Sleepover
It was only hours later in the morning when Peter began to slowly wake up.
Don't get him wrong. He's never really been a morning person (he's got a dozen broken alarm clocks to prove it), but this was a different kind of slow. What usually feels steady, felt more sedated. His body didn't ache but he was still exhausted, despite how long he slept...
Wait.
How long had he slept? or better yet...
Where the heck was he?
The usual thin duvet and stiff mattress that made his back click weren't there. The pillow behind his head was rough and course and felt more like a poorly made cushion. The kind that made his head itch. Steadily coming to senses, Peter gradually picked himself up to lean on the back of the sofa he was laying on. As he straightened his back, his neck gave a violent pop that caused Peter to let out a puffed wheeze.
The springs in the couch creaked and the dark, worn leather tensed as he adjusted his weight to look around the room he'd found himself in. Upon starting a closer inspection of his surroundings, the best way he could come to describe it was as... distinctive.
The room was an assortment of odd paraphernalia and knick-knacks. All next to each other with no clear purpose, hanging from shelves or scattered across the floor. No matter where Peter looked, there always seemed to be magazines, take out boxes and a strange variety of plushies in view. The coffee table directly in front of him did not have a single leg the same length, and from where Peter was sitting he could say the same could go for the small kitchen table to his side. Each chair encircling it was bizarre in its own right, all of them different shapes and sizes. Looking closer at what he now assumed was the dining table, Peter could see that nearly the entirety of its surface was slovenly covered by gun magazines and bullet casings.
Huh. He didn't see a reason why those would be there. He didn't know anyone who used a gun. Peter dwelled on that thought as it echoed in his head, staring blankly at the loose ammunition until it finally clicked. The moment the notion hit, Peter's face screwed up and fell within milliseconds, leaving his eyes empty and his stance on the couch wooden as his breathing stopped.
Images from the night before swamped him in one go - drug deals on alley corners, a gaudy take out place and a masked man with an awful large firearm.
Oh.
Oh no.
Stupid. stupID, STUPID. How the hell did he manage to get kidnapped? He goes out later than he usually would for the first time in months and this is what happens. Happy was gonna kill him if Aunt May didn't get to him first. She must be home by now, seeing as the sun was shining directly into his eyes through the rift in the blinds. The one promise he made was to lay low, and then he got snatched after a failed street corner drug bust nearly immediately afterwards. If Mr Stark ever found out about this, he was going to have a field day with whatever new and improved 'screwed the pooch' speech he had ready and waiting for Peter's next fuck-up.
Peter's eyes widened and his hands flew up to his cheeks while his eyes shot down to his body. He was wearing a baggy low-cut Bea Arthur t-shirt that seemed to be lazily tossed on top of his suit. It was only when his fingers discerned the familiar synthetic material on his face that he relaxed a bit.
So he still had his mask on. It wasn't much but it was a start to making a come-back from this shit-show.
He kicked off the falling-apart blanket wrapped around his feet and stood up. He had to get out of there as soon as possible. Peter couldn't hear anyone in the apartment for now, but there was no telling when the masked man would get back. And with his track record, time was undoubtedly not on his side.
God, what was up with that disguise anyway? Last he checked secret identities were his thing. And he definitely would have noticed if someone like that started running around. So the question is, why didn't he? It wasn't like him to miss someone that obvious, parading guns and campaigning out violent threats on street corners.
Peter knows he hasn't been dutiful to being spiderman in the last few weeks. Between struggling to keep his scholarship, persuading faculty to look past tardies and catch up on the mountains of work he's been missing due to his other identity's debacles, he hasn't exactly had bouts of free time on his hands. Once May had found out about him being the one and only spider-themed hero it had been one of the first rules she implemented. No good grades. No fighting crime.
All in all, it was fair enough. To be honest he expected there to be more to it. Sure, he got grounded for a month or two and the scolding of a lifetime, but Aunt May's efforts to get him to stop ended reasonably quickly. With the condition that he stayed safe of course.
