The heat in the sewer is like a clenched fist. The air is thick, it makes his suit cling to his skin. His footfall is silent against the cobble ground; he lurks forward with each step placed with trained calculation. Below miles of steel and concrete, the thronging crowds of people, the labyrinth of abandoned tunnels is where anything can happen. The damp walls absorb any sounds, an unnatural silence heavy around him, but Deadpool sees the slightest ripples in the murky water and he knows he isn’t alone.
As he goes farther, the ripples roll into steady waves. Heavier bodies, carelessly traversing about and shaking the ground. His hand is reaching for his gun.
His eyes are set on four men. The fifth, he wasn’t anticipating.
It’s a small, unfamiliar figure. Knocks out the four of them like shots, downing one after the other. Deadpool is crouched around a corner, he watches a dark red whip through the air and collide into a jaw. His moves are lethal and as gentle as a caress. He predicts each swing before the attacker even knows they’re going for it.
He shoots out a string from his wrist and pins a man to the wall by his hand. Another, rapidly approaching his side, gets shot with the same substance in the face. It spans across in the form of a web, and he claws at it but it adheres to him like glue.
He wraps each of them in one giant web, arms constricted behind their backs and legs tangled. There’s a chorus of pained moans and Wade’s trigger finger twitches. He’s completely transfixed by his abilities, unable to look away.
The stranger is using a web to move the manhole above them. The sewer explodes in light, pouring in from that circular hole and making the murky water glisten, the red of his suit seeming bolder than before. Black spreads out in a web pattern smoothly across the features of his face.
Wade lets out a breath. He turns to look directly at him.
The eyes make up a large portion of the mask. They’re blown open wide, a stark white that looks glossy. The black lenses contract and it looks like squinting. They both stare, unmoving.
The man raises his arm and a web latches to the edge of the manhole hole like a grapple hook. He jumps into the sky and slinks off into the night. Deadpool is kicking off the wall and jumping up after him.
By the time he’s pulled himself to the surface, looking frantically to his left and right, the stranger is nowhere to be found.
A few nights later he finds who he learned is Spider-Man (After obsessively scouring the internet and reading everything he could about him) perched like a raptor on the roof of a building. Deadpool lurks in the dark, watching the steady rise of his shoulder blades, his protective gaze that sweeps over the unsuspecting citizens below. It’s a nice part of town far out from where Deadpool last saw him, where the old buildings had windows like broken teeth and streets were decrepit.
When he jumps, Deadpool follows behind.
Spider-Man swings through the air and turns a sharp corner down an alley. He never looks behind him to see if someone is following, but the presence is heavy behind him. Deadpool is clambering between window sills and drainpipes, leaping across rooftops. He may have agility, but Deadpool has the stamina, his muscles in a constant cycle of restitching before he can ever tire out.
He turns a sharp corner. Deadpool’s boots fall heavy on the next platform. He’s running until he skids to a stop at the edge of the roof, toes dangling over the wide drop. Suddenly he’s rearing back and being slammed against a wall with such force it rattles, the air knocked out of his chest in one blow.
He reaches for his gun but a web pins his wrist. Fast, but not faster than him. If Deadpool didn’t want to be caught, he could very well be dead by now.
“You followed me.” The voice is deeper than he expected, spoken right at the base of his neck. It’s thick not with intimidation, but exhaustion.
“And you pinned me against a wall.” Deadpool purposely pushes back a little for the tease. Spider-Man is strong enough that he can’t manage to wrangle himself out of his grasp.
He makes a strange sound. “That’s not-“
“No shame. You really know how to wow a girl on the first date, you know sewers aren’t very classy-”
“Great, you know why I’m here then. I get tired of these villains who lack self awareness. From what I’ve counted so far, you have 6 different weapons on you, and there could be more-”
“Are you asking to check? My light is green.”
Spider-Man grumbles something and reaches for his belt. A thrill runs down his spine which quickly deflates as it's ripped off of him and goes skidding across the rooftop. There’s a heavy thunk of various items he keeps in the bags. At best: concerning. At worst: possibly deadly.
“Hey, watch it! I forget how many explosives are in there but it’s probably a lot and I don’t think you can recover from being blown into a lot of different pieces,” he cries out. “But if you’re up for blowing in another sense-”
“Is this how you react to every interrogation?” He questions exasperatedly and can’t decide on whether he should get away from Deadpool or restrain him better.
“Not everyone can get their pretty little hands on me for long enough to get any words out. You’re the exception.”
“Lucky me.” He deadpans.
“Plus, not a villain. I work hard to be a hero. I even put up with the Avengers!”
“Why were you following me?” Spider-Man ignores him to instead ask, classically.
“Why did you let me follow you?”
“I know what you do, and I don’t condone it anywhere in the city.”
Deadpool tries not to groan, and instead maintains his cheery tone. “Ooh, is there a fan club? I did my research on you too, Webs. You don’t wanna kick me out, I’m just like you!”
“Are you?”
“Sure I am,” Deadpool squirms but Spider-Man pushes him harder against the wall. “A misplaced hero who is hated by everyone, even though we’re doing the city such a big favor! See, I think we should form an alliance.”
“That seems like third date material, doesn’t it? I don’t even have a reason to trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Perfect! Then we’re done here.” Spider-Man raises his arm threateningly, ready to web him to hell and back.
“But! You don't really have anyone else on your side. Think of it as a marriage of convenience.”
Spider-Man is quiet. He seems to think, or pretend to think for long enough that it has Deadpool squirming more out of impatience.
“I don’t do teams,” Is all he says, before Deadpool is being melded to the wall by the webs he shoots out. He’s bound to the brick by his shoulders and wrists, then his knees and ankles. The best he can do is push his chest forward, trying to pry himself out.
