spider webs (and other sticky substances)

Purely for research purposes, James would like to ask you, dear reader, what you would feel like if you got crushed like a tin can, then multipurposed into a miniature Transformer action figure, then stuffed into the time-travel machine from Back to the Future and had the effects fucked, so you ended up growing to a 6’6” Transformer, then being forced to beat up your work crush using your body and your skills, then having to carry his bloody body, then having to leave before he properly wakes up and the medics tell you if he’s alright because you’re going to miss the last bus.

Then, dear reader, he would like you to imagine yourself with killer abs and regenerative superpowers.

Yep, that was his predicament.

James had turned around, needing to get away from Spidey, when he heard a muttered “hey,” and a head thunk against something behind him.

Then he changed his (hopefully looking unaffected) walk into a full on sprint, needing to get the fuck away.

He grabbed the frame of the nearest door he could find on the helicarrier, luckily being the bathrooms, and flung himself into them.

He crowded himself into the closest stall, looking into the bathroom and being affronted with blue toilet water (???).

James gagged, crowding himself again to get out of the stall and into the next one over. 

Once he was in the next stall, he sat down, leaning his head against the closed door of the stall.

Once he had his breathing steadied and didn’t feel like he was about to slam his head into the stall door so hard it shattered, he heard approaching footsteps towards the bathroom.

He heard some low unintelligible humming and the sound of the tap running. 

It wasn’t the humming that set him off. It was the female voice humming that set him off.

Oh fuck, he was in the women’s bathrooms.

You know, good on S.H.I.E.L.D for not being overtly obvious with the gendered bathrooms but -

James retched, barely getting his mask off before violently hurling into the toilet.

Once he resurfaced, he grimaced through his now blurry vision as the Slurpee and soggy 7/11 sandwich he scarfed down just short of 7 hours ago resurfaced. God, he had forgotten about his lunch.

Nice reminder, then.

“Oh, shit, fuck,” he heard from outside the stall. “Is that- Deadpool?”

He replied with croaky groan, cradling the toilet bowl getting ready to go another round. (Of fucking vomiting, not fucking. Get your head out of the toilet, god.)

“Uhm, okay, I’ll-I’m gonna go get Johnny. You’re friends with him, right?”

James was too busy trying not to open his mouth in any way to reply.

“Well, you- I don’t really know, but you’re chill with each other. I’ll be back honey,” James hardly heard the footsteps walking away through the blood rushing through his ears.

Two minutes later, he heard more footsteps approaching the bathrooms. He just hoped it wasn’t some prude old ladies like in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and he wouldn’t get chased out of the bathrooms through a high speed chase in a nursing home just to end up writing it in a diary his kinda mean (very hot) older brother would find and blackmail him with.

“Hey, James?” 

Johnny Storm. He would call him ‘resident dickhead’, but that was James.

Resident manwhore.

Yeah, that was better.

James replied with more of a gurgle than groan this time.

“Um, okay, I just heard about your whole Venom-sitch. Pretty cool, if you ask me.” Johnny chuckled a little awkwardly. “So… did you hurl?”
“Yeah,” James huffed croakily.

“Was-was it red?”

“Wouldn’t matter if it was, would it, Matchstick?” James snorted.

“Oh… yeah… right. Long time no see, huh?” 

“It’s been… 8-ish chapters.” James sniffed, knocking his head against the stall door, facing the toilet in case he needed to upchuck again.

He heard some shuffling outside the door, probably Johnny mirroring him on the other side. “So, how are you feeling?” 

“Pretty shitty,” James huffed out a laugh.

“Yeah, dumb question,” Johnny snorted. “You’re not gonna drown yourself in the toilet bowl though, right?” 

“Ew,” James wrinkled his nose. “The one with my lunch in it? No thanks. Even if I’m not wearing my mask for little vomit pieces to get stuck in, that’s rank dude.”

“Oof, the mask too? I kinda figured the suit was torn up.”