Yeah, great to see how well that's working out.
Peter stood up and scanned the room again. He would have to jump out the window on the opposite wall if he wanted to leave. He had no spare clothes to reapply his civilian guise, and "in the neighbourhood" didn't seem like a good enough excuse this time. Walking in and out of apartments that belonged to a certain building wasn't a great idea to being with. It could cause enemies who would usually only quarry with spiderman to start targetting whoever was unfortunate enough to coincidentally live near the psycho that had a genius eureka moment to let him have a sleepover. There was no telling exactly who and how many people saw him getting carried into the flat, so Peter would just have to cut his losses there and find another way out.
He strolled past the coffee table and moved the curtains further to the side and looked through the window. The dingy buildings and grey highrises blocked his entire view. Everything seemed to meld into one mass of concrete, with only spurs of government-mandated trees and shrubs seen scattered in between worn, vandalized benches. Whoever this apartment belonged to, it was obvious that they were trying to be discreet. Peter snorted at the concept, how ironic was it that the same guy saunters around in a bright red, leather jumpsuit.
The apartment couldn't have been that far up the building. Maybe the fourth or fifth floor. He peered downwards to check his wrists. He definitely didn't have enough webs to make it out of whichever neighbourhood he was in, especially seeing how he didn't recognize a thing from the surroundings. God, May was gonna be pissed if he got murdered in a place that looked like it came straight out of the twilight zone.
Fine. Out the window it is. He'd made bigger jumps and lived anyways, this height would be a breeze.
Keeping his fair distance from the window, Peter searched the moulding pane for a latch. Low and behold, there wasn't one.
Parker luck strikes again' he thought cynically as he backed away from the window sill. It was always when he needed the universe to give him a break that it decided to spit in his face. Finally go out as spiderman, get caught by a psycho. Get dumped in that psycho's house, the only way out doesn't have a lock. It was like trying to play one of those horribly rigged arcade games, where it doesn't even try to hide the fact that you can't win, then taunts at you when you don't. If it wasn't for the fact that it was broad daylight, he'd probably would have risked the clamour and shards of glass in his hand in order to get out of this maniac's house.
Peter looked around the room hunting for an exit. A vent, another window, anything. Taking into consideration the strangers eccentricities, even a trapdoor would do. He circled around the sofa he had found himself on and gazed down the hall directly diagonal from the sofa back. There were two wooden oak doors, alongside a metal plated thinner-framed door. The hardwood doors both had padlocks on them, while Peter could hear the whirring of an internal system and lock mechanisms within the frame of the iron door. Shivers ran up and down Peter's spine. He didn't want to think about the things this guy could be keeping behind locked doors.
Caught up in his own thoughts, Peter only heard the rattle of keys too late. Shit. He was gonna be murdered in a crazy man's hoarder home. People wouldn't even be able to smell his body when he started to rot.
The lock began to rotate and Peter's senses started to slow down as dread swiftly set in. It was weird, though. His spidey sense wasn't flaring up even with a gun-wielding maniac opposite him with nothing but a rickety door between them. Fantastic. Now he was going to have to face the guy without his biggest advantage. His body really wasn't his ally today.
He didn't want to admit it, but he was out of his league. Extremely out of his league. Peter couldn't pin the guy's abilities, but if his spidey sense from yesterday was anything to go off, he was in deep shit. He briskly shifted his head from the door to the window. He might really die if he stayed here, so he might as well take the risk he was contemplating. Cant' be worse than getting a warehouse dropped on you.
With a quick start, Peter lept over the setee and sprinted towards the glass. A creak from behind Peter told him that the door was beginning to open. He built up his momentum putting more force into each robust stride he took.
Peter's senses notified him that the door was being swung wide open and a presence was standing in the entryway. Simultaneously, he jumped and curled himself into a ball to lessen the damage when he fell. As he left the ground and was making his way to the window through the air, he heard the masked man let out a girlish screech.