“So stubborn! Fine, play hard to get. How long do these take to dissolve anyway?”
“An hour!” Spider-Man starts to walk off and calls over his shoulder.
“An hour?! And you leave this all over the city? No wonder you’re a menace. You don’t think anyone found this lying around and tried to recreate it, do you? You’d have a lot of people stealing your gig. You should be smarter about this stuff. Hey, you think I could get pinned by you and another wannabe Spider-Man at the same time?” Wade stops talking to imagine that playing out in full detail.
Spider-Man stops walking and he thinks he hears him sigh.
“Unless your webbing’s organic, but it would have your DNA in it. Then someone would probably make a bunch of clones but, y’know, been there and done that. My question still stands-”
“Please don’t make me think about that scenario.”
“If you think you’ll be able to shut me up, the less traditional methods have been tried and failed on me.”
“What methods would that be?”
“I’ve had my arms cut off and stuffed in my mouth. Also, decapitation. You know what they say about chickens who get their heads cut off? Turns out that’s the same for humans. Or maybe just me, I guess I really don’t use my brain because I was watching my detached body swing a katana like nobody’s business for a solid minute.”
“That’s- Huh. How’s that even possible?” He says fascinated, disturbed. He can assume Spider-Man is looking down at his arms, then to his very much attached head.
Wade just shrugs (tries to, he just sort of jerks his head around and makes a non-committal grunt.)
“I was honestly going to web your mouth but I might feel a little bad.” He scratches the back of his head.
“Can I strike your sympathy enough to let me out of this web trap? I’m starting to chafe.”
“No chance. You can stop stalking me, though.”
“Awe, sweetheart, what kind of wife would I be if I didn’t?”
-
Deadpool was the blast of a shotgun. Always hit its target, but never without making a mess of everything around it. Wherever Deadpool was, everything around him was blown to pieces, leaving behind flying debris and ruptured skin.
He once liked to think he could make a new life for himself, not let those who did the experiments dictate what he was, and he would take his life into his own hands. For a while, he had that hope, before his life left him in the middle of a never ending gunfire.
He had no choice but to learn to work what he had become.
He was no longer Wade Wilson, capable of a life with any semblance of normalcy. He had to leave the dream of relationships and families behind. Those spaces didn’t accommodate him, and if he found himself in them anyway , it would be those around him to bear those consequences. ( An armed squad is breaking into his apartment- All it takes is for him to miss one guy- He’s screaming her name as she goes down with the bullet. )
He thinks of this while he’s at one of his many hideouts, cleaning out his guns and loading the ammunition. His thoughts wander, as they somehow always do, to Spider-Man. The new focus on his life.
He decides that Spider-Man was a small bullet from a pistol, something fast that sliced through skin like paper. Clean coming in and clean coming out. He wonders if he would reprimand that thought process, he probably wouldn’t touch a gun in his life, but Deadpool can’t help but describe everything in a language of violence because it’s all he knows.
It’s what Spider-Man doesn’t know about Deadpool- That trying to lodge his 22 caliber into the magazine of his shotgun would go about as well as expected. It was pointless (and great potential for a sexual innuendo).
Spider-Man still required him to adjust his trajectory.
They’re on a small mission, something too big for the people who get paid for this to handle, something too small for teams like the Avengers. Just before they get to the location, Spider-Man stops right in front of him, coming in so close that Wade has to lean back to see his lenses clearly.
“No killing.”
“Pardon?” Wade hums and cocks his head.
“You kill anyone and this is over. You get one shot to prove yourself.”
Spider Man wasn't used to another body being so close to his. He’s tense, like a coil. He’s used to his self adjourned freedom, and Deadpool is a disruption in that.
Deadpool laughs and the red fabric stretches with it.
Spider-Man shifts, unsure how to react. Like a siren warning you of a tornado, His laugh is far from comforting. A warning sound.
Maybe that’s why he can’t stop, so much his cheeks start to ache.
“ Fine ,” He sighs theatrically. “Let’s do it your way, Webs.”
Deadpool drops in before Spider-Man can, and they’re off.
It’s that night that he realizes that he wants Spider-Man to be proud of him. That he likes this- Being trusted, having someone believe in him (even as little as he did). He can’t stop staring at the others' masks, wanting nothing more than to see his face underneath, to see that gratification on someone's features.
Deadpool forces the smile down. He wonders when Spider-Man will realize- because he will, they always eventually realize he’s a lost cause. Whether that’s before or after he starts to believe he can really change, who’s to say?
He ignores these feelings, passes through them like obstacles that are in his path, and carries on.
Team ups were never planned after that- they’re both creatures of habit, having a sense for danger. There’s no real case, no aliens or monsters from another galaxy, so nights are interspersed with lazy patrols. Even if they were brought to it for entirely different reasons, Deadpool would always manage to track Spidey down nightly, his sense for where he would be was practically part of his circadian rhythm; never in the daylight, he was out when dusk began to fall and the sky melted from its sunset oranges and reds, and went with the night before the sun came back up.
Spider Man never forces him to do things his way. He simply sets a rule and Deadpool has to choose whether or not to oblige. He was hardly ever presented with a choice .
-
Word gets out that Deadpool and Spider-Man are teaming up. Deadpool knows this because when he sits at Weasel's bar, he shoves a phone in his face and makes him read this news article which has a picture of the two of them on a rooftop. It isn’t much, could very easily be passed off as an accidental encounter- but that’s all it takes for heads to start turning. There’s this look on Weasel’s face that tells Deadpool he has about a million questions, none of which he plans on actually asking.
He hasn't seen Spider-Man for a few days. Maybe the Avengers are warning him to stay away. He doesn’t let it bother him. He’s disappeared for longer, afterall.
