Peter says angrily, one fist curling in his lap.

“You think I don’t know that, Pete? You think I’d be in there blowing my brains out if any therapist in the US would listen to me talk without slapping handcuffs on me and transporting me to the nearest loony bin?” Wade snarls back defensively, leaning up to look at Peter. “And it’s not like I do this on a daily basis. The last time was when -” Wade stops, face going blank, and lays back down. Peter waits, but he doesn’t elaborate.

“Was when…?” he trails off. Wade looks conflicted about talking, but finally does.

“I had a little disagreement with a fellow crime fighter. I sort of… well, you know, I look up to him. Real righteous type, always trying to do the right thing. He doesn’t always approve of my way of handling things, which is no big thang, really, but…” Wade stops here for a minute, holds up a hand and pulls the glove off so he can stare at the mottled skin underneath. “He accused me of turning myself into Burn Victim Barbie for a stack of cash. I may be the biggest asshole this side of the red light district, but that’s too far even for me.”

Wade turns his hand over, and then clenches it and lets it fall back into his lap. “So yeah, that was the last time I repainted in there. And that was months ago.”

The guilt is so overwhelming that Peter can barely breathe. It’s in this moment that he makes a very important realization about the man on the couch next to him.

Wade Wilson is a mercenary. He’s probably certifiably insane and he doesn’t always make the best decisions. In fact, he frequently makes bad ones.

But no matter who or how many people say it, he’s not a bad person. Not even a little bit. If anybody in this room is guilty of being a bad person, it’s Peter.

“I’m sorry he said that to you. There’s no excuse for that kind of behavior. He was wrong.” Peter says finally. I was wrong. I said that, and I was wrong. I’m sorry, Wade.

If it wouldn’t be the worst thing to say in this situation that he could possibly think of, Peter would tell him. Right now. But it would be the worst thing to say, because the last thing Wade Wilson needs right now is to know he’s spilling his guts to the same guy that he’s spilling his guts about.

The silence lasts for a few moments longer before Wade can’t stand it anymore.

“Did you see what I did with that ‘asshole’ comment? This side of the red light -”

“I get it, Wade, please don’t explain it.” Peter says hastily. Wade opens his mouth and Peter leaps out of his seat to push him over before he can say any more.

--

Peter swings in on a Tuesday night, blinking sleepily behind his mask as he slips his fingers under his window and pushes it up. Sleepily, because really it’s 4 o’clock Wednesday morning, and he may or may not have a quiz in his eight o’clock class today, he can’t remember. That means he’s got time for about 3 hours and 45 minutes of snoozing before he has to stumble out of bed, throw clothes on, and jog down to class.

Blearily, Peter wraps his fingers around the edge of his mask and rips it from his head. He normally stashes it carefully in a bag shoved down in the recesses of his closet (a place no self-respecting person would go), but it’s too late to even think of that. Instead, he just wiggles out of the rest of the suit on the way to his bedroom, slips a pair of basketball shorts on, and falls face-first into his bed.

He forgets to set his alarm.

When he wakes up, early afternoon light is streaming in through his window. Peter lets out a surprised yelp and immediately falls straight out of bed. Apparently, spidey reflexes don’t work as well when you’re not fully awake.

Groaning, Peter sits up and checks his phone at a slower pace. 1:24 PM, or, way past the end of his 8 AM. But he can still make his 3:30, so the day’s not completely wasted.

What he should do is jump in the shower, eat some breakfast(lunch), and then get to work on that paper that’s due the end of the week. But that’s not what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is taking priority right now, so instead he scratches his ribs sleepily, lets out a jaw-cracking yawn, and closes his eyes.

He’s been laying there, attempting to go back to sleep, for about five minutes when he hears a thump in the other room. There should be no thumping in the other room.

Peter, now fully awake, springs to his feet noiselessly and fumbles for the bat he keeps in the corner of the room. He doesn’t really need it, but the charade has to be kept up, even to would-be robbers. Silent as the grave, he creeps to his door and pushes it open slowly.

A familiar face sits on the battered couch in the living room. Wade, clothed in a black hoodie and dark jeans, holding something in his hands that he’s looking down at. A casserole dish, covered in foil, sits on the cushions next to him.

“Wade? What are you -” Peter’s eyes catch on the red fabric in Wade’s hands, and he stops talking.

“May asked me to bring you a casserole.” Wade says tonelessly, turning the mask over in his hands. One scarred finger traces the black stitching around the eyes as he talks.