He heard it just in time for him to completely ricochet off the glass and breathlessly hit the floor. He laid out flat his back, clutching at his shins in agony. His eyes shook and the wind was completely forced out of his lungs. He sat there for the second time in the last twenty-four hours desperately trying to catch his breath.
As he gasped like a fool, writhing on the ground, the dark figure came into frame and loomed over him with the same dead, unreadable eyes.
"I was going to tell you to not run into the reinforced windows but looks like you were one step ahead of me. Don't sweat it spidey-pie, you can learn lessons from all those booboos. And that's not just coming from someone who's more than willing to kiss 'em better" You may not have been able to see the guy's mouth but it sure as hell moved a lot. And that somehow made the pain in his legs all that much more unbearable.
Peter winced internally. Of course, they were reinforced. What kind of weirdo doesn't have their windows reinforced. He should have looked closer when examining them earlier instead of gazing outside like an idiot. The pain began to slowly and slightly subside, but only enough so that he could scoot all the way back into the sofa. Although it was only a short distance, his legs throbbed and ached, causing him to keep his hands wrapped around his calves from either side. Having super strength had its pros and its cons, and this situation was certainly one of the times it has actively worked against him.
"W-Wh- What d-do you want from m-me?" Peter blurted out in a squeaky-toned haste. The panic from the altercation the two shared before was once again welting up. His breathing was slowly levelling out after getting the wind knocked out of him, and the tears in his eyes were drying out just enough to make out that his kidnapper was still in his red and black suit. The man was balancing several, filled to the brim plastic take-out bags in between his fingers (causing them to twist in an uncomfortable to look at position) and was not-so-conspicuously hiding his suit with a hoodie and baggy jeans.
The masked figure looked around with an overexaggerated twist of the head to either side and then pointed to himself with a meticulously gloved finger.
"Me? Oh, nothing really. Just looking out for your friendly neighbourhood spiderman. Good thing Deadpool here found you and decided to give you a place to crash. Totally not a kidnapping situation. So, Mi casa es su casa cutie!"
'Deadpool' leant down and roughly dropped the bags of food on the coffee table to the side of Peter with a loud thump, before waving his arms outwards in an over the top display of welcome. "A peace offering" he announced.
Peter sat there in dead silence, staring at the piles of grease smothered containers, trying to digest what the hell this guy was saying. It was crystal clear that the dude had a few screws loose (he would have to with a name like 'Deadpool'), but at the same time he hadn't killed Peter yet, despite having more than enough chances to slaughter him in his sleep. That still wasn't an ample reason the trust him. So what if he hadn't murdered Peter yet? It could all be part of some sick scheme he'd conjured up. Like luring him into a false sense of security with delicious smelling food and sincere gestures, right before torturing him or experimenting on his DNA. Maybe even selling him as a super-slave to a third party. Peter's heard enough horror stories on the news about mutant kids being snatched up in the night and being shipped off to God knows where to make him three times more cautious than he would have been otherwise. He's already been moved to a secondary location, if he gets knocked out and transported again, it might be the end for both Peter Parker and Spiderman.
"So... you're not here to assassinate me, or anything?." Peter slowly questioned, still breathless after the embarrassing wipe out from the Peter vs Slightly-Stronger-than-Normal-Window Window match. Each word came out as if it were its own statement, cautious with how far he could probe this guy for answers.
"Wha- No! Things like that only happen to people when mamas getting a lot of moolah stuffed into the inner linen of his pants. I guess I may not seem like the best option through your baby blanc blinkers right now, but it's sure as hell better than getting street drugs jammed into your jugular. Always gotta watch out for drugs kid, unless you're fun. Wait, wrong memo. Maybe I should just show you those Canadian drug PSAs instead, those will definitely imprint on your young, impressionable mind." He spewed all this while circling around Peter and the oil-drenched coffee table, plopping himself onto the couch right next to Peter's own position before continuing.