-
When Spider-Man comes back, they don’t bring it up, they aren’t really a team after all, so there’s no need for justification. Deadpool’s just happy to be around him again.
Deadpool didn’t know the arachnid beneath the mask, no face to tie that accent to (It’s subtle- When he’s more tired than usual or goes on long tangents, he slips up a little, elongating his vowels and never quite pronouncing his r’s.) For all he knows, he could be a bunch of little spiders under there. But he could pick out his mannerisms in a crowd, and match his humor with equal fervor.
They find themselves where they’ve been a dozen times before. Doing the work the others won’t. Deadpool starts to doubt the necessity of it, and wonders if Spider-Man also feels this buzzing feeling in his chest that only goes around when he’s with the other. Maybe that’s why they’re jittery, looking for an excuse to go out and find trouble.
And they find it. The banter slips out on its own, as naturally as fighting. Spider-Man quips. He replies with a one liner. It makes the robber growl behind the web that keeps his lips shut.
He isn’t sure what does it- What Wade says that makes Spider-Man laugh, but he does. Low and sweet and suddenly all the sounds in the alley seem displaced. Spider-Man’s laugh made all the sounds in his head go quiet, like those moments after rainfall where everything was serene.
Then it cuts out abruptly. This seems to bother Spider-Man as much as the criminal they caught, he looks to the ground as if he could look down at his feelings with the same disdain he did the beaten man.
Wade can’t blame him. Not for this; feeling discomfort around someone like him.
It filled Wade with a similar sense of unfamiliarity. There was something small that had built between them that Spider-Man was forcing back. Not battling with the implications of.
“Come on, in front of the kids?” Wade jokes, and weakly gestures to the robber. That’s enough to make Peter snicker a little, and they carry on until dawn.
-
The concept of secrecy was not one that Wade ever got familiar with. A trained mercenary doesn’t let those sorts of things slip away from him. He kept the necessary secrets within distance- The necessary ones pertaining to their identities. (Partly, for his own sake. He isn’t sure if he could handle knowing who Spidey was.)
The problem was that Spider-Man made it so easy to figure out every little thing about him.
It’s late December when he’s asked to meet at a specific location. Wade made sure to come an hour early to give himself time to snoop around; he's giddy and bouncing on his heels just at the proposition. Spider-Man crouched in the shadows, out of sight. He can feel the weight of his stare from across the rooftop, watching cautiously.
Wade doesn’t mention it, feigning ignorance until half an hour later, when he’s stepping into the moonlight. Spider-Man’s trying to look casual, but he ends up carrying himself stiffly.
“You got gifts, Spidey?”
“Nope. Don’t celebrate Christmas. You aren’t exactly on my nice list, anyway.” Spider-Man said as he sat on the edge of the roof.
“Well, that’s a relief. I thought this was it , you got sick of me and were just gonna gift me a bomb. But if it was wrapped nicely, I’d probably appreciate the sentiment. Hey, who is on your nice list?” Deadpool sits himself eagerly next to Spider-Man, kicking his legs in the air.
“Johnny Storm and Miles.” He says, which makes Deadpool groan and throw his head back.
“Went to an Avengers Christmas party once. I didn’t tell them I don’t celebrate because I thought, y’know, secret identity stuff, but I also didn’t want to know what kind of jewish-themed sweater Tony would have tried getting me.“
Wade is quiet for a moment, making a mental note to do just that. “Are you underestimating how many jewish people are in New York? If he found you that way, I’d have to give it to tin-man. Was there at least booze?”
“Oh yeah, with Thor? There were these beer glasses that were like-“ He holds out out his hands about a foot apart “-This tall?”
“Tell me about the Avengers,” Deadpool puts his chin on his hands. He bats his eyelashes innocently, even if it doesn’t show from under the mask. “They ever talk about me?”
“Uh. Yeah. This is about that news thing, right?”
“I ruined your reputation, not so family friendly anymore, huh? Think about the marketing! I get it, no hard feelings.”
“They don’t like you. I considered just calling it quits. But I thought about it and I don’t think you deserve that.” Spider-Man says honestly. Wade’s chest feels full with all sorts of feelings he barely has the room for.
He tries to deflect. “You know I was a mercenary, right?”
Spider-Man turns to him and Deadpool imagines he’s raising an eyebrow. Even if he forego the bigger, flashier weapons tonight ( his katanas and gun usually strapped to his thigh ), he most certainly wasn’t unarmed. “Hard to miss.”
He clicks his tongue, which is stuck to the roof of his mouth. “So you should know that inviting me to meet you on your rooftop is incredibly stupid, right?”
Spider-Man laughs a little, bowing his head down. “Yeah, I know.” He admits as if it's nothing. “You don’t get a reputation like mine without pissin’ off the wrong people and doing a lot of stupid things. I thought, what the hell, what’s one more? But don’t tell me you didn’t already know.”
“I didn’t,” The top lenses of Spider-Man’s mask lowered and wow, how does a mask actually have the ability to look unamused? “Swear! I didn’t even follow you home after the patrols. Seemed like cheating, it’s better when you tell me. You confirmed it when you were all dark and brooding in the shadows over there,” He gestures vaguely behind him. “You wouldn’t care if I wasn’t on your turf.”
“I care when you’re on every turf. It usually means bad business. And cheating? What, is this a game?”
“Sure it is. The friendship game, and I think I’m winning. I doubt you took me here just to stargaze. We oughta go somewhere out of the city for that, Spidey, too much light pollution here. Hey, you think we could go on a road trip?”
“Never have. We probably could, if I had a car. Or knew how to drive.”
“ New Yorkers, ” He says with an eye roll which gets translated by the way he dramatically rolls his head. “Don't worry your pretty little head, I can drive just about any vehicle.”
“Legally? Successfully?”