“I see you found my halloween costume.” Peter tries, with a forced little laugh, “Think Spiderman will-”

“ Don’t. Lie. To. Me.” Wade grinds out angrily, slinging the mask across the room. It hits his window and slides to the ground, looking forlorn. “I should have figured it out. You’re not very good at changing your voice, Parker. It’s like listening to a thirteen year old hit puberty over and over again, only with more squawky-chicken noises.”

Peter has no idea what to say. He’s not sure there’s anything he can say.

“Wade-”

“I said don’t. ” Wade reaches forward, swipes the suit off the ground, and rips it in half with no effort. He lets the pieces flutter down to either side.

“You afraid I’m gonna out you, Spidey? Well, don’t worry about that. Nobody would believe me. I thought Peter Parker did for a while, but that was clearly a joke.”

“Wade, I do believe you. I believe in you. I wouldn’t lie about that.” Peter says quietly.

“ What did I just say?” Wade roars, turning and stalking a few steps closer. “Because you can’t say one thing as Spiderman and another as Peter Parker and tell me you’re not lying to me.” Wade steps up in front of him, physically imposing, scarred face looking down on him. “In case you forgot, Spidey, I wear a mask too. So I know that you’re not a different person when you put that mask on. You’re just pretending you are.”

For a minute, Peter thinks that Wade is going to do something, punch him in the face or throw him out the window or something, but he doesn’t. He just turns away, stalks to the open window, and jumps.

The sound of a human body hitting the ground is mortifying. Peter rushes to the window and glances down to see Wade get up from the ground shakily, clutching on twisted arm to his stomach. Impressive for a jump from the fourth floor.

Peter could go after him, but he doesn’t. If anything has come out of this whole mess, it’s that he’s learned that just because he feels something is the right thing to do, that doesn’t mean it really is. So instead he stumbles back from the window, gathers up his spidey suit, and shoves it into the farthest recess of his closet that he can possibly reach.

Then he sits on the couch and stares at the wall until he feels like his eyes are going to bleed.

--

Wade stops going to Aunt May’s completely. He doesn’t stop babysitting, but every time Peter shows up on a Tuesday night, thinking he has to be there, the apartment is empty. Peter even spends a full 24 hours scoping out Wade’s apartment and doesn’t get a single glimpse of the man.

His apartment is empty. The gym is empty. He’s not at any one of the various taco stands he’s taken Peter to over the weeks. If it weren’t for one thing, Peter would be certain that Wade had disappeared off the face of the earth.

That one thing is a sudden, ridiculous uptake in the amount of dead criminals found throughout the city. It’s like someone has gone on a murdering spree, but every body has evidence of a crime on it. Peter find stolen wallets stuffed into mouths, pictures of abused women pushed into trousers, even at one point a leash snaked around an infamous dog fighter’s throat, leaving him hanging from a tree branch in the middle of a park.

He runs into Iron Man and Captain America at the scene of one such crime. Peter comes swinging in as Cap is crouched over the body, examining the packets of cocaine that have been stuffed up his nose.

“Spiderman.” he says gravely, rising from his crouch. He points to the body with a grimace. “This has to stop.”

Peter cuts his webbing and looks at Cap, confused.

“What makes you think I have anything to do with this?” he says irritably. Iron Man, pushing off from where he’s leaning on the alleyway wall, strides up to him and pushes one armour-suited finger into his chest.

“Yeah, good try Kiddy Longlegs. Everyone knows your pal Deadpool is behind this, so if you want us to refrain from blowing him into tiny little pieces and putting those tiny little pieces into a very restrictive tiny box for all eternity, I’d suggest you curb these homicidal urges of his.”

“This is murder, Spiderman.” Cap adds quietly. “Not justice.”

Peter shoves the finger poking into his chest away angrily and backs up from the duo.

“At least he’s trying. He wants to help, but all you guys do is criticize him and treat him like a criminal. Maybe if you’d bothered getting to know him, you’d actually have a say in what he does.” Peter shoots back. Neither one looks convinced. “You know what, just - forget it. I’ll handle it. Thanks for nothing.”

As he swings out, he aims for the space right between Captain America and Iron Man, just to be petty. Somehow, it doesn’t make him feel much better.

--

Overall, it takes him a month to track down Deadpool. Actually, it’s not even like he tracks him down; he just happens to be at the right place at the right time. Screaming is a good indication of Wade’s presence, so the minute Peter hears it just off the block behind an old warehouse, he pivots on his heel and runs that direction as fast as he can.

The screaming is coming from a man tied to a chair. The front of his dirty sweatshirt is covered in blood. Deadpool is standing in front of the man in the chair, clutching a bloody knife. The tip of the knife is level with the man’s eyeball.

“Deadpool.” Peter says quietly. Wade turns to look at him, eyes narrowing.