"Anyway. No telling what those street sickos would have gotten up to if your cute enhanced booty was left in an alleyway."
At this, Peter budged further away from him, legs still aching from hurtling himself earlier. The shuffle was noticed by the older man, as his head perked to the side to look at Peter.
"A little appreciation would be nice" Deadpool began, bending his torso forwards to begin unwrapping one of the many meals he previously discarded. "I was prepared to go full Dukes of Hazzard on the po' for you when I hauled you over yonder hill back to mine. It's not every day someone kidnaps spidey."
Peter's brows creased and he turned his head to Deadpool at breakneck speed. "I thought you just said that you DIDN'T kidnap me." Though his voice was still wispy, the horribly disguised worry and evident anger were still there. The dude just kept getting more and more absurd. It was bad enough that Peter could barely keep up with the nonsense that he was spitting, the lack of oxygen was probably getting to his head. If he was lucky, this would all be a weird dream that he could tell Ned about and he'd wake up any second now.
In reply to Peter, Deadpool merely shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, tomato tamato. Details of legality aren't exactly my forte. At the end of the day, you're safer in here than you were out there." Finishing his sentence, he swung his feet over to the coffee table, only missing the food by a hair.
His statement (of reassurance?) was met with nothingness. Peter refused to reply, what good would it do him at this point? Deadpool already had him in his apartment, defenceless and alone. This was probably another step in his ploy to win over Peter's trust. Well well well, he'll be pretty surprised when nothing goes to plan. Now would be a great time to magically remember all the self-defence processes from the annual child safety assemblies he zoned out in at school. The food on the table was most likely poisoned as well, like he'd fall for th-
"It's not going to kill you, you know. Lucky for you I ran out of arsenic yesterday"
Peter turned to his side to see Deadpool already helping himself to his own meal with his mask pulled up to his nose, a strange mixture of nearly all the foods he had culminated on his dinner-shopping spree balanced onto one single complimentary container.
Huh. So much for the poison theory. Peter still wasn't going to eat it though. It may be a small act of rebellion but defiance is defiance. Childish it may be in this case, the last thing you want to do in these situations is buy into what your kidnapper wants you to do. Or maybe it's go along with what the psycho wants. He really shouldn't have slept through those assemblies. The point is, no matter how mouth-watering good the burritos look, or how compelling the fusion of different spices and herbs smell, Peter wouldn't take a bite.
"nnnNGHBHGHBHGH....."
Peter turned red beneath his suit. After all the internal hyping-up he just did, his stomach decided now would be a good time to get vocal. It's his own fault for forgetting to eat before patrol yesterday. But how was he supposed to know he wouldn't make it home? Peter looked at Deadpool once again to see him stuffing his face full of whatever sauce-covered concoction he'd produced. It was hard to tell what the original food items even were underneath the coating of coleslaw and ketchup. Whether it was because his mouth was full or he decided to back off to let Peter think, the man was being absolutely silent; something that, despite Peter's few moments together with him, seemed slightly out of character.
What the hell.
He was half-sure that there was no cyanide dumped into the bbq sauce and, at this point, that was enough for Peter. Curse his super metabolism and weakness to trashy foods.
Tentatively, Peter sloped forward and reached for a chinese box hanging outside one of the plastic bags that had formerly been dropped haphazardly in front of him. When he opened the top, the hunger hit him concurrently with the scent of the cuisine inside. Noodles, rice, burritos and pizza slices. Peter's memory sort of blacked out after that (probably to save his last shred of dignity), but he still knew he ate a hell of a lot. Whatever was left unmixed in Deadpool's ever-growing and changing mash-up was quickly devoured.
Bloated and full for the first time in who knows how long, Peter leant back and let his head hit the backboard of the sofa. His eyes lowered themselves deeper with each testing dip and drag they performed, tempting him into a food coma. A warm house and satisfied appetite sure did wonders for his insomnia.