“Let’s not ask too many questions.”
“Well. No, I didn’t ask you to come for no reason. I…” Spider-Man stands. He rocks on his feet, leaning forward and then backwards. He’s contemplating something, wringing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. “Wanna come inside?”
Deadpool’s jaw drops. “No way.”
“Yes way.”
“Spidey, you gotta mean it. As soon as I get in there, it’s free reign. I’m gonna be showing up every day, maybe I’ll even move in. I hope you have room for 3 more.”
“Accept the offer before I regret it.”
They sneak in through the window, which is more hospitality than he usually gets.
“You sure? Like really really sure? I can keep my eyes closed so I won’t know-“ Deadpool is cut off and crashes face down onto the floor as he gets shoved in. “Just get in. Quick , I’m not taking chances after someone snapped pictures of us that one time.” He hissed behind him.
Deadpool slaps a hand over his eyes and stands up. “Hey, do Spiders have night vision?” He asks as he follows the sound of Spider-Man’s footsteps.
“No, they rely on smell and touch.”
“Oh, cool. I should probably shower more often for your sake,” He says, and proceeds to crash into a wall.
“What the- Dude, seriously, you can open your eyes!”
He does, very hesitantly. He doesn’t know what to expect, maybe a nest full of spider-webs, or some evil lab. It’s just on the edge of precariousness, with all the lights off, until Spider-Man goes around flicking them all on.
There's a branched menorah on the table, a tower of take out and unwashed cups laying about. It’s nothing but ordinary, it’s lived in and messy and small. Deadpool does a full turn to scan the room, and has the overwhelming urge to snoop around.
“This is sad,” Deadpool snickers as if he doesn’t spend an awful amount of time in squatter homes across the city. He spreads out across his couch, it sinks under his weight . He lets his eyes scan over a laptop and piles of science papers that seem to have different people's handwriting on them.
“Are you seriously judging my apartment?“
“Duh. Someone needs to.”
“Don’t I get enough of that from The Bugle? Or- everyone, actually? I thought you liked me.”
“Nope, also The Bugle doesn’t know you’re a nerd. Are you a teacher? Good job, Mr. Secret-identity, unless you grade papers for fun. Tell me how much you have in student loan debt- On second thought, don’t. It might actually kill me. You graduated college right?”
Spider-Man shoves Deadpool’s legs out of the way to sit. The couch creaks under the combined weight- Proportional strength of a spider, Deadpool reminds himself.
“Yeah, a few years ago. I’m 32?” He paused. “No, 33.”
“Huh,” Wade looks away. There’s a flavor of envy in the feeling that settles deep in his gut. It makes the corners of his lips tug down.
“How about you?” Spider-Man asks curiously.
“What, the age, or school? I was a dropout who was in fights more often than I was in classrooms. Then I joined the military and-“ His hand makes the motion of something falling from the sky, then crashing with an explosion sound.
“Hm. I got in fights too,” Spider-Man says a bit defensively. “If you count me being the one who was getting bullied.”
“You can fight back now!”
“I like a break from all the fighting. Anyway, I was asking about your age.”
“Nah, not that old. Not that I can really remember either. Should be in my late 30’s at least. It's confusing when you heal from everything, it feels like my body isn’t aging at all.”
“You can’t die?”
“Normally when people ask me that, it’s bad news for me.” He talks a lot quieter than usual. He pulls his legs up and instinctually closes in on himself, contemplating on what to say.
“I have a healing factor. Well, if I dropped right off this roof you'd get a Deadpool pancake ( Dead-cake? I’m already pansexual, so pancake might just work as it is ) but I’d get up and kickin’ again in a few hours. If you mean age-wise, I don’t have a clue, sweetheart, but I’m betting I’ll be around for a while.
He never asked about it. How it happened, why Wade was the way he is. He’s seen it in glimpses, when he’s pulled his mask up above his nose to eat, or had his suit torn up in a battle.
“Can I see?“
“You don’t want that, webs.” Deadpool forces himself to laugh, but it feels small in his chest. “Think Freddy Krueger. Or old take out pizza that you forgot about, and now the cheese is all congealed and gross.”
“Sure I do,” He says too casually. “That doesn’t bother me.”
What if he just wants to study you? Like an experiment?
The intrusive thought makes him feel ill. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so he just smacks the heel of his palm against his forehead. He isn’t like that at all, Wade screws his eyes shut and tries to project that as loudly as he can back to his thoughts.
Spider-Man says something he doesn’t let himself listen to, but he does sound concerned.
Wade, at 30, was already more than a decade into the experiments, being run through the system and used for his skills. He was born out of the bloodshed, a husk of a person shaped by the mutilations. Molded through the military and broken through the torture.
He wonders briefly how two people with such vastly different lives can end up in the same place. He wonders for a long time about why someone like Spider-Man is around him.
“-ey- Hey- Hey, Deadpool.” The others voice fades in, and it doesn't seem it was the first time he said his name. Wade's head snaps up and finds that Spider-Man is leaning in close. His hand is on his shoulder, gentle in the way someone would cautiously pet a dangerous dog, ready to pull back if he snapped- but still touching.
“You don’t have to show me anything. Alright? I haven’t shown you my face, so it isn’t very fair? I was just curious, but-” Deadpool tenses, which makes him pull his hand back. He wants to throw himself forward into his arms. “Don’t worry about it.”
Let’s stop talking about me. Please.
“So, why teaching?”
Spider-Man seems hardly bothered by his behavior. He leans back and relaxes, fine with the change of topic. “It accommodates the hero schedule, I guess. I have a major in biochem, so I teach about stuff I like, but I also did engineering. I actually built my own web shooters.”