“Like your mum’s bed sheets once I’m done with her,” James sighed wistfully, picking at the tattered suit pieces on his thigh. 

“Can I see the bashed up mask?” 

James slid it under the door, watching Johnny’s fingers peek under the door to grab it.

“Whoa,” he breathed out, looking at the mask. “There’s a massive blotch of blood on the forehead of the mask, you sure Arachni-Boy did all that to you?”
“Uh, no,” James shook his head even though Johnny couldn’t see him, sheepish. “I was really trying to get Venom out, and then I got mad because I had literally fucking beaten up Spider-Man.” James’ voice grew thick at Spider-man’s name. “And I kinda just… phwoosh , rammed my head into a brick wall.” He shrugged.

“Oh… damn. A-are you alright now though?”

“Alright like I’m fine? Nah. But alright like no more self-inflicted concussions? Yeah. Probably.”

James pulled his (bloody) gloves off with his teeth, examining them with a wrinkled nose before tearing them up with his bare hands and throwing them in the bin next to the toilet. 

He stood up, flushing the toilet and opening the door abruptly, just in time for Johnny to get out of the way so he didn’t smash the back of his head against the tile.

“Ah, there’s that handsome face,” Johnny grinned, standing up and handing James his mask. “Honestly, I don’t know why you wear the mask. If you and me team up, our faces could stop any bad guy.”

“I’d love to babe, but, remember, secret identity.” James snickered, walking over to the sink to wash his hands and face.

“Oh, right, why do you even do that secret identity thing anyways?”

“I don’t want Deadpool to affect everything. I mean, I know the people I love won’t care or anything, but I want to be normal. I-I mean, not that you aren’t normal, I just-” James stammered, cringing at himself, staring down at the bottom of the sink.

“It’s fine dude, I’m too fine to be normal.” Johnny winked, flexing his arm.

“You’re too weird to be normal bro,” James snorted, emerging from the sink, pulling his wet hair away from his face before ruffling it back to its natural messy state.

“You’re too hot to have just thrown up,” Johnny sighed mock-wistfully. “Oh, no wait, let me get a better look,” he squished James’ cheeks together. “Aw, yeah, nevermind, it checks out.”

“Go eat your hot dogs, you dirty American,” James wrinkled his nose.

“Go eat your ‘bangahs an’ mash’, and-and your ‘bo’l o’ woh’ah’,” Johnny started with his awful British accent before James cut him off. 

“Don’t even try dude,” he snorted.

So for the next ten minutes, they tried drying James’ hair under the hand-dryers (that had the windpower of a jet divided by one billion million quadrillion, by the way) where Johnny occasionally shoved his head into the dryers.

🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️

James tugged his (bloody and cold) mask back over his head, trudging out of the helicarrier after punching the outside wall in frustration, enjoying the pop and creak of the metal plate under his fist. 

He stalked through the street, waiting for the bus at the stop, shivering in the cold.

“Fuck,” he groaned lowly, throwing his head back and thumping it into a pole.

The bus was late. Obviously. Because what sort of shitty day would it be if the bus wasn’t late? Classic staple of everybody’s shitty day. 

Honestly, it was surprising late buses weren’t featured more frequently in movies with mentally trouble dudes who are attractive in a grimy, insomniac way. (See: Fight Club [1999] and How the Grinch Stole Christmas [2000])

Once the bus came, James, still fully suited up, slipped into the seat at the back, shoving himself into to the corner.

Not because James was trying to make himself small or uncomfortable, but because the back of the bus had the best vantage point of everything.

He didn’t need to sit up the front, because he could fend for himself and he got a good view of the back and front doors.

James sighed, shooting Lily a quick ‘I’m fine, if you saw the news’ text and leaning his head against the glass next to him.

God, he wondered, how the fuck does Spidey get possessed all the time?

To be honest, getting Venomised took a lot out of James. It was like you were in control of your own vessel, until a deep hoarse voice in the back of your head goes ‘hey, my name’s Venom and guess what? You win the grand cash prize of losing control of your body!’