If getting kidnapped means eating like this sign him up.
Beside him, Deadpool cleared his throat, causing Peter to jerk slightly in surprise.
Oh yeah. He was still here. He had a surprisingly small presence when he wasn't talking.
"As much as I would like you to once again sleep in my favourite Golden Girls jamies to really leave the scent in there, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Although you staying forever would be delightful and oh so heartwarming, almost adopting-a-puppy, sweet-tooth-melting-angel-cake sweet, I still have a LOT of things to wrap up and dig up before the boss decides I've done enough work to throw me a cash-shaped cookie. Capiche?"
All of this was said as Deadpool discarded his empty make-shift plate onto the floor, swept himself up from his seat and pulled Peter into a half-standing half-crouched position. The act would have been far more successful if not for the fact Peter's legs still felt like jelly.
Still in the half-upright state, Deadpool continued his tangent while dragging Peter across the floor as he tried to gain his footing. "I've fed you and let you lay passed out on my couch. By those conditions alone I have followed both every recovering-mothering book and pet-care pamphlet in existence to a T. It will be surreal when we meet again in the (not-coincidentally close) future and hold long, intimate eye contact before you walk away and I stalk you home, but until then the breadwinner's gotta make that bread. So stay safe and preferably don't pass out in any more alleyways. Your body tends to look better in one piece, not in lil cannibal bite-sized chunks."
"W- Wait-"
The last sentence was whispered straight into his ear as if it were a secret motto to live by, and with it, Peter was sternly shoved in the direction of the door. The general path was kept in the first few seconds of the stumble.
And then Peter's shins gave out and he swerved to the left...
Into the coat rack.
The room was filled with clanging and tumultuous thrashing as Peter went down. He laid there for a while until he was helped up from the ground by Deadpool.
"Okay, I can see where that could be my fault. You're not ready to leave the nest and that's okay. In every situation except this one. I really should have read those motherhood books till the end" he mumbled while hoisting Peter back up.
"If I had maybe I would have been a better mother for the total 9 hours I wa- oooooh. And that is blood. okokokokok. It's official. I'm not cut out for this and I should have gotten an abortion."
Blood? Whose blood? Oh god there was probably had a body part hidden in the coats. He called it.
A sudden sharp pain erupted from his cheek and flooded the entirety of his face with pain. "OW What the hell-" Peter twisted his neck further round to face whatever hit him, to find it was a suit-covered finger caked in red liquid.
It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.
"Yup." Deadpool said popping the 'p'. "Definitely a stab wound"
Peter's hand met his face and the searing pain returned again. His arm flinched away and he gazed at it to find it covered in the same, matching blood. A lot of it.
"Hush hush now. It's all fine. Just a tiny... actually super big facial laceration." Deadpool muttered. Peter was starting to zone out looking at the blood casing his hands. This day kept on getting worse and worse.
Peter whipped his head backwards to examine where he landed. Peaking out from all the fallen jackets, hats and extremely unfashionable scarves, was the coat stand. With iron spikes on the ends instead of hooked deposits. They might as well have been knives.
Peter whirled back around to face Deadpool, radiating suppressed anger and tired frustration. "WHY THE HELL ARE KNIVES ON YOUR COAT RACK"
"IT WAS ON SALE"
"NO ONE WOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO SELL THIS"
"FINE. I FOUND IT IN A DUMPSTER. JUST STOP YELLING AT ME" The last part carried a heavy quiver as if he was starting to cry. He looked particularly animated as the eyes of his mask sloped, proving as a visible aspect, his sincerity.
Peter took another glance at Deadpool and sighed. He's known the guy less than a day, has barely had a full conversation with him but has gotten more injured in the past 16 hours than he has been in the last 2 months combined. When looking at him now, visibly concerned (in his own way?) Peter didn't feel the rage he was expecting. Deadpool was definitely crazy but didn't seem malicious. Not yet at least.