Spider-Man holds out his wrists to show him. Wade isn’t sure what he’s looking at, but the contraption seems complicated. A gadget sits in the center of both of his wrists. There’s wires that slip under the suit and a vial filled with some sort of fluid which he refrains from making a joke about because he’s so close he’s basically forgotten how to breathe.
He taps it experimentally. Spider-Man lets him, so he pokes around some more while he eagerly talks about each component and how it works.
“Eugh. Nevermind. I take it back, you’re a nerd, I’m resisting the urge to give you a wet willy right now.”
“I appreciate you not doing it.”
“It’s only because I can’t reach your ears. Not that I doubt you’re a super genius or whatever, but where are your test runs of this? You have any?”
“I- Yeah, actually. Let me find it.” He quickly gets off of the couch and heads to some room that Deadpool can’t see into, even when he cranes his neck back and squints into the dark hall. He leans down to look under the couch for the slim chance he might find something, but it’s just forgotten socks and dust.
Spidey reappears into the living room with what seems like a shoebox. The contents inside rattle as he sits, and he rummages through the scraps until he pulls out two similar wristbands that look like the ones he currently had on.
“Here,” He holds them out.
“You serious?”
“Stop asking me that. It’s a failed one, anyway. You don’t get to use mine, but these, I don’t care.”
Wade fumbles to put them on and insists he doesn’t need help. They’re tight on his wrists- He was in general, much bigger than Spider-Man was- but he gets them on nonetheless. Deadpool angles his wrist to the wall and mimics his poses in a way that makes Spider-Man cross his arms in slight offense.
“Get ready to lose your security deposit, baby boy,” He says as he pushes down on a small button and a glob of web fluid shoots out and sticks to the wall with a splat. There’s a few seconds of silence before they both double over laughing.
-
“Hey, Deadpool. I consider us friends.”
Deadpool stops in his tracks, one leg pulled over the window sill, his head bowed under the glass. He’s halfway out, the winter air is the dry kind that makes his breath fog in the air even through the mask, it blows into the apartment with a whistle and it makes Spider-Man shiver. He nearly falls from surprise.
“ Best friends, Spidey.” He says as if saying it aloud would confirm it, and leaves before he can say anything else.
-
In a blur of adrenaline, Deadpool finds himself alone with Spider-Man, running off from a more serious battle because they were never ones to stick around the bigger teams for longer than they were needed.
Spider-Man was pushing him into an alley.
Hands are hastily shoving themselves up the corners of his mask, soft fingertips running along his scars and lingering a second longer. Wade wants to cry out of shame and relief as smooth hands cup his mangled chin.
It’s Spider-Man who pulls his own mask up, and the gesture feels more erotic than anything else he could have imagined. That flash of skin, pink lips and tufts of brown hair that flattened against his cheeks. Closer and closer until their lips crashed.
Spider-Man’s breath is hot in his mouth, or maybe it’s his own. Spiders can’t thermoregulate, he leeches off the heat from Deadpool’s body like he’s never felt it, hands strong on his shoulder blades. A stubble scratches against his sensitive skin, his scars both internal and external feel like they’re being ripped open again.
It’s everything Wade has fantasized about. He’s thought about this- mostly- non mastrubatory contexts. He knows he should feel ecstatic, his eyes burn and he feels the urge at the physical contact. He kisses back, the familiar action unearthed from a deep part of his brain that forgot it- That causes the wrong wires to cross, his older, painful memories melting into this moment, making his heart rate pick up out of panic.
He doesn’t realize he’s frozen in place.
“Deadpool?”
“I don’t think I can do this.” He gasps as they separate. He feels exposed. He wishes he could pull his mask down, or hide in those liminal spaces between the panels.
He can see Spider-Man’s lips part a little. He licks them slowly, before speaking. “Do what?”
“I’m…” He takes in Spider-Man’s appearance again. “No, nevermind. Let’s go for it, right? Not much time before we’re caught,” He’s forcing himself to arch into the touch, pressing himself closer to him.
“Stop,” He pries Wade’s hands off of him and pushes them down at his sides. “I get it. I’m sorry, I got ahead of myself, you don’t have to do anything.”
“No! It’s-“
“It’s okay to say no.”
“But you-“
“Wade-!”
“I don’t think i’m ready for…” He says gesturing between their chests. Quickly, he can’t help but ask. “Are you gonna leave?”
Spider-Man purses his lips, trying to understand the expression on Wade’s face. Inexplicably sad. He could wrangle complex physics in his sleep, but he doesn’t know what to do about this. “Why would I leave?”
“I don’t want to mess it up.”
“You won’t. I don’t want to-” Spider-Man says and it makes Wade wince, then rethinks his words. “Not until you want to.”
“You deserve someone better.”
“I know you’re capable of being better.”
That makes him go still. He closes his eyes and waits. Waits to hear those footsteps getting farther, for him to be alone and indecent.
He stays. The utter clarity of the moment shocks him.
Deadpool can’t help the way his thoughts pour out of his mouth, this longing desire to be seen and to be understood. Not to let his erratic behavior go unexplained and inevitably twisted in the mind of someone because for once he actually cares what they think. He can’t deny his own humanity.
“Not on my own, I can’t. My compass is all screwed, Spidey. I never know which direction I need to go in.”
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”
There’s a slight smile on Spider-Man’s face. The corner of his lip tugs up, lopsided and tight-lipped. He doesn’t seem to have realized his mask is still up. And Wade nods, really trying to believe him.
-
It all came with the realization that he was starting to believe Spider Man on the notion that he could be better, that everything began to spiral downwards.
He had been climbing a staircase, each step taking him closer and closer to the top, but when he reached it, he saw there was nothing there. No one was waiting for him, his brain would relapse into this constant cycle of reliving his most painful memories, leaving him no choice but to turn around. The way down was much quicker.