James didn’t even really remember what it felt like to be Venomised. He only remembered how fucking disgusting he felt beating up Spider-Man.

Now, he knows you’re going all ‘ but James, you’re a mercenary! How do you feel bad about beating someone with superpowers and a healing power up?’ Well, first, he’d remind you that he’s an ex- full time merc, converting into the whole reluctant-hero-with-sexy-killing-skills lifestyle as of recently. Then he would remind you that he only unalived people who really deserved it - abusers, assaulters, notorious cheaters, the works.

And Spider-Man  was definitely not any of that. Under his prickly exterior (mainly to James, he was a nice guy to cats they rescued out of streets and their old lady owners), Spider-Man was a sickeningly sweet goody-two-shoes.

So that was why James felt so shitty about beating him up.

The most annoying this was that James hurt him because he knew how to hurt him. He had spent so much time studying Spider-Man during training sessions that he subconsciously knew his attack pattern and weaknesses.

So Venom knew his attack pattern and weaknesses when he was possessing James.

Anyways, getting Venomised was motherfucking hard, man.

James nodded in agreement with his last statement as he slipped off the bus a few stops before he actually needed to get off - privacy reasons and all that.

James walked slowly (so much for privacy, in the time he walked, you could get into a car accident, lose your ability to move your legs, go into a coma, wake up, start trying to work your legs and get into a wheelchair and still catch up to him), worrying his bottom lip between his teeth thinking about Spidey.

Was he alright?

James knew that Spider-Man had a healing factor, obviously paling in comparison to James’, but one nonetheless.

But James was pretty thorough. He knew Spidey was fucked up when he gingerly lifted up his limp, tired body drenched with both his and James’ blood and watched his head loll back elegantly (this fucker did everything elegantly).

James sat down abruptly on the side of the footpath, knees to his chest as he pulled out his phone, staring at Spider-Man’s contact.

He typed and retyped too many messages too many times to be acceptable.

baby boy webhead <333

Heyy

whats up

hoe did you live

baby boy u good?

hiiiiiiiiiiii

knock knock

did i give you a bionic arm

want a blowjob?

fucking hell im sorry

are u alive?

FUCKCKKCKCKCKCKCKKCCKC

DFEKRGHFNWKAJEAK

IM SHOOTING MUSELF I HATE RHIS

ily

babyyyyyy u dead?

spider-man im sorry

FUCKCKCKKCK RAHHHHWSNJL

IM LITERALLY GOING TO TURN INTOA FURRY FUCKKK

“Fuckk,” James groaned, slapping himself across the face. “Okay Potter, you’ve got this. You charmed Lily motherfucking Evans for a while until Mary Macdonald came along with her beautiful afro and cool sunglasses. You can ask if you killed the guy or not.”

they hate to see a boytoy malewife winning

“WHAT THE FUCK!” He yelled as soon as he sent it, wincing at his volume.

“What the fuckkk,” he hissed quieter, looking in horror at his phone. “What the shit Potter? I just told you that you’ve got this and you do this shit. Boytoy? Malewife? Which one of us are you even talking about? Aw, Jamesss,” he groaned.

James heaved himself up, shoving his phone in his pocket and briskly walking away.

“Fuckingfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuckfuckfuckfuck.” He muttered under his breath, ignoring the heat he felt from the phone in his pocket.

James peeked through his door once he got to his house to make sure nobody was inside. When the coast was clear, he beelined to the bathroom to change into his normal people clothes (not that James was normal people).

After he finished changing, he threw his tattered suit in the bin, punched it to fit and sauntered out of the bathroom.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and flopping down onto the sofa. He grunted, feeling something solid under the blanket strewn across it.

At second thought, he didn’t remember bringing out a blanket to the sofa.

“Pete?”

🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️

“How the shit did you just… fall asleep?”

“I dunno man, your couch is comfy.” Peter shrugged, flopping back down onto the sofa. “You’re heavy as shit dude.”