"Just let me fix it, it'll be fine. Some ducktape and adhesive bandages will do the trick. Then your mug'll look good enough for all the grannies to pinch. Huh, how's that sound? Up up up up." Deadpool began lifting Peter up from the ground. It was a nice gesture but certainly didn't help with the waves of wooziness that were coming over Peter's senses. You can't lose that much blood from your face right? When people talk about dying from blood loss it's always their gut or limb or something.
Peter could see the headlines already. Spiderman: Death by Scratch. How much more embarrassing could someone's death get. It would be on his gravestone, his legal files and it would have to be announced. Ned and May would have to mourn for this stupid reason.
Fuck.
It would go on his wiki page.
"That's a valid concern kid, just not one you should be thinking too hard about right now." Though the tone of a joke was still there, Deadpool sounded more concerned. Peter would have said he looked it too if he could see him.
Oh shit he can't see.
"That's either the blood in your eyes or your body shutting down. Either way, not a fantastic sign."
Did he say that out loud?
At this point of their journey, Peter had been fully hoisted up by Deadpool and was being briskly escorted to the kitchen area of the room. He was hastily lowered onto the counter of the island.
"Okay. Bandage bandage bandage bandage bandage bandage..." he muttered as he left Peter's side to scurry across the kitchen. He opened every set of drawers and scanned through each one for only a few seconds before moving on to the next.
"Repeating the word isn't going to help you find it. It's just giving me a headache" Peter cut in dryly. His voice sounded quieter than he intended it to be.
Peter really didn't feel great. His body was getting hot. Or maybe it was getting cold. He couldn't really tell. All he was sure about was that the cut stung like hell and that the blue areas on the front of his suit couldn't be seen anymore. What did it matter? He was Spiderman. A quick nap and he'd be as good as new...
His eyes shot back open when he felt his face contract from being slapped on his unscarred side.
"Don't even think of catching some shut-eye during this clusterfuck. Look. We're screwed to Mumbai and back cause I can't find any bandages. I don't normally have a need for them. So please don't freak out about what I'm going to propose. I know you'll probably be pissed with me later cause I'm a stranger and all secret identity vigilante schtick but I'm going to have to take a looksie at the wound without the mask. There is a large amount of blood pouring out of your face hole. Now, I may not be the mother of the year but I am 65% certain that that's not supposed to happen."
Peter heard the words "without the mask" and immediately began to freak out. He wasn't fully conscious but he was still a super-human. That was at least something going in his favour. In his delusional state of mind, Peter began thrashing around, kicking and pushing until he was nearly falling off the edge of the counter.
Deadpool reacted quickly and was desperately blocking Peter from reaching past the border of the island, who wasn't doing half-bad for someone bleeding out. The last thing the kid needed on top of a head injury was a concussion. In the struggle, Deadpool managed to seize one of Peter's hands that were being hazily thrown every which way he could reach. With his other free arm, he veered forward and grabbed the underside of Peter's mask. Before Peter's mind could catch up to retaliate, the mask was ripped off his head. The rapid motion made Peter hiss in pain as his cheek flared.
It was too late for any response to be enacted now. There were no clever retorts to be said. No holds to wrestle out of. Mainly because no one was moving. Both males were frozen staring at each other directly for the first time, positioned awkwardly, set in the same places they were when Peter was revealed. Now they both sat holding their breaths in a wreckage of a kitchen area. Cutlery negligently thrown from the drawers and the pans strewn across the floor were ignored by the two, both minds too busy running a mile a minute.
Peter may have been indecisive earlier in the confusion, but now it was unquestionable how his blood chilled. Fear that was usually hidden behind a mask crossed his face and his mouth dropped open slightly. His baby brown curls shifted from where they were matted onto his head with dark, crusted blood and sweat that dripped onto the oversized borrowed shirt he wore. And his large eyes expanded to even more sizeable proportions, nearly an exact visage of a deer in headlights.
All that could be noted yet left unarticulated, was the painful fact that he was a child.