It was impossible to say if the kiss made things worse. Their dynamic remained the same, Spider-Man as understanding as ever, and that was what Deadpool felt was so wrong.
He had to drag himself back into safe, familiar territory.
He slips into Weasel's bar one midnight. The air shifts around him, people do too, like he was a part of the environment and not intruding on it. The yellow lights overhead swing and flicker, reflecting off a shelf of liquor. There’s smoke in the air and the floor is sticky with spilled alcohol. No one spares a second glance at the imposing figure in red kevlar, strapped with a dozen different weapons.
His eyes wander to the board- his name is still on the dead pool.
“Wade. Almost thought you gave up this lifestyle. Haven’t seen you in a while.” Said a familiar voice.
He’s spent so long around masks and hidden identities, he’s gotten unused to seeing peoples expressions. He was out of practice for any kind of real conversation. It was exhausting, to be held at an arm's distance, knowing you weren’t wanted but kept around because you were someone who needed to be kept in check, dangerous and unpredictable. Does it matter what he’s trying to be, if everyone sees him like that anyway?
He asks for a job.
Weasel drags a rag along the edge of a beer glass and gives him a pinched glare. He was never one to mask opinions, he let Deadpool know his every thought in brutal honesty ( When he came back after so long and took off his mask, and let his eyes rake across his scars. ) There's something in the way he looks down at him, staring into white eyes. He almost wants to deny him, tell him to get out of here.
Instead, he doesn’t say anything.
Weasel gives him a job.
Deadpool is more brutal than he usually would be. It’s all to test himself. Maybe he’s trying to prove it to Spider Man. He goes to the location and rips through every living body he sees like a machine with a task. It’s all muscle memory, sloppy at first with months of misuse but the familiarity quickly rushes back.
( The hilt of his gun jabbed against a jugular. An arm twisted back. He never fires the bullet. He meets Spider Man’s eye. )
Deadpool reaches for his holster and gunshots ripple through the hallway. Bodies fall to the floor. He lodges a bullet into the mouth of anyone who screams. The voices in his head are silent, sitting back and watching everything come undone with satisfaction.
Thump.
Soft flesh against his fist. His heart races in his ears.
Thump.
Or is it his heart?
Thump.
A pulse is fading under his fingertips.
He drops the unconscious body at his feet. Raising his head is like coming up for air after being held underwater, those moments when he was released from the oxygen deprivation tank and realized he was in his own personal, self-inflicted hell. There are dozens of unconscious bodies around him. The floor is wet with viscous blood.
There’s someone approaching quickly from behind, steps frantically against the wet tile. He was sloppy . Deadpool turned, looking eye to eye with the barrel of a gun before it fired.
Deadpool stumbles back and curses. There’s a stinging pain that burns in his skull and makes his entire body feel numb. His vision is slowly blacking around the edges, and he flings a knife into the jugular of the man who shot him just before he collapses face first into the ground.
Everything goes black.
…
Wade wakes up to complete silence. He’s alone and the air is cold. The sounds of the world are like radio static as his brain reconstructs itself. He allows himself to bask in this tranquility until the voices seep back in. There’s a dull ache in the base of his skull that worsens into a splitting headache.
He struggles to lift himself with aching muscles. He sits on his knees, hunched over and hitting himself in his chest, willing his heart to beat.
He tears the mask off his face and swallows a gasp. There’s blood in his nose and mouth and he sputters as his lungs teach themselves how to breathe again. He can taste copper on his tongue and between his teeth. After hours of stillness, his heart finally starts to beat.
He looks at his reflection in the liquid. His face is drenched in blood. It’s horrific, the way the white of his eyes stands out starkly amongst the red.
He leans back to sit on his knees, slowly wrapping his arms around himself.
He did this expecting everything to feel right again, but now he’s more lost than ever.
-
Wade and Death work in tandem, much like how he and Spider-Man have an alliance. Two individuals who should have never been allowed to meet, especially not long enough to form any kind of familiarity.
Wade has felt many things while in the cold grasp of Death, her bony fingers around his own, teeth pressed against his scarred lips. He sees her in brief increments of time, each fleeting. He has felt anger, desperation, want. He longs for death like he longs for someone to hold him. He has lodged bullets in his own skull and tied ropes around his neck to reach her. He’s been dead for longer than he’s ever been alive.
Around Death, he has never felt fear.
Not until he’s bursting into his apartment with Spider Man in his arms in a half-carry, half-drag. He heaves him up through his own window and blabbers incoherently in hopes that he’ll get a reply, but it never comes.
It happened in a second. One man he missed, one bullet that he didn’t jump in front of in time for it to hit Spider-Man.
Red flashes hot in his vision, it’s all he can see. Wade is carried by his blinding rage, reaching for his guns and crying out, lunging towards the man with nothing but murder on his mind.
I killed Spider-Man, he thinks wildly.
He’s ready to unload the entire magazine into his skull because dammit, he just killed Spider-Man, he just let Spider-Man die and now he’s alone and he has no one else, all of this was for nothing and he let it happen again, and Wade doesn’t know what’s going to become of him now or weeks from now, he doesn’t think he can survive losing someone else but he will, he always does. The cycle always restarts.
He’s cursing aloud, very vividly describing how he’s going to tear this man from limb to limb while probably weeping, he can taste the salt from the tears that run down his cheeks.
There’s a web that shoots out and knocks the gun out of his shaking fist. He turns around and stares at Spider-Man, staggered to his feet and breathing harshly through his mask. He clutches his hip and hunches over. Wade gapes.
“Don’t- You fffucking dare, Deadpool.” Is all he manages to say before falling forward.
Wade is diving forward to catch him. “I didn’t, baby boy. He’s alive. You’re alive.” He let’s Spider-Man cling to his shoulders, maneuvers him into his arms and presses down on the wound.