“Oh shit, Spiderman, you gotta help me man, he’s going to gouge my eyes out -” the man in the chair stammers desperately. Deadpool, without looking, reverses his grip on the knife and slams the hilt into the man’s diaphragm, silencing him. The man lets out a choked sound and then closes his eyes, wheezing.

“I don’t remember inviting you to this party, Spidey. Did you bring your invitation?” Deadpool asks. His words, flippant as they are, don’t hide the hurt and anger that he’s clearly feeling at Peter’s presence.

“Deadpool, you can’t take your anger at me out on other people. Even if it’s for a good cause.” he says slowly. Wade snorts and imitates an eye roll with a head motion.

“Sounds like Spidey himself is back at the helm. I preferred the other one, if it matters to you.” the masked man sneers back at him.

Peter stalks forward and grabs both sides of the knitted watchcap on the man’s head, pulling it over his eyes. The man lets out a grunt of surprise and whips his head back and forth like a hooded falcon. Peter steps away, curls his fingers under his mask, and tugs it off.

“Deadpool. Wade.” he starts. “I’m sorry. I let other people dictate who I thought you were for a really long time, and it wasn’t until I got to know you that I realized I was totally wrong. You’re a good person, and you try harder than anybody I know to hold yourself to a better standard. Nobody else running around in this city in a mask has had the humility to ask for help the way you did. Nobody else sees the world the way you do. You’re important, and valuable, and you make me a better person in every way. I’m not asking you to forgive me, but I am asking for a chance to make it up to you.”

Wade looks at him silently for a long, long time. The man in the chair lets out a grumble; Wade punches him in the chest again.

“I… I don’t know, Spidey.” Wade says finally. He’s flipping the knife through his fingers nervously, like he can’t keep his hands still. “This isn’t a Disney movie, I can’t just sing a few solos and get over something like this. You’re asking a lot, here.”

“Yeah. I know I am.” Peter replies, looking down at the ground. His brain goes into overdrive, trying to think of any possible way to change the situation, to convince Wade to let him try. He’s just starting to realize how much it would hurt if Wade walks away from him again, especially because this time Peter knows it’ll be for good.

He finds that’s not an acceptable scenario. His brain buzzes through several possible ways to fix this, and stops on the most improbable one he can think of. One that he hasn’t even really come to grips with until just now.

Before he knows it, his feet are carrying him forward, towards the red-suited man. Deadpool stops twirling the dagger and stands stock-still. His eyes follow Peter’s footsteps like a hawk. He does nothing as Peter slips his fingers under the bottom of his mask, but Peter pauses to look for confirmation anyway. Wade looks down at him through the eyeholes of his mask, face unreadable through the fabric.

“What’s it going to be this time, Spidey?” Wade says quietly. “Face not even a mother could love? I look like the insides of other people’s assholes? Try to be more creative this time.”

That’s the part that hurts the most. That he’s standing here, pouring his heart out, and Wade has been broken so many times that he thinks it’s the setup for a cruel joke. And Peter can’t say anything to it, because it wasn’t somebody else that did this to Wade. It was him. Peter’s own actions are the reason that’s what Wade expects.

Peter yanks the mask off, baring Wade’s face, and stands up on his tiptoes to smash their lips together. Wade’s lips are dry and uneven and parted in surprise under his onslaught. Peter stays where he is for just a few seconds, erring on the side of caution rather than moving too fast, and then pulls away.

There is silence.

“The only thing worse than watching people make out is having to listen to it.” the guy in the chair complains suddenly, wriggling in his chair. “Can you do me a favour and take that somewhere else? … and maybe untie me?”

Peter rolls his eyes, looks backwards, and webs the guy’s mouth shut. The sounds of his frantic, yet subdued mumbling are much better than his previous commentary.

“Uh, so…” Peter says, turning back to Wade and rubbing at his neck nervously. “Yeah. There’s that. Not sure I could say anything to make it clearer. Uh… you know where to find me. If you want. You know, whenever.”

He holds out Wade’s mask, pulls his own back on, and gets out of there as fast as he can. Nobody follows him.

--

No new bodies turn up in the next few days, but some crazy guy gets his interview published in the National Enquirer, claiming Spiderman and Deadpool are having a torrid love affair. Peter stays home and plays video games all hours of the day, glancing every thirty seconds at the window anxiously.

Early Saturday afternoon, a tentative knock comes at the door. Peter goes from half-drowsing to throwing the door open so quickly that he’s pretty sure he puts a hole in the drywall behind the door knob.

Wade stands in the hall, bare-faced and clutching a pile of flat boxes in both hands.

“I brought pizza.” he says, shaking the boxes for effect.

Peter smiles. Wade blinks, and grins in response.