“Right,” James huffed, trying to ignore how spent his voice sounded.

He eyed Peter, who was close to falling back asleep, and remembered how genuinely good Peter was at listening to people’s problems.

James was good at that too, but James was quick to jump to solutions. Peter let you just talk. If you didn’t want him to budge in with a solution, he would gladly just listen.

“Hey… Wormy?”

“Yeah?” His muffled reply came from James’ sofa cushions.

“Uh, if, hypothetically, say I had someone that I liked. Like, not even like, ‘look at that sweet ass’ - even though they do have one - but I genuinely respect them and think they’re cool and shit. Like, so sexy. Incredibly cool and funny and- just- you get it… they’re… ugh.”

Okay, James had a crush on Spider-Man.

“Fuck them.”

“No wait- huh?”

“Fuck them, like, literally. Do the devil's tango.” Peter shrugged. “Get it out of your system. I’ve never heard you talk about any of your crushes so… objectifyingly.”

“I’m not done Pettigrew,” James narrowed his eyes playfully. “So anyways, hypothetically, what would I do if I accidentally hurt them? Like, I didn’t mean to. In no way at all did I want to hurt them. But I did. And they might even understand that I didn’t want to, but I feel… so shitty.”

“Whoa, James Potter hurting someone, this is a first-” if only you knew, Petey, merc right in front of you, if only you knew “- but honestly? Talk to them. Just tell them what you’re feeling. It’s rarely not the answer, but communication definitely is in this situation.”

“ Hypothetical situation.” James corrected.

“...Sure. So I assume you’re not going to go all loverboy at them at… 12:30am, so Gilmore Girls marathon?” Peter waggled his eyebrows.

James huffed out a laugh, feeling less angry and standing up to go get the ice cream.

🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️

James grunted sleepily, waking up for a split second. 

The tub of ice cream was finished, another one cracked open and half finished as well. There were three spoons strewn over the table, one bent, because James had bent his first one in half watching Rory be a dick friend to Lane.

Peter (slightly drooling)  was clinging onto James’ leg in his sleep, from where they were sprawled out on the sofa.

James sighed, leaning his head back, feeling way less plagued by his general anger towards himself, and fell back asleep.

🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️

James hadn’t seen Spider-Man all day. He knew for a fact that he was out of the infirmary, because Spider-Man was obviously too stubborn to stay to recover for a good amount of time.

There was also still crime about - James had stopped three muggings so far - so where there’s crime, there’s Spidey.

He also hadn’t replied to James’ message. Or read it. 

His stupid message, yeah, that one.

It was nighttime when James set out once again in his backup suit, looking around more for Spider-Man than for crime. 

He also had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, in it all the things he would need for a long trek for Spidey.

He was humming the My Little Pony theme song, strutting along the road, when he saw it.

A flash of red and blue.

Upside down.

Webbing.

James gasped out loud excitedly, ditching the bag at the gates of the park he landed in and skipping over to where he had seen the web snap, and Spider-Man landed.

“Oh Spidey!” He called out, up the tree. “Let down your hai- webs!”

James was met by not Spidey leaping into his outstretched arms, but a yowling cat, claws reared and clutching to the leather of the chest of his suit.

“The fuck-”

He grabbed the cat by the skin of its neck, holding it up and levelling it with a glare.

“Thank you Spider-Man!... And Deadpool, I suppose.” An old lady called, snatching the cat back.

James looked back up to see Spidey waving goodbye to the lady (who had given James a weird look after her cat dig its Wolverine claws into his massive, defined man titties), perched on a tree branch in his signature squat/crouch pose (that made his thighs look great, by the way).

“What’s up, Pool?” Spidey regarded him, inclining his head slightly down to look at him.

Suddenly James was shy.

Which was, safe to say, a first.

James Fleamont Potter never faltered.

Neither did Deadpool.

So, double weird.

But he was nervous.

“Oh… you know, the usual, beating up spandex-clad goody-two-shoes superheroes with amazing asses.” James winced.