The man was frozen in shock behind him, but all the fight drained out of him.
And now he finds himself here, alone with his mistake. Spider-Man lays in his bed. His gray sheets soak up the deep crimson. He can smell the blood in the air, the thick sweat from both of their bodies. His chin drops onto his chest and Wade holds his cheeks with both hands, trying to keep his head up.
He can hardly believe the sight. He steps back and smashes his head against the wall. Hard enough the drywall crumbles around his head. “Wake up,” He mumbles to himself. He drives his head into the wall again. The loud sound only makes Spider Man stir.
Wade curses. His legs straddle his waist so he can get close. His fingers are uncharacteristically still as they hover over the wound, in part to the fact he still can’t believe this is real, just a very cruel nightmare his mess of a brain is putting him through, another delusional scenario. There was no reality he was registering enough to drag him into the present. But it doesn’t stop the pounding in his head and the angry shift of his scars. This heavy empty dread in his stomach as he stares at the expressionless mask beneath him.
He’s cutting into spandex with a switchblade. The fabric ribs and the handmade stitches pop. He peels it off, letting it fall to the floor with a wet noise. Spider Man’s fingers twitch and he can’t seem to look down at himself as Wade examines him. There’s two scars in his chest, they curve around his ribs and meet at his sternum. The skin there is flat and raises with his small breaths. Lower, he sees the bullet hole just above his hip.
Spider Man groans beneath him as he presses a flat palm between his shoulder blades and rolls him to his side. There’s a wet ooze and more blood. “No hospital.” Spider Man murmurs into the pillow, white knuckled grip in the sheets that leave twisted red fingertips in their place.
“Fine, Spidey. ‘Course. No hospitals. Fuck.”
“Fuck!” Spider Man echoes as a damp cloth is pressed to the wound. Wade’s knowledge from the army, as muddled and distant as it is, leaves him with the ability to take care of this.
He doesn’t take the bullet out, he can’t risk the infection or bleeding out. Wade knows he’ll need to call for better help later, but for now he cleans and sanitizes the wound, then lays a bandage over it tightly.
There’s blotches off red but not nearly as much as before. He lost his voice somewhere in the procedure. He can only listen to the sound of his own breathing as he realizes this is all so very real.
Spider Man's hand raises slowly. Wade barely tracks the movement until fingers curl around the edge of his mask. He can’t help but tighten his grip around his ribs, and swallow when his eyes greedily take in the sight of his neck. That red fabric is curling up farther into dangerous territory.
He can see his lips, the tight line they’re drawn into, the hook of his nose, the pain that laces his features.
“Don’t,” Wade says as soon as fingers reach the bump in his nose. The mask rucked up to his cheekbones.
“I want to.” Spider-Man's throat bobs as the words are spoken “I want you to know if I-“
“Put your goddamn mask back on.” Wade grits his teeth. His tone is dangerous, dark and drained of any emotion. It’s meant as a threat, months ago it would have sent tingles up Spider-Man's spine, he would have bolted straight through the window and never looked back.
“My name is Peter.”
Wade breathes harshly through his nose. He studies the way his cracked lips move as he speaks the name, and the sound of the scruff of his stubble so faint as it moves against the spandex. He squeezes his eyes shut, the scars wrinkle into harsh lines on his face.
“Peter Parker. My name is Peter Parker.”
If the blunt edge of his fingernails in Peter's sides hurts- which it undoubtedly does- he doesn’t make it known. Not so much as a shift. Even with Wade putting all his weight onto him, holding onto him like a lifeline.
Peter reaches out and clings to Wade’s forearms. He wants to hold on tighter, but his hands are weak. He squeezes, and silently urges him to come closer.
Wade stands and lurches back like a drunk man. Extricates himself from Peter's hold. He shouldn’t leave him, he feels a pang of guilt. He still doesn’t move, hands outstretched in the air, flexing around nothing. Wade forces himself not to see his frown.
It’s too much. The reality of death. Part of him doesn’t want to leave the room- if he doesn’t look away, nothing bad can happen to Peter. Another part of him can’t stand to be in this room.
He remembers when he was diagnosed with cancer. How he sat in that office and stared at Vanessa, remembering every little detail of her face as if it was the last time he would ever see her. When he was human, when he had cancer and it was capable of killing him.
Now he doesn’t let himself see Peter's face. He won’t make it into reality.
“Pull your mask down, Spidey. You aren’t gonna die tonight.” He says before stepping out.
-
Peter stirs awake and the pain hits him before consciousness does. His eyes are unfocused, he stares at the ceiling and clenches his fists, trying to take in all his surroundings. Blood flakes off his finger tips.
He doesn’t know where he is. The mattress beneath him is softer than his own, the smell of gunpowder and sweat much stronger.
“Does the beard bother you under that mask?”
Peter jolts up and sees Deadpool leaning against the door frame. He’s still wearing his mask, but he isn’t wearing the rest of his suit. It’s strangely casual. Short sleeves stretch across his bicep, his scarred arms on display.
Peter's hands fly up to his face and he relaxes as he feels the fabric over his cheeks.
“Don’t sweat it, Spidey. You didn’t show that pretty face of yours to me.”
“...It’s not a beard,” There’s a scratchy sound as Peter rubs his chin. The curtains are drawn, but the sunlight still shines through them. It makes his eyelids burn even when he closes his eyes. “I just haven’t had time to shave.”
“Yet you’re baby smooth everywhere else.”
Peter remembers that he’s exposed from the collar bone down and crosses his arms close to him.
“I can’t let that happen to you again.”
“You won’t.”
“Yeah, maybe if you wore something better. Nothing under that suit, you’re asking’ to be hurt.” Wade says as he doesn’t try to bring up his own failure.
“My suit?” Peter lets himself settle deeper into the bed. He cringes at the stiffness of the sheets.
“I had to cut it off. You were bleeding bad, I didn’t have much of a choice. You’ll definitely have to make a new one, that one’s done for.”
“Thank you,” Peter says. “I should’ve been more careful-”
“Are you kiddin’ me? You couldn’t have done anything to stop that.”
“Still, you saved me. Thank you.”
He stays completely still. Mumbles something under his breath to someone else before asking quietly, “Why do you do it?”
“What?”
“Saving New York. Everyone knows who you are but no one asks why .”
Peter doesn’t say anything for a while. He leans his head back and lets it hit the drywall behind him.
“… Sometimes I feel like I have to. Sometimes I just don’t know anything else. I tried for a while, to balance both lives, but once I knew I had the ability to do good, to prevent people from experiencing the same pain as I did… I made my decision when I continued to do this. When I continued to be Spider-Man. The decision that my identity as a hero was more important than my identity as a romantic partner. Or even just- a friend. And- and I got people killed. People I cared about.”
Wade opens his mouth, then closes his mouth.
“And that’s worth it? You do the best you possibly can and no one gives a shit. Everything you do is overlooked, yet you still do it.” It’s everything I wish I could do. “Here’s the problem. Once you start, you can’t stop, there’s no going back to normal. Why are we trying to? You think you killed those people?”
“I don’t think anything. I put people in danger, I’m the reason all the people I loved are-“
“Is that why you stick around me?” He can’t help the venom that seeps into his tone.
“Excuse me?“
“Because I can’t die?”
“No,” Peter says, disbelieving. He shakes his head a little. “No, that’s not- Is that what you think?”
“...”
“Wade-” he drags his palm down the side of his face and sighs.
“I thought I could be a hero. That I could be like you.”
For so long, Wade had kept Peter on a pedestal. Had used him as a guide for morality, for self betterment.
Peter takes off his mask and everything comes crashing down.
When he sees his face in its entirety for the first time, he can hardly tie the face to the mask, wrinkled and tightly held between battered knuckles. Like a dirty rag, rather than an integral piece of his identity he had just peeled off.
There was a time where Wade couldn’t handle knowing who Spider-Man was, he wouldn’t allow himself to. He would push back every moment that came so close, bask in the unknown and find safety in it. To know who Peter was, was to admit he was human. To admit that Wade was held back by nothing but himself, his ability to change was not a failure of his lack of humanity but his own faults.
That changed, somewhere along the road. No longer a hero but a friend. Yet the masks provided distance; they were a safety net that allowed him to conceptualize Peter. It was so wrong .
He stares at his chin, thin and crooked, shifting with the twist of his lips. His eyes, hooded and tired, eyebags so deep he could fit fists into them. His brown hair curly and tousled, pressed against his cheekbones and hanging over his eyebrows. Wade feels hot all over with affection.
“I killed someone.” He confesses.
Peter blinks at him.
“I took a job. I killed a lot of people. I also died, but I came back. I chose to do it, I took the money. Tell me what you think of me. Are you gonna make exceptions, because you like me now? Because we kissed?”
Wade doesn’t know who is talking. Where this anger comes from, or the accusations. He doesn’t want to say these things, and at the same time cannot help but blame him for loving someone like Wade.
“…When?”
“Few weeks ago.”
He sighs.
“I don’t regret it, if that’s what you want to hear. I don’t regret any of this.” Peter is slow to talk. He can see the way he thinks, his eyebrows shift as he processes the information. “I didn’t make you do any of that. But… I’m not making you do this. You’re here right now, and that tells me you want to change. Unless you do want to go back to that? Then, this is the last we see of each other.”
Wade doesn’t doubt him. Not for a second.
If Peter can just see- If he can just brave it with him- then maybe-?
His hands reach up to his face. He can feel his ragged breathing through the mask, his own body reacting in opposition to his wants, the urge to tear his hands away and put his fists down where they can’t allow him to do anything risky.
If he doesn’t do this now, he never will.
He rips his mask off.
His face was the most expressive of all, in its glory of scars and open sores, the mangled skin that layered from injury after injury. His trembling lips and deep brown eyes blown open wide- He’s afraid to know what he looks like to Peter, how he looks now that he can see he exudes raw fear.
“I don’t.”
“Good.” Peter looks into his eyes steadily. “I’m so tired of secrets. I just wanted someone to know my name, me. I know you might not be comfortable with that-”
“Wade.” He says quickly. “Wade Wilson.”
He raises his eyebrows, then smiles. “Wade.”
“Peter. Pete. Petey. Petey-Pie.” Wade repeats his name again and again, much like he does with words like ‘duct tape’ or ‘chimichanga’ ( “I just love saying it.” Peter remembers being told a few months back.)
“Come here,” Peter groans as he sits up. He pats the spot next to him on the rather large bed.
Wade does.
He sits with his back to Peter, shoulders tightly drawn forward. Peter lets the pad of his thumb run along the ridges on his forearm, rubbing back and forth. The contact on his bare skin feels like fire, he can feel the surface rippling and shifting under the strong wave of emotions.
“I had someone, too. Someone who died because of me.”
Peter is wrapping his arms around Wade from behind, his chest pressed against the expanse of his back. “I’m sorry,” He mumbles, his cheek pressed to the shell of his ear, head knocking clumsily against his own.
Wade slowly twists around to face him, his hands gentle over his sides.
Something changed in that moment, something new birthed itself out of what was once just Spider-Man and Deadpool . Wade thinks that maybe, maybe, he’s starting to make a new life for himself, and he doesn’t have to be alone for it.
He drops his head on Peter's shoulder and hugs him back.