Way to get past the conflict, James, let it be the first thing you mention.

“Uh… I meant- I just- I didn’t-” James stuttered. Also another very out of character thing for him to do. “I mean- are you- are you alright? Healed?”

“Well, not fully,” Spidey shrugged.

But James knew that.

He noticed the stiffness of his web swinging for the past day, and how he crouched with the wrong hand supporting him.

“There’s a few fractures and sprains, few broken ribs. Nothing I haven’t worked with before.” He shrugged again.

Did Spider-Man know how fucked up and shitty James was feeling?

Could he sense the unease with that infamous Spidey sense?

Either way, as shitty as James was feeling, he was going to feed Spidey, because somehow James knew that he hadn’t eaten that much in a while.

“Come on down,” James gestured for him to hop down from the branch.

With a clipped sigh and jerky movements, Spider-Man jumped down with an agility that definitely would’ve broken James’ knees. Or temporarily dislocated them, if he drank a Red Bull before.

James jogged over to his duffle bag, pulling out two Slurpees and two burritos wrapped in tinfoil.

“Were you expecting this interaction to happen?” Spidey asked suspiciously. He could practically hear the raised eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah, I had a feeling we would meet soon, so here we are.” 

Correction: James had stalked him.

James handed Spidey the food, putting his own food back inside the bag.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Spider-Man asked, taking the drink like James had roofied him.

“Nah, not hungry.” 

James really wasn’t hungry, he still felt sick from the whole beating up Spider-Man thing.

In all truthfulness, he wasn’t nearly as affected by other people he killed as much as this. But he will reiterate: Spider-Man was a genuinely good guy.

In between the shifts all day, James would go home and wash his hands until they were pink.

James led them over to a park bench, where Spider-Man pulled the bottom half of his mask up (yummy) and started eating.

James sighed, leaning his head back and looking up at the (polluted) night sky.

Spider-Man’s hand reached out to still James’, which was rapidly tapping out a pattern on his knee subconsciously.

“Sorry, it’s just… Spidey tingle. Enhanced senses and all that.” Spider-Man said sheepishly.

“Oh… right, sorry, that’s just something I do. I don’t even realise I’m doing it half the time.” James stopped his hand, reaching into his bag and pulling out a Nintendo Switch.

“...The fuck?” Spider-Man looked at him, mid-bite.

“Mario Kart,” James shook the Switch in front of Spidey’s face, pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bench.

“No, not that. Is that- a Spider-Man Switch?” He eyed the Spider-Man suit pattern on the joy-cons.

“Oh, yeah. Did you not know? They have a whole line of them. I know a good lawyer, if you want. Ever heard of Daredevil?”

“No, that’s- wait, you know Daredevil? Whatever, I mean, they had mentioned it and I had said ‘yeah, whatever, do what you want’, but I didn’t think they’d actually gone through with it.”

“So are you not getting paid?”

“...No.”

“I- dude! I bought ten of those ‘cause I thought you were getting the money! I really do need to call up Matt- I mean, Daredevil, whose identity I know nothing of.”

“You bought ten? That’s fucking stupid.”

“Well I thought you were getting paid!” James spluttered.

“Whatever,” Spider-Man huffed, taking another bite of his burrito.

As James continued playing to calm his nerves, he saw Spider-Man out of the corner of his eye chewing absentmindedly and watching James.

“Wanna play?” He asked, smirking.

“Wha- oh, no, I was just watching.”

“Here, take it,” James handed him the Switch. “You can keep it.”

“ Keep it ? No, I can’t-”

“Sure you can.” James shrugged. "I have nine others, remember?”

“You sure? ” Spider-Man asked exasperatedly. He knew he wasn’t winning this time.

“Absolutely.” James nodded resolutely.

Spidey halfheartedly narrowed his eyes at him, and resumed playing from where James had left off.

“This is definitely going in the spank bank for tonight.” 

“Shut the fuck up- FUCK YOU BOWSER!”